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Title: Love - A Treatise on the Science of Sex-attraction, for the use - of Physicians and Students of Medical Jurisprudence
Author: Talmey, Bernard Simon
Language: English
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LOVE
A Treatise on the Science of
Sex-Attraction
For the Use of Physicians and Students of Medical
Jurisprudence
BY
BERNARD S. TALMEY, M. D.
_With forty-seven cuts, eighty-four drawings, in the text_
THIRD REVISED EDITION
Einstweilen, bis den Bau der Welt
Philosophie zusammenhält,
Erhält _sie_ das Getriebe
Durch Hunger und durch Liebe.
—SCHILLER, “_Die Weltweisen_.”
PRACTITIONERS’ PUBLISHING COMPANY
NEW YORK CITY
Copyrighted, 1919, by
CECILIA TALMEY
PREFACE
Not only among laymen but also among serious thinkers and writers
on medical topics the opinion is generally prevalent, that there is
a vast difference in the degree of intensity of the sex-impulse in
men and women. Upon this supposition rests the justification of the
double standard of sexual morality of the two sexes. If the intensity
of the amatory emotions is the same in both sexes, then there is no
justification for a double standard of sexual morality.
Now, an emotion is, in its nature, subjective. Its intensity can never
be objectively determined. Men and women may dispute the question of
the different degree of intensity of the amatory emotions till the end
of time, still they will never reach a definite conclusion. The only
way to determine the nature of an emotion is to study its pathology. If
it can be shown that the same pathological entities of the sex-instinct
are found in men and women, the inference is justified that the normal
emotions are also the same or similar in both sexes.
To prove the similarity or identity of the intensity of the sex-impulse
in both sexes, the author published in the winter of 1906-1907 his
book “Woman, A Treatise on the Normal and Pathological Emotions of
Feminine Love.” Since the publication of “Woman” he received numerous
letters with requests to write a similar treatise on the amatory
emotions of men. In 1910 the author published “Genesis, A Manual for
the Instruction of Children in Matters Sexual.” He thought that the
Description of the evolution of sex in plant and animal in “Genesis”
might supply the demand. Still the requests continued to arrive.
He then published, in 1912, “Neurasthenia Sexualis, A Treatise on
Sexual Impotence in Men and Women.” In this treatise the anatomy and
physiology of the male organs of generation were thoroughly discussed.
Still it did not fill the demand. The chapter on pathology dealt only
with impotence.
When the author finally decided to write the counterpart of “Woman”,
it occurred to him that if the amatory emotions are the same in men
and women, they ought to be treated together in one volume. Hence the
present work “Love, A Treatise on the Science of Sex-Attraction.”
Naturally the present volume recapitulates all that the author has
previously written in his three books, “Woman,” “Genesis,” and
“Neurasthenia Sexualis.” The three previous works are mere chapters of
the present treatise. Still every author grows with his work. After
years of study of the subject of sex, he was able to expand the sphere
of his previous lessons, so that even those readers who have read his
three previous books will still find some new points in this work. If
the readers should agree with this opinion, the author will consider
himself well paid for his labors.
THE AUTHOR.
New York, May, 1915.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
The main criticism of “Love” by the reviewers of the first edition
was directed against the frequency of Latin words and phrases used
in veiling some of the more unpleasant aspects of the normal and
especially the pathological sex-activities.
Still it was not prudery which dictated this course. The ancient
language was used as a protection against the criticism of those who
would take umbrage to plain sex expressions. There is quite a number of
people who are not only possessed of the Oedipus complex or the Electra
complex, but who are also obsessed of the obscenity complex. For the
impure everything is impure. Fortunately such people’s knowledge of
Latin is, as a rule, very slight, and for them this treatise will
remain a sealed book. Physicians and lawyers for whom this book was
written know enough Latin grammar, enabling them to apprehend the
meaning of all those phrases necessary for the understanding of the
main points of the treatise. To facilitate the reader’s task the
following vocabulary of the Latin words often used has been appended.
ab initio from the outset
adduco uxi to induce
agitare to excite
aliquamdiu a little while
amatus lover
amicus friend
anser goose
ante before
aperio to open
apertus open
assiduus constant
aut or
auxilium help
aversa Venus by rectum
bis twice
braca trousers
caedo to ravish
canis dog
cito quick
coepio to begin
coire to cohabit
coitus cohabitation
collum neck
commaritus fellow-husband
commingo to urinate
commisco to copulate
commiscor to cohabitate
commixtio copulation
complexus venereus sexual intercourse
comprehendo get pregnant
compressio copulation
comprimo copulate
concarnatio coition
conceptare to get pregnant
conceptus conception
concubitalis copulative
concubitus cohabitation
concumbo cohabitate
congressio copulation
congressus coition
conjuga wife
conjugatio copulation
conjuges married couple
conjugium cohabitation
conjungo, xi to copulate
conjux husband
constuprare to abuse sexually
continuus continuous
contra against
corpus body
crinis hair
cubiculum bed-room
cubile nuptial bed
cum with
cunnilingus tongue-vagina
cupido desire
cupio to desire
delectatio deliciousness
delicia pleasures
dum while
ea she
ecclesia church
ejaculare to eject
ejectio discharge
eodemque tempore at the same time
exerceo to exercise
extraho to withdraw
facio, eci to make
fascinum penis, male organ
fellatio sucking (obscene)
fellatricia sucking (obscene)
femina woman
feminare to prostitute oneself
feminare se to masturbate
fornicatrix whore
fornix brothel
fricare to rub
gallina hen
genu knee
grabatus lounge
habeo to have
hora hour
hortus garden
humesco to become wet
humor moisture
illicio to excite
imitari to imitate
impedire to prevent
impeditare to prevent
impeditio prevention
inire to enter
initium outset
initus coition
injungo, se to cohabitate
insero to insert
insertio insertion
instar like
inter during
interula shirt
intromitto to introduce
jugiter continually
labium lip
lacesso to excite
lambo to lick
lentus slow
libido material pleasure
lingua tongue
ludo, usi to play
lumbus genitals
mamilla nipple
mamma breast
manus hand
marisca wart
marita wife
maritus husband
mater mother
membrum member
mentula male sex-organ
mentulatus erected
more after the fashion
meretricium, facere to be a prostitute
meretrix prostitute
muliebria female genitals
muliebris female
mulier woman
natis buttock
nono quoque die every nine days
nudatio denudation, baring
nudus naked
omnis every
ordo rei course of act
ovis sheep
paedicatio pederasty
paene almost
parvus small
perago to finish
pergo to continue
permulcio to touch
permulsio caress
pernoctare spend the night
pes, edis foot
pono, sui, itum to place
porca sow
porta door
posco, poposci to demand
positura position
post after
praebo mammas to suckle
praedium farm
praemo, essi to press
prostibulum brothel
pudibilia genitals
puella girl
puer boy
pulvilum pillow, small
pulvinus pillow
quot noctibus every night
resolvo to unbutton
scamnum bench
sella chair
sitis thirst
solvo to loose
spatium, temporis duration
statim at once
stupro manu to masturbate by hand
stupre in a lewd way
stuprum lewdness, prostitution, coition
stuprum facio to masturbate
stuprum manu self-abuse
stuprum mutuum mutual self-abuse
sugo to suck
suscipio to receive
suus, a um his, hers
tempus, poris time
tento to try
tergum back
tracto to touch
tractus the touch
traho to pull
unus one
ut as, that
verbero to whip, lash
vir the man
virilia male sex-organs
vita sexualis sex-life
vitium vice
volvula small vulva
With this small vocabulary on hand, the author hopes every college-bred
man will be able to read this treatise without difficulty.
THE AUTHOR.
New York, October, 1916.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I: INTRODUCTION.
Hunger and love, love and civilization, sex-worship, phallicism,
yonism, mount of Venus, horseshoe, lingam, the cross, temple-courtesans,
Christianity and sex, fashion and sex, female bosom, psychology of
clothes, prudery, physician’s ignorance, morbid fiction, change in sex
discussions.
PART II: EVOLUTION OF SEX.
_Chapter 1—Organic evolution._
Mechanistic and vitalistic theories, teleology, creative evolution,
Lamarckism, Darwinism, variation, amphimixis, protozoa, morula,
coelenterata, blastula, gastrula, primitive membranes, worms, chorda
dorsalis, coelom, echinodermata, mollusca, arthropoda, vertebrates.
_Chapter 2—Evolution of the genital system._
Wolffian body, cloaca, ducts of Muller, ureter, kidney, genital ridge,
sex-gland, allantois, bladder, urachus, sinus urogenitalis, urethra,
perineum, anal membrane, male internal sex-organs, female internal
sex-organs, genital swelling, genital tubercle, groove, male external
genitals, female external genitals.
PART III: ANATOMY OF SEX.
_Chapter 3—The male genitals._
The male genitals, scrotum, testicles, descent of testicles, vas
deferens, spermatic cord, seminal vesicles, ductus ejaculatorii,
urethra, prostate, colliculus, sinus pocularis, penis.
_Chapter 4—Female genitals._
Mons of Venus, labia majora, minora, vestibule, bulbs, clitoris,
Bartholinian glands, hymen, vagina, uterus, broad and round ligaments,
tubes, ovaries, Graafian follicle, ovum.
_Chapter 5—Secondary sexual characteristics._
Man’s figure, skeleton, laryngeal projection, shoulders, pelvis,
limbs, skin, steps, gait, voice, woman’s figure, head, hair, face,
neck, chest, abdomen, thighs, respiration.
PART IV: PHYSIOLOGY OF SEX.
_Chapter 6—General physiologic phenomena._
Cell-division, maturition, impregnation, mitosis, polar bodies,
Mendel’s law, unit-characters, segregation, zygote.
_Chapter 7—Functions of the male generative organs._
Function of testicles, spermatogenesis, maturition, function of
seminal vesicles, prostate, Cowpers glands, urethral glands, semen,
erection, ejaculation, nervous control, orgasm.
_Chapter 8—Functions of female sex-organs._
Function of ovaries, ovum, Graafian follicle, tubes, menstruation,
function of uterus, female ejaculation, function of vagina,
Bartholinian glands, of clitoris, course of the sexual act.
_Chapter 9—Libido sexualis._
Quality of pleasure, symptoms of pleasure, orgasm, symptom of
after-lust, intensity of libido, the senses in its service, inhibition
of libido, duration of copulation, post-orgastic stage.
PART V: PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.
_Chapter 10—Psychology of sex-attraction._
Nature of the instincts, children’s affections, puberty, sex instinct
in animals, mechanism of sex activity, emotions of puberty.
_Chapter 11—Development of reproductive impulse._
Conjugation in unicellular animals, in metazoa, binary fission,
budding, sporulation, conjugation in chilodon, in monads,
hermaphrodites, self-fertilization, in phanerogamous plants, genitals
of plants, sex differentiation, erotic chemotropismus in fishes,
birds, mammals, attraction of mates, permanent mating, protection of
the young, monogamy.
_Chapter 12—Sensual love._
Egotism of sensual love, fondness, attachments, hatred.
_Chapter 13—Sentimental love._
Conscious altruism, mental characters, psychic qualities, true
friendship, love and passion, development of individual love,
characteristic of the ideal woman’s love, obstructions in the
development of love, tension at puberty, reasons for the disturbances
in love’s development, disillusion of sensuality.
_Chapter 14—Eros and libido._
Emotions of Eros and libido, in men, and in women, jealousy,
transcendental attraction, two desires of Eros, difference in the
two sexes, emotion of jealousy, its causes, vanity, woman’s former
love-affairs.
PART VI: PATHOLOGY OF SEXUALITY.
_Chapter 15—Paradoxia._
Sexual desires in the old, in infants, causes of early masturbation.
_Chapter 16—Anaesthesia._
Etiology of impotence in male, chain of sex-act, satyriasis,
nymphomania, troubles in bladder, in menstruation, nervous debility,
consensualism, break in chain, continence and impotence, woman’s
sexuality, impotence in women, clitoris sexuality, excesses in
copulation, hysteria, practice of withdrawal, four impotencies in
males, aspermia, azoospermia, four types of impotence of copulation,
atonic impotence, partial impotence, premature ejaculation, symptoms
of the impotent, pollutions, paralysis of bladder, urinary symptoms,
female impotence, frigidity, sterility, impotence of libido, orgasmus
retardatus, nymphomania, orgasmus praecox, diminished frequency.
_Chapter 17—Hyperaesthesia._
Mixoscopy, its emotions, obscene sights, erotomania, in men, in women,
satyriasis, nymphomania, priapism, masturbation, in animals, in women,
incest in men, in women.
_Chapter 18—Paraesthesia._
Masochism, submission to pain, in men, in women, sadism, platonic
sadism, four degrees in men, in women, fetichism, in men, in women,
exhibitionism, homosexuality, in animals, in savages, in history,
in men, in women, perversity, four kinds homosexual perversion,
psychic hermaphrodism, in men, in women, effemination, viraginity,
transvestism, in men, in women, zoöerastia in men, in women.
PART VII: SEXUAL HYGIENE.
_Chapter 19—Hygiene of childhood._
Necessity of early instruction, hygiene in infants, in children,
in period of puberty, menstruation, pollutions, prevention of
masturbation, syphilis, gonorrhoea, prostitution, alcohol, vanity,
pleasure-seeking, prophylaxis against infection.
_Chapter 20—Eugenics._
Aim of eugenics, methods of elimination of the undesirables,
marriage of defectives, personal liberty in marriage, segregation,
sterilization, castration.
_Chapter 21—Sex-hygiene for adults._
Engagement-rules, selection of partner, wedding day, bed-room,
positions of conjugation, frequency of conjugation, sequels of great
frequency, in general health, in special organs, in the emotions, in
sex pleasure, pain of defloration, conjugation during menstruation,
conjugation during pregnancy, after confinement, conjugation during
lactation, conjugation of nervous people, duration of conjugation,
preparation of the woman’s muliebria in partial frigidity, offspring
and sexual life, interval between two confinements, sterile time for
conjugation, time of day for conjugation, dispareunia, impeditio
of conception, sequels of withdrawals, of preventatives, abortion,
abstinence, means of sexual excitement.
PART VIII: MORALITY.
_Chapter 22—Standard of morality._
Moral standard of revealed religion, law, ethics, custom, Supreme
Intelligence, chaos in morality, economic determinism, the superman,
ethics and work, morality of love, philosophy of pleasure, moral
standard in nature, rationality in nature, aim of nature, altruism and
morality.
_Chapter 23—Sexual morality._
History of marriage, promiscuity, consanguineous family, punaluan
family, pairing family, patriarchal family, female chastity, adultery,
law of obstacles, modesty, coyness, female morality and reason.
_Chapter 24—Male chastity._
Two reasons for male chastity, syphilis and gonorrhoea, prevalence
of gonorrhoea in men, infection of mothers and children, sterility,
syphilis, its complications, alimentary canal, respiratory tract,
circulatory system, genito-urinary system, skeleton, muscles, nervous
system, prostitution, clandestine vice, injury of abstinence, ethics
of evolution.
LOVE
PART I.
INTRODUCTION
Two intense desires rule and govern mankind and control all man’s
thoughts, his joys and sorrows. They are man’s two appetites, hunger
for food and craving for love. Curiously enough, while man takes
great pains in the education of the young to prepare them for the
gratification of hunger, the much tabooed question of sex has been
excluded, in our present civilization, from every discussion.
Yet love lies at the foundation of society, it permeates unconsciously
the thoughts, aspirations and hopes of mankind. Love is glorified as
the source of the most admirable productions of art, of the sublime
creations of poetry and music; it is accepted as the mightiest
factor in human civilization, as the basis of the family and state.
The egoism of passion and the power of love are absorbing all other
considerations. Virgil calls love the greatest conqueror:
“Omnia vincit amor, nos et cedamus amori.”
Solomon sings, “Love is strong as death.”
In its right appreciation, love has been exalted by the ancients in
song and story and extolled by priest and philosopher. “To the Spirit,
to Heaven, to the Sun, to the Moon, to Earth, to Night, to the Day, and
to the Father of all that is and will be, to Eros.” Such an invocation
was possible only among the ancient civilized nations. They recognized
the importance of sexuality in life. They could not see any moral
turpitude in actions, regarded by them as the design of nature and
as the acme of felicity. They discovered in Love the focus of life.
For this reason sexuality among the ancients was an object of pure
reverence as the fundamental force of life. The divine adoration of sex
was the practice of every tribe and nation of prehistoric antiquity.
Even the organs of sex were considered beautiful and pleasurable
objects, and were admired accordingly. The phallus, or the male
sex-organ, and the yoni, the external female genitals, were symbols of
the worship of the ancients and were objects of special religious rites.
In the remotest antiquity the worship of the generative principle was
the only religion known to men. Sex-worship was not confined to any
one race. It was the form of worship common to all primeval nations
of the globe. The Hindus, Chaldeans, Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks,
Romans, Gauls, Celts, Teutons, Britons and Scandinavians, all shared in
phallicism and yonism.
The study of sexual activities and of generation was the basis of
ancient Hindu theology. Siva had on his left arm a ring on which
was portrayed the sex organs in the act of procreation. The Greek
bacchanalia, and the Roman saturnalian mysteries, the free love that
prevailed during the festivities in honor of Mylitta, Anaitis, and
Aphrodita were still relics of sex-worship. Herodotos’ statement that
in Babylon women offered themselves, once at least in their lives, in
the Temple of Venus, and that only after so doing were they considered
free to marry, and his further report that the women on the vessels
sailing for Bubastis to the festivals of Iris uncovered themselves in
the presence of the men, show that sex-worship was not unknown among
Assyrians and Egyptians.
In the historic time sex worship was almost replaced by other forms
of religion. Yet there are traces of the cult of the phallus to be
found everywhere in ancient profane and sacred history. The temple in
which the emperor Elgabal was brought up was represented on a bronze
coin of his reign; an ionic peristyle with a peek into the Cella, but
instead of the statue of a god was a gigantic phallus. Even the Hebrews
worshipped in the phallus the principle of the production of life
before the adoption of the cult of Jehovah. Records of phallicism can
still be found in the Old Testament. Instead of invoking the Deity
in taking a solemn oath, Abraham orders his servant to place his hand
upon his phallus, because the phallus was still kept in its former
high veneration. The slain enemy was, for this reason, deprived of his
phallus. David bought Saul’s daughter with a trophy of two hundred
phalli, taken from the slain Philistines. Circumcision also shows the
incorporation of phallic ritual with religion.
In the same light and with the same veneration as the phallus was the
yoni worshipped. In the yoni was worshipped the receptacle of life,
the divine ark, within the hidden enclosure of which was contained the
mystery of life. Its interior was considered the holy of holies. The
yoni was for that reason often represented by an ark, which was the
holiest of all symbols in the worship of the Ancients. The worship of
Osiris took place before an ark; the sanctum sanctorum of Jehovah’s
temple harbored an ark.
Yonism was the adoration of the vulva, as the organ through which the
sexual powers are manifested. It is through the woman that the divine
sexual emotions are aroused; it is the sight or thought of her that
calls into activity the man’s generative nature and powers.
The female principle in nature was hence not considered simply as a
passive medium, but was exalted and worshipped as a potent factor
in the mystery of creation and reproduction. The earth itself was
considered feminine, and all natural orifices have been regarded as
typical of that part which characterizes woman. The vulva, therefore,
was the sacred symbol of the female principle in nature.
The Ashereh, so often mentioned in the Bible, was nothing but the image
of the yoni. It was a symbol of Ashtoreth, or of the union of Baal
and Ashtoreth. The Ashereh was made of wood and had in its centre an
opening or fissure as the door of life. Above the fissure was a small
elevation as an emblematical representation of the clitoris.
The most common forms of the feminine symbol were those made in
representation of the mons Veneris. The mountain of Venus was
represented by mounds, columns and pyramids. Mounds and hills were
considered holy. The graves of Egyptian kings were erected in form
of huge pyramids in honor of the feminine creative deity. The yoni
worshippers of the Old Testament had the temples of their feminine
deity on high hills. The obelisk, pillar, column, altar, mount and
cave, all have their origin in the pristine symbolism of yonic worship.
Even the present belief in the lucky horseshoe is connected with the
ancient emblems of the female genitals, the yoni. In Ireland the yoni
seem to have been the symbol of sex-worship most in use. Even in the
arches over the doorways of Christian churches a female figure, with
the person fully exposed, was so placed that the external organs of
generation at once caught the eye. In olden times, the people were in
the habit of making charcoal drawings of the female genitals over the
doors of their houses to ward off ill luck. Now, the horseshoe has
a great resemblance with the form of the vulva. Hence the drawings
over the doors resembled a horseshoe. From this symbol originates the
horseshoe’s alleged power to ward off evil and to bring luck. Father
Dubois found that the lingam which the devout Hindus attach either to
their hair or arms or is suspended from the neck is a small amulet
representing the organs of both sexes in activity. Even the symbol of
the cross has been identified with the earliest records of sex-worship.
The cruciform symbol on the Assyrian relics and in the temples of
Vishnu typifies the sacredness of Love’s physical expression.
Thus with the ancients the passion of sex and the fervor of religion
were closely interwoven. Accordingly every ancient temple had within
its confines a number of consecrated women whose office it was to
submit to the embraces of any man upon the payment of a specified sum.
The money was used for religious purposes. To the mind of the Ancients
no more appropriate nor holy means could be devised for raising money
for the maintenance of the temple than a sanctified indulgence in the
divine act. It was the most sacred and sublime of all human functions.
Hence the temple-courtesan was held in high honor and was considered
as sacred as the priest. The Old Testament calls the temple-courtesan
“Hakdeshoh,” the consecrated, the holy; and it was not in the least
degrading to associate with her, in the early history of the Hebrews,
as the story of Juda and Tamar shows. Later on, Amos (ii, 7) complains
that the Hebrew maidens received the embraces of men at every altar.
Hosea (iv, 14) distinguishes between the common prostitute and the
temple-courtesan.
The lapse of Israel into the former sex-worship, at the time of these
prophets, caused a reaction against any sex-manifestations. This
reaction is especially noticeable among the faithful adherents of the
religion of Jehovah in the latter days of the second temple. The pious
men sought the greatest virtue in chastity and celibacy and looked with
contempt upon sexuality. In the beginning only individual persons took
to celibacy, as did Elijah and Elisha. Later on these celibates became
more numerous and formed different orders, of which the order of the
Essaeans was the most important, because Christianity took its origin
within the folds of this order.
In accordance with its origin, Christianity never looked with favor
upon sexuality of any kind. The immaculate virgin is the ideal. Even
holy matrimony was only tolerated. “It is good for a man not to touch
a woman,” writes Paul to the Corinthians (Cap. vii). Christianity,
therefore, always surrounded with a halo those who vowed chastity.
To overcome the passion of sex was always praised as the highest
virtue, and asceticism was held in high veneration. Justinus says that
total sexual abstinence is a high virtue, and that sexual activity
is unnecessary to life. Hieronymus claims that God and the Church
requested singleness and only permitted marriage. Christianity entirely
overlooked the tremendous strain upon the physical, mental and moral
forces such an unnatural life must carry with it. For though complete
abstinence is possible and feasible during the period of adolescence,
men and women, when mature in years, suffer under such enforced
abstinence, and although the final act, or the culmination of the
sex-attraction, may be suppressed by the will, yet its emotions are
irresistible. The neurotic nun who imagines herself being embraced by
a saint thinks that she has subjugated the instinct of sex, but in
reality her emotions have a sexual origin.
Actions caused by great sexual excitement may be found in the life of
many a saint. Augustinus, in his confessions, says: “My heart was
burning, boiling and foaming with unchastity; it was poured out, it
overflowed, it went up in licentiousness.”
Origines found sexual abstinence too difficult and castrated himself.
For that reason he never was canonized. For the spirit should kill
the flesh. Parkman’s report about Marie de l’Incarnation is highly
interesting in this respect. She heard, while in a trance, a miraculous
voice, Christ promising to become her spouse. Months and years passed,
when again the voice sounded in her ear, this time with the assurance
that the promise was fulfilled, that she was indeed his bride. Now
ensued phenomena which are not infrequent among female devotees, when
unmarried or married unhappily. In her excited imagination, the divine
spouse became a living presence, and her language to him, as recorded
by herself, is of intense passion. Her prayer is, “O! my Love! when
shall I embrace you? Have you no pity on the torments which I suffer?
Alas, alas, my Love, my Beauty, my Life! Instead of healing my pain you
take pleasure in it. Come, let me embrace you and die in your sacred
arms.”
A curious instance of perversion in religio-sexual feeling, bordering
on zoöerastia, is the case of St. Veronica. According to Friedrich she
was so enamored of the divine lion, symbolizing St. Mark, that she took
a lion whelp to her bed, fondled it, kissed it “et præbebat ei mammas.”
Thus the preaching of the Church on the subjugation of the flesh was
no great success even among the saints. If the ascetics are not frigid
they remain subject to the emotions of sex. Mankind at large is surely
ruled by the dictates of the sex-urge, in our day no less than at the
time of sex-worship. Especially do all feminine thoughts, aspirations
and pursuits aim, though sometimes unconsciously, at love, in spite
of our false modesty, prudery and conspiracy of silence about the
fundamental facts of reproduction.
One glance at the fashions in dress will bear out this contention. The
question of dress surely rules the thoughts and actions of a majority
of our modern women. Now what is the meaning of dress? Grosse in his
“Anfänge der Kunst” shows that the desire for clothes was originally
an irradiation of the sex instinct. The man adopted dress for the
purpose of decoration, the woman for the purpose of attraction through
covering. The first coverings of the private parts served as an
ornament of the same and to render the parts covered more conspicuous.
For where nudity generally prevails, the practice of covering certain
parts of the body excites curiosity and solicits the observation of
the other sex. Mortimer reports that in Australia girls cast off their
aprons after marriage, being no longer anxious to engage the notice of
men.
This fact serves to prove that clothes, which originated from the first
coverings, were originally worn to allure. It was not the feeling of
shame that caused resort to coverings and created clothes, but the very
coverings provoked in time the feeling of shame.[A]
Clothes owing their introduction to the irradiation of sex-attraction,
fashion never disowned their origin. Fashion, says Bloch, bears witness
of its intimate relationship to the vita sexualis, in that it always
started from the ranks of courtesans and at the instance of opulent
demi-mondaines. Gunther says: The demi-monde has always, since fashions
are in existence, dictated them, in Rome, in Venice and now in Paris.
Fashion has in two ways introduced a sensual element in dress. Either
it renders conspicuous certain parts of the body and exaggerates their
size, by the shape of the garment, its drapery and trimmings, or it
leaves uncovered these parts to catch the eye. Both manoeuvers aim
at the production of a sensual effect. The stretching of the skirt
over the abdomen and legs in such a way that the outlines of the hips
and thighs obtrude themselves upon the eye was surely invented by a
Parisian demi-mondaine to serve sensuality. The corset, says Bloch,
aims to render conspicuous and prominent the specific female organ, the
bosom. It tries to effect an exciting contrast between the form of the
bosom and the slimness of the waist, increased by tight lacing. At the
same time, fashion dictates for a great number of occasions an ample
nudity of this most alluring female organ.
The bosom of the woman, says Berg, is the organ by which she is able
to express herself most ingeniously. Its undulations were always
her most expressive and skilful rhetoric. The bosom represents the
woman’s language and her poetry, her history and her music, her
purity and her longing, her policy and her religion, her worship
and her art, her secret and her convention, her character and her
pride, her consciousness, her magic mirror and her mystery. The bosom
is the central organ of all female ideas, desires and humors. No
wonder, therefore, that fashion concentrates its greatest endeavors
and painstaking effort upon this particular part of the female body.
Being Cupid’s most faithful servant, fashion selects this part which
it expects to serve best as the target of the winged god’s arrows. To
be sure, the individual refined and chaste woman is unaware of the
underlying principle of the creators of fashions. She is convinced
that clothes were adopted for esthetic reasons, although the sculptor
who knows most of beauty seldom covers up the naked body. By heredity
and social custom, clothing for refined women has become a mere side
current of irradiation of the sensual. Clothes are used, by a majority
of women, mainly as a means of beautifying. Ornamental clothing is
not any longer a simple lure. It is a sign or symbol of a greater
refinement of perception and delicacy of feeling. By the use of clothes
the attention is directed rather to the personality than to the person.
It is an attempt to display psychical rather than physical features.
The impulse of the normal woman to attribute an exaggerated value
to clothes is more an imaginative radiation and far remote from the
desire of physical exhibition. But as far as fashion is concerned, the
original close connection between clothes and the attraction of the
sexes is still the commanding principle. Fashion is still standing
in the service of sensuality. This explains its modern fickleness.
In previous epochs the same mode of dress was worn for centuries, as
the European peasant’s dress shows. The present feverishly frequent
change of fashion is a pathological phenomenon, betraying the diseased
eagerness for ever stronger and more original sensual stimulations.
Love and sex attraction being the chief objects in the lives of a
considerable part of mankind, it is surprising that until recently
sexuality was not looked upon with great favor, and that a sane
knowledge of sex and reproduction was assiduously withheld from the
people. While our ancestors considered the sex functions sacred, by a
strange mental process it is now considered shameful. So deeply is the
sense of shame morbidly associated with the sensual desire that most
people, and especially women, frequently disavow their propensity and
attempt to hide their ardor from the world. They do not recognize that
normal, well-ordered amativeness is a physiological and moral virtue,
while manifestations of spurious spirituality are often induced by
certain perversions. Indifference to amatory pleasures is frequently
professed by those who resort to artificial stimulants. Only those most
occupied with amatory delights feign to look with contempt upon sex
and to despise its wonderful functions.[B] To the really innocent and
pure all things are pure. The result of this morbid sense of shame is
that there is scarcely any other subject so completely ignored as the
sex function, although so much of the health and happiness of the race
depends upon it. This false sense of shame is the cause of our modern
fig-leaf modesty and prudery, which attributes a particular obscene
meaning to everything sexual. It has created that diseased imagination,
depraved beyond all hope, which can find any prurient gratification in
the cold, chaste nakedness of ancient marble. The mere nude arms or
legs of a small school girl, the furnishings of a public bath-house,
the naked limbs of a Tirolian peasant, or the grandest works of art
awaken in them lascivious thoughts. Individuals with such traits
are accustomed to interject their own diseased imagination, guilty
conscience and obscene sentiments into the purest artistic creations,
be they sculptured, painted, written or spoken.
The prudery and obscenity of these victims of a diseased imagination
and perverted moral sense have succeeded in distorting our judgment
on questions of sex in such a way that any desire for scientific
instruction in these subjects has become inextricably confused
with ideas of prurience and impropriety. Matters pertaining to the
generative functions are, as a rule, excluded even from treatises on
physiology. But for the anatomists and alienists, nothing would be
known about the physiology of normal Love. The zealots wish to persuade
us that the population of the earth increases by the stork-method.
Even the physician who is often called upon for advice about things
pertaining to the psychological phase of sex, prudishly ignores the
mightiest of human instincts which is so intimately related to human
weal and woe. He is conversant with the sexual question by virtue of
its anatomical and physiological knowledge, and he is well aware of
its hygienic, sociological and ethical importance. But when he is to
furnish enlightenment on psychic or pedagogic questions of sex, he
is embarrassed because of a lack of knowledge of sex psychology. The
great teachers in our medical schools, who ought to impart to their
pupils all their knowledge about the nature of things concerning Love
that they have gathered in their long and extensive experience, seem
either to consider Love a subject too sacred for physiological and
psychological analysis, or are really afraid to arouse the anger of the
zealots who made of the sanctuary of sex-attraction a “noli me tangere.”
Only the writers of fiction and poetry are allowed to approach the
sanctuary of Love, because with their abnormal imagination they sang
dithyrambs on this natural sentiment and morbidly transformed it into
a supernatural, obscure phenomenon. The hyperaesthetic writers of this
morbid fiction are encouraged to continue their practice of elevating
the natural sentiment of love to the height of a fetich, which only the
lover is capable of understanding. The scientist who dared to analyze
this sentiment, so important to the human race, and tried to enlighten
us about the nature of the attraction of the sexes, was met with
the cry, “To the Tarpeian rock.” The unbiased observer was declared
incapable of feeling and comprehending this natural sentiment. Even
philosophers, such as Schopenhauer, Hartman and Spencer, though they
touched upon the subject only from a philosophical point of view,
without probing it with the anatomist’s scalpel, have been decried as
heartless and soulless cynics whom nature denied the possession of this
sublimest of sentiments, because they dared to attack the majesty of
Love.
No wonder, therefore, that no other physical function has been treated
with so stepmotherly a regard and scant attention as the important
instinct of the preservation of the species, no wonder that no other
physiological phenomenon has been approached with such hesitancy as
the study of love in man. The works on physiology and gynaecology are
significantly silent on the subject of this important sentiment, and
the practitioner who so often has to deal with the pathological side of
love looks in vain for light in his text-books.
In the last decennium, a certain change has taken place in this
respect. A wave of sex discussion is sweeping over the civilized
countries of the world. The former taboo on the discussion of sexual
matters has been more or less removed and the veil lifted. Things which
not very long ago could not have been mentioned in polite society
except in whispers and with low breath, are now publicly discussed
in season and out of season. As it is often the case, we have turned
from the one extreme of complete darkness to the other extreme of too
glaring light. Sex enlightenment runs rampant at present. It haunts the
stage, lurks in innumerable societies and crops out in newspapers and
magazines.
But, although the world is full of sex discussion, the emphasis is
generally laid upon sex-hygiene and upon the knowledge of the relations
of the sex function to mental and physical development. Sex-hygiene
is nowadays held to be a proper subject of pedagogy and is taught in
many schools and colleges. But the emotion of Love is still very little
studied, and it is still wrapped in complete darkness. A great deal
of ignorance still prevails in regard to this important emotion. Few
people understand under this much-abused word one and the same emotion.
The same word is used to designate entirely different feelings. The
ancient Greeks had three different words to express the different
emotions that go under the name of love. One of the highest emotions
is expressed by the word ἀγαπάω. It is the love man feels for God,
parents or country. It is the love founded upon worship, adoration,
gratitude and habit. The other kind of love was expressed by the word
φιλέω. It designates the love founded on sympathy and liking, as the
love of friends, of humanity, of wisdom. The last, amatory emotion, was
expressed by the word ἐράω. It is the love founded upon sex-attraction.
It is a purely instinctive emotion, found throughout the animal
kingdom and even among some plants. Hence it is just the feeling which
should not be treated with such besotted reverence. True enough sexual
passion is the passion of creation, the most important function in
the universe. Sympathy, affection, fidelity, sacrifice, indeed, all
those noble traits, included under the term altruism, spring from the
reproductive instinct. Still the two emotions, love, sung by poetry
and exalted by art, and sex-attraction, found in animals and plants as
well as in man, can not be identical. Still they are both generally
confounded even by the best writers.
To spread more light upon this important subject is the aim of this
treatise. It has been written for the elucidation of the normal amatory
emotions, considering the pathological changes only by way of contrast,
for the perusal of the profession of medicine and of students of
medical jurisprudence.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] James (Psychology, 1890, II. p. 449) asserts that emotions follow
and do not precede the bodily state. We fear because we run away,
reverence because we kneel, love because we kiss.
[B] The tendency of the mind is to project in imagination upon the
world about us what we possess in our own souls. An accentuated
mental attitude in an individual is, as a rule, proof that in its
subconsciousness dwells a type of reversed feeling to the one that is
active in consciousness. The excessive prude is generally at heart a
sensualist.
PART II.
EVOLUTION OF SEX
CHAPTER I
ORGANIC EVOLUTION
The emotion of love, like any other psychic trait, is subject to the
laws of evolution. Its history is written on the pages of Life’s book.
The amatory emotions have followed step by step the evolution of plant
and animal.
The fact of organic evolution is nowadays tacitly accepted even by
those powers who in a not very remote period fought against the theory
of the heliocentric system. What is still _sub judice_ is the method of
evolution. Here we have two main theories:
1. The mechanistic.
(a) Neo-Lamarckians.
(b) Neo-Darwinians.
2. The vitalistic.
(a) Teleology.
(b) Creative evolution.
According to the mechanistic theory, all life can be accounted for
through the application of the laws of physics and chemistry, while the
claim of the vitalistic theory is that physics and chemistry do not
explain all. Teleology holds that life is carrying out a prearranged
plan; creative evolution postulates a blind primordial energy, a
psychic force, a life impetus, without any prearranged plans. The
Neo-Lamarckians hold that acquired characteristics during the lifetime
of the individual are transmitted to its offspring. This transmission
is the method of evolution. The Neo-Darwinians deny the transmission
of acquired characteristics and claim that evolution has been and is
effected by natural selection. The animal’s germ-cells being a product
of its own soma-cells and the parents’ germ-cells, they must change
continually, since the soma-cells are being continually changed. Those
germ-cells which are beneficial to the organism are selected by nature
for preservation. The claim of the Lamarckians is that environment
gives rise to variation, while the Darwinians maintain that a given
variation is selected by environment for survival.
All four theories assume evolution as a fact. That the neck of the
giraffe, for example, has been evolved to reach the leaves of high
trees is admitted by all of them; they only differ in the principle
underlying this evolution. According to teleology, the faculty to
evolve a long neck has been infused into the protoplasm by the creative
power, according to a prearranged plan. Creative evolution assumes a
blind primordial vital impetus without purpose, end or aim. Organic
life is an infinite addition, a continuance without conclusion.
Creation, once started, the long neck has evolved without any
previously arranged plan. The Neo-Lamarckian explains the evolvement
of the long neck by the continual stretching of the organ to reach
the leaves of high trees. The increase in length was then transmitted
from generation to generation, each generation contributing its quota.
In this way the present long neck has been evolved. The Neo-Darwinian
assumes an accidental variation. At one time in the animal’s history an
animal with a long neck has been accidentally bred. This variation with
its higher survival value survived during a scarcity of food, while the
low-necked varieties disappeared.
Neither of the four theories gives entire satisfaction to the
fastidious critic. The mechanistic theory denies or rather ignores
the presence of an intelligence in the universe, and the human mind,
as now constituted, can not understand how the power, that could
create a substance with the potentiality to develop into the human
intellect, could itself be devoid of intellect. If, on the other
hand, the creative power is endowed with intelligence, then its
working without aim or purpose is equally unthinkable. The vitalistic
theory offers other difficulties. Teleology, for instance, does not
answer the question why an intelligence, unlimited by space and time,
omnipotent and omniscient, should need the vast machinery of evolution
to accomplish its end; why could it not create a full-fledged Adam of
the theologist? Moreover, the human mind can not grasp the How, Whence
and the Where of the Supreme Intelligence, except by faith, and science
has no dealing with faith. The same objection may be raised against
creative evolution, whence this initial, vital impetus, whence this
original life?
The part of the mechanistic theory enunciated by the Neo-Lamarckians
seems quite probable. Nature, or environment, does sometimes change
organic beings either by chemical or by physical influences, and these
changes are not seldom transmitted to the offspring. Antonio Marro
(First Eugenic Congress) cites a case where a bull while leaving the
stable had its tail cut off, the door suddenly closing; all the calves
born through the impregnation of this bull were tailless. Marro also
made guinea-pigs epileptic by the resection of the sciatic nerve, and
the offspring of the animals were also epileptic. Climate, temperature,
moisture, nutrition and unusual activity produce effects upon the
organism, and the offspring of the new generation have in their blood
and brain the consequences of the habits of their ancestors. Prolonged
disuse of an organ causes its degeneration and often its disappearance.
High temperature changes the color of insects which is then inheritable
or racial. Poisons such as alcohol, syphilis, arthritic diathesis,
intoxicants of contagious diseases do also change the germ-plasma.
Franz Boas (“The Immigration Commission. Changes in bodily form of
descendants of Immigrants”) has found that none of the characteristics
of the human types that come to America remain stable. Not even those
characteristics of a race which have proved to be most permanent in
their old home, as the form of the head, remain the same under the new
surroundings. The length of the head of the brachycephalic Hebrews is
increased, the width of the head and of the face is decreased. On the
other hand, the length of the head of the dolichocephalic Sicilians
is decreased, while the width of the head is increased. The effect
of these changes is the development of a greater similarity of the
descendants of Sicilians and Hebrews, one to the other. The height
of body of the American-born Hebrew is increased. This influence of
American environment upon the descendants of immigrants shows that
acquired characteristics are transmissible. On the other hand, many
facts tend to show that acquired characteristics, as a rule, are
not transmitted to the offspring. Since the beginning of history
circumcision has been practised among the Jews, still the Jewish boy is
born with an intact prepuce.
For the reason that in the majority of cases acquired characters are
not transmissible, the Darwinian rejects the explanation of evolution
by appetency, or the use and disuse of certain organs, and assumes a
quasi “deus ex machina” in the form of variation.
Ordinary variation is a fact that can not be disputed. No two plants
or animals are exactly alike. The amphimixis or the blending of the
inheritances of two individuals is, according to Weismann, the great
factor in the production of variations. The two parents of every animal
or plant have the species-character in common, but there are certain
distinctive traits that hybridize. Hence ordinary variation is a fact,
and Nature by selection may evolve, in a slow way, new species, just
as Luther Burbank creates new kinds by artificial selection. Favorable
variations are then bound to furnish the possessor with a greater power
of resistance and with higher possibilities of life and propagation.
Evolution, accordingly, occurs primarily through sudden mutations or
sports which are the fittest for survival.
While the principle upon which the Lamarckian doctrines rest is the
power of adaptation, the basis of evolution for the Darwinian is the
transmissibility of unlikeness or individuality just as likeness.
Acquired characters are not transmitted; each generation has to make a
fresh start. It does not begin where the last generation has left off.
But variations are transmitted to the offspring, and evolution proceeds
by sports or by the transilient variation.
A serious objection to this theory is the tendency of Nature to revert
to the normal average of the race. The law of Galton means the return
to the mean of the species. The children of the sport tend to return
towards the mean of the race.
Thus the four explanations do not satisfactorily explain, and the
subject of the method of evolution is not yet decided. Neither
teleology with the initiatory psychic energy working towards definite
ends, nor Bergson’s vital impulse or original profound cosmic force,
nor Lamarck’s appetency or use and disuse, nor Darwin’s natural
selection, furnish an unobjectionable satisfactory explanation of
organic evolution. Still the world’s thinkers and scientists have
accepted organic evolution as a fact which may be proven by embryonic
development, in conformity with Haeckel’s biogenetic axiom that
ontogeny is only a short recapitulation of phylogeny.
The ovum or even the zygote (i. e., the impregnated ovum) is a
single-celled organism and resembles the animals of the first or
lowest type in the animal kingdom. The protozoa are nothing else than
single-celled animals. Some of them have even a lower structure than
the common cell. The Monera, e. g., has neither nucleus nor membrane.
The manifestations of life are recognizable only by the possession
of the faculties of the assimilation of food and of propagation by
segmentation and division.
[Illustration: CUT I.
a, cell; b, morula; c, blastula; d, gastrula; ec, ectoblast; en,
endoblast.]
Like the protozoon, the ovum, immediately after its impregnation,
begins to undergo a certain division, by a series of successive
segmentations, into 2, then 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc., cells. By
continuous cell segmentations a great mass, the morula or mulberry,
is produced. The structure of the morula corresponds with that of the
coelenterata, or the animals of the second type. To this type belong
the animals with gemmiparous reproduction, or multiplication by means
of buds. The divided animals remain together and form colonies, as e.
g. in sponges or corals.
The next event in the formation of the embryo is the blastula. The
solid spherical mass of cells becomes hollow like a rubber ball. In
the subsequent stage the blastula becomes flat at one pole. By degrees
a depression is formed at this point, which becomes deeper step by
step, until the inner layer reaches the outer layer, representing half
a sphere of two layers, like a collapsed rubber ball. In the farther
growth the edges approach the middle line till they finally meet and
fuse together. The oval body, called the gastrula, thus consists of two
layers, the primitive germinal membranes, the ectoderm and entoderm.
The gastrula resembles in its structure that of the worms, or the third
type of the animal kingdom.
[Illustration: CUT II.
_Diagram, showing the development of the organs._
ek, ektoderm; mp, medulary plate; ms, mesoderm just forming from the
ed, entoderm; c, coelom or body cavity; nt, nerve-tube or spinal cord;
ac, abdominal cavity; cd, chorda dorsalis; it, intestinal cavity.]
By certain foldings of the ento- and ectoderm transformations arise, and
new organs develop. Two folds of the entoderm grow higher, approach
each other and finally meet. In this way the embryo consists of four
germinal membranes. A certain folding of the ectoderm marks the
position of the future backbone in the primitive stripe. A longitudinal
furrow marks the origin of the nerve-tube. The different membranes
have thus formed several tubes, the chorda dorsalis, the definitive
intestinal canal and the abdominal cavity or coelom. The structure of
the embryo resembles now more or less that of the animals of the fourth
type or the echinodermata.
The membranes which include the intestinal canal soon overgrow on both
sides the nerve-tube and the chorda and are then differentiated partly
into the bones of the skeleton and partly into the muscles. In the
meantime, the vascular spaces develop. At one point of the vascular
tube a rhythmical pulsation is observed, representing the primitive
heart, similar to that of the mollusca.
A certain fold, the head-fold, arises at the front end of the embryo
by the bending of the spinal column. Beneath the head-fold arise five
processes or gills, as in fishes, which later on are transformed into
the face of the fetus. Four other processes are budded off from the
trunk and subsequently become the extremities. A furrow at the ventral
side of the embryo shows the origin of later trachea and lungs. On
both sides of the head-fold can be seen two pits for the eyes. At
this point, the embryo is in the same stage of development as many
arthropoda.
The skeleton begins now to ossify. The heart tube begins to bend and
takes the form of an “S.” In this way the tube is turned into an
auricle and ventricle as in the amphibia. The ventricle is then divided
by a partition as in the reptiles. One part of the nerve-tube is
differentiated into three cerebral vesicles, as in birds.
Thus the embryo resembles in its structure at different stages the
structure of the different types of the animals of the animal kingdom.
The different formations do not follow the chronological order as
described, but, as a rule, they take place synchronously. At the end of
the fourth month the fetus is about sixteen centimeters or six inches
long and has reached its definite human shape.
CHAPTER II
EVOLUTION OF THE GENITAL SYSTEM
_A. The Indifferent Stage_
Before the last described stage has been reached, there has developed
simultaneously with the other organs a set of organs, known under the
name of the genito-urinary system, which deserves here our special
attention.
The urinary secretion is effected throughout the animal kingdom by
three systems: the pronephros or the head-kidney; mesonephros, or
primitive kidney, or Wolffian body, “Urniere”; and metanephros, or true
kidney. The pronephros must be regarded as the phylogenetically oldest
part, since only traces of it are found in the human embryo. Here in
the earlier stages of embryonic development, the Wolffian body is the
organ for the urinary secretion.
The Wolffian body, or mesonephros, appears in the shape of two
longitudinal protuberances on either side of the mesentary along the
spinal column. The protuberances consist of a series of transverse
excretory tubules or nephrides. These tubules open into two pronephric
ducts, or Wolffian ducts, which are running alongside the abdominal
aorta. These two Wolffian or primitive male ducts open at the caudal
end of the embryo into the hind-end of the alimentary canal, or the
cloaca (Cut III, Fig. 2).
When the Wolffian body has almost reached its greatest development a
second longitudinal duct makes its appearance by the evagination of
the ventral surface of the Wolffian body. These ducts lie in close
proximity of the Wolffian ducts, along the dorsal aspect of the coelom,
or body-cavity, and are known as the ducts of Müller, or the primitive
female ducts. The function of these canals in lowly organized animals
is that of receiving from the body-cavity the ova and of evacuating
them from the body. The Müllerian ducts also open into the cloaca. At
the lower end the Müllerian and Wolffian ducts run in close apposition
and form the genital cord. At this stage of development the embryo is
thus hermaphroditic like the worms.
[Illustration: CUT III.
_Fig. 1, horizontal cut through embryo; Fig. 2, vertical cut; schema
of indifferent stage._
Wb, Wolffian body; Wd, Wolffian duct; Md, Müllerian duct; gg, genital
gland; m, mesentery; i, intestine; sc, spinal cord; ch, chorda; ao,
aorta; a, allantois; clo, cloaca; k, kidney.]
The metanephros, or the true kidney, appears first as an epithelial
or renal evagination of the Wolffian duct on the dorsal side of the
latter and near its opening into the intestinal canal or cloaca.
This bud grows forward, extends headward toward the position of the
Wolffian body and becomes a long, narrow tube, the ureter. The blind
end branches into different tubules, each having a sacculated end. They
soon assume a tortuous and convoluted form and represent the permanent
kidney. The Wolffian body is now replaced in its function by the true
kidney, and enters into special relations with the sexual organs, by
being transformed into the genital apparatus of the male.
Before the Wolffian body has yet degenerated the mesothelial cells
overlying the free surface of that body, at its upper part, and at the
ventro-mesial side, assume a high columnar form and form an elongated
swelling, known as the internal genital ridge. As the degeneration of
the Wolffian body proceeds the genital ridge is differentiated into the
indifferent sexual gland, by producing a projection upon the wall of
the coelom or body cavity. This prominence is attached to the surface
of the Wolffian body by a fold of the peritoneum. At this stage there
is no distinction of sex. The sexual gland represents the indifferent
type of the sexual apparatus.
While this metamorphosis is going on at the head-end of the sexual
ducts, the caudal ends undergo also a certain degree of development.
In the early embryonic life the intestinal canal is in communication
with the allantois. In fact, both form one continuous canal. When
the caudal, pointed end of the intestine becomes obliterated,
the allantois-duct on the ventral side, and the intestine on the
dorsal side, both open into a kind of pouch, the cloaca. When the
body-cavity of the embryo closes in the course of farther development,
the allantois, which is the connecting link between the embryo and
the placenta, enters the embryo by the small opening known as the
umbilicus. Very soon the middle segment of the intra-embryonic
allantois dilates and assumes the form of a spindle-shaped sac, the
later urinary bladder. The portion of the intra-embryonic allantois,
connecting the summit of the bladder with the umbilicus, soon becomes
an impervious cord, known as the urachus. The portion of the allantois
intervening between the bladder and the intestine is designated as
Sinus Urogenitalis.
Into this sinus opens the short canal, connecting the lower end of
the bladder with the upper end of the urogenital sinus which becomes
later on the urethra. The sinus also receives the genital ducts, the
Müllerian and the Wolffian ducts, and the latter’s evaginations, the
ureters. Later on, owing to alterations through unequal growth, the
orifices of the ureters, which originally lie in close apposition with
the openings of the Wolffian ducts, change their position and are moved
toward the bladder. The interval between the two pairs of ducts, the
Wolffian ducts and the ureters, increases, until the ureters finally
open into the bladder.
The intra-embryonic allantois has thus furnished the following organs:
the solid cord urachus, or ligamentum vesico-umbilicale, the urinary
bladder, the urethra and the urogenital sinus. The latter is still in
communication with the intestine by means of the cloaca.
At the next step ridges or folds spring from each side of the cloaca,
grow toward each other, until they finally coalesce and form a complete
septum. By farther development the original epithelial septum becomes
the permanent perineum. Since the intestine is now no longer in
communication with the urogenital sinus, the cloaca as such disappears.
At this stage the intestine ends in a blind sac. It is closed up
towards the exterior by the anal membrane. Neither are urethra and
genital canal in communication with the exterior. They both open into
the urogenital sinus, and the latter is closed up towards the exterior
by the urogenital membrane. The anal membrane soon breaks through and
the rectum opens to the exterior by the way of the anus.
_B. The Internal Male Sexual Organs_
After the genital ridge had made its appearance, columns of cells
begin to grow down into the substance of the Wolffian ridge. The
columns are composed of two kinds of cells, small epithelial cells
and large spherical cells, known as sex-cells. Two regions may be now
recognized in the ridge, the rete-region and the sex-gland region. The
cell-columns of the rete region are termed “rete-cords,” and the cell
columns of the sex-gland region are called “sex-cords.” The sex-cords
unite to form a complicated network and the rete-cords grow backward to
the Wolffian ridge. They then develop a lumen and send off branches to
the sex-cord reticulum.
The genital portion of the Wolffian body persists in the male in its
entirety and serves as the efferent ducts of the testis. They open into
the upper part of the Wolffian duct. The latter is retained complete.
The portion nearest the testis is thrown into coils and forms a part of
the epididymis, the remainder is converted into the vas deferens and
the ductus ejaculatorius and the lateral outpouching of the wall, the
vesicula seminalis.
The Müllerian ducts disappear completely in the male. Only the lower
ends of the ducts fuse to form the sinus pocularis, or utriculus
prostaticus.
_C. The Internal Female Sex Organs_
In the female the Wolffian body and ducts degenerate. The remainder
of the body is known as the parovarium, an organ without any apparent
function, while the remainder of the ducts are designated the ducts of
Gartner.
The ovary is produced from the asexual stage by the following
metamorphosis. The mesothelial cells on the peritoneal surface of the
sexual gland change into the germinal epithelium and form the so-called
egg-columns or sexual cord which represent the primitive ova.
[Illustration:
CUT IV.
_Vertical cut through male and female embryos, Schema; Fig. 1, male;
Fig. 2, female._
a, allantois duct; b, bladder; u, urethra; ur, ureter; su, sinus
urogenitalis; sp, sinus pocularis; cd, cloacal depression; ad, anal
depression; t, testicle; hy, hyatide; e, epididymis; vd, vas deferens;
Md, Müllerian duct; de, ductus ejaculatorius; k, kidney; i, intestine;
va, vagina; ov, ovary; pa, parovarium; Ft, Fallopian tube; Wd,
Wolffian duct; ut, uterus.]
At the caudal end, the Müllerian ducts fuse together into one, the
walls, along the entire line of the union, degenerate, and the two
ducts thus form a single duct, the later vagina and uterus. Until
the fifth month there is no distinction between vagina and uterus,
the two organs form a single sac-like structure. At the beginning of
the fifth month, a circular ridge in the wall of the sac makes its
appearance and marks the division between the vagina and the uterus.
When the lower portion of the two Müllerian ducts have fused to form a
single canal, the utero-vaginal sac, the lumen of the vagina is still
obliterated, being filled with epithelial cells. By the breaking down
of the central epithelial cells, the cavity is established.
At this period a little semicircular crescentic fold attached to the
dorsal margin of the aperture of the vagina arises and forms the hymen,
an organ which has always played such an important rôle in the fancy of
all nations.
The upper blind ends of the Müllerian ducts, with their expanded
funnel-shaped mouths, diverge and form the oviducts, or the Fallopian
tubes.
_D. The External Genitals_
At the time when the urethra, the sexual ducts and the intestine
still open into the sac-like tube, the so-called cloaca, there is
distinguishable on the exterior surface of the body, corresponding to
the position of the cloaca, a certain depression called the cloacal
depression. When the intestine is separated from the cloaca by the
septum, the later perineum, the exterior cloacal depression is cut into
two, the anal and the urogenital depressions. Between the urogenital
depression, later called the genital groove, exteriorly and the
urogenital sinus interiorly, there is only a dividing membrane, the
urogenital membrane which later on breaks through and transforms the
entire sinus into a shallow depression, termed the vestibule.
[Illustration: CUT V.
_Six stages of the development of the external genitals. Fig. 1 and 2,
two in different stages; m and M, two male stages, f and F, two female
stages after O. Hertwig._
pl, posterior limbs; clo, cloacal depression; gt, genital tubercle;
gs, genital swelling; gf, genital fold; gg, genital groove; gp, glans
penis; p, perineum; a, anus; pr, prepuce; sc, scrotum; r, raphe; cl,
clitoris; su, entrance to sinus urogenitalis; lm, labia majora; ny,
nymphæ; vv, vestibule of vagina.]
Before the urogenital sinus has opened to the exterior the mesenchym
surrounding the urogenital depression exteriorly begins to thicken and
produces an encircling elevation, the genital swelling. On the ventral
side within this swelling appears a projection, the genital tubercle,
which is thus surrounded by the genital swelling. The tubercle soon
increases in size, so that the urogenital depression, now called the
genital groove, becomes partly situated at its under aspect (Cut 5,
Fig. 2). The lips of this genital groove thicken and form the two
genital folds. All these four organs are common in both sexes and
represent the asexual or bisexual state of the external genital organs.
_E. The Male External Genitals_
In the male the genital tubercle increases enormously in size to form
the penis. Its extremity becomes bulbously enlarged and forms the glans
penis. The lips of the groove or rather of the vestibule, since by this
time the urogenital membrane had broken through and had transformed the
sinus urogenitalis into the vestibule, the so-called genital folds,
meet together and fuse, thus converting the vestibule and the groove
into the terminal portion of the male urethra and bringing it about,
that the ductus ejaculatorii and the sinus pocularis open upon the
floor of that passage. The prostate, consisting of several independent
glands, has also its openings at this point. In its development the
prostate belongs to the urethra as well as to the sinus urogenitalis.
The two genital swellings are brought closer together in the male and
form the scrotum, a sac containing two separate pouches into which the
testes descend.
_F. The Female External Genitals_
In the female the vestibule, or the shallow depression which was formed
through the breaking through of the urogenital membrane, remains open
throughout life, and is termed the vestibule of the vulva. From the
sides of the lower part of the sinus a pair of evaginations are formed
and give rise to the Bartholinian glands. The vestibule being in fact
the open sinus urogenitalis, the urethra and the vagina naturally have
their orifices in the same.
The genital tubercle ceases to grow in the female and becomes the
clitoris. The genital folds or the lips of the vestibule become
prolonged and form the labia minora or the nymphae. The genital
swelling increases in size through adipose and fibrous tissue. The part
situated on the ventral side of the clitoris becomes the mons veneris,
while the lateral parts are converted into the labia majora of the
vulva.
PART III.
ANATOMY
CHAPTER III
THE MALE GENITALS
The knowledge of the anatomy of the genitals, of the mechanism of
erection and ejaculation, and the nervous centres which preside
over these functions, is essential for a clear comprehension of
sex-attraction in men and in women. It will, therefore, be of some
profit even to medical men briefly to recall to memory those parts of
the human anatomy which have a particular bearing upon the subject of
this treatise.
_Scrotum._—The main generative glands in the male, the testicles, are
situated within a bag, the so-called scrotum, outside of the abdominal
cavity. This bag or pouch, hanging between the thighs, below the
symphysis, consists of two compartments which are separated by the
septum scroti. The scrotum may be considered as a diverticle of the
anterior abdominal wall. Before the descent of the testicles from the
abdominal cavity, two diverticles of the abdominal wall are formed,
at two points anteriorly to the genital swelling, where later on the
inguinal canals are found. The diverticles extend to the swelling and
coalesce to form the bag. The raphe, or last, at the point of their
union, can be observed through the entire life of the individual. This
median raphe runs from the perineum to the penis, indicating the inner
division of the scrotum.
The scrotum being a derivative of the abdominal wall, it follows that
its wall will consist of the same elements as the abdominal wall. The
first layer of the abdominal wall, the epidermis or cutis, forms
also the epidermis of the scrotum. The fascia superficialis abdominis
constitutes the second layer of the scrotum, or the tunica dartos.
The musculus obliquus abdominis externus goes to make up the third
layer, the so-called Cooper’s fascia. The musculus obliquus abdominis
internus forms the fourth layer, or the musculus cremaster externus.
The musculus transversalis abdominis furnishes the cremaster internus
muscle, and the tunica vaginalis communis, or the fifth layer. Finally,
the double layer of the abdominal peritoneum forms the tunica vaginalis
propria of the scrotum. Between the two lamina of this tunica is found
some fluid which, when pathologically increased, constitutes the
anomaly called hydrocele.
_Testicle._—The testicle is an ovoid organ with two surfaces, a
median and lateral, with two poles, an upper and lower pole, and two
margins, an anterior convex and a posterior straight margin. In the
natural position, the upper pole is somewhat anteriorly inclined. The
average weight of the testicle is 15 to 25 grammes, average length 5
centimeters, breadth 2 to 5 centimeters and thickness 3 centimeters.
The superior pole and the posterior margin of the testicle are covered
by the epididymis. The left testicle, as a rule, hangs deeper than the
right.
_Descent of testicles._—In embryonic life already, the testicle
is connected, at its lower pole, with the bottom of the scrotal
diverticle, the latter ventricle of the scrotum, by a cord containing
unstriped muscular fibres, the so-called gubernaculum testis. This
cord does not grow in length, hence, with the growth of the embryo,
the testicle has to descend from its position, on either side of the
mesentary along the spinal column. Thus, in the seventh month of
embryonic life, each testicle descends through its respective inguinal
canal into its compartment in the scrotum. In this descent the testicle
takes along its peritoneal covering. When the bottom of the scrotum has
been reached this peritoneal covering, together with the lining of the
scrotum coalesce, and the two lamina form the above-mentioned tunica
vaginalis propria.
_Structure of testicles._—The testicle is covered with a thick, white,
fibrous coat, the tunica albuginea. This tunica sends off about 200
to 400 septa or trabeculae testis. These trabeculae divide the
parenchymatous tissue of the testicle into numerous conical lobules,
and, converging towards the posterior margin of the testicle, form a
solid fibrous mass, the so-called corpus Highmori.
The parenchymatous tissue of the testicles consists of numerous fine
tubules, the canaliculi seminiferi. Each lobule contains a number of
these fine tubules. In the beginning and through their entire course
the seminal tubules or canaliculi are tortuous; towards their ends,
however, they become straight. When they reach the corpus Highmori,
the thickened, enlarged part of the tunica albuginea, they collect and
unite, to form a network, the rete vasculosum. This rete sends off 12
to 14 large tubules, the vasa efferentia, which, running in a straight
line, pass the corpus Highmori and enter the epididymis. The corpus
Highmori serves as a point of entrance for the arteries and nerves and
as an exit for the veins of the testicles.
[Illustration: CUT VI.
_Schema of the seminiferi tubules. After Brösike._
1, tubuli contorti; 2, tubuli recti; 3, rete vasculosum; 4, vasa
efferentia; 5, coni vasculosi; 6, epididymis; 7, vas deferens.]
_Epididymis._—The epididymis is the excretory duct of the testicle. It
is situated at the posterior margin of the same, covering this margin
and the upper pole of the testicle. The upper end of the epididymis
tapers off to pass into the vas deferens. The epididymis is divided
into the head, middle piece and tail. At the lower point, the tail
turns directly upwards and backwards, and is now called vas deferens.
The vasa efferentia enter the epididymis at the head. The unfolded
vas epididymis is about six meters long. Its diameter is about 0.5
millimeter. It gradually dilates as it approaches the vas deferens.
_Vas deferens._—The vas deferens runs down the posterior wall of the
epididymis and turns upwards to enter the abdominal cavity through the
inguinal canal. It then runs between bladder and rectum to end as the
ductus ejaculatorius. Before the vas deferens receives the duct of the
seminal vesicle it forms a spindle-like enlargement, the so-called
ampulla. The vas deferens opens under the name of ductus ejaculatorius
into the prostatic urethra.
The length of the vas deferens is about 60 centimeters, its diameter
is about 3 millimeters. The wall of the vas deferens is very thick,
giving on palpation the feeling of a piece of rope. It is lined inside
with a light cylindrical epithelium which rests upon a layer of fibrous
connective tissue. This fibrous substratum is surrounded by a thick,
muscular coat of non-striated fibres. The muscular coat is composed of
two longitudinal layers, which include between them a circular layer.
The muscular coat is surrounded by a layer of connective tissue, the
so-called adventitia.
_Spermatic cord._—In its course from the testicle to the internal ring
of the inguinal canal the vas deferens is accompanied by the arteria
and vena spermaticae internae. The three organs form the spermatic
cord. But although the three organs are intimately connected, still
the vas deferens is recognizable without difficulty by its rope-like
consistency and is easily severed, as in the operation for the
sterilization of the male. The vein forms a tendril-like tress-work,
which is called the plexus pampiniformis. In pathological conditions
the plexus forms the varicocele.
_Seminal vesicles._—The seminal vesicles may be considered as
diverticles of the vasa deferentia. The vesicles are lying in the
sulcus, between the prostate and the bladder, and extend obliquely
outward and backward. The length of the seminal vesicles is about 8
centimeters, their diameter is about 7 millimeters. The vesicles form
a bulbous mass of convoluted tubes. Being a derivative from the vas
deferens, the wall of the tubes consists of the same strata as the
vas deferens, i. e., of an adventitia followed by the muscular coat,
then by the fibrous substratum, and finally by a layer of cylindrical
epithelia. The mucous membrane possesses numerous tubulous glands. In
this way the vesicles serve not only as reservoirs for the sperma, but
may be considered as veritable glands. By the junction of the pointed
ends of the seminal vesicles with the vasa deferentia, the ejaculatory
ducts are formed.
[Illustration: CUT VII.
_Male genital apparatus, side view. After Zucherkandel and Testut._
b, bladder; p, al, ml, the three lobes of the prostatic gland; u,
ureter; sv, seminal vesicle; vd, vas deferens; ed, ejaculatory duct.]
_Ductus ejaculatorii._—The ejaculatory ducts traverse the prostate
and open, by slit-like orifices, into the sinus pocularis. The wall
of the ducts is much thinner than that of the vas deferens. The
muscular fibres of the latter are gradually substituted in the ducts by
cavernous tissue. The mucous membrane differs little from that of the
vas deferens and of the seminal vesicles.
[Illustration: CUT VIII.
_Male urethra_
1, bladder; 2, prostate; 3, colliculus; 4, orifice of the sinus
pocularis; 5, orifices of the prostatic ducts; 6, orifices of Cowper’s
glands; 7, corpus cavernosum urethræ; 8, corpora cavernosa penis; 9,
præputium; 10, glans; 11, fossa navicularis.]
_Urethra._—The urethra is divided into three parts, the prostatic,
the membranous and the cavernous parts. The prostatic part is the
widest portion of the entire urethra. It is surrounded by an unstriped
muscular layer and the muscles of the prostate. The membranous part
is the narrowest, shortest, and most thin-walled portion of the three
parts of the urethra. It is entirely surrounded by the muscular fibres
of the diaphragma urogenitale, which takes here a circulatory course.
It is in this way situated on the border-line of the abdominal cavity
and the exterior, within the abdominal wall. The cavernous portion
of the urethra is surrounded by the corpus cavernosum urethrae. This
portion shows two dilatations, one in the bulbous part, just anterior
to the termination of the membranous part, where the ducts of the two
Cowper’s glands open; the other dilatation is near the end, behind the
meatus, forming the so-called fossa navicularis. The meatus itself is
the narrowest part of the entire urethra. Numerous mucous crypts, the
glands of Littré and certain lacunae, the largest among them near the
fossa, open into the lumen of this part of the urethra. The entire
urethra is lined with a cylindrical epithelium, except at the fossa
navicularis. The latter is covered by a layer of pavement epithelia.
The length of the urethra is about 18 centimeters. In the usual state
the urethra possesses only a virtual lumen, i. e., the walls touch each
other.
[Illustration: CUT IX.
_Schema of sagittal cut through penis. After Testus._
1, bladder; 2, vas deferens; 3, colliculus; 4, prostate; 5, urethra;
6, bulbus urethræ; 7, symphysis.]
_Prostate._—The prostate is a gland, chestnut-like in shape. Its
greatest diameter is in average about 4 centimeters. The diameter from
the base to the apex is about 3 centimeters. The thickness of the
prostate is about 2 centimeters, and its weight is about 18 grammes.
The upper broad margin, the basis, is adjacent to the bladder, the
lower, narrower end, or the apex, rests on the diaphragma urogenitale.
It thus lies completely within the abdominal cavity. The anterior
surface is connected with the lower end of the symphysis pubis by the
ligamenta puboprostatica, the posterior surface is connected with
the rectum by loose connective tissue. The prostate is lobulated and
generally divided into three lobes, a median and two lateral lobes. The
prostate embraces the neck of the bladder and the first portion of the
urethra.
The structure of the prostate is a framework of muscular fibres, in
which are embedded numerous racemous glands. The latter collect and
open into the prostatic ducts. The main substance of the prostate is
glandular. The mucous lining of the prostate, which forms at the same
time the mucous membrane of the prostatic urethra, shows upon the
posterior wall a linear elevation of the mucous membrane which covers a
fold of erectile tissue, the so-called colliculus seminalis.
[Illustration: CUT X.
_Colliculus_
1, orifice of the sinus pocularis; 2, orifices of the prostatic ducts.]
_Colliculus._—The colliculus is a massive button, 3 millimeters in
height and in breadth, and lies anteriorly to the fossa prostatica.
On the summit of the colliculus there is an opening which leads to a
pear-shaped pouch, the so-called sinus pocularis, a remnant of the
Müllerian ducts. The two orifices of the ejaculatory ducts are found
within the pouch, near its opening into the urethra. The orifices of
the prostatic ducts are situated in the furrows, on either side of
the colliculus. In the state of erection the colliculus fills out
the urethra completely and closes it up tightly and absolutely, so
that not a drop of urine can pass out of the bladder or escape during
ejaculation.
_Cowper’s glands._—Cowper’s glands are two acinose glands of the size
of a pea. They are embedded between the muscular fibres of the musculus
transversus perinei profundus. The ducts run between the two leaflets
of the diaphragma urogenitale to the posterior end of the bulbus, hence
within the cavernous tissue near the septum and open on either side of
the bulbus on the floor of the bulbous urethra.
[Illustration: CUT XI.
_Crosscut through the penis._
1, vena dorsalis; 2, arteriæ dorsales; 3, septum; 4, corpora
cavernosa; 5, tunica albuginea; 6, vena profunda; 7, urethra; 8,
corpus cavernosum urethræ.]
_Penis._—The penis is chiefly made up of three erectile bodies, the
corpus cavernosum urethrae and the two porpora cavernosa penis. The
latter arise each from the ramus descendens ossis pubis, by strong
fibrous processes, the crura. The crura converse and coalesce at the
inferior margin of the symphysis to which they are fastened by the
ligamentum suspensorium penis mediale. The anterior ends of the corpora
cavernosa are rounded. They are situated in the furrow of the glans of
the penis. After their coalescence the two corpora are divided only by
a fibrous septum. The lower surface of the corpora shows a deep furrow
which serves as a receptacle for the corpus cavernosum urethrae. The
latter thus occupies the same relation to the corpora cavernosa penis
as does the ramrod to a double-barreled gun.
The corpus cavernosum urethrae forms two expansions. The anterior
expansion is represented by the glans penis, the posterior expansion by
the bulb, a tuberous enlargement, situated between the diverging crura
of the corpora cavernosa penis. The bulb is covered by the musculus
bulbo-cavernosus.
_Structure of the corpora cavernosa._—The walls of the corpora
cavernosa are made up of a dense fibrous elastic membrane, the tunica
albuginea. From this tunica arise numerous trabeculae, composed
of fibrous tissue and non-striped muscular fibres. In this way a
sponge-like tissue is formed in which the spongy superstructure
consists of elastic fibres. The mesh-spaces are filled with circulating
blood. The spaces of these cavernous bodies are covered with an
endothelial lining like blood-vessels. The caverns communicate with
each other by the arteriae helicinae, short arterial branches,
anastomosing in the cavernous spaces. The arteries, capillaries, and
veins pass along the trabeculae of the spongy tissue and open into the
caverns. The caverns may thus be considered as enlarged capillaries.
The arteria and vena profundae penis run through the middle of the
corpus.
The arteries within the trabeculae possess not only circular muscular
fibres, as all other arteries, but also longitudinal fibres. These
muscular fibres are normally contracted and thus prevent the blood from
flowing into the cavernous spaces. If by some inhibitory influence the
muscles are relaxed, the caverns are immediately filled with blood.
This blood has to return by the vena profunda communis which passes
through the unstriped muscular fibres of the musculus transversus
perinei profundus. Hence by the contraction of this muscle the veins
are compressed, and the blood is prevented from flowing off. As a
result, the spongy and cavernous bodies become turgid and the corpora
cavernosa penis become stone hard. The blood of the corpus cavernosum
urethra, on the other hand, returns through the vena dorsalis penis
which enters the abdomen through connective tissue parts, beneath
the symphysis. For this reason the corpus cavernosum urethrae remains
compressible even during erection.
The main muscles of the penis are the erector penis and the
bulbo-cavernosus. The latter arises from the central perineal tendon
and inserts by embracing the bulb. The erector penis muscle arises at
the inner surface of the tuberositas ossis ischii and inserts into the
sides of the crura.
The penis is covered with an integument which forms the continuation
of the skin of the abdominal wall, but it is somewhat darker than the
latter. At the anterior end a fold of skin forms the prepuce which
covers the glans penis.
_Genital nerves._—The genital nerves are of three different kinds.
There are first the efferent nerves, or centripetal nerves. They are
the sensitive terminal branches of the nervus pudendus and end, or
rather arise, in the genital nerve bulbs. They are richly distributed
throughout the prostatic part of the urethra. These centripetal nerves
are connected with the Pacinian corpuscles, within the prostate, and
with the extensive nerve-plexus, interspersed with ganglia, which are
found in the superficial layers of the urethral mucosa as well as in
the cortical layers of the prostate. These nerves return to the centres
in the spinal cord and in the brain through the rami of the nervus
pudendus.
The second kind of nerves are the centrifugal nerves, which arise by
two roots at the sacral plexus, from the first to the third pair of
sacral nerves. This sacral plexus sends off anastomosing branches
to the vesical plexus. The latter is made up of branches from the
hypogastric plexus of the sympathetic nerve and of filaments from
the sacral ganglia, the pudendal plexus and the sacral nerves. The
latter innervates the bladder, seminal vesicles, the urethra, and the
prostate. The nervi erigentes are vasodilator-nerves. Their centre, in
the lumbar part of the spinal cord, is connected with the centre of the
vasodilators of the medulla oblongata by filaments, running within the
spinal cord. When these nerves or their centre are irritated, as in
diseases of the cord, or excited by electricity, erections will ensue.
The third kind of nerves are those of ejaculation. They are centripetal
and centrifugal nerves and run through the nervi perinei, the latter
being branches of the nervus pudendus communis. They innervate the
ejaculatory ducts, the seminal vesicles, vasa deferentia and testicles.
The centre of these nerves has also its seat in the lumbar portion of
the spinal cord.
_Genital centres._—The centres for the genital nerves are six in
number, three cerebral, one in the medulla oblongata and two spinal
centres. There is first the cerebral centre of voluptas or cupido. It
is the seat of the sexual instinct or of sex desire. The second centre
is the centre of libido. It is the centre for experiencing pleasure.
The third centre is that of inhibition. It is the centre where, under
certain circumstances, sexual activity is prevented. The vasodilator
centre in the medulla oblongata and the two spinal centres regulate
erection and ejaculation. Connecting fibres are passing between the
cerebral centres and the spinal centres. Hence psychic stimulation may
cause erection and ejaculation.
CHAPTER IV
THE FEMALE ORGANS OF GENERATION
_Vulva._—The main female generative organs are entirely situated within
the pelvis. The less important external organs are those comprised in
the name vulva (derived from the Latin word valva, the folding door).
When the woman is in erect position, the vulva runs horizontally from
the mons veneris to the frenulum of the fossa navicularis.
[Illustration: CUT XII.
_Vulva, the nymphae separated._
1, mons veneris; 2, labium majus; 3, prepuce of clitoris; 4, glans
of clitoris; 5, urethral orifice; 6, nympha; 7, orifice of the
Bartholinian gland; 8, vaginal orifice; 9, hymen; 10, frenulum; 11,
perineum; 12, anus.]
_Mons veneris._—The mons veneris is the name of the fatty cushion which
rests upon the anterior surface of the symphysis pubis. After puberty,
the mountain is covered with a growth of hair. In the female sex the
hairs occupy a triangular area, the base corresponding with the upper
margin of the symphysis. This sign is sometimes of value for the
determination of the real sex of an apparent hermaphrodite.
_Labia majora._—The labia majora are a pair of integumentary folds,
extending from the mons veneris to the perineum, or the triangular
partition between the anus and the vagina. Each labium has two
surfaces, an outer one pigmented and covered with strong, crisp hair
as on the mons veneris, and an inner one, usually lying in close
apposition with its fellow. The fissure between the two labia is termed
rima pudendi. The inner surfaces are moist and resemble a mucous
membrane in appearance. The outer surface has the same structure as the
skin. Beneath the skin there is found a layer of connective tissue,
rich in elastic fibres and fatty tissue. The next layer is a dense mass
of adipose tissue, which is supplied with an abundant plexus of veins.
The labia are richly supplied with sebaceous glands.
[Illustration: CUT XIII.
_Labium majus and sebaceous gland._
g, gland; sc, stratum corneum; e, layers of pavement epithelium; f,
fibrous tissue; v, blood vessel.]
_Nymphae._—The nymphae or the labia minora, are two triangular
structures which run parallel to the labia majora, from the clitoris
to either side of the vaginal aperture. Their free borders are
crenulated or lobed. The nymphae consist of thin folds of tissue, are
smooth, and when protected, as in the child, of a pale rose color,
resembling a mucous membrane in appearance. They contain numerous
papillae and sebaceous follicles. Their interior contains connective
tissue, some muscular fibres and erectile tissue. Hence they take part
in the female erection. They are extremely sensitive, being abundantly
supplied with nerve-ends. At the side of the clitoris, each nympha
is divided into two lamellae. The two anterior lamellae unite at the
glans of the clitoris and form the praeputium clitoridis. The posterior
lamellae fuse at the back of the clitoris and form the frenulum. The
nymphae diverge backwards and terminate in the middle of the rima.
[Illustration: CUT XIV.
_Nympha and vagina._
pe, pavement epithelium; v, vagina; sc, stratum corneum; n, nympha; p,
papilla.]
_Vestibulum._—The vestibule is the area inclosed between the two
nymphae, extending from the clitoris to the fourchette. Some authors
call vestibule only the space from the clitoris to the vaginal opening,
the rest from the vaginal orifice to the fourchette is then called
fossa navicularis. On either side of the vestibule, beneath the mucous
membrane, embracing the urethra, are situated the vestibular bulbs, two
pyriform, thick, erectile vein-plexus.
_Bulbs._—The bulbs are under the influence and partly covered by the
ischio-cavernosus and constrictor vagina muscles. The lower ends
terminate at the middle of the vaginal aperture. Hence during the
engagement under sexual excitement they help to narrow the entrance of
the vagina. The anterior ends of the bulbs extend toward the clitoris
and unite with the cavernous tissue of this organ.
_Clitoris._—The clitoris is a small organ situated between the branched
anterior extremities of the nymphae which furnish the praeputium and
frenulum of the clitoris. It is rarely, even in the state of erection,
larger than two centimeters. The clitoris consists of two crura, a
corpus, and a small glans, which is rarely exceeding a small pea in
size. The crura arise from the inferior surface of each ischio-pubic
ramus of the pubic bone, and after fusing below the pubic arch form the
body of the clitoris. The clitoris is sharply bent on itself, the glans
looking downward and backward towards the vaginal aperture.
The clitoris is the analogue of the male penis, with the only
difference that it is not perforated by the urethra. The latter
opens into the vestibule, midway between the clitoris and vaginal
orifice, and is surrounded by a fold of mucous membrane. The clitoris
is equipped with two erectile organs, the corpora cavernosa, and
two muscles, the musculi ischio-cavernosi, and is, therefore, very
erectile. The clitoris is supplied with an abundance of delicate
sensory nerve-ends, including the end-bulbs and the Pacinian and
Meissner’s corpuscles, and is therefore extremely sensitive.
[Illustration: CUT XV.
_External genitals after removal of skin. After Martin._
1, clitoris; 2, plexus of veins in the vaginal wall; 3, glans of
clitoris; 4, bulbus vestibuli; 5, orifice of vagina; 6, constrictor
cunni; 7, sphincter ani; 8, anus.]
_Bartholinian glands._—On either side of the vaginal orifice open
the ducts of the Bartholinian glands. The two small glands are of
the racemose type and not larger in size than a small pea. They are
situated beneath the bulbs of the vestibule.
_Hymen._—The vaginal orifice, in the virginal state, is partly closed
by an imperfect septum, the hymen. The hymen is a fold of tissue,
presenting a structure similar to that of the vagina. The fold is
usually attached to the posterior vaginal wall. The hymen closes only
incompletely the vaginal entrance, leaving an opening which varies in
size from the head of a pin to a calibre which will admit the tip of
one or two fingers. The opening of the hymen is, as a rule, semilunar
and reaches the anterior vaginal wall. After defloration or sometimes
only after the first confinement, the hymen is torn at several points
and shows only remnants, the so-called carunculae myrtiformes.
[Illustration: CUT XVI.
_Genitals of a girl at puberty._
1, right labium majus; 2, duct of Bartholinian gland; 3, Bartholinian
gland; 4, rima pudendi.]
_Vagina._—The vagina is a musculo-membranous tube, extending from
the vulva to the uterus. The lumen is only virtual, i. e., at rest
the vaginal walls are in contact with each other, and the passage
appears as a fissure, the latter assuming on a crosscut the form of
the letter “H.” The walls of the vagina are composed of three coats,
an exterior connective tissue coat, a thick muscular coat and a mucous
membrane. The muscular coat comprises two layers of strong unstriped
muscular fibres, the outer longitudinal, the inner circular. The
latter, being more largely developed near the vaginal aperture, forms
a part of the sphincter vaginae. The mucous membrane is covered with
a pavement epithelium and is equipped with a great number of papillae,
but is devoid of glands. The entire vagina is surrounded by a strong
net of venous blood-vessels. The anterior vaginal wall is about
seven centimeters long and presents at the mucous surface a median
longitudinal ridge; the posterior wall is about ten centimeters long
and has two ridges, from which a number of transverse rugae pass, the
columnae rugarum. Only a small part of the posterior vaginal wall is in
contact with the floor of the pelvis and is covered with peritoneum.
The entire vaginal tube lies between the bladder and the rectum.
[Illustration: CUT XVII.
_Diagram of the pelvic organs._
1, labia majora; 2, nympha; 3, clitoris; 4, symphysis; 5, urethra; 6,
bladder; 7, vagina with columna rugarum; 8, orificium utero-vaginale;
9, internal os; 10, body of uterus; 11, perineum; 12, anus; 13,
rectum; 14, peritoneum; 15, vertebra.]
[Illustration: CUT XVIII.
_Diagram of the uterus._
1, fundus; 2, cavum uteri; 3, body; 4, internal os; 5, cervix; 6,
external os.]
