LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 689
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
Woman’s Sexual
Life
William J. Fielding
Author of “The Caveman Within Us,” “Sanity in
Sex,” “Health and Self-Mastery Through
Psycho-Analysis and Autosuggestion,” “The
Puzzle of Personality,” “Autosuggestion--How
It Works,” “Psycho-Analysis--the
Key to Human Behavior,” “Rejuvenation--Science’s
New Fountain
of Youth,” “Rational Sex
Series,” Etc.
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS
Vol. VI.
Rational Sex Series
By William J. Fielding
Copyright, 1925,
Haldeman-Julius Company
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
WOMAN’S SEXUAL LIFE
CHAPTER I
SEXUAL INSTINCT IN WOMAN
Sexual emotions are normally more powerful in man than in woman.
On the other hand, woman’s sexual nature, because of her biological
function of motherhood (nature, of course, makes no distinction between
actual and potential) is more diversified in its manifestations. It
is less dominated by a powerful urge that seeks specific expression,
less centered upon the immediate goal of concrete sexual experience,
and is instinctively more concerned with the mate as a companion and
protector, with children as “flesh of her flesh and blood of her
blood,” and with the home as a haven of safety.
This not a question of choice or will, but is due to the character of
woman’s physiological being, with its highly organized nervous system.
The peculiar development of her sympathetic organization, which is
responsible for her more sensitive emotional nature, also governs the
particular tendencies of her love life.
Because of her physiological structure, which is responsible for the
psychological reactions peculiar to woman, and not _vice versa_, it is
inevitable that this should be so. Sexual conservatism and quiescence
are demanded by the responsibilities of motherhood, whether actual
or potential. Of course, as our social environment is far from a
natural world, there are many modifications in sexual conduct in all
its phases. _Basically_, however, woman is sexually conservative,
comparatively passive, but nevertheless possesses a sexual organization
more highly ramified than that of man, and with different reactions and
different ways of manifesting itself.
Man’s sexual nature is more centered upon the love object from the
standpoint of sexual experience, more ego-centric, more dynamic.
This phenomenon of differentiation of sexual temperament in the two
sexes is not peculiar to the human race, but extends throughout the
entire animal kingdom. It is epitomized, however inadequately for our
purpose, in the axiom that among all organized beings, the male pursues
the female of its choice.
The case of pathologically hysterical women may seem to contradict this
contention. But this concerns morbid types, which are exceptional.
Incidentally, hysteria tends to prove absence of control of the
superior centers which rule the sexual instincts (Clouston). As has
been widely observed, the manifestation of a more intense sensuality
in woman, or the presence of abnormal eroticism, coincides with the
appearance of criminal tendencies.
In Messalina and Agrippina, (the mother of Nero), and countless
others less classical, the excessive life of the senses has been
associated with no little ferocity. These types seem to be congenital
criminals, irresponsible, though often brilliant. In all of the women
of this category, as evidenced by numerous examples cited by Lombroso
and Ferrero, the vehemence of the passions even begins to assert
itself before puberty. Their social life commences with the dawn of
sensuality. They have a stronger inclination toward the masculine
pattern, and a more intense curiosity than normal women. Probably for
the same reason they accommodate themselves more easily to polygamy.
WOMAN’S EMOTIONAL NATURE
It has not been sufficiently emphasized that in woman the sympathetic
or involuntary nervous system, which controls the vegetative and
sensitive life, is more highly developed than in man. This is a
physiological necessity, as woman has additional organs, the breasts,
womb, ovaries, and associated organs not existing in man. As woman
has more organs concealed in the pelvis, with a greater complexity of
function, her sympathetic nerves are necessarily more numerous.
It is mainly due to this elaborate sympathetic system that women feel
more keenly the emotional side of life. They are more subject to fear,
shock, and fright, and more easily aroused to joy or sorrow. Their
affections are deeper, and their grief more intense.
The sympathetic nervous system regulates the tears that are shed in
grief, the salivary and gastric secretions that are checked in fright,
as well as the milk-flow that is arrested, increased or altered under
the influence of terror, or maternal love, as the case may be.
It is also due to the influence of this sympathetic system over the
calibre of the blood-vessels that women blush more readily. Moreover,
blushing is most pronounced at the time that the pelvic organs begin
their rapid development with the onset of puberty.
The ancients attributed hysteria, a nervous and mental disturbance
peculiar to women, to causes within the womb. And undoubtedly there is
a connection; not that the disorder is actually seated in the pelvic
regions, but these organs form part of a reflex arc to the brain
centers through the sympathetic system. In hysteria the system is
probably in a state of hyperesthesia, or over-sensitiveness.
It is also significant to note that while woman’s brain is narrower
than that of man, and smaller in the motor centers, therefore
exhibiting less energy and force, it is more voluminous in the
posterior part. In other words, women are more long-headed than men,
and it is the posterior area that is concerned with the manifestation
of the feelings and emotions which are stronger in women.
