Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Iii Part 17

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.

Nacke 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. Nacke, "Die s.e.xuellen Perversitaten 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 s.e.xual hyperesthesia, and would m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e 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 prost.i.tution 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual impulse in women and in men. In women it is at once larger and more diffused. As Sinibaldus long ago said, the s.e.xual pleasure of men is intensive, of women extensive. In men the s.e.xual 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of s.e.m.e.n into the v.a.g.i.n.a. But in women, mainly owing to the fact that women are the child-bearers, in place of one primary s.e.xual center and one primary erogenous region, there are at least three such s.e.xual centers and erogenous regions: the c.l.i.toris (corresponding to the p.e.n.i.s), the v.a.g.i.n.al pa.s.sage up to the womb, and the nipple. In both s.e.xes 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual impulse and emotions in women is as visible on the psychic as on the physical side. A woman can find s.e.xual satisfaction in a great number of ways that do not include the s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual zones.

It is, moreover, owing to the diffused character of the s.e.xual emotions in women that it so often happens that emotion really having a s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual impulse. In this and similar ways it happens that the magnitude of the s.e.xual sphere in woman is unrealized by the careless observer.

A number of converging facts tend to indicate that the s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual sphere than in men. This appears to be the case as regards the eye. "The influence of the s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual Organs," Lancet, November 26, 1887.)

The greater predominance of the s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual symptoms are common in men, they are often stated to be the rule in women (see, e.g., Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia s.e.xualis, tenth edition, English translation, p. 465). Bouchereau, in noting this difference in the prevalence of s.e.xual 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 Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales.) Again, postconnubial insanity is very much commoner in women than in men, a fact which may indicate the more predominant part played by the s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual appet.i.te is often increased in general paralysis and to a notable extent in women. (Pactet and Colin, Les Alienes devant la Justice, 1902, p. 122.)

Nacke, from his experiences among the insane, makes an interesting and possibly sound distinction regarding the character of the s.e.xual manifestations in the two s.e.xes. 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 s.e.xual impulse would thus tend to involve to a greater extent the higher psychic region in women than in men.

Forel likewise (Die s.e.xuelle 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xes 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 Nacke's and Forel's interpretation of the facts, which is at least doubtful, there can be little doubt that the s.e.xual impulse is more fundamental in women. This is indicated by Nacke's observation that among idiots s.e.xual manifestations are commoner in females than in males. Of 16 idiot girls, of the age of 16 and under, 15 certainly m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed, sometimes as often as fourteen times a day, while the remaining girl probably m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed; but of 25 youthful male idiots only 1 played with his p.e.n.i.s. (P. Nacke, "Die s.e.xuellen Perversitaten in der Irrenanstalt," Psychiatrische Bladen, 1899, No. 2, pp. 9, 12.) On the physical side Bourneville and Sollier found (Progres medical, 1888) that p.u.b.erty is much r.e.t.a.r.ded in idiot and imbecile boys, while J. Voisin (Annales d'Hygiene Publique, June, 1894) found that in idiot and imbecile girls, on the contrary, there is no lack of full s.e.xual development or r.e.t.a.r.dation of p.u.b.erty, while masturbation is common. In women, it may be added, as Ball pointed out (Folie erotique, p. 40), s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual region is in women. The fact may be considered as undoubted. (It is referred to by Marro, La p.u.b.erta, 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 Moarbeda who was a philosopher and considered to be the wisest woman of her time. When Moarbeda 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 pa.s.sing through life always in a rather inert or dreamy state; but, when their s.e.xual 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 Senancour (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 p.u.b.erty, he remarks: "I have very often seen the greatest fecundity of ideas, the most brilliant imagination, a singular apt.i.tude 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 s.e.xes," 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 p.r.o.nounced manner correlated with menstruation. A woman who may experience almost overmastering s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xes according to age.[180] At the age of 20 the incidence of insanity in both s.e.xes 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 s.e.xes 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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, s.e.xual impulse varies widely between woman and woman, and even in the same woman at different periods.

[169]

Ovid remarks (Ars Amatoria, bk. i) that, if men were silent, women would take the active and suppliant part.

[170]

Ferrand, De la Maladie d'Amour, 1623, ch. ii.