“Inter faeces et urinas nascimur”
laments the pious father of the Church. A part of the musculus
constrictor ani surrounds the orifice of the vagina and is known under
the name of constrictor cunni.
When the woman is in an erect position, the vaginal orifice looks
directly to the ground, the course of the vagina being almost vertical,
with a slight inclination from the front to the back toward the vaginal
vaults. The vault or fornix is divided by the projecting cervix into
two lateral vaults, an anterior shallow and a posterior deep vault.
[Illustration: CUT XIX.
_Uterus of a four-year-old child._
ce, cylindrical epithelium; mt, muscular tissue; g, uterine gland.]
_Uterus._—The uterus is a hollow, pyriform, flattened, thick muscular
organ. It is divided into the upper thick end, or fundus, the body,
and the neck or cervix. The uterine cavity has somewhat the shape of
a triangle, its basis corresponding to the uterine base. The uterine
cavity communicates with the canals of the Fallopian tubes by two
openings at the angles of the basis. The lower angle is continued into
the cervical canal and opens into the vagina. The median part of the
cervical canal is widened. The narrow opening into the cavity of the
uterus is known under the name of os internum, while the opening into
the vagina is called os externum. The uterine cavity is coated with a
mucous membrane, covered with columnar epithelia of the ciliated type,
which bears a great number of tubular glands.
The mucous membrane of the cervical canal shows a system of small
folds, the arbor vitae. The covering of the cervical canal is also a
high columnar, ciliated epithelium. The latter changes into a pavement
epithelium at the external os.
[Illustration: CUT XX.
_Cervix uteri from a day-old infant._
pe, pavement epithelium of the vaginal portion of the cervix;
c, border-line of the portio and the cavity of the cervix; CE,
cylindrical epithelium of the cavity of the cervix; v, blood-vessels.]
The second uterine coat consists of non-striated muscular fibres.
The uterus has no submucosa. There is an inner circular and an outer
longitudinal muscular layer. The larger uterine blood-vessels lie
chiefly between these two layers.
The cervix is composed mainly of connective tissue in which is found
a large amount of elastic fibres. The cervix contains also erectile
tissue of the same kind as the clitoris and the bulbs.
The entire uterus, as far as it is not situated between other organs,
is covered with peritoneum. The anterior surface of the uterus is
almost flat and is covered with a layer of peritoneum which is
inflected upon the bladder at the level of the os internum. The
posterior surface is convex and covered, in its whole extent, with a
layer of peritoneum which is prolonged downward for a short distance
upon the posterior wall of the vagina. The anterior and posterior
peritoneal coverings unite laterally and form the broad ligaments.
The uterus is fixed in its place by the round ligaments. The latter are
the continuations of the uterine tissue. They run between the folds
of the broad ligaments and through the inguinal canals and terminate
within the tissue of the labia majora.
[Illustration: CUT XXI.
_Schema of the internal female genital apparatus._
a, Fallopian tube; b, ovary; c, cervix; d, round ligament; e, vagina;
f, uterus.]
The uterus is normally anteflected, the fundus lying forward near the
symphysis, and the cervix to the rear. The average length of the uterus
is about seven centimeters, the breadth is about four centimeters.
_Fallopian tubes._—The Fallopian tubes are two serpentine,
trumpet-shaped tubes, of about twelve centimeters in length. They lie
at the upper margin of the broad ligaments, between the two layers of
the same. The uterine half of the tubal canal is narrow, about three
millimeters in diameter, and opens into the basic uterine angle; the
distal half is of a width of about eight millimeters in diameter,
widens into the ampulla and opens into the abdominal cavity. This
opening is surrounded with fringes, one of which touches almost the
ovary and probably furnishes the road the ovum takes to reach the tube.
[Illustration: CUT XXII.
_Crosscut of a Fallopian tube of a child four years old._
E, epithelium; mc, mucosa; ml, muscular layer; p, peritoneum; v,
blood-vessel.]
The tube is composed of three coats, the outer peritoneal coat, the
middle muscular coat, consisting of two layers—the outer longitudinal
and the inner circular layer—and the mucous membrane coat. The latter
is covered with a high ciliated, columnar epithelium. The ciliar motion
is toward the uterine cavity. The mucous membrane forms a large number
of plications in the adult.
_Ovaries._—The ovaries are two flattened almond-shaped organs of about
four centimeters in length and two centimeters in breadth. They lie
on the posterior surface of the ligamentum latum, on either side of
the uterus, with which they are connected by the ligamenta ovarii.
The ligament running between the two lamellae of the ligamentum
latum, leaves the latter through a fissure in the posterior lamella
and enters the ovary at the pointed end, the so-called hilus. The
ovarian ligament furnishes the fibrous tissue elements for the fibrous
skeleton, the stroma ovarii. The vessels and nerves also enter the
ovary at the hilus.
[Illustration: CUT XXIII.
_Ovary from a girl one year old._
E, germinal epithelium; PO, primitive ova; G, Graafian follicles; S,
stroma ovarii.]
The ovary is covered with a cubical genital epithelium. The epithelia
put forth solid nests of epithelial cells into the fibrous stroma.
These nests represent the primitive ova. Some of these cells become
larger and, surrounded by the other unchanged or follicular cells, are
finally changed into permanent ova. The entire crust of the ovary, the
zona parenchymatosa, consists of fibrous and epithelial elements. The
interior part, the zona vasculosa, consists of fibrous elastic tissue
and of non-striated muscular fibres.
_Graafian follicle._—The ovum surrounded by the follicular epithelium
is called the Graafian follicle. The ripe Graafian follicles lie
usually near the periphery of the ovary. The Graafian follicle is
bubble-shaped and is surrounded by a fibrous sheath, the theca
folliculi. The cavity contains a light yellow fluid, liquor folliculi.
The interior of the cavity is coated with several layers of follicular
epithelia. This coat is called the membrana granulosa. The follicular
epithelia form at one point a disc of cells, the discus oophorus, which
includes in its midst the ovum.
[Illustration: CUT XXIV.
_Graafian follicle, found by the author in a woman of forty, operated
for cancer of the uterus._
vg, vesicula germinativa; mg, macula germinativa; o, ovum; zp, zona
pellucida; cr, corona radiata; l, liquor in a coagulated state; a,
antrum folliculi; t, theca folliculi.]
_Ovum._—The ovum is a modified cell with a membrane, called zona
pellucida, a cytoplasm, called vitelus, a nucleus called vesicula
germinative, and a nucleolus, called macula germinative.
At the time of menstruation the Graafian follicle bursts; the ovum thus
freed, is taken up by the current, called forth by the ciliar motion of
the tubal epithelia, and brought through the tubes into the uterus.
_Nerves and their centres._—The centres of the female genital nerves
are, just as in the male, six in number, three cerebral, two spinal and
one in the medulla oblongata. There is, in the first place, the centre
of voluptas or cupido, or the centre for the sexual instinct; secondly
the centre for experiencing libido or pleasure, and thirdly the centre
of inhibition, which under certain circumstances, as in fear, disgust,
grief, etc., prevents the erection of clitoris, bulbs, and cervix. The
inhibitory centre, however, plays a secondary rôle in the female. The
two spinal centres are the centres of erection and of ejaculation.
[Illustration: CUT XXV.
_Schema of a cell._
a, cell membrane; b, cell-body or cytoplasm; c, nucleus.]
The nerve-supply of the genitals is furnished by the spinal nerves and
the nervus sympathicus. The lumbar plexus, formed by the four lumbar
nerves, sends off the nervus ilio-inguinalis, the terminal branches of
which are distributed in the mons veneris. The sacral plexus, formed by
a part of the fourth and the entire fifth lumbar nerves and the four
upper sacral nerves, sends off the nervus pudendus communis, which is
distributed in the clitoris, as nervus dorsalis clitoridis and in the
labia, as nervi labiales posteriores. The nerves of the vagina are
derived from the hypogastric plexus, the fourth sacral nerve and the
pubic nerve. The nerves of the uterus are derived from the ovarian
plexus, and from the third and fourth sacral nerves. The nerves of the
ovary are derived from the hypogastric, pelvic and ovarian plexus.
The oviducts are supplied by the ovarian plexus. The nervi erigentes,
distributed in the corpora cavernosa of the clitoris, in the bulbs and
in the erectile tissue of the vagina and cervix, are derived from the
hypogastric plexus.
CHAPTER V
THE SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERISTICS
In the preceding two chapters there were described the primary sexual
characteristics of man and woman which are already found in early
foetal life. The secondary sexual characteristics, by which we are able
to distinguish the male from the female, quite irrespective of the
essential organs of reproduction and by which the sexes are made more
attractive to each other, begin to develop at the time of puberty.
At this period of life certain changes take place in the body of the
child, and the differences between the sexes become more pronounced.
The stamp of sex is no longer confined to the pelvis, but is impressed
on every part of the body. In the first years of existence the child
is almost asexual, in physical as well as in mental relation. The
child is yet neutral; it is only a spinal being or a digestive tube.
All its actions are directed upon one aim, the preservation of the
individual. Hence there is no great physical difference in children of
the different sexes. The differences begin to show with the beginning
of puberty and are definite at the close of this period. In the animal
kingdom, especially among birds and mammals, nature has distinguished
the male with the greater beauty. Man’s galantry designates women as
the beautiful sex.
The man’s figure is characterized by a relative robustness, the forms
are sinewy, the contours less rounded. The bony prominences are more
conspicuous and the muscles more clearly defined. The skeleton is
relatively larger, the stature is higher and the form is erect. The
head is much larger, and the growth of the hair on it less pronounced.
The male skull is more tilted back, the occipital protuberance larger.
The glabella or the projection over the nose is more pronounced. The
superciliary ridges more prominent. The eyes, therefore, appear much
smaller. The lower jaw is markedly larger, the lips are thicker
and the mouth is larger. Hence the face appears less delicately cut.
The chin and upper lip are covered with hair. Man’s neck is less
cylindrical than woman’s and presents four slightly flattened surfaces.
The laryngeal projection is highly pronounced.
[Illustration: CUT XXVI.
_Showing proportions of man and woman._]
Man’s shoulders are not sloping but square, showing traces of sinews
and muscles. The thorax is longer. The beautifully rounded form of the
female bosom is missing. The breasts appear atrophic, the mammillae
insignificant. The trunk is relatively shorter.
The pelvis is higher and smaller. The circumference of the hips is
relatively smaller. The angle formed by the superior plane of the
pelvis with the horizon, when standing, is relatively smaller. Hence
the buttocks are less protuberant.
The limbs are longer. The forearm is more in a straight line with the
arm. The muscles are highly developed, hence no traces of the pleasant
rotundity of the female arm. The hands are larger, the fingers thicker.
The thigh is more columnar and does not taper so rapidly as in woman.
The obliquity is less emphasized. The feet are larger and more sinewy.
The skin is of coarser texture, darker, lacking of smoothness and
softness, and is more hairy. The figure shows a lack of curves through
the paucity of the paniculus adiposus.
Man’s steps are longer, his gait is less swinging. Man’s voice is
vibrant and deep. Man’s respiration is of the lower costal type.
Woman’s figure is ordinarily characterized by a relative gracility,
the forms are more delicate, the contours more rounded, and the waist
narrower than in man. The skeleton is more delicate, the stature
lower. The head is smaller and covered with more hair. The hairs are
luxuriant. The features of the face are more delicately cut, the beard
is wanting, the eyes are more beautiful and lustrous, the cheeks are
rounder, and the lips daintily curved. The neck is round and long,
lacking the laryngeal projection. The chest is narrower, the shoulders
sloping. The hemispheric form of the breasts with the well-pronounced
mammilae render the bosom highly attractive. The abdomen is longer,
hence the distance between the navel and the pubes is greater than in
men. The pelvis is lower and larger than in the male, and surpasses
the line of the shoulders. The inclination of the pelvis is more
pronounced, hence the buttocks are more protuberant. The woman’s body
thus seems to be somewhat more reminiscent of the quadrupedal posture
than man’s. There is a greater obliquity and conicity of the thighs.
The calves are very pronounced. The skin, in general, is of a finer
texture, whiter, smoother and less hairy than in men. The paniculus
adiposus is abundant, hence the figure is all curves and does not show
the angles, as in man. The limbs are relatively short, more delicate,
more rounded, tapering and less muscular than in man. The feet are
smaller and more daintily shaped. The hands are comely and the fingers
slender.
The woman’s steps are shorter, her gait more graceful. The woman’s
voice differs in pitch as well as in timbre from man’s. It has a higher
note and sweeter tone. The woman’s respiration is of the upper costal
type.
PART IV.
PHYSIOLOGY OF SEX
CHAPTER VI
CELL-DIVISION, MATURITION, IMPREGNATION
[Illustration: CUT XXVII.
_Fissiparous reproduction of the amoeba._
The single-celled animal “a” is divided after different steps into two
animals, “f” and “g.”]
The main function of the genital glands is the production of
germ-cells, the spermatozoa in the male and the ova in the female. This
production is effected by means of cell-division. The division may be
direct as found in the fissiparous reproduction of the amoeba. As soon
as the cell reaches a certain size, it divides itself into two cells.
The more complicated form of cell-division is the indirect division
called “Mitosis” or “Karyokynesis.”
As shown before the cell consists of two main parts, the smaller part
called the nucleus and the larger portion called the cytoplasm. The
nucleus shows in its interior a linin net and deeply staining granules.
Because of this quality they are called “chromatin.” The cytoplasm in
the close proximity of the nucleus contains minute granules, situated
either singly or in pairs which are called “centrosomes.”
In the indirect division the nucleus is divided by a complicated
process. Simultaneously the cytoplasm and the membrane are also
cleft in two parts. In the typical cell division two parallel series
of changes occur nearly simultaneously, one affecting the nucleus,
the other the cytoplasm. The chromatin which is usually (Fig. A,
Cut XXVIII) in form of scattered granules, arranged along the linin
network, becomes aggregated together in certain definite areas (Fig.
B), forming usually a convoluted thread or skein. This skein appears
either in form of a long filament or divided up into a series of
segments called “chromosomes” (Fig. C). The number of chromosomes is
constant for each species of plant and animal. Thus, in the common
mouse these chromosomes are twenty-four in number, in the onion
sixteen, in the sea-urchin eighteen, etc. The number is always an
even one. By this time the nuclear membrane has disappeared, and the
chromosomes appear usually as a collection of bands lying free in the
cytoplasm (Fig. D).
At the same time, another series of changes has gone through the
centrosome and the cytoplasm in the cell-body. The centrosome assumes
an ellipsoid form, constricts transversely into a dumb-bell-shaped
figure (Fig. B), and divides into two daughter centrosomes. Around
each of them is gradually developed a stellate figure composed
of a countless number of delicate fibrils, radiating out in all
directions from the centrosome as a centre. The entire constellation
is called “aster.” The two asters grow in size progressively as the
two centrosomes move apart toward the poles of the cell (Fig.
C). Between the two asters a spindle-shaped system of delicate
fibrils appears stretching from one aster to the other which is
called “central-spindle” (Fig. D). The two asters together with the
central-spindle represent the “Amphiaster”.
[Illustration: CUT XXVIII.
_Mitosis or indirect division of a cell._
cy, cytoplasm; n, nucleus; c, centrosome; nu, nucleolus; l, linin;
sk, skein; a, aster; cs, central spindle; ch, chromosome; u, U-shaped
loops; mf, mantle fibres; cf, connecting fibrils.]
At this point the centrosomes or the asters and the chromosomes begin
to work together. A system of fibrils grows out from each aster which
attach themselves to the individual chromosomes. The latter bent into
U-shaped loops arrange themselves in a circle around the centre of the
spindle and form the “equatorial plate” (Fig. E).
The chromosomes are now longitudinally split, and the halves move
toward the poles as if drawn by the mantle fibres (Fig. F). The loops
are still connected with each other by these connecting mantle fibres
(Fig. G and H).
The new U-shaped loops form now new skeins at each pole (Fig. I). The
chromatin granules now separate along the thread of the linin network,
and the new nuclear membranes are formed (Fig. K).
Simultaneously with the forming of the two daughter nuclei the
cell-body constricts across the middle of the somewhat elongated cell.
The constriction increases until a complete division in the equatorial
plane of the spindle has taken place. The result is the formation of
two separate daughter cells (Fig. L).
_Maturition._—This mode of cell division is made use of by the
organism in the maturing of the germ cells into gametes. Before the
conjugation of the ovum with the spermatozoön takes place, most ova
extrude two polar bodies in the following way. Twice a division of
the ovum takes place, each time into two quite unequal parts. The
smaller, called polar bodies, remain near the periphery of the egg
cell and are extruded later on. The same phenomenon is observed in the
spermatocytes. The immature germ cell can neither impregnate nor become
impregnated respectively, until, by a twice repeated cell division,
a part of the nuclear substance has been cast off. Only after this
has been effected does the germ cell become a gamete (a marriageable
cell, from the Greek word γαμέω, I marry), i. e., a cell capable to
impregnate or being impregnated.
This maturition of the germ cell has hitherto been veiled in a mystery,
which did not admit any plausible explanation. Why is the loss of half
of the chromosomes necessary? Nowadays it has been accepted by most of
the biologists that maturition stands in close connection with Mendel’s
law of segregation.
The learned monk Mendel, in his convent garden, made several
important discoveries concerning the heredity of living organisms.
He first discovered the quality which he called “unit characters”.
Unit characters are, in the first place, the characteristics of the
species, such as the number of the fingers. Unit characters are further
characteristic of the sex, as the beard in the male and the breast in
the female. Lastly there are the individual unit characters, as black
hair or blue eyes. Unit characters are controlled by determiners which
are either dominant or recessive. Unit characters, for this reason, do
not blend. The color of the eyes, for example, is a unit character,
and black is the dominant color. Hence when a black animal or plant is
crossed with a white one, the hybrid is always black. The black type
predominates in the influence upon the hybrid, while the type of white
exercises the lesser influence.
The second phenomenon Mendel discovered is that of segregation. By
segregation is understood the separation of opposite determiners.
Every unripe ovum or spermatocyte in the hybrid plant or animal,
contains, for example, white and black determiners, but the ripe ovum
or spermatozoön contains only one kind of determiner, either white or
black, that is, during the ripening of the germ cell into the gamete
one kind of the determiners has been eliminated.
Segregation, therefore, means that the gamete, or sex cell after
maturition, has either dominant or recessive determiners, never both.
Segregation thus affects the purity of the gametes. The matured ovum
and spermatozoön are always pure, even in the hybrid plants or animals.
Accordingly, when a spermatozoön, with a white determiner impregnates
an ovum with a white determiner, although both originated in black
hybrids, the zygote, or the impregnated cell, will be a pure white.
When a black ovum is impregnated by a black spermatozoön, the zygote
will be a pure black. If the ovum is black and the spermatozoön is
white or the ovum is white and the spermatozoön is black, the zygote
will also be black, but a black hybrid.
Black + black = black, 25% pure.
Black + white = black, 25% hybrid.
White + black = black, 25% hybrid.
White + white = white, 25% pure.
Thus, when a black bean e. c. is crossed with a white bean, all the
offspring in the first generation will be black but hybrids. When two
of these hybrids are then crossed, the dominant color black will be
represented by 75 per cent. of the offspring and the recessive color
white by 25 per cent., i. e., the offspring in the second generation,
although both parents are black, will be three-fourths black and
one-fourth white. For the gamete of two hybrid parents is always pure.
The zygote of two hybrid parents is either pure or hybrid. When the two
gametes are similar, the zygote is pure and is called homozygous, when
the two gametes are dissimilar, the zygote is heterozygous. Hybrids,
by the faculty of segregation, produce in the first generation of
hybridism, fifty per cent. homozygous zygotes (25% pure whites and
25% pure blacks) and fifty per cent. heterozygous zygotes (all hybrid
blacks). Hence the apparent paradoxical phenomenon that when a pure
blond is married to a pure brunette, all the children are brunette,
while when both the parents are brunette, but hybrids, the offspring
will be twenty-five per cent. blond and only seventy-five per cent.
brunette. The blond being recessive can only be pure, while the
brunette being dominant, may be either pure or hybrid.
[Illustration: CUT XXIX.
_Diagram illustrating the fertilization of the egg after Boveri._
A, egg surrounded by spermatazoa, one penetrating the membranes,
the cytoplasm sending at “p” a hill-like processus to meet the
spermatozoön; B, the tail of the spermatozoön is vanished, the sperm
nucleus preceded by its centrosome is moving towards the egg nucleus
which shows a chromatin reticulum; C, egg nucleus and sperm nucleus
are near each other, between them the aster fibrils; D, the centrosome
has divided, the chromatin has taken the form of chromosomes; E, first
cleavage of the chromosomes, the splitted chromosomes are lying on the
equatorial line; F, the cleavage is complete, the two-celled stage;
s, spermatazoa; on, nucleus of the ovum; p, hill-like processus; sn,
spermatozoön-nucleus; sc, spermatozoön centrosome; cn, chromatin-net;
af, aster fibrils; cho, chromosome of the ovum; chs, chromosome of the
spermatozoön; dc, divided centrosome; spc, splitted chromosomes, the
lighter that of the spermatozoön and the darker those of the ovum; nn,
new nuclei, each containing four chromosomes, two from the ovum and
two from the spermatozoön.]
This law, that the determiner in the protoplasm of the parent cell,
or rather in the nucleus of the cell, always fixes the character of
the progeny, holds good only of the unit character. Many individual
characters are fluctuations and play no part in Mendelian heredity.
Bodily modifications, resulting from environing conditions, are not
Mendelized. Most of the human traits Mendelize, such as stature,
span, size of head, shades of color of hair and eyes, hair curliness,
pulse rate, digestion and the psychic traits, such as determination,
cheerfulness, alertness, resistance to fatigue. Some anomalies also
depend upon the determiners and Mendelize, such as colorblindness,
ness, night blindness, albinoism, brachydactylism (only two finger
joints instead of three), syndactylism, polydactylism, keratosis,
hemophilia, cataract, deaf-mutism, imbecility, Hutchinson’s chorea,
epilepsy, and some forms of insanity.
The Mendelian law of segregation has somewhat lifted the veil in which
maturition was wrapped. Every germ cell, being a product of two parent
cells, is in one way or other a hybrid. By casting off half of the
chromosomes during its maturing, it becomes pure. The gamete is thus
always pure and ready for impregnation.
_Impregnation._—The process of impregnation is about the same in most
many-celled animals. As soon as the head of a single spermatozoön
enters the egg-cytoplasm, a new membrane is formed around the ovum
which effectually prevents the entrance of any other spermatozoa. The
head and the middle piece penetrate now into the egg, the tail usually
remaining imbedded in the membrane where it soon degenerates.
A few moments after the spermatozoön has entered the egg, a system of
radiation appears around the middle piece which develops into an aster,
surrounding the centrosome of the sperm cell (Cut 29, Fig. B.).
The sperm nucleus now increases in size, and its chromatin changes into
a reticulate form. Sperm aster and sperm nucleus, the aster preceding,
now move toward the egg nucleus. As the nuclei approach each other the
sperm nucleus increases still more in size, until both become almost of
the same size (Fig. C.).
The chromatin network of each nucleus now breaks up into a number of
chromosomes and the nuclei come into contact and fuse together. The
centrosome, together with its aster, divide now into two parts, and the
two daughter centrosomes move apart to the opposite poles of the ovum,
and the typical amphi-aster of cell division, as above described, is
formed (Fig. D.).
The nuclear membranes now disappear and the chromosomes are drawn
together into the equatorial plate where each splits longitudinally.
The halves are drawn by the mantle fibrils toward the opposite poles
where they are transformed into two daughter nuclei (Fig. E.). In
the meantime the cytoplasm has also divided. The result are two new
cells. This process of division is repeated continuously in each of
the resulting generations of cells. From the mass of cells thus formed
develops the new organism.
CHAPTER VII
THE FUNCTION OF THE MALE GENERATIVE ORGANS
_Testicles._—The function of the testicles is threefold. There is first
the inner secretion of certain substances, spermines, which are the
cause of the male secondary characteristics. Eunuchs who have been
operated upon before puberty show feminine traits in their appearance
throughout their lives. They have sloping shoulders, flabby muscles,
beardless faces, high-pitched, squeaky voices and festoons of fat on
breasts and hips. Secondly, certain stimuli starting from the testicles
serve to increase the tonus of the centres of erection. The main
function of the testicles is the production of spermatozoa.
[Illustration: CUT XXX.
_Spermatogenesis._
1, basement membrane; 2, Sertoli’s or sustentacular cell; 3,
spermatogone; 4, spermatocytes; 5, spermatids; 6, heads of
spermatozoa.]
_Spermatogenesis._—The testicles belong to the class of tubulous
glands. The tubules are through the greater part of their course
convoluted, tubuli contorti, toward the end they become straight,
tubuli recti. The wall of the convoluted tubules consists of three
layers, (1) an external connective tissue layer, (2) a middle
basement membrane, and (3) interiorly, an epithelial lining. The
epithelium consists of two kinds of cells, first the supporting or the
sustentacular or Sertoli’s cells and secondly the glandular cells.
When in activity, the glandular cells show three different strata,
which represent the three different stages of spermatogenesis. The
first stratum, the spermatogones, lie against the basement membrane.
They soon begin to increase by cell division and move toward the centre
of the tubule. During this movement they increase in size and show the
different stages of mitotic division. These enlarged cells are called
spermatocytes and form the second stratum. The cells produced by the
mitosis of the spermatocytes constitute the third stratum and are
called spermatids.
During the transformation of the spermatocyte into a spermatid a
reduction of its chromosomes to one-half the number, specific for the
species, takes place. This reduction represents the maturition of the
sperm-cell, when the segregation of the unit characters is effected. A
spermatid is, therefore, already a gamete, i. e., a reproductive cell
in the reduced condition.
The spermatids are small round cells which line the lumen of the
seminiferous tubules. The spermatids soon become ovoid. The nucleus
forms the head, and the cytoplasm is drawn into a tail-like processus.
In this stage the spermatids are called spermatozoa. A Sertoli’s cell,
together with a group of developing spermatozoa attached to its central
end, is called spermatoblast.
The epithelium of the tubuli contorti thus consists of three strata,
first of the stratum of the spermatogones, lying against the basement
membrane, secondly of the stratum of spermatocytes which are
spermatogones in the state of mitosis, and thirdly of the stratum of
spermatids which are transformed spermatocytes. The spermatozoa are
spermatids which have assumed their permanent shape.
The spermatozoön is divided into three parts, the head, which is the
modified nucleus of the male reproductive cell, the intermediate
segment, which is the cytoplasm of the cell, and the tail, which is
a veritable vibrating cilium, as found in ciliated epithelial cells.
[Illustration: CUT XXXI.
_Spermatozoön._
a, head; b, intermediate segment; c, tail.]
The spermatozoa soon detach themselves from the spermatoblasts and
wander into the seminiferous tubules toward the rete vasculosum and
epididymis. The spermatozoa possess their own motion. The head is
propelled forward by a whip-like wriggling of the tail. The rate of
movement is 1.2 to 3.6 millimeters a minute. Water checks the movement
and causes the tail to curl up. Concentrated solutions of salts,
sugar, albumen and urea may revive the spermatozoa to former activity.
Metal salts and acids arrest the movements, while caustic potash and
soda invigorate them. Even thin and weak acid solutions, as urine and
the vaginal contents,[C] are harmful, while alkaline solutions are
favorable to the spermatozoa. In spermatozoa, which have died gradually
after ejaculation, the tail is outstretched or slightly curved, while
in those discharged dead, the tail is rolled up in a spiral.
_Seminal vesicles._—The seminal vesicles have several functions.
The internal secretions serve directly as an excitans of the sexual
impulse. The distension of the vesicles reflectorily stimulates the
sexual centres. It is a well-known fact that the distention of the
vesicles in strict continence gives rise to frequent erections, just as
well as the full bladder, constipation, lithiasis, and diseases of the
prostate or of the rectum.
The main functions of the vesicles are three in number. The vesicles
serve, in the first place, as a reservoir for the testicular
secretions. The other function consists in the reabsorption of the
unejaculated sperma. The third function is to furnish a fluid for the
dilution of the very thick testicular secretion and a medium where the
spermatozoa can best carry out their motions.
The seminal vesicles secrete a peculiar mucus, which is thick,
fibrinous, glairy, and albuminous. This secretion constitutes the bulk
of the semen.
_Prostate._—The prostatic gland has a double function. It is the main
point wherefrom the stimuli for the sexual impulse start. The internal
secretions of the prostatic parenchyma send libidinogenous substances
into the blood. The colliculus, rich in nervous elements, sends also
out nervous libidinogenous stimuli. The principal function of the
prostate is its secretion which imparts to the otherwise sluggish
spermatozoa their lively movements.
The secretion of the prostate is thin, milky, translucent, amphoteric
or slightly acid. It contains the base spermin which causes the
peculiar seminal odor. The secretion gives to the inert spermatozoa
their peculiar motion and life.
_Cowper’s glands._—The Cowper’s glands secrete a mucous albuminous
fluid of alkaline reaction. The secretion takes place before the
ejaculation of the semen.
_Urethral glands._—The urethral glands secrete a viscid clear fluid.
The secretion of these glands, together with that of Cowper’s glands,
serve first as a lubricant for the walls of the urethra. The other
function is to neutralize the contents covering the urethral walls. The
latter are ordinarily bathed in acid urine. This acidity would harm the
spermatozoa.
[Illustration: CUT XXXII.
_Normal sperma._
1, Boettcher’s crystals; 2, amyloid bodies; 3, hyaline bodies; 4,
testicular cells; 5, urethral epithelia; 6, lecithin bodies; 7,
spermatozoa.]
_Semen._—The semen is composed of the secretions of the testicles,
seminal vesicles, prostatic gland, Cowper’s glands and the urethral
glands. The semen is a thick, colorless, gelatinous, opalescent,
non-transparent, viscid fluid, resembling boiled starch. It possesses a
specific odor sui generis, due to the presence of phosphate of spermin.
Its specific gravity is higher than that of water, its reaction is
alkaline. It is soluble in water and acids, and is coagulated in
alcohol. If it is let stand in a test tube, two layers will be formed,
a lower one opaque, consisting of spermatozoa and other cellular
elements, and an upper one turbid and translucent, with only a few
cells and detritus. The two layers are of about equal thickness.
The semen consists of about ninety per cent. water and ten per cent.
solids. Of the solids sixty per cent. are organic substances, thirty
per cent. earthly phosphates, and ten per cent. sodium chloride. When a
drop of fresh semen is observed under the microscope, it is found full
of motion, as if an anthill had been stirred up. This motion lasts for
about twelve hours. It is caused by the living spermatozoa. The number
of spermatozoa in an ordinary emission, of about ten grammes, is about
two hundred to three hundred millions. Besides the moving spermatozoa,
there are found a certain number of lecithin globules. Their size is
about half the size of a red blood corpuscle. When semen is let stand
for a certain time, Boettcher’s crystals, consisting of phosphate of
spermin, are formed from the base which gives to the semen its peculiar
smell and which is derived from the prostatic secretions. The semen
also shows the presence of different kinds of epithelia, the pavement
epithelia from the fossa navicularis urethra, the round cells from the
prostate, and the columnar epithelia from Cowper’s glands.
_Erection._—The male sexual activity consists in the essential
features, intromission and ejaculation. For intromission erection is an
absolute necessity. The lumen of the vagina is only virtual, there is
no real lumen. It follows that only an unflexible body could penetrate
into this organ, where the semen has to be deposited for the production
of the new being. For this reason, it is prerequisite to copulation
that the penis, which is normally in a state of flaccidity, should
obtain the required rigidity. This rigidity is gained in the following
way.
The tonus, which is present in all the blood-vessels of the body, is
the cause that the arteries of the corpora cavernosa penis have only a
virtual and not a real lumen. For between the layers of the circular
muscular fibres of these vessels is found a layer of longitudinal
fibres which narrow the lumen and almost entirely compress it.
When the tonus relaxes, the blood precipitates into the enlarged
vessels and the cavernous spaces, and an active increase in the amount
of arterial blood is the result. Through the increase of the lumen
of the arteries and caverns, the veins are compressed and the blood
cannot flow out of the cavernous bodies. Thus the active increase of
arterial blood serves as a check of the reflux of the blood through
the veins by the pressure of the distended arteries and caverns upon
these veins. Besides this check, the vena profunda cummunis, by which
the blood of the corpora cavernosa penis has to return, passes through
the unstriped muscular fibres of the musculus transversus perinei
profundus. Now, this muscle contracts synchronously through the same
influence of the nervi erigentes which caused the relax of the tonus
in the arteries. The contraction of the muscle causes the compression
of the vena profunda and prevents the blood from flowing off. Besides
the muscular transversus perinei, the musculus ischio-cavernosus which
arises from the os ischii and encircles the radix of the penis, as well
as the musculus bulbo-cavernosus by compressing the bulbus urethrae
will, both, at their contraction, prevent the blood from flowing off.
In this way there is not only an active increase in the amount of
arterial blood, but also an abrupt decrease in the amount of venous
blood, flowing out of the penis. The corpora cavernosa, therefore,
become of almost cartilaginous hardness, and the penis reaches the
state of rigidity, necessary to the performance of the male sex-act.
When erection is complete the contraction of the musculus erector penis
draws the organ up against the abdomen and gives it the same direction
as that of the vagina.
_Colliculus._—With the erection of the corpora cavernosa, the
colliculus also swells and almost fills up the entire lumen of
the prostatic urethra. In this way the bladder which has already
been closed by the contraction of the sphincter, is closed up more
tightly, so that not a drop of urine could escape. The erection of the
colliculus also causes the orifices of the ejaculatory ducts to take
the direction forwards toward the pars membranacea.
_Urethra._—At this stage the urethra obtains an actual lumen. Through
the net of veins which surround the mucous membrane of the urethra and
through the turgescence of the corpus cavernosum urethrae, the canal
of the urethra opens and remains gaping through the entire duration of
the erection. In this way it is admirably fitted to give a free passage
for the semen. In the mean time the urethral glands are constantly
secreting their viscid clear fluid, which, together with the secretion
of the Cowper’s glands, provide a lubricating and protecting coat for
the urethra and neutralize the contents of the urethral walls which are
otherwise bathed in acid urine.
_Ejaculation._—The last important step of the male sexual act is
ejaculation. The spermatozoa leave the lining of the tubuli contorti
and wander through the tubuli recti to the rete vasculosum and hence
through the vasa efferentia to the head of the epididymis. They
continue their wanderings through the epididymis and vasa deferentia
until they reach the seminal vesicles and the ejaculatory ducts. During
sexual tranquility and in a normal state of health, the ejaculatory
ducts, owing to the narrowness of their diameter and the oblique
direction of their orifices, are sufficiently compressed to prevent the
semen from reaching the urethra. The semen, therefore, remains in the
seminal vesicles until needed for ejaculation. If not needed in due
time, it is, as a rule, reabsorbed, and the overflow, if there be any,
is discharged during sleep, accompanied by libidinous dreams.
Coincident with erection the entire situation changes. Before
ejaculation the testicles are forcibly drawn up to the external rings
of the inguinal canal, by the action of the cremaster muscle. Through
the contraction of the epididymis and the coni vasculosi, the seminal
fluid is propelled toward the vasa deferentia. Through the peristaltic
movement of the vasa deferentia and the seminal vesicles, the semen
is pressed into the ejaculatory ducts. The latter, by means of the
muscular layer in their walls, forward the semen to the prostatic
urethra. The action of the ducts is at this moment facilitated by the
changed direction of their orifices. The change takes place through the
turgescence of the colliculus. The swelling of the colliculus and the
contraction of the external sphincter of the bladder prevent the semen
from flowing backward into the bladder.
At this stage the muscular substance of the prostate contracts and
squeezes out the prostatic fluid into the urethra. The fluid had been
stowed up in the follicles until there was a demand for it. All these
secretions of the testicles, seminal vesicles, and prostate, meet
synchronously in the prostatic urethra and are there temporarily stowed
up.
The muscular layer which surrounds the membranous portion of the
urethra is a veritable sphincter, the contractions or dilatations of
which will propel or retain the semen. The semen pouring from the
ejaculatory ducts and the secretion of the prostate are steadily
forced forward. But, retained by the contracted sphincter externus,
the semen is forced into the bulb of the urethra, as the place of
least resistance. In this way the bulbous part of the urethra becomes
distended and serves as a temporary reservoir for the semen before
ejaculation. By reflex excitation, this distention causes spasmodic
contractions of the musculus bulbo-cavernosus and clonic contractions
of the accelerator urinae. The contractions of these two muscles
overcome the contractions of the sphincter, i. e., the muscular layer
of the membranous portion of the urethra, and the semen is driven
forward and gushes out of the meatus, in several jets, through the open
and well-lubricated canal of the urethra.
_Nervous control of erection._—The mechanism of erection and
ejaculation is controlled by six centres, the three cerebral, one in
the medulla oblongata, and the two spinal. Erection may be caused
by the stimulation of the cerebral centre of voluptas. Impressions
originating in the brain, as sexual thoughts, may evoke vigorous
erections. There is no function of the human economy over which the
mind exerts a more powerful influence than over that of sex. The
imagination, says Hammond, is always a more potent stimulant of sexual
desires than the physiological incentive supplied by nature. Besides by
imagination, the cerebral centre may be excited by impressions conveyed
through the senses. Sight, smell, hearing, and in some pathological
states even taste are well known to convey sexual stimulation to the
brain. The sense of touch has such an influence over the generative
function that it is considered the inseparable companion of sexual
activity.
[Illustration: CUT XXXIII.
_Diagram of nerves and centres._[D]
1, brain; 2, centre of inhibition; 3, centre of libido; 11, centre of
voluptas; 4, vasodilatory centre in the medulla oblongata; 16, centre
of erection; 7, centre of ejaculation; 10, genitals at the periphery.
The broken lines designate centripetal nerves, the solid lines denote
centrifugal nerves.]
Erection may further be stimulated by excitation of the centre in the
spinal cord. The direct electrical excitation of the spinal cord in
dogs evokes vigorous erections. The irritation of the spinal cord in
some spinal diseases often produces erections. Sleep, while lying on
the back, is known to produce vigorous erections, by increasing the
flow of blood to the spinal cord and by allowing the blood to settle
in the medulla oblongata and in the cord, so as to produce a passive
congestion.
Erections may finally be evoked by the stimulation of the peripheral
nerves at the genitals as on the glans and on the skin of the penis.
Especially the prostatic urethra and the colliculus are recognized as
the most sensitive area, the focal point of the nervous impressions on
the genital system. Pressure of the metal sound on the prostate or its
cauterization, tumors, calculi and inflammations, e. c., gonorrhoea,
may often excite erections. The prostatic mucous membrane is supposed
to be the seat of the pleasurable sensations. During any kind of sexual
activity, the prostatic area is intensely congested, and its nerves are
in a high state of tension. Excitations at the neighboring parts of the
genital organs, as evoked by hemorrhoids, stone in the bladder, full
bladder, worms or full rectum, may also produce erections.
The peripheral excitations of the genitals are transmitted to the
central nervous system, i. e., the centres in the pons and in the
medulla, by reflex action. From these centres the stimulus is
conveyed to the centres of erection in the lumbar region. If the
individual is in a state of unconsciousness as in sleep, the stimulus
at the periphery takes the direct road to the centre of erection. The
excitation of this centre is then carried by the way of the nervi
erigentes to the corpora cavernosa.
_Centre of inhibition._—All the nervous elements, the cerebral centre
of voluptas or sex-desire, the spinal centre of erection, and the
nerves at the periphery, not only at the genitals, but the nerve
endings of the skin through the entire body, work in perfect harmony.
Hence a man in full vigor of virility would have vigorous erections at
the slightest touch or even sight of a comely woman. Given our present
mode of life, with the ubiquitous opportunities for such sights at all
times, normal healthy men would have to walk around on the streets in a
state of permanent priapism, but for the cerebral centre of inhibition.
The influence emanating from this inhibitory centre works upon the
spinal centre to prevent erection. When the influence of this centre
is removed, erection is facilitated. When the spinal cord of a dog
is severed in the lumbar region, the irritation of the genitals more
readily provokes erection. With the removal of the inhibitory influence
during sleep, the least excitation of the genitals causes vigorous
erections. When the stimulation of the inhibitory centre is unusually
increased, as in neurasthenics and other nervous disorders, erections
fail to appear, when they are most desired.
Thus, by the inhibitory action of the brain, the tonus of the centre of
erection preserves the equilibrium, and it requires longer preparations
and more intense excitations than is ordinarily furnished in social
intercourse to evoke erections, necessary for the performance of the
sexual act. When cerebral inhibition is removed, as in sleep, erections
are facilitated. On the other hand, when the inhibitory influences are
increased, as in a state of intense mental occupation or of depressing
emotion, as fear of inability to consummate the act, or fear of
detection, or at the loss of the object of one’s affections, or in
cases of extreme modesty or disgust, etc., erections may be prevented
or entirely arrested. Hence the normal accomplishment of the sex-act
requires complete absence of doubts, apprehensions, of any anxiety
whatever, and want of confidence in one’s own power. Otherwise the
inhibitory influences will prevent a perfect erection.
_Centre of ejaculation._—The centre of ejaculation has its seat in the
level of the fourth lumbar vertebra. In a state of perfect health, the
excitability of this centre is much lower than that of erection. Hence
it requires more intense stimuli and longer preparation to produce an
ejaculation than an erection. The best stimulus for this centre is the
tender, soft, warm vaginal mucosa, when rubbing against the glans and
the skin of the penis.
_Orgasmus._—The complicated reflex nerve phenomena taking place in a
complete and perfect male sexual act may be described as follows:
At the first voluptuous thrill of a physical pleasurable sensation, and
at the first tactile excitation of the sensual organs, the cerebral
centre of inhibition is at once paralyzed and its influence is removed.
The centre of erection has now opportunity for the full display of its
vasodilatory influences. The tonus of the genital vessels is removed,
and an increased amount of blood flows into the arteries and caverns so
as to render the penis stone hard. Through the increased blood supply
and under the greatly increased nervous tension, the genital glands,
the testicles, seminal vesicles, and prostate secrete an increased
amount of their respective fluids. These secretions pour into the
urethral bulb and distend the same. The excitations, radiating from
this distension, serve to stimulate the centre of ejaculation, and the
contractions of the muscles bulbo-cavernosus and accelerator urinae
take place. The result of these contractions is the phenomenon of
ejaculation.
Simultaneously with the ejaculation, the nervous tension, which
was increased to the highest degree through the excitations of the
different organs, is also removed. This explosion of the nervous
tension during the crisis produces the pleasurable sensations which are
known under the name orgasm[E] (from the Greek word ὀργᾶν, to swell
with lust).
After ejaculation and the removal of the genital congestion, the
paralysis of the inhibitory centre ceases, and the normal nerve tonus
of the blood vessels gradually reappears. The influx of blood into
the genital vessels is thus cut off, and the erection of the corpora
cavernosa ceases. Only the colliculus remains yet swelled, for some
time. For this reason micturition is impossible immediately after
ejaculation. After the act follows a state of exhaustion, weariness,
weakness and inclination to sleep. Although the frantic condition
and the semi-delirium generally lasts a short time only, still it is
sufficiently long to exhaust completely the strength of the ordinary
organism. After a certain time of rest, sex connection in a healthy
person is followed by a joyous feeling and fresh vigor. The head feels
more free and easy, the body more elastic, and a greater disposition to
physical and intellectual labor results.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE FEMALE GENITAL ORGANS
_Functions of the ovary._—The ovary is lined by a layer of genital
epithelia (“Keimepithel”), which undergo certain changes during
the entire sexual life of the woman. The epithelia are continually
transformed into ova. When a single genital epithelium leaves the
ovarian lining to be transformed into an ovum it moves from the
periphery toward the centre. It then surrounds itself with follicular
epithelia and forms the Graafian follicle. Through its growth the
Graafian follicle approaches again the periphery. All ripe Graafian
follicles are, therefore, situated near the periphery of the ovary.
_Ovulation._—About once a month a general congestion of the entire
genital system takes place.[F] This congestion causes an effusion of
serum and blood into the Graafian follicle and the rupture of the same.
In this way the ovum is set free and is seized by the fimbriae of the
Fallopian tube. The ovum begins now its journey towards the uterus.
During its progress through the oviduct the maturition of the ovum, or
the reduction of its chromosomes to half the number peculiar to its
species, takes place by a double segmentation. The ovum is divided,
twice in succession, each time into two quite unequal parts. The
smaller segments, called polar bodies, remain near the periphery of the
ovum and are extruded later on. The ovum is now ripe for fertilization.
According to Bischoff and Hiss, the impregnation takes place in the
distal end of the tube. After impregnation the zygote continues its
wandering by the current of the ciliated epithelia of the tube,
towards the uterus. The ovum needs, according to Hensen, from three to
five days, according to Bischoff eight days, to transverse this way, in
the woman. It could not last any longer, says Von Winckel, because the
uterine end of the tube, in the human female, has a diameter of only
two to three millimeters, while the diameter of the ovum, in the second
week of pregnancy, is three to six millimeters already. Hence, when a
retardation, for one cause or another, takes place, a tubal pregnancy
will be the result.
When the impregnated ovum has reached the cavity of the uterus it
penetrates through the epithelium into the submucous fibrous tissues of
the uterus, where it completes its development.
_Internal ovarian secretion._—Besides the function of preparing the
ova, the ovary has an internal secretion which is the cause of the
female secondary characteristics. When both ovaries are removed before
puberty, the time when the stamp of sex is becoming impressed on every
part of the body, the essential feminine features fail to develop. The
absence of the ovaries leads to the development of a colorless, neuter
creature of angular form, strident voice, striding gait, and even of
bearded chin.
_Function of the Fallopian tubes._—The function of the ducts is to
furnish a path for the ovum in its passage towards the uterus and for
the spermatozoa on their way to meet the ovum. The current of the tubal
ciliated epithelia is directed towards the uterus. In this way the ovum
which does not possess self-motion, as do the spermatozoa, is carried
towards its destination, while the spermatozoa have to swim against the
current.
_Menstruation._—The main function of the uterus is to serve as a couch
or resting place for the fertilized ovum during its development.
For this end a wound has to be set in the lining of the uterus to
facilitate the grafting of the fertilized ovum, just as the gardner
makes a slit for ingrafting the young shoot. The preparation of the
ingrafting of the young animal is accomplished by the monthly changes
in the uterus preceding menstruation. The monthly general congestion
of the genital organs, necessary for the ovum to leave the Graafian
follicle, also causes the uterine mucous membrane to swell from one
to three millimeters in the thickness.[G] The mucosa becomes thus
turgid and velvety. The epithelial cells of the endometrium swell
and multiply. The openings of the uterine glands are enlarged, and a
whitish, opaque mucus is poured out. The glandular cells are enlarged,
and there is a multiplication of the round cells of the stroma. The
cells are cloudy and filled with fat granules. This fatty degeneration
involves the glandular cells, the cells of the inter-glandular tissue,
and the cells of the blood vessels which are distended with blood.
The endometrium or lining is thus prepared for the reception of the
impregnated ovum. These alterations develop independently of the
haemorrhage. The swelling begins a long time before the period and
reaches its maximum only at this time.
If the ovum has become impregnated it is ready to respond to these
preparations. If, however, nature’s attempt to reproduce an individual
of the species has been frustrated, and the ovum has not been
impregnated, the latter has to be cast out, and all the preparations
are eliminated. The exuberant epithelial cells are exfoliated. The
delicate capillaries, engorged with blood, sweat drops of blood by
diapedesis or burst and discharge their contents. The congested and
engorged glands secrete and excrete profusely.
This mingled mass of epithelial cells, blood and mucus leaves the
body in form of menstrual discharges. Menstruation, therefore, is a
retrograde process, in consequence of the failure of the impregnation
of the ovum. The monthly flow is like the shedding of the leaves by the
tree, the getting rid of some material the function of which has been
frustrated and for which the economy has no more use.
Menstruation is thus the manifest phenomenon of the retrograde
metamorphosis which ensues at the failure of the ovum to become
fertilized. Where there is fertilization there is no menstruation.
Hence, those women who marry immediately after menstruation sets in,
at puberty,[H] and are impregnated and those women who are impregnated
immediately after they finished nursing their babies, will seldom show
the phenomenon of menstruation. This is the reason why menstruation is
so rarely observed among animals.[I]
_The concubitalis function of the uterus._—Another highly important
function of the uterus is to serve as an organ of copulation. During
the orgasm, at the moment of the highest excitement, the uterus
descends deeper into the small pelvis.[J] It is assisted in the
descent by the pressure of the abdominal muscles. The uterus, usually
flattened in the sagittal direction, assumes a round, pear-shaped
form during the orgasm and for some time afterwards. In this way a
real cavum uteri is produced, and through the vacuum thus produced,
the uterus is able to suck in the semen by means of aspiration.
Furthermore, through the excitation, the circular fibres of the cervix
contract at the same time as the longitudinal fibres. The result is a
dilatation of the cervical orifice. The formerly flat opening becomes
round. At the same time the uterine orifices of the tubes, which
are generally closed, open widely and challenge the entrance of the
spermatozoa.
_Female ejaculation._—The contraction of the cervical fibres also
causes the erection of the vaginal portion and of the neck of the
uterus. This erection, at the moment of the highest orgasm, serves
to expel Kristeller’s slimy plug from the cervix. This expulsion
represents female ejaculation. After the expulsion the cervix becomes
soft and flabby. The erection and sudden relaxation of the cervix
cause the external os to open, sometimes to the extent of fully three
centimeters, and to make several successive gasps. Each time the
gasp draws powerfully the external os into the cervix and causes the
aspiration of the semen.
_Function of the vagina._—The function of the vagina is to serve as a
receptacle of penis and semen. The erectile tissue which runs along
the entire length between the different membranes, forming the vaginal
wall, helps the vagina to adjust itself to the volume of the penis
and to augment its turgescence. The muscular fibres, situated within
the tunica media of the vaginal mucous membrane, contract during the
ejaculation of the semen. The contraction is of a peristaltic nature,
starting from the vaginal aperture. In this way the semen is stowed
toward the uterine orifice under a certain pressure and is prevented
from flowing off.
Previous to this contraction the sphincter cunni, the analogous muscle
to the musculus bulbo-cavernosus in the male, also contracts and
clinches the penis, pressing, at the same time, upon the two bulbs
of the vestibule. In this way the vaginal orifice is more firmly
compressed.
_Function of the Bartholinian glands._—Through the activity of the
constrictor cunni, the Bartholinian glands are also compressed.
Normally these glands are inactive. They only secrete on irritation.[K]
At the first voluptuary thrills, the lubricating fluid gushes forth
from the Bartholinian glands, moistens the sexual organs, prepares
the way for the painless entrance of the male organ and furnishes the
ante-orgastic libido which is second only to the orgasm itself, and is
the only libido experienced by many women throughout their lives.
The alkaline lubricating fluid from the Bartholinian glands serves
the further purpose of neutralizing the vaginal contents which are of
an acid reaction. But for the alkaline secretions, before the male
ejaculation, the spermatozoa would be killed by the acids, or, at
least, checked in their movements. The secretion of the Bartholinian
glands has, therefore, a threefold purpose: it facilitates the
frictions, neutralizes somewhat the vaginal contents, and increases or
furnishes the ant-orgastic libido.
_Function of the clitoris._—The most sensitive organ of the female
genital apparatus is the clitoris. In the female child the clitoris,
analogous to the penis in the male, represents the main erogenous zone,
and its activity manifests itself by frequent twitchings and erections.
After puberty the main function of the clitoris is, according to Freud,
to transmit the stimuli to the other genital organs.
The erection of the clitoris is produced in the same way as the
erection of the penis, by the relaxation of the arteries of the
corpora cavernosa of the clitoris, which are thus filled with blood.
The erection is further helped by the contraction of the muscles
ischio-cavernosus and constrictor cunni. The clitoris has a direction,
inverse to that of the erected penis, namely, downward. By virtue of
its direction and its angle, the erected clitoris is able to yield
and descend to meet the dorsal face of the glans and body of the
penis, without being in a position to rise again during its action.
The contraction of the two last named muscles will, therefore, help
to press the right-angled clitoris on the dorsal side of the penis.
The erection and the bending of the clitoris are further helped by the
action of the bulbs of the vestibule which, through the pressure of the
penis, send their fluid to the corpora cavernosa and the glans of the
clitoris and thus increase the sensitiveness.
_Ordo rei._—According to the functions of the different organs, the
initus muliebris takes the following course. As soon as the mentula
reaches the vestibule, the glans of the clitoris is pressed down
to the vaginal edge of the orifice of the vagina to meet the glans
fascini. Under the influence of the erotic irritation, the tonus of
the blood vessels of the corpora cavernosa clitoridis and of the bulbs
is removed, and the organs fill with blood. The erected clitoris, bent
down and pressing upon the dorsal surface fascini, is thus unable to
rise again.
At the first touch of these sensitive organs, the lubricating fluid
gushes forth from the Bartholinian glands, moistens the vaginal
orifice, and prepares the way for the painless entrance fascini. The
glans fascini passes now the two edges of the vaginal bulbs, et collum
corpusque fascini are seized by the protruding parts of these bulbs.
The constrictor cunni now clinches the vaginal orifice, and the vagina,
by means of its erectile tissue, adjusts itself to the volume mentulæ.
At the moment of the male ejaculation a peristaltic contraction of the
vagina takes place, by which the sperma is stowed toward the uterus and
is prevented from flowing off until the female ejaculation has taken
place.
In the meantime the uterus descends deeper into the small pelvis,
and its muscles open the three uterine orifices. The secretions of
the cervical glands, or Kristeller’s plug, are now expressed through
the open external os, and a suction of small amounts of sperma into
the cervical canal ensues. The expression of the cervical secretions
represents the female ejaculation and takes place at the moment of the
highest orgasm.
CHAPTER IX
LIBIDO SEXUALIS
During the entire sexual spasm, especially at the height of the
venereal crisis, certain pleasurable or lustful sensations, or libido,
are experienced by both mates. The quality of the libido is different
in different individuals. In some people the pleasure may be excessive,
furious, overpowering. Some people are thrown by the violence of their
emotional manifestations in a state of syncope or convulsions.[L] Hence
the speculation whether the quality of sexual libido is higher in the
male or in the female is entirely futile. Libido being a subjective
feeling, no one will ever be able to measure the same in another
individual, just as he is unable to measure the amount of pleasure his
fellowman has gained at any other occasion of enjoyment (e. c. banquet,
dance, theatre, etc.). Hence, we will never be able to decide about the
quality of libido in the two sexes. But the symptoms of libido being
in both sexes almost identical, the inference may be drawn that the
quality will also be similar.
_Symptoms of libido._—The normal libido and orgasm show certain
defined symptoms by which the presence of the larger lust may be
easily diagnosed. While in libido corpora conjugum are in a state of
excitement, caused by the irritation of the fibres of the sympathetic
nerves. The irritation spreads over the entire extent of the vasomotor
system and causes a paralysis of the vasomotor nerves. The result is
the widening of the coronary arteries, hyperaemia of the heart muscles,
and hence an increased excitation of the heart ganglia and palpitation
of the heart. The circulation is accelerated, the arteries beat
strongly, and the venous blood, arrested in the vessels, augments the
animal heat. The stagnation of the blood, more pronounced in the brain
by contraction of the muscles of the neck and the retraction of the
head, causes a momentary cerebral congestion. During its continuance
the intellectual faculties are held in abeyance. The eyes are markedly
injected, the bulbi of the eyes protuberate, and the pupils are
enlarged almost twice their normal size. The eyes become haggard, and
the sight is dimmed, or the eyes are spasmodically closed in order to
shut out light. The respiration is rapid and panting, coming in short
and quick intervals, the air being expelled spasmodically. Some times
the respiration is entirely suspended by a convulsive contraction
of the larynx, and the breath is ejected in the shape of babbling,
incoherent words. The congested nerve-centres communicate only vague
and confused outside sensations. Mobility and sensibility are held
in suspension. The limbs are convulsively agitated or are subject to
clonic contractions. The nostrils are dilated, the jaws are firmly set,
and the teeth are ground one against the other.
These different expressions of the summa libido are accompanied by
caressing words. Ovid, the master in matters of sensuality, sings in
his “Ars Amandi”:
“Nec blandae voces jucundaque murmura cessent
“Nec taceant mediis improba verba jocis
“Adspicies oculos tremulos fulgore micantes
“Ut sol a liquida saepe refulget aqua
“Accedent questus, accedet amabile murmur
“Et dulces gemitus aptaque verba joco.”
Where these symptoms are wanting, the absence of the potency of
experiencing libido may be assumed.
_The orgasm._—Simultaneously with the objective phenomena of
erection and ejaculation, runs the course of the subjective
pleasurable feelings. The libido may be divided into three phases:
the ant-orgastic, orgastic and post-orgastic phases. During the
ant-orgastic stage, the lustful sensation grows by degrees in intensity
up to the moment of commencing ejaculation. The libido remains then
relatively constant for some time. The largest lust swells then
suddenly to the maximum and reaches its acme, the orgasm, at the
instant of emission. After the ejaculation the libido disappears
rapidly. It falls to zero and is followed by a phase of indifference
and in some individuals even of depression. In the female the
pleasurable feelings occur later than in the male, come on more slowly,
and generally outlast the act of ejaculation. The female post-orgastic
libido does not rapidly disappear, as in the male, but dies away as the
tune of the tuning-fork.[M]
[Illustration: CUT XXXIV.
_Curve illustrating the course of the orgasm._
1, ant-orgastic; 2, orgastic; 3, post-orgastic phases.]
After the orgasm the sexual excitement gives place in the male to
a state of exhaustion and to an inclination to sleep, and to a
comfortable feeling of lassitude in the normal woman. “Omne animal post
coitum triste est praeter mulierem gallumque,” says Galen. After a few
moments rest a comfortable lassitude takes possession of the whole body
in both mates.
“Cum pariter victi faemina virque jacent.”
At this period, even if the man would be in a position ad pergendam
commixtionem (e. c. eunuches and in priapism), further permulsiones are
not wanted and their discontinuance is demanded by the normal woman.
“Aspiciem dominae victos amantis ocellos
“Langueat et tangi se vetet illa diu.”
A woman desiring the continuance of uninterrupted penetrations, or
who even allows them, plainly shows that, while she may have felt
ant-orgastic libido, she has surely not experienced the supreme
gratification which is found in the state of orgasm. Except in early
youth, and then only after a protracted continence, it is impossible
even for a woman to experience further libido immediately after
the orgasm. The general notions about the great feminine potency
are erroneous. They are based upon the confusion of the potency of
cohabitation with the potency of experiencing the orgasm, which is
not one and the same even in the male. So far as cohabitation is
concerned it is true that the weakest, most delicate woman, is able to
tire out the strongest man. Playing the passive part, she could stand
concarnatio continua for a long time, in fact, as long as the mucous
membrane of the vagina will last, and the vaginal pavement epithelia
are by nature very strong. Even Ovid knew this fact. He says in his
“Ars Amoris”:
“Conteritur ferrum, silices teneantur ab usu
“Sufficit et damni pars caret illa metu.”
But in regard to the potency of experiencing libido the woman is
generally inferior to the man. After three complete orgasms in one
night even a young, strong woman will be completely enervated during
the following day, and the woman who regularly experiences a daily
orgasm, for a protracted period, will, no less than her active partner,
fall a victim to neurasthenia after some time.
_Intensity of libido._—The intensity of the pleasure varies in
different individuals. With some the intensity reaches a very high
degree. There are those who cry and bite at the height of orgasm.[N]
On the other hand, there are individuals who scarcely have any lustful
feelings, or, if capable of experiencing ant-orgastic libido, are
lacking in the feeling of orgasm. Normally the intensity of libido
and orgasm increases with the number and dignity of the points which
produce the pleasure.
The source of any kind of pleasure lies in the five senses. Of these
the sense of touch is best adapted to provoke sexual pleasure. The
tactile sense is the fundamental and generic sense from which all
others take their rise, and by which they are verified. All the
perceptions of our senses have to be supplemented by our tactile sense.
The foetus, within the uterus, receives the first knowledge of its
own individuality, of its own ego, by the tactile sense. In touching
with its body the wall of the womb, it receives one impression, while
in touching one part of its body with another part, it receives two
impressions, at both points of contact. In this way it learns by
repeated experience of the existence of bodies outside of his own. Thus
it differentiates its own ego from the outside world by the sense of
touch, at a time when the other senses could not as yet functionate.
Touch is, therefore, the primary sense. The other senses are only
modified tactile senses. Waves of sound touch the tympanic membrane of
the ear: rays of light touch the retina in the eye; odors touch the
nerve-endings of the olfactory nerve, and food the taste-papillae.
The sense of touch is, therefore, the sense above all others to evoke
pleasurable sensations. The touch of a soft and smooth surface pleases;
that of a rough object displeases. Many people like to feel smooth
objects, such as velvet. Others prefer smooth plants; yet others are
fond of caressing animate beings, such as cats or dogs with a smooth
fur. There are those who delight to touch the soft, smooth skin of
babies. Now the softest and smoothest skin in the human body is
found on the parts covered with a mucous membrane. The pleasurable
sensations, therefore, increase when two individuals touch each other
at parts covered with such a membrane. Hence, kissing on the lips, by
reason of their covering, is accompanied by pleasure. This undoubtedly
accounts for the origin of kissing.
The same reason is responsible for the universal tendency among lovers
to approach and touch one another’s lips. For, affection fed by sight,
sound, taste and odor, reaches its climax in touch. The combined power
of contact with softness and warmth amounts to a considerable pitch
of material pleasure, and a predisposed affection, as among lovers,
renders the contact thrilling. Love pleasure, therefore, begins and
ends in sensual contact. The intensity of the sensual pleasure will
be proportional with the area of contact and with the dignity of the
organs touched. Nudity with the greater area of direct contact will
increase the pleasure.
The values of the organs producing sexual libido are successively:
in the male, glans et corpus penis, scrotum, labia oris, lingua,
palma manus, and the gluteal region; in the female, clitoris, vulva,
labia majora, nymphae, vestibule, vagina, vaginal portion of cervix,
mamillae, labiae oris, lingua, palma manus and the gluteal region.[O]
The more points of the highly sensible organs are touched, the larger
the extent of the skin-surface that enters into the realm of touch, the
more the frictions are conducive to excitation, the better the function
of the sphincter cunni,[P] the greater will be the intensity of the
sensual libido in both mates. If more special senses are excited, such
as sight by beauty, the smell by sweet odors, the touch by soft, smooth
skin, if imagination coöperates, and if inhibitory effects are absent,
then the intensity is much greater.
_Inhibition of libido._—The inhibitory effects upon the libido have
various causes, and are mostly brought on by the different senses. The
most inhibiting effects emanate from the sense of smell. The sense
of smell plays an important rôle in provoking or inhibiting sexual
desire. For that reason women are possessed of certain odors to
attract their mates.[Q] The vaginal mucus, or rather contents, have
a stale, characteristic odor. This odor belongs to the class of the
capryl-odors, which may be designated as the specifically erotic odors.
The natural vaginal odor becomes stronger during the menstrual period.
Some women transpire at the time of menstruation the disagreeable odor
of trimethyl-amin.
In some country-districts in Europe, it is reported, the young
peasants, when going to a dance, place their handkerchiefs into their
arm-pits to imbibe the peculiar odor of the man, and, unaware to the
girls, hand over the same to the women they are in love with to smell.
The peculiar odor is supposed to excite the girls to love.
All this serves to show that the quality of the odor is not a matter
of indifference to the excitation of sexual voluptas. The disagreeable
smell from any part of the body of one mate will act as an inhibition
upon the libido of the other. The sense of sight, if offended, works
much the same way. Ugliness will, therefore, act as a check not only
upon the voluptas, but also upon the libido. Pain or cold have also
inhibitory effects. Hence defloration, accompanied by more or less
pain, checks the libido of the woman.
Hatred has a great inhibitory influence upon voluptas and libido.
In men, it is self-evident that where there is no voluptas there
is no erection and consequently no congress or libido. But even in
women where sexual conjugation is possible against her will, libido
can seldom be compelled. She may be debauched, physically, and even
ejaculation may take place, for when fully excited, the muscular
contractions become independent of the will, but the excitation can
not induce full libido.[R] Virtually, a woman can rarely be violated.
If in a case of rape the woman experiences complete orgasm, then she
consented physiologically, though she may have morally struggled
against the impropriety of the act.
_Spatium concarnationis._—Spatium temporis concubitus, to a certain
extent, depends upon the will. The man and the woman are able to delay
the orgasm for a certain time. It is in the individual’s power, if it be
not neurasthenic or tabetic, to induce the orgasm earlier or later. But
this power is limited. It is not altogether voluntary to induce orgasm
or prevent it.
The duration varies in different animals as well as in different
individuals. In some animals a single stimulant suffices to induce
orgasm; other animals remain in conjugio for hours or even days. If
the duration of the ant-orgastic stage is too short in the female,
analogous to the ejaculation ante portas in the male, the deficiency
must be corrected. Though the precipitate orgasm in the female has not
the same importance as in the male, because her orgasm does not of
necessity terminate congressum as in the male. Yet it may, sometimes,
have a damaging effect upon the potency of procreation. For the ideal
intercourse, in the interest of procreation, is the one in which the
female ejaculation occurs immediately after the male emission or
simultaneously with the same. Besides, the longer duration creates
greater intensity of libido, which is desirable for the well-being of
both mates. For this reason Ovid advises in his “Ars Amandi”:
“Crede mihi, non est veneris properanda voluptas,
“Sed sensim tarda prolicienda mora.”
_The post-orgastic stage._—Soon after the orgasm the libido ceases, and
a state of languor ensues.
“Cum pariter victi faemina virque jacent.”
In normal individuals and in affectionate lovers the lassitude is of
an agreeable nature. The serenity of the mind depends largely upon the
intensity of the experienced libido. If the act is executed with great
pleasure, it will give the nervous system a pleasurable excitement
and will act as a helpful tonic upon the nerves. The blood under its
animating influence flows more freely through the capillary vessels of
the skin. The countenance becomes expanded, its expression brightens
and its whole surface acquires the ruddy tint and genial glow of
health. Every function seems to be gladdened by the tonic. It causes
a universal expansion of vital action. The body feels buoyant and
lively, and there is a consequent disposition to quick and cheerful
muscular motions, as running, jumping, dancing, laughing, and singing.
Furthermore, the act executed with a great intensity of pleasure
serves to appease the sexual desire for a time and naturally leads to
moderation. The serenity and well-being, following such an act, have
a great influence upon the continuance of the lovers’ affections.
An agreeable calmness will increase and even create attachment.
Some conventional marriages turn for that reason into affectionate
love-affairs.
If the intensity of the libido is insignificant, a depression of the
mind post concarnationem will result. Where coition is performed with
aversion, without affection for the mate or with fear of infection or
conception, it will act as a nerve-depressor, and a state of dejection
will be the result. Such an act does not satisfy and appease the sexual
desire. Like a distasteful meal that does not satiate, concubitus
without pleasure or great affection creates desires for more sexual
indulgences, keeps the nerves in a state of sexual excitement, and
leads to many kinds of debauchery. Even if originally a good deal of
affection existed, a sexually unsuitable match may reduce the intensity
of the libido to a minimum. If then the languor is disagreeably felt,
if the individual remains excited and is unable to sleep, and the
following morning feels enervated, the former affection will gradually
disappear, and a romantic love-affair of long duration may turn out a
complete failure after marriage.[S]
FOOTNOTES:
[C] This quality may explain the Talmud’s (Berachoth 60a, Nidah 31)
assertion that if the female orgasm occurs first, the child is of
the masculine sex, while when the male orgasm precedes that of the
female, a girl is born. When the male orgasm occurs first, the semen
is discharged within the acid vaginal contents. The spermatozoa are,
therefore, weakened, and a girl is born. When the woman’s orgasm
occurs first, the semen is then ejaculated into the alkaline cervical
secretion which was expelled with Kristeller’s plug. Hence, the
spermatozoa remain strong and vigorous and a boy is born. The modern
theory of sex is that it is determined by the germ-cells as every other
unit character. Every spermatozoön and ovum possess originally male and
female determiners. But during the maturition the determiners of one
sex are cast off, and the gametes are either male or female. Hence,
when the ovum is male, only a male spermatozoön will be admitted within
its interior, and a boy will be the result. If the ovum is female, only
a female spermatozoön will be able to penetrate it, and a girl will be
born.
[D] Explanatory remarks: When a voluptuary thought originates in
the centre of voluptas 11, it is transmitted by fibre 12 to the
vasodilatory centre 4 in the medulla oblongata, hence by fibre 14 in
the spinal cord to the centre of erection 16 in the lumbar part of
the cord; hence through the nervi erigentes 17 to the genitals at the
periphery 10, where it responds by an erection. The excitation of the
erection is then, if strong enough, transmitted through the centripetal
or sensory nerve 9 to the centre of ejaculation 7; hence again through
the centrifugal ejaculatory nerve 8 to the periphery, where ejaculation
takes place.
When an excitation originates at the periphery 10, as in sleep, it is
transmitted through the sensory nerve 18 to the centre of erection 16,
and through nerve 15 to the vasodilatory centre 4; hence back to the
periphery by the nerves 14 and 17, after the inhibitory nerve 13 has
been paralyzed. The excitation of the erection is then transmitted, as
previously described, through nerve 9 to centre 7 and nerve 8 to the
periphery where ejaculation takes place. In either case the excitation
of the ejaculation is then carried through the sensory nerve 5 to the
centre of libido 3 and is there experienced as a pleasurable feeling.
When the centre of erection 16 is directly irritated, for example, by
electricity, after the spinal cord has been severed, the stimulus is
directly transmitted through nerve 17 to the periphery 10 to respond
with erection. The same road is taken by the excitation of the centre
of erection 16 during sleep.
In spermatorrhoea the stimulus at the centre of voluptas 11 is directly
transmitted through nerve 6 to the centre of ejaculation 7, hence
through nerve 8 to the periphery 10, and ejaculation takes place
without erection.
[E] Many authorities (among others Rohleder, Berliner Klinik, 1909,
Heft 257) claim that the libido, or the pleasurable sensations,
originate at the orifices of the ejaculatory ducts during the passage
of the thick semen through these narrow openings. This hypothesis
will not stand a critical analysis. People who began to masturbate in
early childhood relate that for years they experienced orgasm without
noticing the least trace of an ejaculation. One day, usually between
the fourteenth and sixteenth year, they were surprised by the first
ejaculation. Still there was no material change in the quality of
the libido during the orgasm accompanied by ejaculation from that
experienced during the previous orgasms without ejaculations. This
tends to show that the libido experienced at the sexual paroxysm has
its cause not in the removal of the material congestion but in the
relief from the nervous tension. The orgastic paroxysm has its analogy
in the epileptic crisis. The nervous tension in the epileptic patient
is gradually increased until one day an explosion ensues, and the
epileptic attack removes, so to say, the accumulated nervous energy.
The patient is then relieved for a certain time. An analogous relief
from the nervous tension is effected during the orgastic crisis,
and the cause of the libido in men and in women is this discharge
of nervous energy. The ejaculation of the few drops of semen or of
Kristeller’s plug is only an accidental incident, which may contribute
to the well-being of the individual, just as the discharge from bladder
and rectum, but which is not the cause of orgastic libido.
[F] This monthly periodicity is attributed by some authorities to
cosmic influences (the new moon and full moon). But since other vital
processes also show a certain undulatory increase and decrease in
strength (e. c. the systole and diastole of the heart), it is more
probable that the periodicity of ovulation is due to an undulatory
motion, where the length of the wave is about four weeks.
[G] According to Pflüger (Veit’s Handb. der Gyn. 1908, Vol. 3, p. 25)
the pressure of the periodically growing Graafian follicle causes a
continual irritation of the ovarian nerves, which, by reflex action, is
the cause of the great congestion of the genitals. When the stimulus
has reached a certain height, the congestion leads, on the one side,
to the rupture of the follicle, on the other hand, to the menstrual
change of the uterine mucosa. This theory has been abandoned, and the
modern trend of opinion is to attribute the general congestion to
chemical substances, thus returning to Brown-Sequard teachings that the
periodical congestion is caused by a chemical substance which, produced
within the ovary, enters the blood circulation.
According to L. Meyer, under the influence of ovulation, a continual
production of substances, oophorines, necessary for the growth of the
foetus, takes place. These substances circulate in the blood, and,
when they are present in large amounts, cause a stimulation of the
entire nervous system. This explains the nervous irritation and other
phenomena of this period. During menstruation these substances are
excreted.
G. Klein (Münch. med. Wochenschr. 1911, p. 997) thinks that the
oophorines cause a chemical change of the uterine mucosa and of the
blood circulating in the latter, and are themselves chemically changed.
They then leave the body simultaneously with the menstrual blood. Hence
menstruation is a real catharsis, in the sense of Hypokrates, a freeing
of the body from the toxic effects of the oophorines. The presence of
the oophorines during this period accounts for the different smell of
menstrual blood from ordinary blood. The peculiar smell from the mouths
of some menstruating women may also be attributed to the presence of
the oophorines in the body.
When pregnancy has once been established, menstruation ceases for the
entire period the mother is nursing her offspring, be the nursing
within the uterus during gestation or later on during lactation, with
the breast. Both periods comprise the time when the mother has to give
her vital fluids for the nutrition of her offspring.
[H] The Hindus recommend the marriage of the girl before the first
menstruation has set in. Among many savages the first menstruation is
the signal for marrying off the girl. Such women become impregnated
with each succeeding child immediately after they have finished nursing
the preceding one. By the time propagation ceases, the climacerium sets
in. In this way these women only menstruate a few times during their
lives.
[I] Another reason why menstruation is so rarely observed among animals
is their posture. If the preparations preceding menstruation are
for the purpose of ingrafting the fertilized ovum, it follows that
menstruation must occur in all those animals in which the fertilized
egg is fully developed to complete maturity within the interior of
the mother. This is indeed what happens. All animals with so intimate
an attachment of the foetal and maternal organisms that the foetal
placenta cannot be detached from the mother without a haemorrhage, show
the phenomenon of menstruation.
Menstruation was formerly regarded as the exclusive prerogative of
woman, but we know now that woman shares the privilege with many
animals. All warm-blooded animals that stand or walk erect, without
exception, menstruate. The appearance of the discharge is simply due
to posture. The process is going on in all quadrupeds, as the sheep,
the cow, the dog, the cat, etc., but on account of the position of
the uterus (in quadrupeds the fundus of the uterus is situated lower
than the neck) the blood is usually retained in that organ, reabsorbed
through the lymphatics into the blood, and consumed in the vital
process or eliminated through excretory glands.
In some animals the discharge consists of mucus. In dogs the writer
saw real blood. It is only a play of nature, that in one species the
congestion of the genitals manifests itself by a sweating of viscous
mucus, in the other by a flow of blood.
Even the lower animals shed the same degenerated material. They
menstruate through the lymphatics, if for one cause or another
impregnation has been prevented. But as a rule, in animals, living in
freedom, impregnation always follows the preparation of the uterus,
and the phenomenon of menstruation fails to appear. It is only among
domesticated animals that the discharge from the genitals is sometimes
observed.
[J] According to Bischoff, at the moment of the highest excitement the
uterus is pressed down into the small pelvis, and the uterine orifice
opens and receives the sperma by a kind of suction.
Eichstedt claims that the uterus, which is usually flattened in the
sagittal direction, assumes a round, pear-shaped form during the
excitement and for some time afterwards. In this way a real cavum
uteri is produced, where previously only a virtual cavity existed. The
vacuity then sucks in the sperma by means of aspiration like a pump.
Kisch says: During the orgasm the uterus descends deeper into the
pelvis. It is assisted in its descent by the pressure of the abdominal
muscles. The muscles of the uterus open then the uterine orifice, and
the formerly flat opening becomes round. At the same time the uterine
orifices of the tubes also open. Simultaneously the secretion of the
cervical glands is expressed, and a suction of a small amount of sperma
into the cervix ensues.
Rohleder says: The plicae palmatae of the cervix form an obstacle
to the penetration of any fluid into the uterus. But during the
excitement, this obstacle is overcome by the increased secretion of the
cervical glands. At the same time the uterine orifices of the tubes,
which are generally closed, open widely through the excitement and
almost challenge the entrance of the spermatozoa.
Kristeller describes the secretion of a clear transparent mucus in
the form of a cord about one to four millimeters thick and one to six
centimeters long in the uterus of every mature woman, who never was
pregnant. This cord is hanging out of the orificium externum uteri.
According to Wernich, a preparatory erection of the vaginal portion
and of the neck of the uterus takes place in the beginning of the act.
Then in the moment of the highest orgastic excitement, and almost
simultaneously with the mutual ejaculation, the cervix becomes flabby
and soft again. This sudden relaxation of the erected cervix is made
possible by a particular arrangement of the nerves and causes the
aspiration of the sperma. The erection of the lower part of the uterus
during the sexual excitement has, therefore, almost the same importance
for propagation as the erection of the penis for copulation. It serves
the purpose of expelling Kristeller’s slimy plug from the cervix, in
the moment of the highest orgasm.
Mundé has seen the gushing, almost in jets, of clear viscid mucus
from the external os during evident sexual excitement, produced by
the rather prolonged digital and specular examination, in an erotic
woman. The lips of the external os alternately opened and closed, with
each gasping emitting clear mucus, until the excitement, which was
intentionally prolonged by gently titillating the cervix with a sound
through a Sims speculum, reached such a height as to cause the woman to
sit up on the table and thus end the experiment.
Beck (St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal, Sep. 1872, p. 449)
observed an orgasm while examining a woman with prolapsus uteri.
The orifice of the uterus was just inside of the vulva and could be
observed without a speculum. The woman was very prone, by reason of her
passionate nature, to have an orgasm produced at the slightest contact
with the fingers. The action of the uterus during the two observations
was almost identical. The cervix of the uterus had been firm, hard, and
generally in a normal condition, with the os closed so as not to admit
the uterine probe without difficulty. But immediately when the orgasm
began, the os opened to the extent of fully an inch, made five to six
successive gasps, drawing the external os into the cervix, each time,
powerfully and at the same time becoming quite soft to the touch. After
about twelve seconds all was over. The os had closed again, and the
cervix hardened. During the crisis an intense congestion of the parts
could be noticed. The sensations experienced were described as being of
the same quality as they ever were during coition. But they were not
the same in quantity, the normal orgasm lasting longer.
Talmey (New York Medical Journal, June, 23, 1917) observed an orgasm
while examining a case where the cervix was found to be of normal
consistency, and the external os was just passable for a uterine
sound. Suddenly the cervix became red, congested, and soft, and the
sound within the uterine cavity began to execute certain movements,
resembling pendulum swings. The os opened so wide as to admit the index
finger besides the sound, and the cervical lips made three gasps,
each time drawing the lips within the canal. After a few seconds the
paroxysm was over.
These direct observations on the uterus by the last named American
authors place the uterine action during the orgasm into the realm
of scientific facts and entirely remove it from the province of
theoretical speculation. The fact has been established beyond the
shadow of a doubt that propagation is greatly facilitated by the
suction-movements of the uterus during the orgasm.
This suction is also the cause why douches which are often recommended
as anti-conceptional remedies must fail, even if they are made
immediately after congress. By the uterine suction the spermatozoa are
drawn within the uterine cavity and immediately removed from any action
the douches could have on them. Hence when the female orgasm follows
the male, as it usually does in the normal woman, anti-conceptional
douches will always be a failure. Only when the female orgasm precedes
that of the male, and the spermatozoa are left upon their own resources
to reach the uterine cavity, then there is a chance to kill the
spermatozoa by an immediate antiseptic, acid or bacteriocide douche.
[K] The Bartholinian gland, not being under muscular control, an
ejaculatory discharge of its contents would seem to be impossible.
Still in a patient, a married lady of 35 years, after a protracted
contact stimulation of the external genitals the author observed an
ejaculation-like discharge from the left gland, resembling the flow
from an hypodermic syringe under pressure. In four other cases, the
only ones in which the author had the opportunity to observe the
Bartholinian glands in action, the secretion appeared in small drops,
slowly oozing out from the pin-head-like orifices.
[L] One of the author’s patients, a young lady 22 years of age, mother
of one child, lost consciousness for half an hour every time after the
production of the summa libido.
[M] According to Moll, the highest orgasm may be induced and
complete satisfaction enjoyed by the female without ejaculation. The
satisfaction may be experienced when the corpora cavernosa of the
clitoris, after their erection, relax again.
[N] One of the author’s patients bit his wife in the breast that she
had to be treated for some time afterwards. Another patient bawled
every time she reached the state of orgasm. Another young woman lost
consciousness every time at the moment of the orgasm.
[O] Thus woman commands over a greater number of erogenous zones than
the man. Hence the intensity of her libido ought naturally to be higher
than that of the man.
According to Hammond the neck and mouth of the uterus are supplied with
sensibility in its character, like that possessed by the clitoris. On
the other hand, Roubaud says that many women have confessed to him that
they are perfectly insensible to the titillations of the clitoris,
and experience libido only by the touch of the walls of the vaginal
entrance. One of the author’s patients experiences a painful sensation
by the titillation of the clitoris, while the touch of the vaginal wall
induces magnam libidinem.
[P] Some women know how to train the sphincter cunni that it becomes
as strong as the sphincter ani. This art is especially studied by
the Parisian demi-mondaine, and it is said that therein lies a great
deal of her much vaunted piquancy. The author had occasion to observe
the regular voluntary contractions of the sphincter cunni during the
vaginal examination of a young erotic woman of thirty years of age.
[Q] Women, says Hagen, in his “Sexuelle Osphresiologie,” are like the
flowers who spread their intoxicating fragrance during dawn and dusk—at
the first rays of the rising and the last rays of the setting sun. With
some the sweetest odors emanate during night-time. Before a thunder
storm, when the air is close, the “parfum de la femme” is particularly
pronounced. The transpiration of lean women is less pronounced than in
the stout, who possess usually large sudoriparous pores and sebaceous
glands. Brunettes have a stronger odor feminae than blondes, and both
are surpassed by the red-haired.
According to Jaeger, the balmy fragrance of the pure, innocent virgin
is of an extraordinary purity. As soon as the girl falls in love, the
fragrance at once changes.
Long sexual continence is claimed by Galopin to increase the
transpiratory odor feminae.
According to Monin, the woman’s respiration at the time of menstruation
has the odor of onions.