Furthermore, this posterior part of the brain (the somatic sensory area
of Flechsig) is related by means of the sympathetic nervous system with
the organs of the chest and abdomen. Again, another connecting link
with the emotional life, as we know of the relationship of the heart
action and respiration, as well as organs of the abdomen, to feeling
and the emotions.
The feminine sex is pre-eminently the affectionate sex. Physical
excitements provoke reflexes more readily and more strongly in woman.
Her emotionalism is more demonstrative under all circumstances than
man’s.
This tendency, of course, has its destructive and anti-social as
well as constructive and social sides. Among uncultured or primitive
women--including modern women in whom the primitive impulses
dominate--their emotional lengths lead them to extremes that few men
can equal. It has been observed that in countries where enemies are
tortured, the women surpass the men in cruelty.
Among the Dakota Indians, old men captives were delivered up to the
women who took special pleasure in subjecting them to all sorts of
tortures. Bertillon has presented many proofs of the same kind borrowed
from the life of other savage peoples. Lombroso instances terrible
examples of this kind of ferocity in women who had taken part in
political revolution, as well as in women of the criminal world.
On the other hand, we also see feminine sympathy and helpfulness reach
the noblest proportions even when, perhaps, it may be altogether
unlooked for. Among the same savages who break out intermittently
in acts of barbarism, travellers and explorers have cited numerous
instances of gentleness and goodness. Stanley, Livingstone and others
have attested to this trait.
STRENGTH OF SEXUAL IMPULSE
While the strength of the sexual impulse in woman is subject to a
wide range of variation, there is no doubt in the mind of the serious
student of sexual phenomena that its normal manifestation is quite
invariably a factor to be reckoned with.
In modern times, outside the rational sex educational movement, the
notion has prevailed that the sex impulse in woman, at least in
“good”, “respectable” women, is a negligible quantity. She was never
supposed to evidence any sexual feeling, erotic desire or passion.
Countless women celibatists in the Church and pious sisters in the
cloisters have given conclusive evidence, by their actions and lives,
notwithstanding their asceticism and religious exaltation, of the
potency of the sexual instinct.
The cloister-rules of the Middle Ages prescribed venesection for nuns
as well as monks, for the purpose of controlling the sexual urges.
Among other less drastic measures employed were narcotics and fasts.
Certain cloisters, in order to reduce temptation, have not permitted
women to enter their ranks before the age of forty years.
Max Reinhardt’s elaborate version of “_The Miracle_”, which has had
such a tremendous vogue in recent years, both in Europe and America, is
based on a legend dealing with the irrepressible desires of the flesh.
If the religious devotee who witnesses this spectacular pantomime
is entirely lost in the magnificent pageant of a medieval religious
atmosphere and ritual, certainly the psychological student is no less
carried away by the realistic portrayal of suppressed desires, at times
highly symbolized, at other times stark and unmasked. The erotic nature
of the Nun’s promptings and feeling are set forth as faithfully as
Freud himself could have done it. It is a masterpiece in depicting the
conflicts engendered between natural desires, or biological impulses,
on the one hand, and ideals based on repression of these impulses on
the other. The sensuous body of _Megildis_, the Grey Nun, unconsciously
revolted against the decree of a mind dedicated to celibacy and
austerity--and the desires of the body triumphed while they lasted.
After seven years (note the mystical “seven” which appears and
reappears in all religious, mythological and legendary forms) the human
appetites are appeased, and the Nun returns repentant to the cloister.
Even the act of ultra-fervent devotion has its significance to the
initiated. Maudsley has emphasized the influence of physiological
conditions upon religious feeling. He shows in this connection that
the ecstasy of such devout women as Catherine of Sienna and the holy
Teresa, when they imagined themselves visited by Christ, who “embraced
each of them as His bride”, was nothing but a vicarious sexual orgasm.
This sort of expression, caused by the sight of the nude male figure
reproduced in all its normal proportions on the cross, is a more
natural consequence among young women of a sensitive and nervous
temperament than is generally realized.
In the Middle Ages, the sexual impulse normal to womanhood was perhaps
better appreciated than it has been in later times. Luther gave
utterance to the opinion prevalent in his day when he wrote: “It is
just as impossible for a woman to do without man as for a man to do
without woman.” In his treatise “_About Married Life_”, he expressed
himself in this candid fashion: “If a potent wife has an impotent
husband and cannot openly procure another, and does not for the sake
of her honor wish to do it, she should address him as follows: ‘My dear
husband, you are my debtor and have deceived me and my young life and
endangered my honor and eternal welfare; before God we are not married;
allow me therefore to enter a secret marriage with your brother or
nearest friend.’” It is the husband’s duty, Luther maintained, to
comply with her demand, and if he does not wish to do so, he must not
be angry if his wife should run away from him. (K. Hagen: Deutschlands
lit. u. relig. Verhältnisse im Reformationszeitalter.)