[171]

Tarde, Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, May 15, 1897. Marro, who quotes this observation (p.u.b.erta, p. 467; in French edition, p. 61), remarks that his own evidence lends some support to Lombroso's conclusion that under ordinary circ.u.mstances woman's sensory acuteness is less than that of man. He is, however, inclined to impute this to defective attention; within the s.e.xual sphere women's attention becomes concentrated, and their sensory perceptions then go far beyond those of men. There is probably considerable truth in this subtle observation.

[172]

A well-known gynecologist writes from America: "Abhorrence due to suffering on first nights I have repeatedly seen. One very marked case is that of a fine womanly young woman with splendid figure; she is a very good woman, and admires her husband, but, though she tries to develop desire and pa.s.sion, she cannot succeed. I fear the man will some day appear who will be able to develop the latent feelings."

[173]

It is curious that, while the s.e.xual impulse in women tends to develop at a late age more frequently than in men, it would also appear to develop more frequently at a very early age than in the other s.e.x. The majority of cases of precocious s.e.xual development seems to be in female children. W. Roger Williams ("Precocious s.e.xual Development," British Gynaecological Journal, May, 1902) finds that 80 such cases have been recorded in females and only 20 in males, and, while 13 is the earliest age at which boys have proved virile, girls have been known to conceive at 8.

[174]

I find the same remark made by Plazzonus in the seventeenth century.

[175]

Art. "Fecondation," Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales.

[176]

This also is an ancient remark, for in the early treatise De Secretis Mulierum, once attributed to Michael Scot, it is stated, concerning the woman who finds pleasure in coitus, "cantat libenter."

[177]

It is scarcely necessary to add that prost.i.tutes can furnish little evidence one way or the other. Not only may prost.i.tutes refuse to partic.i.p.ate in the s.e.xual o.r.g.a.s.m, but the evils of a prost.i.tute's life are obviously connected with causes quite other than mere excess of s.e.xual gratification.

[178]

This is, for instance, indicated by the experiments of Gualino concerning the s.e.xual sensitiveness of the lips (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1904, fasc. 3). He found that mechanical irritation applied to the lips produced more or less s.e.xual feeling in 12 out of 20 women, but in only 10 out of 25 men, i.e., in three-fifths of the women and two-fifths of the men.

[179]

"Adolescence is for women primarily a period of storm and stress, while for men it is in the highest sense a period of doubt," (Starbuck, Psychology of Religion, p. 241.) It is interesting to note that in the religious sphere, also, the emotions of women are more diffused than those of men; Starbuck confirms the conclusion of Professor Coe that, while women have at least as much religious emotion as men, in them it is more all pervasive, and they experience fewer struggles and acute crises. (Ibid., p. 80.)

[180]

Marro, La p.u.b.erta, p. 233. This table covers all those cases, nearly 3000, of patients entering the Turin asylum, from 1886 to 1895, in which the age of the first appearance of insanity was known.

III.

Summary of Conclusions.

In conclusion it may be worth while to sum up the main points brought out in this brief discussion of a very large question. We have seen that there are two streams of opinion regarding the relative strength of the s.e.xual impulse in men and women: one tending to regard it as greater in men, the other as greater in women. We have concluded that, since a large body of facts may be brought forward to support either view, we may fairly hold that, roughly speaking, the distribution of the s.e.xual impulse between the two s.e.xes is fairly balanced.

We have, however, further seen that the phenomena are in reality too complex to be settled by the usual crude method of attempting to discover quant.i.tative differences in the s.e.xual impulse. We more nearly get to the bottom of the question by a more a.n.a.lytic method, breaking up our ma.s.s of facts into groups. In this way we find that there are certain well-marked characteristics by which the s.e.xual impulse in women differs from the same impulse in men: 1. It shows greater apparent pa.s.sivity. 2. It is more complex, less apt to appear spontaneously, and more often needing to be aroused, while the s.e.xual o.r.g.a.s.m develops more slowly than in men. 3. It tends to become stronger after s.e.xual relationships are established. 4. The threshold of excess is less easily reached than in men. 5. The s.e.xual sphere is larger and more diffused. 6. There is a more marked tendency to periodicity in the spontaneous manifestations of s.e.xual desire. 7. Largely as a result of these characteristics, the s.e.xual impulse shows a greater range of variation in women than in men, both as between woman and woman and in the same woman at different periods.

It may be added that a proper understanding of these s.e.xual differences in men and women is of great importance, both in the practical management of s.e.xual hygiene and in the comprehension of those wider psychological characteristics by which women differ from men.

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A.