Before and after conjugation the natural odor corporis of the woman is
more intense. Two of the author’s patients were reported to exhale an
odor somewhat resembling that of onions, immediately after the orgasm.
[R] Roubaud says: Whatsoever the degree of coldness and aversion may
be that the woman brings to ad concubitum, the mere presence of the
mentula within the vagina will produce in her organs a certain action,
which although in the beginning only local, will, if prolonged, change
into a libidinous excitation.
[S] For the same reasons stuprum cum fornicatricibus to appease the
passions is highly deleterious to the man’s health, even if he escapes
infection. No man has any real affection for his temporary chance
acquaintance of the street. This lack of affection, together with the
fear of infection, renders meretricious venery highly unhygienic in the
long run.
PART V.
PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX
CHAPTER X
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX ATTRACTION
A law regulating and governing phenomena is only possible on the
assumption that the law is the expression of the modus operandi of
the governing power which has established the fixed rules for the
performance of a certain action leading to a certain end. The law
governing the phenomena of sex has evidently been prescribed for the
purpose of the preservation of the species. This preservation is at
the basis of sexual desire, and because the ultimate aim is unknown to
the agent, the desire is instinctive in nature. For every instinct is
an inward impulse, an unconscious, involuntary prompting to action,
without a distinct apprehension of the end which nature has designed
should be accomplished thereby. Hunger for love and hunger for food are
both based upon the two instincts of preservation, the instinct of the
preservation of the individual and the instinct of the preservation of
the kind.
The hunger for food, manifested already by the new-born baby,[T] is
based upon the instinct of the preservation of the individual, the
sex-urge, manifested by youths and maidens at the time of puberty,
before they have ever experienced any copulative libido, is based upon
the instinct of the preservation of the species. The active principle
of the mind, which is energetically devoted to the gratification of
the sensual desire and the state of mind which is constantly yearning
to satisfy the sensual want, are the promptings of this instinct. They
exist at this early period independent of all experience. The absorbing
feeling which seeks the consummation of its purpose, as well as the
selection of the means to be employed, is not based upon previous
experience. They are internal, unconscious messages which give rise to
the conscious impulses, without waiting for the external stimuli which,
later on, coöperate with the impulse to affect the nervous centres.
The conscious impulses, composing the sexual instinct, are, according
to Moll, the impulse of contrectation, or the desire to effect a real
or a virtual contact with an individual of the opposite sex, and the
impulse of detumescence, or the desire to effect a certain material and
nervous discharge. Any inclination, to become an impulse, must possess
two qualities: it must move the individual to commit an act in which
logic and calculation have no part; and secondly, while committing the
act, the individual must be conscious of its immediate aim. The two
component impulses of the sex-instinct possess these two qualities.
They are unreasoning promptings to actions, the end of which is present
in the individual’s consciousness.
_Impulse of contrectation._—The impulse of contrectation is the
conscious desire of the individual to obtain a contact with an
individual of the opposite sex, if possible by the tactile sense
proper; if not, at least, by the visual or aural senses, or by the
imagery, by looking at a comely individual of the other sex, by
listening to its voice, or by thinking of the person. This impulse
is at the basis of the lovers’ desire to caress and fondle each
other. This impulse is entirely distinct from the desire for sensual
conjugation. It is found in children who have as yet no knowledge of
sex. An individual may have the wish to touch an individual of the
opposite sex, as for instance, in a public conveyance or at a dance,
without any thought of sex-congress, and where sensual conjugation is
entirely out of the question.
During the gratification of this impulse of contrectation (from the
Latin word contrectare, to touch with lust), a certain tumescence (from
the Latin word tumescere, to swell), or congestion of all the organs of
the body, particularly of the genital organs, and an increased amount
of nervous energy throughout the entire organism, takes place.
_Impulse of detumescence._—At this stage the second component of the
sexual instinct, the impulse of detumescence (from the Latin word
detumescere, to diminish in swelling) comes into play. Tumescence
causes a certain oppression, and the individual is impelled to cause
a discharge of the material congestion and a spasmodic relief of the
nervous tension. The procedure of this material and nervous discharge
is specific. The man’s impulse is “penem in vaginam intromittere et
semen ejaculare,” and the woman’s impulse is “membrum viri atque semen
in vaginam suscipere eodemque tempore detumescere.” If the opportunity
for the specific discharge is lacking, other unnatural means for
emission are employed, or the organism rids itself of the oppression
during the state of unconsciousness, as in sleep. Ejaculation, hence,
gives pleasure because it relieves the mechanical as well as the
nervous tension and causes a change both in the blood and the nerve
supply. Hence, the impulse of detumescence is less a craving to gain a
positive lust feeling as the impulse of contrectation.
_Children’s affection._—The impulse of contrectation is already met
with in small children. The desire to effect a physical contact is
often observed among very small children. There are some children
who are even susceptible to sexual excitement, but these are the
exceptions, their emotions are pathological. Normally there appears to
be no erethism of the sexual organs in children during the process of
love-making. They have no knowledge of the meaning of sex. With them
the caressing contact is an end in itself.
In the love-making of children we can distinguish two different modes,
according to the age of the child. In the first period, between three
and eight years of age, the child is perfectly ignorant of the meaning
of sex. Still it may indulge in the pleasure of bodily contact with
an individual of the opposite sex. During the second period, between
eight to twelve years of age, the children are aware of the difference
and even meaning of sex, still the erethism in the organs is still
absent.
The presence of the emotion of love in children of the first period is
shown in many ways. Children of the opposite sex fall in love with one
another. They seek each other’s company. They sit close to each other
and indulge in kissing, embracing, and lifting each other. They often
present gifts to, and make sacrifices for each other. Even jealousy is
not absent. The lover tries to monopolize the allegiance of the beloved
one. This love in early childhood is characterized by the absence of
shyness or of any sense of shame, which shows the complete sexual
anaesthesia.
With the appearance of shyness and modesty in children of the second
period, the love-making may be traced to the conscious sex instinct.
The instinct is manifested by the tendency to conceal the love affairs.
Modesty is a characteristic trait of the young lovers. When in each
other’s presence they feel embarrassed and ill at ease. They appear
awkward when left alone to themselves. They try to avoid each other and
may even appear to the casual observer to hate each other. Especially
does the boy try to simulate resentment. The girl is, on the whole,
more aggressive in these early love affairs. The woman’s innate love of
being wooed comes to surface later on when she has reached maturity.
Yet even the boy’s emotions are discernible by the keen observer. The
emotions of infatuated children may assume all the appearances of true
love, with its joys and sorrows. Yet any thought of the reproductive
organs is entirely absent.
_Puberty._—Before puberty the sexual activity of the child consists
thus in the desire and gratification of the impulse of contrectation.
This contrectation does not cause yet a state of tumescence in the
child, and without tumescence the impulse of detumescence is also
absent. The first state of spontaneous tumescence is called into
existence by internal messages.
At the time of puberty, the generative centre or the centre of
voluptas begins rapidly to grow and comes into increased activity.
The internal messages become then so frequent that they charge the
entire body with a considerable amount of nerve energy and cause in the
generative organs a certain congestion, stimulation and irritation.
This spontaneous tumescence, produced with the growth of the centre of
voluptas in the brain, is then the cause of calling to life the impulse
of detumescence. The individual has the strong desire to free itself
of the material congestion and of the nervous tension. In animals the
impulse of detumescence is, with a very few exceptions, identical
with the sex-instinct. Most animals have no desire for contrectation.
In man the impulse of contrectation is the more important. If the
individual practises total abstinence, i. e., if he abstains even from
the gratification of the impulse of contrectation, then the state of
spontaneous tumescence would return through the internal messages, at
certain periods, just as rut periodically appears in the animal. As a
rule, however, total abstinence from the gratification of the impulse
of contrectation, material or mental, is very rarely or never found
in the civilized adult man or woman. Hence the state of tumescence in
man is not given the chance to reach its periodicity, but is always
produced by the gratification of the impulse of contrectation.
_Mechanism of sex-activity._—The mechanism of sex-activity may thus
be compared with the charging of a Leyden jar with electricity. The
generative organs must first be charged, like the jar, with a certain
material turgescence and with nervous energy, in order to evoke the
impulse of detumescence. The comparison with the Leyden jar may
be moved even a step farther. Just as the charge of the jar with
electricity is of a longer duration, compared with the instantaneous
discharge at its contact with the earth, so is the charge of the
organism with nervous sex-tension usually of longer duration in
comparison with the short duration of the discharge.
During the gratification of the impulse of contrectation, by
imagination, look, word or actual contact, the organs are charged
with nervous energy and vital fluids. This charging is connected with
a certain kind of fore-pleasure and may last considerable time, from
a few minutes to several hours or even days. The satisfaction of the
impulse of detumescence when the vital fluids and nervous energy is
discharged by coition, pollution or any other way, is of very short
duration, normally lasting a few minutes only. Sexual activity, hence,
consists in the charging and discharging of the vital fluids and
nervous tension. The sexual act and copulation are not synonymous. The
act begins with the satisfaction of the impulse of contrectation, which
comprises by far the greatest part of sex activity. Copulation, on the
other hand, represents only the final stage of the drama and is of
short duration.
_Emotions of puberty._—The state of tumescence is a necessary
condition of sexual gratification, and in ordinary life is effected by
contrectation, i. e., it is, as a rule, voluntarily produced. The case
is different at the time of puberty. At this period, the tumescence is
evoked by internal promptings.
With the beginning of pubescence, the stepping-stone between the child
and the man or woman, the secondary characteristics, as beard, enlarged
larynx, musculature in man, and filling out and rounding of the body,
development of the breasts, enlargement of the pelvis in woman, are
becoming noticeable. It is the period of the rapid acceleration in
the growth of the centres of generation, and indefinable yearnings
and moods, wishes and fears assume domination of the growing child.
Sweet inexpressable emotions of wonder, awe, and amazement disturb
the thoughts and actions of the awakening consciousness. Mysterious
sensations, foretastes and impulses fill the heart of the ripening
individual. For the man it is the beginning of the period of “storm
and stress.” It is the time when the elemental cosmic fire of love is
bestowed upon the eyes of youth, and an infinite yearning is implanted
into his soul by an invisible power. At the approach of this time, a
tender fledgeling of longing is implanted into the heart of the girl.
She becomes quiet and shy. She shows a shrinking timidity and coyly
takes flight at the least approach of him at whose sight her hungry
emotions are profoundly stirred.
With the increase in size and vigor of the generative organs, the
bodings of sexual desires and the cravings of the natural instinct take
possession of the individual’s thoughts and fancy and awaken in him
erotic ideas and lustful feelings and the strong impulse for the organs
to function.
When the genital centres have been fully developed, the individual gets
a conscious realization of its sexual power, and the psychological
reactions of animal passion manifest themselves in the irresistible
desire for intimacy with an individual of the opposite sex. This desire
is inscrutable and transcendental. There is no knowable reason for
its existence present. Ordinarily the idea of a desire is realized by
bringing vividly to the mind the memory of a former desire gratified.
But at this time the individual has not as yet had the experience
of carnal pleasure, neither is it conscious of the ultimate object
of the sexual instinct, the propagation of the species. Yet it is
instinctively drawn towards the person of the opposite sex, and at
its sight the hungry emotions are peeping through every action. The
individual’s nature is both chaste and voluptuous. It is chaste because
the individual has no knowledge as yet of libido or lust, yet it is
voluptuous, it is all-impulse.
The impulse of contrectation is the first to impress itself upon the
mind of the individual. With the intimacy, the impulse of detumescence
becomes also imperious, and the desire to enjoy the full possession
of the beloved object begins to manifest itself. These are, then,
the two desires the individual is henceforth well aware of and which
it is anxious to gratify. The real purpose of the instinct of sex
has been hidden to man. Seldom or never is amativeness guided by
the desire to propagate the race. Sex-activity is chiefly desired
for the satisfaction of the sensual cravings.[U] The animal in
its sex-relations is largely or exclusively guided by the impulse
of detumescence. The same is the case with men in a low state of
civilization, with their promiscuous admiration of the opposite sex.
What such savages desire is a relaxation of the nervous tension and a
discharge of the genital congestion. In men of high culture the impulse
of contrectation is the more imperious, and mental attraction is added
as a factor in the love-game, i. e., civilized men are more erotic than
libidinous in their nature.
The different phenomena appear in the just described order, if no
disturbances interrupted the natural course. If the individual was
allowed to reach adolescence without interference, then at the period
of puberty, when the centres of generation begin to increase very
rapidly, and the generative organs reach their full development, a
certain kind of material congestion and nervous tension would ensue.
But the congestion and tension would be of slight intensity to require
a specific discharge. The absorptive power of the seminal vesicles and
of the uterus would easily master the increased secretions, or the
overflow would be discharged once or twice a month during sleep, mostly
without even awakening the sleeper. Such a frequency of nocturnal
emissions, especially if not accompanied by bad effects the next day,
are perfectly normal.
But in ordinary life natural development without disturbance is rarely
or never met with. Hence the sexual activities take an entirely
different course. Boys and girls are brought up promiscuously in flats,
in schools or on the streets. The first component of the sex-instinct,
the impulse of contrectation, has an early opportunity to develop, even
before puberty, as may be seen in the early attachment of children. By
the time puberty is reached this impulse has been completely developed.
The opportunity for the gratification of this impulse is everywhere
present. Hence the tumescence is not evoked by internal messages and
natural promptings but through the actual contact. With the beginning
of the contact, be it in thought, look, word, or touch, simultaneously
also begins the sex-act. Having begun the act it is natural and
normal for the lovers to have it completed. If the stimulation of
the erogenous zones is prolonged beyond a reasonable space of time
without relaxation by an emission, a sense of incompleteness and
dissatisfaction will ensue.
By some strange quirk of the human mind the error and fallacy have
been fixed, even among thinkers, that sex-activity begins and ends
with copulation.[V] The charging of the body with the necessary energy
is considered a negligible quantity. We have taken out the final
part of the act and elevated it to a fetich, in law as well as in
sentiment, and consider all other sex activities as of no consequence.
Yet the stimuli received through the other senses, causing the
libidinous turgescence of the body, are the main part of the sexual
chain of activities. The sexual act begins with the amorous caress,
be it a caress in thought, look, or touch, as hugging or kissing.
For contrectation or tumescence and detumescence represent only
one act. One impulse is the sequel of the other. The Sermon on the
Mount, preaching, “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her has
committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew v, 28), is
nearer the physiological truth than the common accepted view.
The same disturbances which cause a break in the chain of sexual
activity during childhood, puberty and adolescence are also responsible
that in civilized men we can hardly speak any longer of an instinct
of sex. If the instinct has not been disturbed by the intrusion of
the stimuli of the senses and of the imagery before the period of
maturity, the instinct of sex should enter into play at the time of
puberty. But, as a rule, the stimulation of the erogenous zones is
effected already before the time has arrived for the sex-instinct
to make its appearance. During this stimulation, which, as we have
seen, is already a part of the sex-act, a certain fore-pleasure is
experienced. Henceforth the individual is desirous of the repetition of
this experience. Especially when the orgasm has once been tasted, the
memory of the same causes the individual to look for a repetition of
the highest lustful sensation in human experience. Sexual activity is
henceforth chiefly desired for the positive lust-feeling connected with
it. This means to say that calculation enters into the activity, and
with the entrance of calculation the activity ceases to be instinctive.
Hence in modern men and women neither sex-activity nor propagation
partake of the nature of an instinct. Normal sex-attraction being an
offshoot of the reproductive impulse, it is perfectly natural that if
the parent impulse loses its instinctive nature, the offspring will
also lose it.
CHAPTER XI
DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPRODUCTIVE IMPULSE
The instinct of propagation is normally derived from the impulse for
the satisfaction of protoplasmatic hunger. In lower animal life the
incipient sexual union is effected by two exhausted cells coming
together for the mutual exchange of nuclear material. This mode
represents the first step in the scale of conjugation.
In the lowest form of unicellular life, as the schizomycetes (yeast)
or bacteria, the necessity for conjugation does not appear to exist.
In the reproduction of these unicellular organisms the animal simply
divides into two, the division of the nucleus, as a rule, preceding
that of the cytoplasm by a more or less karyokynetic method.
The ordinary protozoon does not form a composite structure. It divides
and multiplies, but the products of the division do not remain
together, they leave each other and lead a separate existence. Hence
there is no real death in these animals. In the metazoa, or many-celled
animals, only the reproductive cells may escape death and continue to
live in the offspring. The somatic cells, or the body, die after a
longer or shorter period. The unicellular animals do not possess any
somatic cells, they are all reproductive cells. Hence we may rightly
speak of the “immortality” of the protozoa.
The method of binary fission or splitting, by which the body of the
parent becomes divided into two equal parts, into halves, is the
simplest method of multiplication. This method is made use of in the
amoeba. In this kind of reproduction there is no parent nor child. The
children, the new amoebae, are simply the parent cut in two (vide Page
60).
The next simple generation is budding, which is the breaking off of a
part smaller than half from a certain individual. The budded-off part
has the capacity of growing into a new individual like the parent.
This mode of reproduction is found in the hydra.
Another simple mode of generation is that of sporulation. Here the
interior of the body of the individual subdivides into more than two
parts. Sometimes the parts number many hundreds and are called spores.
These three methods are the simplest modes of generation and are
exclusively found in the lowest forms of unicellular organisms.
When we go a step farther, in the class of unicellular protozoa, the
simple mode of multiplication continues, in most forms, only for a
certain number of generations. Then the necessity for conjugation, i. e.,
for a temporary or permanent fusion with another individual, sets
in. If this conjugation be prevented, the animal soon degenerates and
dies.[W]
[Illustration: CUT XXXV.
Infusorium reproducing by sporulation.]
The simplest terms of conjugation are found in Chilodon, a minute
fresh-water infusorium, which multiplies for a considerable length of
time by transverse division. After a time, however, the physiological
necessity for conjugation sets in. The different animals place
themselves side by side, in pairs, and partly fuse together. The
nucleus of each individual divides now into two portions, one of which
passes from each infusorium into the other to unite with the half of
the nucleus that remained stationary. The two animals then separate,
each having received a half of the nucleus of the other. Thereupon a
period of renewed activity for each ensues, manifested by rapid growth
and multiplication by division, until a certain weakening in the
vital activities indicates the periodically recurring necessity for
conjugation.
The next step in conjugation is found in those animals in which after
their fusion the two animals do not separate any more, as found in the
fission of monads, which is preceded by the absorption of one form
by another. One monad is fixed upon the sarcode of another, and the
substance of the lesser, which is the lower one, passes into the upper
one. In about two hours the merest trace of the lower one is only left,
and in four hours fission and multiplication of the larger one has
taken place.
From these two modes of generation it is easily seen that the impelling
force leading to conjugation is, as Rolph puts it, simply cell hunger.
These modes of multiplication are also found in the simpler forms of
colonial protozoa,[X] where the cells are not yet differentiated and
all the members of the colony take part in reproduction.
In the next higher class of colonial protozoa, the first
differentiation of the members or cells of the colony takes place. One
part of the cells is set apart to continue the task of reproduction,
while the main body of the colony does not participate any longer in
the function of generation. As a rule, the reproductive cells are
divided into two kinds, and these two kinds of cells conjugate with
each other. The conjugation takes place either between different
members of the same colony or between members of different colonies of
the same species.
The conjugating individuals are similar in the simpler kinds of
colonies. In the higher forms the two conjugating cells are easily
seen to be very different from each other. One kind of cells is large,
spherical and inactive. They are for this reason called egg-cells. The
other kind of cells is small, with ovoid head and tapering tail and
free-swimming. For this reason they are called sperm cells.
When the differentiation between the reproductive cells into two kinds
has taken place, they are called sex cells. The sex cells are usually
situated in groups, and the groups are called sexual glands. The groups
of sperm cells are called testicles and those of egg cells are called
ovaries.
In the lower classes in the animal kingdom the male and female glands
are situated at different parts of the same animal, or near each other.
Sometimes the same gland is producing both kinds of cells, male and
female. In the hermaphroditic species of round worms, for instance,
it is found that, when the reproductive organ is fully formed, it
functions first as a testicle. The germ-cells at the anterior end of
the sexual gland begin to divide rapidly and become small spermatozoa
which are stored up in a receptacle of the uterus. Later on other
cells, also situated at the anterior end of the sex-gland, begin to
grow larger, store up yolk and become large egg-cells. They then enter
the uterus and become fertilized by their own spermatozoa. This mode
of fertilization is the so-called self-fertilization. It is found in
the slightly complex animals, as the tape-worm or the leech, where one
and the same individual produces both egg-cells and sperm-cells. In
colonial jelly-fishes certain members of the colony produce only sperm
cells, and certain other members produce only egg-cells.
In the hermaphroditic animals the sperm cells of the same individual
may fertilize their own egg-cells or ova, as in the feat-worm
(self-fertilization), while in the earth worm, although it is also
hermaphroditic, cross-fertilization takes place. Two earth-worms
mutually fertilize each other, the sperm cells of one fertilize the ova
of the other, and the sperm cells of the latter fertilize the ova of
the former.
_Fertilization in plants._—This mode of cross-fertilization is the
one generally found in phanerogamous (φανερός = apparent and γάμος =
marriage) plants.
In the lower forms of the organic world the line of demarkation
between plant and animal is somewhat blotted, and the identity of the
mode of fertilization does not need to be particularly emphasized. In
the higher forms the division is generally made by the mode of the
assimilation of food and of motion. Plants generally break up the
inorganic compounds into separate elements and recombine them into
organic compounds, or potential energy. These organic compounds serve
then the animal as food or as source of energy. The inorganic compounds
being, as a rule, ubiquitous, the plants have hence a certainty of
food supply and do not depend upon the facility of motion. They are,
therefore, marked by a fixity to the soil. They are also surrounded
by an outer skeleton, or a coat of cellulose and are less affected by
outer stimuli; hence they possess slight consciousness. For the animals
the food-supply is more uncertain, hence they need greater movement.
For this reason they generally lack the external skeleton and hence
possess higher consciousness.
Apart from this division plant and animal are closely related cousins,
and the mode of fertilization of most of the higher plants is about the
same as in the hermaphroditic animals.
The sexual organs of the phanerogamous plants are represented by the
flowers.[Y] Showy flowers consist usually of four sets of organs,
pistils, stamens, petals, and sepals. The sepals taken together
constitute the calyx, the petals taken together constitute the corolla.
The essential organs of the flower are the stamens and pistils. The
stamen represents the male organ, and the pistil the female organ of
the plant, while the calyx and corolla form the floral envelopes, or
the so-called perianth and are analogous to the external genital
organs in the animal. Flowers which contain all the four sets of organs
are said to be complete flowers, those which have the essential organs
only are called perfect flowers.
[Illustration: CUT XXXVI.
_A complete flower._
st, stamen; pi, pistil; pe, petal; s, sepal; ca, calyx; c, corolla.
After Bergen.]
Complete and perfect flowers are hermaphroditic. The male organ or the
androcele and the female organ or the gynocele are situated in one and
the same flower. The unisexual flowers are those where the stamens
and the pistils are produced on separate flowers, as in the willow.
Stamen and pistil may not only be produced on separate flowers, but the
staminate and pistillate flowers themselves may be borne on different
plants, as in hickory, hazel, or Indian corn. Such plants are called
dioecious or of two households. When both kinds of flowers appear on
the same individual, the plant is called monoecious or of one household.
[Illustration: CUT XXXVII.
_Stamen._
a, anther; f, filament. After Bergen.]
[Illustration: CUT XXXVIII.
_Pollen grains._
s, spots where the inner coat bursts. After Bergen.]
The stamen, or the male sexual organ of the flower, consists of a
hollow portion called the anther, which is borne on a stalk called the
filament. Inside of the anther is found a powdery or pasty substance
called the pollen. The shape of the anther and the way in which it
opens depend largely upon the way in which the pollen is to be
discharged and how it is carried from flower to flower. As a rule, the
anther opens by the cells being split length-wise, or by little holes
at the top.
The pollen in many plants is a fine dry powder, in others it is
somewhat sticky or pasty. The forms of the pollen grains are various.
Each pollen-grain consists of a single cell and is covered by a thick
outer and a thin inner wall or coat. At the outer coat there are spots
at which the inner coat of the grain is finally to burst through the
outer one, pushing its way out in the form of a slender thin-walled
tube. The contents of the pollen is a thickish protoplasma, full of
little opake particles, and usually containing grains of starch and
little drops of oil.
[Illustration: CUT XXXIX.
_Pistil._
sti, stigma; sty, style; ov, ovule. After Bergen.]
The pistil, or the female sexual organ of the flower, usually consists
of a small hollow chamber called the ovary, which contains the ovules,
and of a slender portion or stalk, called the style. At the top of the
latter is found a ridge, knob, or point which is called the stigma.
The stigma consists of cells loosely arranged over the surface. These
cells secrete a moist substance, to which the pollen grains adhere
when they come in contact with the stigma. Beneath these superficial
cells, running down through the style, there are found long cells, with
intermediate spaces, through which the pollen tube reaches the ovary.
[Illustration: CUT XL.
_Stigma of thorn-apple with pollen._
p, pollen forming into a pollen-tube; i, intermediate space. After
Bergen.]
The ovules are not borne indiscriminately by any part of the lining of
the ovary. They grow in a line running along one side of the ovary,
as may be seen in the pea pod. This ovule-bearing line is called the
placenta.
The ovule usually exists as a roundish or egg-shaped mass, with a small
opening leading into the apex. This opening leads to a sac inside the
ovule, which is filled with a soft protoplasmatic material and cells
and is known as the embryo sac. Minute cells are found at the apex of
the ovule from the development of which the embryo is produced, after
the union of the pollen with a cell at the apex of the embryo sac of
the ovule has taken place.
[Illustration: CUT XLI.
_Fertilization of the ovule._
st, stigma; p, pollen; pt, pollen-tube; o, ovary; e, embryo-sac. After
Bergen.]
_Fertilization._—As soon as the pollen grain lodges on the stigma, it
begins to form into a pollen tube. In more or less time it makes its
way through the style into the ovary. It then penetrates the opening
at the apex of the ovule, reaches one of the cells and transfers its
nucleus into an egg-cell. The latter begins at once to form cell-walls
and increases by continued subdivision to the plant embryo. Only one
pollen tube is necessary to fertilize each ovule. Still plants produce
more pollen than ovules—the ratio is from 1:8 to 1:1000—because so many
pollen are lost on their way to the ovules.
The mechanism of the forwarding of the pollen to the ovule varies
in different plants. In self-fertilization or in those plants in
which the ovule may be impregnated by the pollen of the same flower,
fertilization is comparatively easy. But in a great many plants
cross-fertilization is the rule. In order to accomplish the most
successful fertilization, the pollen must come from another plant of
the same species. Here nature has devised different ways to carry the
pollen from one plant to another.
In the first place, there is the wind which accomplishes the task of
forwarding the pollen. The wind-fertilized flowers have dry and powdery
pollen, and the pistils are feathery, adapted to catch flying pollen
grains. The flowers are characterized by their inconspicuousness. They
are usually greenish, without any odor or nectar.
Another device to forward the pollen is by way of insects. Most of the
showy, sweet-scented or otherwise conspicuous kinds of flowers are
entirely dependent for fertilization on the transference of pollen from
one plant to another by insects. The showy colors and odors serve to
attract insects to visit them for their nectar. Insects and flowers are
interdependent upon one another. For many insects depend mainly upon
the nectar and pollen of flowers for their food. These insects usually
visit only one kind of flower during the day and thus carry only one
kind of pollen. Butterflies, moths, and most of the bees go straight
from one flower to another and carry a good deal of pollen entangled in
the scales or hairs of their bodies. On its way, the insect leaves a
good deal of the pollen on the stigma of the pistil and becomes dusted
with new pollen to be carried to other flowers.
The means to attract insects are threefold: nectar, odor and color.
The nectar is a sweet liquid which the flower secretes by means of
nectar glands. The latter are usually situated near the base of the
flower. Other plants attract insect visitors by giving up a sweet
scent. These are especially the small flowers, like the mignonette
or evening primrose. The color is another means by which the flower
attracts insects and birds. The color of the flower is, as a rule, due
to showy petals. Different kinds of insects are especially attracted by
different colors. Some flowers with very long tubulated corollas depend
entirely upon birds with long beaks to carry their pollen for them.
In complete and perfect flowers, where stamen and pistil are present in
the same flower, self-fertilization would be the rule, if there were
not certain means for its prevention. In the first place the pollen of
another plant frequently prevails over that which the flower may shed
over its own pistil. When both kinds are placed over the stigma, at the
same time, it is the foreign pollen which causes fertilization. Another
means to prevent self-fertilization consists in the stamens and pistils
maturing at different times. The insect visitor, on its way to the
nectary, brushes against the ripe stamens of a certain flower in its
earlier stage. It cannot deposit the acquired pollen upon the stigma of
the same flower and thus cause self-fertilization because the pistil is
not ripe yet. But, in flying to a flower in the later stage, when the
stigma has already ripened and the stamens have shed all their pollen,
the insect will lodge the pollen first acquired on the ripe stigma, and
in this way produce the desired cross-fertilization.
_Sex-differentiation._—When we rise higher in the scale of animal life
we find that the egg-cells and sperm-cells are almost always produced
by different individuals. Those which produce egg-cells or ova are
called female, and those which produce sperm-cells or spermatozoa are
called male animals. The formation of a new being results in these
species from the conjugation of two cellular elements of two different
animals. In this way the origin of the organism, or the zygote from
which the new individual develops is composed of parts of two different
individuals, and a difference between the offspring and parents
is insured. The intermixing of body-substance from two distinct
individuals and the development therefrom of the new individual produce
variation.[Z]
When the scale of animal life is reached where egg-cell and sperm-cell
have their habitats in different individuals, the attraction
between ovum and spermatozoön, which is based upon a kind of erotic
chemotropismus, is transferred to the two hosts who harbor the two
different sex-cells. Thus the erotic chemotropismus between two cells
has now grown to sex-attraction between two animals. But even at this
stage the attraction sometimes exists only between the sex-cells,
namely when fertilization takes place outside of the mother’s body. The
best example of outside fertilization are the fishes. The female fish
contains the roe, which is a mass of small eggs. At the proper time the
female lets the roe fall on the ground of rivers or the dark bottom of
lakes, etc., at a favorable place called spawning bed, secure against
enemies. The male fishes swim over the spawn and pour their semen or
milt over it. The two kinds of cells attract each other like iron and
magnet. When the milt has reached the spawn, the eggs are fertilized
and develop into new fishes.
In the next higher class, in birds, fertilization is internal, and only
the development is external. The female bird has an ovary containing a
large number of eggs or ova, within its body. The male animal possesses
an organ serving for the introduction of the semen into the body of the
female. The fertilized egg is laid and develops outside, either by the
sun-heat or hatched by the mother’s warmth.
The last step in generation is reached in the mammals. Here not only
fertilization is accomplished within the body of the female, but also
the entire development of the fertilized ovum is carried out in the
uterus, inside the female body. Hence mammals give birth to living
mature young.
In these higher animals the attraction of the sex cells has been
definitely transferred to, or rather changed into, the attraction of
the hosts of these cells or into the sexual instinct. The sex-instinct
is, therefore, if not identical with the instinct of propagation, thus
an offshoot of the latter instinct.
In the more advanced species of the higher animals the instinct
relating to the preservation of the kind is composed of three
definite impulses. There is first the impulse relating to the act of
conjugation, universal in all organic life. The average individual
grows up surrounded by others of the opposite sex and normally
unexcited by this difference until the age of puberty approaches. Then
some day, the boy or girl find arising within an incipient impulse
which, naturally, were there no artificial restrictions, would lead
them to exercise their sexual powers, just as found among animals.
The second impulse relates to the pursuit and attraction of mates. It
is first found among the lower types of the animal kingdom. The sweet
odors and showy colors found in flowers are nothing else but the means
of attracting the insects that carry the pollen for fertilization. The
bright colors of some animals, especially among birds, and other animal
adornments also serve to attract the mates. The woman’s love for finery
also emanates from no other source than from the impulse of pursuit and
attraction of mates.
The third impulse stands in relation to permanent mating and the
protection of the young. It is the impulse relating to the germs of
family life, and is present among those animals that have gained a
higher place in the ascending scale of complexity and whose young are
more difficultly provided for.[AA]
Through the whole range of animal life, where the period of infancy
is comparatively short (e. g. horse, dog, cat, etc.), the male part
is ended with impregnation or copulation. The nursing of the young is
left to the female,[AB] and she will sacrifice her own life in the
protection of her breed. In animals whose young are not easily provided
for (e. g. fox, wildcat, eagle, sparrow, pigeon, stork, etc.), not
only the mother will sacrifice her own existence in the protection of
her offspring, but also the father will do his utmost in the interest
of his young ones. In these animals the males remain attached to the
females they have secured at the first period of oestrum even after the
time of propagation has passed, provide mutually for their offspring
until the latter can provide for themselves, and at each succeeding
period of rut, yield again to love and never seek a new mate until the
old one dies. Ernest Thompson Seton found that hawks practise monogamy
and that wolves consort for life, and, in case of death, the survivor
remains alone. The Canadian wild goose, when it has lost its mate,
will never seek another. Thus the instinct of permanent mating or of
monogamic marriage, is a phenomenon already found among many animals.
Now, among all animals, the prenatal period and the period of the
maternal feeding are almost the longest in man. The helplessness of the
human infant is unique among the creatures of the animal kingdom. The
new-born baby is devoid of nearly all instinctive capacities, except
the taking-in and assimilation of food. It is unable to stand or wander
in search of food. It is nearly blind and deaf. It is perfectly naked,
without fur or feathers, and hence is in need of a certain amount of
heat, being injured by the least draught. It is in need of the utmost
cleanliness, still it is unable to keep itself clean. It is unable
to fast longer than a few hours. In short, the human infant is the
most complete picture of helpless dependence. Hence without the help
and strength of fatherhood, afforded to motherhood, the human race
could not have survived the primitive stage, when couples still lived
separated. The length and feebleness of human infancy required a union
of male and female of considerable duration. By the time the last
child was able to emancipate itself from the parental protection, the
period of sexual activity had been passed. Permanent mating among men,
especially in the prehuman stage, was a condition sine qua non, all the
preachings of the free-lovers to the contrary notwithstanding.[AC]
Permanent mating is, therefore, a natural impulse among human beings.
It is necessary for the protection and preservation of the lives of
a lesser number of offspring of a higher grade. Permanent mating is,
hence, of fundamental racial value. In man this impulse is of a more
complex form and broader range, which leads the individual to wish not
for momentary excitement, but for a permanent union, for a home, for a
family. Even to the man who regularly indulges in meretricious venery
there comes a time when these bonds of mere passion do not satisfy
any longer. He begins to crave for a permanent mate and a home. This
impulse appears later in life and is not present in the earlier impulse
for mere conjugation, arising at the period of puberty. The amatory
feelings at that time of life are bestowed upon the first pleasing
individual of the opposite sex and are seldom of long duration. They
are transferred from individual to individual. Later in life, after
character is formed, there comes for men and women the dawn of a deeper
affection, which involves bonds of stronger form and more permanent
type than any that mere passion can arouse. This unconscious and
involuntary craving for a permanent mate and home is of an altruistic
nature. It has been wisely implanted in the interest of the race.
There is nothing egotistical connected with this impulse. Personal
gratification does not enter into consideration, for the joy and
pleasure connected with personal satisfaction may be found with any
temporary mate.
CHAPTER XII
SENSUAL LOVE
Permanent mating is altruistic in character, but the altruism extends
only to the future generation. Even the fastidiousness found in
permanent mating is in the interest of the unborn. The mates are only
tools in the hands of the commanding Spirit, whose all-governing
principle has only one thought, only one prosaic aim, the propagation
of the human species. The attachment between both mates cannot,
therefore, be properly called love. For in love the mate is of primary
importance. But the permanent-mating impulse is the stepping-stone
to love which is first found in the human race. In human love a
distinction must be made, according to Finck, between two different
kinds; love as an instinct, or sensual love[AD] and love as a
sentiment, or sentimental love.
Sensual love is the only kind of love the greater part of humanity
knows.[AE] This love has no depth or duration, and when satisfied,
cares no longer for the object for which it temporarily hungered. For
when sense forms the chief part of the compound feeling, love will not
long survive possession. There may be a strong individual preference in
sensual love. The charm exuding from the personality of one individual
may possess a kind of personal magnetism for another of the opposite
sex. The luscious intoxicating essences, exhaling from one person,
may have a particular idiosyncratical attraction for the other. Hence
sensual love may be as fastidious as pure love. It may temporarily
focus its interest on one person only. Yet in sensual love the intense
desire for exclusive possession, the jealousy toward rivals, the
coy-resistance, and the moods of doubt and hope are only emanations of
selfish lust, of eagerness to gratify an appetite with a particular
victim for whom the lover has no adoration or self-sacrificing
devotion. Such a lover loves only himself; his one object is to please
his own beloved “I,” without any regards for the feelings of his mate.
The latter figures only as a means to the end, that end being his own
gratification. To such a lover, “I love you” means “I long for you,
covet you, and am eager to enjoy you.” All indulgences and favors shown
to the mate are only meant as means to gain a certain end, and when
this cannot be attained, sensual love will change into the contrary
passion of hatred. In sentimental love such a thing as hatred is
impossible. For to understand a thing thoroughly, forever puts that
thing beyond the pale of hatred; to love a thing merely is to subject
oneself to the possibility of hating that thing.
Sensual love, says Duboc, starts as an ideal notion and fancy from
the sensual enjoyment which the sexual feeling promises. Whoever
promises to satisfy to perfection appears as an ideal, by being the
representative of this enjoyment; he becomes the object of the highest
wish and desire. But as soon as he loses this significance, this symbol
of sexual union, he immediately is deprived of his ideal character.
By no means can, therefore, sensual love renounce, because with the
resignation and renunciation the deposition of the ideal immediately
begins, while true love can only prove its genuineness by the very
renunciation.
Sensual love is thus characterized by the egoism that lies at its
foundation. Joy and sorrow, hope and fear, which may be found in
sensual love, are only the selfish aspects of passion. The moods of
hope and despair may disquiet or delight also those who love only as
a carnal appetite. A desire which is the most violent and the most
engrossing of all passions, a craving which next to hunger and thirst
is the most powerful and imperious of all appetites may cause all kinds
of selfish pleasures and selfish pains. Even attachment and fondness
are no proof of the existence of pure love. The manifestations of
attachment may spring from selfish interest, they may be the rewards
for favors to come. Fondness, displaying a silly extravagance or
unseemly demonstrativeness, does not prove true love; it may be only a
foolish, doting indulgence. The old maid is also fond of her dog and
the little girl of her doll. Some men love their wives as children love
dolls, and, as a natural result, treat them just as dolls are treated.
They dress them in all the finery they are able to procure, pet and
exhibit them until they become old, and then they turn aside for their
neighbors’ dolls. Even the doll’s admired beauty is valued not for the
pure artistic delight of loveliness, but as an incentive to the chase.
This is not true love. The person is here only valued as an object
without which the beloved “ego” could not have its selfish indulgence.
Even adoration is no proof of true love. Husbands are often adored for
their coldness, hardness, arrogance and contemptuousness, and beaten
wives do often most warmly adore. Yet such husbands are certainly not
truly loved.
Fondness, liking and attachment even to the degree of committing
suicide upon the loss of the person coveted, may not be true love
withal. Suicide is no test of true love. Many a man commits suicide
after losing his wealth, yet money is not loved for its own sake, but
for the power it possesses of procuring the means for enjoyment. A
person may take his own life because it feels lonely after the failure
to secure the desired union. An individual may risk life and comfort to
obtain possession of a coveted body for its own enjoyment. Such actions
are no indication of genuine love and, generally, they prove just the
contrary, just as the unrestrained, unlimited desire which ignores
all considerations of honor, prosperity and peace, does not prove
true love but, on the contrary, the urgings of the primal instinct.
Neither should the sacred term “true love” be applied to the feeling
that animates selfish and impulsive idiots to assassinate cowardly an
unresponding mate. Such designs just prove the selfish lust. The gross,
sensual infatuation which leads a man to shoot a woman who rejects him,
or which leads a woman to throw acid in the face of the beloved man,
is absolutely antithetic to refined, ardent, sentimental love, which
impels the lover to sacrifice his own life and comfort rather than let
any harm come to the one beloved.
This true love is only possible among the refined and cultured.
Hence the greater part of humanity has never known the emotions of
sentimental love. The only love it knows is sensual love.[AF] Men and
women with blunt intellects also have blunt feelings and are incapable
of experiencing true love. They can only be inspired by the love of the
body. This love, to be sure, is not necessarily coarse or obscene, yet
it is a stranger to true sentimental love.
CHAPTER XIII
SENTIMENTAL LOVE
Sentimental, or true love, is a conscious altruism and is the
antithesis of the egotistic sensual love. Before applying the term
true love to the relation of both mates, the test of disinterested
affection, as found in the instinctive parental love, must be applied.
The distinction between sensual and sentimental love is the selfish
desire of libido in the former and the self-sacrificing ardor of
altruistic affection in the latter.
The two emotions have some characteristics in common, and for that
reason, sensual love is, as a rule, mistaken for sentimental love,
even by the greatest thinkers and best poets. An essential and
invariable ingredient in sentimental, as well as in sensual love, is
the imperative desire for an absolute monopoly of the beloved person.
But while in sensual love this desire springs from an egotistic source,
selfish elements are foreign to this desire in sentimental love. The
latter knows only devotion and sympathy, which urge the lover to seek
the welfare of the one beloved, if need be at the expense of his own.
The only true index of genuine love lies, therefore, in the sacrifice
of one’s own happiness for another’s sake. Pure love is always ready
to lose its own life in an effort to save another’s. The sentimental
lover is, indeed, not less overjoyed to have his affection returned;
but if it is not reciprocated, his love is, unlike sensual love that
turns into resentment, none the less affectionate. He never slakes
his thirst with the blood of his beloved, even if he is rejected. His
constant solicitude is how he can make the beloved happy and save the
adored person from grief, at whatever cost to his own comfort. He
feels the joys and sorrows of his beloved, as if they were his own.
He has completely surrendered himself and his own peculiarity to the
other and has, in a certain respect, died as something specific and
individual.[AG]
True love, therefore, was slow in coming and is a child of a higher
civilization, and is, even then, known only to the cultured. Only when
humanity has reached that state of civilization when men and women
show not only their respective physical but also mental secondary
characters, then admiration and respect enter into the relation of
the sexes. Love becomes more and more fastidious and more regardful
of intellectual worth and moral beauty, and sentimental love is made
possible. For true love cannot exist without respect, and genuine
affection is chiefly evoked by intellectual, emotional and moral
qualities.
The secondary mental characters in the man are strength, hardiness,
robustness, courage, aggressiveness, activity, creativeness, stern
justice, gallantry, generosity, manly will, manly grace, tenderness,
and intelligence. The feminine qualities are gentleness, kindness,
patience, tenderness, benevolence, sympathy, self-sacrifice, meekness,
sensitiveness, emotionality, modesty, demureness, coyness, and
domesticity. The highest phases of genuine love are possible only where
the secondary psychic qualities are highly developed. Such persons do
not care to possess in the low, coarse way that characterizes sensual
love. They are content to love and be silent, to worship even at a
distance.
Love, says Horowicz, growing up as a mighty passion from the substratum
of sexual life has, under the repressing influences of habits and
customs, taken on an entirely new, supersensual, ethereal character,
so that to the true lover every thought of naturalia seems indelicate
and improper. True love is, therefore, only possible between refined
and cultured people, between a man capable of adoration, sympathy and
affection and a woman equipped with mental and moral charms. In true
love the woman must show the same traits as in her maternal capacity.
She has to be a real mother to the man she loves. The man starts life
at a woman’s knees, and it is to a woman’s knees that he returns when
he marries. Woe to him and her, if the second woman’s love is less
selfish and sacrificing than that of the first.
A sympathetic disposition is as essential to the individual who wishes
to be loved truly and permanently as all the other secondary psychic
qualities. Cruel indifference is not incompatible with sensual love,
but it is fatal to love based upon sentiment. Ordinary, sensual
infatuation could be strong and unprincipled enough to lead a person to
sacrifice honor and self-respect for the caprices of another. But true
love would turn into contempt for the one who could wantonly subject
it to persistent insults and degradation; and contempt is the death of
genuine love, though yet compatible with sensual love.[AH]
True love is, therefore, characterized by patience, kindness,
generosity, humility, unselfishness, good temper, and sincerity. This
spectrum of true love shows the same elements as does that of genuine
friendship. True love, therefore, can only be acquired in the same
way as true friendship, namely, after a long probationary interval.
Then only will the true love supply the universal need of friendship.
Marriage is no barrier to the existence of unselfish and sexless love,
which is the essence of the truest and purest friendship. If a husband
be truly the friend of his wife, his love for her as a friend would
be just as strong, just as tender, just as permanent and unswerving
as if she were not his wife, nor ever might be. Nay, it may be said
with Tolstoy that unless married people have been united by pure love,
without a mixture of animal passion, the time must come when they will
become weary of each other.
Duboc had only sensual love in mind when he said: To be adored and
admired is, in distinction from friendship, the criterion of love,
while the criterion of friendship, in distinction from love, is to be
understood and esteemed; the latter is delighted in its illusions,
the former harbors an element inimical to all illusions. Sentimental
love is also an enemy to illusions. Sentimental love, as distinguished
from friendship, is dependent upon sexual differentiation. Pure oxygen
would burn the lungs after a very short time, pure nitrogen suffocates
every animal, but “both combined maintain life,” says Ellen Key. Mere
sensual attraction is not love, nor is friendship love; in combination
they are the air of life. When two souls have joys which the senses
share, and when the senses have delights which the souls ennoble, then
the result is neither desire nor friendship, it is a new feeling. The
only distinction between true love and pure friendship is that the most
ideal relation between man and man in friendship is transferred to man
and woman in love. Hence these two relationships must possess the same
qualities. Paternal, filial and fraternal love partake each, in some
degree, of instinct and are, to that extent, impulsive and blind. But
in true love, instinct and sensuality have no place. “She is sacred to
me,” says Goethe’s Werther, “all desire is silent in her presence.” A
gleam of such wedded friendship transcends all other kinds of love.
Wherever there is a pure and unselfish love for another for that
other’s own sake, a love contingent neither on its return nor on its
recognition, there is true friendship.
Sentimental love, like its comrade friendship, furthers the display
of nobility and native virtues of the human soul. To love one’s soul
for its beauty, grace and truth, to be inspired by the charm of its
character to an affection which is pure and chaste, is to open the way
to appreciate all beautiful and true and gracious souls. It offers
the most refined of the pleasures which make life worth living. Joy
demands that its joy should be shared.[AI] We need sympathy; hence we
crave friendship and love. By the devotion of the other we feel our own
power, our own value enhanced. Love tends to make man kinder and better
through his complete identification with the existence of another. In
the beauty of a loving attachment, man learns to comprehend all his
fellowmen and to value and look at all the world by the glorious light
of an inner community of emotions.
Such love must be proved and purified by the fire of reasoning. It
is only possible after a thorough study of the character. The subtle
elective affinity, of which we hear so much praised on the lecture
platform, on the stage, in the magazines and in the papers, cannot
be relied upon; its thrill is uncertain and needs to be tested and
corrected by a long trial, whether it is really spiritual kinship or
only emotional impulse. If after the veil of fantasy has been removed,
the beloved object is still found worthy of the highest and warmest
esteem, the emotion will be far nobler than, and different from, the
unconscious fondness which overlooks the exact estimation of the
beloved. In all love, considered as a virtue or grace, there must
always be the conscious will, which is also the foundation of morality.
Such love may also reach the highest state of passion, but in
distinction from sensual love, it seeks its own happiness _in_ the
felicity of the other, and conscious of its own disinterested purity,
considers its desires as noble and above general motives of human
action. Such emotions can only exist between men and women of pure
souls.
True love is, therefore, rational, conscious, unselfish, deep,
enduring, constant, refined, self-denying, and is willing to make the
greatest sacrifices for the sake of the happiness of another. It is
conscious altruism, never faltering in its ethical sense of duty. It is
love tested and purified in the fire of the intellect; it comes slowly,
but it endures; it gives more than it takes, and has a tinge of tender
gratitude for a thousand kind actions. It is, therefore, an ideal
sentiment which has hitherto been reached only by a very few select.
But if we look at love in the light of evolution, when we find how
cell-division developed into sexuality, conjugation, permanent mating,
sensual love and, finally, into sentimental love, there is reason for
hope that the still rare fruits of an apparently more than earthly
paradise of love, which only the forerunners of the race have been
privileged to gather, will some day, when humanity has reached the
state of Nietzsche’s Superman, become the universal food of the human
race.
_Development of love in the individual._—The evolutionary trend in
this world can be detected not only in the mere preservation, but also
in increasing perfection. Not only the preservative instinct, i. e.,
the will to live and the will to reproduce, has contributed to the
advancement of organic life to higher forms, but the two perfective
human instincts, i. e., the will to act and the will to rule, have
also served as a means for the evolution of human activities, as
science, art, economics, etc.[AJ] One of such activities is sentimental
love which had to pass through all the different stages of evolution
before it reached the complexity of its present structure. Evolution is
a truly universal principle. The meaning of life is its advance towards
higher forms. There is not a trait, physical, psychical or spiritual
that is wholly finished. The higher emotions as love and hate, fear and
shame, etc., are not born with the child; they are evolved slowly by
degrees.
According to Nordau every individual is in love with his own ideal,
throughout his entire life. Every man and woman falls in love with the
representative identical with, or at least most resembling, his or her
ideal. The craving for love is the desire to possess the organic ideal.
The ideal of the mate begins to be distinctly evolved by the organism
at the time of puberty and is complete only late in life. The ideal,
except in its general features, is not stationary; it grows with the
individual’s physical and mental development. With the beginning of the
material growth of the centre of generation, the imagination begins
to receive from the mysterious depths of the cells and tissues the
conception of the image of the mate. The organism hears indistinctive
voices, all telling the tale of the future partner in life. In this way
the image of the ideal grows up in the brain during the individual’s
amatory life.
Higher eroticism requires, then, the beloved to be a vehicle of a
projected personality. Love for a man or a woman is the attempt to
realize one’s ideal in the man or the woman. The impulse to love is
the search after the incarnation of the inward ideal, and falling in
love is the instinctive conviction that the ideal has been found. The
lower and simpler the individual himself, the simpler will be the
qualities of his ideal in corporate form. Among people of a low state
of civilization the qualities required of the ideal are so few that
almost every individual of one sex represents the ideal of the other
sex. They may both be paired like animals, and love does not yet exist.
The more cultivated a person becomes, the more complicated become the
qualities demanded of his ideal, and the harder it is for him to find
the same. A person looking for physical qualities in his ideal or for
external beauty only, will easily find them, and a case of love at
first sight, about which romantic dreamers go into such raptures, is
naturally possible. But such love is only sensual and does not deserve
to be thus extolled. For true love among men and women of a higher
state of culture is an ideal symphony of tones of all kinds.
Generally bodily perfection and a retiring, tender, beneficent,
confiding nature in woman constitute an attractive ideal for the man,
while mental superiority in man constitutes the attractive power for
the cultured woman. In her love the regard for masculine beauty usually
forms an unimportant ingredient. The woman, says Kant, has an exquisite
feeling for the beautiful, so far as she herself is concerned, but
for the noble so far as it is found in the man. The man, on the
contrary, has a decided feeling for the noble, which belongs to his own
qualities, but for the beautiful so far as it is met with in the woman.
Hence it follows that the aims of nature are directed through love upon
making men still nobler and women more beautiful.
The masculine virtues which impress true women are physical strength,
courage, nobility of mind, chivalry and self-confidence. These virtues
constitute the beauty which arouses the woman’s love, these are the
conspicuous features of her ideal. The female virtues that impress
the man are beauty, tenderness, goodness, refinement, truth and
patience. These are the virtues his ideal possesses. The more highly
cultivated mentally and physically he or she are, the more complex and
differentiated are the qualities of their ideals. Hence refined and
complex natures experience a great deal of difficulty in meeting with
their ideals or any one closely approximating them. But when two happen
to perfectly compliment each other, when each happens to represent the
ideal of the other, then there is true and lasting love. Such people
know their ideal when they meet it and have been given time to study
it, and they also know that they will never find another one in this
world; they know that only this being and no other is suited to them as
one triangle is to its congruent.
This knowledge can only be gained after a long study of the qualities
of the person found, as to whether they really coincide with the mental
qualities of the ideal; and it takes such noble beings longer to fall
in love. Coarser natures are readily able to fall in love. The sensual
qualities which attract a man or a woman to a paramour are easily
discovered. When the affections mount no higher than mere feeling, a
true communion of hearts is not indispensable. When the union of the
man and the woman is regarded only from the physical basis, when the
object is only self-gratification, the finer phases may be and really
are ignored. Mere sensual enjoyment can be experienced by two persons
who otherwise despise each other.[AK] But true love has far nobler
aspirations than sensual enjoyment, and promises a union of heart and
soul.
Among intellectual persons mere instinct becomes more and more
powerless until it is almost totally extinguished. True love among
them is, then, a voluntary act. The plans for its accomplishment
are elaborated in the mind slowly and intelligently. It has then
all the qualities of true friendship, combined with an affection in
which sensual desire is working to a greater or less extent only
unconsciously. As fusing body and mind it may become one of the
strongest, deepest and most influential of the passions of our nature.
It opens up horizons above and beyond the earth so vast that this
mundane sphere dwindles into insignificance.
_Woman’s love._—In emotional natures love exerts a predominant and
frequently even supreme influence upon the whole consciousness of the
individual. It produces effects upon his judgment, his fantasy and his
will. It excites conceptions borrowed from the domain of sex and gives
to all the work of the brain an erotic tendency and a sexual polarity.
Now, the woman lives more by her emotions than the man. The part she
plays in the propagation of the kind is also by far the more important
one. She has to supply the whole material for the formation of the new
being; the man only supplies the stimulation to this heroic work. The
woman’s centre of sexual activity is, therefore, more developed. The
activity of the generative centres occupies an important position in
the activity of her brain as a whole. Sexual life concerns her more
nearly, more deeply and more lastingly than the man. She is able to
do nothing else but love. Sexual matters imperiously mingle with all
her motives and influence all her aims. To her love is life. Marriage
is her highest ideal, and domestic happiness is and ever will be her
ultimate aim.[AL]
Women, even maidens, says Hume, take more offence at satires upon
matrimony than taunts upon their sex. Woman knows the attraction her
sex has upon the other, and smiles at the insincerity of sex-criticism.
But matrimony is holy to her. She has a natural tendency to regard
wedded love as the single aim and substance of the life of human
beings. Sexual consciousness is stronger in her than in man, and her
need of true love is greater. She lives largely in her affections, and
her constant desire is to attract and please.
In her natural state the woman, therefore, possesses a more distinctly
developed ideal. On dissecting and analyzing the female heart at any
age, and however married, we should probably find that the original
ideal is still lingering there. Woman is constantly groping and making
experiments, whereby she attempts to realize the ideal of her dreams
in the actual men of her acquaintance. The instinct of selection is
very important to her. By it she recognizes her affinity, the man best
fitted by nature to father her children. She unconsciously feels the
need of a partner who will organically compliment her. She possesses an
instinctive sensation of what is organically necessary to her for the
continuation and intensification of her qualities in the offspring.
For the woman the step of choosing a partner is the most important
act of her life. She has an instinctive sensation that she ought
not to make a mistake, and is extremely careful to avoid the least
likelihood of error. She instinctively feels that her mistakes cannot
be corrected. She is monoandric in character. She is aware that purely
sensual love cannot last. Hence she looks more for mental merits,
and has a high appreciation of a fine character. She is looking for
qualities that will outlive the freshness of physical charms. Her
innate solicitude is to continue the love-charm all through married
life. Hence she is governed by ideas of the sublime and the beautiful.
Only a man endowed with such qualities can inspire in her true love
and its unsurpassed pleasure and joy in life. When so inspired, she
surrounds the object of her love with the halo of perfection.
The man, says Dessoir, is able to accomplish and find pleasure in sex
activity without his soul partaking in it, but the woman does not find
gratification in this activity if the soul has not been first excited
by the beauty, strength and personality of her partner.
Love to a woman is an exalted and noble thing; she stakes her life
upon it. She has, therefore, to be more fastidious in her choice of a
consort than the man. This partly explains the mystery of modesty and
coyness. She remains passive while she is wooed for her favor. Love,
says Walker, is the empire of woman. The consciousness of weakness in
woman leads her instinctively to her dissimulation, her finesse, her
little contrivances, her manners, her graces and her coquetry. By these
means she simultaneously endeavors to create love, and not to show
what she feels, while by means of modesty she feigns to refuse what she
desires to grant.
By an imperious power and charming tyranny she tries to prevent the
man she loves from stirring from her side. She is ever desirous to
fascinate and bewitch him. She feels herself to be a powerful centre
of love and attraction around which everything ought to revolve.
The woman, says Kant, has from early girlhood the confidence in her
ability to please; the youth, the fear to displease. He is, therefore,
shy in the presence of women. His desire is to be governed—before
marriage—hence the chivalry of youth, while the woman’s desire is to
rule. She wants man to surround her with an insatiable desire. She
wishes to be loved and yearns to evoke man’s admiration for her by all
her womanly qualities. She gives herself up entirely and irrevocably
and never forgives the chosen possessor for examining too little the
value of his treasure.
_Obstructions of love’s development._—Healthy and natural love is
always clearly conscious of its purpose, the ideal is always in
existence, waiting for the opportunity to meet the materialized
duplicate. Men and women have an unconscious sensation of the
qualities of their ideals of the other sex, that by their union their
respective qualities may be transmitted in an intensified degree
to their offspring. Hence if the instinct has not become dulled by
monetary considerations, if social reasons, religious prejudices or
customs do not rise to confuse and pervert the instinct, men and women
will, should there be many from whom to choose, select with unerring
certainty the one who most closely approximates the psychic ideal which
they have elaborated within themselves at the moment of sexual maturity.
But true love is only possible if the natural development has not been
disturbed nor the natural course interrupted, and the young people have
been given the opportunity to develop their ideals. If the development
is arrested, if the growth of the erotic instinct is disturbed, at
the time of restlessness and nerve-irritability, then the image of
the ideal in the mind is confused and the discovery of its organic
counterpart is impossible. Now, the whole nervous system is under great
tension during the formation period. Inquietude, vague unrest and
dissatisfaction disturbs the boy’s equanimity. His heart is tremulous
with emotion and represents a volcano of agitation in perpetual
eruption. He exudes intense feeling and passion. The mind of the girl
is confused with vague dissatisfaction and vaguer desires which she
vainly endeavors to define even to herself. Her heart is wildly stirred
and issues from its chrysalis to renewed dreams of chimerical bliss.
Joy and sorrow, exultation and depression alternate like dawn and dusk.
All the complex subtleties of the feminine heart give rein to a single
emotion. She lives in the realm of romance, her soul keeps soaring in
the land of glamor. Hence the least disturbance will be fatal to the
development of a clear and distinct image of the ideal.
Such disturbances are ever present in our advanced civilization.
The early intimate association with the other sex, among the poorer
classes, gives palpable suggestions of the libido connected with the
functions of reproduction, at a time when mystery ought to shroud its
object. Animal passion, especially in great cities, obtrudes itself
upon the attention of young children, and they become conscious of the
greatest of all human needs through the desire of the flesh, and not by
a gradual growing sympathy for a noble being, possessing lasting gifts
of sentiment and thought. The sentiments are, therefore, not of true
love but of lust; and to transform lust into love is a difficult task.
Besides the unfavorable environment, certain radical doctrines,
widely spread among the laboring classes, also prevent true love from
taking root. In the literature, often read by these classes, excuses
are readily made for the supremacy of the passions. Dithyrambs are
sung upon the crudest emotions. The rational ethics of these radical
moralists teach that “love worketh no evil.” True love may really do no
evil, but gross passion, which these teachers of the new sex-morality
call love, is capable to do all the harm in the world. Temporary sexual
attraction, which is sensuality pure and simple, is called by the
name of love and is made the basis of the new morality. The name of
the sublimest emotion which appeals to the grandest impulses, to the
noblest sentiments of men and women, which makes chivalrous, gentle,
refined and helpful all who are touched by its magic wand, which
informs its disciples with the spirit of honor (Walker), the name of
this noble emotion is conferred upon the coarse emotion of sensuality,
as if sensuality ever possessed all these ennobling qualities. The
greater part of humanity is declared to be polygamous in nature.
According to these radical doctrines only few men and women possess
the instinct of exclusiveness, all other are naturally varietists.
Consequently promiscuity is the ordained order of nature, and the
monogamic marriage is decried as forced upon humanity by priest and
tyrant.[AM]
Among the cultured and exclusive classes there is another danger
lurking to the development of true sentimental love. It is the
literary fiction of our time which is thoroughly imbued with the most
unwholesome forms of love. The first knowledge of the world and of
life is usually derived by the children of these classes from novels,
and these novels deal from the first line to the last with nothing
but love. The heroes and heroines in these novels are usually the
creations of pathological brains, in different stages of degeneration,
and are represented as worthy of emulation. These heroes change with
every novel, and the children admire every day another ideal, imposed
upon them from without, before their imaginations had the time for the
conception of an ideal from the mysterious depths of the cells of the
growing centre of generation. Besides, the authors of these novels
are, as a rule, dealing with a perverted kind of love, which they call
holy, beneficent, infallible, and which they consider above all laws.
Their teachings are to obey the impulse of love with a fanaticism that
disregards all bounds and barriers, codes and warnings of the sages.
All obstacles, such as duty, modesty, honor, respect for the family and
the rights of fellow men, that weave around everyone of us a firm and
massy weft, all of them are treated like cobwebs that love tears away
and treads upon to gain its end.
The eroding operations carried on by these mongrel degenerated brains
cannot help but have a poisonous effect, especially upon the minds
of young girls. While in the literature of half a century ago the
heroine represented the fundamental type of woman, who is a mother of
men, calling out men’s sacrifice and sacrificing herself for them,
without calculation or barter, the heroine of the contemporary novel
gives herself up to voluptuous excesses. The absence of chastity is
considered a sign of the warmth of her feeling, moral decrepitude is
called by the doubtful name “self-assertion,” and the exaggerated taste
for self-indulgence is termed “self-expression.” Feminine selfishness
is represented as an enviable instead of a base quality. Under such
circumstances true love must, indeed, be a rare occurrence.
More fatal even to true love are the activities of the immoral plays,
because they are so deceptive and disingenuous and sail under the guise
of moral reforms. There are first the comic plays, nowadays filling
most of the stages, which treat immorality as a subject for jocularity,
and where an unchaste situation is made the subject of a jest. Then
there are some serious plays where sin and the life of immorality
are idealized. The career of the courtesan is pictured as a life of
gentleness, refinement and renunciation. (La Dame aux Camélias.) In
recent times a third kind of immoral plays has made its appearance upon
the stage where immoral situations are portrayed, without regard to
time-honored conventionalities, with such exactness that the warnings
against the evils fail to fulfill their purpose.
Another blow fatal to true love, caused by the reading of contemporary
literature, is the increase of the young girl’s natural vanity.[AN]
The constant descriptions in most modern novels of the struggle over
women and the enthusiasm felt at gaining her, says Nordau, increase her
natural tendency to regard love as the single aim and substance of the
life of human beings and intensify her natural partiality for herself
to the degree of ambitious mania and self-deification. She actually
imagines that the possession of her would be providential of more than
earthly bliss. The pampered overcivilized modern woman finds in this
pseudo-literature only lovers who are sacrificing to the divinity of
beauty and who are constantly listening to the music of the stars, and
she imagines that she also ought to be wooed by gods and spend her
life in an earthly paradise. When after the wedding the mirage, she
once thought was the eternal land of promise, has faded, she remains
permanently shocked at finding only a man where she was looking for
an angel as mate. When the longing for sensual satisfaction has been
appeased, both lovers find that they have no more to discover and grow
fickle and hunger for a change.
Another part of contemporary literature which is continually
undermining the foundation of true love is the feministic branch.
These writers are not satisfied to preach equality of the sexes. They
constantly emphasize the superiority of the female sex. From this
notion to the sermon of sex-antagonism is only one step, and this
has been quickly enough made. Mutual admiration, trust and love have
given place to the duel of the sexes. Even the father has been thrown
overboard. These modern daughters act as if they had come to this
world by the way of parthenogenesis. The sermon of the enmity of the
sexes thus destroys not only true love, but the entire conception of
the family and serves to blight the brightest and sweetest flowers,
springing in the garden of the human heart. No wonder that the girl who
has been influenced by such ideas has been made unfit for true love.
Her judgment has become confused by overestimating her own worth and
valuing the man solely for his capacity to supply the luxuries of life
and to satisfy sensual desires. She has little love even for the man
of her choice, and is not reluctant to show it on every occasion. A
bride objecting to the word “obey” in the wedding ceremony—even granted
that such a word does not and never did belong there—reveals at once
her lack of true love. A girl truly in love with the man laughs at
the word, because she feels that she would rather be his slave than
any other man’s queen. To the lover the bride’s promise to obey seems
mere folly, for he is determined that she should always remain the
autocratic queen of his heart and actions. But when love is absent,
and the wedding represents nothing more than a contract to legalize
sensuality, which is otherwise considered immoral, every objection to
the wording of the contract is justified and perfectly natural.
The female sex, says Kant, may be characterized by two inclinations,
the desire to dominate, and the desire for pleasure. These two
tendencies may be mitigated by true love. The truly loving woman will
gladly and voluntarily share material misfortune and social degradation
with her lover. She will overcome her egotism, she will labor hard to
overcome her old faults and cheerfully give up what she once looked
upon as necessaries for the love of a true man. But the modern woman
looks upon the man only as a slave to provide for her, and as a thing
affording her enjoyment. Hence she regards the miserable weakling,
whose imbecile brain has not the power of resistance, as touching and
charming, while vigorous strength of character, which is schooled in
self-control and which places as high a value on the affection afforded
as on that received, seems to her repulsive roughness. This blending
of her judgment becomes fatal to her love, so important to the female
heart.
Love, in its ideal form, must be founded on mental qualities. In man
the mental qualities are of the greatest value. The supreme survival
value for man is his intelligence. The possessors of artistic or
literary composition, of mechanical skill, of calculating ability, of
energy or general mental ability are seldom or never endowed at the
same time with physical qualities. It was brain not brawn that saved
man in his struggle for existence. The cult of the muscle as against
intelligence would destroy man. The physically fittest is not always
the best of men. Even the animals, in their natural surroundings, live
by their wits rather than by force of bone and muscle; and it was
man’s wits and will that enabled him to increase and multiply as no
other animal. Physical weapons of defense and offense have disappeared
in man because his intelligence makes them superfluous. In the human
species mind is master of matter. Man has staked his all upon mind.
The emergence and dominance of mind have enabled the human species to
ascend through struggle and internecine war to the highest scale of
animal life, although it is physically one of the feeblest among the
species of the higher animals. The increasing dominance of mind over
matter is the reason that nowadays mental qualities dominate all else
in man’s living activities. Hence ideal love must also be based upon
mental qualities. Then it will be everlasting. The soul once allied
with its mate can change no more. One of the mysteries of true love is
the absolute impossibility to duplicate the lover. The soul is thus the
essential part in true love. But when in the selection of the mates the
physical factors only, such as stature, beauty, strength and health,
play the most important rôle, when the senses form the chief part of
the compound feeling, love will not long survive possession, and
matrimonial happiness, founded upon monetary or social considerations,
will pass like a shadow. The idol is soon destroyed. When, thereupon,
the heart is disillusioned by the contact with the grim realities of
existence, when it is deadened by the habitude of a fixed affection,
coupled with incompatibility of tastes, when hardened by experience
with the meanness of the world, then men and women attempt to find
elsewhere a soul which they hope will desire to know more of their
own, and in which they trust to discover a greater and more lasting
happiness. But not being able to ask their own hearts, and guided
only by the contradictory ideals they have been imbued with in their
youth, the second choice and all the others, following the same, will
generally turn out to be also delusions in which the perfect communion
of hearts will again be absent. Men will then try to bury their
unsatisfied longing for true affection in the exaggerated occupation
with business or to drown their vehement unrequited love-yearnings in
drink and other narcotics. The fate of the woman is even more tragic.
Woman’s idea of happiness is a sort of ecstatic bliss. She is looking
for perennial joy and beauty, for a joy as only the angels know. Hence
when she learns to know the illusory nature of the heart’s greatest
desire, when she makes the discovery of the futility of this desire,
the wine of life grows sour. She becomes self-centered and selfish. The
fountain ordained to yield such perennial sweets is soon drained and
she bestows all her feminine faculties upon mere inanities. Hence the
astonishing aspect of restlessness, and agitation which we now behold
in her mania for dress, her indulgence in drink and nerve-deadening
drugs, and in her quest of other vain luxuries in which she desires to
drown the emptiness of her heart and her spiritual isolation.
CHAPTER XIV
EROS, LIBIDO, JEALOUSY
_Eros and libido._—Eros and libido are the two components of sensual
love and are also integral parts of sentimental love, by which the
latter differs from pure friendship. Libido represents the material
pleasure enjoyed by the contact; eros represents the spiritual
enjoyment experienced by the knowledge of loving and being loved.
Hence libido is of a somatic nature, eros is a psychic phenomenon. The
libidinous individual has an increased desire for sexual gratification,
the erotic looks chiefly for love. The erotic individual loves with
its mind, it is a craving for love by a particular individual, or
by a certain class of individuals, e. g., actors or actresses. The
libidinous individual is satisfied with any partner and even with other
practices, serving sensual gratification, such as contrectatio, stuprum
manu, paederastia, tribady, bestiality, etc. The erotic individual
never thinks of the sensual pleasure, the libidinous desires to wallow
in sensual enjoyment and lust.
Libido is more a masculine sex trait, eros more a feminine. For the
ordinary man the libidinous part of love is of primary importance. When
this emotion has been destroyed by some accident, he considers himself
emasculated. He will never reveal the loss of his testicles, while a
woman will openly and freely talk of ovariotomy, performed upon her,
although the loss of the ovaries generally produces the impotence of
experiencing orgasm, as in men the loss of the testicles. She seems not
to mind this loss, provided, always, that her eros has remained intact.
In this indifference for sexual libido, so often found in women, lies
the cause of woman’s superiority in sensual love. The woman rules over
the man as long as he is in love. That man is henpecked who from the
beginning, by reason of his excessive sexual needs, came under his
wife’s authority and is continually kept under her rule by the same
sensual needs. A man’s dependence upon his wife can only be explained
upon a sensual basis. As soon as the man’s power and intelligence gain
the victory over his sensual impulses, his independence is secured.
This is the reason why the woman is continually bent upon keeping
the man’s libido alive. Her constant desire is to influence him
by her charms. Her passivity, says Marro, is the passivity of the
magnet, which in spite of its apparent immobility and rest attracts
the iron, be the latter willing or not, and in a way enslaves it. An
intense energy lies behind such passivity, says Ellis, an absorbed
preoccupation in the end to be attained. But for her passivity and
cunning coyness she would become the real slave of brutal force, and
nothing short of adoration of her lord and master would satisfy him.
As it is, she keeps the man in due bounds, even in countries where her
legal status is not much higher than that of the real slave. The pride
of the woman, says Kant, to keep at a distance all the importunities
of men by the respect she inspires and the right to demand respect
for her person, even without merits, belong to her by the title
of her sex. The man has to woo for her favor even where he could
command. The indulgence with an unwilling or unreciprocating mate is
not satisfactory to the normal man. This is the reason why the mere
satisfaction of the physical appetite in meretricious venery is so
unsatisfactory to him.
Eros is a purely psychic phenomenon. It is the transcendental
attraction of the two sexes, even when lust is not thought of. In
being attracted to one another, the sexes seem to obey a higher will,
unknown to either of them. The attraction probably emanates from the
spermatozoa and ova. The little cells know what they want and take it.
But their will is unknown to the lovers themselves. Their attraction
appears to be as mysterious as the attraction of the two poles of
the magnet, which no scientist has yet been able to elucidate. This
mysterious erotic attraction is healthy and invigorating. While so
attracted, the sexual glands increase the secretion of the testines or
ovarines, and these chemical products have a tonic effect and make the
individual happy. This accounts for the happy excitement the sight of
a perfect specimen of the opposite sex, or even its conception in the
fantasy, is able to awake in the heart of the individual.
_Two desires of eros._—Eros consists of two desires, to love and to
be loved. The man is more anxious to love, the woman to be loved. She
desires to feel that she is admired or rather coveted by men. That
woman withers who, in all her life, was never once loved by some man.
Even the woman who for moral or morbid reasons renounces libido, will
still have the desire to be admired and loved. In her day-dreams the
girl pictures to herself an ideal man by whom she wishes to be loved,
the man portrays in his imagination the girl he wishes to love. When
he meets with his ideal he knows his own mind about his love. He
recognizes the goddess upon whose altar he intends to burn his choicest
incense. The girl has first to ask her oracle. She plucks the petals of
her marguerite, lisping: “He loves me, he loves me not.” The man, more
concerned about his own love, wears his heart on his sleeve and feels
eager to have the beloved see how passionately it throbs for her. The
woman, having first to discover the man’s love, will try to conceal
her own emotion in the innermost recesses of her bosom, lest the lover
discover her feelings prematurely. The woman is, therefore, a comma, in
love affairs, the man a full stop; here, you know where you are; there,
read further.
The woman is anxious to be loved by the man of her choice, the man
mainly asks for the privilege to love her. This difference is mainly
based upon the different value love possesses in the eyes of the two
sexes. With the man the imagination does not need to come into play
before he can look for joys and sorrows, hopes and fears that make
up the sum and substance of love. The woman gives far more than her
body, she gives her soul, her very self, her all. Another reason for
the woman’s desire to be loved lies in her feminine vanity. In the
relations of friends the one who desires to be loved rather than to
love, is the more egotistic. The preference of the passive part of love
to the active unquestionably springs from the root of egotism in human
nature. In the relation of the sexes, the desire to be loved arises
more or less from the wish to satisfy personal vanity. It is tacitly,
although, as a rule, among civilized men erroneously, assumed that
personal excellence is the cause of a particular individual of one sex
being loved by the other, and that one sex is the better judge of the
excellence of the other. Hence the person most deeply loved must of
necessity excel his rivals. He must at least possess greater sexual
charms which men and women are chiefly proud of. Vain men, for that
reason, will boast of the large number of their love affairs and the
many hearts broken. For the same reason a woman’s vanity is flattered
to be openly preferred and loved by a good, respectable man. In present
society only matrimony can satisfy her vanity. For free love can only
be clandestine, and clandestine love satisfies only her libido, but not
her vanity.
_Jealousy._—The desire for the satisfaction of personal vanity and the
commonly erroneous assumption of the better judgment of one sex about
the excellence of the other, are of the greatest importance in the
psychology of jealousy.
Sexual jealousy[AO] consists of three different emotions: 1) anguish
at the suspicion or knowledge of violated chastity or outraged
affection; 2) rage at a rival, and 3) revenge for the violation of a
vested right. Anguish is the primary emotion, rage and revenge are
its results. There are always three actors in every case of jealousy,
the outraged victim, the mate and the rival. Of the three emotions
anguish relates to the male, rage to the rival, and revenge concerns
both the rival and the mate. In the analysis of the different emotions
in the train of jealousy it is found that anguish, anxiety, fear
and despair, which accompany jealousy and apparently constitute its
essence, are not caused by outraged affection only, for the highest
degree of jealousy is often found where love has long ceased to exist,
and even when hatred has already entered into the relation of the
mates. Anguish over violated chastity does not explain jealousy either,
for jealousy is found among savages, who unhesitatingly lend their
wives to others, or offer them as a courtesy to other men without any
thought of their wives’ chastity. Neither does interference with one’s
enjoyment explain jealousy. For the husband is always jealous of his
wife’s lover, while the lover is rarely jealous of the husband. Yet the
husband’s opportunity of interfering with the lover’s possession is by
far greater than that of the latter with the husband’s. Thus fear of
interference cannot play any great part in the emotion of jealousy.
The revenge for the violation of vested rights cannot alone explain
the terrible emotion of jealousy, which the royal poet of the “Song of
Songs” declares to be “as cruel as the grave.” Besides, jealousy is
often found where there are no vested rights at all, only a pretended
claim.
The cause of jealousy must, therefore, be sought elsewhere. There must
be a reason for the husband’s jealousy of a lover and the absence of
this emotion in the mind of the lover towards the husband and the
presence of jealousy in the heart of the lover in relation to any other
succeeding lover. There must be a reason why the lover usually feels a
kind of exultation at deceiving the husband or any other lover who has
a previous claim upon the woman’s affection.
The cause of jealousy is mainly personal vanity. Just as the
satisfaction to be loved, where one does not love himself, lies in
satisfied vanity, so is jealousy based unconsciously upon the anguish
of wounded vanity. This explains the psychological difference between
husband and lover, or between first and second lover. The woman who
loves one man is supposed to confer a certain honor upon him, but her
indulgence with two men honors the one who has the lesser right upon
her love. He who has the greater or the first claim is made an object
of ridicule. Man in a natural state, not influenced by motives of
civilization—and there it may really be true—considers the abandoned
or deceived person the less charming and the less worthy. This
original notion has been transmitted to us from our remote ancestors
and unconsciously governs us even at the present day. The man who is
loved by a married woman or the woman who is loved by a married man are
supposed to possess certain excellencies which are lacking in their
respective married partners. The latter are, therefore, exposed to
ridicule.
Jealousy, therefore, is simply wounded vanity. The individual
possessing a greater deal of vanity will also be jealous to a greater
degree. Hence, as a rule, woman is more jealous than man, although the
latter may be more brutal when in that mood.
Vanity and exposure to ridicule explain also why the wife, betrayed by
her husband, when she confronts the culprits, generally attacks her
rival. Vanity does not allow her to admit even to herself that her
husband has preferred the other to her. Consequently her rival must
have used some seductive means to entice her poor, worthy husband and
to lead him astray. The rival is hence the one who deserves punishment.
The husband, on the other hand, if betrayed by his wife, will attack
first his wife, who has exposed him to ridicule; her lover generally
concerns him in a lesser degree.
If personal vanity is not wounded, jealousy is also absent. A great
man, acknowledged by the world as such, like Alexander or Caesar, is
not jealous if his wife betrays him with an ordinary mortal. In this
case the world sees the stupidity of the woman. She is not able to
recognize the value of her husband and exposes herself to ridicule. A
great man may, therefore, grieve over the loss of cherished affections,
but he will rarely be jealous. A comely and cultured woman will never
be jealous of her coarse and ignorant maid-servant. She has only pity
for her husband’s aberration of taste.
A woman will seldom or never be jealous of the women her husband has
consorted with before their marriage. She is not exposed to ridicule
through his former love affairs. He did not marry the others but her.
She was preferred. But for the possible impairment of his health and
vigor, the more love affairs he had the more the wife is honored.
The man has not been changed by his former love affairs. His wife
has hence no palpable reason for resentment, and she may pardon her
husband’s former love affairs without any derogation to her dignity.
Not so man.
The woman’s anatomy is changed by defloration. The sperma is partly
absorbed within her,[AP] and through her veins circulate material parts
of her lover. She may have been pregnant for some time, and pregnancy
changes the woman’s entire anatomy. She has partly nourished her system
with blood owing half its nature to her child’s father. The woman has,
therefore, a perennial impression left by her former mate.[AQ] This
is the reason why aesthetic and fastidious men refrain from marrying
a widow or a divorced woman. This is also the reason why the husband
consciously or unconsciously resents his wife’s former escapades.
This resentment is not jealousy, although it is commonly so called.
Sorrow over his wife’s former violated chastity, which conventionality
considers as the biggest crime a woman could commit, is not jealousy.
He is only grieved that her former impurity has lowered her value. A
woman really gives herself up, soul and body, to her first lover. The
virginity of her heart is no longer intact. The fragrance has departed
from the rose. The earnest man who actually gives up his soul to the
wife of his choice and to the mother of his children expects in return
a pure and virgin heart.
FOOTNOTES:
[T] The complicated actions, executed by the new-born baby at the first
nursing, are the most marvelous the author can imagine. As soon as the
mother presents her breast to her baby, its mouth closes air-tight
around the nipple, by the prompt action of the muscle orbicularis
oris (innervated by the facialis). Thereupon the tongue is retracted
like the piston of a syringe. In this way a vacuum is created in the
cavity of the mouth, and the milk is thus drawn out of the breast.
This retraction of the tongue is effected by the help of the muscles
hyoglossus and styloglossus.
The tongue is now pressed toward the palate, pushing the fluid
backward toward the pharynx. First the top of the tongue is pressed
to the palate by the M. longitudinalis linguae, then the middle
tongue, by lifting the hyoides bone by means of the M. mylohyoideus
(N. trigeminus) and finally the root of the tongue by the muscles
styloglossus and palatoglossus (N. facialis).
When the fluid has passed the two arcs, the arcus palatoglossus and the
arcus palatopharyngeus, the latter contract and close the way back to
the front, while the soft palate or uvula closes up the cavity of the
nose by the action of the M. levator veli palatini (facialis) and the
M. tensor veli palatini (trigeminus).
The fluid or the morsel is thus confined in the head of the pharynx.
The larynx is now drawn upward and forward by the Mm. geniohyoideus,
digastricus and mylohyoideus. In this way the root of the tongue
presses the epiglottis down upon the orifice of the larynx, and
prevents the food from entering into the lungs.
The food enters now the oesophagus which by a peristaltic movement
presses the same down into the stomach.
Arrived in the stomach, the epithelia of the latter begin to secrete
hydrochloric acid and pepsin by which the albumen of the food is
changed successively into syntonin, propeton, and pepton. By a
peristaltic movement of the stomach, the solution is then forwarded
into the duodenum.
At the arrival there the pancreas sends its ferments, trypsin, to
dissolve the still unchanged albuminates, and the fat-ferment to
break up the fatty substances (the diastatic ferment for changing the
carbohydrates into sugar is not found yet in the infant). At the same
time the liver sends in its secretion, the bile, which serves to effect
an emulsion of the fatty substances. The other intestinal glands also
contribute their secretions to effect all these necessary changes,
so that the chyle can now be imbibed by the intestinal villi, by a
kind of osmosis, and forwarded into the lymphatic current to serve as
nourishment for the new-born individual.