Luther also summed up the subject, as a natural phenomenon, in these
words: “He who wishes to restrain the impulse of nature and not to
allow it free play, as nature will and must, what does he do but this:
to insist that nature shall not be nature, that fire shall not burn,
that water shall not be wet, that man shall neither eat, drink, nor
sleep.”
Buddha, who fought out the conflict between desires and the will to
renunciation, and therefore ought to know about it, delivered himself
in this wise: “The sexual impulse is stronger than the ankus with which
the wild elephant is controlled, it is hotter than flame, it is like
unto an arrow driven into the spirit of man.”
Mantegazza stresses the point that in the female sexual desire is very
rarely accompanied by pains analogous to those which occur in man,
in whom sexual excitement manifests itself in painful tension of the
testicles and the seminal vesicles, or in spasmodic, long-continued
priapism.
Sergi, with somewhat hectic imagination, communicated his thoughts on
the subject to Lombroso, as follows: “The normal woman loves to be
flattered and wooed by man, but yields to his sexual desires only like
an animal at the sacrifice. It is well known how much pains must be
taken, how many caresses must be expended, before a woman will yield
with pleasure to a man’s desires, and will share his sexual passion.
Without the employment of these means, a woman remains cold and gives
as little satisfaction as she feels. There are girls who are quite
obtuse to the joys of love, and either resist energetically a man’s
approaches, or yield to him passively, without ardor and without
enthusiasm. It is well known, also, that among the lower races of
mankind, means are employed to stimulate sexual sensibility in women,
means that seem to amount to torture; and that the male with the same
end in view, undergoes the most painful operations, from which it is
apparent that the slight sexual sensibility of women in these lower
grades of civilization is fully recognized.” And again, “If a normal
woman marries for love, she hides that love deep in her heart; she
often complains later that in her husband the love-fervor of the first
days still continues; the very moderate sexual needs of the wife form
a natural and most valuable check to the much more powerful passion of
the male.”
Considering woman’s function in the realm of sex, her relative
conservatism is based on very fundamental grounds. As Professor Erb
has pointed out, woman is the principal sufferer in the process of
reproduction. For the most part, with a cruelty that baffles the
processes of the rational or philosophic mind, nature has condemned
woman to a far more difficult position than man in the intercourse of
the sexes and in the preservation of the species. In her biologic role,
she has been overpowered and forced by man. She is always compelled to
make the most severe sacrifices for the sake of the new generation,
first when the new being is germinating within her womb, later in the
throes of parturition, and finally when the helpless mite of humanity
is entrusted to her maternal care. And only too often she fails to
receive the respect and protection due to her for the performance
of these difficult functions. When everything is considered, it is
fortunate that as a rule the young woman who has never come into
intimate contact with the male appears to be endowed with a relatively
weak sexual urge.
The sexual impulse in normally constituted individuals, as Kisch
states, is by no means constant in its intensity. Apart from the
temporary indifference resulting from sexual gratification, and apart
from the decline in the impulse that sometimes occurs after prolonged
continence, the mode of life is a factor of very great influence. The
urbanite who is continually reminded of sexual matters, and subjected
to greater erotic stimulus, is quite inevitably more disposed than the
countryman to sexual excitement. A sedentary and sheltered mode of
life, a diet composed too largely of animal food and highly seasoned
condiments, have a stimulating action on the sexual life.
In the woman, the sexual impulse is stronger just after menstruation,
and during the period it may also be more than usually pronounced.
In neuropathic women this increase of excitement may occur in a
pathological degree.
Sexual desire in woman, it is generally agreed, outlasts the active
sexual life; that is, the erotic impulse continues to manifest
itself after the cessation of menstruation, when the possibility of
conception has passed. It appears, therefore, that sexual desire is not
necessarily dependent upon ovulation.
Probably no other individual has written so extensively and at the same
time so wisely of sex matters as Havelock Ellis, who speaks of the
differential characters of the sexual impulse in the female as follows:
“In courtship, woman plays a more passive part than man; in woman the
physiological mechanism of the sexual processes is more complicated,
the orgasm develops more deliberately; the sexual impulse in woman
needs more frequently to be actively stimulated; the culmination of
sexual activity is attained later in life than in the life of man;
the strength of sexual desire in woman becomes greater after she has
entered upon regular sexual intercourse. Women bear sexual excesses
better than men; the sexual sphere is larger and more widely diffused
in women than in men; finally, in woman the sexual impulse exhibits a
distinct tendency to periodic exacerbations (malignity or violence of
disease), and it is in any case much more variable than in man.”
Ellis further maintains that the source of erotic pleasure in the case
of the male lies in activity, but in the female in the passive state,
in the experience of loving compulsion, as it were, and he holds that
sexual subordination is a necessary element in the sexual enjoyment of
women.