Now, all these organs, the nerves, muscles, and glands, must work
in coördination and perfect harmony to accomplish the task of the
preparation of the young animal’s food. It would take a physicist and
chemist years of hard study to be able to accomplish all the different
tasks, just described, which the new-born baby is able to effect,
without any effort, in the first hours of its new existence.
This wonderful instinct of hunger for food and its satisfaction
is really awe-inspiring. It is an inexplicable mystery as life
itself. In fact, it is, as Bergson truly says, the prolongation of
the life-principle. The author is unable to agree with the last
named philosopher, who claims that intellect is the highest in men
and instinct in the hymenoptera. It seems to the author that the
instinct of taking in food and its preparation into chyle by man is
no less wonderful than the knowledge of the digger-wasp to sting the
caterpillar just in the right place to ensure paralysis without death.
The objection that all these actions are merely reflex-actions does
not detract an iota from the marvel. Then the coördination of all
these reflexes is miraculous. It only changes the name of instinct
into reflex, just as the change of the name of the creative power from
the old name of God into that of the atheist’s “Nature,” or of Plato’s
“idea,” or Nietzsche’s “Wille zur Macht,” or Bergson’s “Élan vital,” or
Shaw’s “Life force,” etc., does not in the least change the nature of
the creative power.
[U] Hegar says that in civilized men we can not speak at all of
an instinct of propagation. For with them so many reflexions and
considerations enter into play that to speak of anything impulsive is
to ignore the state of mind of the society of our days.
[V] The old German law punished adultery or granted a divorce only when
intermissio penis in vaginam has been witnessed.
[W] M. Maupus (Archives de Zoologie expérimentelle, 1889) has shown
that without conjugation, the members of an isolated family of
infusoria eventually cease to feed and divide and pass through the
stages of degeneration and senility to extinction. (In the train
of conjugation there is always death. Non-conjugating protozoa are
immortal. Eve and Death.)
[X] Colonies arise when the individual animals do not leave each other,
after their division, to live a separate life but remain together.
After the second division there are four animals or members, after the
third division eight, then sixteen, thirty-two, etc., until an entire
colony of millions of cells has risen. The human body is composed of
some twenty-six trillions of cells (26,000,000,000,000,000,000). Brain
and spinal cord alone contain two billion cells.
[Y] It must be quite a shock to the prude, in the knowledge that the
much admired flower represents in its ensemble the sex-organs of the
plants, or those parts which in men possess for the sensualist a
peculiar aesthetic attraction. Most perfumes, so generally used by the
sensual, are extracts from flowers, i. e., the sexual parts of the
plants; some perfumes are taken even from the sexual organs of the
animal, e. g., musk. This fact may account for the exaggerated love of
the sensualists for flowers and perfumes.
[Z] Weissman believes that in each individual, produced by sexual
generation, a portion of germ-plasm, derived from both parents, is not
employed in the construction of the cells and tissues of the soma, or
personal structure of the individual, but is set aside, without change,
for the formation of the germ-cells of the succeeding generation.
According to Boveri, the ovum has all the organs and qualities
necessary for the development of the foetus, except that its
centrosome, which starts segmentation, is in a state of inactivity,
while the spermatozoön possesses the active centrosome but lacks the
protoplasma or the material by means of which this organ could begin
its activity.
[AA] Among animals, says Walker, there are species that never marry and
those that do. Those male animals whose young are easily fed, such as
the horse, the bull or the dog, never approach the female except when
under the influence of rut, never cohabit with one exclusively, rarely,
if ever, repeat the reproductive act with the same individual, and
commit the care of the offspring entirely to their temporary mates.
[AB] In some animals the rôles are changed. The part of the female in
fishes, for instance, is ended when she has let fall the roe on the
spawning-bed, while the male swims constantly over this bed and watches
over the fertilized eggs against the attack of enemies until the eggs
have developed into new fishes.
[AC] The error committed by the radicals is that they read human
history and neglect to read natural history. In the beginning of
history permanent mating was already abolished. Permanent mating was a
necessity only as long as the couples lived separated. When, however,
already before the dawn of civilization, mutual aid was added to self
aid, when for the sake of protection men began to live in herds, and
all the males had the responsibility to procure the food for the entire
herd, the individual father was released from such responsibility, and
there was no necessity any longer for permanent mating. The result was
promiscuity, as found by Caesar (Bell. Gal. v. 14), among the Britons:
“uxores habent deni duodenique inter se communes et maxime fratres cum
fratribus, parentesque cum liberis,” and by Strabo among the Celts of
Ireland: “καὶ φανερῶς μίσγεσθαι ταῖς τε ἄλλαις γυναιξὶ καὶ μητράσι καὶ
ἀδελφαῖς.” From promiscuity the sexual relations run through a certain
cycle of consanguineous marriage, punaluan family, pairing family,
polygamy back again to monogamy, as now practised in most of the
civilized countries. All these changes were made in the interest of the
progeny, although often unconsciously, just as the growing affection
of two lovers is, in reality, already the will for life of the new
individual which they could or might beget.
[AD] When a man, for instance, is attached to a woman because of her
outward harmonious appearance, i. e., beauty, it means that she pleases
his sense of sight. If he is fascinated by her beautiful voice, then
his sense of hearing has been appealed to. When he falls in love by
the touch of her soft little hand, then his tactile sense has been
excited. The meaning of all such attachments is the desire to satisfy
the senses. Hence the love is sensual. For any of the five senses may
be the starting point of sexual desire.
The generative centre is in communication with the centres of all the
other senses and may be excited by them.
Certain odors occasion pleasurable sexual feelings. The love of sensual
women for perfumes indicates a relation between the olfactory and the
sexual centres.
The sense of taste is sometimes in the service of sexuality. One of the
author’s patients had sexual sensations of a pleasurable character when
eating liver-sausages.
The sight of a beautiful specimen of the other sex, or even its picture
only, may frequently excite the sexual centre.
Emotional persons are often sexually excited by certain music. An
exaggerated fondness for music is always suspicious of being of a
sexual nature.
The tactile sense is the main sense in the service of sexuality. The
touch of any part of the male body by a soft female hand will cause
sensual excitement. The touch of the nipple in woman often causes
intense libido, a fact which plays an important part in the nursing of
the young throughout all the types of mammals. The sexual sphere may
also be excited by a stimulation of the gluteal region. The practice
of the Flagellants was suppressed by the church when it was discovered
that sensual motives played an important part in their exercises.
Rousseau in his confessions describes the pleasure he felt when spanked
by his nurse. Spanking often incites children to masturbation. The main
irritation of the genitals is induced by touch. Erection, orgasm and
ejaculation may be induced by the tactile irritation of the penis in
the man and of the clitoris in a virgin, and after defloration, by the
excitation of the anterior wall of the vagina. Certain zones of the
skin become secondarily related to sexuality, mostly at such points
where the skin turns into mucous membrane. These are the erogenous
zones.
[AE] The word love is, as a rule, employed very loosely and made to
do duty for almost any attraction, whether purely physical or wholly
sentimental. Even great philosophers and distinguished writers do
rarely differentiate between animal passion and human love or between
pure sensuality or the somatic part of sex, and mental attraction or
the psychic phenomenon.
Plato says that love between a man and a woman is mere animal passion,
far inferior in nobility and importance to love for boys, friendship
or filial, parental or brotherly love. According to Plato, Socrates
understood nothing by love except its science, Ta Erotica. Eros Uranios
incites to love youths only, the more intelligent sex, and this only at
a time when their good character and high culture are beyond doubt.
Plutarch says: The passion for women causes at the best the gain of
sensual pleasure and the enjoyment of bodily beauty. The Greeks,
therefore, applied the celestial kind of love only to friendship and
boy-love, never to the love between men and women.
Sergi finds the cause of love in the stimuli of the reproductive
organs, and in the senses of touch and temperature.
Haeckel says: The oldest source of sexual love is found in the erotic
chemotropismus, in the attraction the male and female sexual cells are
exercising upon each other. This sexual affinity is found even in the
lowest stage of plants as in the protophyts, where both cells swim
toward each other to unite.
Rosenkranz finds in nature only an empire of love, of a love that
penetrates all things and leads them to a common end. Gravitation is
love dominating nature. Organic life is a continued phenomenon of love.
Even in inorganic nature the combination of substances, one with the
other, is a trait of love. The appearance of heat and the flash of
light that accompany the chemical process are, in a manner, the heralds
of lust felt by the substances while uniting. Love of the sexes is a
love for things that is ignored and unknown and which is not yet even
in existence. The lovers must perish that love may continually rise to
new life; the individual dies that the species may live. Love is not
the aim but the means, serving life and development.
Love is the joy at another’s existence and is stronger than the delight
at one’s own existence. Love transforms the nuptials into a jubilee
even where it is the eve of death. It is hence as strong as death.
There exists not only a natural love, but also a spiritual love which
is stronger than death. Natural love is not the true love, but only
a stepping-stone. True love is no longer blind and necessary, but
conscious and free.
Teichmüller says: In sensual love, Nature makes use of the individual
only incidentally, by making the propagation of the species a personal
concern of the individual. She gains her end by a mystification. The
individuals, by virtue of the innate impulse, consider the external aim
of nature as their own personal concern, for which they voluntarily
hazard everything, even life itself. Teichmüller further claims that
in physical love only the state of irritability and the sensibility of
the nerves of the subject are important. The object is only concerned
as a soliciting casualty. The natural impulse cannot aim at lust, for
lust is not an end, but only expresses the coördinate state of the
subject during the actions. Every desire aims at a specific action
as its end. The musician does not long for lust but for music. The
pleasure connected with it ensues coördinately with the success of the
performance.
Of sentimental love, Teichmüller says, the individual loves an ideal
which it has itself created in its thoughts and fancy and with which
the actual need not harmonize at all. For that reason the “treasure”
(in German the lovers call each other “Schatz” or treasure) lies not
without but within the lover. The beloved person outside is only the
key that understands to unlock the treasure. The key is not able to
create the wealth. Whoever is poor and desolate within, for him no key
can unlock the treasure of love.
Schopenhauer sees in amorousness an individualized sexual impulse. The
growing affection of the two lovers is, in reality, already the will
for life of the new individual, which they could and might beget. The
species has a prior, nearer and greater claim upon the individual than
the frail individuality itself. The exact destiny of the individuals
of the future generation is a much higher and worthier end than the
extravagant and transient bubbles of the enamored. The beauty or the
ugliness of the mate has nothing to do with the gratification itself,
so far as it is a sensual pleasure depending upon a pressing necessity
of the individual. Yet beauty is a matter of great consideration,
because it represents the will of the species. Every lover finds
himself deceived after the accomplished great work. For the delusion
has vanished by which the individual was deceived by the species.
In defining human love, Schopenhauer says that every individual
exercises a sexual attraction proportionate to the moral and physical
perfection it possesses which we attribute to the ideal of the human
species. The attraction of two individuals will be the more energetic
the more the deficiencies of the one will be counterbalanced by the
virtues of the other, and the union of the two promises a child more
conforming to the type of the species. Thus the greater the disparity
the stronger will be the attraction.
Danville, on the other hand, finds that alliances are more generally
concluded among individuals of the same education and of a similar
intellectual development. He, therefore, claims that love is the most
differentiated modality of the instinct of reproduction. Intellectual
development, education and culture, however, have carried it so far
away from its origin as to be entirely hidden.
Rousseau says: The physical desire is the one which drives one sex to
unite with the other. The moral one is that which determines the desire
and fixes it upon a single object exclusively, or at least gives a
greater degree of energy for this preferred object. Now it is easily
seen that the moral element in love is a factitious sentiment born of
the usage of society and glorified with assiduity and care by women to
establish their dominion.
Delboeuf looks for the basis of love in the chemical action by which
the female sex cells or ova exercise an attraction, magnetic in nature,
upon the spermatozoa, and vice versa.
Spinoza defines love as “laetitia concomitante idea externae causae,” a
pleasure accompanied by the thought of its external cause.
Bain finds the cause of love in the charm of dissimilarity.
Mantegazza defines love as a desire for a particular beauty.
Hartman says: Man is moved by instinct to look for an individual of the
other sex to satisfy his physical necessity, imagining that in this
way he will enjoy a pleasure he would look for in vain elsewhere. This
pleasure, one lover dreams to find in the arms of the other, is only
a delusion. Subconsciousness uses these deceiving means to oppose the
egotistic reflection and to dispose the individual to sacrifice its own
interest to the interest of the future generation.
Spencer says that the passions which unite the sexes are the most
complex and the most powerful of all feelings. Admiration, respect,
reverence, love of approbation, emotion of self-esteem, pleasure of
possession, love of freedom, love of sympathy, they all unite in the
one powerful feeling of love. They represent a variety of pleasurable
ideas, not in themselves amatory, but have an organized relation to
the amatory feelings. The complex sentiment, termed affection, can,
therefore, exist between those of the same sex, but it is greatly
exalted in love.
Sidney declares love to be the most intense desire to enjoy beauty, and
where it is reciprocal, is the most entire and exact union of hearts.
The instinct, on the other hand, is absolutely sensual; it makes the
exterior its object and has no other end than sensual pleasure. Every
individual, therefore, loves more or less spiritually or sensually in
proportion as it approaches to the spiritual or bestial nature.
Hegel says: Love is the complete surrender of the “ego” to another
“ego” or to an ideal. Not the sacrifice of the possession or wealth of
the ego, but the “I” itself must be given away.
Finally, Janet declares love to be complete madness in its origin as
well as in its development and mechanism.
The same sentiment is expressed in a poem by Heine:
“Love’s madness! tautology, love is itself a madness.”
[AF] This common every-day kind of love, which is nothing else but a
refined sexuality, pure and simple, has been elevated to a fetich by
the modern so-called intellectuals and extolled in and out of season.
The advocates of the new love-morality show by the attributes, as love
at first sight, that what they understand by love is sensual love. Yet
upon this prosaic attachment they try to build up their new system of
sexual ethics.
Every union not based upon this kind of sensual attachment is decried
as mere prostitution in marriage. Any marriage influenced by such
motives as loneliness, poverty, welfare of the nearest relatives,
the advance in social position, advance in business or in the
professions, without the obligatory romance, which after all is only
refined animalism, is considered contemptible. Such motives are held
to be honorable enough to govern any other action in the life of the
individual, but when it comes to marriage the line is drawn. Without
the quickly wearing off glamor of a silly moon-light romance, the best
of motives for contracting marriage relations are nowadays considered
ulterior, and the sought-for party regards itself as having married
under a misapprehension.
Even eugenic power is attributed to this wonderful love. Two
intellectual and physical giants will beget weaklings, so we are
told, if their union has not preceded by love’s desire; while if two
weaklings marry upon short notice, guided only by their pent-up sex
promptings, the offspring, as a child of love, is prophesied to become
a physical and intellectual giant. As if the chromosomes, the carriers
of the determiners of the unit-characters, could be influenced by
love’s perjuries.
[AG] Those feminists who clamor for the wife’s right to her
individuality show that they have never experienced the emotion of true
love.
[AH] If Samson’s love for Delilah would have been of the sentimental
kind and not mere infatuation, his love would have been turned into
contempt and resentment, long before his betrayal, for her, who, he
must have seen, was trying to elicit the secret of his strength for
some sinister purpose. But being of a sensual nature, he was betrayed
by two women whom he thought he loved but with whom he was only deeply
infatuated.
[AI] Sorrow is an only child, but happiness was born twins; one can be
sad, it takes two to be happy.
[AJ] Thus capitalism has been evolved from primal communism, feudalism,
industrialism, capitalism; and we are gradually verging to state
socialism.
Marriage has been evolved from original permanent mating of the
prehuman state to primal promiscuity, consanguine family, punaluan
family, pairing family, patriarchal family, to strict female and loose
male monogamy, and is gradually reaching, through the modern feminine
movement, not, as some radicals seem to think, to variety, but to
strict male and female monogamy.
Through the entire range of higher animals, even among the polygamous,
the female is always monogamous, at least for the period between one
impregnation to the other. As soon as she has been impregnated by one
male, during the period of rut, she does not admit any other male
until the next period, and woman is no exception. If she has the power
she will force men to monogamy, but she will never return herself to
promiscuity.
[AK] This is often the case even among the noblest of men; among women,
even among the worst, as the demi-mondaines, the heart has to be also
somewhat engaged.
[AL] In a lesser degree, the same may be said of the man, only the care
for procuring food distracts his attention from the ultimate aim of
life.
[AM] It is really amusing to notice how the radical writers put up a
target and fire at it to their heart’s content. They take the church
or state marriage and direct their poisoned arrows against it. As
if the biologist, when speaking of animal and human marriage, could
ever mean the conventional marriage. Neither does he understand by
monogamy the condition generally known by this term. The biological
monogamic marriage of a certain couple is their exclusive cohabitation
for a certain length of time. If during this time they refrain
from cohabitating with others they are for the time being living
biologically in monogamic marriage. The cock in the barn-yard is
polygamous, the steer in the herd is promiscuous, but the cow is
monogamous. Once she has been impregnated she will not admit any other
male until the end of the period of gestation and lactation, and the
new period of rut has set in. From the beginning of one impregnation to
the beginning of the other, almost a year, she is monogamic. This is
the case with almost all females among the higher animals, and woman
does not make any exception to this rule. Even the girl who professes
free love, except she be a nymphomaniac, would not continue to live
with her lover, if she found that while living with her he had had love
affairs with others. She would divorce him forthwith, and sometimes
such a divorce would be accompanied by quite a little scandal. Most of
the erotic murders committed by men upon women and most of the cases
of women throwing acid into the faces of men, we so often read in the
Parisian papers, are perpetrated by those whose marriage relations
have never been sanctioned by church or state. This fact reveals
another error of the radicals who picture the peaceful parting of
their free-loving couples in such glowing colors. They simply leave
each other when they do not love any longer. But in practice love does
not depart from both parties simultaneously, and the party which is
still attached to the other will resent the desertion no less than if
they would have been legally married. The reason is that normal men
and women, except in early youth, perhaps, are never varietists. The
varietist who lacks the instinct of exclusiveness is a psychopathic
sensualist. No alienist could have given a better description of the
symptoms of the psychopathic sensualist than that found in E. C.
Walker’s (The moloch of the monogamic ideal) picture of the sufferings
of the varietist, not of the suffering of total abstinence—in this case
there may be some physiological basis—but of the suffering for lack of
variety. And those pathological specimens are presented to us as normal
men and women.
[AN] The pride of the female, says Otto Weininger (Sex and Character,
p. 201), is something quite peculiar to herself, something foreign even
to the most handsome man, an obsession of her own body, a pleasure
which displays itself even in the least handsome girl, by admiring
herself in the mirror, by stroking herself and playing with her own
hair, but which comes to its full measure only in the effect that her
body has on man.
[AO] Grudge, ill will, fear, hatred, or envy are often miscalled
jealousy, but are emotions entirely different from the emotion of
sexual jealousy.
Jealousy is especially confused with the emotion of envy. Professional
jealousy, artistic jealousy, etc., for instance, are nothing but envy.
Jealousy has a real or pretended claim, envy has none. Envy needs only
two persons, jealousy three.
When a man, for instance, loves a woman in silence, without her
knowledge or encouragement, i. e., without even a pretended claim
upon her, and another man enters upon the stage, the emotion of the
first man is not that of jealousy but of fear, lest the second man may
succeed where he has not yet. When a man has a successful love affair,
and another man appears as a disturber, the emotion of the second is
that of envy. If the woman transfers her affections on the disturber,
the emotion of the lover is that of jealousy, because he had a claim
upon her.
[AP] This accounts for the observation not seldom made in the cases
of widows that the children of the second husband bear a certain
resemblance with the first dead one.
[AQ] The experiments of Waldstein and Elder show that every congressio,
ending in the male ejaculation within the vagina, causes a certain
saturation of the female blood with a substance, owing its origin
within the male body, and exercises a certain change in the female
blood. These authors have shown by experiments on rabbits (Archiv für
Kriminalanthropologie und Kriminalistik, Vol. 56, p. 364) that the
male sperma within the female organism represents a foreign body in
the sense of Abderhalden. When the sperma has entered the blood of the
female organism it produces there a specific ferment. The blood of a
rabbit, twenty-four hours after copulation, possesses the quality of
dialyzation upon testicular tissue. This reaction is positive after
every copulation, no matter whether fertilization has taken place or
not. Thus a part of the male circulates within the blood of the female,
even after copulation without fertilization.
PART VI.
PATHOLOGY OF SEXUALITY
CHAPTER XV
PARADOXIA
The pathology of love treats only of sensual love or of sensuality. The
anomalies of sentimental love lie more properly within the province of
the metaphysician or sociologist. Hence only the pathologic aspect of
sensuality will be considered in the following part.
The analysis of sexuality has revealed the great complexity of the
sexual instinct. No wonder, therefore, that the intricacies of love
show many and varied anomalies. The anomalies based upon anatomical
defects may easily be omitted. The number of works written on this
subject is legion. They could fill whole libraries. But the psychical
anomalies of love have enjoyed until very recently scanty attention
at the hands of medical writers. Especially has modern gynaecology
hitherto entirely neglected the psychical part of its specialty and
has directed its attention only upon diseases that require surgical
interference or other local manipulation.
The anomalies of the sexual impulse which will be analyzed in the
following chapters are those based upon some defects in either of the
three regions of the sexual sphere, the spinal cord, where the centres
of erection and ejaculation are situated; the cerebellum, the seats of
the impulses of voluptas and of libido and of the sensations of touch,
sight, smell, and hearing, which usually provoke the impulses; and the
cerebrum, with the higher sensations, as the sentiment of beauty, of
affection, of admiration, of worship and of respect.
The anomalies based upon defects in these nervous centres properly
belong within the province of the neurologist and alienist. Yet in
a treatise on sex-attraction such anomalies should not be passed in
silence. All the peculiarities of the woman’s body and mind, her
nutrition and nerve activity are only a dependency of the ovary. The
same may be justly said of the man. Almost all of the activities of
the normal man stand in some relation to the testicular functions. The
knowledge of the abnormal psychical elements of the sexual instinct
is, therefore, of such importance to the general health and well-being
of the public and to the whole social structure, that every physician
and student of law or pedagogy ought to acquire a general knowledge
of the anomalies of sexual affections. The man and woman who do not
experience connubial satisfaction will often seek a substitute for
their unrequited love. The whole foundation of society, the family,
will begin to sag, if in our nervous age the anomalies of sexuality are
prudishly overlooked and their study neglected.
The pathology of the sexual affections is, therefore, not only a proper
study for every student of medicine but for every student of education,
law and sociology as well. Krafft-Ebing’s general classification of
the anomalies of the sexual instinct will also be followed here with
more or less minor modifications. Krafft-Ebing divides the pathology of
sexuality into four parts.
I. PARADOXIA.
It means sexual activity in individuals who should normally present no
sexual manifestations, as the occurrence of sexual excitation before
the physiological age.
II. ANAESTHESIA.
It signifies partial or total absence of sexual feeling, i. e.,
impotence of voluptas. It also comprises all other kinds of impotency,
as impotence of libido or of copulation.
III. HYPERAESTHESIA.
It signifies the abnormal intensity of the sexual desire and impulse,
1) Mixoscopy, 2) Erotomania, 3) Satyriasis, 4) Nymphomania, 5)
Masturbation, 6) Incest.
IV. PARAESTHESIA.
It covers all possible forms of perversion of sexual feeling and sexual
activity. A) Heterosexuality: Inclination to persons of the opposite
sex, but with perverse activity. 1) Masochism, 2) Sadism, 3) Fetichism,
4) Exhibitionism. B) Homosexuality: The sexual feeling is directed
toward the same sex. a) Perversity, 1) out of lust, 2) as a profession,
3) through necessity, 4) out of fear, b) Perversion, 1) psychical
hermaphrodism, 2) strict homosexuality, 3) effemination or viraginity,
4) transvestism. C) Bestiality: The sexual feelings are directed in
conjugium cum animalibus.
_Paradoxia._—Paradoxia signifies the sexual activity in individuals who
should normally present no sexual manifestations. The occurrence of
sexual excitement at an age when the individual should ordinarily be
without it belongs to this part of the pathology of sexuality.
The continuance of the same degree of sexual desire in very old men or
in women after the climacterium, as it existed before, is certainly
unusual; yet it cannot be called pathological. The occurrence of
pregnancies in wives of very old men and in women after the climacteric
period proves that the ovaries continue to secrete ova even after
menstruation has ceased, and that the testicles do not cease producing
spermatozoa even beyond the limit of three scores and ten. Now, the
sexual desire depends more upon the activity of the sexual glands
than upon the physiological changes in the nervous apparatus of the
generative organs in men or upon any changes in the uterus, which is
only a repository for the development of the foetus. Hence the absence
of erection in men or of menstruation in women does not necessarily
imply absence of sexual desire.
The appearance of sexual desire in boys before puberty and in girls
long before menstruation has set in is also, as yet, within the limits
of the normal; it becomes pathological only when the sexual desire
is manifested in infants or very small children. Complete sexual
development has been witnessed in children as early as the second year.
The precocity of development in the organs of generation is usually
accompanied by corresponding precocity in sexual desire.
The writer saw a baby who had a sanguineous discharge from her
genitals, for the first time, when she was only five days old. This
discharge appeared afterwards regularly every four weeks. At the
autopsy of another child one year old, one ovary was so enlarged that
it awakened the writer’s curiosity. At the microscopical examination
he found a ripe Graafian follicle. The writer also observed erections
in a boy eight days old, immediately after the ritual circumcision. In
the beginning he attributed these erections to the irritation of the
wound. But the erections continued even after the wound was completely
healed. The penis had the size of that of a boy four to five years of
age.
But even where the development of the genital organs conforms with
the age of the child, many cases are recorded of children of great
precocity. At this period of early childhood there can be naturally
no other sex activity except the habit of autoeroticism. The natural
curiosity of children leads them to an examination and finally to a
titillation of their private organs, often without the aid of any
vicious instruction. When the child has thus found that a certain mode
of handling these organs is attended with pleasurable sensations, he
repeats the action, and the habit is established.
Hirschsprung (Berl. Klin. Wochenschr. 1866, No. 38) observed three
cases of sexual activity in boys in the earliest childhood. The
youngest child was only sixteen months old. Membro mentulato, the boy
continued for over an hour to make rocking or wriggling movements,
until it would fall back exhausted and bathed in perspiration. Deep
sleep terminated the attacks which were repeated daily.
Rohleder (Die Masturbation, 3d Edit., p. 58) describes a case of a
boy, fifteen months old, qui faciebat motiones voluptarias fricando
virilia sua contra mammam matris. The attacks were marked by staring
eyes, burning face and oppressed breathing. At the acme of the attack
the child would break out in loud sobbing. The paroxysm would last
about ten minutes. Thereupon the child would fall asleep.
The early aberration of the sexual instinct in childhood is more
frequently met with in girls than in boys. Probably because the means
for sensual gratificaton at the disposal of the infant girl are more
numerous than that of the boy. The mere thigh-crossing of the infant
girl will serve the purpose.
Townsend reports five cases of stuprum manu in girls under one year
of age. One, an infant, eight months old, would cross her right thigh
over the left, close her eyes, clench her fists, and after a minute or
two there would be complete relaxation, with perspiration and redness
of face. This would occur once a week or oftener.
In Lombroso’s case a girl of three years of age faciebat stuprum
manu aperte et pæne jugiter until marriage, and even afterwards. She
bore twelve children, neque desistebat a stupro manu even during
pregnancy. Of her twelve children, five died in infancy, four were
hydrocephalous, and the three surviving children were confirmed
masturbators, the oldest having begun the practices at seven, the
youngest at four years of age.
One of the writer’s patients, a young woman of twenty-four years of
age, incipiebat masturbari, tres annos nata, ponendo pulvinum in
femoribus et premendo eum quoad muliebria humescebant.
In Blackmer’s case, a girl eight years of age impudenter se stuprabat
from her fourth year and, at the same time, sollicitans pueros of ten
to twelve years of age ad stuprum. She planned to kill her parents
that she might devote herself completely to such enjoyment.
Zambaco relates the histories of two sisters, one of whom at the
age of seven feminabat cum pueris, corrumpebat sororem, quattuor
annos natam, ad stuprum manu, and at the age of ten was given to the
practice of cunnilingus.
In Moll’s case, a girl of seven had an impulsive inclination to
her brother, three and a half years of age, cujus virilia amabat
contrectare et quem inducebat ad contrectandum muliebria sua.
Jacobi (A. Am. Jour. of Obstetr. 1876, p. 597) relates the history of
a case of a girl of three who, at irregular intervals, had attacks of
stuprum when sitting down. She began by keeping her thighs closely
joined or by crossing her legs. She then started to move and rub her
limbs violently. The face became purple, and there was twitching about
the eyes which looked excited, and the child perspired freely. After
the attack she used to lean back exhausted, sighing and breathing
hurriedly.
In another case Jacobi saw thigh friction, up and down movements,
quick breathing, perspiration, in a female infant of nine months.
Magnan cites a case of a seven-year-old girl who jugiter se stuprabat
with great violence. Even in the moment of being photographed, she
turned up her petticoat and gave herself up to her favorite pastime.
Rachford (Archive of Pediatry, 1907) has collected 52 cases, 48
occurring in female and 4 in male children, of pseudomasturbation, as
he calls it. But since the same symptoms of orgasm, as interrupted
panting respiration, flushed cheeks, redness of face, staring eyes,
large immobile pupils, perspiration and exhaustion are seen in the
infant during its practice, as are found in the masturbating practices
of older children, there is no reason to call these infantile
manipulations by any other name than masturbation.
Precocity of sexual activity is usually based upon a neuropathic
predisposition. Such children are, as a rule, tainted hereditarily. The
following case is very instructive on account of the severity of the
attacks and the attending circumstances:
Little L’s mother left her husband and went to live with a very rich
man. The child is the product of this concubinage. Some time after the
death of her legal husband, the mother left the father of the child,
deserted the child and married another man. The foundling has been
since taken care of by a children’s aid society. The foster-mother,
with whom the child has been living for the last six months, brought
her to the author for examination, with the following history:
Soon after Mrs. L. received the child she noticed that the same was
suffering from hysterical attacks. It sometimes whined and cried for
several days in succession. It was always very restless and fidgety,
giving the impression as if it was suffering from chorea minor. It
was frequently running to the water-closet without any apparent
necessity. Mrs. L. went to the society to find out what was the matter
with the child and was told there that the child has been a confirmed
masturbator since she was two and a half years old. Two other
families, to whom the child has been successively given for adoption,
have returned her to the society on account of this perversity. She
was also told that if she refused to keep the child, the society will
have to send it to an insane asylum as the last resort. For this
reason, Mrs. L., who in the meantime had become attached to the child,
resolved to try to break up the bad habit before she adopted it. Mrs.
L., who is a highly intelligent lady and seems to possess an unusual
power of observation, describes the attacks as follows:
The usual mode of the child’s practice is volvulam manibus permulcere.
The acme of the attack is manifested by the rigidity of the entire
body, by the panting respiration, the staring eyes, the immobile
pupils, redness of face, perspiration and general excitement. After a
short interval of exhaustion, she gives herself again to her favorite
pastime. In this way the child jugiter stuprum manu faciebat, even
in the presence of others. All punishments by Mrs. L. and in the
institution, where her little hands were even burned with hot iron,
were of no avail. When her hands were tied so that she could not
use them, fricabat muliebria sitting on a chair, by violent circular
motions of her pelvis, which simply frightened her foster-mother. When
lying in bed the child crosses her legs and rubs the thighs violently
against each other.
When the child was asked how it happened to start the performance
of such practices, it answered that it had been first taught by her
unnatural mother ut tractaret matris muliebria stupri causa. Also the
matron of a certain institution is said to have taken the child into
a dark closet et adduxit puellam ad matronæ manustuprum. The truth
of these assertions cannot be proven, but by some experimenting,
undertaken with the child, it has been proven beyond the shadow of a
doubt that some adult woman abusa est puella ad stuprum suum.
The examination of the five-year-old girl shows a bright, nervous
child, pale, with deeply set eyes, surrounded by dark rings, and
somewhat enlarged cervical and inguinal glands. The entire body is
covered with blond soft hair of unusual length. The same long hair
covers the somewhat enlarged labia majora, so that they make the
appearance of that of a girl near puberty. They are quite separated
from each other, as found in the adult. The clitoris is somewhat
elongated, but the prepuce is not adherent to the glans. Otherwise the
genitals do not show any marked anomaly.
Sometimes the masturbatic practices are provoked by irritation at
the peripheric region. The boy who has the impulse to touch and pull
everything will, if not prevented by mother or nurse, surely play with
his little organ. Sometimes there is a phimosis or an inflammation of
the prepuce, or an accumulation of smegma in the infant boy; in girls
there may be uncleanliness in the vulva, worms, eczema or pruritus.
All these anomalies cause a certain itching which incites the child
to touching and rubbing these parts. These manipulations produce an
agreeable tickling sensation and awaken the feeling of lust. This
feeling operates in the memory and excites the child to a state of
activity before sexual consciousness has had time to awaken.
The habit of masturbation is sometimes contracted in infancy, by the
laxness of stupid servants or ignorant mothers. They often try to calm
the infant by tickling the child’s genitals and thus awaken lustful
feelings which later on drives the child to renew the manipulation
without outside help. In this way masturbation is found in the best and
purest homes.
Another practice resorted to by nurse-girls and mothers is to amuse
the child by gently striking its buttocks, a region which is highly
erogenous. Every one who has read “Les Confessions,” by Rousseau, knows
how this savant, when a boy, became sexually excited when his nurse
punished him by whipping him on his buttocks. Thus nurses, and even
mothers, innocently induce the child to the habit of masturbation.
A still greater danger lurks from vicious servants and voluptuous
nurse-girls who deliberately handle the infant’s or the very young
child’s lumbus libidinis causa. They touch and strike the genitals
of boys as well as that of girls for their own pleasure. There are
few nurse-girls, says Parke, who do not delight to initiate the boy,
committed to their care, in sexual matters. He relates many histories
of patients who were induced to abnormal practices by their nurses in
early youth. Lawson-Tait, in warning parents against allowing children
to sleep with their nurses or with servants, says that in every
instance where he found a number of children affected by masturbation,
the contagion could be traced to a servant. Freund relates several
examples of severe youthful hysteria where the starting-point could
be traced to some sexual manipulations by servants, nurse-girls and
governesses.
Sexual precocity is, therefore, not seldom caused by tactile
stimulation. Still in the majority of cases precocity may be easily
traced to a hereditary taint.
CHAPTER XVI
ANAESTHESIA
Under the caption of sexual anaesthesia will be treated here not only
the deficiency of sexual emotion or the absence of the sexual feeling,
i. e., the impotence of voluptas or the lack of erotic desire, but all
other deficiencies, declines or abatements in the realm of sex, such as
absence of experiencing satisfaction, impotency of copulation and of
propagation.
_Etiology of male impotence._—In the etiology of impotence three main
causes must be taken into consideration. Impotence is almost always
met with in congenital or acquired malformation. Such anomalies lie
more in the province of surgery and need not be considered here any
further. Impotence is also found as a symptom in certain constitutional
diseases. The patients suffering from these troubles, are seeking
medical advice more for their causative anomaly than for the symptom
of impotence, which in these cases is of secondary importance. Hence
the consideration of these cases may also be omitted. The anomaly of
impotence par excellence and for which medical advice is mostly sought
is nervous impotence. This impotence from nervous collapse is the
commonest and complicates all other kinds.
The patients of this class have always been normal in their sex-life.
Suddenly, one day, they find themselves impotent. The cause of this
kind of impotence is, in the majority of cases, sexual excesses, and
four different kinds of excesses may be taken into consideration,
excesses in copulation, in masturbation, in mental erethism, or
commonly called day-dreaming, and finally excesses in tactile
eroticism, or the common sexual dalliance or caresses of young lovers.
_Copulation excesses._—During coition all the parts of the genital
apparatus are in a state of extreme congestion. If such congestions
are too often provoked they have a more or less deleterious effect
upon the organs. Especially the colliculus and the prostatic portion
of the urethra are affected by such repeated congestions. While the
other parts assume their normal state soon after ejaculation and
the cessation of erection, the colliculus remains still in a state
of turgescence for some time. Now, the prostatic urethra is very
rich in sensible nerves, and by its congestion all the generative
organs are kept in a state of erethism. The irritation of this area
is also capable of deranging the spinal genital centres. It either
increases excitability and causes ejaculatio praecox, or it decreases
excitability, and erections are no longer evoked.
Besides affecting the special nerves, the repeated orgasm, through the
mental vertigo, the muscular convulsion, the cardiac and respiratory
excitement, must lead to nervous disorders. As a matter of fact,
venereal excesses are followed by malaise, nervousness, mental
depression, lassitude, fatigue, satiety, heaviness in the head,
disposition to sleep, dulness of intellect, indisposition to exercise,
want of decision, regrets and ill humor, and the other symptoms of
general neurasthenia.
_Masturbatic excesses._—Still excesses in copulation are not so harmful
as excesses in masturbation. In the first place excesses in copulation
are self-limited. Indulgence in intercourse requires the consent of the
partner, and where a second person is needed, there is always a limit
put to the will of the first party. Furthermore, excesses in coition
require each time a complete erection, and abused nature will finally
deny erections. If the young and vigorous individual should in the
beginning be able to command quite a number of erections in one night,
after a certain time, he will be glad if he could have one complete
erection during a night, or even once a week. In this way Nature
herself regulates such excesses and takes care that “the trees should
not sweep the stars down.”
The case is different with masturbation. No limit is set here to the
excesses. Self-abuse does not require cooperation of a second person,
and what is of more importance, erection is not requisite. Thus
even Nature is here powerless. Hence when there is a propensity to
masturbatory excesses, there is nothing to prevent the individual from
abusing its favorite pastime.
Besides the harm to the greater frequency, excesses in masturbation
offers additional injury through the youth of the individual.
Copulation excesses are indulged in by individuals after puberty, i. e.,
by persons with fully developed generative organs and in full
virility. The practice of masturbation, on the other hand, is often
begun by mere children, before the genital organs have had time to
fully develop, and it is easily seen that excesses will cause greater
damage to these undeveloped organs. Hence when young individuals are
given to inordinate masturbation, they harm the organs in a higher
degree than excesses in copulation.
Furthermore, ejaculation in masturbation is forced through purely
local manipulation. There is only a local excitation of the nerves.
The help of the psyche and phantasy is missing, and the lumbar centres
are tasked to the utmost. When the masturbator tries to supply the
psychic means, he relies on the fertility and the extravagance of the
lewd images which he presents to his mind to increase the libido. Hence
masturbation is more injurious because it is generally effected through
the influence of an exalted imagination.
Very soon the masturbator discovers that visions, once sufficient to
produce the requisite excitement, have lost their power, and that
the images need to be of a more extravagant salacity. In this way,
the masturbator accustoms himself to extraordinary means of sexual
gratification, so that attempts of normal copulation are no longer
successful. When he attempts coition, he finds that reality is so
much less than his imagination has led him to believe and that it is
incapable of rousing his appetite.
Another injury done to the character of the masturbator is the
guilty conscience. Almost every masturbator seems to feel that
his acts degrade his manhood.[AR] He seems to know by intuition
that his practice is injurious to his health and is morally wrong,
because it is not in accord with the general plan of the creative
power in the universe. Still in spite of himself, he continues to
indulge in it. The will seems to have entirely lost its control. The
masturbator is thus engaged in a conflict between moral conviction
and sensual indulgence. Herein lies one of the most harmful effects
of masturbation. It is undermining the individual’s will-power and
destroying his character. Every masturbator resolves again and
again, after each exercise, to resist henceforth the inclination
and to overcome the temptation,[AS] each time with the same futile
result. A paralyzing sensation arises in him, a feeling of shame and
self-contempt overtakes him, because he has again failed to show enough
energy, has again been too weak to resist the impulse. Finally these
disturbing and paralyzing sensations give rise to the conviction of
his being lacking in will-power and to the feeling of being generally
deficient in everything else in life. In this way, excesses in
masturbation harm the generative organs not only directly but also
indirectly by first injuring the individual’s entire nervous system,
and the different kinds of impotencies are only symptoms of the general
neurasthenia.
_Mental erethism._—The other kind of sexual excesses, those of mental
erethism and frustrate eroticism, are even more harmful than excesses
in copulation and masturbation.
By mental erethism or, as it is generally called, or rather misnamed,
mental masturbation, is understood the filling of the phantasy with
lascivious pictures. The dreamers give themselves up to sensual
thoughts, allowing the mind to dwell constantly on sexual ideas, or
erotic subjects of connubial enjoyments, conjuring before the unruly
imagination extravagant and voluptuous visions and bawdry portrayals.
The mind is fixed on images of individuals of the other sex, all in
lustful positions, on pictures of the nude and of their genitals and
of couples in actione coeundi.
The voluptuous day-dreamers, not needing material manipulation, may
busy themselves with their favorite thoughts while seemingly conversing
with their friends or on the most solemn occasions, as when listening
to a sermon, etc. These erogenous thoughts, these libidinous images,
these constant broodings on sex-matters create a habit which secures
such a hold upon the individual that he cannot overcome it. The habit
becomes so rooted in some instances that it is impossible for the
patients to free their thoughts from fancies and pictures of lustful
situations, while alone. Not even with the greatest efforts are they
able to rid themselves from imagining erotic scenes of various kinds.
Their minds are constantly preoccupied with a single engrossing subject
to the exclusion of all other topics and are perpetually turned on
sexual subjects, so that they are unable to concentrate their attention
upon any other matters.
These perennial broodings on sex subjects keep the genital organs
in a permanent state of sexual excitation and erethism. While in
masturbation the material congestion of the generative organs is
removed with each ejaculation, in mental erethism relief by ejaculation
is missing. In the first stage of the vicious habit, the morbid mental
lubricity and the lascivious unlicensed thoughts may occasionally
provoke an ejaculation. But later on, when the genitals have undergone
a certain weakness, ejaculation is not brought on any longer by these
images, and the genital organs remain in a continual state of material
congestion and nervous tension. In this way not only the colliculus and
prostratic urethra, as in excesses of copulation and masturbation, but
all the genital organs are in a state of chronic inflammation, which in
time becomes the cause of impotence.
_Tactile eroticism._—Worse than mental erethism is tactile eroticism.
By tactile eroticism is understood, keeping the genital organs
constantly irritated by dalliance with individuals of the other sex,
stopping short of the act of copulation. On a walk through the city
parks, any summer evening, or on a trip on the Sunday excursion boats,
young men and women may be observed lying in each other’s arms in
a continual caress, kissing, hugging, and fondling each other for
hours, scarcely confining themselves within the limit of decency.
These couples are actually exercising the sexual act, although they
do not obtain sexual congress. These tremors and ecstasies, these
amorous ardors and intoxications, these sensual joys which stimulate
with rapture the higher centres and infuse the mind with sexual
gratification, are all a part of the chain of the sexual act. The
interruption of this chain of impulses short of copulation may satisfy
the moral conscience of the young people, but it does not make such
excesses less injurious. On the contrary, the generative organs are
deprived of the relief which ejaculation lends to these organs. The
genital tube remains surcharged with blood, and the hyperaemia subsides
but slowly. The normal outlet of the sex-activity has been cut off
by a special process of repression. If these frustrate stimulations
are frequently repeated, they perpetuate the genital congestion, and
through the retention of the secretions, a catarrh of the genital
organs ensues, just as inflammations often originate in the mammary
glands through the accumulation of the milk after weaning the child.
These perennial congestions are the cause of prostatic inflammations
not seldom met with in young men who never were infected by gonorrhoea.
The ulcerations of the cervix so often found in young girls and young
mothers of one child may often be attributed to no other cause than to
frustrate eroticism in the young girls and to onanism[AT] in the young
mothers. The cervix is damaged in the same way as the soil, burned by
the sun, in the absence of a beneficent rain, cracks and slits.
The frequently repeated engorgements of the blood vessels which do
not receive the normal physiological relief by ejaculation provoke in
both parties an exaggerated sex-sense and produce the emotions, known
as satyriasis in men and as nymphomania in women. The exaggeration is
followed later on by exhaustion of the libidinous impulses, and the
men become hypochondriacs and impotent and women neurotic and shallow.
The continual congestion in the genitals causes also a continued
feeling of heaviness and discomfort in the lower abdomen. Urination
becomes frequent in both sexes, and in women menstruation is irregular.
The patients complain of profuse pains in the back, legs, sides, and of
weakness, nervousness and sleeplessness. These troubles cause general
debility and a complete breakdown of the nervous system.
The generative centres are particularly damaged by the constant
congestion of the genitals. The frequent stimuli keep the lumbar
centres in a condition of constant irritation. The nervous system,
presiding over the function of erection, thus becomes worn out and
exhausted, and the nerves do not respond even to the strongest
stimulations, which would otherwise set them in action. In this
way, the centres get accustomed, so to say, of not responding any
longer with erection to the proper stimuli, or in other words, the
consensualism between the genital nerves and their centres is broken.
Hence, besides the harm done to the nerves by the general debility,
there is great damage done to the genital nerves and centres by the
break in the chain of the reflex mechanism. In no other sex-activity,
except in actual copulation, are the generative organs in such a
constant and intense excitement as in dalliance with individuals of the
other sex, no other erotic stimuli create such libidinous turgescence
of the organs and such a high degree of sex-tension, exciting with
rapture the higher centres, no other excitations cause such a
consumption of nerve power as this gratification of the impulse of
contrectation by tactile manoevres. The erections of penis and clitoris
are vigorous and violent. The organs are set in a state of expectancy
for the final act. If the act is not terminated within a certain
limited time, the state of expectancy cannot last for ever. The mode
of action is limited in length of time. Except in the abnormal state,
known as priapism, the duration of erection is relatively short in the
normal individual. Its beginning is synchronous with the onset of the
material congestion and nervous tension of the genital parts, and its
subsidence should normally be synchronous with ejaculation. If the
latter be prevented, erection has to cease sooner or later, even when
congestion and tension remain unabated. Hence after long and lasting
amorous caresses the erections fail.
If these manœuvres are often repeated, the excitations finally do not
effect the proper response, and erection fails from the outset. The
strong and continuous stimulations render the nerves and their centres
inert in reaction and weak in power. The centres of erection and
ejaculation become blunted, the inhibitory centres get very sensitive,
and erection cannot be provoked. When the nerve centres presiding over
the function of erection get into the habit of not responding to the
highest excitations of the tactile stimuli, they do not respond even
to the stimulations concarnationis. The cooperating nerve-apparatus
has been affected, and a perverted innervation is created. The
close interdependence of the mechanism of erection and the centres
is removed, and an abnormal reflex-excitability is produced. The
consensualism between the corpora cavernosa and the centre of erection
is interrupted.
Before the indulgence in frustrate caresses has become a habit,
i. e., in the beginning of the practice, erections are vigorous and
of considerable duration. But the duration diminishes with each
repetition. After a few months or years of these nerve-destroying
practices, according to the patient’s nervous constitution, there is no
response by erection even to the strongest stimuli. The consentaneous
action, which, otherwise, connects the excitement of the organs with
erection and completion of the act, does not take place. This lack of
consensualism on the part of the several factors which go to make up
the orgasm leads finally to complete impotence.
Continence, if long continued, has been claimed to be the cause of
impotence. But there is no valid reason for this belief. To prove the
harmfulness of continence, an analogue is brought forward between the
atrophy of a muscle in enforced idleness and the injury to the sex
organs in enforced abstinence. But the proof is somewhat feeble. The
essential organs of generation are not muscles but glands, and who has
ever heard of a tear gland atrophying for lack of crying. Furthermore,
abstinence does not condemn the generative organs to absolute rest.
Every individual, especially when abstinent, has frequently nocturnal
erections through the entire period of his sexual activity, and there
is no reason why such erections should not keep the genitals in the
required exercise and should not prevent the alleged atrophy. As far as
the exercise to prevent atrophy is concerned, nocturnal erections ought
to be of the same service as erections followed by intromissions. The
nocturnal erections seem to be even more harmless. The engorgement of
the colliculus is less pronounced in these erections. Micturition, on
awakening with an erection, is immediately possible, while there is a
pronounced inability of micturition after an erection and ejaculation
either through initu aut stupro manu.
The histories of patients are cited to prove the deleterious effects of
total abstinence. Cases are known of alleged abstinent neurasthenics,
on the point of a complete breakdown, who recovered perfect health
after marriage. But even this proof cannot stand a closer scrutiny.
Who can prove the total abstinence of these patients? The layman is
prone to regard the actual intromission only as sexual activity. If he
has abstained from this final phase, he considers himself abstinent.
But chastity is not continence by any means. Absolute continence
is abstinence not only from the gratification of the impulse of
detumescence concarnatione, but also from that of contrectation, i. e.,
from mental and tactile caresses and from all other abnormal practices.
We must distinguish between chastity and abstinence. Those who are
chaste out of fear of venereal infection or for lack of opportunity are
not always abstinent. They are just the individuals who are indulging
immoderately in mental erethism or even masturbation.
The mere assertion of the patient that he never indulged in unnatural
practices does not count. The patient’s veracity is very questionable.
All venereal troubles seem to exert an inhibitory influence upon the
truth-centres. The propensity of the masturbator to conceal the truth
is notorious. If such a patient claims that he has never masturbated,
it is likely that he is still practising it. A special psychical
element, associated with this habit, prompts the majority of patients
to gross and intemperate prevarication.
But even if such a “rara avis,” who has abstained from actual
manusturpation, should exist, still mental erethism cannot entirely be
excluded. The elicitation of a history of mental erethism is connected
with great difficulty. Masturbation with these patients means only
the indulgence in manual practices; the voluptuous day-dreams are
considered of no account, and the peculiar type of mendacity prevents
them from revealing the truth even to him, upon whom they called to
consult.
Hence the loss of sexual power in these patients may not have been
effected by continence but, on the contrary, by continual erethism. The
examination of such patients really shows, as a rule, the prostatic
urethra in a state, which is usually caused by prolonged erethism.
After marriage, with its regulated sexual activity and the removal of
the inclination to the wild erotic fancies, the neurasthenia is soon
cured, not because the patient has given up abstinence, as interpreted
by the anti-abstinence advocates, but, on the contrary, because he
has now become real abstemious from the excesses of mental erethism.
Hence the cure of neurasthenia by marriage is no proof against sexual
abstinence. The patients who seek medical advice for their neurasthenic
troubles may be those who have only abstained from coition but have
freely and immoderately indulged in the unnatural modes of sensualism,
whence their troubles originated. The real continent individuals who
avoid any kind of erotic practices remain sound and healthy and do
not require medical help. Their cases remain hence unknown to the
profession.
If total abstainers from every kind of sexual erethism should
sometimes become neurasthenic, this fact would not prove yet that the
nervous trouble was caused by total abstinence from the gross sexual
gratification. Even the man about town may become neurasthenic for
lack of the gratification of the impulse of permanent mating. The
apologists of promiscuous intercourse forget or are ignorant of the
fact that the impulse of permanent mating in normal men and women
cannot be satisfied by promiscuity. The craving for a permanent mate,
home and family unconsciously demands gratification even from him who
leads a promiscuous sexual life. If this impulse is not gratified,
as in cranky old bachelors or hysterical old maids, it may lead to
severe attacks of neurasthenia. Such cases will not be cured by the
association with venal women or by promiscuous sensuality, but they may
be cured by a permanent mate, home, and family life. Hence the cure of
the total abstainer from his nervousness by marriage is again no proof
against total abstinence. The cause of the trouble may have been the
unsatisfied impulse of permanent mating which has been now satisfied by
marriage. Promiscuous relations would not have cured the neurasthenia,
but marriage with its accompanying emotional tones.
There is, therefore, no valid proof of the harmfulness of total
abstinence in a healthy individual without a hereditary taint. If total
abstinence ever harmed anybody, the patient was either a congenial
weakling or has acquired his lack of resistance through indulgence
in early eroticism. A perfectly healthy man is never injured by
abstinence. At least there is no sufficient proof that it ever did.
But there are unmistakable proofs that total abstinence does not harm
the individual. The best proof is furnished by many chaste and healthy
women. Few women seem to suffer from total abstinence. The rejoinder
that woman’s sexual desires are very feeble, that the female sex has
no sexual needs, that it is more or less frigid, are mere masculine
assertions without objective proofs. Women writers, who ought to
know best the feelings of their own sex, claim just the opposite.
Johanna Elberskirchen (in Sexualempfindung bei Weib und Mann) has
well satirized the masculine impertinence which tries to teach woman
what her emotions are or are not. The fact that many a young woman
runs the risk, in the present state of sex-morality, of ruining her
entire future by the indulgence in extra-marital sexuality, under
conditions where pecuniary or other considerations are entirely out
of the question, would tend to show that the sexual impulse is by no
means so weak in women, as many would lead us to believe. It is simply
incomprehensible that the female sexual needs should be less urgent
than those of the male sex. Woman has by far the greater part of labor
in the sex-performance. With the ejaculation the man’s biological
part is at an end. He may leave now the scene of his activity, while
the woman’s part just begins and is continued through nine months
of pregnancy and about a year of nursing of the new being. Dr. M.
Glasgow, as a woman perfectly competent to judge, says (Review of
Reviews, 1912, p. 319): “The strong sexuality displayed by a sex whose
contribution to the germ of the race is discharged in a brief moment
of enjoyment must be greatly less than exhibited by the other party,
whose contribution is made through long months of patient endurance.”
The prominent part woman takes in the propagation of the race forces to
the logical conclusion that her erotic needs are of necessity stronger,
although, as Ellen Key puts it, they may be calmer than that of man’s.
Woman is able in a quite extraordinary way to produce the impression
that she herself is really non-sexual and that her sexuality is only a
concession to man. But the seeming reluctance of the female is intended
to increase the sexual activity in both mates. The passivity of the
female throughout nature is only apparent, it is the passivity of the
magnet. As a matter of fact, women experience during the orgasm an
ecstasy of feeling greater than in men, involving the whole system in
an ecstatic nervous erethism.
Still the normal woman can stand absolute continued continence without
any injury to her body and mind (e. g. nuns). Hence there is no reason
why the human male, if left to himself, and nothing comes to disturb
the natural course of his sexual development, should be harmed by
abstinence. Until the impulse of permanent mating enters into play, and
this comes relatively late in life, abstinence will harm neither men
nor women, if they live in an atmosphere free from the influence of
artificial stimulation.
If the animal kingdom could be taken as proof for or against total
abstinence in man, we find that pet animals, as canary birds or dogs,
who rarely have the opportunity to exercise their sexual powers, are
generally as healthy and live as long as those living in freedom.
Hence the claim that abstinence is the cause of impotence has
absolutely no ground to stand upon. If the young man kept his
thoughts pure and avoided exciting amusements which create emotional
disturbances, impotence would be an unusual occurrence. If the young
woman would avoid puttering over her genitalia, pelvic obsession with
its accompanied hysterical conditions of hyperesthetic or paresthetic
erethism would be rarely met with.
The only cause for impotence remains sexual excesses. They are very
seldom the immediate cause of the impotence. But they leave such
weakness in the genital organs and in the nervous system that it
requires only the least disturbance to provoke total impotence. Such
disturbances, as remorse over the formerly committed irregularities, or
distrust in one’s powers, or the mental attitude of the woman to whom
sexual approaches are a matter of real or assumed indifference, are
sufficient to render the weakened neurotic man total impotent.
Next to excesses, gonorrhoea, in a great many cases, leaves the
genitals in a similar weakened condition. Gonorrhoea often causes acute
inflammation of the prostatic urethra, and the mucous membrane not
seldom undergoes the changes characteristic of chronic catarrh. The
sensory nerves reflexly keep the centres for erection and ejaculation
in a condition of hyperesthesia. This condition finally leads to the
paralysis of the centres and nerves, and reflex-erection cannot be
produced.
Psychic causes of impotence are mental fatigue, overwork, preoccupation
with mathematical or financial problems, fear,[AU] anger, grief, and
disgusting sights or odors. Prolonged excitement before attempting
coition may also lead to temporary impotence.
The other causes of impotence are the symptomatic ones. Impotence
is met with in tabes dorsalis, diabetes, nephritis, obesitas,
oxalic diathesis, haemorrhoids, fissures of the anus, seat worms,
etc. Excesses in the consumption of certain drugs may also lead to
impotence. Such drugs are alcohol,[AV] morphine, cocaine, tobacco and
the bromides.
_Etiology of impotence in women._—The same causes, at work in producing
impotence in men, are also affecting impotence in women. The only
modification lies in the fact that impotence of copulation, which
is the impotence par excellence in men, is of a negligible quantity
in women. The main mode of impotence found in women is that of
experiencing libido. This impotence may be either idiopathic or also
caused by excesses as the impotence of copulation in men. Idiopathic
impotence of libido is oftener met with in women than in men. Still
even in women this insensibility is much rarer than is generally
believed. The explanation for the greater frequency of impotence of
libido in women than in men has first been given by Freud (Sig. Drei
Abhandlungen über Sexualtheorie).
The autoerotic activity of the erogenous zones in children is the same
in both sexes. It may be asserted, says Freud, that the sexuality of
the little girl has entirely a male character. The chief erogenous
zone in the female child is the clitoris which is homologous to the
male penis. The frequent spontaneous discharges of sexual excitement
in little girls manifest themselves in twitching and erections of the
clitoris. But while in the male the erogenous zone remains the same
after puberty as before, namely in the penis, puberty is distinguished
in the girl by a wave of repression of the clitoris-sexuality and
in the change of the erogenous zones. The rôle of the clitoris is
henceforth to conduct the excitation to the adjacent parts. It often
takes some time to affect this transference. During this time the young
woman remains anaesthetic to stimulations of the internal organs as
vagina or cervix. This anaesthesia may become permanent if the clitoris
zone refuses to transfer its excitability. This anaesthesia in women is
often only apparent and local. They are anaesthetic at the vagina and
cervix, but not at all unexcitable through the clitoris or even through
other erogenous zones, such as the lips or the nipples. The women are
impotent of experiencing libido in coition but potent when the clitoris
is excited by any other stimuli.
The refusal to transfer the clitoris sexuality is, as a rule, caused
by an excessive irritation of the clitoris by manusturpation during
childhood. The excesses which cause impotence of libido in women are
the same which cause impotence of copulation in men, namely excesses in
copulation, masturbation, mental erethism, and tactile eroticism. In
women the excesses in copulation are more harmful than in men. While in
men these excesses are self-limited by the impossibility of provoking
any erections, after a certain time of continuous indulgence; in women
there is no limitation to the practice. Playing the passive rôle, she
can stand congressum continuum for a considerable length of time and
tire out a number of men in succession. The vaginal pavement-epithelial
lining is very strong.
“Conteritur ferrum, silices teneantur ab usu.
“Sufficit et damni pars caret illa metu.”
sings Ovid in his “Ars Amandi.” Hence when a woman has any proclivity
for excesses in initu, there is no natural limit to her indulgence.
Through the influence of the frequent irritation in copulative
excesses, the vaginal mucous membrane undergoes considerable changes.
It becomes a veritable skin, a stiff parchment, and thus loses
sensitiveness.
The other cause for impotence of libido are excesses in masturbation.
The evil results of these practices in women are fully as great as in
men, although with women it is the orgasm alone that does the damage,
since there is no seminal discharge or loss of vital fluids. Through
the frequent application of friction to the parts, they become first
hypersensitive and later hyposensitive and non-responsive to normal
excitations. Accustomed to excite the genitals by manual stimuli, which
may be kept up for a considerable length of time, the masturbator is,
later on, impotent to reach the acme through the normal, relatively
short excitations, as they take place through the internal organic
events in the genitals in normal sex-activity.
In women, the same as in men, the greater damage through excesses in
masturbation is done by the greater frequency, because it requires no
help, from an outsider, because it is not bound by time and locality,
and may be practised by the undeveloped child, and last but not least,
because of the constant conflict and struggle of the masturbator
between the sensual impulse and the inability to desist and the feeling
of womanly unworthiness, dissatisfaction and shame.
Excesses in mental erethism and excessive dalliance with members of
the other sex have no less injurious effects in women than in men. In
the long run these excesses cause in the woman a number of nervous
troubles which take the form of hysteria or assume the character
of neurasthenia. These excessive practices of erethism or tactile
eroticism are, also in women, worse than excesses in copulation and
masturbation, because the former do not lead to the orgasm and to the
relief of the nervous tension and material congestion.
Another cause of impotence of libido in women is onanism or the
practice of withdrawal. This coitus interruptus which rarely leads
to orgasm in the woman, has the same effect upon her as excessive
mental erethism or tactile eroticism, because it does not lead to
relief from the nervous tension and the congestion. Excesses in
onanism are, therefore, very harmful in women, while they are of
lesser consequence in men. The repeated congestions of the parts in
all these practices lead first to chronic hyperaemia and stasis, and
in its further progress to chronic inflammations of the tissues, known
under the respective names of metritis, perimetritis, parametritis,
endometritis, salpingitis, and ovaritis. The inflammations constantly
irritate the nerves and their centres and in this way blunt their
normal sensibility. Besides the dulling of the nervous elements, these
conditions give rise to great pain in commixtione, and pain and fear
are the greatest enemies of libido.
Other causes of impotence of libido in women are excesses in alcohol,
bromides, cocaine, morphine and other narcotics and stimulants.
Sometimes impotence of libido is the result of a hard confinement.
During such confinements extensive lesions in the erectile tissues of
the bulbs and in the sphincter cunni muscles are apt to occur. Now,
the integrity of the vaginal bulbs, of the sphincter cunni, of the
intermediary net of vessels, and of the clitoris is necessary for the
normal experiencing of libido. If a serious lesion occurs, the blood
current is interrupted, and the blood is prevented from leaving the
bulbs and from entering the corpora cavernosa of the clitoris. The
following case will serve as an illustration:
The patient, twenty years of age, married twenty months, has a baby
ten months old. She states that since her confinement she has no
libido during coition. Before this event she always found perfect
gratification. The examination shows a first-degree laceration of the
perineum.
Absence or smallness of the clitoris and an adherent prepuce may also
often diminish the feeling of libido.
_Pathology of male impotence._—The minute penetration into the
different causes of sexual anaesthesia in the preceding pages was of
particular importance, in order to fully understand the pathology of
the different kinds of impotence.
The accomplishment of the physiological act of copulation and
impregnation requires from the man the possession, first of the desire
to associate with the other sex, or of the instinct of voluptas,[AW]
secondly the power of effecting intromission or the potency of
erection, thirdly the potency of ejaculating a healthy sperma for
impregnation, and finally it requires that libido or pleasure
accompanies the emission to assure the repetition of the act.
From these requirements it follows that the individual must command
over four potencies, the potency of voluptas, which compels the
individual to seek the society of the other sex, the potentia coeundi,
which depends upon strong normal erections, the potentia generandi,
depending upon normal secreting testicles, and upon the perviousness
of the entire seminal canal, from the testicle to the meatus of the
urethra, and finally over the potency of libido, which depends upon
the intact centripetal nerves and normal centres of generation in the
brain. If any of these potencies are missing, the individual will be
impotent. Hence four kinds of impotencies may be distinguished in both
sexes:
(1) The impotence of voluptas, or the absence of sexual desire.
(2) The impotence of immission, or absence of the power of erection in
men and the anomalies at the entrance into the vagina in women.
(3) The impotence of impregnation, or the absence of spermatozoa in men
and of ova in women.
(4) The impotence of libido, or absence of the ability to experience
pleasure at the moment of emission.
_Impotence of voluptas._—The impotence of voluptas, or male frigidity,
unassociated with the two other impotencies of copulation and
impregnation, is very rare in men.
Physiological impotence of voluptas exists in childhood and in old
age. In the latter period the desires disappear pari passu with the
power. Although the feeling of desire is of purely mental origin, the
generative organs playing only a secondary part, still when these
organs are powerless or absent, the desire is generally also absent.
Impotence of voluptas is found in eunuchs and in castrates,[AX] who
have been operated upon before puberty. Such castrates, even if the
penis has not been removed, show not only impotentia coeundi, but also
complete frigidity. Their habitus and feelings differ entirely from
those of normal men. Castrates, who have been operated upon later
in life, retain the habitus of normal men and also the impulse of
contrectation. The potency of immission is even greatly enhanced,
at least for the first few years after the operation. In normal men
erection subsides immediately after the ejaculation. In eunuchs
ejaculation does not take place. Hence the erections may last for hours
or even days. In the course of time the potentia coeundi even of these
castrates begins also to decrease and later on becomes entirely extinct.
Impotence of voluptas is also found in severe cases of neurasthenia,
where the entire nervous system is in a low state of efficiency. The
history of the following case may serve to illustrate the symptoms of
the neurasthenic impotence of voluptas.
Mr. B., 35 years of age, unmarried, had gonorrhoea several times,
never lues. Since puberty until about two years ago he was a typical
rounder and had an abundance of femininity at his disposal. He is now
suffering from general debility and shows all the symptoms of severe
neurasthenia, as headaches, pains in the back and abdomen, dyspepsia,
constipation, anorexia, insomnia, etc. In addition he has lost all
desire for sexual gratification. While in the days of unimpaired
vigor his sensual activities were of great frequency, several initus
almost every day, at present the necessity for concarnatio is entirely
lacking. When he does associate cum muliere, erection and ejaculation
are perfectly normal, but the sense of libido is greatly diminished.
Sese injungit nowadays only once every three to four months, out of
curiosity to try his potency, but not because he feels any necessity
for the same.
The case is thus one of pure male frigidity combined with a certain
diminution of libido.
Male frigidity or impotence of voluptas is also found among
psychopathics, as low idiots and cretins. These patients lack the
understanding of the opposite sex. No mental excitations will,
therefore, have any effect upon them.
Sexual perversion is another psychosis connected with impotency of
voluptas to the opposite sex.
Impotence of voluptas is also often found in dementia. Sometimes
impotence of voluptas is congenital with an individual otherwise
normal. The impotence is then analogous to colorblindness. Such cases
are exceedingly rare.
_Impotence of libido._—Similar to impotence of voluptas is the
impotence of libido. Here the desire is powerful, the erections are
vigorous, yet ejaculation takes place without the usual accompanied
libido. It is analogous to the loss or impairment of the sense of
taste. Idiopathic impotence of libido in men is very rare. It is mostly
found as a symptom of some other anomaly.
Impotence of libido exists in cases of loss of testicles, as in
castrates and eunuchs.
As a rule, impotence of libido is met with in men who have severely
over-taxed their brains and hence are less impressionable than when
in a normal state of health. The impotency is an indication of an
exhausted brain where the centres for experiencing libido reside.
Sometimes the centripetal nerves which serve for transmission of the
pleasurable sensations to the centres have their impressionability
obtunded by excesses in venere. When the nerves are deranged, the
desire is strong, the erectile power is sufficient, the mind is in
concurrence, emission occurs at the right moment, yet scarcely a
vestige of pleasurable sensation is experienced during emission. The
following case may serve as a proper illustration of the nature of this
anomaly.
Mr. X., fifty years of age, was seduced to the practice of
manusturpation when about thirteen years old. The exercises were
carried out daily. After puberty, from about sixteen to nineteen
years of age, he was given less to these practices, still once a week
he could not resist of indulging in his favorite pastime. At this
time he began to associate with meretricious women. This activity
alternated with manusturpation until he was forty years old. There
were periods of months or even years, while living in localities where
the opportunity for normal sex activity was entirely lacking, when he
took refuge to weekly practices of manusturpation. At the same time he
indulged in excesses of mental erethism. His day-dreams on his long
walks and in sleepless nights were filled with images, all taken from
the realm of sex. Sometimes he also indulged in excesses of tactile
eroticism (manibus ludere cum genitalibus mulierum). At the age of
forty he married a very attractive young woman, and although he is
greatly in love with his wife and two children, who arrived in the
course of time, and is leading a regular sex-life, still the pleasure
experienced at the ejaculation is practically nil. What induces him to
still keep up his sexual activity is to please his young wife.
Here is a case where the three potencies of voluptas, copulation
and procreation are perfectly intact, and where the patient is only
suffering from the impotency of experiencing pleasure or libido during
his sex-activity. In another case the impotency of libido is complete
every time the patient practises coition, but is less pronounced when
the act is repeated within an hour after the first exercise.
Mr. N., thirty-five years of age, a prominent lawyer, is suffering
from a severe attack of neurasthenia for the last three years, the
greater part of which he spent in sanitaria. As a boy he practised
masturbation to some extent, but quite moderately. The symptoms are
greatly pronounced in the morning, and are manifested by a general
malaise, pressure in the head, bulging of the eyes, tremor of the
hands, pressure in the rectum, in the prostatic region, and burning at
the tip of the penis after urinating. The pressure in the rectum is
relieved the day following coition, but returns in aggravated form on
the second day. At the same time a mucus-like sediment appears in the
urine which, on repeated examinations, showed to consist of oxalate of
lime.
For the last few years, ejaculation, in concarnatione, takes place
without any trace of libido. But if the act is repeated within an
hour, the patient experiences some pleasure. For this reason the
patient always exercebat concubitum bis in hora which served to
aggravate his neurosis.
In some patients the libido is only diminished. In extreme narrowness
of the prepuce the pleasure incident to sexual relation is slight.
The author had only recently performed on a man, thirty-two years
old, circumcision to cure this anomaly, although, it is said, that
in persons who have been circumcized for ritual considerations, the
libido is much slighter than in those not circumcized. In the latter,
the covering of the glans is almost a mucous membrane and is very
sensitive, while in circumcized people the covering of the glans is
almost a veritable skin and has lost its finer sensibilities.
_Impotence of procreation._—The type of impotence, most frequently met
with but rarely complained of by men, is the impotence of propagation.
Almost fifty per cent. of all cases of absolute sterility in married
couples are caused by this anomaly in men.
Congenital and acquired deformities of the genitals may often cause
impotence of procreation. All castrates, even those operated later
in life, as the Skoptzies in Russia, are, of course, impotent for
procreation, although if the penis has been left intact, they are
very vigorous sexually, for a certain time, and are very salacious.
Anorchismus, cryptorchismus, atrophy of the testicles, tumors of the
testicles, compression by hydrocele, inflammation, ossification,
tuberculosis, and cancer of the prostate may cause impotence of
procreation without impairing the power of copulation.
Some epispadias and hypospadias may cause impotence of procreation.
When the opening is very far back, the emission will take place outside
of the vagina.
Aspermia, whether idiopathic or acquired, will always cause impotence
of procreation. In the congenital form of aspermia all the genital
organs seem to functionate normally, still no ejaculation takes place.
In the acquired form of aspermia both ejaculatory ducts are
obliterated, as a rule, through suppurative prostatitis or tuberculosis
of the prostatic gland. In both diseases the glandular tissue is
frequently destroyed.
Aspermia may also be due to neurasthenia as the following case may show:
Mr. S., twenty-four years of age, has been treated about two years
previously for nocturnal pollutions. They happened every night once or
twice and weakened the patient in such a degree that he was unable to
perform any kind of work. Electric treatment, hydrotherapeutics, and
some medicinal tonics restored him to health. The pollutions happened
once in three to four weeks only. A year later the patient called
again, this time complaining of weakness in sexual power. After a few
weeks’ treatment the improvement was such that the patient was lost
sight of.
Six months later the patient returned with the complaint of suffering
from aspermia and lack of orgasm. He is erotic, and he has strong
vigorous erections, but no matter how long he remains in initu,
ejaculation does not take place. The patient falls back from sheer
exhaustion, sometimes mentulato membro, without being able to bring it
to an ejaculation and orgasm.
In this case the aspermia is due to a certain nervous weakness of a
neurasthenic nature. The patient has no strictures, and his testicles
are intact.
Aspermia is sometimes found in strictures of the urethra.
In such cases the semen flows backward into the bladder.
In comparison with azoospermia, as a cause of impotence of procreation,
all the other described anomalies are of a great rarity.
In azoospermia ejaculation and orgasm are perfectly normal, but
the semen shows, under the microscope, the absence of spermatozoa.
Azoospermia is sometimes temporarily found after excesses in initu aut
stupro manu.
[Illustration: CUT XLII.
_Azoospermia._
1, Boettcher’s crystals; 2, amyloid bodies; 3, hyaline bodies; 4,
lecithin; 5, testicular cells; 6, prostatic epithelium; 7, urethral
epithelium.]
Permanent azoospermia is, as a rule, caused by inflammations of the
testicles or of the epididymis. These bilateral inflammations of the
testicles or of the vasa epididymis are almost always the result
of gonorrhoea. The vasa deferentia are obliterated and impervious.
The ejaculated semen consists only of the secretions of the seminal
vesicles, of the prostatic glands and of the urethral glands.
The spermatozoa being absent, the sperma is much thinner than in the
normal state. The absence of the spermatozoa and their movements
is also the cause why the Boettcher’s crystals usually form much
earlier; they appear within half an hour after ejaculation and in a
considerable amount. They often cover almost the entire microscopical
field. In the normal semen the movement of the spermatozoa prevents
the early formation of the crystals; they appear after several hours’
standing and are fewer in number. The thin azoospermatic semen is more
transparent and watery and contains more epithelia and fat than normal
semen.
The patient is, as a rule, unaware of his anomaly. It is often
discovered after his wife has undergone innumerable treatments for
her supposed sterility. If the anomaly has been caused by gonorrhoea
with the accompanying inflammation of the testicles, epididymitis, or
spermatic funiculitis, the loss is almost irremediable. The revelation
to the couple of their doom to childlessness is one of the many
tragedies played in the doctor’s office.
_Impotence of copulation._—The anomaly, most complained of, which
drives the patient to seek medical help is the impotence of copulation.
It is the anomaly which strikes the hardest blow to masculine vanity.
It is a psychological fact that most men are proud of their potency
of copulation and feel greatly humiliated when the same is impeded. A
woman will not seldom discuss with her friends the double ovariotomy
performed upon her, but the man deprived of his testicles will never
mention the fact of his castration to his closest friends.
The impotence of copulation is best divided into four types:
1) Organic impotence.
2) Symptomatic, or paralytic impotence.
3) Psychic, a) transitory, b) relative, c) temporary impotence.
4) Atonic impotence.
_Organic impotence_ may be congenital or acquired. Among the congenital
forms are total absence of the penis. Smallness of the penis may also
be the cause of impotence, although this cause has been somewhat
exaggerated by most writers. The male generative organs on the Greek
statues are in comparison with the size of the other parts quite small.
Still, if the smallness goes beyond a certain degree it will cause
impotence. In the same way enlargement of the penis beyond a certain
degree will also result in impotence. Adhesions of the penis to the
neighboring parts or torsion of the penis will render intromission
impossible. Congenital absence of the testicles is always accompanied
by loss of power.
Among the acquired deformities are counted neoplasms of the penis,
elephantiasis, and the destruction of the penis through ulceration.
Syphilis and tuberculosis of the testicles are generally destructive to
virility. Removal of the testicles, even if operated later in life, is,
after a certain time, followed by atrophy of the penis and impotence.
Indurations and ossifications of the cavernous bodies lead, as a rule,
to impotence.
_Symptomatic impotence._—The organic type of impotence is relatively
very rare. The other type, symptomatic impotence, is oftener met with.
It is found in cerebral diseases, diabetes, tabes dorsalis, chronic
nephritis, extreme obesitas, chronic rheumatism, chronic alcoholism
and in the cachexies of anaemia, cholaemia and uraemia. But since the
desire fails with the failure of power, such patients rarely seek
medical aid for this anomaly. They consult the physician for their
original ailment which is of far greater importance to them than the
loss of power. They mention this anomaly only in the course of the
anamnesis.
Symptomatic impotence is, as a rule, paralytic in form. Libido is more
or less absent, and if emissions ever occur they take place without
erection or pleasure. In the paralytic form of impotence nocturnal
erections are absent, nor do erections occur at any other time. This
sign is almost pathognomonic of this type. If the vagina is very wide,
and intromission with semi-erection should be effected, ejaculation
does not come in jets but slowly. The function of the bulbo-cavernosus
muscle is impaired, hence no ejaculation with force in a jet is
possible, but a slow dribbling from the meatus takes place.
In paralytic impotence the genitals are more or less withered. The
skin of penis and scrotum is almost anaesthetic. The entire urethra is
insensible, the sound passes into the bladder with the greatest ease.
The skin of the thigh in the vicinity of the genitals is more sensitive
to electric currents than that of penis and scrotum. The following
history well illustrates a typical case of paralytic symptomatic
impotence:
Mr. H., 45 years of age, a widower with one child, contracted lues
fifteen years previously and was apparently cured after two years’
treatment. For the last two to three years he began to suffer from
shooting pains around the abdomen (Gürtelschmerz) and in his legs.
Micturition is frequently urging, and the stream is slow. The
knee-jerks are greatly exaggerated. The patient’s gait is still
normal, and he does not show any other sign of tabes dorsalis. About
the time when the pains first appeared, he also noticed a certain
weakness in erection and premature ejaculation. He began then to
associate with meretricious women who practised on him fellatricia,
or insertio fascini in os. From this time the impotence increased and
is now complete. For the last two years he never had even nocturnal
erections. The penis is in a state of atrophy, and is now of the size
of a boy’s, fourteen to fifteen years of age. The skin of the penis
is shriveled and cold. The glans is pale. The entire skin of the
penis and scrotum is quite anaesthetic to the galvanic current. An
application of about fifteen milliamperes in strength, which produced
an ulceration by burning, was scarcely felt by the patient. The
faradic reaction is normal.
_Psychic impotence._—The mode of impotence known as psychic is a very
frequent anomaly. It is the disease of the cultured classes. The
action of the nervi erigentes is incomplete in psychic impotence, and
the complete relaxation of the corpora cavernosa does not take place.
Hence a sufficient quantity of blood can not enter the erectile tissue
to exert pressure on the outgoing veins. The corpora cavernosa become
smaller and harder at the critical moment and do not admit the entrance
of the blood. The diameter of the penis becomes less than that of
the glans. The penis feels cartilaginous, and the skin is found in
transverse folds through the contraction of the corpora cavernosa.
Hence erections are feeble or entirely wanting at the critical moment.
When the patient is lying in bed alone he has, in distinction from
atonic impotence, quite vigorous erections.
Psychic impotence is transitorily found also in healthy individuals
when they are in a state of agitation. The more agitated the patient
is, the more the penis shrinks. In psychic impotence, if the wife is of
an exceedingly passionate disposition, she will make advances and may
often evoke powerful erections, whereas the wife’s indifference would
cause impotence.
In this way this form of impotence is often only relative. With one
woman the inability injungendi is complete, while the virile power
is exuberant in concarnatione with another. As a rule, the patient
who has reached the critical age of fifty to sixty, does not succeed
in his conjugal duties but is able commisceri meretricis auxilio.
The indifference of the wife who, as a rule, is about forty to fifty
years of age and has either passed or is very near the climacterium,
accounts for the husband’s impotence in her company. Such men are able
to perform the act only when the woman actively or at least cheerfully
and willingly yields herself. The sullen, supine position of the frigid
wife is not enough to hold a man’s love forever.
Temporary psychic impotence of short duration is sometimes met with in
newly married men through lack of confidence. When about to be married,
the broodings over things to come overstimulate the inhibitory centres
in the brain. As a result, at the critical moment, the penis gradually
shrinks, grows smaller and moves in a worm-like manner in the course of
its diminution.
The following case may serve as an illustration for such cases:
Mr. S., 23 years of age, had suffered from gonorrhoea a few years
previously. He has practised stuprum manu moderately at the time of
puberty. Later on he associated cum meretricibus. He always considered
himself healthy. The seminal discharge was somewhat precipitated, but
the patient attributed this phenomenon to his extraordinary strength
and was rather proud of it. When he became engaged to his present
wife he abstained henceforth from illicit relations. Two days before
the consultation the patient married and, upon approaching his young
bride, found that the erection was too weak to transgress the virginal
portals. After his first failure, every repeated attempt caused the
penis to shrink almost half the normal size of the flaccid condition.
The wife’s genitals were perfectly normal. She did not suffer from
vaginism. Therapeutic suggestion and a medicinal tonic (ut aliquid
fiat) removed the anomaly in a few days.
In this case the anaphrodisiac of fear after the first failure was the
cause of the impotence.
Psychic impotence is sometimes present for a short time after long
continued abstinence in men who for some reason have interrupted their
regular sexual relations. Young men who have never had yet any sex
relations are never affected by mere abstinence. Psychic impotence is
not seldom found in men with a certain vocation requiring great mental
strain, as literary men, bookworms, mathematicians, engineers, etc.
Extreme excitement and desire may cause temporary impotence. The number
of stimuli arriving from the brain is too vast and paralyzes the
centre of erection. A violent lover, who has for a long time repressed
his desires, plunges his entire organism, in the moment of their
realization, into a kind of ecstasy. His soul, i. e., the immaterial
part of his being, concentrates in the object of his desires all his
force and vitality. He appears entirely to forget his organs which
ordinarily serve to transmit his desires. It is hence first necessary
for him that everything be restored to the ordinary channel, that the
moral over-excitation ceases or that it returns at least to the normal
type of simple excitation, before the centre of erection will have
power to exercise its function.
Want of responsiveness from the mate has sometimes a disadvantageous
effect upon the man. Hence obstacles, on the side of the woman, will
not seldom cause psychic impotence. The history of the following case
is characteristic of this kind of disturbances:
A young medical student made the acquaintance of a young girl who had
previously given birth to a child. The girl did not want to reveal her
secret to her lover, and fearing that, as a medical student, he might
discover her secret in initu, she refused to grant him her favor. One
evening while alone with her in his room, he tried hard to accomplish
his desire by persuasion, caresses, and other means. When just at the
point to break her resistance, the erection suddenly ceased, and the
penis shrunk to half its normal size. From this moment he suffered
from complete impotence. Even nocturnal erections did not take place
any longer. The impotence resisted every kind of treatment, until,
one day, the girl wrote the patient that she was now willing to yield
to his desires. At the first meeting following the letter, puella
tentavit actively to arouse his passion, and he succeeded in having a
powerful erection actionis peragendo. From this moment he was cured
from his ailment and enjoyed his full virile power of former days.
This case shows the vast influence the psyche is wielding even upon the
unconscious state of the brain during sleep. The stimulation of the
inhibitory centre was so strong as to prevent even the occurrence of
nocturnal erections.
In illicit relations, the fear of surprise or of infection, shame or
loathing may have inhibitory effects upon the centre of erection and
cause psychic impotence.
Violent shocks to the nervous system, as great fright, pain, or
grief, etc., and all other strong emotions which often affect the
urinary system by causing temporary frequent micturition, polyuria, or
glycosuria, may also give rise to disturbances of the sexual functions
and cause psychic impotence of a transitory nature.
Over-estimation of the difficulties of defloration sometimes causes
temporary impotence in nervous newly married men. The timidity of
inexperience may in the same way have the effect of an anaphrodisiac.
Sometimes the exaggerated veneration of his young wife may cause
temporary loss of vigor in the young husband. The thought that such
an exalted personality, as his young innocent wife, should have to
submit to such an indignity (not a few have this strange opinion of the
conjugal act), works as an inhibition of the proper performance of the
act.
The most frequent cause of psychic impotence is the thought of failure.
An accidental single failure through the temporary abuse of alcohol,
tobacco, coffee, or tea or through intense desire may occur, some day,
which in the healthy man would pass unnoticed. But the nervous man
will begin to brood over this failure, and this brooding will prevent
the formation of associative paths in the brain at every subsequent
attempt of coition. In nervous men, the imagination, having once become
impressed with groundless fears, may retain them with extreme tenacity
and busy itself with constant brooding in solitude over the fancied
ills. Thus a disorder of adjustment is established, and a psychic
trauma is created, through the subconscious effects of cryptogrammic
nerve-currents. This psychic trauma is translated into fear again.
The subconscious cerebral processes lead to the formation of ideas,
later recallable in memory. These morbid ideas become the substratum
of future anxiety-attacks. A pathological state is thus induced where
the natural course of erection fails to follow the sexual excitement.
In this way a veritable disease is produced, where there is a strong
desire without full power. Every additional failure provokes more
intense broodings which are naturally again the cause of failure. Thus
a vicious circle is created which may render an occasional innocent
failure a permanent impotency.
_Atonic impotence._—The most frequent form of impotence of copulation,
in fact, the impotence “par excellence,” is the atonic impotence. This
is the impotency which is generally caused by venereal excesses, either
in copulation, masturbation, mental erethism, frustrate eroticism,
or last but not least, conjugal onanism or coitus interruptus. These
excesses cause the exhaustion of the centre of erection, irritation
of the centre of ejaculation and a debilitation and enervation of
the genital nerves. For when the lumbar centre of erection fails to
respond, there is a deficiency in activity, excitability, mobility, and
tonicity of the entire genital apparatus.
In the atonic form of impotence conditions of absolute impotency are
quite rare. Absolute impotence is mostly found in the paralytic form
which is caused by cerebrospinal and nervous diseases. In the atonic
anomaly the vast majority of cases are of partial impotence.
The impotence due to weakness is distinguished by premature ejaculation
and the subsequent immediate subsidence of erection. Sometimes a
vigorous erection ceases suddenly before emission has occurred, and the
penis becomes completely flaccid and shrivels to half its normal size
before the entrance into the vagina. When ejaculation does later occur
it takes place without erection or pleasurable sensations. Not seldom
the entrance into the vagina is effected with good erection, but when
about to begin the act, the penis suddenly wilts, the wilting either
followed by ejaculation or not. The following case illustrates the
ordinary symptoms:
Mr. L., 45 years of age, happily married, and father of several
children, was always healthy and strong and had never had gonorrhoea
or syphilis, but had freely masturbated when he was young. He always
considered himself a powerful man. He is given to athletics, horseback
riding, ball playing, swimming, rowing, etc. For the last year the
patient noticed a certain weakness in his potency. As soon as he
enters the vagina, ejaculation takes place at once and is followed
by immediate flaccidity of the penis. Sometimes, while trying
intromission, the erection ceases like a shot ante portas. When he
does not try congressus the erection lasts much longer. The patient’s
wife has been of a rather frigid nature, never asking or caring for
concarnatio. But recently she seems at times to have rather a certain
longing for the embrace. This fact makes the patient feel doubly
miserable, not to succeed, when the partner seems to desire and enjoy
the initus.
This case is one of those where objectively there is very little
to discover. In some cases of atonic impotence the patients show
neurasthenic or cerebrasthenic symptoms. The underlying cause of the
impotence, as a rule, determines the symptom-complex of the case.
If the cause of the impotence is excess in masturbation, the case
will show all the symptoms of the typical masturbator. The latter is
generally small, emaciated, hollow-chested, thin-necked and weak-kneed.
He shows deep-set eyes and pale hollow cheeks. The penis and testicles
are small. The penis is cold and shriveled. The patient has a bad
taste in his mouth, and suffers from winds in his stomach. He also
suffers from obstinate constipation and colicky pains in the bowels.
He complains of palpitation of the heart, shortness of breath and of
a burning sensation in his arms. He suffers from loss of memory and
from tinnitus aurium. The patient also shows a certain moral abasement,
incontrollable restlessness, carelessness in dress and person and
shambling in gait. The history of the following case is that of a
typical masturbator:
Mr. C. is 31 years of age and unmarried. At the time of puberty, when
he was 14 years old, he began to practise stuprum manu. Se stuprabat
manu three to four times daily. When twenty years of age he began to
associate cum meretricibus. But the natural initus did not seem to
satisfy him. Post omnem initum manu se stuprabat, in addition, as soon
as he reached his residence. Three years ago he contracted gonorrhoea,
from which he suffered a whole year. Since a year he noticed a certain
weakness in his potency. He is able to effect intromission, but before
he can begin the act, ejaculation without the least trace of libido
takes place, followed by immediate flaccidity of the penis. He has
some erections in the morning but they are not complete as in former
times.
When the cause of the atonic impotence was venereal excesses or
gonorrhoeal prostatitis, the long-kept-up congestion of the prostatic
urethra and of the colliculus leads to general reflex excitability,
to a high degree of nervousness, cerebrasthenia, and neurasthenia.
The colliculus being an organ which finds its analogue in the female
uterus, its constant irritation will show phenomena in men, usually
found in intensely hysterical women only.
The impotent men generally change their entire psychic nature. They
become timid, morose, solitary, melancholic, hypochondrical and
despondent. They are discontented, peevish, ill-humored, and evince
either blunted or inordinate sexual desires. They show profound
agitation at the slightest excitement. The patients are troubled
with insomnia or unrefreshed sleep and with a feeling of heaviness
on rising. The mind is enfeebled and the memory impaired. The mental
debility and dulness cause inability to collect their thoughts and
thus enfeebles the mind in its power of concentration. The patients
suffer from vertigo, singing in the ears, from a feeling of fulness in
the head, from asthenopia, depression, anxiety and irritability. They
often suffer from palpitation of the heart, sick headaches, coldness
of the hands and feet, dull heavy feelings, a sense of fatigue and a
loss of flesh. They also complain of creeping sensations in the loins,
of pricking in the back, of twitching and jerking of the muscles, of
muscular weakness, of lumbar pain and asthma. The intestinal canal
shows a general derangement, as coated tongue, poor appetite, sense of
weight in the epigastrium after eating, flatulence, sluggishness of the
bowels and constipation. The general health of the patient is broken,
the countenance is vacant and the gait feeble.
Besides the general symptoms, the genito-urinary organs are especially
affected in atonic impotence. The external genitals show a certain
flaccidity, shrinkage, paleness of the mucous membranes and a
diminution of the sensibility and electrical irritability. The skin
of the penis is cold, shriveled and somewhat insensible to electrical
stimulation. The electrical irritability of the skin of the two halves
of the scrotum is of a different degree, the right half being sometimes
more sensitive than the left.
The testicles are often very painful and tightly drawn up against the
external abdominal rings. The spermatic cord often shows an enlargement
of the veins (varicocele). The vas deferens and the ampulla are in a
state of inflammation.
The seminal vesicles are plainly felt indurated, nodular and distended
with fluid. In a large proportion of cases the repeated congestion
causes a veritable seminal vesiculitis. This inflammation is not seldom
extended to the ejaculatory ducts and occludes the same. Through
this occlusion spermatic colic, i. e., a severe pain in the region
of the vesicles, often seizes the patient, especially after some
sexual excitement, as dancing, caressing, and even flirting. After
such excitement a dull pain in the region of the prostate and in the
perineum as well as in the testicles, spermatic cords and in the rectum
is very annoying to the patient. Ejaculation often removes these pains.
For that reason the patient tries to relieve himself from the painful
sensations by masturbation. Ejaculation also removes the irritations
of the thighs, hips, anus, hypogastric region and in the smalls of the
back.
The entire urethra is often in a state of hyperaesthesia and
paraesthesia, and the prostatic portion shows congestion and not
seldom an inflammation of the mucous membrane. Especially the
colliculus is often in a severe inflammatory condition. There is
thickening sponginess or puffiness of the parts immediately involving
the ejaculatory ducts. The urethra manifests great sensibility. The
introduction of a bougie produces unbearable pains. The withdrawal of
the sound is often followed by several drops of blood. This hypertrophy
and inflammation of the colliculus seminalis is the cause of the
ejaculatio praecox in the beginning of the disease. Later on the
condition provokes weak erections and finally ejaculation with flaccid
member before entrance into the vagina.
The irritation of the urethra causes hypersecretion of the glands of
Littré and Cowper which is manifested by the so-called urethrorrhoea.
In urethrorrhoea the secretion is thin, transparent, perfectly clear
and sticky. The secretion has no spermatic odor and does not stain
the linen, but stiffens it. It is seen as a drop in the morning at
awakening with an erection. The drop is sticky and tenacious. The
meatus urethrae sticks together. The drop is not rarely found in
healthy men after violent and continuous erections. The secretions
show under the microscope nothing beyond free mucous and columnar and
pavement epithelia.
Besides the hypersecretion of the urethral glands, there is also
a hypersecretion of the prostate, especially in patients who
have indulged in excesses in masturbation and in onanism (coitus
interruptus). Masturbation as well as onanism do not give the same
satisfaction as normal coition, hence constant hankering for more and
overindulgence. Prostatorrhoea is often found after gonorrhoea, when
the yellowish drop gradually becomes whitish, flocculent, and finally a
colorless watery drop of clear, slightly viscid fluid. It is best seen
when the lips of the meatus are held apart.
In prostatorrhoea the discharge is never milky, white or purulent as
in pure prostatitis. Microscopically the slowly dried slide shows the
characteristic crystals of sodium chloride, but no spermatozoa. In
prostatorrhoea the orifice of the urethra shows constant moisture. The
copious evacuations occur while straining in the water-closet. The
patients are, as a rule, constipated. The discharge is attended with
peculiar sensations, sometimes of a pleasurable nature, sometimes of
a dropping sensation, weight in the region of the prostate, anus and
rectum. Examination per rectum often shows hard points and nodules in
the prostatic gland.
The most frequent anomaly caused by venereal excesses is spermatorrhoea
and nocturnal pollutions. The excesses provoke a chronic hypertrophy of
the prostatic gland, and this hypertrophy renders the ejaculatory ducts
insufficient.
In spermatorrhoea there is an oozing of semen from the urethra without
erection or pleasurable sensations. The rhythmic muscular contractions,
found in normal ejaculations, are missing here. The failure of the
normal contractions is due to a paresis of the muscular fibres of the
ejaculatory ducts.
Spermatorrhoea usually takes place after micturition or during
defecation. Sometimes spermatorrhoea is caused by the slightest
excitement. The sight of a woman’s bust or of her leg, the touch
of her hand, the smell of her perfume, the glance at a lascivious
painting, or a voluptuous thought may cause a precipitate discharge,
without an erection or with an imperfect erection. The discharge taking
place at a complete relaxation of the ejaculatory ducts, the voluptuous
sensations are, as a rule, entirely absent.
Spermatic discharges sometimes occur in affections of the central
nervous system, where the usual inhibitions through consciousness are
ineffectual.
Microscopically the discharge in spermatorrhoea shows amyloid bodies,
lecithin and prostatic epithelia. The fluid has the seminal odor which
is peculiar to the spermin reaction; the amount of spermatozoa is
somewhat diminished.
The testicles and the skin of patients, suffering from spermatorrhoea,
are less sensitive to electrical stimulation, while the urethra is
hypersensitive.
Nocturnal emissions constitute the other anomaly of ejaculation.
Physiologically all healthy continent men between the ages of fifteen
to fifty, with very few exceptions, have nocturnal emissions at
intervals of about four weeks (male menstruation). The pollutions arise
during sleep and are accompanied by erotic dreams and erections. They
usually awaken the sleeper. Normal pollutions occur only in sleep and
are accompanied by vigorous erections, erotic dreams and orgasm. They
also cause a sensation of relief. When pollutions are frequent, two or
three times a week, they become pathological. They are then followed
by lassitude, dizziness, faintness, dragging pains in the occipital
region, mental depression, disinclination for mental effort, sense of
fatigue, lessening of physical strength, pain in the back and reflex
irritability. The patients are startled at the least noise. They change
color every moment. The eyeballs run unsteadily. There is often found a
disturbance of speech, difficulty in breathing, and palpitation of the
heart.
The following case will best illustrate the symptoms in nocturnal
pollutions:
Mr. A., 25 years of age, was always well and never had gonorrhoea
or syphilis. When a boy he practised stuprum manu in a moderate
degree, as he says. A few years ago he noticed a certain weakness
in erection. The emission took place soon after the entrance into
the vagina and was followed by the immediate flaccidity of the
penis. Sometimes the ejaculation occurred ante portas. The patient,
therefore, gave up trying intercourse. Since then he is suffering from
nocturnal pollutions, which occur every night or at least three to
four times a week. The following day the patient feels very weak, as
to prevent him from performing his usual work in his trade. He suffers
from headaches and pains in the lumbar region and in the legs. He is
engaged to be married and is looking forward with great apprehension
to the approaching time of this momentous event.
Pathological pollutions are caused by a paralysis of the circular
muscular fibres of the ejaculatory ducts. This paralysis may be either
of a purely nervous nature or caused through inflammatory processes.
Atony of the mouths of the ejaculatory ducts not seldom produces
nocturnal pollutions. Sometimes pollutions are also due to a spasm of
the detrusors of the seminal vesicles.
When the seminal vesicles and the ejaculatory ducts are thus affected,
very little is needed to cause a nocturnal emission. Any diurnal
excitement will be followed by nocturnal erotic images and pollutions.
Sleeping on the back, by causing a fluction of blood to the spinal
cord, will also produce pollutions.
Besides the genitals, the urinary system is also greatly affected in
atonic impotence. The hyperaesthesia and hyperaemia of the prostatic
urethra and of the colliculus, usually found in atonic impotence, are
the cause of a continual irritation of the bladder.
The irritation of the neck of the bladder provokes a spasm of the
detrusor vesicae. To this spasm is due the frequent painless impulse to
urinate, by day when under mental activity, and in sleepless nights.
Sometimes the detrusor is in a paretic condition. In paresis of the
bladder the patient has to wait for the urine to come and has to use
abdominal pressure to effect urination. The urine falls without force
perpendicularly from the urethra. There is often desire to urinate, but
never a feeling of satisfaction after urinating. When catheterization
is attempted, there is a powerful resistance at the neck of the
bladder, through a certain spasm of the sphincter.
In spasm of the sphincter of the bladder there is also frequent impulse
to urinate. Not seldom such patients are unable to urinate in the
presence of others. Sometimes the urine cannot be passed at all. The
spasm of the sphincter creates a certain difficulty in starting the
act of micturition. The stream is often interrupted and, at the end, a
dribbling of urine takes place. Through the spasmodic contraction of
the muscular fibres of the sphincter the urethra represents a rigid
open tube in which one end is closed; it thus resembles a pipette which
retains the fluid as long as one end is closed. When the relaxation
takes place, the fluid contained in the urethral tube dribbles out of
the meatus.
In paralysis or paresis of the sphincter the patient urinates often but
in small quantities. In paresis of the sphincter there is no resistance
to catheterization at the neck of the bladder. In the beginning of the
paresis there is incontinence of urine during the night. Later on when
the disease has progressed, and a perfect paralysis has ensued, the
incontinence of the urine is constant even in daytime.
In enuresis nocturna, often found in masturbating children, there is an
imperfect innervation of the sphincter, while the innervation of the
detrusor of the bladder is perfect.
In all these anomalies the urethra is very sensitive. The passage of
an instrument causes unbearable anguish. The patient acts as mad when
the sound is introduced. There is often found a troublesome burning
in the urethra, especially in the fossa navicularis, during or after
micturition.
Besides the frequent urgency to urination, in all these troubles, there
is not seldom an actual polyuria present. The urine is pale, clear,
watery, with low specific gravity, often as low as 1002. The urine
is not seldom loaded with phosphates. Sometimes oxaluria, with high
specific gravities up to 1050, is discovered. Transient glycosuria as
high as two to three per cent. is also found. At times vesical tenesmus
is met with. Sometimes anuria is observed, although the kidneys are in
perfect order.
_The pathology of female impotence._—The same four kinds of impotencies
found in men are also met with in women, with the only difference that
the frequency of one or the other of the impotencies is different in
the different sexes. They are: 1) impotence of voluptas, 2) impotence
of copulation, 3) impotence of reproduction, and 4) impotence of libido.
_Impotence of voluptas._—The entire absence of the sense of sex, or
impotence of voluptas, where the individual has absolutely no sexual
inclination to any individual of the other sex, is more frequently
met with in women than in men. Still even in women this idiopathic
frigidity, this insensibility where the woman is completely frigid by
temperament, is much rarer than is generally believed. In fact, it is
extremely difficult to find a woman who is without aptitude of sexual
emotion.
Physiological frigidity exists in infants and in very old age. After a
regular and satisfactory orgasm the woman is physiologically more or
less anaesthetic for some time. The ablation of both ovaries before
puberty causes total anaesthesia, while the operation after puberty
produces, for a certain time, at least, only an impairment of libido,
or orgasmus retardatus. Congenital degeneration of the ovarian glands
will be accompanied by total absence of the sense of sex. As in
men, the total absence of sexual desire is found in severe cases of
neurasthenia, where the entire nervous system is in a low state of
efficiency. Idiopathic impotence of voluptas is further found in low
idiots and in dementia, where there is lack of understanding of the
opposite sex. The sexual perversity of homosexuality, as a rule, causes
total impotence of sexual desire for the opposite sex. Sometimes the
cause for the anaesthesia lies in the centre, otherwise the patient is
perfectly normal, as in the following case:
The patient, forty years of age, twenty years married, is a highly
cultured lady. She never had a child or was pregnant while living with
her two first husbands. A prominent gynaecologist, who had examined
her several years previously, attributed the cause of her sterility
to an infantile uterus. She has never, in her life, experienced any
sexual desire and seems to be proud of it. She attributes this lack
of passion to her great mental activity. An examination revealed a
pregnancy of about four months.
_Impotence of copulation_, except in the anomaly known as vaginism,
is very rarely found in women. Conjugation is, of course, impossible
in the rare cases of total absence of the vagina. In hypospadia, where
the vaginal orifice is situated within the rectum, vaginal conjugation
is well-nigh impossible. Adhesions of the labia majora or minora, a
rigid imperforated hymen, an extreme vaginal atresia near the orifice
and elephantiasis of the vulva will cause impotence of conjugation.
All acute inflammations of the vulva, vagina, rectum, uterus tubes,
or ovaries may render approach painful and impossible. Urethral
caruncles, urethritis, fissures at the neck of the bladder, rectal
fissures or hemorrhoids may also render conjugation difficult. The
tetanic contraction of the sphincter cunni and the tetanic spasm of the
perineal muscles, constrictor cunni, transversus perinei, sphincter
and levator ani which close tightly the orifices of the vagina and the
entire vaginal canal will also be the cause of impotentia coeundi. The
solitary tetanic contraction of the sphincter cunni, known under the
name of vaginism, will make conjugation impossible until the hymen is
removed. The following case operated by the author illustrates this
anomaly:
Mrs. X., twenty-two years of age, for three months married to a
physician, was unable to be approached by her husband. As soon as
the penis touched the labia, the sphincter cunni contracted so
tightly that there was an utter impossibility to transverse the
virginal portals. During the examination, at the least touch of the
nymphae, the sphincter could be observed contracting, just as seen
in animals after defecation when the sphincter ani contracts. The
ablation of the hymen cured the anomaly. This fact shows that it was
only a reflex-irritation, started at the highly sensitive hymen. The
sphincter itself was perfectly normal.
_Impotence of reproduction._—More frequent than impotence of copulation
is female impotence of reproduction. This anomaly is naturally found in
all those cases where there is impotence of copulation. It is sometimes
met with in excessive acid reaction of the vaginal contents, where the
spermatozoa are killed before they reach the uterus.
When one lip of the cervix is considerably elongated, covering
apron-like the external os, the spermatozoa will not be able to enter
the cervix, and sterility will result. Sterility is also found in the
obliteration of the cervical canal, produced by caustics or scars after
tears during confinements and after curettings. Ectropion, stenosis
of the external or internal os of the cervical canal, endocervicitis,
causing an increased cervical secretion, and the swelling of the plicae
palmatae may prevent the entrance of semen into the uterus and thus
cause impotence of propagation.
The anomalies of the uterus are also sometimes responsible for
sterility. Uterus foetalis and obliterations of the lumen of the uterus
will result in absolute sterility. Uterus infantilis, hypoplasia of the
uterus, atresia of the uterus or polypi, hypertrophic chronic metritis,
degeneration of the uterus or uterine deviations may often be the cause
of sterility.
The anomalies of the tubes which cause sterility are absence of the
tubes, rudimentary tubes, total or even partial obliteration of their
lumen, as in salpingitis nodosa, closing of the ends of the tubes in
bilateral salpingitis, and adherences of the tubes to the neighboring
parts, as found in pelviperitonitis, perimetritis, perisalpingitis, and
perioöphoritis.
The anomalies of the ovaries, causing impotence of procreation, are
absence of the ovaries, hypoplasia of the parenchymatous tissue of
the ovaries, fibrous degeneration of the ovaries, alteration of their
position, as extreme prolapsus and hernia of the ovaries.
All these anomalies may produce either absolute or relative sterility.
In regard to frequency they are of slight significance in comparison
with endometritis and pelviperitonitis after gonorrhoea. The gonorrheic
infection is, therefore, the cause par excellence of the impotence of
procreation in women as in men.
_Impotence of libido._—While in men the common form of impotence is
inability of conjugation, the common form of impotence in women is
failure to experience the orgasm, or the impotence of libido. In this
anomaly two grades may be distinguished, total anaesthesia and partial
anaesthesia or orgasmus retardatus.
In absolute anaesthesia there is not even a vestige of a libidinous
sensation during intercourse. The woman likes caressing, hugging,
kissing, etc., because the potency of voluptas is intact. But there
is no vestige even of the fore-pleasure, or the ant-orgastic libido.
The woman is devoid of sexual sensation, her genitals have no more
excitability for pleasurable sensations than her fingers. Hence no
desire for coition exists. On the contrary, there is, as a rule, a
pronounced disinclination to the act. Where there is complete absence
of pleasurable feelings, the act becomes naturally loathsome to the
individual. If coition is granted it is done either from a sense of
duty or for gain.
Physiological anaesthesia exists in children until puberty, and in
adults in old age. Even after menstruation has set in, the girl is, as
a rule, anaesthetic in regard to libido, although she may be erotic.
“The girl has to be kissed into a woman.” After the climacterium the
woman generally becomes again more or less anaesthetic. Some women may
continue to experience libido years after this period, and may manifest
symptoms of great sexual excitement as seen in the following case:
Mrs. X., married to an elderly man, looked upon the marital relations
more as a duty than as a pleasure during her entire married life. But
since the climacterium has set in, the rare approaches of her husband
are impatiently awaited and they cause her great sexual excitement and
satisfaction, never experienced before during the entire period of her
active sexual life.
Such cases are extremely rare. Generally there is a close connection
between the activity of the generative glands and the degree of libido.
After a regular and satisfactory coition the woman is, physiologically,
more or less anaesthetic for some time. The length of the neutral
period varies in different individuals. Intense mental activity,
emotional depression and long sexual continence also diminish the
sensual pleasure.
Apart from this temporary anaesthesia, there are many women who are
impotent to experience libido throughout their lives. There is a total
absence of pleasurable feelings during coition or any other kind of
sexual stimulation.
A young lady, twenty-two years of age, complains that while during the
time of her engagement she greatly enjoyed her fiancé’s caresses and
became sexually excited when fondled by him, since her marriage she
is unable to experience any libido in coition, although her husband is
possessed of great potency. The patient is a beautiful brunette, with
fiery eyes, and is a picture of health. Examination shows a uterus
infantilis.
The potency of voluptas in this case is wholly intact. The patient
enjoys being fondled and caressed. The cause of the impotency of libido
lies in the periphery, although uterus infantilis is seldom accompanied
by impotence of libido.
In some cases the woman is normally developed in every respect,
menstruates regularly and is frequently quite prolific. The power of
procreation is sometimes even very great. The woman is generally quite
erotic and falls in love easily. Yet she never experiences the least
libido.
A young lady, twenty-eight years of age, mother of two healthy
children, was sent by her family physician from Chicago to consult the
author for her impotence of libido. The husband stated that he is sure
of his wife’s attachment to him. She enjoys his company and likes to
be caressed by him. Still during the eight years of their married life
she never showed the least sign of libido at coition. She remains cold
and indifferent, and only submits conjugationi to please her husband.
The examination showed the genitals to be in perfect order.
In the following case, too, no cause whatsoever could be found for the
anaesthesia in regard to libido.
Mrs. L., twenty-nine years of age, is seven months married. Her
menstruation set in when she was fifteen years of age and was always
regular of about six days’ duration. At that time she began to satisfy
herself by manusturpation and found some libido in the manipulation.
But soon she read in a book about the ill effects of this practice and
stopped it.
In the beginning of her married life coitus caused her great pain,
which diminished by degrees after a few weeks. At present, coition
causes her only disgust. The day after she feels tired and weak.
The examination shows a feminine habitus, breasts well developed,
clitoris normal. The hymenal rests are very sensitive to the touch.
The painful sensation and the feeling of disgust increase when the
anterior vaginal wall is touched. The uterus is enlarged to the size
of a goose-egg, the cervix is soft, and the external os narrowly
closed. Diagnosis, two months’ pregnancy.
In this case some traces of libido were present at the time of puberty,
which later on entirely disappeared. In some cases the patient is very
prolific, as the following history shows:
The author recently performed a perineorrhaphy on an otherwise healthy
woman, mother of five children, who confided in him that she has never
experienced the slightest libido in intercourse. Yet, she added, if
her husband would not take precautions, she would give birth to a
child every year, as was the case in the beginning of their married
life.
Anaesthesia in women is, as a rule, due to inexcitability of the
genital nerves and to lack of excitation at the centre of libido.
Sometimes anatomical anomalies of the genitals may cause impotence
of libido. The integrity and the free exercise of the generative
organs are necessary for the integrity of the libidinous feeling,
although sexual pleasure is experienced at the nervous centres, and
the generative organs play only a secondary part. The vaginal bulbi
and their muscle, the constrictor cunni, the intermediary net of veins
between the bulbs and the clitoris, and the free part of the latter,
the glans of the clitoris, must functionate normally in order to give
full satisfaction in intercourse.
Hence diminution or extinction of the sense of libido will be caused
by castration, degeneration of the ovarian glands, marasmus, sexual
excesses and overindulgence in alcoholic beverages or cocaine.
In the following case the erotic feeling increased in such a degree
after the castration, probably through the extinction of the libido,
as to deceive the family physician and lead him to make the diagnosis
nymphomania.
Miss X., a school teacher, over thirty years of age, was always
chaste and indifferent not only to any carnal pleasure, but also to
male company. On account of a uterine fibroid, a total extirpation
of uterus and ovaries was performed. Since the operation the patient
complains of great sexual excitability she had never experienced
before the operation. She is so excited sexually that she is possessed
of the almost imperative impulse to kiss every male person she meets
on the street, and but for her position, she would have long ago
yielded to this impulsive desire.
In another case of diminution of the potency of libido, only uterine
inflammation and pregnancy could be discovered.
Mrs. M., thirty-five years of age, four months married, had always
suffered pain in the back during menstruation. The patient complains
that she only experienced libido twice since she has been married.
Since the last experience in the first weeks of her married life,
she has no pleasure at all. Coition, though not painful, causes her
a disagreeable feeling. An examination revealed anteflexio uteri,
enlargement and catarrh of the cervix, erosions and a three months’
pregnancy.
In the following case castration caused inability to experience libido.
Mrs. M., thirty-five years of age, for the last fifteen years married
but sterile. When she was only two years married she began to suffer
from attacks of headaches and vomiting, which repeated almost every
other day. Her menstruation was regular. After having tried all the
stomach specialists in the city without finding any relief from the
vomiting spells, she consulted a gynaecologist, and he promptly
found an ovary to be the cause of all her troubles. She had been
previously operated upon for gall stones, which were not found and
for appendicitis, when the presumably diseased appendix was removed.
She now submitted to ovariectomy on the left side. Three months after
the operation the vomiting spells returned, and she submitted again
to a removal of the right ovary. But even this double castration did
not relieve her. When she first consulted the author she was still
suffering from these spells, especially before menstruation, which is
still present although irregular. The patient declares that previous
to the ovariotomies she experienced full libido and was able to
induce orgasm. After the second ovariotomy this potency was lost. She
gets excited during coition, but the orgasm cannot be produced. The
following day she feels nervous and weak.
In another case of impotence of libido nothing else but anteflexio
could be discovered.
Mrs. H., twenty-four years of age, four years married, was confined
by the author a year ago of a healthy girl. The patient complains of
never having experienced any libido. Before her confinement coition
caused her great pain and misery. Since her confinement she suffers no
more pain during the act, but libido is still absent. She complains
of great dryness of the parts, so that vaseline has to be used to
facilitate walking. At the examination there was found redness of the
vulva, catarrh and erosion of the cervix and anteflexio.
In the following case of anaesthesia the author could discover no other
cause but general weakness.
Mrs. W., twenty-six years of age, was always pale and weak.
Menstruation set in at twelve years of age. At nineteen she was
married, and ten months later gave birth to her first child. Four
years later gave birth to another child. For the last year she
complains of stomach trouble and weakness, pain in the back and
abdomen. Menstruation is now four to six days ahead of time and
lasts five days. She never experienced orgasm but twice. Both times
the intercourse was followed by pregnancy. Other times coition only
excites her but never brings full satisfaction. The following day she
suffers from severe headaches. An examination only revealed a catarrh
of the cervix. The patient received a tonic, and the husband was given
some hygienic rules to observe in initu. Five weeks later the husband
informed the author that the anaesthesia had disappeared.
Sometimes sexual anaesthesia is the result of a hard confinement
producing lesion of the muscle bulbo-cavernosus or of the erectile
tissue of the bulbs themselves. The blood is then prevented from
leaving the bulbs and from entering the corpora cavernosa of the
clitoris. In this way the erection of the clitoris, which is more or
less necessary for the full and normal inducement of the orgasm, is
rendered impossible.
The author recently treated a young lady, twenty years of age. She
had her first menstruation when she was sixteen years old and was
always regular. She had been married eighteen months, and her baby was
eight months old. The patient called to be treated for leucorrhoea,
but her husband called the following day and stated that his wife has
no pleasurable feeling during initus since her confinement. Before
this event, she found perfect gratification. An examination revealed
nothing but a catarrh of the cervix and a slight enlargement of the
left ovary.
Roubaud also relates the confidences of a patient who wished se
stuprare manu a few days after her confinement, but could not, with
all her manipulations, induce the desired orgasm. The normal potency
returned only after a long rest.
The number of women afflicted with the anomaly of impotence of libido
is considerable. It is claimed by many authorities that ten to twenty
per cent. of all women are afflicted with this anomaly. The symptoms
of total anaesthesia are subjective and objective. There is first the
statement of the husband about his wife’s indifference and coldness
during the conjugal embrace. The woman complains of lack of orgasm
and ejaculation and of the immediate flowing off of the sperma after
coition. The peristaltic contractions of the vaginal walls, beginning
at the vaginal orifice, and the aspirating movements of the uterus, as
they take place in the normal woman, during the orgasm, are missing
here. Hence the sperma is immediately discharged from the vagina.
One of the most conspicuous objective symptoms is a relaxation of the
entire genital tract. The glans of the clitoris is often undeveloped
or wholly adherent to the prepuce. In some women old lacerations of
the perineum are present. The genital muscles, the levator ani and
constrictor cunni as well as the perineum, are languid and withered.
The mucous membrane of the entire genital tract is in a state of
hypersecretion, as in true chronic inflammations. The vagina is wide
and flabby, the walls are lacking elasticity. The portio vaginalis
uteri is flabby and pointed. The uterine walls are weak and soft, and
the cavity is wide. The uterus is extremely movable and generally lies
in retropositio, the relaxation of the uterine ligaments allowing it to
fall downward and backward. The patient’s general health is often poor,
she is anemic, nervous and weak. Sometimes there is only hypoplasia of
some of the genital organs, otherwise the woman enjoys good health.
Women suffering from anaesthesia may without sacrifice refuse their
favors to their husbands and render them submissive to their will and
henpecked. Single women, having no pleasure in and hence no desire for
conjugation, if they are not induced to give themselves for pecuniary
considerations, easily remain virtuous and seem to be very proud
of this enforced purity. Even among married women there are wives
who pride themselves on repugnance or distaste for their conjugal
obligations. They speak of their coldness and the calmness of their
senses as though they were not defects but great virtues. Yet the sour,
shallow, sexless shrew is surely an imposture as a wife. Her marriage
is nothing else but a fraud. In congenital anaesthesia the therapy is
valueless, although electricity by Apostoli’s method and massage may
be tried in uterus infantilis and in undeveloped ovaries. In prolific
women the only advice the physician may give is that, in harmony with
Ovid’s recommendation,
“Tu quoque cui Veneris sensum natura negavit,
“Dulcia mendaci gaudia finge sono.”
for the sake of matrimonial peace, simulation of libido and orgasm is
a justifiable fraud. Even to resort to some lubricant to simulate the
secretion from the Bartholinian and cervical glands is permissible.
The man is easily deceived in this respect. He does not in any way
feel the ejaculation of the woman. He only surmises her orgasm by her
bearing during the culmination of the libido.[AY] The woman also does
not feel immediately the male ejaculation, but she perceives it soon
by the increase of moisture. Then the effect naturally increases the
excitement, as the following case shows:
A young woman of twenty-two, who has practised stuprum manu from
her early childhood, confided to the author that she derived more
libidinem de stupro manu quam de initu. Yet, she added, after some
abstinence from regular initus, although she is fully indulging in her
favorite pastime, she has a veritable sitim seminis.
Patients afflicted with congenital impotence of libido are very seldom
seen by the physician. They are not aware of their anomaly, and being
otherwise normal and in full possession of the power of procreation,
they never ask for treatment. The physician learns of such cases only
by chance. It is different in acquired impotence of libido. Here the
patient knows what she has lost, and the physician is often asked
for advice and for a remedy. Hence the study of this anomaly is very
important for the physician, although this impotence has not the same
importance in women as it has in men, where it causes impotence of
copulation and destroys the marriage relations of the couple.
_Orgasmus retardatus._—The other grade in the impotence of libido is
partial anaesthesia, in which the patient is able to experience the
ant-orgastic pleasure, but cannot induce real orgasm. The intensity of
the pleasurable feeling does not reach the sudden climax and does not
diminish abruptly. The climax is never reached, and the ant-orgastic
libido decreases gradually and slowly, it dies away. In idiopathic
partial anaesthesia, where the anomaly is congenital, the patient has
never experienced an orgasm, and hence is not aware of her anomaly.
It is different in the acquired form of partial anaesthesia or in the
so-called orgasmus retardatus. The sexual excitement of the woman
suffering from orgasmus retardatus is never abated, her libido is
unimpeded, but the potency of experiencing orgasm is diminished or
entirely absent. The following extracts of a letter from a patient
suffering from a certain degree of orgasmus retardatus well illustrates
the complaints of this class of patients:
I have been married over a year now, and have never experienced any
satisfaction in initu. The glands seem to secrete the fluids, and
the cupido congressus is there, but no satisfaction. I am always
sleepless and nervous afterwards and sometimes suffer from headaches
the following morning. I am at times bothered with leukorrhoea. When a
child faciebam stuprum manu, but not since my sixteenth year of age,
and I am at present twenty-five years old. I have never been pregnant.
The following case is extremely interesting, because the patient is
able to induce orgasm only in one certain position. In all other
positions she is impotent of experiencing libido. In March, 1908, the
patient consulted the author about her anomaly. Being a highly educated
woman (she was a school teacher before she married) she was asked to
write in a letter the history of her case, and the following are the
contents of her letter:
I am forty-one years of age, eleven years married, have two children,
one ten, the other eight years old. I began to menstruate at the age
of thirteen and was always regular, the menstruation lasting three to
four days. The flow was always scanty.
As a child I was sad and dreamy. I can recall times when I would
weep, I scarcely knew for what. When I was nearing puberty coepi me
stuprare manu. No one taught me. I could not help it; I did not know
what I did it for (I was reared on a farm). The method was sitting
on a chair and moving to and fro. I must have continued till I was
eighteen or nineteen years old. I stopped it long before I knew it was
wrong, long before I have ever read it in books. No one told me it was
wrong. I was a good girl in the eyes of every one.
At the age of twenty I went to college. I think the reason I stopped
stuprum manu was that my mind was greatly engrossed in my studies.
True, I often had the desire, but the association with the opposite
sex would lessen it. I was fond of men in a silent way. I never, even
though in their company, was familiar with them.
When twenty-three years of age I met one towards whom I was changed.
I could not keep away from his presence. I remained a virgin till we
married, when I was thirty years of age. I had known him seven years,
but only saw him often, say three or four times a week, for the last
two years. We spent only one or two evenings each week together. I
allowed and deeply enjoyed all caresses, but they were not of the lewd
fashion. I must have been excited sexually, for I would experience
excessive humorem ut in initu.
At the age of forty-one, libidinem capio ex initu, yet experience
no orgasm save in the position “vir infra,” and in this position
very, very little sensation till the orgasm comes. I am fond of the
concarnatio, but aside from the position just mentioned, I have not
the least libido inter initum. It is a pleasure, you know, to give,
but my own libido is wanting in any of these positions. My husband
prefers alios positus to the one in which I have orgasm; præbente
majorem libidinem.
Multum humesco in initu. Quamquam comisceor quot noctibus præferrem
longum quam parvum temporis spatium concarnationi.
I am never ill, no aches or pains. The only premonition I have of the
approach of the menses is a fulness and tenderness of the breasts. I
menstruate very regularly.
Believe me when I say that once only in the seven years I knew the one
I eventually married—I must have been twenty-three and a half years
old, when I had spent hours in his company, with no more familiarity
than a kiss at parting—I was so excited ut pulvillum premerem usque
ad orgasmum. I could not have helped it, no matter what had occurred.
Often I have been excited thus, but I never before or since did the
same.
I never yielded to desire, though gently pressed to do so. Had I been
urged beyond my power of endurance I cannot tell what I would have
done. Yet I trust my virtue was due to a predominance of will-power
and not a lack of passion.
I cannot say the lapse of years has changed my desires or lessened
what I call my passions. I am affectionate by nature, but I trust my
emotions are more than affection.
The patient makes these last remarks because she is unable to bring
in accord her own feelings with the diagnosis frigidity,[AZ] received
from several physicians whom she had consulted. She herself knows well
that she is passionate enough to exclude any possibility of frigidity.
Hers is a typical case of orgasmus retardatus of a slight degree (for,
in the position “vir infra” orgasm is possible, for in this position
coition lasts considerable longer), due probably to masturbation but
mostly to the tactile eroticism, practised during the seven years of
her engagement.
In pronounced orgasmus retardatus the sexual impulse is very vivid,
but the patient can never find the acme of gratification in coition.
It may often require hours concarnationis continuæ before the orgasm
is induced, and sometimes it may never be experienced. While there is
a strong desire and a theoretical ability to induce the orgasm,—the
patients are able to experience the orgasm in all its intensity by
masturbation—in practice it is seldom or never attained, because
the male will always reach the acme of coition before the woman has
arrived at this point. Her nervous system remains, therefore, excited
to the highest pitch and brought to a state of expectancy which is not
realized.
This lack of orgasm may also happen in normal women. The woman is
generally slower to reach the height of the venereal paroxysm than
the man. Ab initio commixtionis, she experiences a certain degree of
libido that is of greater intensity than that of the man, i. e., the
ant-orgastic libido is of higher value in women than in men. But this
libido is not developed to its utmost extent, the orgasm, as rapidly as
it is with the man. Still in the normal woman normal conditions will
finally ensue after some experience—it is known that in women lustful
feelings are not always brought about by the first contact,—while the
conditions are entirely different in the partially impotent woman.
No one man, except he be a eunuch, is ever able to satisfy her in
a natural way. Her nervous system remains in a constant state of
excitement to the highest degree, analogous to satyriasis in men. Her
active potency appears to the superficial observer to be increased, it
is almost inexhaustible. The following case will illustrate this point:
A young lady, twenty-one years of age, for six months pregnant with
her first child, showed at the examination normal internal genital
organs, but small nymphae and an undeveloped clitoris. The patient
coepit stuprum manu facere, tres annos nata, femora commissa fricando
ultro citroque aut pulvillum aut aliam rem inter ea. As far as she
can remember she always felt humorem in genitalibus suis after
such manipulations. She practised stuprum manu several times daily
until her marriage. Her husband left her in the first months of her
pregnancy and she began to indulge in her favorite practices. “In
coitione usitata frictiones continuas poscit”, and can endure them for
hours. She claims to have the feeling of becoming wet several times
during the “copulatione longa et continua,” but the libido does not
materially increase cum humorem sentiat. The intensity of the libido
remains always the same. She is continually uttering endearing words
to her mate and is begging him, ne patiatur ejaculationem cito venire.
She remains excited “postquam frictiones cessaverunt” and is always
showing her disappointment when the penis “retractus est.” After a
little while, her excitement gradually subsides, and the patient falls
asleep. When she awakes she immediately “coitionem iterum poscit.”
Here we have a case of a partially impotent woman whose anaesthesia and
slight development of the clitoris was in all probability the result
of her early practice of masturbation. The orgasm cannot be induced,
but the ant-orgastic state is accompanied by libido of a considerable
degree. The glands furnish enough secretion to give the feeling of
moisture; there is no real ejaculation as in normal congressus.
While the totally anaesthetic woman has no natural desire for
coition, and in this respect resembles the woman who is suffering
from idiopathic frigidity or impotence of voluptas, the woman with
the power of experiencing libido, but afflicted with the anomaly of
orgasmus retardatus, has an intense desire for conjugation. She seeks
it oftener than the normal woman, for the reason that her desire is
seldom satisfied. She demands, therefore, commixtionem continuam per
horas et pæne quot noctibus. Such a Messalina is able commisceri
centies in una nocte and yet be unsatisfied. Even if she had it in
her power, like Katherine of Russia, to order cubili suo a whole
regiment of soldiers quot noctibus, she would still remain unsatisfied.
This anomaly, for these reasons, may often be confounded with the
perversion of nymphomania, where a normal orgasm is induced with every
copulation, but where an immediate reawakening of desires, after normal
satisfaction, takes place. Through the similarity of the symptoms
of orgasmus retardatus and nymphomania great mistakes in treatment
have often been committed. The wisdom of amputating the clitoris
in a case of nymphomania is very questionable, but the advice to
amputate it in a case of impossible or retarded orgasm and permanently
damage the already weakened nerves is a mistake that borders almost
to malpractice. For the amputation of the clitoris will impede the
inducement of the orgasm even to a greater extent than before. The
genital apparatus, which was weakened by excesses in venere or in
narcotics, is now irreparably destroyed for all time.
The case of Barrus shows what clitoridectomy may sometimes do. The
patient, a young woman, stuprum faciebat manu more or less, all her
life, and finally after suffering from several attacks of nymphomania
decided to have the clitoris amputated. The result was not only
failure to relieve the alleged nymphomania, but even an increase in
its severity, causing a shameless and, almost literally, continuous
indulgence in the habit.
The cause of orgasmus retardatus is almost always self-abuse, either
in form of masturbation, mental erethism, or tactile eroticism. The
excitability of the clitoris is so increased through these practices
that it refuses to transfer its excitability upon the internal genital
organs for the inducement of orgasm by coition. The ant-orgastic
pleasure is hence intact or even increased, but the orgasm is seldom or
never provoked.
The unsatisfied intercourse will in the long run cause a number
of nervous troubles which take the form of hysteria or assume the
character of neurasthenia. The unsatisfied initus repeatedly practised,
in not leading to the acme of libido and to the relief from the
congestion by the ejaculation, is the cause of chronic hyperaemia and
stasis. This leads, in its farther progress, to chronic inflammations
of the tissues, which are known under the respective names of metritis,
perimetritis, parametritis, endometritis, salpingitis and ovaritis.
The labia are tumefied and dry, the meatus urinarius inflamed and the
urethra pouted out. The clitoris is elongated, inflamed and often
abraded. The external genitals are in a state of burning heat. The
vaginal mucous membrane is hard and excoriated, the cervix is congested
and the external orifice inflamed.
Apart from these pathological changes caused by the failure or the
retarding of the orgasm, the anomaly is of grave social importance.
The woman with whom orgasm is impossible generally repels her husband.
Her nerves never being exhausted, as in the normal woman (it is little
known that a woman is more affected and fatigued by a real orgasm than
a man), spatium congressus may last as long as the vaginal epithelia
can endure it, which means a considerable length of time. This is
mistaken by the husband for increased potency. He believes her to
be more potent than he is, and, in the long run, a man dislikes a
lascivious woman. What he wishes is a modest woman who never asks for
conjugal embrace when he is not disposed to it, and at times even knows
gently and tactfully to refuse her favors when they are asked. Orgasmus
retardatus is hence not simply a question for the physician; it is a
matter of serious social importance.
The correct treatment for this anomaly is, in the first place, total
abstinence from sexual excitement in any form, and then strengthening
of the nerves by tonics, hydrotherapeutics and electricity by
Apostoli’s method.
_Orgasmus praecox._—The exact opposite to orgasmus retardatus is the
anomaly of orgasmus praecox. In men, suffering from this anomaly where
ejaculation occurs before the penis has time to enter the vagina,
the precipitated orgasm has the same effect as the real impotence of
concubitus. In women suffering from orgasmus praecox, the orgasmus is
induced as soon as the mentula reaches the vestibule.
In some women the excitability of the genital nerves reaches such a
degree that the mere touch of the gynaecologist’s finger during an
examination will immediately induce orgasm. Since erection ceases in
both sexes after the orgasm, this anomaly is of great importance in
men, because the conjugal embrace cannot be consummated. In women, on
the other hand, with their passive rôle during concarnatio, and with
whom erection of the clitoris is not requisite for sexual congress, the
act may be continued as in the normal woman. The anomaly is hence of
less importance in women. Still it has some bearing upon the woman’s
fecundity. In the ideal commixtione the female orgasm ought to take
place immediately after that of the male, so that aspiration of some
amounts of sperma could be effected. In the anomaly of orgasmus praecox
the spermatozoa have to rely upon their own power of motion to reach
the interior of the uterus. The anomaly may, therefore, sometimes
lead to sterility. Otherwise medical aid is never sought for. The
pathological condition is extremely rare, anyway.
In the same way the anomaly of a diminished frequency is of no
importance to the physician when occurring in women. He may be asked
for advice when it is met in men, for it may lead to some incongruities
in the matrimonial life of the couple, especially when the wife is of a
sensual nature. But a woman who is able even very rarely to experience
orgasm will never seek the advice of her physician.
CHAPTER XVII
HYPERAESTHESIA
Sexual hyperaesthesia signifies an abnormal intensity of the sexual
instinct. The intensity of the impulse of voluptas varies in different
individuals, and the line of demarkation between the physiological
and the pathological increase of the impulse is not always distinctly
pronounced. With some individuals the intensity may reach a high degree
and still be within the physiological bounds. This is especially the
case where the intensity of experiencing libido is correspondingly
increased. But when there is a conflict between the two potencies,
the potency of voluptas and that of libido, the least exaggeration in
the intensity of voluptas becomes pathological. Such an anomaly where
there is a decrease of the intensity of libido and at the same time an
increase of a higher or lesser degree in the intensity of voluptas, is
the phenomenon of mixoscopy. Mixoscopy thus stands upon the border-land
of anaesthesia and hyperaesthesia.
_Mixoscopy._—Literally, mixoscopy means assisting or rather looking at
animals or at persons while they are in concarnatione. In this degree
the anomaly is a very rare occurrence. In a broader sense, however,
mixoscopy means every active interest in the erotic relations of others
in so far as this interest bears an erotic character. In this broader
sense, mixoscopy is a widely spread anomaly.
The mixoscopic complex or the system of connected ideas, having a
strong emotional tone and displaying a tendency to produce or influence
thought or action in a definite direction, is more or less present in
every person, especially in its youth. All the world loves the lover,
when the world is allowed to assist at the scene of the love-making and
partake of the erotic delights of the lover. When the lover is alone,
nobody notices him. This love to assist at erotic scenes is based
upon the desire of procuring for oneself sensual gratification in an
indirect way, by the aid of a third party, with whom one identifies
himself and in whom one submerges his ego so as to experience this
person’s emotions.
The erotic scenes may not be of the gross and the vulgar variety.
Every desire to assist physically or mentally at scenes with an
erotic coloring, even of the most refined, airy and ethereal nature
has a mixoscopic foundation. Mixoscopy is responsible for the avidity
of youth to devour novels and to assist at plays which generally
revolve upon erotic plots. Especially the desire of those readers
who are so impatient as to read the last chapter first to see if
it ends in marriage, is only the refined way of satisfying the
craving for mixoscopy. The gratification is secured by the reader’s
identification of himself or herself with the hero or heroine. It is
often self-deception of many a youth or maiden when they are petting
themselves and boasting of their love of belles-lettres, as though all
their reading is done in the interest of education and culture. The
reader deceives himself and unconsciously changes the egotistic desire
into the refined longing for mental improvement, rationalization.
Thus in a slight degree mixoscopy is a normal phenomenon. It is
especially found in women, in their eagerness and talent for
match-making. In the interest of others, woman is allowed to display
the activity for sensual gratification which modesty denies her to
develop in her own interest.
Mixoscopy becomes pathological when it degenerates into panderism
or bawdry for the sole purpose of sensual gratification. The main
motives of catering for the lust of others, by aiding and patronizing
an existent love-affair or by calling such an affair into being, says
Meller (O. Sexual Probleme, 1912, p. 480), are of three different
kinds. There is 1) the pecuniary motive or the motive of avarice,
found in the professional matchmaker and in the procurer; 2) there
is the motive of toadyism, the sycophant will descend so low in his
degradation even to the point of becoming the pander or bawd of his or
her superior; 3) the erotic motive, when the pander or bawd acts out
of love of the subject. The first two motives are more or less to be
counted among the vices, the third motive has a pathological basis.
When an erotic interest is at play only, the activity of the pander
or bawd becomes pathological in nature. It is found in persons who
through old age, disease, ugliness, poverty, shyness, etc., cannot
themselves share in the enjoyments of love and who, by assisting
at the gratification of lust by others, try to procure themselves
an opportunity of experiencing a certain part of the pleasure by
identifying themselves with or entering into the spirit of those whom
they aided to the lust.
The emotions connected with mixoscopy or the bawdry complex is oftener
found in women than in men. There are even mothers who aid and favor
the love-affairs of their daughters, where no material advantage could
in any way accrue to themselves or to their daughters, simply out of
lust which they expect to experience when being present at or thinking
of the erotic incidents between their children and their lovers. The
following history well illustrates this point:
Mrs. O., forty-five years of age, married for the last twenty-five
years, never had a child. She was operated upon a few years after she
was married, and uterus and ovaries were removed at that operation.
Twenty years after her castration, when the impotence of libido must
have been complete, a nephew of hers, nineteen years old, came to live
with his aunt and uncle. The aunt soon induced the mere boy to engage
himself with a young lady of twenty-three years of age. Although the
aunt well knew that certain legal obstacles prevented the boy from
marrying the young lady, still, in order to enjoy the love-making of
the young people, she did not rest until she effected the engagement.
When the young fiancée left for the West where she was to stay for a
considerable length of time, the aunt induced the boy to dissolve the
engagement and procured him another young lady with whom he again had
to become engaged. When the nephew left for a foreign country where he
was to stay several years, the castrated aunt had no use any longer
for the second fiancée either, began to quarrel with her and finally
forbade her to enter her house.
These actions plainly show that her interest in the young people was
founded upon the selfish longing to participate in their pleasure at
the lovers’ dalliance, caressing, kissing, etc., which, as an old
castrate, she could not experience any longer. Hers was, therefore,
the kind of bawdry from love of the subject. It was the only way
this voluptuous woman—but impotent of experiencing libido—could yet
partake of any sexual pleasure by identifying herself with the female
lovers of her young nephew. She had no other advantage to gain by her
match-making.
Panderism or bawdry presumes a complete absence of jealousy of any
kind. Patients, suffering from this anomaly, love to assist at erotic
scenes, enacted between females among themselves where the emotion of
jealousy is absent.
The love of sensual people to look at obscene pictures or to read
obscene books is also based upon the impulse of mixoscopy. Sometimes
the intensity of the desire to assist at erotic scenes reaches such a
degree that the patients hire furnished rooms in fornicibus observandi
causa actiones between the inmates and their callers, through holes in
the walls of adjoining rooms, and thus participate in their libido.
To this impulse of mixoscopy may also be attributed the indulgent
behavior of many a husband towards the family friend. If the world
is ignorant of their wives’ relations, and ridicule is avoided, some
husbands not only close their eyes to their wives' doings but even
favor their flirtations. The history of the following case shows how
far a husband can go in his indulgence, as to himself procuring a lover
for his wife:
Mr. E., twenty-four years of age, decides to leave his country and go
to America. While waiting a few days for his boat to clear the port,
he spent one evening in a restaurant. After sitting there for some
time, he noticed a couple entering the same hostelry. The woman was
about thirty years of age, the man about twenty-five her senior. The
couple soon left the place. About an hour later the man returned, sat
down at the same table where E. was sitting and soon entered into a
conversation with him. In the course of their talk, the old man asked
E. whether he would like to have female company for the evening.
Upon the affirmative answer, the old man took E. to an aristocratic
apartment in a distinguished part of the city. There E. met with the
young lady he saw entering the restaurant, et cum ea pernoctavit, the
old man spending all this time in an adjoining room. The following
day the old man prevailed on E. to give up the trip to America for a
while and stay with them. E. stood this idle life for six months, but
finally his rôle as a commaritus or rather as a fornicator came home
to his conscience and he left for America. While he was staying there
he learned that the elderly man and the young woman were husband and
wife. E. gave the author the assurance that during the entire six
months the husband, this he is positively sure, never approached his
wife sexually. He left her to E. without manifesting the least trace
of jealousy.
The only explanation for such a strange phenomenon is that the husband
was impotent and that the only way for him to experience at least some
pleasure from his wife was by identifying himself with the lover. Such
cases represent the extreme degree of mixoscopy.
_Erotomania._—The increased sexual desire in hyperaesthesia is not
always directed upon the physical gratification. Sometimes it is more
of an ideal nature, as in erotomania.
Physiological erotomania is often found in individuals of both sexes,
especially in young girls, at the time of puberty. Many a youth and
maiden are highly erotic, at this period, although, if reared in purity
and attended with vigilance, they never think yet of the physical
contact.
The erotomaniac individual’s love is of a platonic nature. Erotomania
constitutes a diseased form of ideal love. The physical sexual appetite
is generally foreign to the erotomaniac. The object of the individual’s
love occupies the mind only. It is a continual obsession of the spirit.
The erotomaniac individual makes an abstraction of the physical
personality of the adored. It is pursuing an ideal. The erotomaniac
is the victim of a mental exaltation which moves the lover to write
poetry and love-letters to the object of his or her dreams, without
ever sending them off. If possible the erotomaniac follows his or her
lover, but never addresses a word to him or her. The erotomaniac wishes
to be in possession of the beloved being, to be wedded to the beloved
one, but it never thinks of the sensual part. It is after the mental
possession of the beloved one.
The love of the erotomaniac individual rests upon a vague and hazy
ideal. It is the purest love possible. The relation is sacred and
beautiful. It is a kind of cult. The beloved object is a divinity whom
the patient worships upon his or her knees and whom he and she takes
care not to profane even by a carnal kiss.
The following case of a fellow-worker in the pathological institute of
a university in Switzerland is not uninstructive in this respect:
While working over the microscope at the same table, the young
physician told the author the following story of his life when he
was a boy of sixteen. He was at that time attending college in a
middle-sized city in Germany. One day a college friend took him to his
home, where he saw his friend’s sister, a young lady of twenty-three
years of age, and immediately fell in love with her.
Although he was, already at that time, far enough advanced in the
ways of the world to see the hopelessness of his love, still the
incongruity between the ideal and reality was entirely forgotten. He
was altogether oblivious of the material world and imagined himself
floating in the realms of the spirits, while dreaming of exquisite
harmonies.
Day and night he saw before him the object of his adoration. He was
filled with ecstasy over her perfection which was greatly exaggerated
and only existed in his imagination. For now, with a clearer judgment,
he can see distinctly that she must have had noticed at that time
his childish emotions and, out of vanity, was somewhat playing with
them. In his diaries he finds pledges of perennial veneration and
worship and vows of eternal resignation. His memoirs are filled with
descriptions of his hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, wishes and
despairs.
While in her company, he became entirely unconscious of the flight
of time; when she was talking about the most trivial incidents, he
imagined that he was listening to the music of the spheres. Every
word, every motion of her was able to awaken in him either excessive
joy and excitement or to throw him into a state of despair and rob him
of his appetite and sleep for a number of days.
Happily, the young lady soon married a judge, and this marriage broke
the boy’s spell. It may be added that the hero of our story, now a
promising pathologist, is still of a very nervous temperament, and
though possessed of a strictly logical mind, he loves to frequent
spiritualistic séances and to participate in spiritualistic practices.
The erotomaniac woman shows often characteristics not always found
in men. She is generally well satisfied with herself and extremely
vain. She is, as a rule, in love with a person of high social and
intellectual position. He is a prince, a celebrated statesman, a
victorious general, a famous actor, a brilliant preacher, or a great
scientist. In religious mania, it is not seldom a saint who inspires
the erotomaniac woman with a chaste love. Sometimes a picture or a
statue may become the object of her adoration.
As a general rule, the wish for the possession of a certain man is
provoked by his character, by his intellectual, moral or physical
qualities. If the man she fancies fails to attain to the standard of
her ideals she nevertheless attributes to him all the charms her mind
is able to conjure up. A case recorded by Reuardin is a good example of
erotomania in women.
The patient, a well-educated lady, thirty-two years of age, notices
some time after her marriage a man of higher social standing than her
husband. She at once falls in love with this man, begins to grumble at
her low social position, and speaks of her husband only with contempt.
Her beloved one only has all the best qualities. No one is above
him. She writes letters to him, in which she reveals the most ardent
passion and, at the same time, the chastest emotions. Sometimes she
is found in ecstasy, with eyes fixed upon some chimerical vision, the
pupils in a state of hallucination and the lips murmuring the beloved
one’s name. She recoils from her husband’s caresses, refuses to share
his bed, to sit near him, speak to him and to see him. Her whole
life is centered in her love; her eyes are constantly fixed upon the
beloved image. Finally she becomes entirely insufferable and commits
so many extravagances that her husband is forced to separate from her
and later on to send her to an asylum.
Ball distinguishes two categories of erotomaniacs. Some are discreet
lovers. They never accost the object of their love and do not even
feel the need to approach the divine hearth, whence the spark started
that inflamed their hearts. It is a pure immaterial fire that feeds on
itself. The other category, the indiscreet lovers, feel the necessity
to impart the knowledge of their passion to the object that gave it
rise.
_Satyriasis and nymphomania._—Contrary to erotomania, the sexual
impulse in satyriasis and in nymphomania is directed upon the physical
side of love. In these cases the impulse of detumescence is greatly
increased. The desires are directed upon the physical, pleasurable
titillations of the sexual organs.
The dividing line between the normal and pathological increase of
libido is not readily found. The libido sexualis normally varies
in different individuals. Married life bridles, as a rule, sexual
desire, while intercourse with different persons increases it. Total
sexual abstinence may cause in certain individuals, with a neurotic
taint, increased sexual desire, continuous excitement, diseased,
unconquerable impulse for sexual congress, and the preoccupation of the
entire attention upon the sensual act.
The immediate reawakening of desire after normal satisfaction and
the excitation of libido by the sight of persons and things which
in themselves should have but indifferent or no sexual effects, are
decidedly abnormal.
If the increase of the impulse is only moderate, so that increased
frequency of conjugal embrace is able to appease somewhat the
increased desire, the anomaly generally finds expression in a desire
for female respectively male society, in the reading of erotic or
obscene literature, in dancing, flirting, etc. But if the increase of
the sexual desire has reached the degree of true satyriasis in men or
nymphomania in women, the anomaly is characterized by an irresistible
exaltation and an insatiable appetite for sexual gratification. At the
mere sight of a woman satyriasis gets into such a state of excitement,
as to experience real orgasm.
Satyriasis is not seldom confounded with priapism. But the latter is in
no respect a psycho-sexual anomaly at all. It is a nervous trouble of
one of the genital organs and has nothing in common with satyriasis. On
the contrary, in priapism the potencies of voluptas as well as that of
experiencing libido are generally decreased, as Tarnowsky’s case shows
(L’instinct sexuel, p. 150).
Benj. Tarnowsky observed a case of priapism in a soldier which
had lasted for over two years and had prevented the patient from
absolving his active military service. The complete erection of the
organ continually existed in a chronic state and never ceased for a
moment. The organ did not wilt even after several coitions, which, in
the beginning of his sickness, were tried by the patient in order to
free himself from the annoying state of affairs. In the course of his
sickness, coition, and especially ejaculation, caused him such violent
pains that commixtio was never tried again. Voluptuous thoughts and
sexual desire had entirely disappeared. Even the thought of coition
caused the patient disagreeable sensations.
Priapism, therefore, if it were at all a disease of a sexual nature,
would more properly belong among the anomalies of sexual anaesthesia.
Satyriasis, on the other hand, is a psycho-sexual anomaly of increased
sexual desire. Scarcely has the desire been appeased, when it returns
with the same force and vigor as before. The following case may serve
as an illustration of such class of cases.
Mr. X., a soldier, twenty-three years of age, in prostibulum
meretricem visit, qua concubit, pretium usitatum resolvit et
relinquit. Scarcely did he reach the door of her room, cum voluptas
resurgeret. Itaque revenit, iterum eam comprimit, resolvit et
relinquit. This time he managed to descend half the stairs, cum
voluptas experrecta esset. Qua re redit, actionem repetit, resolvit et
relinquit. But he had no time to come down the stairs, cum concitatus
esset. Quo modo sexies ad puellam reveniebat, until he had no more
money for her services and had to leave her, but not yet entirely
satisfied.
Such a case represents a true sexual neurosis of insatiable lust.
In the pronounced cases of satyriasis, the individual is the
personification of sexuality. In his proximity everything turns upon
sex. Nothing is suffered to prevail but sexual emotions. Every glance,
motion or word of his has a sex coloring. He is nothing but a demoniac
sex-creature. Every word he utters has an obscene emotional tone. His
exclamations of surprise, fear, anger, etc., are all borrowed from
the realm of sex. He is a screaming vortex of lubescent lubricity. A
continual lustful scent exudes from him. He is perennially in quest
for sexual gratification. He tries to excite every woman he comes in
contact with and is himself excited by her. Moral consideration is an
unknown quantity for him. The inhibitions, normally emanating from the
cerebral centre, are destroyed in him. He is continually bent on new
sensations.
This picture of the evil spirit of satyriasis is still surpassed by
nymphomania. The woman suffering from nymphomania is more excessive in
her demands than the man afflicted with satyriasis.
The border-line between the normal and pathological increase of libido
in women is also somewhat blotted. A considerable piece of sexuality
dwells in the feminine soul of every woman. It is only covered by
inhibitory counter-emotions. But we recognize her true sexuality by
its pathological exaggeration. Never is there uncovered in insane
men such an abundance and monstrosity of the sexual imagery as in
insane women. In dreams and in the dusky twilight of insanity men and
women abandon themselves to their true impulses and desires without
the restraining influences of conventionality. The normal woman has
learned by education to hide her true sexual feelings and was forced
by tradition to produce in a quite extraordinary way the impression
that she herself is nearly non-sexual, and her sexuality is only a
concession to the man. But judging from her sexual emotions in abnormal
states, the intensity of woman’s sexuality is of a higher degree than
that of the man’s, and herein lies woman’s superior morality. Morality
is the arrest of the instincts by the intellect. The intensity of her
desires being greater, her higher chastity is more laudable. In certain
periods, such as pregnancy and lactation, when woman is really more or
less non-sexual, her chastity has no merit. But in the other states of
her life when woman’s desires possess a higher degree of intensity, her
chastity is of a superior kind.
Thus the determination, when the normal increase of woman’s sexual
desire ceases and the abnormal state begins, is wrought with great
difficulty. Sexual inclination is normally increased immediately before
and after the menses. Still it may be laid down as a rule that an
overweening sexual desire in a woman, considering her natural modesty
and coyness, should arouse suspicion of its pathological significance.
The nymphomaniac woman seeks to attract men by indecent language, by
lascivious conduct, by personal adornment, perfumes, talk of marriage,
by the exhibition of her feet, legs, neck, breasts and other parts
of her body, and, at the height of her excitement by invitation ad
congressum, aperto stupro manu, nudatione muliebrium et motionibus
initus pelve. She is often seen in the physician’s office and desires
gynaecological examinations for the gratification of her excitement.
Such a case was recently observed by the author.
The patient, about forty years of age, was suffering from endometritis
and came to the office for treatment. At the first touch of the
introitus vaginae by the finger, the patient suddenly agitata est.
She tightly closed her eyes, the respiration became panting, the
abdominal muscles contracted, which made the combined examination
impossible, her face became red, her entire body was seized by a
convulsive tremor, and her pelvis made omnes motiones commixtionis
vehementis. At the end of one or two minutes the paroxysm ended with
a deep sigh, and the examination could be continued. The attacks were
repeated at the beginning of every treatment, and the same had to be
discontinued. Without offending the patient, she was told that she
needs a curettage. This advice caused her to stay away from the office.
In the pronounced cases of nymphomania, the woman will accept the
embraces of any man and will solicit even boys. To him who yields
to her wiles she brings misery and calamity. She is an object of
attraction and carries ruin in her lap for those who become the
slaves of her eroticism. A piece of destructive sexuality dwells in
the bosom of these women, something of the Delilah-nature, for all
who come in contact with them. They consume men’s strength and vigor
physiologically and psychologically.
The nymphomaniac woman is not able to free herself from the thraldom
of eroticism. Her sexual instinct is irresistible and untamable.
Nymphomania leads the sufferer to any degradation, to the practice
assidui stupri manu and even to bestiality.
Magnan mentions the case of a lady of forty-seven years of age, who
from her early childhood manifested excessive voluptas. She was always
nervous, eccentric, and of a romantic disposition. When she was
only ten years old she began to practice concarnationem. At the age
of nineteen she got married, but although her husband was sexually
perfectly normal, he could not satisfy her often enough. Qua re
jugiter cum aliis viris commiscebatur, and although this infidelity
made her entirely unhappy and miserable, she was powerless to overcome
her insatiable desires.
In another case of Magnan, the patient had a passion for men from
her earliest youth. She was of good family, well bred, of pleasant
disposition, and exceedingly modest. As a little girl she was the
terror of the family. Scarcely was she alone with any male, child
or adult, statim aperiebat muliebria et poscebat satisfactionem
voluptatis, even going so far as to lay hold of the person. Marriage
did not cure her intense desire. She loved her husband passionately,
yet indiscriminately petebat placationem voluptatis a quovis viro with
whom she happened to be alone, were he her servant, laborer, or even
school-boy. This insatiable passion continued to possess her after
she had become a grandmother. At the age of sixty-five she was yet
recklessly passionate as before.
The anomaly of nymphomania is generally due to a cerebral lesion. Hence
little relief can be afforded by the removal of the clitoris or the
ovaries, or by any other therapeutic measure. The affection shows all
the stigmata of degeneration and moral insanity. The nymphomaniac woman
belongs to the type of the “deliquenta nata.”
Nymphomania is often found in periodical insanity. The case of Anjel is
a good illustration.
The patient, near the climacteric period, is nowise of a passionate
nature, sexually, but after a hystero-epileptic attack has the impulse
to embrace and kiss boys, about ten years of age et contrectare
virilia. She has no desire for coition while suffering from the
attack. In the intervals she is very modest.
This paedophilia in women, suffering from hyperaesthesia, is not rare.
The patients are intensely excited by young boys, while they possess
only normal inclination toward adults.
Magnan’s case is interesting in this respect. The patient was a lady
twenty-nine years of age. For eight years she had a strong desire
complexus venerei with one of her five nephews. First her desire
went toward the oldest boy, when he was five years of age. Then she
transferred this desire to each of them in turn as they grew up. The
sight of the child in question was sufficient to produce ejaculation
and orgasm.
The case of Kisch is interesting for the coincidence of paedophilia
with traces of homosexuality.
The patient is thirty years of age, married nine years, but sterile.
Coition gives her not only no pleasure, but on the contrary, it
causes her a feeling of disgust. But she feels irresistibly impelled
contrectare pudibilia of children, no matter whether male or female.
These manipulations induce ejaculation and orgasm. At the time of her
menstruation this impulse is stronger than her power of resistance.
In Krafft-Ebing’s case the patient, a teacher, thirty years of age
and of strict morality, enticed a boy of five who happened to play
nearby, under the promise of money and food ut veniret in cubiculum.
“Ibi genitalibus pueri aliquamdiu lusit, denique introductionem penis
in vaginam tentavit.”
In hysterical women hyperaesthesia sexualis is of frequent
occurrence.[BA] Giraud’s case is of great interest, showing how far the
aberration may proceed.
The girl, a domestic servant, was always moral before her illness.
When she began suffering from hysterical attacks, amato liberos in
fidem suam commissos exhibebat ad constuprandum et noctu spectatores
rerum turpium eos faciebat, while the whole household was asleep under
the influence of narcotics. When she was discovered and driven out
of the house, the formerly modest girl became shameless and finally
meretricium fecit.
Another type of hyperaesthesia which borders on a real psychosis, is
represented by one of Schrenk-Notzing’s cases.
The patient would become sexually excited to a high degree at the
mere sight or touch of a man, et se satiebat congressu imaginali aut
stupro manu fricando femora ultro citroque. For a long time attacks
of genital erethism were brought on every morning. Once it happened
in the physician’s office. Notwithstanding the presence of three
male witnesses, she threw herself on a lounge and, in hysterical
convulsions, se feminavit several times before their eyes.
Brouardel relates the case of a girl of sixteen who would lie in the
ditch of a highway and, aperiens muliebria lacessebat præterientes
viros ad concarnationem. Nothing could be done to make her desist and
she had to be sent to a house of correction.
In another case, the daughter of a physician, a friend of Brouardel’s,
ran away from her father’s home at the age of sixteen and in fornicem
iniit in Paris to appease her sexual desires. Nothing could induce her
to return home.
This case throws some light upon the etiology of prostitution. Not
all prostitutes are driven to their degrading trade by idleness or
necessity, as some philanthropists or socialists would like to make
us believe. Not a few choose this life to satisfy their nymphomaniac
desires.
Trélat tells of a young girl, the daughter of a professor who, at
the age of fifteen, milites noctu fenestra cubiculi admittebat ad
satiandam voluptatem.
The best and most careful rearing of girls, suffering from nymphomania,
can not save them from downfall. In their wild passion, casting all
moral and social considerations aside, they throw themselves into the
arms of sin. The more they abandon themselves to the gratification
of their lust, the greater is the desire of their morbidly excited
nerve-centres for lecherous satisfaction. Every indulgence increases
the desire and lessens the capacity, as Horace truly says:
“Crescit indulgens sibi durus hydrops.”
The woman loses control of her passions, and can not restrain herself
from stuprum manu aut concubitus. She becomes absorbed in sexual
gratification, as seen in the case reported by Reti:
The patient lived happily with her husband until after the birth
of her first child. From that moment she became a slave of her
insatiable lust. An irresistible craving suddenly took hold of her, an
indomitable lust seized her to embrace men. She felt a morbid itching
in muliebribus, an inexplicable excitement, a burning desire for
sexual gratification. In the beginning her husband tried to satisfy
her until he discovered his impossibility to do so. She did not allow
an hour of the day to pass without demanding gratification from her
husband. He was terrified to see her premere muliebria to the edge
of the table or against the door or any other hard subject, in order
to satisfy her sensual appetite. When she became worse from day to
day, her husband took her to the hospital for examination. At the
introduction of the speculum, a morbid contraction of the constrictor
cunni muscle occurred suddenly. The touch of the carunculae
myrtiformes provoked intense pain. After surmounting the obstacle,
however, the pain ceased and a blissful rapture appeared. “Now! Now!”
exclaims the patient, when the entire speculum was within the vagina.
A convulsive movement seized her entire body, a thrill went through
her, et motiones vehementis congressus fecit.
Some nymphomaniac women have illusions of coition. Such a case has been
reported by Rosse.
A comely young woman who suffered from nymphomania practised stuprum
manu to excess and declared one day that several persons, among them
her clergyman, se constupraverunt. The sexual excitability in this
case was exaggerated to such an extent that the mere sight of a man,
even of the attending physician, suggested a repetition of the act to
provoke the venereal spasm. So persistent was the habit that on tying
her hands se feminavit with her heel. To prevent this her feet were
secured, but she succeeded in bringing about an orgasm fricando femora
ultro citroque ita ut clitoridem excitaret. The patient died at a
retreat.
If the hyperaesthetic woman is unable to satisfy her desires she shows
all the symptoms of general neurasthenia. Especially does she suffer
from neuralgia of the ovaries. The case of Rohleder is the best example
of the disturbances unsatisfied nymphomania may cause.
The patient, a girl of eighteen, and a member of a family of good
social standing, was engaged to be married. Until she was sixteen and
a half years of age she was always well. At that time she made the
acquaintance of her intended. Then a great change took place in her
disposition. She became very nervous and moody. Now she was very gay,
but a moment later became deeply melancholy. Her menstruation was
regular, but at that period she suffered great pains at the ovaries,
especially before the menses set in. When she met with her fiancé
her pains increased so that they caused convulsions. She could find
some relief stupro manu. After she got married, all the symptoms
disappeared.
_Masturbation._—The anomaly of masturbation is the most common sexual
aberration, and if found in the very young it assumes the dignity of a
perversity. In the adult, masturbation, if practised with moderation,
can not be considered pathological. According to Paget masturbation
causes no more nor less harm than normal coitus, if practised with the
same frequency and under the same conditions with regard to health, age
and circumstances.
Prof. Oscar Berger (Archiv f. Psychiatrie, Vol. VI, 1876) says
masturbation is such a frequent manipulation that out of a hundred boys
and girls ninety-nine have temporarily been addicted to it, and the
hundredth, the so-called pure individual, is concealing the truth. Moll
quotes a physician as saying: “Whoever denies having masturbated, has
often only forgotten it; whoever claims of never having masturbated is
still doing it.”
Now, giving due allowance to the exaggeration of these authors in the
heat of the discussion, the truth remains that the greater part of
humanity has one time or another practised autoeroticism. If what the
quacks and ignoramuses tell us about its dangers be true, humanity
ought to have passed into oblivion long ago, or at least ought to have
entirely degenerated. But we are all still alive, hale and healthy,
hence moderate masturbation can not have the disastrous effects which
some authors are pleased to describe.
Erb (Handbuch für Rückenmarkkrankheiten, p. 163) says, the effects
upon the nervous system in a man must be essentially the same, whether
the frictions of the glans take place in the vagina or are carried out
in any other way. The nervous shock of ejaculation remains the same,
and the nervous excitement ought to be greater where the female is
used. Hence masturbation, moderately practised, exercises no direct
destroying effects upon a good constitution.
Moderate masturbation seems to be almost a natural phenomenon. Even
among animals various forms of spontaneous solitary sexual excitement
are observed.
Dogs masturbate by rubbing the organ with their hind-feet, or by
crossing the hind-legs or lambendo fascinum lingua.
The stag, when in heat, rubs his penis against trees until he effects
ejaculation.
Porocz saw in a zoological garden an elephant, who was in the habit of
masturbating himself so often that he undermined his health and had to
be sold.
Prange (Revue vétér. 1856) describes a stallion that with his
mentulato fascino could reach his forelegs and thus rub the organ
against them. In this way he induced three to four ejaculations daily.
The author observed a baboon in the zoological park se constuprantem
by quickly and repeatedly pulling with his fore-foot or hand the
prepuce until ejaculation took place.
Masturbation is further found among peoples of nearly every race,
however natural the conditions are under which men and women live.
Masturbation was known among all races at every period of history.
It is reported that the great Cynic Diogenes practised autoeroticism
publicly in his tub.
Schools, academies, educational institutions, dormitories of colleges,
factories or prisons are hot-beds of masturbation. Prof. Schiller
published the observations in a certain gymnasium (collegiate high
school) where the boys had holes in the pockets of their trousers ad
stuprum mutuum faciendum during the lessons, in the presence of their
professors.
Thomalla knows of a boarding school where bets are made among the boys
on the skill of their exercitatio stuprosa. The boy who can induce the
ejectio seminis the quickest receives the prize.
Walter Benseman (Public School and Gymnasium) describes the most
deplorable conditions existing in a great many boarding schools in
England.
In France, Deville and Tarnowsky found the spread of masturbation in
schools, colleges and pensionates to be enormous.
Male masturbation, as a rule, is effected by fricando glandem manu.
Hence such mishaps, as often happen in woman, are of rare occurrence.
Still many queer objects were found in the male urethra or bladder,
such as quills, pencils, penholders, blades of straw, knitting needles,
pieces of bougies or of catheters, ear-spoons, tooth-picks, all
introduced for masturbating purposes. Senn removed in a young man,
nineteen years of age, a stem of a plant from the bladder, which was
introduced into the bladder for autoerotic purposes. The author removed
a pencil from the pars membranacea of a boy of eighteen, through an
incision in this part.
Such cases are exceedingly rare in the male. As a rule, autoeroticism
in men is accomplished by the hand alone, hence the name
“masturbation.” In some cases neither the hand nor any other means
is needed to obtain the desired end. The fancy of concarnatio alone
will produce the orgasm, as in the following case, told the author in
confidence:
A young man, twenty years of age, while sitting behind an attractive
young lady in theatre, was in the habit of allowing his fancy free
rein by imagining himself of being in complexu venereo with his fair
neighbor. This thought alone sufficed to induce ejaculation and
orgasm. One Sunday while sitting near a fair worshipper in church, he
got so excited that he had to practise ideal congressum cum ea during
the sermon.
The causes of masturbation are different at the different periods
of the individual’s life. In early childhood, a neuropathic
predisposition, eczema, pruritus, phimosis, accumulation of smegma,
early retiring and late rising, spicy food and exciting drinks,
absolute ignorance of sex and seduction by vicious servants will be
the principal causes for autoeroticism. During the time of school-life
seduction is the cause par excellence of masturbation. Self-abuse is
widely spread in schools. No institution is free from it. In nearly
every school there is at least one lecherous boy who is apt to be
peculiarly fascinating to his fellows and who will promulgate the
habit. In some schools the evil reaches a wide extension. The tradition
of the school and the material of the pupils is of great influence.
Particularly dangerous, as hatcheries and divulgers of the evil, are
those institutions in which numerous pupils are present who have
passed the normal age by several years. They come, as a rule, from the
country to enter the advanced classes. The time of puberty is another
period favorable for acquiring the habit of masturbation. When the
genital centres are fully developed, the individual gets a conscious
realization of its sexual power, and the psychological reactions of
animal passion manifest themselves in the desire to cause a relaxation
and a discharge of the nervous tension and of the physical genital
congestion. The opportunity for the natural discharge being connected
with great difficulties, especially for the girl, there is danger that
the child will resort to masturbation to be relieved from the nervous
tension and the material congestion.
During the post-puberty period which in men reaches to the
twenty-fourth year and in women to the twentieth year of age, the
extension of the masturbatic practices gradually decreases, and by
the time manhood and womanhood have been reached, masturbation has
almost entirely disappeared. Its presence after this period may be
considered pathological except it is practised out of necessity as in
the following case:
Mr. A., thirty-five years old, married twelve years, father of two
healthy children, was always well. Three years ago he left his native
country and came to America. Faute de mieux, he began to practise
autoeroticism inordinately and continued in this practice until he
became a nervous wreck, showing all the symptoms of neurasthenia
besides impotence and nocturnal emissions.
In this case the patient became perfectly well after his wife arrived
in this country.
While moderate masturbation at certain periods of life is almost
a natural phenomenon, masturbation practised inordinately is the
most disastrous psycho-sexual disease. There is in the first place
general neurasthenia, with all its accompanying symptoms, as
photopsias, glistening and dazzling before the eyes, photophobias, dry
conjunctivitis, particularly found among masturbating girls and old
maids, and functional sexual disturbances, as diurnal pollutions and
spermatorrhoea. Other symptoms are indolence, lack of energy, shyness
in demeanor, want of self-reliance, disinclination to study, incapacity
of serious work, shortness of memory, absent-mindedness, unsteadiness
of character, hypochondria and melancholia.
The children become peevish and irritable, they are reserved in
conversation, apathetic in manner, hesitating in actions, slovenly in
dress, and contradictory. Cerebral anemia is of common occurrence among
those addicted to excesses in masturbation. Vertigo is hence a common
symptom, and fainting spells are not rare. Girls especially are liable
to be affected by syncope. Palpitation and arythmia of the heart is
very common. Perspiration breaks forth on the slightest exertion, and
the slightest exercise occasions shortness of breath. Neuralgia of
the testicles, ovaries and the bladder is frequently found in these
patients. The patient is frequently seized with the desire to pass
water. The calls to urinate are particularly frequent in the morning
hours, while in the afternoon and in the night-time the calls are less
urgent. Particular danger of long-continued masturbation lies in the
development of impotency in men and frigidity in women.
One of the most disastrous effects of excessive masturbation, an effect
which has also a sociological bearing, is that it renders the patient
unfit for marriage, not only because it is so often the cause of
impotence, but because the dreams which accompany the masturbatic acts
are not realized in marriage, and the patient returns to his former
pastime.
Another most harmful effect of excessive masturbation is the weakness
of the will which becomes more and more pronounced until it finally
ends in aboulia. The patient is affected by a complete inability to act
as he feels.
“Video meliora proboque,
“Deteriora sequor.”
_Masturbation in women._—In former times masturbation was considered an
exclusively male vice. Very few even among the profession dreamt of the
widely-spread masturbatic practices in the female sex. Nowadays we have
progressed. We have learned that even in this respect perfect equality
reigns among the sexes. Even female animals make no exception to the
rule.
Mares rub themselves against objects. Stags, in the rutting season,
when they have no mates, rub themselves against trees. Mammary
masturbation is found in certain females like the dog or cat. Apes are
given to masturbation even in freedom and use their hands.
Female masturbation is further found among peoples of every race and
every clime and in every period of history.
Among the ancients the Lesbian women are said to have used ivory
fascini or golden ones, covered with silken stuffs or linen, in
solitary sexual gratification. Aristophanes relates the use by the
Milesian women of the “olisbos,” an artificial leather mentula.
The Hebrew women also knew the use of the artificial phallus, as stated
by Ezekiel (xvi, 17). ותעשי לך צלמי זכר ותזני בם “Et fecisti tibi
imagines masculinas et fornicata es in eis.”
Fritsch found masturbation common among the young women of the Nama
Hottentots. It is regarded there as the custom of the country. The same
is the case among the Basutos and the Kaffirs.
The Spaniards found the women in the Philippines addicted to
masturbation. It was customary to use an artificial fascinum and other
abnormal methods of sexual gratification.
Jacobs found among the Balinese masturbation to be a common practice.
The women employ a wax fascinum, to the use of which they devote many
hours of solitude.
Throughout the East masturbation is prevalent, especially among young
girls. In Cochin-China it is most practised by married women.
The Japanese women use two hollow balls of the size of a pigeon’s egg.
One is empty, the other contains a small, but heavy metal ball, or some
quicksilver, so that if the balls are held in hand side by side there
is a continuous movement. Pila inanis primo in vaginam immittitur eo
modo ut uterum tangat, deinde altera inducitur. The slightest movement
of the pelvis or the thighs causes the metal or the mercury ball to
roll, and the resulting vibration produces a prolonged voluptuous
titillation, a gentle shock, as from a weak electric inductive
apparatus. Pilae in vagina arboris lana retinentur. The women then
delight to swing themselves in hammocks or rocking chairs, the delicate
vibrations of the balls slowly producing the highest degree of libido.
Thus the phenomenon of spontaneous sexual emotion is found in animals
as well as among savages, and in every period of human history. No
wonder that the conditions of modern civilization, with its artificial
mode of living, render auto-erethism a frequent occurrence.
The extent of this practice among women may be judged from the
occasionally resulting mishaps that reach the surgeon’s hands. Bananas
are often used feminandi causa. Country girls often use cucumbers in
stuprando.
The author once removed a carrot from the vagina, which a young woman
had used to obtain erotic gratification.
In another case, while trying to dilate the cervical canal preliminary
to curettage for persistent leucorrhoea, he found a hair-pin in the
canal which, as the girl afterwards confessed, had slipped out of her
hand while tickling the external os of the cervix.
At another occasion, as house-physician in a European surgical clinic,
the author assisted in the removal of a hair-pin from the bladder of
a young woman, which was used to produce a tickling sensation of the
clitoris, and which accidentally slipped into the urethra, and then
entered the bladder.
Other objects removed by surgeons are pencils, bodkins,
knitting-needles, crochet-needles, penholders, quills, etc.
Some women produce sexual excitement by frictions against the corner of
a chair, table, etc.
Morris relates of a lady, a devout church member, who never had
allowed herself to entertain any sexual thoughts referring to men.
Tamen se stuprabat every morning while standing before the mirror by
rubbing against a key in the bureau drawer.
One of the most common means to produce voluptificam titillationem,
that is even found in use by children, when scarcely more than infants,
is the voluntary pressure of the thighs. They are placed together and
firmly crossed while the pelvis is rocked, so that the sexual organs
are pressed against the inner and posterior parts of the thighs.
Townsend records five cases of thigh friction in children less than one
year old.
The manipulation of the sewing machine with the body on the edge
of the seat is sometimes used by young women as a means to produce
sexual excitement, leading to orgasm. Horseback riding is sometimes
employed as a means for inducing orgasm and ejaculation in women. The
stimulation caused by bicycle riding is not seldom prolonged by women
until orgasm is induced.
Besides masturbation by means of tactile excitation, ideal
auto-erethism is widely spread among women. The votaries induce sexual
libido by means of lustful conceptions and thoughts. The mere thought
concubitus induces orgasm and ejaculation in such women. Such women are
able to practice auto-erethism at all times and in all places. While
riding in crowded cars and upon the most serious occasions, in churches
and in other sacred places, the mere libidinous thought of being in
concarnatione induces orgasm. These voluptuous dreamers may stuprare
without any visible manipulations while conversing with their friends
or listening to a sermon.
A young lady of twenty-five prefers to ride in crowded street
cars and, if possible, refuses to accept a seat when offered by a
sympathetic man, but remains standing before him, holding on to the
strap. She then indulges in ideal auto-erethism by fancying herself
of being in concarnatione viri ante se sedentis, cujus genua tentat
quam sæpessime tangere suis genibus. At one occasion while riding in a
crowded car and standing before a man who was interested in reading a
book, pressit suis genibus viri genu during the orgasm in such a way
that the man, a physician, looked up to see what was going on. The
glowing face was in a state of extreme excitement. The staring eyes
were fixed on one point, the hands holding the strap were trembling.
Respiration was panting and the countenance distorted to a veritable
grimace.
With some women even lustful thoughts are not required to induce
sexual libido. They are found among women who are the victims of
sexual repression. They restrain themselves from attaining orgasm
in the natural way for moral or social reasons. Occasionally the
internal stimuli overmaster them and bring about a sexual paroxysm, in
the absence of any external stimulus and without resorting to ideal
congressus.
Sérieux records the case of a woman, fifty years of age, who lived a
chaste life. At times violent crises of sexual paroxysms would come
on without any accompaniment of voluptuous thoughts or any mechanical
help.
In some patients orgasm may be induced by means of sensory impressions,
as by listening to music or the sight of nature in the country, and by
the taste and touch of things which have no bearing upon the sexual
parts whatever.
Schrenk-Notzing records the case of a female masturbator who induced
orgasm without any tactile manipulation, simply by listening to music
or while regarding paintings that displayed nothing of a lascivious
character.
Another of his patients became sexually excited by the sight of the
grandeur of nature, as by the sea, or high mountains.
With another of his patients the mere sight of a specially strong and
sympathetic man immediately brings on orgasm.
In Ellis’ case the patient, while still a young girl, whenever a
certain artist, whom she admired, touched her hand, felt erections
and moisture in muliebribus. When her uncle’s knee once accidentally
came in contact with her thigh, ejaculation took place. Once, casually
seeing virilia, a convulsive ejaculation occurred accompanied by a
delightful sensation, every fibre tingling with an exquisite glow of
warmth.
One of the author’s hysterical patients became greatly excited
sexually whenever she ate liver-sausages.
Another kind of auto-erethism occurs during sleep. Pollutions are
accompanied in sleep by erotic dreams. At the height of the paroxysm
an abundant discharge from the Bartholinian glands takes place. The
orgasm in sleep is an autoerotic process which is entirely normal.
In women who have not yet experienced orgasm in the waking state,
the erotic phenomena during sleep are usually of a very vague kind.
The real orgasm that awakes the sleeper and leaves its traces in
the individual’s consciousness occurs only after orgasm has been
once induced in the waking state. Erotic dreams occur in women more
frequently than is ordinarily thought of nowadays. It was better known
in the darker ages. Hence the wide-spread belief in Lillith and Samaël,
the evil spirits, that visit young maidens and wives and also youths
and husbands while in bed at night in order to seduce them.
Sometimes automatic masturbation is practised during sleep. The patient
awakes to find her finger in the vagina.
If the pollutions occur at long intervals, they cause no direct injury
to a good constitution. But if the women are not robust, and the
pollutions happen too often, these drains are the cause of considerable
nervous depression.
One of the author’s patients, a widow of about forty years of age, is
suffering from almost nightly pollutions. These weaken her so much
that she is seldom able to rise before noon-time.
The same deleterious effects are caused by all other kinds of
masturbatic practices. Even though we agree with Paget that moderate
masturbation is no more harmful than normal intercourse, it can not be
denied that masturbation, since opportunity for it is ever present, is
of far more frequent occurrence than natural sexual indulgence. The
habit, once established, masturbation presents an unconquerable impulse
and a resultant incapacity to control it. It is then the cause of grave
material injuries to the nervous system. It dwarfs the entire female
organism. It makes the girl shy, offish, squeamish, repellent, and
weakens and sickens the emotions of sex-attraction.
One of the author’s patients, a dress-maker, thirty-five years
of age and single, has been suffering from general nervousness,
headaches, palpitation of the heart, frequent urination, anorexia and
constipation. One day she took courage and asked for a remedy for her
excessive autoeroticism. Scarcely does she reach her bed at night
time and gets warm, when the overwhelming desire for autoeroticism
takes a hold of her and, fighting as she may against the impulse, ei
feminandum est manu. These practices were going on nightly for the
last twenty years.
Howard says: The permanent effects left from early masturbation seem
to be much graver in women than in men. As the girl grows, her psychic
life becomes more complicated, her natural romantic nature is fed by
kiss literature and poetry of the decadents, in which perverted passion
is thinly disinfected by erotic mysticism. Under such a stimulating
psychic pabulum a dormant sexual volcano may become active. If it is
only smoldering, suggestive dressing, the dance and wine will soon
bring about the complete explosion. At home in bed, with strange and
abnormal psychic pictures, she will seek relief in stupro manu. If
this state of affairs is kept up for many years, when she marries her
husband is certain to find that he has for a wife a female who has no
use for normal sex activity and who has acquired a perverted taste for
some form of autoeroticism.
It is a curious fact that autoeroticism is frequently practised by
married women living with sexually normal husbands. The gynaecologist
must consider this fact as the possible cause of many female complaints.
A few years ago, the author removed an ovarian tumor and performed a
perinæorrhaphy on a woman of thirty-five, mother of a child of ten
years of age. While in the hospital the nurse complained that the
patient is soiling the wound contrectando muliebria. Three months
after the patient left the hospital she called at the author’s office
for treatment of ulcerations of the labia and nymphae. The clitoris
was found to be one inch long, bluish-red and inflamed, the prepuce
swollen and edematous, the nymphae inflamed and swollen. The author
told the patient that she could not be cured unless she desisted from
autoeroticism which she promised to do. This promise had the value of
a confession that she did indulge in autoerotic practices. Yet she
had a normal husband who very industriously performed his marital
obligations. For before the operation she once asked the author to
tell her husband not to have any connections, or at least, not so
frequently, with her until after the operation.
The female masturbator often becomes excessively prudish, despises and
hates the opposite sex, and forms passionate attachments for other
women. Masturbation is not seldom the cause of a great number of
female complaints. It is often the cause of obstruction and of pains
of menstruation, of ovarian neuralgia, of weakness of the legs and
of sexual irritation. It causes pruritus vulvae, hypertrophy of the
clitoris and labia minora, hyperaemia of the vaginal orifice, fluor
albus, and cervical catarrh. Masturbating women often complain of
general weakness and of palpitation of the heart.
One of the author’s patients, a young masturbator of seventeen,
suffered from painful menstruation, attacks of palpitation of the
heart, from melancholia and fear of death, and at the same time from
suicidal inclinations, which thus revealed the illogical state of her
mind.
Masturbation also causes that form of increased erethism, connected
with female impotency, in which the orgasm no longer occurs during
the conjugal embrace. For this reason the victim prefers solitary
indulgence even after marriage.
In Moll’s case the woman, thirty years of age, mother of several
children, is happily married, loves her husband and is loved in
return. Yet coition does not gratify her in the least. She finds
satisfaction only in solitary stupro manu by which orgasm is induced
in the highest degree. In this way there are times, when the patient
who is a modest, moral woman, practises autoeroticism several times a
day.
To this class of patients belong the cases recorded by Loiman,
Laker, and others. The sexual functions were originally normal and
satisfaction was possible in the normal way. Through excessive
masturbation, however, the nerves became so weakened that normal
coition did not give the desired satisfaction.
In Troggler’s case the woman had practised autoeroticism excessively
from her thirteenth year and found satisfaction fricando et trahendo
clitoridem. When she began to have normal concarnatio at the age
of eighteen, she found that she could not obtain satisfaction for
her excessively increased voluptuous desire except manuali fricando
clitoridis inter coitum.
In Laker’s case of a married woman, twenty-four years of age, the
patient never experienced the least satisfaction in concarnatione with
her husband, while she found the desired effect in autoeroticism,
especially in mutuo stupro manu.
In another of the same author’s cases a woman of thirty-four years
of age practised stuprum manu mutuum and found great satisfaction in
this activity. At the age of nineteen she was married and in spite of
mutual affection she could not experience any libido. This fact did
not prevent her from giving birth to two healthy children.
In another of Troggler’s cases, the woman, twenty-five years of age,
was induced to practise autoeroticism when eleven years of age. On
account of her increased sexual desires she began to have complexus
venereus when fifteen years old. But she could not find the least
satisfaction in congressu, although she practised it with a number of
different men. Only stuprum manu offered her the desired libido.
In Loiman’s case the patient was induced by her friends in the convent
to practise autoeroticism. When fourteen years of age she began to
indulge in stupro manibus mutuo cum pueris of her own age. She married
when nineteen years old and gave birth to her first child a year
later. But she never found gratification in the conjugal embrace. The
second case of Loiman was a widow of thirty-eight who had always been
normal in her sexual functions and gave birth to a child at the age of
twenty-seven. Two years later she lost her husband by death, and from
that time she began “faute de mieux” to stuprare manu. Her voluptas
increased to the point of becoming insatiable. When she has now normal
congressus cum multis amatis she cannot find the desired gratification
unless masturbatur in congressione.
This last case shows that Freud’s explanation of frigidity of
intercourse by the refusal of the clitoris to transfer its sexuality
at the time of puberty does not always hold good. This woman passed
through her normal puberty. The cause of the impotence of libido inter
coitum in these masturbators is rather the increase of the excitability
of the clitoris at the expense of the vaginal mucous membrane and of
the cervix uteri, through the long-continued manual irritation of this
organ. The stimulation from these sources to induce libido is thus
decreased, and the excitation of the glans of the clitoris by the penis
alone during coition is insufficient to induce orgasm.
The immediate causes of the masturbatic practices are generally bad
examples. The practice is first learned from friends in boarding
schools, convents, factories or prisons. Sometimes it is also prurient
curiosity which prudish educators and parents neglect to satisfy
which leads young girls to self-abuse. In congenital hyperaesthesia
the pleasurable titillation may accidentally be induced in complete
ignorance of sexual relations. The following case is quite instructive
in this respect.
A young lady, twenty-four years of age, consulted the author on
account of her extremely enlarged breasts. She stated that eight years
ago she discovered that by a certain manipulation muliebrium she was
able to experience the highest degree of pleasure. For the last eight
years until very recently she continued to enjoy the fruits of her
discovery. She often wished to tell her physician about her wonderful
discovery for the benefit of other young women. One day the author’s
book, “Woman,” fell into her hands, and she learned for the first time
to her great amazement and chagrin that what she was doing was nothing
else but autoeroticism.
This simple story shows that ignorance is not always innocence, as some
misled parents seem to think. Sometimes ignorance is just the cause of
the early practice of sex activity.
_Incest._—Another anomaly which must be attributed to hyperaesthesia
sexualis is incest. Incest, as such, has nothing pathological in its
essence. In the early history of human marriage incest was the rule.
It was practised even in historic times. Abraham was married to his
sister, according to the Bible. Cimon of Athens was also married to his
sister. In the royal house of the Ptolomei it was common for brothers
to marry their sisters to avoid a division of the empire. Cleopatra,
the evil star of Marc Anthony, was married to her brother. But these
few examples were the exceptions, generally, for the last three
thousand years incest has been considered an abomination in the eyes of
God and men. Its practice was constantly inveighed against by Church
and State. It has, therefore, because of these constant suggestions,
become the second nature of man to abhor such practices. Only an
exaggerated sexual desire, coupled with the absence of understanding
for laws and morals, could nowadays lead to incest in any civilized
country. Even in the crowded tenements where all members of the family
of both sexes live and sleep in one room, incest is still a great
rarity, and when such a case happens, it deeply wounds the feelings of
the entire community. Such incestuous immoral attacks are, as a rule,
made by low, brutal men in a state of intoxication or by those who
suffer from weak-mindedness, by epileptics and by paranoiacs. Hence in
every case of incest, we are justified in assuming that the seducer is
suffering from sexual hyperaesthesia. An asylum and castration may be
a more appropriate treatment for such a patient than the treatment in
prison.
The following case came under the author’s observation while he was
house-physician in the Woman’s Hospital of a well-known European
university:
A mother brought her twelve-year-old girl to the skin department
of the general hospital to be treated for a certain rash the child
was suffering from, for some time. The rash was diagnosed there as
pityriasis versicolor, and the child was recommended to go to the
Woman’s Hospital for treatment. At the examination here it was found
that the twelve-year-old child was six months pregnant. Being too
small and delicate, even for her age, to give birth to a full-term
child, it was decided to induce premature labor. Before the operation,
the child was asked for the name of the man who was responsible for
her predicament, and the following was her version of the accident:
One day, while returning from school, she was addressed, on the
street, by a man whom she had never seen before and who asked her
whether she did not know him, her cousin from X. He said that he was
just going to see her parents, his uncle and aunt. On the way he took
her to a candy-store and bought her candy. When leaving the store he
told her that he had forgotten to take along a present for her parents
which he left in his room, and they both went to fetch it. Upon
entering his room, he locked the door and abused her.
Upon hearing the story the indignation of the medical authorities of
the hospital was beyond all description. The police was immediately
notified to hunt for the criminal. A representative from the district
attorney’s office (Untersuchungsrichter) and a detective soon
appeared at the hospital to get more particulars from the child. The
officers of the court seemed to have a much better experience in the
examination of such cases than the doctors, for when they left the
child’s room her story read quite differently.
The girl’s father had a workshop in the business section of the city,
while the family lived in another part. When leaving school in the
afternoon the child used often to visit the father’s shop and take
home the dishes he took along in the morning. One day, while in the
shop with her father, he took her in the back room of the shop and
abused her. Under threat of death these immoral attacks were often
repeated for months afterwards, until one day the unnatural father
noticed that his child conceptavit ab eo. He then made up the story
with the cousin which the child first told the hospital authorities.
The father was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years’ hard labor.
This case shows how low the sufferers of hyperaesthesia may fall. The
man was not drunk when he made the repeated attacks upon his child.
The excuse of the defective separation of the living quarters is
also missing, nor does here exist the cause of “faute de mieux,” as
it is sometimes found in widowers living with their adult daughters
in incestuous unions. The man here had a healthy wife. Hence it is
nothing else but a case of sexual hyperaesthesia pure and simple of a
weak-minded individual.
Incest is oftener found in men than in women, yet there are cases
recorded where women were the seducers.
Legrand describes the case of a girl, fifteen years of age, who
seduced her brother to all manner actionum voluptificarum in se.
His other case is that of a woman of thirty-six who, although married,
indulged in abusing her brother, a boy of eighteen. The same woman was
otherwise abnormal, suffering from the anomaly known as exhibitionism,
which is seldom found in women, except among the insane in asylums.
She often exposed her breasts from the window to attract men.
In another case of the same author, a mother, thirty-nine years of
age, practised incest with her own son and ab eo comprehendit.
Tardieu cites a case of a woman whose victim of criminal attack was no
other than her own son, a boy of nine years of age.
CHAPTER XVIII
PARAESTHESIA
Paraesthesia sexualis covers all possible forms of perversion or
perversity of sexual feeling and sexual activity.
Perverse sexual activity with normal feeling and inclination is present
in the anomalies, masochism, sadism, fetichism, and exhibitionism.
_Masochism._—One of the most peculiar phenomena in the perverse
vita sexualis is met with in patients with a desire for unlimited
submission to the will of a person of the opposite sex. This anomaly
was named masochism by Krafft-Ebing after Sacher-Masoch, whose romances
have as their particular object the description of this perversion.
Schrenk-Notzing recommends the name “Algolagnie.” The distinguishing
symptom of masochism is the wish of the patient to suffer pain at the
hands of, and be subjected to force by the beloved person, to be this
person’s complete slave. This mixture of pleasure and pain is one of
the most peculiar and remarkable psycho-sexual anomalies. Pain, whether
real or imaginary, becomes here a source of pleasure. Whether the
subjection is expressed merely in symbolic acts or whether there is
absolute desire to suffer pain at the hands of the beloved one, is a
matter of subordinate importance. The characteristic of the perversion
of masochism is that pain and submission, which to the normal
individual causes a certain degree and anguish, are in these patients
turned into a source of lust.
The submission to pain or subjugation in itself is in no wise
pathognomonic of masochism. It may not be pathological at all. Even
entire sexual bondage is not, properly taken, pathological, if it be
only the means of obtaining or retaining possession of the coveted
person. It is not perversion, if fear of losing the companion and
the desire to keep him or her always amiable, content, and inclined
to love, are the motives for submission. The henpecked man is not a
pervert. It is not abnormality, but cunning if, to satisfy selfish
desires, the person in subjugation performs acts of bondage at the
command of the ruling individual, but in its innermost is rebelling
against this enforced slavery. Sexual bondage becomes pathological only
when in itself the loss of all independent will-power and the unlimited
submission awaken lustful sexual feelings, and this submission is hence
desired. It then represents a pathological degeneration.
In masochism the motive, underlying the suffering of the person in
question, is the charm afforded by the tyranny in itself. The acts
performed at the command of the ruling person are an end in themselves.
The very acts of tyranny are the immediate object of gratification,
not the concubitus that may be received as a recompense. The idea of
being treated as by a master, of being completely and unconditionally
subjected to the will of the lover, of being humiliated and abused by
him or her; this idea in itself is colored by lustful feelings.
The masochistic man has a perfect longing for subjection to any
person whatsoever, especially to a woman. He craves to be dominated,
controlled and abused by somebody. He is not fastidious in his choice.
He revels in the thought of subjugation, without inclination to a
particular woman. The following cases will serve as an illustration of
these types of patients.
A man of forty, happily married, father of three children,
college-bred and wealthy, was as a child already often punished for
his cruelty to small animals. He would delight in tearing out the
wings and cutting off the heads of flies. Later when he attended
school he found great pleasure when he could see boys whipped.
At the time of puberty he began to practice flagellation upon himself.
These practices induced ejaculation and orgasm. Towards the end of
this period he began sese stuprare manu but he could not find any
satisfaction except he imagined himself being whipped by a young woman
in nudas nates.
For the last ten years habet meretricem in a luxuriously furnished
apartment whom he visits once a week and whose duty it is to flog him
in nudas nates until the skin is covered with bloody weals. At this
moment ejaculation occurs. Thereupon he dresses and leaves the woman.
He never has any concarnatio cum ea.
A similar case has been described by Pascal. A man forty-five years
of age was used to visit regularly a priestess of the Venus vulgivaga,
whom he paid ten francs for the following services:
While the windows were darkened, by letting down the blinds, the girl
had to undress him completely. She then bound his feet and hands,
hoodwinked him, and in this helpless condition led him to a lounge
where he remained lying for about half an hour. After this time the
girl loosened his fetters. He then dressed and left her satisfied.
The following case, similar to the author’s first one, is worth
recording for the pronounced masochistic imagery. A young married
man of thirty-five, father of two healthy children, visits regularly
once a month, for the last ten years, fornicem. There he picks out
pulcherrimam puellam to give him a flogging in nudas nates. This
procedure gives him satisfaction. He never has any carnal connection
with the woman. His relation to her is that of the slave to the
mistress whom he would not dare to touch even in his imagination.
During his childhood he had quite remarkable masochistic ideas,
which, however, have never been put into effect by him. As a small
boy he loved to see animals or children whipped. At the time of
puberty he began manu stuprum and during these acts he revelled in
his imagination in scenes of cruel subjugation. He imagined lying
on his abdomen, and a pretty, very strong girl applying a cane or
whip upon his naked back and nates. Post castigationem, puella,
induta solum in interula, ponente in pectore suo pedem nudum, quem
vehementissime osculat et gratias puellæ agit pro castigatione.
Nonnunquam imaginabatur puellam in pectore suo sedere, capite inter
puellæ femora ita, ut vulva tangeret os suum. Tum linguam suam in
vaginam intromisit, labia minora suxit et clitoridem puellæ lambit.
Denique anum osculavit.
The last action in his fancy is symbolical of the highest degree of
humility, which does not shrink back even from the loathsome and
disgusting, but on the contrary, considers it a high honor and favor
to be allowed to approach even this unaesthetic part of the human
anatomy. The anal kiss, for that reason, played a prominent rôle in
the ceremonies of the witches’ vigil. The anal kiss is well known in
fornicibus, frequented by masochists. In men every masochistic desire
is at once recognized as pathological; in women the dividing line
between the normal and pathological masochistic tendencies is not so
easily determined.
It is entirely within the physiological limit that playful taps and
light blows should be taken by the woman for caresses. “Like the
lover’s pinch, which hurts and is desired,” says Shakespeare. In one
of the letters of Abélard to Héloïse, the teacher writes to his pupil
and mistress: “Verbera quandoque dabat amor, non ira magistralis,
quaeque omnium gaudiorum dulcitudinem superarent.” Subordination to a
certain extent is quite a normal manifestation in the loving woman;
with her it is a physiological phenomenon. It is the subordination of
weakness to strength. A certain amount of subordination depends upon
the woman’s passive rôle in procreation. The aggressor always controls
the subjected in love as in war. The element of pleasure found in
passivism and ideal submission is, therefore, peculiar to the feminine
sex. The custom of unnumbered generations also has given her an
instinctive inclination to voluntary subordination.
Ideas of submission are, therefore, in the woman normally connected
with the idea of sexual relations. They form the harmonies of the
tone quality of feminine feeling, says Krafft-Ebing. We women, says
Schiller, can only choose between ruling and serving, but the highest
pleasure power affords is but a miserable substitute if the greater joy
of being the slave of a man we love be denied us. Goethe’s Dorothea
says: In time shall the woman learn to serve in accord with her
destiny, for only by serving she finally gains the reins and the power
that is rightly hers in the household. In fact, intelligent women have
scant respect for slavish men, and exaggerated gallantry is distasteful
to them.
A moderate degree of submission to the wishes and the will of the man
she loves is, therefore, characteristic of the feminine nature and
is not abnormal. Many a young woman worships her husband and wishes
nothing better than to kneel before him. This is done because her
husband means for her the whole sex and his importance to her becomes
very great. But in masochism there exists the desire to be subjected
and abused by any man without any inclination to a particular object of
love. A further pathognomonic symptom of masochism is that, as a rule,
the girl begins to dream of subjugation at a time when she is yet too
young to have any perception of love.
The best examples of female masochism are given in Krafft-Ebing’s two
cases.
The first case is of a girl, twenty-one years of age. From her
earliest youth she fancied herself being whipped. She simply revelled
in these ideas and had the most intense desire to be severely flogged.
This desire originated at the age of five when a friend of her father
laid her playfully across his knees, pretending to whip her. Since
then she had longed for the opportunity of being whipped. To her
great regret her wish had never been realized. She imagined herself
absolutely helpless and fettered. The mere mention of the word cane or
whip caused her intense excitement.
For the last two years she associated these masochistic ideas with the
male sex. Previously she only thought of a severe school-mistress or
simply a hand. Now she wishes to be the slave of a man she loved. She
would kiss his feet, if he would only whip her. She imagines herself
lying before the man of her fancy; he puts one foot on her neck, while
she kisses the other. In the meantime she revels in the idea of being
whipped by him. She takes the blows as so many tokens of love. She
fancies him first as being extremely kind and tender and then, in
excess of his love, he beats her. She also fancies that beating her
for love’s sake gives him the highest pleasure. She often dreams that
she is the beloved man’s slave. The patient never understood that
these manifestations were of a sexual nature.
The second case is that of a woman, thirty-five years of age,
of a greatly tainted family. For some years past she had been
in the initial stage of paranoia persecutoria. This sprang from
cerebral neurasthenia, the origin of which was found to be sexual
hyperexcitation. Since her twenty-fourth year she had been given to
manu stupro, the result of a disappointment from a broken engagement.
To appease her intense sexual excitement, she began the practice of
manu stuprum and of mental erethism by fancying herself to be in
concarnatione.
The story of her youth reads as follows: At the age of six to eight
years she conceived the desire to be whipped. She had never been
whipped nor present when others were thus punished. Hence she cannot
understand how she came to have this strange desire. With the idea of
being whipped she had a feeling of actual delight. She pictured in her
fancy how fine it would be to be whipped by one of her female friends.
She never had any thought of being whipped by a man. She revelled
in the idea only and never attempted any actual realization of her
fancies, which disappeared after her tenth year of age.
Here we have a young masochist whose ideas of humiliation are
associated with her own sex. The reason for the patient’s fancy for
female friends lay in the fact that the masochistic desire was present
in the mind of the child before the psychic vita sexualis had developed
and the instinct for the male awakened. Had the desire lasted until
puberty the association of these ideas with the male would have been
established.
The ideas of humiliation of the masochistic sufferers are in the
beginning often associated with their own sex. Not that they are in
any way homosexual at the same time, but because genuine, complete
masochism, being a hereditary taint, the feverish longing for
submission begins in early youth at a time when the child is as yet
unconscious of the difference of sex.
Sometimes the masochistic tendency is not fully developed. The desire
to suffer pain at the hands of the lover has only the end in view to
increase the natural libido in congressu.
One of the author’s patients, a sexually hyperaesthetic woman of
thirty years of age, who always had a supply of lovers besides
her husband, found great delight in jacendo nuda in genibus amati
et ab eo verberata in nudis natibus. When first told about this
peculiar desire, the author attributed this desire to her natural
hyperexcitation. In this state every impression, produced by the
consort, independently of the manner of its production, is per se
attended with lustful pleasure. But later on, when he learned that she
found more satisfaction in concubitu if preceded by such a spanking,
and that the husband often had to gratify her in this manner even
in the middle of the night, there was no doubt that hers was a case
of a psychical anomaly in which the sexual instinct was partly made
insensible to the normal charms of the consort. Her perverse desire
was, therefore, of a masochistic nature.
Of the same masochistic nature was the frigidity of the Duchess Leonore
Gonzaza of Mantua. Aloisia Sigea says that her frigidity could only be
removed by a flagelation by her mother ante coitum: “Virgis Leonora,
parentis suae manu ad hanc diem nullam ex Venere ceperat voluptatem.
Hoc vero temporis momento vehementissime mota est, lacessiti iterum
verberibus lumbi, clunes et femora ad venerem incensi.”
Generally, female masochistic patients are unconscious of the
abnormality of their desires and never come to the physician’s office.
Their pathological condition is only accidentally discovered, when
complicated with other anomalies.
It may be also noted that the courts of justice never or very rarely
have any dealings with cases of masochism, whether in men or in women,
as may happen in sadism. The patient will never go so far in his or
her perverse desire for suffering that the injury inflicted may become
criminal. For the extreme consequences of masochism, such as murder and
serious injury, as sometimes found in sadism, are avoided through the
instinct of self-preservation.
_Sadism._—While masochism is a pathological growth of specifically
feminine mental elements, where the patient finds delight in suffering
pain, in sadism the patient seeks lustful excitement in inflicting
pain. Sadism hence represents a pathological intensification of the
masculine mental character. Sadism is so-called after the Marquis de
Sade, who during the French Revolution devoted himself to the writing
of obscene books which had lust and cruelty for their theme.
Sadism is characterized by the impulse to cruel and violent treatment
of the opposite sex and the coloring of the idea of such acts with
lustful feelings.[BB] It is hence a non-feminine trait and is less
frequently found in women than in men. Woman’s modesty causes her to
keep herself on the defensive until the moment of surrender, while
under normal conditions man meets with obstacles in his wooing which
it is his part to surmount. He is aggressive, and aggressiveness
is closely related to the infliction of pain. It affords men great
pleasure to win and conquer women. Nature has given the man for that
purpose strength and combativeness. In sadism this aggressiveness is
intensified and excessively developed. The patient is dominated by the
wish to subdue the object of his desire with cruelty.
Bain explains this love of inflicting cruelty as springing from
the pleasure the individual finds in the knowledge of the power and
domination it has over the maltreated mate.
The need of the subjugation of the consort forms a constituent symptom
in sadism and may be intensified to such a degree that the patient
will not shrink even from murder. Sadism is hence mostly found in men,
although in rare instances it also affects women.
The anomaly of sadism shows different degrees of intensity. The first
degree represents Platonic sadism. The patient does not go any further
in his abnormal desires than to commit violent acts in his phantasy
only or to draw and paint scenes of violence or to describe such scenes
in verse or prose.
In the second degree the patient seeks to satisfy his abnormal impulse
by striking light blows, or by biting and pricking different parts of
the mate’s body.
In the third degree of sadism serious wounds are inflicted upon the
mate. The patient does not shrink back from mutilating the body of his
victim or from committing murder.
The fourth degree shows the most abnormal enormities of cruelty, such
as emboweling the victim or the ablation of its genitals, evisceration,
dismembering the victim, sucking its blood or devouring its flesh.
Cases of Platonic sadism are very frequently met with in all classes of
society. But since the patients do nobody any harm, such cases never
come to the notice of the judge or even of the physician, and are hence
never recorded. They are discovered in the course of the anamnesis, at
the examination for some other anomaly.
One of the author’s patients who was suffering from psychic impotence,
a talented painter, in his leisure hours, while sitting in the
beer-garden or while conversing with his friends, used to draw on
pieces of paper horrible scenes of war and murder, of wounds and
blood. When asked about this peculiarity, he confessed that in his
imagination he spanks, whips and lashes women until they bleed.
Sadistic acts of the second degree sometimes come to the notice of the
physician, when he is called upon to treat the wounds inflicted by the
patients.
The author was once called upon by a young bride to be treated for a
wound in her left breast which was inflicted through the bite of her
husband in the bridal bed, at the acme of his orgasm. It took several
weeks to cure this love-bite.
All such acts of the two first degrees still stand on the border-line
of the normal and pathological. The acts of the last two degrees are,
as a rule, only found in psychopathic degenerates. The best example
of sadistic acts of the third degree is found in a recent celebrated
murder case in New York city.
The patient has been twice tried for murder and has been sent to an
asylum for the criminal insane. Playing the rôle of a theatrical
agent, the patient used to lure young girls to his apartment by
advertisement and then gratify his abnormal desires by subjecting the
innocent girls to flagellation. He would sometimes have eight to ten
girls in the dining-room of his boarding house and would beat one
with a whip. The landlady saw poor young girls all welts and bruises
from these cruel whippings. On one occasion, she found a girl of
fifteen years of age in his room, whose clothing was torn and arms cut
from the maltreatment. The wealthy degenerate then paid these girls
hush-money to keep quiet. All these facts are in the records of the
Supreme court where a habeas corpus order was argued.
An example of the fourth degree of sadism is the celebrated case of
Nathan Schwartz.
On July 6, 1912, the patient, a former prize-fighter, twenty-three
years of age, accidentally meets with a girl, only twelve years of
age, but unusually well developed. He accosts the child and lures her
to his father’s flat. There he chokes her to insensibility, undresses
her, except to her union suit, and carries her to the roof of the
house and hence down to the bathroom of a vacant flat. There he makes
twenty jabs in her back with a knife, slashes her throat and forearms
and stabs her in the heart. The union suit had forty-one rents, all
made by his knife. He then puts her into a soap box where she was
found by the police. Twelve days later the patient committed suicide,
while the police was still looking for him.
This case may throw some light upon the brutality of the prize-fight.
The study of the psychology of the votaries of this brutal sport
may lead to some important discoveries. Some sadistic trait may be
discovered in every one of these fighters, showing that it was not
their profession that made them brutal, but that on account of an
innate cruelty, they chose the cruel profession.
Another example of the fourth degree of sadism is the case reported by
Boas (Archiv f. krimin. Anthropologie und Kriminalistik, v. 35, p. 195).
A nine-year-old girl is lured by a shoemaker into a cellar. There
the patient abuses and kills the child by choking her with a pillow.
The murderer thereupon thrusts a cane into the child’s vagina, which
perforates the posterior vaginal wall and penetrates into the bowels.
Such extreme cases of cruelty as the last two are never found in
sadistic women, at least none are on record. The woman playing the
passive rôle can naturally have no use for a dead mate. She needs an
active live one. Hence only the first three degrees are found in women.
Moraglia claims that some women’s features manifest cruelty during
conjugation. At the beginning of the orgasm the face becomes distorted,
and by showing her teeth such a woman assumes a certain ferocity of
expression that is sometimes frightening.
One of the author’s patients, a woman of twenty-six years of age,
mother of two children, would take on a cruel look at the height of
her sexual excitement immediately before the orgasm. This frightened
the husband so that he sought medical advice. She would also grasp
with her teeth her consort’s lips and tongue and bite them.
Slight sadistic features are, therefore, not uncommon in women.
Especially in modern times, with the increasing effemination of men and
the corresponding masculination of women, the aggressive woman is not
so great a rarity. The biting and scratching of the companion during
sexual excitement is, therefore, not uncommon and falls yet within
physiological limits. But when the individual is driven to whip, pinch
and prick the body, or, particularly the genitals of her companion,
in the blind impulse to satisfy sexual desire, such expression of
gratification does not correspond with the natural purposes, and the
acts become perverse. Such uncontrollable emotions may even lead the
individual to homicidal thoughts.
Phylogenetically it is significant that sadism is found even among the
lower female animals. At the time of sexual union, crabs tear off limbs
from the bodies of their consorts. Spiders often bite off the heads
of their mates. It is the male spider who impregnates the female at
the risk of his life, and sometimes perishes in the attempt. It is the
male bee that after conjugium with the queen falls dead from the fatal
embrace, leaving her to fling aside his entrails and calmly pursue her
course. Sadism may, hence, be considered a kind of atavism. It shows
man to be, as Schopenhauer puts it, in reality a wild, cruel animal. We
only see him in a tame state, which we call civilization.
In history it is known that not only the degenerated Caesars, like
Nero or Tiberius, took great pleasure and delight in having youths and
maidens slaughtered before their eyes, but the same is also reported
of women, who did not shrink from committing sadistic acts. Valeria
Messalina and Catherine de Medici found great pleasure in having the
ladies of their courts whipped before their eyes. Branton relates that
Catherine loved to whip with rods the prettiest ladies of her court
only to satisfy her lust.
Among the cases reported in recent medical literature the case of
Krafft-Ebing is remarkable.
This author saw a man with numerous scars and cuts on his arm. Every
time, the man explained, he wished to approach his young wife he first
had to make a cut in his arm. She would then suck the wound and during
this act become violently excited sexually.
Blumroder saw a man bitten in the breast by his consort during
conjugation in the great sexual excitement at the acme of libido.
One of the author’s patients, a lady of good social standing, thirty
years of age, took great delight, while sitting on her consort’s lap,
in biting the lobes of his ears or his arms, until he screamed with
pain. He always carried marks of her teeth on his body. Post initum
the face of this otherwise pretty woman became distorted. She lay for
some time with open mouth, showing her teeth, and her face assuming an
ironical, cruel expression.
In Moll’s case absolute frigidity is combined with sadism. The woman,
twenty-six years of age, has been married for eight years and has one
child. She presents signs of hysteria and neurasthenia. She never had
any desire congressionis and until her marriage remained ignorant of
any knowledge of sexual matters. Initus to her is not only no pleasure
but on the contrary a distasteful act, and the repugnance of it has
constantly increased. She can not conceive how the lumbus can have
anything to do with love. She loves her husband and finds decided
pleasure in kissing him. But while kissing him she experiences great
lust when allowed to bite him. She would find the greatest pleasure
if she could so bite him that his blood would flow. She was better
satisfied, if instead of having commixtio she was bitten by her
husband and allowed to bite him. When her biting caused her husband
too much pain she regretted the act.
A few years ago the author treated a patient, a French lady of
thirty-five years of age, who had normal genital organs and was
otherwise well, except that she was laid up in a hospital in Paris
for eight weeks with rheumatism. She found great delight in having
her consort sugere et osculare mammas. She always requested him to
continue this practice for a considerable length of time. At the
height of the orgasm in complexu venereo, her face becomes distorted
by ferocity, taking on a cruel look and showing her teeth. At the
same time she has spasms of the muscles of the back, by which the
entire body is bent backwards, the spinal column forming a convex
arc at the anterior aspect, the veritable opisthotonus often seen in
grand hysteria. After the paroxysm she invariably tries to choke her
consort, but desists from her intent before she has done any real harm
or having caused him any real pain.
Hausler reports the case of a pregnant woman who had a great desire
for her husband’s blood. Several times, while he was asleep, she
stabbed him and sucked his blood.
In Kiernan’s case the patient would hack herself all over her body
with any instrument she could conveniently lay her hands on, not for
suicidal purposes, but because she experienced a fascinating pleasure
whenever she drew blood.
Here is a case of pleasure in cruelty, directed against the patient’s
own person.
_Fetichism._—The word fetichism denotes the condition in which an
object by virtue of association with sentiment, personality, or ideas
exerts a charm. Erotic fetichism makes an idol of physical or mental
qualities of an individual of the other sex or even of objects used
by this individual. Erotic fetichism is physiologic in nature. Hence
pathologic fetichism is generally, like masochism and sadism, not
so easily diagnosed. Sometimes it is almost impossible to define
sharply the beginning of the perversion. Fetichism of a considerable
high degree is found in normal love as well. The preference for some
particular physical or psychical characteristic in a person of the
opposite sex is not pathological. The breasts and hips of a woman are
not seldom made the object of a fetich, still this fact does not denote
pathological fetichism. One man may be charmed by the sweet voice of
his beloved, another man is raving over her soft blond hair. Some man
is enchanted by the delicate white arm, another is enraptured at the
sight of her dainty foot, or is fascinated by the fairy-like nimble
gait of his girl and sobs out of excitement when inhaling the sweet
odor of her hair. Many a girl becomes extremely excited when kissed
by mustached and bearded lips, while a smooth face leaves her cold.
Another girl is thrilled when looking into the serious, thoughtful eyes
of a man.
Hence the enthusiasm extended to certain portions of the body or to
articles of attire, still lies within the limits of physiological
fetichism, if the awakened powerful emotions are associated with a
certain beloved person. When the royal singer in the Bible (Solomon’s
Song, chap. 4) extols the dove’s eyes of his bride and praises her
comely speech, when he compares her hair to a flock of goats, her
teeth to a flock of shorn sheep, her lips to a thread of scarlet, her
temples to a piece of pomegranate, her neck to the tower of David, and
her two breasts to two young twin roes; when he tells us that milk and
honey lie under her tongue and that the smell of her garment is like
the smell of the Lebanon, no one would declare him for that reason a
degenerate fetichist. The sweet, red, coral-like, quivering, laughing
lips of the mother of the human race have been extolled in verse and
prose since the dawn of history.
Hence if certain parts of the body of a certain person or certain
pieces of its clothing are worshipped because they arouse strong sexual
emotions, this fact, as such, does not prove pathological fetichism. It
may still be normal. But with the normal individual the main attraction
is after all the man or the woman themselves with their respectively
primary and secondary characteristics. Every part of the body excites
and even the clothes that may cover the part. But there must be a
personality behind these clothes or such parts. When, however, the
stimulation emanating from these parts or their coverings is entirely
independent from the personality, when the fetichist abstracts the
part from the whole or the clothing from the wearer, then such emotions
become pathological.
In pathological fetichism the creation of lust is effected through a
certain part of the body or through a certain piece of clothing of the
other sex without any reference to any personality. The fetich creates
tumescence which may lead to the desire of effecting detumescence
either concarnatione aut stupro manu. Not seldom the libido enjoyed
by the fetich affords the patient complete satisfaction and nothing
more is sought or desired. In the latter case the anomaly is complete.
The more the normal desire concubitus recedes, and the fetich becomes
the only aim, the more the fetichistic desire becomes pathological.
This pathological condition, wherein some part or physical peculiarity
of the person or a part of its attire is the object of erotic desire
to the exclusion of everything else, is oftener found in men than in
women. Fetichism in men often reaches the extremes in its pathological
aspects. The patient goes sometimes so far in his fetich-worship of
women’s hair as to stealthily cut off tresses on crowded streets, or
his fetich for women’s handkerchiefs leads him to become a thief.
The following case offers a very good illustration to which extremes
the fetichist may go:
A man of thirty, married, father of two children, gets peculiar
attacks every two to three months which generally last no longer
than three to five days. During this time he has the irresistible
impulse se stuprare while fondling a woman’s handkerchief. His desire
for procuring women’s handkerchiefs is so strong and irresistible
that he steals them whenever opportunity is afforded. In this way he
accumulates hundreds of handkerchiefs during the three to four days
of each attack. After the attack is over he destroys the ill-gotten
articles. He is very unhappy and miserable over this anomaly. He is
constantly in fear that some day he might be caught and thus cause a
scandal which will disgrace his prominent family.
Dühren relates the case of an Englishman who kept up pulchram puellam
for the following purpose: At certain hours of the day she had to undo
her hair so that he could run his hands through them. This action gave
him the highest libido.
In Blinet’s case a young man becomes sexually very excited at the mere
sight of the pretty hand of a woman.
The author once treated a student who, while separated from his girl,
would take along her petticoat with him and would place it under his
pillow when going to bed at night. Otherwise he could not fall asleep.
A few years later he died in a sanitarium from an abscess of the brain.
A man, thirty-five years of age, married, father of two children, as
a very young boy, saw his governess taking off her shoes and making a
few steps in her stockings. Since then he gets excited at the sight of
women’s stockings. When once in a department store, he saw a woman in
her stockings trying on a new shoe, the excitement caused ejaculation
and orgasm. At puberty he began to practise stuprum manu. During the
practice he always managed to handle a woman’s stocking. He assured
the author that even the stockings in the store windows are able to
excite him sexually.
In another case a young man of twenty-five saw as a child the
servant-girl of the family washing her feet. Since then he gets
excited when he happens to see pretty naked feet of a woman. He has
then the irresistible impulse contrectandi et osculandi eos. He is
unable to go bathing at the seashore; for some fair bather’s feet may
provoke in him the most violent desire to touch and kiss the same.
Sometimes he visits fornices, ubi puellam pulcherrimam pedum eligit
who has to take off her shoes and stockings so that he may fondle and
kiss her feet. He never has any other carnal relations with her.
The perversion of fetichism is, like sadism, a rare anomaly in women.
In most cases recorded, the woman, as a rule, makes a fetich of the
entire person, not of one of its parts or of its clothing. Still there
are some cases of fetichism even among women where the fetich is
directed toward articles of attire.
The case of a young woman, twenty-one years of age, came under the
author’s observation wherein the patient, whose lover died several
years previously, kept for years thereafter his drawers under her
bed-pillows. Otherwise she could not find the desired sleep. At times
she experienced great sexual excitement when fondling them.
In Howard’s case of a woman thirty-nine years of age, the patient
stole a pair of trousers of a certain man and by fondling them
lovingly induced orgasm.
Howard relates of another case of a young woman of twenty-seven
years of age, of a good family, who up to the time mentioned had had
undifferentiated sexual feelings. At a summer resort, she met a man
who was very attentive to her in an upright manner. The first evening
she met the man, he unconsciously displayed a portion of the garter
that held up his silk hose. At the time the patient simply noticed the
carelessness of the act and had no other feelings in the matter.
Upon her return to her home, there began for the first time in her
life distinct, clear and culminative erotic dreams. These commenced
by subconscious visualizing of the blue garter. The association of
the garter with the night reveries increased to day ideation. One day
the patient went into a shop to buy a present for a friend and, on
the counter, saw an exact duplicate of her fetich. It was instantly
appropriated and the patient went immediately to her bed-room, where
she gave way to the effect the fetich had upon her. She soon found
herself a victim of fetichistic manu stuprum. This was never practised
without the psychical aid of the garter, and to have the act culminate
satisfactorily she must have a new garter each time, which must be
attained unseen surreptitiously. A garter purchased would have no
effect upon her sexual nerves.
The most remarkable cases are those of urolagnic and coprolagnic
fetichism, almost exclusively found in men, of which Burton says: “Immo
nec ipsum amicae stercus foetet.” But occasionally such cases are also
found in women, as proven by the case reported by Magnan.
The patient, a young girl of eighteen, of good intellectual
development, but of alcoholic heredity, seduced a boy younger than
herself ad stuprandum mutuum. On one occasion, lying on the ground et
tollens vestes petivit eum ut commingeret in eam.
Moraglia relates the case of a beautiful woman, eighteen years of
age, who, married about a year, experienced only very little libido
in initu et præferrebat stuprum manu. She became highly excited by
the odor of fermented urine. So strong was this fetich that when she
passed a street urinal she was often obliged to go aside se stuprare
manu. Once she went for this purpose into the urinal itself and was
almost discovered in the act. On another occasion stuprandum ei manu
in ecclesia. Her perversion caused her much worry because of the fear
of detection. She preferred, when she could, to obtain a bottle of
urine, which must be old and of a man’s, and to shut herself up in her
room, holding the bottle in one hand and repeatedly se stuprare with
the other.
Such cases are exceptional in women. As a rule, fetiches of women do
not relate to inanimate objects or to certain parts of the body, but
to the whole individual. In such cases an impulsive desire complexus
venerei with a certain man imperatively demands gratification.
In Magnan’s case the young woman, mother of three children, told her
husband frankly one day that she was in love with a certain other
man and that she would kill herself if her relations with him were
interfered with. She promised to return to her husband and children
after six months if only permission were given her to live with this
man for this period in order to quench the fire of her passion. As she
was then, husband and children had no place in her heart.
In another case of Magnan’s the patient, a woman twenty-two years of
age, mother of two children, one day met a boy of thirteen, a pupil of
the public school, and immediately fell in love with him. Driven by an
irresistible passion, she put all modesty aside and asked permission
of the boy’s parents conjungendi cum puero. By way of reply, the
family promptly drove her from their house and broke off all relations
with her. The patient then passed her time before the school of her
beloved boy, watching for the opportunity to see him and speak to him.
When a sexual preference has reached such a degree of intensity and
power, the condition is of a pathological nature.
While the pathological condition lasts, there is absolute indifference
and even hatred for husband and children, if the woman happens to be
married. She jeopardizes the dignity of her wife- and motherhood in
order to satisfy her desires. The unmarried girl of the best family
elopes with her father’s coachman, the crown-princess of an important
state elopes with the teacher of her children and sacrifices her future
and her family’s standing and reputation in the quest of gratification
of her sexual impulse. The man exercises over her a fetich-like charm,
which is entirely out of proportion with the normal attraction of
sex. When a cultured woman like the princess Chimay leaves husband
and children, abandons her refined associations, gives up her exalted
position in society, so dear to the feminine heart, and marries an
ignorant gypsy, such an action transcends the limits of the normal
love-charm.
When the fetich takes possession of the patient she generally becomes
sexually frigid toward all other men except the fetich.
Krafft-Ebing records two cases, where there was absolute impotency of
experiencing libido and of voluptas toward the husband, while the mere
touch of the beloved man’s hand produced orgasm, and commixtio with
him the acme of pleasure.
Such phenomena can only be explained by the fetich-like charm the
lover exercises over the patient. She is not suffering from sexual
hyperaesthesia, for she is indifferent toward any other man except her
fetich. She is not a libidinous Messalina, for she is the mistress of
one man only, and her intercourse is strictly monogamic. On the other
hand, the irresistibility and impulsiveness wherewith the patient
expresses her desire prove that she is not attracted by the normal
charm that love generally exerts.
_Exhibitionism._—The patient suffering from the perversion of
exhibitionism finds sexual satisfaction by exposing virilia aut
muliebria to the sight of persons of the opposite sex. Sometimes the
exposure is preliminary to or associated with stupro manu.
The impulse of exhibition is, as a rule, sudden and irresistible. At
the sight of an individual of the other sex, the patient is suddenly
seized by the unconquerable desire to expose pudibilia, even if the
patient happens to be in the street or in a public garden. If the
patient tries to oppose the impulse, he is generally seized with a
feeling of anxiety and fear, of oppression in the chest and with
palpitation of the heart.
Ch. Laseque (Union Médicale, 1877, p. 709), who first named this
anomaly “exhibitionism,” remarks that the exhibitionist finds enough
pleasure and satisfaction in this platonic manifestation and does not
look for more direct relations with the person to whom he shows virilia
sua.
The cases of exhibitionism, says Krafft-Ebing, thus far recorded are
exclusively those of men who ostentatiously expose virilia sua to
persons of the opposite sex, and whom in some instances they even
pursue, without, however, becoming aggressive.
The following few cases of male exhibitionism may serve as
illustrations of this strange anomaly:
George Verret (Annales Médico-Psychologiques Séc. 101; 1912, p. 554)
reports the case of a physician who, on different occasions, exhibited
virilia sua before women and children. At these exhibitions mentula
remained invariably in a flaccid condition. Sometimes he stood before
the window of his bed-room and exposed his virilia to young girls who
lived in an opposite house, who happened to be at their window. At
other times he exhibited his organs in public and private gardens.
At some occasions he showed virilia sua to his female patients in
his office. The doctor was tried, found guilty and sent away to the
penitentiary for three months.
The following case, observed by the author, is remarkable on
account of the prominence of the patient. One of the most prominent
gynaecologists of a certain city, occupying a chair at the medical
school, after the examination of a young married woman, resolvit
bracas et mentulam protrahens posuit in manibus mulieris.
This sudden exhibition took the young lady so by surprise that she was
completely stunned and could not utter a word. When she came to the
realization what had happened, she gave one scream and left the room,
leaving the professor still standing virilibus expositis in manibus
suis.
Before going home, the young lady immediately called upon the author,
who had sent her to the professor, and told him what had happened.
She was advised not to tell anybody, not even her husband, about
the disagreeable affair until the author had communicated with the
professor. When the latter was called up by telephone, he immediately
hastened to the author’s office and cried and begged the author to
exert his influence with the young lady not to expose him and ruin
his entire career. He excused himself, that being abstinent, the
examination of the beautiful young woman excited him so that he did
not know what he was doing.
The young modest woman who belonged to a very prominent family was
shown that if the affair became public it would raise a public scandal
and would expose her to the jokes and witticisms of the profanum
vulgus, and that her husband in his rage may commit some rash act
which would bring him in collision with the criminal courts. She then
consented to keep the affair secret and forget it.
Another case known to the author is that of a man of forty with an
hereditary taint, who was always nervous since his childhood. He
suffered from enuresis nocturna until after puberty. He began to
practise stuprum manu when he was only eleven years of age. At present
he shows all the signs and symptoms of hystero-neurasthenia. The
pupillary reaction is retarded, there is a fibrillary tremor of his
tongue, and when standing with closed eyes there is a considerable
tottering. The knee-reflex on the left side is more pronounced than
on the right. Very often there is a profuse outbreak of perspiration
on the left side of the entire body, while the right side remains
perfectly dry. At certain periods the patient suffers also from
attacks of anxiety and fear.
One evening, while in a public park, the patient let his trousers fall
down, lifted his shirt and exposed his flaccid genitals to several
women and girls. The women seem to have considered the affair a big
joke and nothing happened to him. But another time se stupravit manu
in the presence of two girls in the hall of a fashionable apartment.
The frightened girls began to scream, the patient was apprehended and
arrested. Through the influence of political friends, the case was
quashed.
Another case known to the author is that of a married man of a highly
tainted family. His father was potator, his mother hysteric, one
sister is epileptic and the other committed suicide. The patient’s
two children seem to be healthy. The patient often suffers from
congestions to his head, headaches and exophthalmus. The knee-reflexes
are greatly exaggerated.
On repeated occasions, the patient exposed virilia in parks and other
public places before women and girls, calling their attention by
whistling. At one occasion he showed virilia to women on the street
through the window of his room. At another occasion se stupravit manu
under the electric arc-light at night where the women passing on the
street could not help seeing him.
Another patient, observed by the author, forty-two years of age,
married, father of two children, modest and respectable, was arrested
one evening for exhibiting virilia sua before girls passing the
streets. He used to hang around girls’ schools, following the girls
after they used to leave school and attracting their attention ad
virilia exposita. At one occasion he ran about in a public park at
dusk virilibus expositis. Once when he saw a young woman standing at
the window of the opposite house, he immediately exposuit virilia et
cœpit se stuprare, standing before his own window so that the young
lady was forced to notice him.
The anomaly of exhibition is found almost exclusively in men. It is
exceedingly rare in women. The girl’s education at home and in school
has developed in the woman the sentiment of modesty and chastity in a
degree out of all proportion with the same sentiment in men. The woman
must be entirely insane before she will expose herself for the sake of
lubricity.
For this reason the few cases of genital exhibitionism in women, thus
far recorded, were all cases of general paralysis. They are found in
asylums for the insane where the patient, during a maniacal excitement,
tollens interulam medico præterienti concubitum proponit. Still in
some women the hyperexcitation of the sexual desire may be of such an
intensity that it will lead to exhibitionism in an otherwise normal
individual, as the following case of Ungewitter shows:
The patient, a servant, twenty years of age, quæ præter amatum suum
concumbebat filio matronæ sedecim annos nato sæpissime exponebat
muliebria in the presence of boys, eight to ten years of age. In the
barn or on porches or even in the open field, tollebat vestes et nudam
vulvam pueris monstrabat convertens animos dicendo; “Contemplamini
hunc locum! Ea est vulva mea. Jam crines ibi habeo; venite et tangite
eam!” She never touched the boys nor did she have any carnal relations
with them.
The defendant servant was found guilty of attempted offence against
morality and was sentenced to two months’ penitentiary.
_Homosexuality._—The world is governed by certain fixed laws. This must
be admitted even by the mechanistic theory of life. In sexual matters
the law of sexual-homologous development is almost as binding as the
law of gravitation. The cerebral centre of voluptas corresponds with
the sexual glands in the inverse sense. The normal inclination of the
individual is directed toward the bearer of the glands of the opposite
sex. The male is attracted by the female and vice versa.
Every individual being has to pass through all the grades of the
evolution of animal life. The remote ancestors of the human race were
bisexual. The same bisexuality exists in the embryo, represented by the
Wolffian and Müllarian ducts or the bisexual “Anlage.” Later in the
development, there arises, so to say, a struggle between the male and
female elements. When one element has been conquered a monosexual being
evolves whose mental inclinations correspond with the sexual glands.
The basis for the yearnings and longings of one sex for the other
would thus be the desire for perfection, for the completion of those
sides of our being which are present in the bisexual “Anlage” or the
“ground-work” of sex, but failed in development, and for this reason
can not be brought to a realization of ourselves. It is, as if in the
accord of our being some tones are kept in suspension and are only
allowed to chime in with the tones of the other half. Then, and then
only, there is a perfect harmony.
Sometimes, however, functional retrogression or atavistic recurrence
into the earlier hermaphroditic forms of the animal kingdom may take
place, or traces of the conquered sexuality, at least so far as the
mental characteristics are concerned, may remain; and it is these that
provoke the manifestations of inverted sexuality. Individuals, thus
affected, have a sexually abnormal instinct which is out of harmony
with the physical sex and its rôle in the function of procreation. The
man thus organized feels utter indifference to women, and conversely
the woman to men, but they have a strong preference and pronounced
sexual inclination toward their own sex. The man easily understands why
a woman should love a man but he can not understand how a man could
love a woman. The same is the case with the homosexual woman. She is at
a loss to understand how a woman could love a man.
The anomaly of homosexuality is as old as history and was, in fact,
oftener found among the ancients than it is nowadays. Plato, in
his Banquet, tries to explain the enigmatical manifestation of
homosexuality in men in the following poetical way: There is an
Aphrodite without an Eros, but there are two goddesses of that name.
The older Aphrodite, being the daughter of Uranos, and thus called
Urania, came into being without a mother. The younger Aphrodite is the
daughter of Zeus and Artemis and is called Pandemonia. The Eros of the
former is Eros Uranos, of the latter is Eros Pandemos. Eros Uranos did
not choose a female, but a male, as his companion. Hence, whoever is
inspired with the love of this deity turns to the male sex.
This Platonic explanation takes no notice of the existence of Lesbian
love. His explanation of Lesbianism would have been that Aphrodite
Urania did not choose a male but a female as her companion, and the
woman inspired with the love of this deity turns to the female sex or
Lesbian love. Lesbianism was as much in vogue in Greece in the days of
Plato as paederastia.[BC]
The homosexual feeling is an abnormal, congenital manifestation of
the cerebral part of the vita sexualis. The essential feature of this
manifestation is the want of sexual sensibility for the opposite sex,
even to the extent of being inspired with horror by it. This disease
must not be confounded with vice. Perversity is not perversion.
Sexual acts with the same sex are no proof of the presence of a real
perversion. Homosexuality is prevalent in boarding-schools and colleges
of both sexes, yet very few or none of these boys or girls are real
inverts. Perverse acts occur when obstacles are in the way of natural
sexual satisfaction. When the obstacles are removed the individuals
return to normal sexual functions.
The perversity of homosexual acts is very common. Even among
domesticated animals it is easy to find evidences of homosexual
attraction in the absence of the other sex.
Male dogs, rams and bulls, when isolated, become restless and attempt
conjugium together. Male monkeys when long kept away from their females
will try conjugium.
Female monkeys behave in a sexual way to each other.
Deville found that female dogs, when isolated, become restless, and
when in the state of sexual excitement attempt conjugium. The presence
of the opposite sex restores at once normal conditions.
In cows the sexual desire is often directed to the same sex.
Buffon observed that the females of doves or other birds when set
together would soon begin to have conjugium among themselves.
Bailly-Maitre, a breeder of great knowledge, wrote to Girard that
the Belgian carrier-pigeons are strange creatures in their manners.
Conjugium between males and still more frequently between females often
occurs at an early age, up to the second year. Among hens and ducks it
has been occasionally observed by the author that the female assumed
male sexual tendencies.
Following the example of their animals, savages are extensively
addicted to homosexuality.
Homosexuality has been found among almost all the American Indian
tribes. In some of these tribes the homosexual practices are a part of
their religious ceremonies. For this purpose, a strong man is chosen
who jugiter manibus stupratur for hours every day and is also forced to
ride horseback in his free time, until in the course of time virilia
are degenerated, and he becomes entirely effeminate. He is then dressed
in female clothes and made to do feminine work among the women of the
village. This androgynos is then used as homosexual pathicus at the
annual religious ceremonies.
In Bali homosexuality is common among men and women. The method of
gratification adopted among the latter is either digital or lingual, or
else by bringing the parts together (tribadism proper).
In Zanzibar the negro women, in addition to tribadism and cunnilingus,
sometimes use an ebony or ivory phallus to which not seldom a kind of
glans is appended. Some have a longitudinal perforation through which
warm water can be injected.
In New Zealand native women were found who practised Lesbianism. Male
homosexuality is the custom of the country.
A like state of things was found among the Brazilian tribes.
Eram found homosexuality widely spread among the male population in the
Orient. Tribadism is also most common among the young girls there.
Historically considered, homosexuality was frequently practised among
the ancients. In Greece, during the period of its highest ethical as
well as intellectual vigor, the homosexual tendencies were not only
condoned, but even fostered as a virtue, especially among the higher
classes of society.
Most of the disciples of the great Greek philosophers were given
to homosexual practices. Homosexuality was also very common among
the women of Greece. It was widely spread on the island of Lesbos,
where the celebrated poetess Sappho is said to have first taught and
glorified the practice of tribadism. “Aiunt turpitudinem quae per os
agit fellationis opinor vel irrumationis, primum a Lesbiis autoribus
fuisse profectam,” says Erasmus. From the prevalence upon the island
of Lesbos, homosexuality among women is called Lesbianism, while
sentimental homosexuality is called Sapphism.
The philosophy of Sappho taught that each sex should restrict itself
to its own sex, and perish in the sterile embrace. Omitting the
homosexual practice which the sensual Greek poetess could not dispense
with, Tolstoy also advocates the extinction of the human race through
abstinence in the “Kreutzer-Sonate.” Like Tolstoy, the poetess called
normal love a weakness and a shame. Her teachings were followed
throughout Greece and her colonies, especially by the courtesans,
meretrices and dancers at the festivals.
Lucian describes a tribade woman, Megilla, who, living with her friend
Demonassa ut maritus maritaque invitat Leænam secum pernoctare. It is
her wish not to be designated as a female. She calls Demonassa her wife.
“Μή με καταθήλυνε ἔφη. Μέγιλλος γὰρ ἐγὼ λέγομαι καὶ γεγήμακα πρόπαλαι
ταύτην τὴν Δημώνασσαν καὶ ἔστιν ἐμὴ γυνὴ.”
Later on homosexuality was taken up in Rome. Especially during the
empire, the homosexual vice flourished in Rome and in its colonies.
Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba,
Titus, Domitian, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Commodus, and Heliogabalus
all practised homosexuality. Philo Judeus (Opera II, p. 465) says:
“Some of the men had such esteem for youthful beauty that they desired
complete transformation into females and effected it by castration and
amputation of the penis and by dressing themselves in purple garments.”
According to Ploss those Roman women, who with the abnormally long
clitoris could practise concarnatio among themselves, were called
tribades. The fellatores and cunnilingui of both sexes were so numerous
in Rome that Juvenal could exclaim: “Oh, noble descendants of the
goddess Venus, soon you will not find enough chaste lips to address to
her your prayers.”
Among the Hebrews homosexuality must have been a very rare occurrence.
Possibly because such practices were punished by death. “Qui dormierit
cum masculo coitu femineo, uterque operatus est nefas morte moriantur”
(Levit. XX, 13). The Bible never mentions these practices to have
existed among the Jews.[BD] Lesbianism seems to have been entirely
unknown. The Mosaic law is silent about this anomaly. If tribadism were
known at that period it is difficult to assume that the law would not
have forbidden it, as it forbids bestiality among women (Levit. XX, 15,
16). Still silence of the law is no proof of the non-existence of the
crime, for paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code punishes paederastia
and bestiality but not tribadism, in a country where there are as many
tribade women as paederastic men.
In the Middle Ages paederastia and tribadism were practiced chiefly in
France. Paris, says Sanval, was full of Lesbian women. The sister of
Louis XV., a prioress, practised tribadism with the young nuns of her
convent.
In our days homosexual practices can be found in every part of the
world, and are forbidden by law, as far as men are concerned, in every
civilized country. Concerning women the criminal code is, as a rule,
silent in most countries. The reason for this defect in the criminal
laws may be ascribed to the ignorance of the law-making power of the
existence of this anomaly. The layman generally does not even surmise
its existence. A woman is by nature not aggressive, and the inverted
complexus venereus among women is not so easily detected as in men.
Women’s attachments are considered mere friendships by outsiders. We
are accustomed to much greater familiarity and intimacy among women
than among men. We are, therefore, less apt to suspect the existence of
abnormal passions among women. On the contrary, such friendships are
often fostered by parents and guardians, such attachments are praised
and commended. They are not in the least degree suspected of being of a
homosexual origin. If two men were to lock themselves into a bathroom
for a certain length of time, it would appear to us very queer indeed,
but we are accustomed to look upon the same action in women as a matter
of course.
For this reason homosexuality among women is very seldom detected.
Even physicians have very rarely opportunity to learn anything about
this anomaly. Entirely normal women are most reticent regarding the
manifestations of their sexual life. It is hence far more difficult
to gain the confidence of sexually perverse women. Then again, sexual
inversion does not render the woman impotent for copulation, so that
she needed a physician’s advice which some invert male may seek.
There are thus many reasons for the existing ignorance about
homosexuality in women. No outsider suspects the hidden meaning of
an advertisement worded, e. g., “Wanted by a lady, a lady friend and
companion.” Yet ninety per cent of such advertisements are inserted in
the columns of the newspapers by homosexual women.
_Homosexual perversity._—Homosexual practices have various reasons.
From the outset we have to differentiate between perversity and
perversion. It is of great importance to have a clear conception of
what constitutes an anomaly. What is abnormal, says Ellis, does not, of
necessity, mean pathological. Genius and criminality are anomalies, but
they are not, for that matter, diseases. Virchow says that an anomaly
may constitute a disposition to a disease, but it is not always the
disease itself. The study of anomalies, i. e., pathology, is not the
same as the study of diseases, nosology.
In the study of homosexuality we must hence distinguish between
perversity and perversion. In perversity the anomaly is not congenital.
It develops by degrees at a certain age, sometimes after normal
intercourse. It is, furthermore, not permanent or absolute. Affection
may return to normal channels at any time. Lastly, perversity is not
attended by anything that is irresistible and impulsive, as is the case
in perversion.
Homosexual feeling, therefore, means the feeling for the same sex,
not the sexual acts with it. The mere homosexual act does not
constitute a perversion. It may be called a perverted instinct, for
it is directed outside of the limits within which it is capable
of serving its natural purpose; but so is masturbation, which is
never considered a perversion. An untainted boy or girl, seduced at
the beginning of puberty by persons of the same sex to homosexual
practices, may continue them later on for want of opportunity for
normal intercourse with the opposite sex. But neither the boy nor the
girl will become sexually inverted, although it cannot be denied that
there are exceptions to the rule. It may happen that a boy chooses
a girlish-looking boy and seduces him to homosexual practices, or
that a girl selects a mannish-looking female for her friend and
suffers herself ut constupretur ab ea. This practice may become
deeply rooted in them, and the result may be the incapability of
finding gratification in concarnatione. Yet such cases are exceptions.
Generally, as soon as the extrinsic influences cease, the seduced
individuals return to normal sexual functions.
_Necessity._—In the majority of cases men and women resort to the
homosexual mode of gratification for “faute de mieux.” For that reason
homosexuality flourishes chiefly in places where great numbers of
males or females are segregated. Among the peasants and shepherds in
Switzerland, who live for months segregated in the mountains with no
opportunity for natural sex activity, homosexuality is very common.
For the same reason homosexual relationships are very prevalent in
boarding-schools, academies and in convents for young girls. In the
great majority of cases the tender and demonstrative attachments
between two boys or between two girls are of a sensual nature, although
they seldom arouse the suspicion of educators or parents.
The boys, as a rule, practise stuprum mutuum, but not seldom they
are also given to “insertio fascini in rectum,” or the real act of
paederastia. The stronger boy generally plays the active part, the
younger boy is the pathicus; or they often change rôles during the
same sitting. Among girls the rule is that the girl of weak sexual
instinct is, in these attachments, satisfied with kissing and hugging
her female friend, and induces in this way orgasm and even ejaculation.
Those girls of a strong sexual impulse are given to stuprum mutuum and
cunnilingus, and when the clitoris allows it, resort ad imitationem
commixtionis.
Next to boarding-schools and convents, prisons and factories are
hot-beds for the practice of paederastia, respectively lesbianism. The
young men, respectively the young women, form relationships and satisfy
their sexual desires as soon as opportunity offers. Their passions are
exalted and they experience all the sufferings of jealousy as in normal
love.
All such attachments are dissolved as soon as opportunity for the
exercise of normal sexual activity is offered, as the following case of
the author shows:
A man thirty years old, healthy, strong, sensual, began se stuprare
early in life, when only twelve years old. At the age of fifteen he
was seduced by a friend ad stuprum mutuum manu. At this occasion he
had his first ejaculation. Since this time he has practised with his
school friends not only stuprum mutuum manu but also paedicatio. At
the age of nineteen he began to associate with puellae publicae and
gave at once up all unnatural practices.
_Fear._—Apart from necessity, one of the main causes for perverted
homosexual practices among normal boys is the fear of venereal
infection. In girls is added to the fear of infection the dread of
pregnancy. The majority of such girls eschew men because they fear the
shame and the consequences of an accidental pregnancy. An unmarried
girl in possession of all her normal sexual desires is, nevertheless,
afraid to indulge in normal love affairs as male bachelors do. Hence
she looks for a friend of her own sex where no consequences are to be
feared.
How the fear of infection by the impure female may be the cause of the
transfer of his affections to individuals of the same sex shows the
following case:
A young man of twenty-two years of age, strong and healthy, qui
magnum mulierum numerum habebat at his disposal and never showed any
homosexual tendencies, one day contracted a very bad infection of
gonorrhoea, which after a few days became complicated by orchitis and
epididymitis and which took eighteen months to be cured. Since then
he is afraid to go near a woman. It did not take very long before he
made the acquaintance of a homosexual pathicus with whom he is now
living in a bachelor apartment. He assured the author that, he will
never touch a woman again, except he should get married to a healthy,
respectable girl.
Female homosexuality is not seldom caused by the fact that the young
girl does not need to fear the opposition of her guardians when
choosing a female friend. The companionship of a female friend does not
arouse the suspicion of the natural guardians, and the girl is watched
less by them. They would never allow their ward to sleep in one room
with a man alone, but they suspect nothing if she sleeps in the same
bed with a female friend. Thus indulgence with female friends do not
offer so many obstacles and entail no consequences. Many a girl is
hence induced to transfer her attentions to friends of her own sex.
_Homosexuality out of lust._—Another cause for homosexual practices
among men and women is lust and lechery. There are individuals whose
only aim in life is the satisfaction of their sexual desires. All their
activities aim at this end. They sacrifice everything to this instinct.
After they have tasted all the varieties congressus normalis, sexual
activity with the other sex becomes stale, and satiety ensues. They
then feel the need for stronger excitements and stimulations of the
diseased nerves and resort to paederastia and lesbianism. The following
case will best illustrate this point:
A man thirty years of age, healthy and strong, began se stuprare
manu when fifteen years of age but soon gave up the practice on
account of the following incident: The beautiful servant girl in the
family one evening surprised him in his practices. “Ita concitata
est aspectu actionis venereæ, ut se jaceret ad grabatum et incitavit
puerum, ut coitum cum ea efficeret. Qua ex die puerum noctu in lectum
secum quotidie deduxit, et ambo indulserunt excessibus sexualibus
exquisitimis, e. g., fellatio, cunnilingus, mamillae suctus, coitus
per anum, etc.” After a number of years the girl left the house,
and he began to associate with venal women and continued the same
practices with the learned priestesses of Venus. By the time he was
thirty years old he had tasted all the salacious practices these women
are able to teach. Thereupon he turned to homosexuality in the houses
for that purpose. There he plays, as a rule, the active part.
The overstimulated women who indulge in homosexuality are chiefly found
among the venal class. It is known that lesbianism is very prevalent
among the meretrices of Paris. In the relation of the prostitute with
men, there is no scope for the exercise of feminine affections and
devotions. Hence they resort for that to their female friends. This
reason, given by Chevalier, for the prevalence of homosexuality among
fornicatrices may hold good in some instances, but in the majority
of cases the choice of a female friend for the indulgence of sexual
pleasures is actuated by lust and entirely devoid of sentiment.
Overstimulation has simply destroyed natural gratification, and
artificial pleasures are sought. The following case of Rosse is the
best proof of this assertion:
In Rosse’s case a young, unmarried woman conceptavit a sorore
nupta, quæ commisit simulacrum concarnationis cum ea statim post
congressionem cum marito.
Overstimulation and lust are also the causes of the homosexual love
affairs observed among women of high society. Friendships between
prominent ladies and obscure chorus or dancing girls, or between the
prominent female painter and her female model are always suspicious.
_Homosexuality as a profession._—The lecherous men and the exclusive
ladies often resort to fornices to gratify their diseased desires.
In this way they create a certain demand for paederasts and lesbians
that has to be supplied. The last part of the army of homosexual
individuals is hence recruited from those who practise homosexuality
as a profession and for lucre. There is not a large city of any
importance that does not harbor such houses filled with males, kept
there to satisfy the demand of homosexual men. One-fourth of all the
fornicatrices of Paris serve as tribadists for the rich women who
patronize fornices.
A man, thirty-two years of age, was treated by the author for
gonorrhoea. One day, when wishing to examine the prostate, the author
noticed the gaping nature of the anus. The diameter of the opening
was about half an inch. Asked about the cause of this opening, the
patient confessed that he had just come from a hotel where he served
as a pathicus for a wealthy patron and that he makes his living by
going from one hotel to another and offering himself as pathicus to
homosexual men, who are loathe to visit fornices, populated by males
for these purposes.
Rosse relates the case of a meretrix who, from curiosity, visited
several women who make a specialty of the vice. By way of experiment,
she submitted herself to the lingual and oral manoeuvres of the
performance and had such a violent hystero-cataleptic attack that she
was a long time in recovering from the same.
Fiaux, in his report to the municipal council of Paris in 1887, made
special mention of such a house in the rue de Chabanais, where society
women and rich demi-mondaines frequented for the sole purpose of
satisfying libidinem cum puellis.
Chevalier says that the kind of meretrices who exploit women may be met
with in all streets and boulevards of Paris, in the theatres and at
balls, at the races and exhibitions of every kind. The little girls,
between the ages of ten and fifteen, who may be seen selling flowers in
the restaurants and cafés of Paris, are also, to a large extent, in the
service of lesbianism.
All these males and females who offer their bodies to homosexual
inverts for hire, are seldom inverts themselves. With them it is only a
vice or a perversity.
_Homosexual perversion._—The perversion of homosexuality has, as a
rule, the force of a congenital phenomenon and is characterized by
precocity. In normal individuals the sexual instinct, except induced
by seduction, does not manifest itself before puberty. The sexual life
of the individuals afflicted with homosexual perversion, on the other
hand, appears abnormally early in life. The impulse appears at the
tender age of five to eight years, and ab initio in a perverted form,
without having been brought about from the outside by bad examples or
other influences.
The child shows its anomaly in its tastes, sentiments, and occupations.
The boy avoids the company of other boys. He shuns their games and
plays. He is found playing with dolls, ribbons, miniature housekeeping,
etc., in company with girls. He is more particular about his dress,
in fact, he loves to be dressed like a girl as long as possible. He
likes to occupy himself with girls’ work, such as knitting, sewing or
crochet-work. The homosexual girl is found in the haunts of boys and
competes with them in their games. She neglects her dress and assumes
and affects boyish manners. She is in pursuit of boys' sports. She
plays with horses, balls and arms. She gives manifestations of courage
and bravado, is noisy and loves vagabondage.
Toward puberty the boy finds his sexual inclinations and impulses
directed toward men, and the girl hers toward women. The boy feels
himself a girl and attracted to men. He forms passionate attachments to
boys and idealizes his friends. When he has found a manly friend, he
is captivated by his strength and prowess, by his love of adventure,
by his courage and by his manly grace and beauty. The passion finds
expression in stupro mutuo. The girl, on the other hand, forms
passionate friendships with girls, as a rule, older than herself. She
idealizes and deifies the beloved friend, and praises her beauty, grace
and kindness. Her thoughts are full of the beloved one. She sends her
invitations to come and call on her, she writes her poetry, offers
her flowers and presents and is capable of every sacrifice for her
friend’s sake. She delights in the bodily contact with the beloved
friend. This passion finds expression in kissing, close embraces and
in sleeping together in one bed. She experiences then the powerful
feeling of lustful pleasure, which may be so intense that it suggests
magnetic currents through her body. Alteri super alteram jacenti
tactus corporeus delectationis tremorem inducit. The orgasm is induced
quibusdam contrectationibus.
The homosexual pervert suffers from disloyalty and is tortured by
jealousy. Tears, despair and anger are as common as in normal love if
the friend forms any other friendship, no matter whether with males
or females. If the pervert’s love be unrequited, he or she suffers the
greatest pangs. As a rule, the inverted individuals are fastidious in
their choice of friends. Their inclinations favor a certain type of men
or women respectively. Once the choice is made they act like passionate
lovers. The pervert’s modesty finds expression towards individuals of
the same sex. The boy is embarrassed in company of young men and likes
to show off in their presence, while the most attractive young women
leave him cold and indifferent. Their presence is simply ignored by
him. The perverted girl becomes shy and confused in the presence of an
attractive individual of her own sex, but shows nothing of shyness and
the engaging air of weakness and dependence which are the unconscious
invitations to them in the presence of men. She feels a pronounced
indifference to men.
The erotic dreams of the male pervert turn around males. The autoerotic
fantasies are all of men and virilia, while normal individuals in their
imagery never think of their lovers' pudibilia. The lustful dreams of
the perverted girl contain only visions of females, with corresponding
situations. These dreams where only women appear on the scene cause her
great pleasure and sometimes even pollutions. In her day-dreams, her
fancy pictures muliebria of her own sex.
The homosexual man finds delight in contrectando virilia alterius that
is simply incomprehensible to the normal individual. The value he or
she lays in contrectando et conspiciendo virilia aut muliebria shows at
once the diseased condition. The inverted boy and girl are constantly
on the alert for the opportunity to see nude men, respectively nude
women. They frequent bathing establishments. They find pleasure in
looking at statutes of nude males, respectively females, and are
frequent visitors of museums. The sight of nude men, respectively
women, awakens in them lustful feelings, while in the presence of nude
women the perverted man remains indifferent, and the same is the case
with the invert woman in the presence of nude men.
The perverted man has a profound longing for female clothes. He takes
the greatest pleasure in the sight of female attire. He tries to dress
as a woman at every opportunity. He likes to frequent masquerade balls
where he can dress up as a woman and dance with women. In short, the
patient has all the feelings and longings of a woman. The inverted
woman, on the other hand, likes to imitate male fashions in general
attire and in dressing her hair. It gives her the greatest satisfaction
if she is able to dress herself entirely in men’s attire and disguise
her identity. She further prefers the occupations of men and loves at
every occasion to play a man’s rôle. When at a ball she likes to dance
with women, and when in a hotel, she loves to discuss politics with
men. In short, she feels herself a man.
The inverted creatures seek, find, recognize and love one another, and
often live together ut maritus maritaque. An invert woman may sometimes
enter matrimony with a man, but this is done either in ignorance of her
anomaly or to secure support. Otherwise a man has no sexual attraction
for her. She is totally impotent of experiencing libido in congressu
cum viro, although the genital glands are, as a rule, normal and their
functions regular.
In some inverts normal marriage is utterly impossible, the very thought
of normal coition arouses disgust and horror. If the invert woman is
forced to normal concarnatio (the invert male cannot even be forced, he
has no erection in the presence of a woman), the feeling is the same
as if she were compelled to take disgusting food or drink. For days
afterwards she is nervous and miserable, while concubitus with her own
sex affords her pleasure and leaves behind a feeling of comfort. The
perverts are, therefore, thoroughly happy in their perverted feeling.
Modus operandi among male inverts is, in the first place, stuprum
mutuum. The other frequent method is thigh friction, “membrum fricando
inter femora cynedis qui jacet in tergo, mulieris instar.” Another
quite frequent mode is insertio fascini in os. In the majority of cases
paederastia consists in initus per anum. Juvenal when speaking of the
“condylomes in cynedes” says: “Sed podice laevi caeduntur tumidae,
medico ridente, mariscae.” “Nates sunt semper repulsae cum manibus.”
Modus operandi among homosexual female inverts is, apart from stuprum
mutuum, threefold. In the majority of cases it consists of tribadism
(from the Greek word τρίβειν, to rub), namely in a simple contact and
“fricatio genitalium unius versus genitalia alterius,” or as in Moll’s
case, “ut una premeret femur alterius.” The second mode is cunnilingus
and fellatricia, which consists in “lambere lingua genitalia alterius”
and in “fellare clitoridem et labia minora alterius.” The third mode is
clitorism, which is only possible when the clitoris is abnormally long,
so, as Martial says,
“Inter se geminos audent committere cunnos
“Mentiturque virum, prodigiosa Venus.”
In such cases commixtio consists in the “introductio auctae clitoridis
in vaginam alterius.” Such cases with enlarged clitoris are not so very
rare even in normal women.
A few years ago the author performed a total vaginal extirpation on a
sexually normal woman whose clitoris in non-erect state measured three
and a half centimeters.
A woman masturbator is known to the author whose clitoris, when erect,
measures three centimeters.
Kiernan reports a case in which a sexual invert possessed a clitoris
which, when erect, measured six and a half centimeters, or two and a
half inches.
_Psychical Hermaphrodism._—The homosexual perversion shows four
degrees. In the first degree traces of heterosexual feeling are yet to
be found, but the homosexual instinct predominates. The characteristic
of the so-called psychical hermaphrodism is the pronounced sexual
inclination toward the same sex besides the periodically present desire
for the opposite sex. The homosexual feeling is of great intensity and
permanent, while the intensity of the heterosexual inclination is of a
much lesser degree, and the feeling is only present at certain times.
A young man, thirty-two years of age, was seduced by a boy of fourteen
to stuprum mutuum when he was only eight years old. In his lascivious
dreams he sees only men. When eighteen years old he fell in love with
a beautiful young girl. Initus with her, although successful, did not
afford him the libido he had expected and he stopped having carnal
relations with her. On the other hand, the pleasure experienced in his
relations with men is of great intensity.
The other case, known to the author, is that of a man of thirty. He
is married and has two healthy children. In commixtione conjugæ he
has to call up the mental images of men, otherwise complete libido is
missing. As a small boy, he loved contrectare parvas puellas. When
thirteen years of age he began spontaneously to practise stuprum
manu. At fourteen he was seduced by an urning ad stuprum manu and to
paederastic practices. The embracing and kissing of homosexual men
induces ejaculation and orgasm. His erotic dreams are partly filled
with male, partly with female images.
Another case is that of a young man of twenty-five, who since early
youth had an inclination for boys and liked to sleep with them and
fondle them. At puberty he began to practise paederastia with boys
of his age. His erotic dreams turn exclusively around males. Still
he is also fond of girls. Although he never had any sexual relations
with women, yet when dancing with them or at other occasions, when he
happens to come in bodily contact with them, he frequently has sudden
emissions.
Among female psychical hermaphrodites are very often found married
women and mothers of children. But while in their normal sex-activity
they are almost impotent of experiencing libido, the homosexual
practice is accompanied with great intensity of libido.
In one of Krafft-Ebing’s cases the patient, twenty-nine years of
age, came of a nervous family. When eighteen years of age, she had
relations with a young man. After separation from her lover she se
stuprabat manu for some time. She then donned male attire and became
a tutor in a refined family. Her employer’s wife fell in love with
her,[BE] and she left her position. Some time later she fell ill and
was sent to a hospital. While there she fell passionately in love with
female nurses and patients.
In another case of Krafft-Ebing’s the patient, twenty-six years of
age, is married and has two children. She always inclined more to
her own sex. Complexus venereus with her husband disgusts her. Since
the birth of her second child she gave up this intercourse entirely.
When a pupil in the seminary she was in love with other girls. At
times, however, she was also drawn toward men. But the latter feeling
was only of a transient character. Her desire is to fondle, kiss and
embrace the beloved girl and imitari coitum cum ea.
In Moll’s case the patient is thirty-six years of age. As a child,
she loved to play with boys and girls indiscriminately. She also liked
to play with dolls. She was wholly innocent and had no passionate
friendships, either with boys or girls.
She began to menstruate when thirteen and a half years old. At that
time she began to experience the first sexual excitements. She had
some vague sensations in muliebribus. She never practised manu
stuprum. When sixteen and a half years of age, she was sold by a woman
in fornicem, where she was forced to stay several years, until she
finally succeeded in escaping.
While in this house she associated with another girl, slept with her
and practised mutual cunnilingus, which gave her great delight. Yet
she enjoyed concubitum with some men. She even allowed one man to
practise cunnilingus secum.
After she left the house she went to Berlin and soon succeeded in
finding a girl friend with whom she lived for two years and practised
active cunnilingus. Afterwards she secured another friend whom she
dearly loved because of her manly features.
The cunnilingus that men practised on her gave her satisfaction, but
she experienced the greater delight, “si femina eam lingua lambit.”
Initus no longer gave her satisfaction, nor was she ever satisfied in
dreams. The images in her dreams were sometimes female, at other times
male.
_Strict homosexuality._—In the second degree, only homosexuality is
found. The opposite sex causes frigidity and even horror. In this
degree the sexual desires and inclinations are ab origine only for
the same sex. But the inclinations to the same sex are limited to the
“vita sexualis,” while in character and mentality the patient remains
distinctly in conformity with the sexual glands. The histories of the
three following cases observed by the author will well illustrate this
degree of homosexuality:
A young man of thirty-five years began to feel a certain attraction
toward his own sex when only ten years old. At puberty this attraction
developed into the strong desire to have complexus venereus
cum amicis. At the same time there was a pronounced feeling of
indifference and, later on, that of actual repulsion towards women.
The only way to have concarnationem cum mulieribus at all was by Venus
aversa and thinking at the same time of sympathetic men.
The second case is that of a man of thirty-three years of age. As a
boy of seven, he was initiated by an older friend into the mysteries
of stuprum manu. At puberty he found a few friends with whom he often
practised paedicatio. His erotic dreams are of men only, At the mere
sight of a man’s virilia he has orgasm and ejaculation. To procure
himself this enjoyment he frequently visits the seashore and other
bathing places where he can see naked boys and men. Even the statues
of men in museums cause erections. Women have no attraction for him.
Even the most beautiful women do not excite the slightest degree of
desire. No erection in their company takes place, even if they allow
advances and the most intimate sensual titillations.
The following case of a man of thirty years of age shows how
maladjustments of environment may develop a permanent homosexual
perversion. At the age of ten the patient was abused by his tutor
for paederastic purposes. Since then he was not able to give it up.
Concarnatio with sympathetic men gives him the highest pleasure.
His aversion to women is now complete. Before his seduction he had
inclinations to little girls. Nowadays the sight of a naked woman
disgusts him. He loves to be caressed, fondled and adored by men. He
likes to be adored by and feel dependent upon some powerful man. He
hires strong men ad inserendum fascini in anum suum. For this reason
he is often found in the haunts of the worst gangs of the under-world
of the city. He never as yet played the active part, quamquam
erectiones et ejaculationes habet vehementes jacens in brachiis
amatorum mercenariorum.
Krafft-Ebing relates the histories of several female patients belonging
to this degree of homosexuality.
One of his patients was neurasthenic and always excited. From her
earliest youth she was subject to sexual excitement and spontaneously
stuprabat manu. She began to menstruate at the age of fourteen.
Menstruation caused her great pains and was accompanied by intense
sexual excitement. When she was eighteen years old she gave up manu
stuprum. She never experienced inclination toward the opposite sex and
married only to find a home. On the other hand, she was powerfully
attracted by girls and realized that this meant more than mere
friendship. The sight of a pretty girl causes her intense excitement.
She has at once the desire to embrace and kiss her. She dreams of
girls and revels in looking at them.
In another case of Krafft-Ebing’s the patient was twenty-two years
of age and considered a beauty. Though she was very sensual, yet she
refused all proposals of men and only once in her life allowed an
admirer to kiss her.
Until puberty she was sexually indifferent. When seventeen years of
age she happened to see one of her admirers in “actione coeundi,”
“more bestiarum,” cum muliere menstruata in horto. The sight of the
blood and the bestial lust of the man terrified her to such a degree
that she saw henceforth in men only the embodiment of coarseness and
vulgarity. When nineteen years of age she made the acquaintance of
another invert with whom she indulged in wild orgies until she fell
exhausted and unnerved. Cum altera jaceret in se cunnilingum faciens
she felt an unspeakable thrill going through her whole body. She
herself was only allowed to kiss the other’s “mammae.” These relations
with her friend lasted a year.
_Effemination and viraginity with psychical perversion only._—In
the third degree of homosexuality, the so-called effemination or
viraginity, where the entire mental existence is altered, the man of
this type resembles in his mental qualities a woman, “anima muliebris
in corpore virili inclusa.” But his body is still that of a perfect
man. The woman, on the other hand, resembles in her mental qualities
a man, while her bodily characteristics remain still feminine. The
following few cases may serve as an illustration:
The patient is a man of thirty years of age, tall, manly, with
broad shoulders and an abundance of hair of beard and mustache. As
a child, he was disposed to girls’ games. At the time of puberty,
he spontaneously acquired the vitium stupri manu, but always with
the accompaniment of the prurient imagery of males. As far as he can
remember he was always attached to men. He shunned women as he would a
lethal pest. He also abhors paedicatio and fellatio.
He is given to introspection and self-scrutiny. He is retiring in his
manners, is melancholic and often harbors suicidal inclinations. The
expression of shame is toward grown men, not toward girls or women.
Already when a very young boy he was ashamed to undress before a man.
He is very fond of perfumes, likes to powder and paint himself and to
pencil his eye-brows. He is very curious, vain, and loves to gossip.
The second case of the author is that of a physician, forty years
of age. In his earliest childhood he always played with dolls,
associated with girls only and avoided boys’ games. He was always
sickly as a child. He began stuprum manu when he was eleven years old,
seduced by one of his girl friends. At puberty he gave up stuprum
manu and began to love strong men. He had frequent pollutions with
male imagery which weakened him considerably. At the same time his
voluptas grew stronger. He then tried to associate with meretricious
venery but found himself completely impotent for erection or orgasm.
Even the manusturpation of the puella publica would fail to effect
an erection. His desire is to be in the arms of a strong man. In the
homosexual acts he always plays the passive rôle. He is effeminate
in his character, sensitive, easily moved to tears, and is greatly
embarrassed and silent in men’s company; while among women he feels
himself perfectly at home. He feels himself a perfect woman.
Viraginity with psychical perversion is as often found among women as
effemination among men. A good many cases of this kind of viraginity
have been reported in the medical literature.
One of these cases has been reported by Wise. The woman, fifty-six
years of age, was always peculiar in girlhood. She preferred masculine
sports and labors. She had an aversion to attentions from young
men and sought the society of her own sex. She consented to marry
when twenty years of age, and had one child. When she was deserted
by her husband, she began to follow her predilection for masculine
avocations. She donned male attire and became a trapper and hunter.
She considered herself a man in all that the name applies. After
many reverses she entered an almshouse and here she became attached
to a young woman. When the attachment became mutual, both left the
institution for the woods to commence life instar mariti maritæque.
They lived in this relation until the patient had a maniacal attack
that resulted in her committal to an asylum.
Another case of viraginity has been reported by Kiernan. The patient,
a girl of twenty-two years of age, when a child, liked boys' games and
was fond of male attire. She felt an attachment to some of her female
friends and satisfied voluptatem faciendo stupra mutua cum amicis. The
powerful impulse for sexual gratification came over her at regular
periods. She became intensely excited at the sight muliebrium. In her
lascivious dreams she saw only female pictures. She also suffered from
imperative conceptions.
In Westphal’s case, the patient, thirty-five years of age, was as a
child fond of boys’ games and was anxious to wear male attire. From
her eighth year she felt herself drawn to certain girls. She kissed
and hugged them and sometimes induced them permittere ut muliebria
contrectaret. Between her eighteenth and twenty-fifth year she had
frequent chances contrectandi muliebria. When such chances were
wanting, she satisfied herself stupro manu. Stuprabat sese especially
just before and after menstruation. When she attempted to control
herself she experienced a disagreeable odor and taste, arising from
muliebria sua.
The cases mentioned by Ellis also belong to this degree of female
homosexuality.
Catherine Tucker nupta erat mulieri et eam comprimebat ope fascini
factitii.
In Memphis, Alice Mitchells planned marriage with Freda Ward. When the
scheme was frustrated by Freda’s sister, Alice killed Freda by cutting
her throat.
In Chicago one of the Tiller sisters was an invert and lived stupre
attached to the other. One day the healthy sister was induced to
leave the invert and got married. The deserted sister then broke into
the apartment of the couple and shot the husband.
Another case is that of a trained nurse in Chicago who lived stupre
with a young girl of fourteen years. The latter left her four times,
but was always induced to return again. One day, the girl married,
whereupon the nurse shot the husband.
_Effemination and viraginity with bodily perversion._—In the fourth
degree of homosexuality not only are the mental characteristics
peculiarly feminine, respectively masculine, but the form of the body
approaches that of women, respectively of men. Only the genitals are
differentiated and are completely male or female; otherwise the patient
could be considered a woman, respectively a man. The following case of
a male patient will illustrate this degree of the anomaly.
A man of forty had always had homosexual impulses, as far back as he
can remember. His stuprosæ acts were attached by mental images of men.
The autoerotic fantasies are all of men. In his erotic dreams the
images of men accompany the orgasm. The patient feels himself entirely
like a woman and is attracted by physically well built men. Naked
men in life or in sculpture have a great attraction for him. Women
have never made the slightest impression on him. The mere sight of a
naked woman disgusts him. Initus with women always failed for lack of
erection, while homosexual acts afford complete satisfaction.
The patient has a disinclination to masculine pursuits. He does not
drink nor smoke. His habitus is entirely feminine. The body is slight
and non-muscular. The shoulders are narrow, the pelvis broad, the
hands and feet decidedly small. The form is rounded with an abundant
development of adipose tissue. He has few hairs on beard and mustache.
His complexion is fine. His voice is feminine, he speaks in falsetto
voice. His gait is rocking, womanly. He wears his hair quite long.
Since childhood he was actuated by the desire to put on female attire.
He always wore female undergarments, such as shirts, drawers, corsets,
etc. He generally wears bracelets on his arms. Whenever he can, he
dresses up like a woman and takes long walks upon the streets in such
costumes. Through his love for feminine attire he came in contact
with several transvestites who form a kind of club in this city. But
the latter who abhor homosexual practices soon discovered his motive
for the desire of feminine attire and avoided his company. In his
reveries, dreams and acts the patient always plays the pathicus. For
some reason or other, unknown to the author, the patient committed
suicide.
The female, suffering from the fourth degree of viraginity with bodily
perversion, approaches in the form of her body that of men. For this
reason she may easily masquerade as a man, associate with men, go
through the marriage ceremony with a homosexual woman of the class
suffering from the first three degrees of homosexuality, and she will
never be found out until she dies. A few cases of this class were
described by Krafft-Ebing.
The patient is a talented artist, twenty-five years of age. She has
masculine features, a deep voice, a manly gait and small mammae. Early
in her youth she preferred to play with boys. She never had a liking
for dolls or needlework and found no pleasure in domestic duties. At
fifteen years of age she began to menstruate. At the same time she
began to fall in love with young girls. Her love was only platonic in
nature. She is perfectly indifferent toward men. She is bashful only
toward persons of her own sex. In her lascivious dreams females are on
the scene where she herself plays the man’s rôle.
In another case of the same author, the patient, when a girl, had
inclination for boys’ sports only. Once, when she was allowed to
go to a theatrical performance, dressed as a boy, she was filled
with bliss. Until her marriage, at the age of twenty-one, she was
indifferent to men and women alike. She began to menstruate at the age
of eighteen. Her engagement was a matter of utter indifference to her.
Her connubial duties were first painful and, later on, loathsome to
her. She never experienced sensual pleasure, yet she became the mother
of six children. Her husband began at that time to practise onanism
(coitus interruptus). At the age of thirty-six she had an apoplectic
stroke. From this time on she felt that a great change has taken place
in her. She was mortified at being a woman. Her menstruation ceased.
Her feminine features assumed a masculine expression. Her breasts
disappeared. The pelvis became smaller and narrower, the bones more
massive, the skin rougher and harder. Her voice grew deeper and quite
masculine. Her feminine gait disappeared. She could not wear a veil.
Even the odor emanating from her person changed. She could no longer
act the part of a woman, and assumed more and more the character of
a man. She complained of having strange feelings in her abdomen. She
could no longer feel her muliebria. The vaginal orifice seemed to
close and the region of her genitals seemed to be enlarged. She had
the sensation of possessing a penis and a scrotum. At the same time
she began to show symptoms of the male voluptas.
In another case of Krafft-Ebing the patient, thirty-six years of age,
commenced se stuprare manu at the time of puberty, when thirteen years
old, and became homosexual when sixteen years of age. When twenty-six
years old she had the feeling of transformation. She imagined
muliebria sua turning into the male form and began to urinate like a
man. She does not feel ashamed to undress in the presence of a man,
but is shy to do it in the presence of a woman.
One of the best examples of the fourth degree of homosexuality is
that of Murray Hall, who died in New York City in 1901. Her real name
was Mary Anderson. Born in Scotland, she came to America, where she
lived as a man for thirty years. Her features and her behavior were
so entirely masculine in character that through all these years her
real sex was not even suspected by her closest friends. She became
distinguished as a Tammany politician and as a man about town who
knew how to make money. She associated with politicians, drank to
excess, swore a great deal, smoked and chewed tobacco. She was fond of
pretty girls and liked to associate with them. She entered twice into
matrimonial relations with other inverted women. Her first marriage
ended into separation; the second lasted twenty years and was happy
until the so-called “wife” died. The secret that “Mr.” Hall was really
a woman was not discovered till after her death.
A similar case is that of De Raylan, who was assistant to the Russian
consul in Chicago for twelve years. When he died in December, 1906, it
was found that the assistant was a woman. She smoked constantly and
was possessed of a discriminating taste for liquors with ability to
withstand the effects of drink better than most men. She was married
with the present “Mrs. De Raylan” for the last twelve years after
having been married once before and divorced.
_Transvestism._—The psycho-sexual anomaly of transvestism consists in
the desire for cross-dressing. The male patient has the abnormal desire
to dress like a woman, and the female patient longs to dress like a
man. It is in this respect akin to the anomaly of homosexuality. In the
degrees of effemination and viraginity, cross-dressing is a prominent
symptom. The homosexual pathicus has naturally the impulsive desire to
dress like a woman, and vice versa, the Lesbian woman longs to dress
like a man.
Still, cross-dressing is a pathological entity by itself. Homosexuality
is a morbid sex state of gross somatic experiences. It emanates from
the crude, powerful sensation of sex. The individual’s longings extend
to somatic sensations. These desires often rapidly reach an obsessional
state. Transvestism, on the other hand, is a sexo-esthetic inversion of
pure artistic imitation. Hence it occurs mostly in artists and in men
of letters, i. e., in persons endowed with a highly developed artistic
taste. Such persons are, as a rule, disgusted at the sight of the
organs of the sex to which the individual by anatomical configuration
belongs, while such sights offer to the homosexual individual
additional charm and piquancy.
Transvestism tends to accent the esthetic sensibility. The patient’s
experience of an increased comfort and well-being by the gratification
of the pronounced impulse of cross-dressing, is more akin to the
satisfaction of the artist, experienced by the successful expression
of a certain symbolism. Transvestism is more in harmony with the basal
esthetic demands. The patient harbors exalted ideas and is striving to
secure artistic enjoyment in the appreciation of the beautiful. The
attraction is in the mind and has nothing to do with the sex-organs.
Hence transvestism seldom celebrates orgies of lascivious and
voluptuous practices, as often found in homosexuality. If sensuous
caressing does take place, it is with a person of the other sex. For
the physical part of the sex activity is perfectly normal.
The following five cases of transvestism in men[BF] will illustrate
these points:
The first patient was very delicate all the time up to four years
of age. His father died when he was four years old, and the boy was
brought up by his mother. As the youngest living child (Nesthäkchen,
nestling) he was rather spoiled by her. He slept with his mother
until he was fourteen years old. The patient’s looks were rather
girlish. He always wore girl’s shoes, on account of his high instep.
Up to twelve years of age the patient played with girls, made dolls’
dresses, cooked in girls’ cooking stoves, etc. The patient’s sister
was a dress-maker and often used the patient as a model to drape or to
try on dresses. Otherwise the patient was never seduced by anyone to
irregular practices.
[Illustration: CUT XLIII.
A characteristic picture of patient No. 1; posing in imitation of the
celebrated painting “Psyche in Bath,” dressed in stockinet.]
At puberty a certain change took place in the psyche of the patient.
At this time, when about twelve years of age, he began to think how
nice it would be if he could be changed into a girl. He never had
any sexual desires for women. In stuprando manu he donned female
attire, but his fancies had always women as the objects. When the
patient is dressed like a man, no one would take him for a woman.
There are no strongly pronounced feminine traits. The sex-organs are
those of a normal man. The distribution of the hair on the body is
almost the same as in any other man. The head is rather bald. On
the arms there is no hair, but the hands are covered with hair. The
hands are rather small, narrow, soft, well-shaped and artistic. The
fingers are tapering. The legs and feet, when in dainty stockings,
are rather feminine. The patient wears woman’s shoes. Otherwise when
he is dressed like a man he looks like a normal man. But when the
patient is in stockinet as in his photograph, “Psyche in Bath,” no
one would take him for a man. When dressed like a woman, nobody would
recognize a man in him. He has taken walks on streets unnoticed while
so dressed. He never drew any attention, so perfectly does he look
like a woman.
The patient’s behavior is quiet but not effeminate. His voice is low,
of uncertain timbre. He tries to cultivate a female voice without
resorting to falsetto. His writing is uneven, sometimes bold; mostly,
however, it is a woman’s small handwriting. The gait is like that of
a woman, swaying in the hips. The patient suffers from periodical
hemorrhages of the nose, which he is inclined to consider as a kind of
vicarious menstruation.
As far as the emotions are concerned there is a marked feminine
sensibility. Tears come easily when watching emotional scenes. He
smiles almost constantly when in conversation, but he rarely laughs
outright. He is very sensitive to pain, but stoic enough not to
complain. He blushes on the slightest pretext. He is possessed
of feminine adaptability. He likes needlework and loves to do
crochetting. He likes female amusements, such as “Kaffeeklatsch.” He
is a freethinker in his creed.
The patient possesses normal love and admiration for the other sex. He
is attracted by women, although his sexual feelings are very little
pronounced. He takes the greatest pleasure in contemplating pictures
of the female form. His day-dreams and fancies are only of women.
He has no homosexual inclinations, but rather a profound repugnance
against homosexual relationship. He never longed for a male instead
of a female lover. Still he seems to want a man before whom he could
expose the charms of his own person and who would kiss and caress him.
His sexual desires are not developed. He never was in love with any
women or men. His wife proposed to him. He may have remained otherwise
single. He has three children, all perfectly healthy.
The peculiar anomaly the patient is suffering from is the desire to be
a complete woman. From his childhood he had the wish to be a girl. His
desire now is to live as a woman absolutely. He never had any dream
where he saw himself as a woman; in fact, he never had any erotic
dreams. He longs for the female form. He often wished to be castrated
to be more like a woman.
The patient is attracted by beautiful women, but the instinctive
feeling toward them is not the desire for possession, but more a
feeling of envy that he cannot be one like them. The appeal of woman’s
beauty to him is connected with the desire of inner or psychical or
subjective identification of himself with the beautiful woman, the
desire to be in her place—“Einfühlung, Miterleben,” as the Germans
call it. He would do almost anything to see a girl in any condition of
exposure, but he would experience only the desire of inner imitation.
His desire to show himself in female attire is founded upon the
impulse of being considered a full woman.
[Illustration: CUT XLIV.
First patient.]
From a legal point of view the patient’s inversion is mainly confined
to the sphere of clothing. He has a profound longing for female
clothes. He takes pleasure in the sight of female attire. Woman’s
underclothing exercise a greater charm upon him than the woman
herself. He especially attaches great importance to the corset. The
patient is always dressed in female underclothes. He wears only a
man’s coat, vest and trousers, or the clothes belonging to the outward
cover. He wears woman’s shoes, shirtwaists, corsets, stockings, etc.
The earlobes are pierced for earings, which he wears every night. He
takes breakfast dressed as a woman.
When the patient is dressed as a woman, he has all a woman’s feelings
and longings. For this reason he tries to dress as a woman at every
opportunity. The desire to be dressed like a woman takes the form of
an imperative impulse. When he cannot dress up he becomes restless. He
would rather commit suicide than be without female apparel.
As a literary man and brain-worker, the patient can concentrate his
thoughts better when in female attire. When dressed as a woman he
feels himself to be in a normal condition and is cheerful. A feeling
of absolute comfort and restfulness comes over him, when in female
clothes, and his behavior is in full accordance with his feelings,
while in male dress there is a kind of absent-mindedness about him; he
is always thinking of his female dresses.
The second case is that of a gentleman of about sixty-two years of age
living in the western part of our country. As a child he was known as
mother’s boy, and his mother and he were very fond of each other. He
has always done his best to please her, spent as much of his time with
her as possible, and took great pleasure in the tasks she would give
him, such as knitting, crochet work, or plain sewing. On most of all
these occasions she would first put him in girl’s clothes. The hardest
tasks would then be a pleasure to him. These practices continued up to
his twelfth year of age.
From his earliest recollections his playmates were always girls and
his playthings were dolls, ribbons, miniature housekeeping, furniture,
etc. He was an expert doll maker and could cut and make doll clothes
for his sisters and other little girls. At ten years of age he could
cook and prepare a meal. He was known to have no lack of courage.
His inclinations are always towards strong-minded, energetic women of
the masculine type. He also has an admiration for other men of his
type when they are dressed like women. He never had any homosexual
inclination. He always had an almost uncontrollable desire to wear
woman’s attire. When so dressed he can always think more logically,
feel less encumbered, solve difficult problems. But for the popular
prejudices he would always wear female attire.
The skin of the patient is soft and clear, the hair on head and beard
is soft and light. He has little hair on his body. His shoulders are
square and his breasts quite large. His voice is high.
He blushes readily. He could never countenance vulgarity, such as
smutty stories or obscene remarks. He is receptive. He is very
sensitive to pain or pleasure. He is inclined to be stubborn. His
intellect is keen, and he thinks logically.
When about fifteen years old his father forbade him to wear female
clothes, so he kissed his mother good-bye and made his way to the far
West. There he drove a team on construction work of a railroad and in
the fall of the same year found himself hunting buffalo. In the five
ensuing years he has done his part in winning of the West, with the
result that he carries two Indian bullets in his legs. But he covers
them up with petticoats, he says, as often as opportunity permits.
Then he forgets all about them, as well as all other troubles. He
has served as a detective in a United States marshal’s office, as a
sheriff, and as a justice of the peace. He has been able to conquer
almost everything except his uncontrollable passion for female attire.
When the inclination to dress comes over him, he is unable, try as he
may, to resist it.
This last characteristic in the case shows that the desire for
cross-dressing may often assume the degree of a veritable imperative
idea. If the desire is not satisfied, some patients are seized with
anxiety, accompanied by cold perspiration and palpitation of the heart.
The third case is of a gentleman, thirty-two years of age, married.
In his answer to a letter written by another transvestite asking him
for his life history, the patient writes that he expected the letter,
because Agnes M. had told him that he would receive one. This Agnes
M. was a man, and it is characteristic of these patients to call
each other by girls’ names. Our patient, too, signs his name, “Yours
femininely, Blanche.” The part of the history of this “Blanche” that
interests us most reads as follows:
The feminine instincts first appeared at the age of four years. He
was then attending a small girls’ school in the country, his mother
having a business in town. At about that age, it was suggested that it
was time that he was put into knickers. When he first was dressed in
boy’s dress, a horrid feeling assailed him. He fought so persistently
against wearing these new apparel that his mother resolved to leave
him dressed in girl’s attire for a few years longer. Thus he was able
to wear frocks for the first eighteen years of his life.
At that time necessity made it imperative for him to earn a living,
and he was forced to go out into the world dressed as a boy. He
writes, he will never forget the great aversion which assailed him
when he first went out in trousers. He seemed ashamed to look anyone
in the face. He always wanted to hide his legs.
He never gave up feminine underwear, only outwardly he dresses as a
man. In the house, when he returns from business, he always dresses
as a woman. His mind is never contented during the daytime. When the
evening comes, the first job on getting home is to don a petticoat
and frock and to be for the rest of the evening in the garb which his
mind tells him is the right one. He feels nothing but nausea in the
garb of a man.
[Illustration: CUT XLV.
Third patient.]
The last characteristic shows plainly the morbidity of the case. A
normal woman, if forced by circumstances to wear men’s clothes, may
have the feeling of being improperly dressed, but she would not have
the feeling of nausea. Here we have a creature with a normal male body,
but on account of the complete female mind he feels nauseated when
wearing male clothes.
The fourth case is that of “Prof.” M., a female impersonator, who also
addresses his transvestite friends by girls’ names. His history reads
as follows:
The patient is sixty-two years of age, has a beautiful form, small
hands and feet and a beautiful head of hair which he can do up in
lady’s fashion by the aid of switches.
[Illustration: CUT XLVI.
Fourth patient, dressed for the street.]
His mother dressed him in girls’ clothes until he became a large-sized
boy, and when she attempted to put him into boys’ clothes, he would
kick and scream. Since that time, when opportunity presented itself,
he would masquerade in female garb. There seems to be a peculiar
fascination and pleasure to him when dressed in the clothes of the
opposite sex. A sort of an irresistible impulse comes over him at
times, and he cannot extricate himself. He can control his thoughts
better, write and seemingly work better when dressed in skirts, and he
is more contented.
His sexual organs are fully developed and do not differ from any other
male organs. A number of years previously he was strong sexually and
fond of the opposite sex. Nowadays he cares more for his own sex.
Men look more attractive to him than women do. “It seems strange,”
writes the patient, “but I think all female impersonators learn to
have an abhorrence for the female sex, even a hatred in the course of
time.” “Dear Miss S., as you and Maude (by the way, S. and Maude are
both men) are in the same boat, I am free to tell all these things. I
am pleased to find one who thinks as I do. The common herd does not
understand me.”[BG]
This case throws a certain light upon the psyche of the woman
impersonators. They do not become effeminate through the long habit
of masquerading—that would be confounding cause and effect—but their
innate anomaly leads them to choose impersonating as a profession. A
normal man would hardly select such a profession as his life work.
The following case is that of a gentleman, aged thirty-six years, an
artist painter who is about to marry. In his letter to a transvestite
friend he protests against the insinuation of homosexualism. He writes
as follows:
“The reason why I did not answer before is because it seems to me that
our views on the matter mentioned are very diverging. As far as I can
judge from your letter, it looks as if you consider man’s love for
dressing in female clothes equal to homosexualism. I can tell you that
homosexualism has always been an abhorrence to me, and that the sole
reason for my desire to wear gowns is purely feminine love for what is
beautiful and picturesque. In my relations to the other sex, I am just
as normal as any other man.”
The longings for cross-dressing in our cases may be best explained,
that the feminine strain, normally found in every male, exists here
in a greatly exaggerated form. Every normal woman attributes an
exaggerated value to clothes and, Narcissus-like, is more or less
enamored with the female body.[BH] The same exaggerated value to
female clothes is attributed by the male transvestites. The female
transvestite, on the other hand, thinks of clothes more or less as men
do. Yet, the male strain in her, being a morbid phenomenon, dressing is
of more importance to her than it is to the normal man.
[Illustration: CUT XLVII.
Dr. M. W., dressed in the masculine garb which she usually wears.]
The case of the celebrated Dr. M. W. shows that even the female
transvestite is greatly concerned in the question of dress.
She is always dressed in the masculine garb. She attributes great
importance to the liberty of dress. She is constantly agitating for
this liberty. In a letter to a male transvestite, written in Chicago,
dated Jan. 12th, 1913, she says: “I have sent the bill to Albany,
N. Y., and to Springfield, Ill., and expect to speak in both places
on the right of clothes.” Then she continues: “The constitution of
the U. S. gives right to life and liberty, and it makes no exception
regarding ‘legs’ and ‘sex.’ It guarantees a republican form of
government to every State, and it is not republican when the State
puts the people in dress-chains.”
_Zoöerastia._—One of the most peculiar and monstrous anomalies of the
sexual impulse after homosexuality is zoöerastia or bestiality, where
the individual se conjungit cum animalibus. The anomaly is as old as
history. It was known already at Biblical times. The Mosaic lawgiver
punishes the practice with death.[BI]
As a rule, bestiality is more due to a certain perversity than to a
perversion. The fact that the zoöerasts are usually found among those
who lack the opportunity for normal congressus (e. g., shepherds,
segregated in the mountains for several months at a time) would tend
to show that the practice is more a vice than a disease. Still a good
many cases of bestiality show a diseased mentality. Even in the case
of Gerstlaner (Arch. f. krim. Anthr. u. Krimin., xxxvi, p. 154), which
looks more like a vice than a disease, the patient does not seem to be
mentally sound.
A man was loitering about in the park of a certain town, where
a savage big dog was often seen at large. By some means or
other he managed to entice the dog to come near him. Quibusdam
contrectationibus ei contigit ut voluptatem animalis concitaret. Tum
nates nudavit, se flexit super scamnum, et canem adduxit ut coitum per
anum perageret. During the act two policemen appeared on the scene who
had great difficulty separare canem ab homine.
Such a case would look more like a vice than a disease. Still a man who
can find sexual satisfaction in playing the rôle of the pathicus in any
coitus per anum is sexually abnormal. The zoöerastic practices in the
case of Sury (Archiv f. krim. Anthrop. u. Kriminalistik, xxxv, p. 314)
are also due to a certain anomaly.
A man forty-seven years of age, twelve years married, was from the
first day he married insatiable in his hunger for sexual activity.
Præter maritam suam servis prædii sui concumbebat. Eodem tempore cum
canibus ovibusque conjungebat et cotidie comprimebat porcam.
This man was apparently suffering from satyriasis with inclination to
animals. The following two cases which came to the notice of the author
also show at the first glance a certain anomaly:
In a certain village, every once and while, dead hens were found.
Nobody could find the cause of this peculiar occurrence. One day, a
man thirty-five years of age, of high social position, was discovered
“in coitione cum gallina.” He always killed the hens in concarnatione.
The contractions of the sphincter ani in the animal’s last throes
increased his libido.
The circumstances in this case, where a wealthy man, who could easily
reach the nearby city with all its opportunities for normal sex
activity, still performs such abominable acts, show distinctly that the
man was suffering from an anomaly.
The second case is that of a young man, twenty years of age. He began
to feel uncomfortable and restless. Cold perspiration broke out all
over his body. The knees began to tremble, and he felt a terrible
pounding in his head. At the same time he had the imperative impulse
cum anseribus jungendi. He often struggled against the desire but
he always failed. He simply lost his reasoning power, and when he
regained his reason, the act was committed.
No question this patient was suffering from a certain kind of epilepsy
where the fits, necessary for the restoration of the patient’s
equilibrium, were substituted by zoöerastic debauches. The paroxysmal
attacks of psychic unrest and of intensity of feeling for certain
experiences were morbid and due to the same fundamental factors,
underlying the syndrom of epilepsy.
In women, zoöerastia, judging from the paucity of the cases reported,
must be a rare anomaly or vice. The rarity of the occurrence of
bestiality in women may be explained by the difficulty of making the
animal take the active part in the performance. Still the small number
of reported cases may also be due to the difficulty of proving the
existence of bestiality in either sex.
When young girls, says Moll, are fond of taking canes in cubilia sua
et stupre cum eis ludere, it will be very difficult to convict them of
their vices except in surprising them in the very act, which can but
seldom be accomplished.
The practice of bestiality by women is as old as history. Besides its
mention in the Bible, there is the report by Plutarch that the Egyptian
women who were segregated with the sacred goat Mendes practised sodomy
with the animal. Herodotus himself saw the women submitting themselves
openly to the embraces of the sacred goat.
Karsch relates that in Kamtschatka the women frequently conjungunt
canibus.
Some cynics claim that the old maid’s love for dogs which appears so
charming and touching, has some deeper reason than mere fondness for
animals.
Moll knows of several cases where women keep dogs stupri causa,
training the animals to practise cunnilingus on them. He cites a case
from the annals of the court, where the woman was accused quod abusa
est cane stupri causa movens animal lambere genitalia sua.
Pfaff records a case of a maid-servant on a farm who trained the
watch-dog secum commisceri.
Maschka relates a case of a woman, forty-four years of age, who
confessed in court se conjunxisse cum cane. Quondam die canis forte
saluit inter femora sua et lambit vulvam feminae. Deinde femina inter
nuda femora sua animal sumpsit et permulsit abdomen animalis, quoad
penis erectus esset. Tum ad sellam nisa, canem ad se pressit et
postquam penem inter labia posuit commovit animal ut motiones faceret,
usque dum ejaculatio veniret.
Rosse reports the case of a young white, unmarried woman in Washington
who was surprised in flagrante delicto with a large English mastiff,
who in his efforts se solvere a puella caused an injury of such a
nature that she died from hemorrhage within an hour.
All these cases do not reveal any kind of a perversion. The practices
seem to have been due to vice or perversity. The following case,
communicated to the author by Dr. C., of Tequisquipan, Mexico, who
accidentally entered the patient’s hut while she was kneeling on her
bed “in copulatione cum mulo suo,” shows distinctly its pathological
nature:
The patient, a widow, thirty-six years of age, was married at the age
of sixteen and had her first child a year later. Her husband died
ten years ago. She had one other child five years ago which died in
infancy. She had always been of a passionate nature. Jam undecim annos
nata cum viris se conjunxit. Stuprum manu faciebat on and off all her
life, especially at the time of menstruation, cum viri ea concumbere
nollent. Concarnationes habebat sedecies una nocte, going the rounds
of the different nightshifts at the mills. About three years ago she
had the first time coitum cum animali. Suus canis erat. Inde sæpe
commiscebatur cum canibus. About a year ago, while returning with
her burro from a neighboring town, duos canes in conjugio vidit,
quod se valde concitavit. Cum mane postmeridianum tempus esset virum
celeriter invenire non potuit. Qua re mulum in casam sumpsit et coepit
contrectare fascinum, donec emersit. Deinde in grabatum reptavit,
posuit muli pedes priores in eo, et ipsa cubitis genibusque nixa est.
“Tum femora muli in tergo suo posuit et postquam penem animalis inter
labia inseruit; coitum solitum cum animali habuit, in quo ea ipsa
motiones fecit celeres aut lentas, secundum necessitatem suam.” She
now has the burro trained so that when she lets him enter the hut he
commences at once to unsheath antequam potest posituram capere.
The examination of the patient showed nothing abnormal in the organs,
except an extreme sensitiveness to touch. The mere separation of the
labia induced orgasm. During the examination she had four to five
orgasms.
There can be no doubt that this woman was suffering from nymphomania.
Men could not satisfy her increased sexual desire, so she took refuge
to animals.
FOOTNOTES:
[AR] Even very small children with scanty knowledge of right or wrong,
and without any rebuke or reprimand by parents or guardians, seem to
have a conscious idea that masturbation is reprehensible and try to
hide their activities.
[AS] One of the author’s patients, Mr. X., in his struggle against the
habit, while a student in college, vowed never to fall back into the
habit. As a reminder of this vow, he wrote upon a piece of cardboard
the celebrated words of Darius, “μέμνησο τοῦ ὅρκου,” and hung it up
over the desk. One day a college-friend, Mr. Y., came to see him and
noticed the Greek sentence. Mr. Y. asked his host what kind of a vow he
has taken. When he received no satisfactory answer Mr. Y. said: “I know
the nature of your vow. It was that you will never masturbate again.
But you did it in spite of your solemn oath.” This correct guess shows
that Mr. Y. had the same struggle on his hands as his friend Mr. X.
[AT] The word onanism in this treatise is always used in the true
Biblical sense, i. e., it always designates the practice of coitus
interruptus; for this is what Onan did (Genesis xxxviii, 9). All other
kinds of self-abuse, especially the practice where the hands are used,
are called masturbation or manusturpation, but never onanism.
[AU] Timidity may cause actual shrinkage of the penis to half the size
of its ordinary flaccid condition.
[AV] In small doses alcohol is stimulating to the desires and is
creating power, but chronic alcoholism causes loss of desire and
power. Acute alcoholic intoxication also often paralyses the nerves of
erection.
[AW] Without this instinct, tumescence is impossible, and tumescence
must be obtained in men for erection and in women for orgasm, before
detumescence is possible. Hence coition must be in some slight degree
desired by the man, or it cannot take place at all. The potency of
man’s voluptas is, therefore, a condition sine qua non for copulation.
Not so in woman, she may submit without desire or excitement and
allow the man to enjoy complete satisfaction. But a man’s pleasurable
excitement is the necessary condition of woman’s sexual gratification.
The male potencies of voluptas and of erection are the conditions of
copulation even for the woman, but the reverse is not the case.
[AX] The Romans distinguished four different kinds of castrates
and designated them by four different names. (1) Castrati, in whom
testicles and penis have been removed, (2) Spadones, in whom the
testicles only have been removed, (3) Thlibiae, in whom the testicles
were only crushed but not removed, (4) Thlasiae, in whom the spermatic
cord was simply cut.
[AY] These signs may easily be suppressed by the strong-willed wife,
who wishes to make her husband believe that her sexual activity is a
continual sacrifice to his sensual desires and that she herself has no
feeling whatsoever during the act. By this trick she tries to rule him
and generally succeeds, especially when the husband is somewhat sensual
by nature. This stratagem is also responsible for men’s general belief
in women’s frigidity. In their youth men associate with venal women who
are naturally anaesthetic in their activities for hire. Later on they
are tricked by their wives. Even great writers are deceived in this
respect by their fair partners.
[AZ] The word frigidity is used by the best writers in an ambiguous
sense. Both, impotence of voluptas and impotence of libido, are
designated by frigidity, especially by the lay-writers. By right only
the woman suffering from impotence of voluptas is really cold and
frigid. She is the one who does not care for the other sex at all. The
patient suffering from impotence of libido is not at all cold or frigid
toward the other sex. On the contrary, she is very passionate, but she
has no use for coition because it does not bring her satisfaction. She
is only anaesthetic for a certain kind of stimuli, i. e., coition.
[BA] Vide Talmey, N. Y. Med. Jour., May 24, 1913.
[BB] It is nowadays the fashion of sex-determinism to attribute every
human emotion or its anomalies to sex. Thus not only cruelty connected
with sexual activity is termed sadism, but every kind of cruelty is
imputed to sadistic emotions. When the Spanish nations in Europe or
America love to see bull-fights and thus enjoy cruelty, inflicted
upon animals, these sex-determinists at once attribute this love of
cruelty to the sadistic nature of the Latin and his descendants.
This averment has as much right to make claim upon our credulity as
the assertion that when an infant falls back satisfied after nursing
at its mother’s breast, this satisfaction is of libidinous sexual
nature. These singular saints see sex everywhere, nothing but sex. No
wonder that such claims are repudiated by the logical mind. It is such
exaggerations which tend to bring the best teachings and theories into
discredit.
[BC] This Platonic explanation of homosexuality, attributing the
anomaly to the influence of a deity, is not quite modern, but it served
its purpose at that time. All the modern theories do not do any more.
For instance, the theory that men afflicted with an inverted sexual
instinct have a female brain and male sexual glands, “anima muliebris
in corpore virili inclusa,” is, as far as a theory goes, a good enough
working theory, but as far as a real explanation of the causes of the
homosexual anomaly is concerned, it does not contribute one iota (nor
does any other theory the author is acquainted with) to the etiology of
the abnormal emotion.
The reason is plain. We can never hope to find the cause of the
abnormal emotion before we have first gained absolute knowledge of the
nature of normal sex-attraction. Why does the Chilodon need conjugation
at definite periods? Why does it not go on dividing and multiplying
indefinitely without conjugation? The answer “protoplasmatic” hunger
or “erotic chemotropismus” (erotic chemotropismus is not always the
cause of sex-attraction; this clearly shows the infatuation, sometimes
met with, of a normal woman with a girl masquerading as a boy, where
no spermatozoa enter into the play; on the other hand, normally no
chemotropismus seems to exist between the ova and spermatozoa of
sister and brother who have been brought up together, while brother
and sister do sometimes fall in love with each other if they are
ignorant of their relationship) only begs the question. Whence comes
this protoplasmatic hunger, whence this erotic chemotropismus? Do these
beautiful high-sounding phrases say more than, e. g., a physician’s
diagnosis “colonic stasis,” when the patient complains of constipation.
Telling a homosexual man that he has a female brain is telling him what
he already knows.
The real etiology of homosexuality must remain unknown, until we know
the etiology of sex-attraction, and the knowledge of the “whence”
and “why” of sex-attraction is homoiousious, not to say homoousious
with the knowledge of the Supreme Cause. Sex-attraction or love is an
energizing power, akin to the other great forces of nature or destiny,
working to develop the soul of man, and it is futile to pick out one
attribute of the divine creative power and speculate over it without
the knowledge of the nature of the divinity itself. It is the same
mistake Job of old has made.
In this oldest Hebrew drama, the spectators or audience, at the two
scenes in Heaven, know that all the calamities, miseries and sufferings
of Job were inflicted upon the great sufferer, who represents mankind,
to try the constancy of his piety. According to human justice Job is
innocent. This is Job’s claim. His friends try to convince him that
he is not innocent, that even by the principles of human justice his
sufferings are not unmerited. But they are silenced by Job’s arguments.
Even the youthful Busite (Cap. xxxii.), emphasizing God’s greatness,
who must have discovered some hidden sin in Job, although he is not
answered by the latter, fails to convince us, for we know about the
stipulations between Jehova and Satan.
Then Jehova himself answers from the whirlwind. He does not really
answer, he rather asks some pertinent questions. “Have you been present
when the foundations of the Earth were laid, when the Stars were born?”
If not, how can he, the insignificant pigmy, dare question divine
justice. Since you, Job, have no idea of the nature of the divinity (or
God, the author fears to mention the word God lest he may offend the
delicate susceptibilities of his atheistic friends who fly into a rage
when seeing this word as a bull when seeing a red cloth), how can you
know the causes or reasons for his attributes? Divine justice is an
attribute of the divinity, and if the nature of the divinity is veiled
in mystery, divine justice must of necessity remain unknown to mortal
creatures, just as human justice is beyond the conception of the amoeba
or of the lion. Divine justice can not be compared at all with human
justice, just as the sense of justice of the amoeba or of the lion
differs from that of man.
Now, the same questions may still be asked to-day. We must still
recognize the incapacity of the human intellect to penetrate the divine
plan of the universe. With all our scientific attainments we still are
in ignorance about the sources of light. The length of its waves, its
celerity is known to science, but where does the Sun come from? When
was he born? Who gave birth to him? Science has traced the synthetic
nature of the plant, the analytic nature of the animal, but tell us,
Job, whence gets the seed the faculty to begin its synthetic work as
soon as it is placed in favorable soil?
Here we are silenced like Job of yore and refuse to answer. And we are
right. The “whence” and the “why” of things do not lie in the realm of
science. Science investigates the “how” and leaves the investigation
of the “whence” and the “why” to metaphysics or rather to religion.
Even the latter has not yet succeeded to give humanity the irrefutable
answer. From the Hindu trinity of Brahm’s Trimurti to the Hebrew
unity of Jehovah back to the Christian Logos of John, they all tried
to answer the question of the “whence” of things, and they must have
failed. Otherwise humanity of all climes and of all ages would have had
only one religion instead of being divided into innumerable creeds.
As far as the “how” is concerned, such an explanation as “anima
muliebris in corpore virili inclusa” is quite a good enough working
theory. Inversion would thus be a degenerative phenomenon, the invert
representing the sport or the variation.
[BD] Some of our hyperaesthetic sexologists, who see sex everywhere,
try to construe the friendship between David and Jonathan as homosexual
love. They find their inspiration in David’s lament over Jonathan: “Thy
love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” (II Samuel i,
26.) Whoever can see in this poetical expression homosexuality has very
little sense for poetry and a good deal for sex. The Vulgata translates
the verse: “Decore nimis et amabilis super amorem mulierum,” and then
adds: “Sicut mater unicum amat filium suum ita ego te diligebam.” This
word “diligebam” surely does not sound like homosexuality. Nor does the
word ἀγαπή used by the Septuaginta, denote sex.
[BE] This infatuation of a normal woman with a woman, disguised as
a man, shows that sexual attraction is not always based upon erotic
chemotropismus between the ova and the spermatozoa.
[BF] The cases were first published by the author in the New York
Medical Journal, Feb. 21, 1914.
[BG] The wail and cry of the patient that the common herd does not
understand him are well known. It is the old feminine protest that
men do not understand women. It is the familiar catch-phrase which a
flattering yellow journalism and mediocre literature are continually
dishing out to their women readers. Men will never understand women,
is preached in and out of season, insinuating a certain depth in and
mystery about her psyche. Most certainly, the man does not understand
woman’s psyche. He does not understand his own, neither does she
understand her own. The experiments in psychological laboratories are
dealing only with the relations between the sensations and perceptions,
not with the “whence,” “how” and the “why” of the mechanism of the
mind. The mechanism by which a material fluid, cell, or electron
turns into a thought, whether in the male or the female brain, is yet
unknown, neither is there any prospect that it ever will be. Still the
workings of the human mind are subject to observation, and we know by
experience that woman’s psyche changes with the change of her dress.
The mind of a man born in poverty and brought up in humble surroundings
will always remain humble, even when he becomes a millionaire. He
adapts himself with great difficulty to changed conditions. Woman’s
adaptation to new surroundings is phenomenal. Dress her as a queen
and she is a queen, clad in rags, she acts the beggar. Normal men do
not understand the nature of such a mind that can be so influenced by
outward appearance. Neither does man understand the wonderful instinct
of the hymenopter. Yet the insect seems to be less proud of its mystery
than our patient of his or the female of the species of hers.
For this very reason the male transvestites who are possessed with a
female spirit or a female soul are more interesting than the female
transvestite, possessed of a male soul. In normal men dressing is never
a matter of great concern, neither is it with the transvestite endowed
with a male mind. But the normal woman attributes a vast importance to
feminine dress, and the male transvestite with the female soul excels
her in dress-valuation.
[BH] This is the psychological explanation for woman’s love of
histrionic spectacles. Almost two-thirds of all theatregoers are
certainly women. Still so much demi-nude femininity is presented on
the stage, presumably to amuse men and so few semi-nude men for the
amusement of women. Why do so many women run to the theatres to see the
nudity of their own sex? Men do not care for the sight of nude men? The
reason is that feminine nudity is presented on the stage not for the
amusement of the few men, but mostly for the amusement of the great
throng of women.
The female body has a sexually stimulating effect upon woman (Colin
Scott, Am. Jour. of Psych., Feb. 1895). The pride of the female, says
Weininger (Sex and Character, p. 201), is something quite peculiar to
herself, something foreign even to the most handsome man, an obsession
of her own body, a pleasure which displays itself even in the least
handsome girl, by admiring herself in the mirror, by stroking herself
and by playing with her own hair, but which comes to its full measure
only in the effect that her body has on man. Woman desires to feel
that she is admired physically. The normal woman regards her body as
made for the stimulation of the man’s sensations. This complex emotion
forms the initial stage of her own pleasure. The female body has hence
a greater exciting effect upon women than the male body has upon men.
Female nudity produces a greater impression upon her than the male body
ever does. Statues of female forms are more liable than those of male
forms to have a stimulating effect upon woman.
The same emotions are evoked in woman at the sight of female clothes.
Woman takes it for granted that her clothes, just as her body, have
an erotic effect upon the male. Hence female clothes awaken in women
a complex emotion akin to the sight of the female body. Woman becomes
sexually excited by her own clothes. For this reason clothes are to
woman of the greatest importance. The desire for beautiful clothes
is an irradiation of the sex instinct. The purpose of dress is the
attraction through covering. For the parts covered are rendered more
conspicuous.
[BI] “And if a man lie with a beast he shall surely be put to death;
and ye shall slay the beast. And if a woman approach unto any beast,
and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman and the beast.” (Levit.
xx, 15-16.)
PART VII.
SEXUAL HYGIENE
CHAPTER XIX
HYGIENE OF CHILDHOOD
Personal hygiene means a sound body and mind. It means the preservation
of health, which was humanity’s effort since time immemorial. Personal
hygiene is as old as civilization. The Bible devotes many a chapter to
personal hygiene. The ancient Greeks spent a considerable part of the
day in exercise, games, etc., in the interest of personal hygiene. The
celebrated Roman baths were established in the interest of the hygienic
development of the body. The Roman maxim was, “mens sana in corpore
sano.”
As far as humanity is concerned, the most important part in the science
of sexuality is the hygiene of the vita sexualis. Preventive medicine
will score its greatest successes in the field of sexual diseases. If
the rules of personal hygiene are followed they may prevent many an
anomaly which, when once established, is seldom amenable to treatment.
Especially does the principle, “prevention is the best cure,” hold
good in the anomalies of anaesthesia. In almost ninety-nine cases out
of a hundred these anomalies are contracted through the patient’s own
recklessness and fault. If the patient could be guarded against sexual
excesses, the main cause of impotence in all its ramifications would be
removed. But the necessity of avoiding certain things requires a proper
insight into the nature of these things. To be good requires a proper
knowledge of the evil. “We cannot,” says Hain Friswell (Essays on
English writers), “be good by pretending not to know evil. When women
go mad, the most innocent, the youngest, the most purely educated often
utter the most horrid and obscene language; a proof that to them evil
has been known; how acquired, how taught, it is vain to ask. What the
teacher ought to seek is, not to blot out and veil iniquity, since that
will always be visible, but to make the heart strong enough to cast out
the evil.”
To accomplish this end proper instruction in matters of sex is a
condition sine qua non. The instruction should begin before the sexual
idea has an emotional garb. When the habit of masturbation has once
been contracted, it is very hard to break it; when promiscuous life
has been tasted, all knowledge of its dangers will seldom protect the
individual from continuing such a life.[BJ]
The missionary work must, therefore, begin in the nursery. The drunkard
is not expected to embrace temperance by acquiring the knowledge of
the injurious effects of excesses in alcohol upon soul and body.
His impaired will cannot resist temptation. He must be taught to be
temperate before he becomes a drunkard. The same is the case with
the boy who has once tasted illicit venery. All the preaching will
generally be for naught. Knowledge at this time comes too late. The
young man who has gone through all the suffering of gonorrhea and
syphilis, as soon as he is cured, and sometimes even before a perfect
cure has been reached, forgets everything, under passion to resistless
impulse, and associates again with meretricious women. His practical
experience, just as the theoretical knowledge of the medical student,
is not powerful enough to keep away a man from illicit indulgence,
once he has made its acquaintance. But if the dangers are known to the
individual before he has tasted from the forbidden tree of knowledge,
he will, in most cases, avoid tasting the fruit which may contain one
of the deadliest poisons.
Hence the lessons in sex-matters must be given quite early. It is
very unfortunate that even the cultured public has not learned yet
that the young child, even the infant, shows some sex manifestation.
The general public is unwilling to be enlightened about the genetic
functions of the child. There is no need to go as far as Freud’s school
and reduce the most innocent infantile natural activities to the
emotions of sex; still it is agreed among the keenest observers that,
if infants and small children are not carefully watched and protected
against themselves, lewd servants, and ignorant mothers, autoeroticism
may be established at such an early period that the first lesson in
sex instruction will come too late. For masturbation, once it has
become a habit, will seldom be relinquished until normal sex relations
take its place, instruction or no instruction.[BK] The child must be
brought up in such a way that it will reach puberty without any kind of
contamination, either by masturbation or by prostitution.
Only upon such pure and chaste children will lectures on the dangers
of sex irregularities have any influence. The reason why the medical
student with all his supposed knowledge of sex is not different from
any other young man, is that he acquired his knowledge too late to be
of any value. If he had begun his studies on the pathology of syphilis
and gonorrhoea and had known the dangers of the venereal scourge before
he ever had a taste of sex, it is very likely that with the knowledge
of the danger lurking, not only to himself but also to those dearest
to a man’s heart, his future wife and children, he would abstain from
the association with meretricious venery. But when the medical student
began to gain the knowledge of sex,[BL] it was too late for him to
resist. Like the habitual drunkard, he had lost the power of resistance.
_Education of infants._—The teaching of matters sexual must hence begin
very early in life. Cases are known where masturbation was started
before the first year of the child’s life had passed. The child has the
impulse to touch and pull everything within its reach. Hence the infant
will also try to play with its genitals. A phimosis or an inflammation
of the prepuce, in the boy, and in the girl uncleanliness in the vulva
or pin-worms in the rectum, may cause itching in the genital parts and
induce the child to touching and rubbing these parts. The manipulations
may cause an agreeable tickling sensation and may awaken a feeling of
lust. The feeling operates then in the memory and excites to a taste
of sexual activity before sexual consciousness has had time to be
naturally awakened through the growth of the sex-centres.
Sometimes servants, either to quiet the child or out of lust and
ignorance, tickle the child’s genital organs or gently slap the gluteal
region and thus awaken a lustful feeling.
The natural curiosity of children often leads them to an examination
and finally to a titillation of their genital organs, even without the
aid of any vicious instruction.
It is, therefore, the duty of parents to prevent their infants from
becoming masturbators. They must see to it that the child does not
manipulate with its genitals. The little hand ought not to touch any
part below the waist-line.
It should be the nursery-rule not to touch the child’s genital organs
and not to handle the buttocks in any unnecessary way. Children should
not be allowed to sleep in the same room with their nurses or in the
same bed with other children. The child should acquire the habit of
sleeping on the side, not on the back. The bed should be firm, not soft
and yielding. The covers must be light.
The health of the genital organs must be cared for, and in case of
deviation from the normal, medical aid must be summoned. A long, tight
prepuce, eczema of the genitals, accumulations of filth and sebaceous
matter around the glans of the penis or of the clitoris, retention of
urine beyond the proper time, pin-worms in the rectum, hemorrhoids,
fissures of the anus, all lead to rubbing, pressing and handling of the
genitals.
When the children are old enough to understand, they must be taught
never to handle their genitals, the same as they are warned not to poke
the fingers into their noses, ears, or eyes. The child must be taught
to lie straight in bed, with the hands never under the cover, must be
taught to rise, urinate and dress soon after awakening.
The child must be accustomed to the sight of the nude, in art and
nature. It will thus become immune against prurient impressions in the
presence of the nude later in life.[BM]
_Children from four to seven years._—At the period of four to seven
years of age, the child’s curiosity about the origin of man is
awakened. When he approaches his parents with the question, “Whence do
babies come from?” he must not be put off with stork-stories and false
ideas, or met with evasive answers. The mother should explain to the
child that the baby grows from a seed implanted in the mother’s body,
just as the flower grows from a seed sown in the mother Earth.
After the child has been told of his origin he should be admonished not
to talk of these intimate subjects with others. He should be warned
against allowing any one, little friends or adults, nurse or teacher,
to touch or play with any part of his body. If an attempt be made by
any one, no matter who it is, be it a little friend, brother, sister,
etc., to touch his body, the child must be taught to report the fact
immediately to his parents.
_Children from seven to ten years._—At the period of seven to ten
years of age, the child ought to receive its first real sex-lesson
by teaching him the anatomy of the sexual organs of the plant. The
child is told about the cell being the basis of all organic life. The
different modes of reproduction is explained to him. Then we go over
to the study of phanerogamous plants and show him that the flower,
the most beautiful part of the plant, is nothing else but the genitals
of the plant. We then analyze every part of the flower, the male and
the female principles. In this way the child will become accustomed to
hear, without apprehension or any thought of impropriety, terms like
male and female germ-cells, ovum, ovary, etc., terms which are now
considered to be unspeakable, save behind closed doors and then only
with low breath.
_Children from ten to thirteen years._—At the next period from ten to
thirteen years of age, we may begin to explain the sex-phenomena in the
animal kingdom. It is best to follow the pedigree of the living beings
from the lowest, the unicellular animals, to the highest, the mammals.
The teacher could even describe to the children the complicated
indirect cell division, called “Mitosis,” in order to impress upon
their minds the great importance which the creative power of the
universe attributes to the correct halving of the nuclear substance of
the cell.
The child should then get better acquainted with the different modes
of reproduction, the binary fission, the budding, the sporulation,
the conjugation and the different kinds of the latter. The child may
now learn to know the difference between the hermaphroditic animals
and sex-animals, between sperm-cells and egg-cells. It may learn what
is meant by metamorphosis, by external and internal fertilization, by
ovulation and impregnation.
_Period of puberty._—When the child has reached the period of
puberty, it should learn something about the wonderful phenomenon of
menstruation, which by nature is sure to come to every normal female,
so that the young girl should not be surprised and frightened by its
onset and the boy should not make jokes over it.[BN]
The young girl must be told that nature has reserved this catamenial
week for the process of ovulation and for the development and
perfection of the reproductive system. All the pelvic organs are in a
condition of increased nervous irritability and in a natural healthy
state of congestion. The attention of the girl must be called upon the
participation of the breasts in the genital congestion. They become
extended and more sensitive.
With the irritability of the genital nerves the entire nervous
system becomes impressionate. Especially at puberty, when the first
menstruations set in, the nervous susceptibility is increased to the
highest degree. The child enters the period of storm and stress.
During puberty, says Kiernan, there is normally a struggle between the
cerebral and the reproductive systems. The latter tends to obtrude
subconscious states upon consciousness. Quite a few of the young boys
and girls harbor in their hearts the so-called “Weltschmerz,” which
may be defined as the subconscious conviction of the emptiness and
worthlessness of existence.
Hence the functions of menstruation should be very carefully and
minutely explained to the girl and the responsibility of the womanly
organism impressed upon her mind, as soon as the mental symptoms herald
the approaching change from child to maidenhood. Indefinable yearnings
and moods, wishes and fears, the emotions of shame and guilt, of faith
and hope, of love and hate, of vanity and repentance, of sensitiveness
and ambition, assume a certain domination over the growing child.
Sweet inexpressible emotions disturb the thoughts and actions of the
awakening consciousness. Mysterious sensations and impulses fill the
heart of the ripening individual. The bodings of desires and cravings
take possession of the individual’s thoughts and fancy.
Other symptoms which appear at the time of the onset of the catamenial
period are headaches, restlessness, excitability, irritability of
temper and a general hysterical condition. The girl is carried away
more easily than at any other time. She often cries without any cause.
A certain lassitude seizes her. She has pain and feels heat in the back
and breasts, loins and in the internal organs. The appetite is often
diminished and capricious, at this period, just as it is not seldom
observed at the beginning of pregnancy. The girl is not seldom attacked
by sickness and giddiness. If she then goes to bed and remains in a
recumbent position, the blood accumulates in the vagina and coagulates
there before it leaves the system. This coagula frightens the child.
Hence at the approach of menstruation it is the duty of parents and
teachers to assist the girl with their advice. The regular regimen at
the time of menstruation must be, first of all, more rest and little
physical exercise. Standing too much, dancing, swimming, horseback
riding, cycling, out-door games, must all be forbidden. The girl needs
more sleep at that time. She must avoid excitement. She must guard
herself against the exposure to draughts, chills or to getting wet
feet. Cold baths must be omitted, but she ought to take regularly her
warm baths. Especially should the genital organs be frequently washed
with warm water. Tight clothing is particularly injurious at that time.
_Pollutions._—The boy needs a different lesson at this period. He
has to be told that, at the time of maturity, the testicles begin to
produce or secrete spermatozoa which fill the seminal vesicles about
once or twice a month. Here the sperm is, as a rule, reabsorbed when
no external pressure, such as from the filled bladder or rectum, is
exerted upon the vesicles. In the daytime the bladder and rectum are
regularly emptied, and the pressure from this side is at a minimum.
During the secretion of the spermatozoa the nerve apparatus of
the genital system is charged with vital energy. When the tension
becomes very high, which coincides with the filling of the vesicles
with sperma, the nervous tension and the physical pressure are both
eager to discharge, respectively, to evacuate. When the bladder and
rectum are filled during the night, their pressure upon the seminal
vesicles becomes so great that the latter evacuate and thus cause an
ejaculation and a change both in blood and nerve-supply. This relief
from the physiological congestion and nervous tension gives a feeling
of satisfaction and pleasure. The boy is awakened and is conscious of
what has happened.[BO]
Boys, therefore, must be taught that these pollutions, if they happen
only once to three times a month, are entirely normal and have
absolutely no pathological significance whatsoever. The appearance
of nocturnal emissions is merely a proof that the boy is approaching
manhood. Hence there is no necessity for him to resort to prostitution
to get rid of the nocturnal losses, or the so-called wet dreams, as
many a boy has done, sometimes even upon the advice of his parent or of
some medical authority.
_Prevention of masturbation._—At this period, the children of both
sexes have to be warned against the habit of masturbation. There are
three periods in the child’s life when the danger of masturbation
is especially imminent. There is, in the first place, the period of
infancy and early age when the child is usually seduced to masturbation
either by vicious servants or ignorant mothers, uncleanliness or
improper diet. At this time careful watching of servants, cleanliness
of the genitals, details of diet, as light suppers, non-spicy food,
non-alcoholic drinks, the right way of sleeping, as hard mattresses,
the proper dressing, as light trousers, etc., will prevent early
self-abuse.
At the second period when the child enters school the danger of
seduction to self-abuse is again very great. Masturbation is widely
spread in schools. No institution is free from it. In some schools the
evil reaches a wide extension. Particularly dangerous, as hatcheries
and divulgers of the evil, are those institutions in which numerous
pupils are present who have passed the normal age by several years.
At this time any moral indignation or long-winded sermons or, what is
still worse, punishment, will be of no avail and will have just the
opposite effect. Long talks and repeated turnings to the same subject
will be of great harm and will only call the child’s attention upon
the evil. Here only a deeply implanted disgust of the child against
children with nasty habits will prevent the child’s seduction by such
masturbators. This feeling can not be implanted in a day. One lesson
will not accomplish anything, if the parents have not interposed a
remark at every opportune moment during all the years between infancy
and school days.
The third period favorable for acquiring the habit of masturbation
is the time of puberty. At this period systematic action is of great
necessity. All causes of the material genital congestion, as remaining
long in a sitting position, sitting with crossed legs, riding on
chairs, the movements of the sewing machine, climbing with the legs
on poles, retention of urine and stool, erotic literature, obscene
pictures and vulgar plays, all of which often tend to evoke sexual
desire or excite the genital organs, must be removed.
_Means against the acquired habit._—When we observe a child becoming
listless, absorbed in thoughts, startled when suddenly addressed,
obstinate, peevish, irritable, morose, taciturn, when we find its
emotions becoming slow and heavy, that it seeks solitude and shuns
play, when we see it becoming pale, with eyes sunken and surrounded by
dark rings, when the lips become faded and the muscles soft and flabby,
we are justified in the diagnosis masturbation. Sometimes the children
are masturbating themselves in the presence of their elders, and the
latter are not able to interpret the suspicious movements. Any kind of
movements, with the boy’s hands in his trousers, or with the girls legs
crossed, are suspicious and must be interrupted. Near the orgasm such
movements change their character and rhythm, the eyes become sparkling,
the face shows an excited lascivious expression and respiration becomes
rapid. Such phenomena must be recognized, and the child must be
interrupted in its favorite exercise.
The child having already acquired the habit, we will have to see that
no opportunity is left to him to exercise the same. Masturbation once
learned, it is impossible to stop it before adult life is reached.
In the meantime, the child must be kept busy and must be taught
self-control. The child must never remain in bed when not asleep,
never sleep lying on its back and never remain too long in the toilet
or in the bathroom. Two children must never sleep in the same bed or
enter together the same toilet. Stimulating foods and drinks, such
as pork, gravies, pastry with lard, salt-meat, mustard, pepper, rich
pies, spices, candies, pickles, tea, coffee, must be eliminated from
the masturbating child’s diet. Exciting entertainments, lewd pictures,
suggestive reading, all of which tend to increase the child’s sexual
passion, must be withheld from such a child. In addition to these
precautions, we will repeatedly warn the child against the dangers of
excesses of masturbation.
The children are now old enough to understand. Although the harmfulness
of masturbation has been greatly exaggerated, still it is more
injurious than the natural act. Among other injurious effects, the
masturbator uses strong psychical and physical stimulants, and the harm
to health is in proportion to the height of excitement. Especially
injurious to the brain is mental masturbation. The voluptuous
day-dreamers are often unable to free their thoughts from fancies and
pictures of lustful circumstances when they are alone.
Teachers especially should be alive to the excessive danger of the
so-called platonic attachments among their pupils. The sentimental
fancy taken by an older boy to a younger boy in boys’ schools, or by
an older girl to a younger girl, in girls' schools, between whom, in
the regular course in the school, there ought to be very little natural
companionship, is always suspicious. The teacher or guardian must know
that such attachments, which appear so touching and romantic, have a
most dangerous resemblance to abnormal passion.
The sequelae of immoderate masturbation are often quite disastrous.
There is, in the first place, general neurasthenia, with all its
accompanying symptoms, as photopsias, glistening and dazzling
before the eyes, photophobias, dry conjunctivitis (particularly
found among masturbating young girls and old maids), and functional
sexual disturbances, as diurnal pollutions and spermatorrhoea. Other
symptoms are indolence, lack of energy, shyness in demeanor, want of
self-reliance, disinclination to study, incapacity for serious work,
shortness of memory, absent-mindedness, unsteadiness of character,
hypochondria and melancholia.
The children become peevish and irritable, they are reserved in
conversation, apathetic in manner, hesitating in actions, slovenly
in dress, and contradictory. Cerebral anemia is of common occurrence
among those addicted to excesses in masturbation. Hence vertigo is a
common symptom and fainting spells occur often. (Girls especially are
liable to be affected by syncope.) Perspiration breaks forth on the
slightest exertion, and the slightest exercise occasions much shortness
of breath. Neuralgia of the testicles, ovaries and the bladder is also
frequently caused by excess. The neuralgia of the neck of the bladder
is particularly distressing. The patient is frequently seized with a
desire to pass water, and the evacuation of the bladder is attended
with pain. The frequent calls to urinate occur oftener during the day
than during the night. Particular danger of long-continued masturbation
lies in the development of impotency in men and frigidity in women.
Besides the nervous phenomena, there are often found real anatomical
alterations. As the habit is more frequently indulged in, the
prolonged congestion produces a catarrhal process in the urethra,
prostatic gland, seminal vesicles and varicocele[BP] in the male; and
in the female, catarrh of the ovaries, tubes, uterus and especially
of the endometrium. These conditions give rise to uncomfortable and
distressing sensations which demand relief and are gotten rid of only
by a continuation of the habit. Thus a vicious circle is continually
at work. The results are stricture of the urethra, spermatorrhoea,
disturbances of the intestinal tract, as dyspepsia, flatulence and
constipation, and palpitation of the heart.
The congested genital glands, furthermore, excrete and secrete
excessively. In this way the elements of the internal secretion are
either in a state of atrophy or otherwise disturbed. The organism is
thus deprived of these important elements and suffers accordingly.
_Period between sixteen and eighteen years._—When the boy or girl, at
the age of sixteen to eighteen, are about to leave their families,
they will have to be warned against yielding to the frequent sexual
temptations. At this time the boy, and to a certain extent in our
modern industrial world also the girl, leaves the family to go out
into the world to commence the struggle for existence. There, in the
office or in the factory, the boy and the girl will be surrounded
by many temptations. Innumerable chances will be offered to them to
surrender their chastity. It must, therefore, be impressed upon them
how necessary and important it is for them to be careful and not to
allow the hot temper of youth for the woman, respectively for the man,
to get the better of their prudence.
They have to be warned of the dangers of venereal diseases and have
to be shown the fearful results of promiscuous intercourse.[BQ] We
will speak to them openly about the dangers of venereal diseases.
The diseases of society just as those of the body, says Stuart Mills,
can not be prevented without speaking openly about them. The social
diseases must be spoken in the open and not with bated breath, and must
be spoken to the woman no less than to the man.
The social diseases have been declared shameful and no one is allowed
to know or to mention them. Many excellent people look upon venereal
diseases as a merited punishment for the sins of immorality. In the
popular conception, venereal diseases are diseases of debauchery
only. There is, on the part of the public, an indifference, even an
active opposition, to sex-enlightenment, due to the erroneous idea
that venereal diseases are the exclusive appanage of vice. The people
are ignorant of the fact that millions of guiltless persons contract
these diseases through common utensils and particularly in marriage.
These dreadful diseases embrace among their victims a vast number of
virtuous wives and innocent children. The number of virtuous wives
suffering from venereal diseases is much larger than the entire number
of prostitutes in our country. The wife and unborn child are surely
innocent in every sense of the word. They are incapable of foreseeing
and powerless to prevent the threatening injury.
Syphilis, especially, is not purely a sexual disease. It is often
acquired in the most innocent manner. An almost inperceptible lesion
in the mouth or throat of the syphilitic exudes a virus which may
be conveyed to another person, by a pen, pencil, drinking-glass, by
surgical and dental instruments and by kissing.
Some years ago the author treated a pure, innocent, seventeen-year-old
nurse-girl for syphilis of the pharynx who contracted the disease from
the syphilitic infant she was taking care of. Both the host of the
infection and the victim were thus perfectly innocent.
Such innocent people surely do not deserve punishment and ought to be
protected. The traditional shameful character with which the venereal
diseases have been invested by popular prejudice is surely absent in
this class of cases. The only practical protection is the removal
of the mist of ignorance.[BR] Ignorance of the results of venereal
diseases is often ruinous.
Especially is ignorance, prevailing about gonorrhoea, often very
disastrous. Gonorrhoea is commonly considered a benign local disease.
Young men think it a joke to have gonorrhoeal infection several
times in their lives. They have imbibed false views in regard to the
trivial character of this venereal infection. They think gonorrhoea is
not more serious than a bad cold. The young man who happens to have
escaped gonorrhoeal infection is the target of his friends’ jests. Yet
gonorrhoeal infection may make a tragedy of marriage by destroying the
woman’s conceptional capacity and rendering her irrevocably sterile,
in this way producing childlessness, and by sending thousands of women
to the operating table to be condemned to the mutilation of their
generative organs to save their lives.
If the proper knowledge of all these dangers would be imparted to her,
it is inconceivable that any woman, with a fair amount of judgment,
would permit the approach of a possibly tainted man. Every girl, who
knew all the dangers of contracting such a disease, would be more
capable of understanding the seriousness of her taking a false step and
would guard herself against it. If the girl knew of the prevalence of
venereal diseases among men, and her great danger from this source, she
would not so easily debase herself and sully her vestal purity. Only
full knowledge can adequately assist her. Experience has shown again
and again that thousands suffer physical and moral wreckage by trusting
the blind instinct as the sole and sufficient guide for its regulation.
The girl ought to know that the sexual instinct is imperious in its
demands. If she yields to an ardent lover she runs danger to contract a
serious disease.
The ignorance prevailing about the dangers of venereal diseases is
also responsible for the levity with which marriages with profligates
are contracted. By a strange irony of fate, the diseases of vice,
transplanted to the bed of virtue, often become intensified in
virulence. Still with many girls the man who has most promiscuously
and profusely scattered his “wild oats” has been looked upon as the
most favored one among possible husbands. How there can be anything
alluring to marry a man with a past, when there is the great peril that
the young bride may get up on the morning after the wedding-day an
invalid for life, can only be explained by the lack of knowledge of the
gravity of venereal diseases. If the mother knew that a man who has
led an unclean life is not a safe husband for her daughter, if she were
aware of the fact that dissipated men do not make desirable husbands,
she would look more for virtue than money in the future son-in-law.
If the girl knew the host of indeterminable lesions which may follow
in the wake of various venereal diseases, if she knew all the dangers
lurking for her and her offspring, she would never condone moral
depravity in her husband and the father of her children. Her whole
nature would revolt against the wedlock with a man whose body is a sink
of corruption. It will be she who will have to suffer most. It is upon
the woman that the burden of shame and suffering, of disease and death,
is chiefly laid.
The danger of sexual exploitation of young girls by certain men is much
greater, the less the girls are instructed about the social dangers and
the physiological consequences of a chance acquaintance. The girl ought
to be taught that one mistake blasts a young girl’s life. Let a young
woman stray but once from the path of virtue, or let there be even one
breath of suspicion against her virtue, whether well founded or not,
and there is no forgiveness to her in this world. She has suffered an
irretrievable loss. Her greatest enemy in such a case is woman herself.
Society admits the acknowledged libertine to its most exclusive
circles, but forever ostracises the woman whose one false step has been
found out. The man may emerge from the mire of dissipation without a
spot or blemish upon his character, for the woman, there is no return.
Shame and degradation follow her even to the grave.
If the girl further knew the physiological consequences of her
transgression, if she knew that she may become gravid, and thus publish
to the world her folly, such cases as are often seen in maternity
hospitals of girls between the ages of twelve to fifteen years being
already pregnant, without knowing the sex relation, would never be met
with.[BS] Many of these girls have no adequate idea of the result of
congressus, because no one has told them.
The prophylactic value of education, which has been applied to the
prevention of almost all communicable diseases, would surely also
be seen in this dreadful disease, this cancer of the body politic,
meretricious venery, this plague of prostitution which poisons the
very sources of the family and of the state. But for the prevailing
ignorance of the girls, regarding the dangers and pitfalls that beset
their lives’ pathway, one million girls would not have been led into a
life of shame in this country.[BT] These unfortunate girls do not all
come from the slums of the great cities, as the economic determinists
would like to make us believe, but many come from refined country
homes.[BU] Most of these devotees of meretricious venery have become so
through the fundamental vice of laziness and defective mentality. It is
sentimentality pure and simple always to speak of betrayed innocence
or dire poverty.[BV] A vicious disposition, love of pleasure, and the
gratification of the erotic desires,[BW] are, as a rule, responsible
for the majority of girls embracing the profession of prostitution. But
the most serious among the factors which work together to bring many
a girl to ruin, is ignorance and the lack of proper instruction. If
the girl knew that the career of the venal woman lasts scarcely five
to ten years,[BX] and that it is a large sewer, a garbage dump and a
crematory, she would surely not be so easily led to embrace this vile
profession. If the girl knew these facts, it is inconceivable that even
the mentally defective girl would prefer this short life of silks and
satins and then annihilation to a respectable life, even of poverty.
The girl, therefore, must be warned against the allurements of
meretricious venery. She must be told that the average duration of
the career of the venal woman is very short, and that embracing this
profession is almost tantamount to committing suicide. Before the girl
has made the fatal step, she has to be shown the great slavery and
misery prostitution brings upon those who embrace it as a profession,
and that the career of the prostitute lasts no longer than five to ten
years in the average. Then come ruin and the morgue.
But the young girls are started in life entirely ignorant of all the
dangers about them, and the result is the vast army of unfortunates. In
this way venereal diseases persist, sexual crimes abound, degeneracy
remains and countless victims, year after year, pay the penalty of
ignorance.
The best prophylaxis of impurity is the avoidance of intoxicating
beverages, chance acquaintances, vanity and pleasure-seeking. The
girl’s attention has to be called to the danger lying in the habit
of drinking intoxicating liquors. A girl has only to taste a drop of
liquor in a strange man’s company, and her chastity is in the greatest
danger to desert her for good. It will not take very long before this
girl will indulge in the excessive use of alcohol, which dulls the
moral sense of men and women.[BY]
The girl has further to beware of the danger of chance acquaintances.
Young men of such acquaintances, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred,
will do all in their power to induce a girl to drink intoxicating
liquors, and, when she has become excited by the unaccustomed beverage,
they will ruin her chastity.
The girl must particularly be warned of the great danger lying in
vanity of personal appearance. Many a girl has sold her virtue for fine
clothes and outside finery, many a girl has sold her health, morality
and even her soul for a few showy bawbles.
Last but not least, there is danger in pleasure-seeking and in an
absorbing love of gaiety.[BZ] The seducer, says Block (Zeitschr. f.
Bekämpf. d. Geschtskr., Vol. X, p. 75), is really not the particular
man but the big city. The luxurious hotels, restaurants, music-halls,
theatres, etc., and the elegant clothes of the rich allure the poor
shop-girls, milliners, dressmakers and servant girls to the career of
the mistress in such big numbers that a pure girl over twenty-five
years of age is rarely found in this class in the big cities in Europe.
Alcohol, vanity and pleasure-seeking thus lead to the evil of impurity
and to a life of ruin, desolation, sickness and degradation. A girl
must, therefore, be made acquainted with all these pitfalls, in the
outside world, before she leaves her mother’s protecting presence.
She has to learn above all the high and holy function of her genital
apparatus and of the sickness, shame and sorrow which are sure to
follow any profanation of these functions. The subject of venereal
prophylaxis has been altogether too largely taboo among us, hence
the venereal diseases continue to rot the core of society, leaving
blindness, deformity, invalidism and death in their train disseminate.
Even the girl who is sent to college has to know all the dangers and
pitfalls in the outside world. In addition she has to be warned against
the sex-overvaluation by the unhealthy sensualists of indulgence, found
in the modern literature of the so-called feminists. All those novels,
that are written by the modern woman, says Howard, show an itching of
the sexual centre. The passion is there, but perverted, unsatisfied,
masturbatic. They wish to make man the weak slave of his or her erotic
excitement. They call it in German “Sich ausleben,” “to live out your
life.”
The girl who has chosen an intellectual pursuit has to be taught before
leaving home that the real ethics is the defense of all external
sex-values. Man is more than a mere sex-being. The spiritual kind
of virginity consists in the sensual affairs not being dominating,
exacting or filling the inner life. The Jewish philosopher, Philo
of Alexandria in Egypt, says: “The virgin, by her company with man,
becomes a woman, by the soul’s association with God, the woman becomes
again a virgin.” Such are the lessons the young girl should take
along, when she leaves home, so that she may be protected against the
doctrines of sensual hyperaestheticism of the modern writers.
The necessity of self-control and chastity must be impressed upon the
mind not only of the young woman but also of the young man. There is
not the slightest support in physiology for the double standard of
morality of the two sexes. Either men and women should be allowed to
lead a promiscuous sex-life,[CA] or what is by custom forbidden to the
woman should not be allowed to the man either.
But such lessons will have very little effect upon boys who have
passed childhood and puberty before they have had the opportunity of
receiving proper sex-instruction. Such boys need altogether another
kind of instruction, namely, lessons in personal prophylaxis. The
objection that to teach personal prophylaxis against venereal infection
would remove the most effective obstacle to sexual indulgence, i. e.,
the fear of infection, simply shows the ignorance of the elementary
force which indulgence in venery, once tasted, drives the boy into
the arms of prostitution, fear or no fear.[CB] The young man himself,
once defloured of his virginity, is of no concern any longer. All the
lessons in personal prophylaxis will not have the least influence upon
his conduct in life one way or another. But personal prophylaxis may
save his wife and children from a life of invalidism and even death.
The same procedure will be necessary in dealing with the young man
who is a congenital weakling and has to associate with meretricibus.
He should at least take care not to contract any venereal disease,
which may wreck the lives of his future wife and children. He should
immediately after coition, first wash with a cotton-sponge the
penis—head, shank and under-frenum—with a solution of sublimate 1:5000;
secondly pass water and make a urethral injection with a solution
of 2% protargol, and thirdly rub a 50% calomel ointment well into
the fore-skin, head and shank of the penis, particularly about the
frenum.[CC]
The best prophylaxis against masturbation, and in a certain degree
also against inchastity, is the coëducation of the sexes. The familiar
intercourse of boys and girls in the kindly presence of their teachers
prevents and appeases the morbid craving of the sex-appetite, provided
the pupils have not been morally tainted before they entered the
coëducational school.
But the comingling of the sexes must not degenerate in tactile
eroticism, as may be observed, on any summer night, in city parks,
on excursion boats, or on hotel verandas at most of our summer
resorts. Of all the five senses, touch is the strongest sense, it is a
sense-world in itself. Touch is the only sense that has an organ which
can be doubled upon itself. The eye cannot see itself, the ear cannot
hear itself, the tongue cannot taste itself, nor the nose smell itself.
But the hand can pass over the body surface and both feel and be felt.
It can perform the feat of being at the same time both subject and
object.
For this reason the sense of touch is especially adapted to be at the
service of the sex-sense. The sense of sex seems to have made the
sense of touch a part of its being. The sense of touch forms one of
the component impulses of the sex-instinct, namely, the impulse of
contrectation. Hence dalliance and caresses form a substantial part of
the sex-act and are unhygienic, if not soon followed by ejaculation and
orgasm. When the act has once begun, and the often observed caresses
do represent the beginning, it is unhygienic and very harmful not to
terminate the same. The often repeated interruption will lead to all
kinds of sexual neuroses, particularly to psychic and more often to
atonic impotence in men and frigidity in women.
CHAPTER XX
RULES OF EUGENICS
The best prophylaxis against inchastity and its sequels, the
contraction of venereal diseases, is the extirpation of prostitution.
If the supply of the means of inchastity could be cut off, there would
be no demand.[CD] A considerable part of meretricious venery could be
eliminated by lifting the mist of ignorance.[CE] Armed with the proper
knowledge a certain percentage of the girls who are now swelling the
ranks of prostitution would surely shun this profession. But there
will still remain the greater part of venal women, who, according to
the best authorities, belong to the high-grade imbeciles and hence
cannot be reached by instruction.[CF] This class of women who form
the main part of prostitution will have to be eliminated by following
strictly the rules of Eugenics. Only in this, though tedious but sure,
way could defective mentality be exterminated, and prostitution thus
banished from our planet within a few generations.[CG]
The aim of eugenics is the production of a better humanity, especially
by the elimination of bodily and mentally feeble stocks. With the
discovery of the Mendelian law, eugenics was placed upon a scientific
basis. The world knew by experience that desirable as well as
undesirable traits are transmitted by heredity, but it thought that
heredity could be controlled by environment. It believed in economic
determinism. Mendel’s law revealed the inexorableness of the law of
heredity.
The science of eugenics teaches that nature is stronger than nurture.
The characters of any living being are determined by two factors,
heredity and environment, or nature and nurture, but inheritance is
more vital than environment. Heredity and education supply a potential
figure, both multiplied give something, if one is nothing the result
is nothing. But heredity is the weightier factor.[CH] When nature and
nurture compete for supremacy on equal terms, says Galton, the former
proves the stronger. Neither is self-sufficient; the highest natural
endowments may be starved by defective nurture, while no carefulness
of nurture can overcome the evil tendencies of an intrinsically bad
physique, weak brain or brutal disposition.
No degenerate or feeble stock can ever be converted into a healthy and
sound stock by environment, such as sanitary surroundings, good laws,
education, wealth, etc., as the radical doctrinaires would like to
make us believe. Such means may render individual members of the stock
passable or even strong members of society, but the same process will
have to be gone through again and again with their offspring. Improved
conditions of life mean better health for the existing population,
greater educational facilities mean greater capacity for using existing
ability. But lasting improvement can only be secured by breeding from
good stock. The development of the future generations will be little
influenced by environmental improvements, if the conditions of the
blood have been neglected. Nothing can be brought out from a child by
euthenics which is not within him.
The elimination of the feeble stock, met with not only in the slums but
also in the quarters of wealth, which weighs down the body politic,
can only be effected by the prevention of the propagation of those
afflicted with undesirable characters.
There are three methods to effect the elimination of the
undesirables—segregation, sterilization and castration. In the early
history of the human race artificial devices were unnecessary. Natural
selection, or the survival of the fittest, was the most potent factor
of the elimination of the weak. Later on, in the periods of the Greek
and Roman civilizations, the exposure of sickly children, famines,
epidemics and the lack of hygiene served as the best means of weeding
out the feeble and the weak in mind and body. But as civilization
advances a higher ethical level is reached. The diseased, the weak
and feeble are allowed to survive. Especially since the appearance of
Christianity, which originated among the poor and lowly, charity to the
sick, poor, weak and afflicted has become to be considered the first
duty of human society. The greatest part of all our charities is in
the service of the defectives and the degenerates. The ever-broadening
sympathy and altruism of civilized humanity makes it possible for the
dependent and delinquent classes to survive. We make the fostering of
the unfit and of the cripple our highest duty. Especially in modern
times, the great strides made in hygiene and in the other medical
sciences operate to prolong the existence of the unfit till the period
of propagation. War on infant mortality and surgical aid have enabled
defectives to become parents. We are trying to make environment safer
for the feebler in mind and body. Manifold facilities are offered for
the survival of the unfit. A social contra-selection has thus set in.
All our sentimental activities in the interest of charity, praiseworthy
as they are, are in the last analysis anti-social.
Our anti-social perverted sentimentality shows itself particularly
in the stand we are taking towards marriage. Marriage and racial
anti-suicide are preached in and out of season. Almost anybody, the
criminal in the Tombs and the deaf-mute in the asylum, is considered
good enough to marry and to propagate. The result of this preaching
is that the improvident, incontinent, selfish and foolish follow the
advice and marry. The less individualized, the lower the types, the
more nearly animal, the earlier they marry and the more they are
fertile. On the other hand, the superior men and women either do not
marry at all (e. g., Catholic priests, nuns, teachers, nurses, etc.),
or marry very late and practise the voluntary elimination of the
family in the bargain. For the prevention of conception is an accepted
principle among the better classes of every civilized country.[CI]
Hence the fall of the birth-rate among the most desirable classes,
such as the professional people, best artisans, skilled mechanics,
etc. This falling birth-rate in itself is not at all a great calamity
to humanity, as some reformers and politicians try to make us believe.
It may be dangerous to a smaller State when threatened by a more
populated one, or to an aristocracy when threatened to be ousted from
its privileged position by the common people. Otherwise the fall of
the birth-rate brings rather benefit than damage to the family and
to society. The deplorable thing is that only the superior classes
practise the limitation of the family; the inferior classes multiply
like rabbits. In this way society is overburdened with the listless and
the incapable. Our reformatories, prisons, asylums and homes for the
defective are overcrowded.
The endeavor of eugenics is to restore the former selection of the
fit in place of the present disastrous selection of the unfit. This
eugenics wishes to be effected not by following the brutal philosophy
of a Nietzsche, or by abolishing all charities, or by exposing weak
children, as practised by the ancient Spartans. The moral law and human
sympathy dictate that the children, once born, should be preserved
by all known means. But in the interest of the race, such children
should be prevented from being born. This need not be accomplished by
abolishing the absolute freedom of selection of marriage-mates, as
advocated by some pseudo-sociologists in Europe. There is no need for
the overthrowing of all human institutions and for the imitation of the
method of the stud-farm, as advocated by the modern race-culturists.
The freedom to contract even of an unsuitable marriage is always
preferable to the tyranny of the state directing the personal affairs
of its citizens.[CJ] The first essential for human development is
liberty. Liberty is the atmosphere in which character is formed. No one
has a right to exclude two free-born individuals from marriage. This
right is inalienable. To exclude such a man and woman from marriage
relations would be assaulting the inalienable rights of man which no
legislature or even constitution may do, except by brutal force.
But man has no right to injure his own children. The careless or wilful
procreation of a vicious progeny is not only a crime against humanity
but a wrong to the children who ought to have remained unborn. Hence
it is the solemn duty of any couple, if there be a taint in their
ancestry, voluntarily to exclude themselves from parenthood. If their
mentality does not enable them to exercise such control, society has
a right, nay the duty to effect the exclusion in its own interest as
well as in the interest of the offspring, who would become a burden to
themselves.
This exclusion cannot be realized by laws against marriage of
individuals, physically or morally inferior. Such laws are entirely
futile in relation to propagation. Only hypocrites or perfect fools do
not see it. The sex-urge plays a particular rôle in degenerates. They
suffer from a diseased exaggeration of the sex impulse. No laws, except
it be segregation, can prevent the seduction of the feeble-minded woman
or the rape by the criminal man, and a new generation of deteriorants
would arise, marriage or no marriage. The baneful sentimentality or
sordid economy which allows moral weaklings to roam at large on parole
or suspended sentence can only lead to the breeding of mental and
moral cripples. If the number of the undesirable and unfit should be
decreased, not the marriage but the breeding of the defectives should
be prevented.
Among the means of prevention of propagation, the segregation of the
defectives in different homes (such as asylums for epileptics, for
feeble-minded or for deaf-mutes) would be the most humane method, but
also the most unsafe (temporary escape is never impossible), and the
most burdensome for society. To segregate people who are still able
to support themselves and deprive society of their earning capacity
represents a great economic loss to the body politic.
The other quite humane method of prevention of propagation is simple
sterilization. The slight operation of vasectomy, respectively
salpingectomy, does not give the least inconvenience nor does it alter
in the least the mental or bodily character of the operated individual.
This small operation has no more effect upon the person, in regard to
his potency, than an obliteration of the vas deferens in the male or
of the Fallopian tube in the female; and these obliterations cause so
little inconvenience that they remain, as a rule, unknown to the man or
woman. They are only accidentally discovered when the patients apply
for the treatment of their sterility.
Hence all intelligent people who have some hereditary taint should be
taught to renounce propagation by this method. Those with a neuropathic
diathesis or with an alcoholic diathesis, or who show an inability
to learn in school, or those in whose families are found cases of
dementia praecox, maniac-depressive insanity, or those suffering from
incurable inheritable diseases, such as tuberculosis, cancer, syphilis,
hemophilia, color blindness, albinism, in short of such diseases
that do not impair their judgment, ought to preclude themselves from
parenthood by voluntarily submitting to this mild operation before
marriage.
Those, whose judgment is materially impaired to realize the
seriousness of their propagation, such as the incurable insane,
inherent epileptics, the born deaf-mutes, the idiots, imbeciles, and
feeble-minded, should forcibly undergo this operation. Even the dull
and idle should be deprived of the chance of propagating their kind by
means of sterilization. These incompetents and degenerates furnish the
material from which the ranks of the habitual criminals and prostitutes
are recruited. Since we have learned that the great horde of defectives
is due to unfit matings and that indolent strains arise by the mating
of indolent persons, society has a right and even a duty to weed out
these delinquent, defective and dependent classes by the prevention of
the procreation of the various defective offspring.
The third method of preventing propagation is castration. Sterilization
does not deprive the individual of his desire for congressus nor of
the ability to perform the same, nor of the faculty of experiencing
libido. Hence the murderous and erotically degenerated criminal classes
will remain a menace to society until they are deprived not only of
the potency of procreation but also of the potency concarnationis and
of experiencing libido. The method of castration, therefore, should be
reserved as a penalty for the outspoken habitual brutal criminal, the
rapist, the confirmed inebriate, the incorrigible burglar or gunman,
the gibbering idiot, or imbecile cretin with the inherited tendency
to crime, and the unstable erotopath. The offspring of this class
are predestined to be degenerates, and one of the two operations is
imperatively indicated. It is preferable that the testicles or ovaries
should perish in such individuals than that their morbidity should
be propagated. In the interest of the patients themselves the more
radical operation is to be recommended. Spayed animals are always
easier controlled. Just as gelding of the bull and stallion changes
the vigorous, powerful, spirited animals into the comparatively quiet,
docile ox and horse, so may the unsexing or castration of the unfit
have a beneficial quieting effect upon the ferocious, currish, stupid
human semi-animal.[CK]
The defectives, when at large, will always find mating facilities
even with the healthy, and thereby drag fresh blood into the vortex
of disease. The progeny of defective parentage are always defective.
Two imbecile parents will never produce a perfectly normal child. A
superior mated with an inferior may sometimes reproduce the normal,
but, as a rule, the progeny of this crossing will also be defective.
The eradication of every kind of degeneracy is hence the solemn duty of
society to relieve the burden of the community, and by the reduction
of the lower types in each successive generation, degeneracy could be
weeded out of human society.
The other method of the realization of a superior humanity is
the positive breeding of superior offspring. But this method of
the stock-farm is so antagonistic to our conception of personal
liberty that any liberty-loving nation will prefer panmixia or
blood-chaos, with the freedom to choose their mates by means of love
or even infatuation, to the patriarchic slavery of being mated like
race-horses.[CL]
There is no need for a revolutionary change of the marriage relations
as proposed by the different brands of race-culture. The ultimate
apotheosis of the world will never be reached by the superman on the
terms of Nietzsche. The novel and revolutionary doctrine as to choice
of parents has sprung in essentially unbalanced minds. If only those
undesirables who become a public charge, either in prisons or in
asylums—and sooner or later they all land there—are one way or another
prevented from the propagation of their kind, the anti-selection, now
at work, would cease. The degeneration of the human race could be
stopped, even under the present conditions of human cultivation.
CHAPTER XXI
SEX-HYGIENE FOR ADULTS
_Engagement._—The boy and girl who, by the proper and circumspect
management of home and school, have succeeded to remain pure and chaste
until their marriageable age need certain lessons in sexual hygiene to
secure the desired happiness in their future married life.
In the first place they ought to know that true marriage must be
founded upon true love, not upon sensuality. Marriage founded upon
blind passion, aroused by external qualities, is not capable of
enhancing the spiritual and corporal resources of man and will never
bring true happiness of any considerable duration. Real happiness
does not lie in the realization of the desires. Only true love, not
sensuality, can give life or enrich the life of the married couple.
The essential for a happy union is that the contracting parties should
be more or less each other’s equal. The “law of parity” is especially
true in marriage. Like selects like. The young people should be of the
same social position and, if possible, of equal education. Love is the
union of sentiment, and lasting happiness in marriage is only possible
where there is perfect understanding between husband and wife.
The young people should further be in full sympathy with each other’s
views of life. The reason why so many marriages of to-day prove
failures is that this rule is disregarded. Modern men are drunk with
sensual pleasure and lay an exaggerated emphasis on physical qualities.
They do not look for responsiveness and sympathy in their future
partners but for vulgar eroticism. Animal sensuality in all its organic
spontaneity control their choosing of a wife. Hence she is often taken
from such walks of life where pleasure is the chief aim of existence.
No wonder that such actually bought happiness soon languishes, and
the man finds that the woman he has chosen as his life-partner has
nothing in common with him except the mania for pleasure. The craze for
luxuries of home and dress and the extravagance of the entire mode of
living has taken such a hold upon modern women that most of them sell
themselves into matrimony to the first man whom they consider able to
provide them with luxuries, without regard to the manly qualities such
as courage, intelligence, education, culture, generosity and chivalry,
qualities which in former times made men attractive to women.
The parties contracting marriage should be of suitable age. A
difference in age from seven to fifteen years will bring the happiest
results. In our climate a woman’s sexual life ceases about the age of
forty-five, and man’s about sixty. Hence there is a difference of about
fifteen years in favor of the man.[CM] In our climate the best age for
women to become wives and mothers is from twenty-four to twenty-eight
years.[CN] If the man is then about ten years older, the couple is
physically well mated.
The time between engagement and marriage should be neither too short
nor too long. A period not shorter than three months and no longer than
a year should elapse between the engagement and the marriage. It is
an absurdity to expect real love from a young man and a young woman,
who have seen each other only a few times, because of the legality
of the act. Especially does it require a certain length of time and
considerable skill and delicacy to overcome the tendency of shyness,
which is a part of a woman’s nature, and of prudishness, which is
instilled in the girl from the very moment she is capable of thinking.
This questionable virtue is taught at home and at school, and becomes a
part of her very being. It follows her as she grows up, clings to her,
influences her and molds her. Hence, if the husband does not wish to
begin married life with rape, he will have to associate with her long
enough, till she becomes aware that the wife has no need of maidenly
coyness and may indulge in the luxury of bestowing gallant attention
without appearing indelicate and bold. The girl also needs enough
time to study the man, his mode of life, his habits, his degree of
honesty and purity, and what is the principal thing, his health. Love
will surely desert the home where the young bride has left her bridal
chamber afflicted with gonorrhoea or syphilis, and happiness will
scarcely attend the wife and the husband who has spent the strength
of his youth on venal creatures and now looks for a cure and for
restoration by the impotent soiling of a chaste virgin.
Enough time, therefore, should be given both parties for mutual study.
On the other hand, too lengthy engagements keep the affections and the
passions in an excited and unnatural condition, which after a time
tends to weaken the nervous system and thus undermines health.
The following case is very instructive. Mr. L., twenty-seven years of
age, an assistant professor in a well-known college, and his bride,
a teacher, thought that their economic conditions did not allow them
the luxury of an increase in the family. So they agreed to a total
abstinence of marital relations in the first year of their married
life, but fully indulged in frustrate erotism, such as caressing, etc.
The result is that L. has now to be treated for atonic impotence,
manifested by premature ejaculation.
_Wedding._—The wedding-day should be selected to take place about ten
to fifteen days after the end of the menstruation. It is most desirable
that the first sexual relations should be fruitless. Hence the wedding
should be selected during the period when conception is least likely
to occur. The time immediately before the period, and still more,
immediately after following it is the most favorable to conception. In
the first place, ovulation and menstruation are generally synchronous.
Then during the intermenstrual period the plug of the clear viscid
mucus which is secreted by the cervical glands blocks up the passage
and interferes with the entrance of the spermatozoa into the uterine
cavity, unless removed by female ejaculation which does not always
occur at the right moment. This obstruction is washed away each month
by the menstrual discharge. Impregnation is, therefore, most likely
just after the menstrual epoch, while the middle of the intermenstrual
period is the time of comparative sterility.
The next important question is the selection of the room and bed for
the married couple. In the aristocratic European families husband and
wife occupy different bed-rooms. Throughout Germany, even among the
poorer classes, husband and wife, although occupying the same room,
have at least different beds. Here in our country it is the custom,
even among the well-to-do, to sleep in one bed. This unhappy custom,
apart from its unaesthetic aspect at the time of menstruation, leads
easily to excesses, and many a young couple has ruined its life by
excessive sexual indulgence. There should be chastity even in the
marriage relations. It is hence to the best interest of husband
and wife that they should at least occupy separate beds, if the
circumstances do not allow the luxury of separate bed-rooms. The most
refreshing sleep can only be attained by occupying the bed alone.
_Concarnationis posituræ._—Complexus venerei positurae numero sex sunt
aliis temporibus apud alias gentes usitatæ. Vir supra, vir infra,
stando, sedendo, a latere and praepostero (more bestiarum).
Normalis atque naturalis mulieri positura est resupina, viro inter
femora mulieris extensa et abducta jacente.
“Qua facie praesignis erit resupino jaceto,” sings Ovid in his
Ars Amandi. In this position the vagina et virile mentulatum
easdem directiones habent, et frictiones inter glandes clitoridis
penisque, which are the most sensitive organs for inducing libido,
are facilitated. The supine position is hence mechanically the most
favorable for the frictions of the most sensitive parts.
The position a posteriori (more pecudum) is not so favorable for the
frictions of the clitoris. The female orgasm will hence, at best, be
retarded. The prone position is, therefore, not the hygienic ideal,
at least so far as the female is concerned. The popular belief that
this position is more exciting for male and female is based upon the
assumption that the intensity of the libido is proportional to the
depth insertionis in vaginam fascini. This belief is erroneous. The
radix of the penis, as well as the fornices of the vagina, are, as a
rule, the points of the least value for inducing orgasm, and these are
the very points most affected by the frictions in the prone position.
The portio vaginalis and the os externum which are sexually very
excitable are, in the prone position, not easier reached by a normal
fascinum than in the supine position. In normal cases,[CO] therefore,
the prone position of the female is anti-hygienic.
In women with orgasmus retardus of moderate degree, positura viri infra
may be of some benefit. This position damps somewhat the male ardor,
et impeditæ sunt motiones, dum mulier moveat cito aut lente so as to
produce the best effects upon her own orgasm.[CP]
_Frequentatio concubitus._—Congressus frequentatio varies with
different individuals, but with the majority, under thirty years of
age, three times a week should be considered sufficiently frequent,
between thirty and forty twice a week, and less frequently as age
advances.[CQ] When concarnatio is followed by a sense of relief and
comfort it is beneficial, and to be thus guided is the most rational
practice. The criterion of marital hygiene, as far as frequency is
concerned, is hence the state of the feelings of the couple. The
day post initum both mates must feel refreshed in body and spirit,
otherwise the act was unhygienic.
If one of the mates has greater sexual desires than the other is
able[CR] or willing to gratify, he or she has to suppress the erotic
excitement by the exertion of will-power or by cold sponging, cold
baths and when necessary even by bromides. For while chastity does very
little harm to the individual, excesses in venere destroy in time both
body and mind.[CS]
The frequent exercise actionis conjungendi leads directly to anaemia,
malnutrition, asthenia of the muscles and nerves, and mental
exhaustion. Immoderate persons are pale and have long, flabby and
sometimes tense features. They are melancholic and not fit for any
difficult and continued bodily or mental work. They possess very little
power of resistance. The patients suffer from aboulia or inability
to concentrate their minds upon any subject. There is a certain
dysaesthesia or hyperaesthesia of the senses, especially against noise
and light. Insomnia is very frequently complained of. Cephalalgia
and vertigo is a frequent occurrence. The patients have a feeling
of anxiety in stomach and in heart-regions. Anorexia, or loss of
appetite, is often met with. Besides, the patient suffers from nervous
dyspepsia and constipation which not seldom alternates with diarrhoea.
There is often found tachycardia and an arythmic or intermittent
pulse. Sometimes asthma and coughing are complained of. The patients
feel fatigued at the least exertion. The most annoying symptom
is pollakiuria and cystic tenesmus. In men pains in the back are
radiating to the legs and to the inguinal and spermatic-cord regions;
in women coccygodynia is often encountered. These effects frequentis
commixtionis are often seen in men and women after a certain period of
married life has elapsed.
Apart from the bad effects upon the general health of the man and
woman, excesses in venere cause various local disturbances. Too
frequent sexual excitement retards the orgasm or makes it impossible.
The detumescence that normally occurs after ejaculation does not take
place. The genital organs remain thus in a certain state of congestion
which causes chronic inflammations, such as prostatitis, vesiculitis,
orchitis or urethritis in men, and vulvitis, vaginitis, endometritis,
metritis, salpingitis, ovaritis or peri- and parametritis in women.
The habitual congestion of the uterus causes the tissues to become
succulent, and the vessels enlarged. It shows, then, all the symptoms
of subinvolution, such as menorrhagia, exhaustion and sexual apathy.
Sexual excess, as everything else abused, produces satiety and finally
indifference. Emptiness in life is then the individual’s lot, and
it falls into a state of moral apathy which is characterized by the
suspension or complete loss of every sentiment.[CT]
Young and healthy people are able to induce orgasm several times
daily. With them orgasm is possible after many excesses. But even in
youth frequent practice congressus ruins the individual’s health. The
frequent inducement of the orgasm weakens the nerves of the sexual
sphere. At the time of the orgasm peristaltic movements of the vas
deferens in its entire length and of the ejaculatory ducts in men
and of the tubes and uterus in women take place. If these delicate
movements are too frequently repeated they cause diseases of the
genital nervous system. The frequent irritation of the frictions
furthermore causes a complete transformation of the covering of the
glans penis and of the vulva and of the vaginal mucous membrane. It
becomes a veritable skin, a shriveled parchment, which the sebaceous
secretions no longer soften. This transformation affects profoundly
the genital sensibilities, and if it does not completely destroy the
amatory pleasure it at least weakens it considerably.
The urethra is also affected by excesses in venere. In women the meatus
externus is more or less open. This dilatation may often be continued
the entire length of the urethra and even affect the sphincter of
the bladder. Hence the incontinentia urinae that is often found in
masturbating little girls and in newly-married young women.
In the beginning of married life the principle commended to the
husband should be that an alarmed and reluctant bride should be
patiently wooed and never ravished.[CU] The delicacy of caution and
restraint is of great importance, especially at this juncture which
marks the outset of connubial relations. The entire change of life
at this period exerts a strong influence upon the physical condition
of the young bride. She needs time and rest to get used to the new
condition of things and to reconcile it to her ethical views. If these
matters are not respected by the husband, the death-blow to the young
love is already dealt in the first days of married life.
There is, furthermore, always more or less suffering on the part of the
bride in primo concubitu, partly due to the rupture of the hymen and
partly to the forcible dilatation of the vagina. These pains are not
confined only to the time of the act, but continue day and night, and
represent a really diseased condition. Hence sufficient time should be
allowed after defloration for nature to repair these injuries. Frequent
indulgence at this period of married life is a prolific source of
inflammatory diseases and occasions ill health.
One period in the woman’s life in which it is extremely dangerous to
practice congressio is the time of menstruation. Yet immoderate women
are prone just at that time delicias compressionis cupere, because the
cycles of sexual excitement coincide with the menstrual period. The
normal and primitive characteristic of the menstrual state is the more
predominant presence of sexual excitement.
One of the author’s patients, a young woman of twenty-two, mother
of one child, was sexually so excited during menstruation that her
husband asked for a remedy to appease his wife’s excitement quæ
menstruata poscebat concubitus frequentes. Initus during this period
had an unaesthetic effect upon the highly cultured husband.
The increase of the sexual impulse usually begins a few days before
menstruation sets in and lasts a few days after its cessation. Yet,
although there is an extreme enhancement of concupiscence during the
catamenial period, the aversion to initus during this time by men and
women is, generally, real. It is due not to lack of sexual desire, but
to inhibitory action of powerful extraneous causes that are largely
psychological in character. There is the aesthetic repugnance to union,
when such a condition obtains, then there are the inhibitory effects
derived from the educational suggestions, inculcated in females as well
as in males from the time of puberty.[CV]
Common experience has also shown since time immemorial that concarnatio
during this period is fraught with many dangers. Prominent among them
is the possibility of rupturing the impaired vessels and of causing
haematometra. The marital relations should, therefore, be suspended
during the menstrual period.
_Pregnancy._—In the higher animals the female does not admit the male
after impregnation has taken place. In man it is different. The act is
here a relation of love, mutually demanded and enjoyed by both sexes.
It serves other purposes besides that of procreation. Hence initus does
take place during pregnancy. Although the woman’s sexual appetence is
somewhat lessened during that time, yet the libidinous cycles generally
continue far into the later months of pregnancy. In some cases an
increased sexual desire has been observed.
One of the author’s patients, a lady of twenty-two years of age, was
sexually so excited during her first pregnancy that ter quaterque quot
noctibus congressus petebat, and but for the refusal of her husband,
she would have indulged in more frequent gratification.
Another woman was known to the author who became sexually so excited
during her pregnancy that for the gratification of her increased
sexual desires meretricium faciebat for the entire period.
There is, therefore, no natural cessation of the sexual desires even in
a woman. Yet at that time, concarnatio should very rarely be indulged
in. If it is practised too frequently it leads to considerable
disturbances of circulation, and the result may be a miscarriage.
Another danger lurking from initus at the time of pregnancy, is the
infection of the woman. If it is admitted that the finger of the
obstetrician may be the agent of infection, we can hardly deny that the
penis may exert the same influence. The husband should hence abstain
from sexual relations with his wife during the latter days of gestation.
_Confinement._—Concarnatio immediately after confinement is as
dangerous as during menstruation. It will be productive of even greater
dangers than in ordinary menstruation.[CW] It is, therefore, an old
rule that after a confinement a respite of at least six weeks should
be had. In the first weeks after confinement, concarnatio leads to
congestion of the muliebria and hence to inflammations. The organs must
have time to return from their congested to the normal state. For this
involution they need about two months, and during this time initus
should be avoided.
_Lactation._—During lactation the woman’s nerves are weaker than usual,
and for that reason, concarnatio should be rarely indulged in.[CX]
If concarnatio is too often practised during lactation, menstruation
may return too early, prevent the secretion of the milk, and cause
subinvolution of the uterus. Then there is always the danger of a new
pregnancy, which will interfere with the process of lactation.
In nervous and excitable people very frequent concarnatio should
be avoided at all times. The frequent genital irritation causes an
increase of sexual excitability which is detrimental to their health.
Such people should avoid everything that tends to increase sexual
excitability, as, e. g., the immoderate use of alcohol and meat, very
rich and highly seasoned food and carbonated waters. The best criterion
for them whether they are indulging too much in sex-activity is their
own state of health. If initus is succeeded by languor, depression or
weakness, it has been indulged in too frequently.
_Spatium temporis concarnationis._—The normal duration or length of
time necessary to remain in initu before the orgasm is reached is
different in different individuals but is somewhat in control of the
individual. It must not be too rapid nor should it require too long a
time. If both parties tend to come to the climax at the same time, it
is best to follow the rule not to hinder the natural succession of the
act. It is best to go with the current without trying to resist it. It
is not hygienic to prolong the session beyond measure by artificial
delays and by alternative entering and withdrawing. The subtleties
may increase the libido of both mates at the time being, but they are
fraught with peril.
As a rule the climax does not come at the same time in both mates. In
the woman the orgasm is, generally, induced a moment later than in the
man. The woman, therefore, must first be prepared initu. Non est marito
cœundum priusquam conjugæ voluptas est illecta et vulva vaginaque
humescunt secretionibus voluptificis. Præparatio partium consistit in
osculis, contrectationibus et permulsionibus. Such dalliance has been
decried by some ascetics as obscene and beneath a man’s dignity. But
nothing is low if born of love. Qua re permulsio muliebrium a marito,
contrectatio mammarum et ludus cum mamillis voluptificissimum erit et
illicient conjugam.[CY]
In partial frigidity, the male must, apart from the preceding
manipulations, have special regard to the expiration of the female
excitation, even after congressus has begun.
Cum muliebria humescent, fascinum inserendum est as far as possible and
the motion following be exceedingly slight, hardly more than a tremor,
while the root of the mentulæ compressa est contra clitoridem. Deinde
actio propria incipiat. Cum climax propinquet fascinum extrahendum
et, si necessitas, abstergendum est. Tum actio resumenda est. This
procedure may be repeated again and again until the female approaches
her orgasm so closely that she will not permit detractionem any more.
The climax will then be simultaneous in both mates.
The hygienic rule in regard to duration is hence briefly this: The man
must adjust himself to the condition of the woman, so that both may
reach the culmination at the same time.
_Offspring._—The hygiene of the vita sexualis in relation to the
offspring is of the greatest personal as well as social importance.
The most favorable time for child-bearing is between the twenty-fourth
and the fortieth year of the woman’s life. Before and after this time
child-bearing is of disadvantage for the mother as well as for the
child.
The interval between two confinements should be no less than two and
a half years. Twelve months for lactation, nine months for reparation
from the nervous strain of lactation, and nine months for the next
pregnancy. The maximum number of children compatible with health should
thus not exceed seven. The moderate bearing of children, despite its
physiological expense, is conducive to health.
The middle part of the intermenstrual period is, as a rule, the most
sterile. If the couple is anxious to have a child, the best time for
concarnatio is from the third to the eighth day after the flow has
ceased. The time from the fifth to the second day before menstruation
is not so favorable as the days after the period. The greater part of
conception follows concubitus practised in the eight days following
menstruation.[CZ]
Hence a couple desiring a child should be advised that the eight days
following menstruation, while not absolutely dependable, yet present
the most favorable time for conception.
The time of the day most favorable for the congressio depends upon the
purpose of the act, whether it is practised for the sake of procreation
or for pleasure only. The horizontal position post initum favors the
retention of the semen within the vagina, the erect position its
expulsion. The motionless reclining position of the woman after the
generative act is, hence, favorable to conception. The act, therefore,
should not be practiced immediately before arising.[DA]
The season is also claimed to have some influence upon the
offspring.[DB]
Dispareunia of the two mates is often of great importance for the
offspring. Orgasmus retardatus in the male does not cause dispareunia.
In such a case concarnatio may be protracted for hours without
interference by the muliebria. But when the male tends to reach the
orgasm too quickly for his particular mate and the erection ceases,
then the female orgasm does not take place at all, and we have a case
of dispareunia.
Now, at the moment of the female orgasm the uterine suction takes
place, by which sperma is drawn into the uterine cavity. Hence if
the male orgasm occurs too soon and the woman does not reach this
stage at all, female ejaculation and uterine suction fail to appear.
This circumstance may seriously interfere with the entrance of the
spermatozoa into the uterus and thus prevent conception.[DC]
The male, therefore, has to be taught to prevent his premature orgasm
by an effort of the will or by so varying the motions as to delay the
climax. He has to retard his orgasm so that both mates may reach the
culmination at the same time.
Sometimes the entrance of the spermatozoa is prevented by a diseased
or narrow cervical canal. In this case the repeated application of the
constant electric current, after Apostoli, with the kathode in the
uterus, will cause a cure of the catarrh and a more lasting dilation
of the cervix than all the instrumental dilatations and the usual
curettages will ever effect.
While in the interest of the offspring the horizontal position of the
woman after initus is most desirable, and concarnatio should hence take
place in the beginning of the night, the rules are somewhat different,
if initus is practised for libido only.
Initus is slow and dangerous immediately after a meal and during the
two and three hours which the first digestion needs, or after having
finished a rapid walk or any other violent exercise. In the same
way, if the mental faculties are excited by some mental effort, by a
theatre party or a dance, rest is necessary, and it is advisable to
defer amatory delights till the next morning. After the calm and the
rest of the night the bodily organism and the intellectual faculties
are in a happy serenity and the sensibility has the whole virginity
of its impressions. On the other hand, initus ought to be avoided in
the morning immediately before rising. The time for beginning daily
occupations is by no means favorable to the attainment of a happy
lassitude. The most propitious hour for initus is, therefore, during
the night after the first sleep.
_Impeditio conceptionis._—The most frequent method employed conceptum
impeditare is that of coitus interruptus, or onanism at the moment
when it is felt that ejaculation of the semen is about to take place.
The male orgasm then occurs outside the vagina, and the female orgasm
is, as a rule, not induced at all. This practice is very injurious
to both mates. Although the male act is allowed to reach its acme,
still the ejaculation occurring outside the natural place, the proper
satisfaction is missing, and there remains a constant hankering after
the repetition concubitus which leads to excesses. Besides, this
constant feeling of dissatisfaction causes in the long run a number of
serious symptoms in both mates.
The weakness of the brain is manifested by phobias and psychic effects,
as ill humor, headaches, vertigo, syncope, insomnia, spasms of laughter
or crying, irritability, fatigue and spinal pains. The affections of
the gastro-intestinal canal are, spasm in swallowing, nausea, ravenous
appetite or loss of appetite and constipation. The affection of the
lungs is shown by nervous asthma. The heart shows palpitation and
tachycardia. The genito-urinary system shows the following symptoms:
impotence, frequent urination, hyperaesthesia in urethra, pressure in
perineum, neuralgia of the testicles and spermatorrhoea. The muscles
and skin show their affection by a certain tremor, paraesthesia in the
legs and perspiration at the least exertion.
Besides these symptoms, found in men and women alike, the female shows
serious local symptoms. In the woman congressus interruptus prevents
the inducing of the orgasm. In this way the tumefaction of the female
genitals is not removed. The genital organs become engorged and are
not allowed to enjoy the relaxation, consequent upon the completion
congressus. If these interrupted sexual meetings are often repeated,
serious diseases of uterus and ovaries develop. The uterine walls
become dense and thickened and the menstruation is disturbed. The woman
suffers from pains, tenderness and the sense of bearing down. In the
course of time the absence of the detumescence causes real chronic
disturbances, such as vulvitis, vaginitis, erosions of the cervix,
endometritis, retroposition of uterus, salpingitis, oöphoritis and even
fibroids or cancers.
Furthermore, as this practice of coitus interruptus does not allow
the impulse of detumescence to be gratified, after every preliminary
step has been taken to arouse it, the woman often takes her refuge to
stuprum manu. Hence we find after a certain lapse of time, the clitoris
to be considerably enlarged in volume as well as in length. The prepuce
is thickened, the labia minora are enlarged, wrinkled, contracted and
slate-colored. They are frequently covered with black spots, due to an
accentuated pigmentation. Repeated friction produces coxcomb labia, and
thigh friction, mostly found in young girls, is the cause of one lip
being larger than the other. The urinary and the vaginal orifices are
open, the constrictores vesicae and cunni having lost their tonicity.
To avoid all these serious consequences in the woman, it has been
suggested fascinum non est extrahendum until the woman’s impulse of
detumescence has been satisfied and the tumefaction muliebrium removed.
Such initus has been claimed to be of the same value for the woman
as the normal. But the greatest drawback to this mode of concarnatio
is that very few men will be able to perform such a delicate act.
It requires a great concentration of mind to succeed. Besides, it
would be an error to consider such concarnatio normal, even for the
woman. For it is not entirely a matter of indifference to the woman
whether the sperma flows into the vagina or not.[DD] Initus involves
the transmission into the female organism of certain fluids from the
man, which have a beneficial effect upon the woman. This is often
demonstrated by the helpful effect marriage has upon weak and anaemic
girls. A happy union is the charm wherewith to banish chlorosis and
many other female ailments and irregularities. The influence of the
seminal excitation is quite different from the copulative excitation.
If the latter is induced while the former does not follow, the
practice will cause in the woman debility and sometimes even nervous
prostration.
Any device to prevent the entrance of the sperma into the vagina or
uterus, such as condoms, cervical obturators or sponges, for the same
reason, have an injurious effect upon the woman’s general health.
Besides, all these devices do not prevent at all, especially the
sacrifices at the door of the temple do not always afford security
against an accidental conception. The spermatozoa with their faculty
of motion may penetrate into the female genital tract without the
introduction of the mentula into the vagina, and no obturator or sponge
can close up the os uteri so tightly that the spermatozoa will not be
able to find their way into the uterine cavity. No condom is strong
enough that it will not occasionally burst, and all the precautions of
months are suddenly set at naught.
The following history shows that the introduction of the fascinum into
the vagina is not an absolute necessity for pregnancy.
An uncle brought his niece, eighteen years of age, to the author with
some indefinite intestinal complaints. Several physicians made the
diagnosis pregnancy. But the girl, knowing that she never had any
carnal relations, laughed at their diagnosis. The examination showed
an intact hymen and a vaginal lumen which had never been dilated.
But the combined examination per rectum did reveal a four months'
pregnancy. The girl was told that her virginal state showed that she
really never had any carnal relations, but that dalliance with a
lover during which ejaculation takes place upon the crines volvulæ
may be the cause of pregnancy. This must have happened in her case.
Thereupon the girl broke down and confessed that such dalliance has
been indulged in.
Minime perniciosa marito maritæque sunt suppositoria medicata, pulveres
et injectiones acidae statim post initum. But they are all no more
trustworthy in killing the spermatozoa than congressus interruptus
and all the other anti-conceptional devices. They all fail without
exception.[DE]
The best means conceptionem impedire is total abstinence, which is
perfectly harmless for those who are able to accomplish it. Chastity
does no harm to the soul nor to the body. The belief that abstinence
causes diseases of the genitals or impotency of any kind is a great
error. Love never dies of want, but it often dies of indulgence.
Abstinence has for those who are able to maintain it no harmful
consequences. But it may be said that sexually normal individuals
are generally unequal to the task. Especially is abstinence almost
impossible in married people, whose nerves are keyed to the highest
pitch by the close intimacies of their lives.
_Means of sexual excitement._—In our modern way of living even
moderation in sexual matters seems to be impossible. Not a few of our
young men are satyrs and our young women nymphomaniacs, who “faute de
mieux” seize on stuprum manu. Once married they know no restraint. They
are living in constant sexual excitement.
There are five special influences that incite to sexual overindulgence.
The abuse of spirituous liquors, which has reached alarming proportions
among modern women, increases their sexual desires and destroys their
natural modesty. Dancing is another cause of sexual excitement. To-day
young girls in their teens frequent public balls and receptions, dance
with male partners, and mutually excite each other. The modern stage
is another important factor in sexually overstimulating the passions
of many of our young men and women. The modern stage no longer appeals
to the intellect of trained minds that have reached a certain age.
The modern stage is more sensual, it lays the main stress upon the
scenery, which may be enjoyed by young boys and girls, scarcely passed
the period of puberty. The play is, as a rule, an ordinary, every-day,
small suggestive love-affair. (It is euphemistically called a realistic
play.) Nude and vulgar art and impure literature have another great
influence in exciting sexual desires. The modern novelist finds his
greatest delight in descending to the gutter in search for his heroes,
and knows no higher aim in art than to give a realistic picture of the
blandishments of bad women and of the allurements of degenerated men.
One of the strongest sexual excitements which, directly concern
only men but indirectly leads to mutual erethism, is the modern
woman’s dress. Although from time immemorial woman always so dressed
as to accentuate and bring into prominence her secondary sexual
characteristics, yet the former modesty, the customs and certain
sumptuary laws dictated moderation in this respect. The modern woman
acknowledges no restraint. She copies slavishly the Parisian fashion,
which, as a rule, is a creation suggested by the demi-mondaine and
designed to increase her trade by exciting the passions of the other
sex. The modern woman, throughout the civilized world, consciously
or unconsciously, imitates her erring Parisian sister. Not only does
she try to bring into bold relief by means of the corset her main
secondary sexual characteristics, her bosom and her pelvis, but by
means of her hose supporters, her legs and the space between them are
only partly veiled. Thus a really obscene effect is created which
is far more exciting than if she were perfectly nude. The effect
of contrast and expectation renders the partly veiled nudity more
exciting. This is the psychological reason why man tries to conceal his
natural state and covers it by artifice, while animals try to win their
mates by showing and exposing their sexual qualities.
All these artificial excitements tend to create voluptuousness and
lead to excesses in venere. These excesses have the indispensable
consequence of making a large number of our men and women highly
neurasthenic.[DF]
FOOTNOTES:
[BJ] Medical students who ought to know the sequels of venereal
diseases are not chaster than other young men of the same age.
[BK] Such pamphlets as “What a young boy ought to know” or “What a
young girl ought to know” show a touching naïveté. Young boys and
girls, if of the age to understand such pamphlets, do not need to know
anything, for the simple reason that they know everything, and in a
more prurient way than their elders. It is the height of absurdity
to give lectures on sex problems before classes in high schools or
colleges, where a large percentage of the boys have already passed
through all the stages of gonorrhoeal infection and a good many of the
girls are addicted to the practice of autoeroticism. After such habits
have been acquired, lectures will be of no avail. Nor are books, fit
to be given into the hands of boys or girls, of any value. By the time
a child is able to understand such books it knows more of sex than the
book can teach.
[BL] It is questionable if physicians always appreciate the dangers of
venereal diseases and of sexual irregularities. It may sound queer, but
the author has met with many physicians who think no more of gonorrhoea
than of a cold in the head, and who consider a chancre a huge joke.
Such physicians—and their number is legion—have never acquired any
proper knowledge of sex.
[BM] It is only the covering that gives to any part of the human
anatomy a certain element of the obscene. The female arms are certainly
more beautiful than the female legs. Still the bare feminine arms,
because they are constantly seen everywhere, are seldom noticed by any
healthy male; but let a woman bare her legs in public and she will
shock the entire community by the strange, unusual sight.
[BN] The following lessons for boys and girls at the period of puberty
should be given only if preceded by preventive measures during infancy
and early childhood and by lessons in propagation of plants and of
animals. If the children have never been instructed before, and there
is the least suspicion that they have already tasted from the tree of
knowledge, either in the form of masturbation or in that of illicit
venery, such lessons are not only of no value, but they may even do
more harm than good. The descriptions of the sequelae of masturbation
and of venereal diseases may make the young people desperate and not
seldom cause suicide or wanton recklessness.
[BO] In the girl a certain kind of nocturnal ejaculation also takes
place, manifested by an abundant discharge from the Bartholinian glands
and the expulsion of Kristeller’s slimy plug from the cervix. These
phenomena during sleep are usually of a vague kind in young girls and
are seldom impressed upon their consciousness. The real pollution that
awakens the sleeper and leaves its traces in the individual’s memory
occurs usually only in boys, and in the female sex only, after a
perfect orgasm has been experienced in the state of wakening.
[BP] Vide B. S. Talmey; Contribution to the study of the Aetiology of
Varicocele; New York Medical Journal, July 14, 1894.
[BQ] To be sure this will mean preaching the morality of fear, and
it may be objected that “burglary is wrong, irrespective whether the
burglar does or does not get caught.” But the teaching of pure ethics
is best left to the minister, who is the natural teacher of morality.
The latter, with all the authority of religion, cannot prevent sex
irregularities. Rev. J. M. Wilson (Journ. of Education, 1881) says:
“Emotional religious appeals are far from rooting out sensuality and
sometimes even stimulate licentiousness.” This is a confession of the
ministry that, as far as chastity is concerned, pure ethics seem to
have been a complete failure. Hence, the pedagogue and physician will
have to give other, more appealing reasons for the avoidance of a
promiscuous life. Besides this, the morality of fear is a pretty good
working morality. The Bible (Exodus xx, 5 and 12, and xxii, 23, the
observance of a command carries its reward and the transgression of a
prohibition its punishment) often preaches the morality of fear, and
upon the Biblical morality all the western civilizations are founded.
Morality is the arrest of the instincts by the intellect, and the
intellect always asks for the ethical “why.” The instincts are the
voices of the past generations, reverberating like distant echoes in
the cells of the nervous system. To overcome this powerful inheritance,
the intellect needs a sound, valid reason, and the best reason will
be, if we can show the violator of the usages of society that he is
not only injuring himself but that he does harm to others. An immoral
act must harm somebody. A man alone in the world can not be immoral.
If humanity suddenly perished, leaving only one man on earth, there
would be no morality left for him. There is no moral precept which
is not a social precept, no other duty except toward one’s neighbor.
If human sanitation and the universal intelligent use of venereal
prophylaxis could banish venereal diseases from this planet, there
would be no medical sex-problem, although there might still remain some
sex-problems for the sociologists to solve.
But venereal diseases are still here among us. If prostitution could
be expelled from our earth, the generations following such a happy
catastrophe would be free of venereal diseases. But as humanity seems
to be now constituted, we shall have to wait a long time for the
spontaneous disappearance of this plague. Even in the ideal state of
society, dreamt of by our economic determinists, prostitution will
still be in existence, as long as we continue to breed mental defects.
Only a very small percentage of prostitution is due to economic
conditions. In the great majority of cases it is absence of every moral
principle and will-power which determine the girls to embrace this
unhappy profession. Dr. Pauline Tarnowsky (Etudes anthropométriques sur
les voleuses et prostituées) found that professional prostitutes are
imperfect beings, affected by arrest of development, generally due to
morbid heredity, and present mental and physical signs of degeneracy in
accord with their imperfect evolution. They accept their abject trade
agreeably and do not want to change it. Laziness and absence of moral
sense are the principal traits characteristic of the prostitute. Dr.
Olga Bridgman (Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc., August 16, 1913) found among
a hundred and four sexually immoral girls, examined at admission at
the State training school for girls at Geneva, one hundred and one
or ninety-seven per cent. feeble-minded and only three normal. Dr.
Edith E. Spaulding, Physician, Massachusetts Reformatory for Women,
Sherborn, Mass. (The Amer. Social Hygiene Assoc. Bulletin, May, 1914),
has completed a study of the mental and physical factors in the cases
of 244 girls leading a life of prostitution. Of these over ninety-nine
per cent. had one of the venereal diseases, fifty per cent. had both
syphilis and gonorrhoea. Of the total number 60 per cent. showed
syphilis and 89 per cent. gonorrhoea. The mental and environmental
factors disclosed by this investigation are no less valuable and
interesting. In only 15 per cent. did environmental conditions alone
seem to have determined the entrance into a life of prostitution,
the remaining eighty-five per cent. showed some underlying mental or
physical defect.
All these investigations tend to show that defective mentality is
responsible for the presence of prostitution. Prostitution, therefore,
will always be with us, as long as we allow mental defectives to
propagate. With the presence of prostitution, the venereal scourge
will rage among us, unless we can convince men to stay away from
contamination.
[BR] This course will mean a much larger task than merely lobbying a
bill through the legislature for the eradication of prostitution, the
common remedy of the reformer. It will come only by the slowest and
most difficult of processes and by that hardest of all work in the
world, i. e., thinking.
The off-hand reformers are too impatient with the slow and toilsome
process of competent and judicious sex-education. For them a law,
forbidding the marriage of the diseased, suffices to eradicate
hereditary syphilis and ophthalmia neonatorum. As a rule, their laws
often intensify the very ills they seek to cure. To the average
reformer life is presented in a stark and rigid outline. He has no
perception of proportions, no knowledge of values. Even when he
acquiesce in the slow, patient, laborious study of sex, he is blandly
unconscious of distinctions. He at once exaggerates matters. He can not
see that the truth about sex may be imparted to the child by parents,
family physician or teacher, but that it cannot be acquired by the
child from the platform, stage, novel or the ubiquitous magazine.
[BS] Lewis (D. Amer. Jour. Derm., 1906) has known girls of thirteen
and fourteen years of age quæ conceptaverunt without realizing their
condition. The author examined once a gravid girl of seventeen years
who had no idea what pregnancy means and where hers resulted from.
[BT] Woodruff (Expansion of Races, p. 193) estimates about one million
prostitutes in this country. Roe asserts that the average life of
these girls is about five years. This means that two hundred thousand
prostitutes die every year in the United States and are replaced by new
ones, or two hundred thousand girls are led into a life of shame, every
year, in this country.
[BU] Belaschko’s statistics show that fifty-five per cent. of all the
venal women in Berlin come from the great cities and forty-five per
cent. from the country. Thirty-four per cent. of these girls belonged
to middle-class families and three per cent. of them were graduates
from high schools.
[BV] Social and not economic conditions, says Nascher, are responsible
for most of the prostitution in New York City. Very few are driven to
it through want.
[BW] Gibb (N. Y. Med. Record, 1907, p. 643), who examined nine hundred
children for the society of prevention of cruelty to children,
has found girls of nine or ten years of age and even younger with
abnormally developed instincts who often submit willingly.
The author had once under treatment for chancre a child of eleven years
of age who submitted to concubitus for money to be able to buy pretty
clothes. Her mother, a widow, was well able to support her and did so.
There was no question of poverty.
In another case, a girl of twelve, already menstruating, whose mother
was in an insane asylum, “tentavit tangere genitalia medici sui,” while
being examined for bronchitis.
[BX] Clifford G. Roe (in Woman’s World, September, 1909) claims that
the average life of the prostitutes is about five years, according to
the best statistics.
[BY] Through the consultation about pregnancy, several cases became
known to the author where respectable young men and women, who, known
to each other and of the same set in society, would never had thought
of indulging in illicit venery, after participating in a carouse
together found themselves in some hotel the next morning, without the
least knowledge how they landed there.
[BZ] The automobile has caused the ruin of more respectable girls than
all the poverty of the slums has ever been able to accomplish.
[CA] In the present state of society, the most rabid, radical and
free-love advocate will scarcely cherish the thought of his young
daughter becoming impregnated by a chance acquaintance. Nor will the
child, born of such a union, thank his parents for the bestowal of the
handicap of illegitimacy upon his life journey.
[CB] How little influence fear of infection has upon the conduct
of our young men, leading a promiscuous life, shows the following
characteristic case. The author was consulted by a young man, engaged
to be married, who was suffering from gonorrhoea, complicated by a
terrible orchitis. He was put to bed where he suffered terrific pains
for quite a number of days. The first question the patient asked, after
he got well, was whether he may marry the next month. He was warned
against marrying before repeated examinations have shown the absence of
gonococci. He then requested some drug for the prevention of another
infection. Now, if there ever was a man who had a reason to fear
infection, it surely was he. He suffered enough. Still he was ready
again to plunge into his promiscuous sex-life, without any thought of
the young girl who was waiting to become his bride.
[CC] Col. L. M. Maus, U. S. A., has used among the troops of his
department of the Lakes for one year, with surprisingly effective
results, a small tin collapsible tube containing a paste made of phenol
3 per cent., calomel 25 per cent. and lanolin 72 per cent. He has found
this paste an absolute preventive against gonorrhoea, chancroid and
syphilis, if properly used within half an hour after contact. One-third
of the paste is squeezed into the urethra, the remaining two-thirds are
applied to the glans. Cleansing the genitalia is not necessary, if the
tube is used.
[CD] As long as there is a supply of prostitutes there will always be
a demand for the services of these unfortunates. The notion that it
is the demand which creates the supply has been spread by superficial
observers. It was not the demand for the telephone that led to its
invention, or the demand for railroads that led to invention of the
steam engine. As long as we allow mental defectives to propagate
their kind, there will always be degenerate women who will prostitute
themselves, and by this very act create a demand.
[CE] Le Pileur says: Lessons to young girls, showing them the dangers
to which they expose themselves, can only have a favorable influence.
Perhaps the physicians of Saint-Lazare will then hear no more, from at
least one-fourth of all these unfortunate girls in this institution,
that they have given themselves to some stranger. We will not hear
twenty per cent. of them answer that they have allowed themselves to be
defloured out of curiosity, to know what it is, to be as smart as their
friends.
This ignorance is due to the fact that the majority of parents have no
more knowledge of sex than what is known to every animal by instinct.
Pinard (Chronique Médicale, 1903, p. 488) says: “Jusqu’à présent l’acte
procréateur n’a été qu’un acte instinctif tel qu’il existait à l’âge
des cavernes, c’est le seul de nos instincts n’ayant pas été civilisé.
L’acte est accompli à l’aurore du XXe siècle comme à l’âge de pierre.”
[CF] The Sanitarian (March, 1904) claims that not one per cent. of
prostitutes are able to read or write because they are of such a low
order of intelligence that they cannot be educated.
[CG] What are a few generations in the history of humanity? One to two
centuries represent only a short space of time. Prostitution is older
than history. The Hammurabi codex, paragraph 100, has already rules
about Hierodules, or girls consecrated to the service of Venus. Moses,
Deuteronomy xxiii, 18, commands: “There shall be no temple prostitute
of the daughters of Israel.” Still prostitution existed among the Jews
as seen by I. Regum, xiv, 24; xv, 12; xxii, 46; II. Regum, xxiii, 7;
Amos, ii, 7; Hosea, iv, 14. At this point the prophet distinguishes
between the common and the temple prostitute. If such an ancient
institution could be banished from this earth by eugenics within a few
centuries, humanity could be satisfied.
[CH] If the symbol of inheritance be placed as 1, and the symbol of
environment as 0, both together will give the figure 10; each alone
amounts to little in one case and to nothing in the other.
[CI] These conditions are now noticed even in our young country,
where not only the native of the Anglo-Saxon stock sets a limit to
his offspring but also the immigrant, who begins the same practices
as soon as he has reached a higher step of the social ladder. The
same Russian Jewess who in her native country set her pride to follow
the religious dictates of her race to increase and multiply, the same
Italian or Irish woman who in her native country would not have thought
of defying the tenets of the Catholic church regarding the limitation
of offspring, will ask her physician for some anti-conceptional remedy,
as soon as she has reached a certain degree of affluence. With wealth
and power come love for luxury and ease, and the consequence is the
limitation of the offspring.
[CJ] Any sex-order for breeding purposes must be a public institution,
and such an institution would be the worst slavery history has ever
seen. Mardach (The Tragedy of Man, twelfth scene) gives in his drama a
true picture of the tyranny of such institutions. The hero and heroine
of the drama are Adam and Eve, who are repeatedly reincarnated at
different important periods in the history of the world but do not know
who they are. At the different incarnations they always happen to meet
and fall in love with each other. The last reincarnation on this earth
takes place several thousand years after our present era. At the end of
the twelfth scene, Adam is present, when the old man or judge of the
town (called at that period Phalanster) disposes of children and wives.
Two women, one of them the reincarnated Eve, arrive with their young
children, and the judge, upon the advice of the scientist, decides
which trade they should learn.
FIRST SCENE
JUDGE. Scientist! Examine the skulls of these two children.
SCIENTIST. This child should be brought up to be a physician, the other
to be a shepherd.
JUDGE. Out with them.
EVE. Do not touch him! This is my child. Who dares to tear him away
from his mother-breast?
JUDGE. Take him away! Why tarry with him any longer?
EVE. My child, my child! Did not I nourish thee with my heart-blood?
Where is the power that may rend this holy bond? Shall I disclaim thee
forever, that thou mayest be lost in the crowd, and my searching eye,
in restless fear, shall in vain look for thee among a hundred similar
phalanster-types?
ADAM. O friend, if ought is sacred to you, leave this child to his poor
mother.
JUDGE. You play, oh stranger, a daring game! If we allow the revival
of the conquered prejudice, formerly called the family, then the
acquisitions of our present science will tumble at once.
EVE. What is to me your frozen science? May it fall, where nature’s
voice speaks.
JUDGE. Well! will it be done soon? (_The child is carried away._)
EVE. My child, my child! (_Eve faints._)
SECOND SCENE
JUDGE. These two women are not mated yet. Those who wish them for
pairing come forward.
ADAM. Upon this woman make I claim.
JUDGE. Scientist! What is thy opinion?
SCIENTIST. The man sentimental, the woman nervous, an unhealthy issue
would be the result. This pair fits not together.
ADAM. Still I shall not let her go, if she wishes me.
EVE. Magnanimous man, I am thine.
ADAM. I love thee, oh woman, with the whole fervor of my heart!
EVE. Also I, this I feel, will forever love thee.
SCIENTIST. Why, this is madness. Strange, indeed, to see reappear the
spirit of bygone ages in our enlightened world. How comes this?
ADAM. It is a late ray of light from paradise.
JUDGE. It is pitiable.
ADAM. Pity us not. This madness is ours. We surely envy not you for
your soberness. What in the world ever was great and noble was such
madness, which is not confined by circumspect anxiety. The angel’s
speech that sweetly sounds down to us from higher spheres is a safer
proof of our soul’s affinity and kinship to the higher regions. We
despise the low common dust of this earth, boldly searching the road to
the higher spheres. (_He holds Eve in close embrace._)
JUDGE. Why listen any longer to this nonsense. Away to the hospital
with both of them.
This poetical fancy gives, nevertheless, a true picture of the
conditions our descendants in future generations will have to contend
with if the patriarchal doctrines of our radical sociologists should
ever materialize. Their order of things must logically lead to the
hardest and most bewildering tyranny mankind has ever known. The
tyrannical Draconic laws will prescribe what to eat, what to drink, how
long to sleep, how to mate, and what the children should be.
This is not a fancy-dream. Even in our free country the drift of the
law-giving power is towards such conditions. In one State, it is
allowed to drink tea or coffee, but not alcohol, although ten grains
caffeine is already a deadly poison, but it will take many more grains
alcohol to kill. In another State it is allowed to smoke cigars but not
cigarettes, although of the three modes of using tobacco, snuffing,
chewing and smoking, the cigar is the worst of the last mode, because,
as a rule, it combines the effects of chewing and smoking. Another
state forbids marriage without a physician’s certificate, although,
if the marriage candidate wishes to conceal the truth, there is no
physician living, Neisser, the discoverer of the gonococcus, and
Wassermann with his test, included, who could tell with absolute
certainty whether a man has been infected or not. Even if the candidate
himself, having been infected, wishes to know whether he has been
cured, the different tests are of such an elaborate nature that very
few physicians, even in the metropolis, are able to make them. Still
ignorance passes laws. Besides this, no law, forbidding marriage, can
prevent mating and the propagation of the unfit. Even if the king, the
representative of the law, should imprison his young daughter in a
brazen tower, her Jupiter will find his way to her by a shower of gold.
[CK] No doubt castration is a severe penalty for any human being. But
degeneracy itself is the penalty for the violation of biological laws,
and the eradication of degeneracy is no more than the satisfaction
of the law of talion and the restoration of the moral equilibrium.
Society has a right to make use of these measures of defense to free
itself of the degenerates, and nothing short than depriving them of the
capability of procreation will do the work.
This right does not mean that it is the duty of the State to make
search for inoffensive degenerates to satisfy the law of talion. In
the interest of personal liberty, it would be very dangerous to give
society the right to pick up inoffensive men and women on the streets,
declare them imbeciles and sterilize or castrate them. This would throw
the doors wide open to abuse. Only those who place themselves or are
placed under society’s protection, either in asylums or in prisons, and
have thus become society’s wards should be subjected to the rules and
regulations of society.
[CL] The brutality of Nietzsche’s philosophy has never attracted normal
people, even if they had the assurance that the offspring of the
brutal mating will turn out to be supermen. This assurance can not be
given. The lessons of history teach just the contrary. The artificial
breeding of the Spartan warrior led to the sterility of every progress
of culture, science, art or commerce, while the chaotic panmixia of
Athens did not prevent this town of only thirty thousand inhabitants,
two-thirds of them slaves, to become the spiritual centre of Greece and
the teacher of untold future generations in art and science. But for
Athens and its panmixia, Sparta’s history would have remained unwritten
and its people buried in oblivion, like many another nation that is
known by name only. The most vaunted Spartan vigor has not left the
least sign of a monument, chiseled, written, carved, or stained, to
record Sparta’s very existence. Sparta’s vigor was the vigor of the
bull or the elephant.
[CM] Even at the time of Shakespeare this fact was well known. The
poet’s advice is: “Let still the woman take an elder than herself; so
wears to him, so sways she level in her husband’s heart.”
[CN] Premature union means loss for the child, says Ellen Key; it may
arrest in their growth countless excellent forces. Woman’s nature does
not attain its full spiritual maturity before about the age of thirty.
[CO] During pregnancy the prone position is the one least injurious
to the child. In the later months, it is sometimes the only position
possible.
[CP] Brehem reports that in the Sudan the woman stands in initu, bends
over and places her hands on her knees.
Among the Kamtschadals maritus maritaque jacent in lateribus.
Some of the Australian tribes exercent compressionem in a squatting
position.
[CQ] The question of frequency was a matter of solicitude to many
ancient legislators. Zoroaster requires as the minimum frequency
to secure a sufficient gratification mulieri una congressio nono
quoque die; Solon three times a month; Mohammed requires once a week,
otherwise the woman shall have cause for divorce.
[CR] Among young married people it is often the wife who is more
exacting than the husband. The sensations are entirely new to her and
she demands their repetition so often till the male erections fail to
perform their part.
[CS] The mental faculties suffer most under excesses. The Talmud says
that the brain dries up through excesses in venere and masturbation.
The symptoms of cerebrasthenia e abusu sexuali, says Hegar, is pressure
in the head, inability to do continuous mental work and to concentrate
one’s thoughts, which involuntarily continue to stray upon the sexual
sphere, lack of mental energy, hypochondria and insomnia.
The eyes of the patients are disturbed by light. They fear light in
such a degree that reading after a short time has to be interrupted.
Mooren reports the case of an American lady who, manu stupri causa from
her early youth, could not even stand the lustre of another person’s
eye.
Weber found that, excessive congressus, especially in the female
sex, has an unfavorable influence upon the organ of hearing. The
accompanying symptoms are pains in the vertebral column, in the region
of the last pectoral and the first lumbar vertebrae.
Mackenzie says that excesses in venere may lead to inflammations of
the nasal mucous membrane, to epistaxis and to abnormal sensations of
smelling.
[CT] This explains why so many middle-aged men have no other aim in
life except to make money and spend it on frivolities, and why so many
women turn their minds to mere fads and sheer inanities; whose minds
harbor only one thought, dress, and who worship only one divinity—the
goddess of fashion.
[CU] The young bride entering the bridal chamber a pure virgin, says
Ribbing, is not prepared for the things to come as is her husband. In
any case, she somewhat fears the changed conditions and surroundings.
[CV] Even among barbarians women were taboo and considered unclean
during the catamenial period. Concarnatio was strictly prohibited. The
Mosaic law declares the menstruating woman unclean for seven days.
Likewise the man, qui comprimebat a menstruating woman, was considered
unclean for seven days.
[CW] A confinement, says Freund, is a menstruation in which a perfectly
developed ovum is expelled.
[CX] Trousseau says, conjugal congressus is not injurious to nurse and
nursling, provided it is regulated by great moderation.
[CY] Garnier consulit ut manus mariti voluptarie titillet mammas et
alias rotundas partes mulieris. These caresses convey to the spirits
of both mates the most vivid excitation, which hasten and induce
ejaculation. Ovid gives the same advice.
“Nec manus in lecto laeva jacebit iners.
“Invenient digiti quod agant in partibus illis.
“In quibus occulte spicula tangit Amor.”
It is known that Vanswieten gave the following advice to Empress Maria
Theresia who was childless in the beginning of her married life. “Ego
vero censeo, vulvam Sanctissimae Majestatis ante coitum diutius esse
titillandam.”
[CZ] Hensen (Physiologie der Zeugung) concludes from statistics
compiled from 284 cases wherein the day concarnationis was known,
that the greatest number of conceptions follows the act practised in
the days immediately after menstruation. The chances of conception
following the act practised during menstruation are increased the
nearer the catamenial period is approaching its end. The number of
conceptions after the act practised before menstruation, Hensen found
to be the smallest.
[DA] In a general way Hesiod advises never to practise concarnatio
on the return home from a funeral, but rather after having enjoyed a
good comedy, for the semen transfers cheerfulness as well as sorrow
and other affections to the offspring. For the same reason concubitus
should be avoided when in a state of intoxication. Diogenes said to a
stupid boy: “My son, thy father was drunk when thy mother conceived
thee.”
[DB] Noirot found that the healthiest and strongest children are those
conceived in the spring, the time of the rejuvenation of nature.
Oettinger found that liaisons produce an abnormally large proportion of
females, incestuous unions of males.
Westermark says that among exogamous peoples the female birth rate is
often excessively high.
[DC] Soranus goes so far as to claim that conception cannot ensue if
initus is not desired and longed for by the woman. Just as the man
can have no ejaculation, or rather erection, without desire, so is
conception impossible without it in the woman. Just as food, taken
without appetite or with disgust, will not be properly digested, so the
sperma can not be received by the womb, if inclination and lust are
wanting during concarnatio.
This opinion is not borne out by experience, for we find that pregnancy
does take place after concarnatio while the woman is in a natural or
hypnotic sleep, in a chloroformed state, in drunkenness and in rape.
These facts prove that pregnancy may follow concarnatio where the woman
did not experience the least degree of libido.
But even if conception be possible without libido, the lack of the
latter is a great impediment to impregnation.
[DD] Roubaud says that, initus interruptus causes in the woman
voluptuous excitation without allowing the reception of the spermatic
fluid into the organs. The desire and the copulative-voluptuousness
awaken the sensibility of the womb and prepare it to receive the
normal excitation of the sperma. If its arrival fails, the uterine
sensibility, awakened by the erotic sensibility, reacts upon the
mobility in a confused manner and causes unsuitable and irregular
motions. If these manoeuvres are often repeated the woman eventually
becomes a nervous wreck.
[DE] E. Kraus (Centralblatt f. Gynaecol., 1911, p. 747) found that all
chemicals which are recommended for the prevention of conception prove
themselves extremely unreliable in the practice. His experiments with
4 per cent. boric acid, 0.8 per cent. citric acid, etc., on hares and
rabbits failed entirely.
For this reason, namely, that there is no anti-conceptional device in
existence which affords real security against pregnancy, there arose
recently certain sociologists and physicians in Europe who demand the
abrogation of the laws contra abortionem.
The Pirogoff medical society in Russia demands the legalization
abortionis.
Hans Gross (Gross Archiv, Vol. 12, p. 345) says that in his opinion the
time is not far away when abortion will not be punished any longer.
Ed. v. Liszt (Die kriminelle Fruchtabtreibung, Zürich, 1910) says,
the punishment for committing abortion should only take place after
the pregnancy has advanced to a certain point. The possibility of
recognizing the human form or of distinguishing the sex of the embryo
or the capability of motion should mark the point in question. The
moment, after which abortion would be punished, would thus coincide
with the end of the second month.
Such proposals can only be made in countries where Roman law is in
force. From the point of view of the Roman law the embryo is “pars
viscerum mulieris.” Hence if she has a right to remove any part of her
body, she may also remove her embryo. No law denies a man his right
to have his healthy appendix removed even against the advice of his
surgeons, if he thinks it may bother him later on. Hence if the woman
thinks that carrying her embryo to term will subject her and her child
to great hardships, she has a right to have it removed.
But in our free country, under Anglo-Saxon law, nobody has a right over
his own body. Suicide is a crime. A woman has no right to remove a part
of her bowels. She and her body belong to the State.
For the same reason sterilization or castration for prevention of
conception must be considered criminal according to the philosophy of
our laws. The operation for the permanent destruction of the faculty of
propagation is nothing less than a partial homicide. For it destroys
the individual’s growth in the infinite. Hence the physician who
performs the operation of sterilization to prevent conception in a
perfectly healthy person is guilty of a crime, just as the homicide
committed, in the interest of euthanasia, upon the victim’s request, is
a criminal offense.
[DF] In their natural sexual life, men live at a loss, hence are more
katabolic, i. e., the changes in consequence of their sexual activity
are disruptive. Women, living at a profit, are more anabolic, i. e.,
the male sperma absorbed by her organs serve for constructive
processes. But erethism of any kind, in both male and female,
represents a katabolic crisis.
PART VIII.
MORALITY[DG]
CHAPTER XXII
THE MORAL STANDARD
Moral judgments claim to be subjective and demand assent from all
men. Hence they imply a standard by which the claims can be tested.
What is this standard? In logic there is an abstract truth which is
the standard of thought. In ethics there must be an ideal good which
furnishes the criterion of what ought to be. What is this ideal supreme
good, by which the ethics of an action can be judged?
Only revealed religion approached the question of morality in a logical
way. It first created as a standard of morality the will of God, as
laid down in the sacred scriptures and traditions of every creed. If
the philosopher, or rather the freethinker, can not accept the standard
of revelation he must find some other criterion for general morality,
or rather he must learn in some way to read the will of the supreme
intelligence. Every advance in science, the unlocking of every secret
in nature, every interpretation and revelation of her laws that comes
to man through scientific research proves, confirms and stamps, with
the seal of eternal truth, the existence of a supreme intelligence,
the Great First Cause, the Soul and Source of all life, energy, and
intelligence. When the will of the supreme intelligence is found,
then there is also found the standard of morality. A philosopher can
not raise his finger and say this is moral and this immoral. Such
an arbitrary standard must lead to chaos, disorder and confusion in
the realm of morals. The moral sense is the last to be developed and
the first to be confused and disordered. With the dogmas of revealed
religion the old standards of morality were also swept aside, and
the modern moralists have no foundation to build their moral systems
upon, hence their drifting from one system to another, from economic
determinism to the worship of the superman, to work-worshipping,
love-worshipping, or pleasure-worshipping.
Among all the modern systems of moral conduct, the radicals who are
building theirs upon economics have chosen the easiest way. They
simply borrowed the ideal of revealed religion and raised it to their
moral standard. They preach economic equality. This represents their
religion, their economics, their morality, their all. Their watchword
is, social justice by giving the laborer the full share of his
labor. This principle of social justice has been borrowed from the
Judeo-Christian creed.[DH]
Social justice composes the chief part of the religious tenets of the
Bible. Even Nietzsche (Jenseits des Guten und Bösen) considers the Old
Testament as essentially the book of Divine justice. אל רחום וחנון a
God of mercy and pity is Jehova—, but אל רחום וחנון he will by no means
clear the guilty. (Exodus xxxiv, 6-7.) Even the passage in the stern
Nahum (I, 2) אל קנוא ונקם is falsely translated, “a god of revenge.”
It really means “He is a god of retributory justice.” The prophetic
teachers, just as the present-day socialists, never asked for love
and mercy but for right and justice. The portrayal of a pious man in
ancient Israel is given in Job xxix, 12, and xxxi, 13. It is the man of
strict social justice. Philo Judeus (Περὶ Φιλανθρωπίας) pointed out the
greatness of the social law in ancient Judaism.
These Biblical ideas of liberty, equality and brotherly love have
been taken up by the altruistic materialists and raised to the top
of the mountain of life as a beacon for humanity’s fragile skiff.
But the sources whence these ideals originated are not only entirely
ignored but are reviled, defamed and ridiculed by these radicals. The
socialists did not create the ideals of social justice, as found in
their doctrines. They borrowed them from the Jewish-Christian creed,
and as atheists—ninety per cent. of them profess atheism—they repudiate
this same creed. They borrow the ancient religious ideals of charity
and social justice from Christianity and repudiate Christianity.[DI]
As altruistic materialists, they are theologically agnostics, but
their impulses are Christian. But by this repudiation of religion they
forfeit the very foothold to stand upon. Religion has behind its ideal
the authority of the divine will. What is behind the materialistic
ideal? What is the goal of materialism? Supposing the Spirit of the
age, that puts material well-being before all other prizes of life,
should carry the victory, supposing the ideal of a perfect materialism
should be realized, what then? Cui bono?
Contrary to the Judeo-Christian highest ideal of protection of the
poor and disinherited, there is the brutal philosophy of Nietzsche’s
superman. While the former proclaims the sublimity of abnegation in
the interest of the present weak and downtrodden, the latter preaches
the extermination of these weaklings in the interest of the future
generations of supermen.
The vindictive vandal-like philosophy of Nietzsche demands the
destruction of the weaker by the stronger.[DJ] In this way a perfect
aristocracy will arise. But the principle of a good aristocracy must
be not to exist for the sake of society, but only as a foundation and
scaffolding by means of which an elect kind of being may arise to its
higher tasks.
But what are the higher tasks? Here Nietzsche is perfectly silent.
What is the highest value, what is man’s standard of values by which
we may judge and measure the valuable? What is the best for society?
What are the greatest aims and ends in life? Are the material gains of
society of supreme value? Is the building of railroads, telegraphs,
telephones or factories of supreme value, or are the ends of life the
writing of lyrics, painting of pictures, and the chiseling of statues?
What will be reached with the superstate of society? If the end and
purpose of human existence were known, we could decide whether it
is worth while to expend human energy upon the increase of material
well-being, whether it is preferable to conserve the energy for the
attainment of spiritual joys, or whether the ethical efforts would be
of the highest cosmic value. But the ultimate purpose being unknown,
or even unknowable, what will be reached when the superman has been
produced? What is he going to accomplish? What when the highest degree
of accomplishment has been reached in science, art, literature and
economics, what then? If all men were Aristoteles, Kants, Spencers, if
all women were Sapphos, Mme. de Staëls or George Eliots, what then?
Humanity would soon starve if it consisted of Apollos, Venuses and
intellectual giants only. A Venus was not created to wash dishes,
neither will an astronomer make a proficient bricklayer or a poet
a good shoemaker, Hans Sachs to the contrary notwithstanding. The
catch-phrase that society nowadays wants not the man who is a good
machine but the man who can make one, sounds clever but is not true.
The truth is that for every machine invented, we need hundreds and
thousands of men to handle the same. A population consisting of
supermen only, such as inventors, captains of industry, professional
men, rulers, statesman, generals, poets, artists, etc., could not exist
for any length of time.
The different brands of reformers claim that, following their
doctrines, it will lead to the highest advantage of humanity. But
they fail to give the definition of advantage. What is the best for
humanity? What is man’s purpose and aim in this world? What is meant by
the fulfilment of man’s destiny? The answer is entirely meaningless,
that the real aim is to be useful in real life, and only begs the
question. What is life, what is it here for? Whence does man come,
whither is he traveling?
What is the aim of civilization? All civilization is merely an intense
effort to make life beautiful. If life is trivial, then civilization
is vanity and vexation of the spirit. What profits man to wear out
body and mind in the service of civilization? Civilization has
been developed on a metallic basis. Tools, implements, instruments
and machinery form the landmarks of the different civilizations.
The gold of Ophir, the copper of Sinai, the silver of Laurium were
part of the web and woof of the early civilization. In modern times
industrialism has become nearly the sum total of our civilization. The
highest boast of our present civilization is wireless, aeroplanes,
telephones, telegraphs, railroads, all mere facilities of living and
communication. If life is mere vanity, then all civilization or
progress is a figment.
Another kind of ethical valuation has been proclaimed by the “moralists
of work.” It has first found eloquent expression in Zola’s so-called
four evangelia, especially in ‘Le Travail’ and in ‘La Fécondité.’ The
sermon preached there is work for work’s sake. The god worshiped is the
god of things material. Man is told to go forth with a high and noble
purpose toward the god of things. These new preachers of the morality
of work have almost succeeded to create a certain frenzy for work. The
success virus of things material is being steadily pumped into men and
even women, so that life has become simply a whirl of things of no
survival value whatsoever. The crude materialism and realism of our
times have created a feverish and almost insane craving for things, a
quenchless fever for things material. The spirit of the hour is the
material world-building, the lust for material things, the intoxication
of work.[DK] Hence the high-pressure requirements of modern existence
which have created in the people a total lack of proportion, a lack
of all sense of relative values. The relative value of a thing,
representing its power to relieve man’s wants, has become confounded
with positive values which only timeless things possess.
People labor and look forward; but what do they look forward to? Our
existence is so fleeting. One intangible fleeting hour, and we drop
into the hollows of oblivion. If the only aim in life are material
things, then the absurdity of life is unquestionable. If life means
anything at all, none of man’s expressions of life can be an end in
itself. If the only divinity is the god of work, then the triviality
of life, whether of the life of the high or of that of the low, of
the king or of the beggar, is evident. What profit will accrue to
humanity even if it consisted of kings and princes only? If the future
of man is only a material well-being, there is no profit in struggling
and suffering for an aimless future. Granted that in this future
such fatalities of life, as sorrow, hunger, vice, prejudice could be
eliminated, granted that every man, woman and child will have their
equal shares in the great duties and privileges of life, will such a
life be less valueless and purposeless when death approaches?
_Morality of love._—While the three systems of conduct, just mentioned,
are founded upon certain ideals, even if they be the ideals of
materialism (paradox), the morality of a certain school of modern
writers has raised as its ideal the most perfect egotism extant. This
effeminate, fade species of literature proclaims the absolute dictature
of Eros as the new ethics. The genius of propagation has deluded
and beguiled these new moralists to proclaim their intoxication of
sensuality as a new religion of personality.[DL] Their doctrine teaches
that voluptuous sensuality is the moral ground of sexual relations.[DM]
They preach the all-importance of love as the last word of human
wisdom. Men should live for the physical desires, and in the instincts
of the moment. Man ought to ignore every thing that is not wholly
material, he must strive to be a good animal. The complete satisfaction
of his desires, the dip into the vices and pleasures of the senses, the
plenary indulgences of the flesh, are the primordial and ineffaceable
rights of man. These individualists simply deify passion. Their vulgar
eroticism and their constant erotic rumination, which fill their entire
effeminate literature, are covered with a veil of insipid verse. The
high-sounding phrases and glittering generalities, emitted by these
writers of the literature of futurism, poorly conceal the true meaning
of their religion of sensuality. A phrase that expresses their belief
in a heaven wherein men and especially women will come into their
own, really means wherein men and women will be allowed to give their
passions free rein. Nothing but sensuality is meant by phrases such as
spiritual attraction or the soul’s complement. When such a feminist
proclaims to the world that “woman wishes to cease to be a subject and
longs to be considered a human being,” she really means that every
sensual excitement she awakens should be taken seriously.
This new ethics is a mixture of self-deception, arrogance, sensuality
and irresponsibility. In their works these realists reveal their
cold, absolutely surfeited, caring for nothing. They measure a
man’s strength not by the power to subdue but by the weakness of
being subdued by passion. They preach that there is no merit in
self-control, sex-repression, generosity, service, and proclaim that
man’s unpardonable sin is that of denying his nature, his greatest
crime against life is the rigid repression of the blood. They know of
nothing holier than the sumptuous, sensuous, time-worshipping world
of paganism. All their writings are replete with unending thrills
and climaxes, all taken from the domain of sex. Their gaze roves in
voluptuous quest over the nudity of erotic sin and social transgression.
Such high-sounding phrases as “live to fulfill your nature, profess the
faith of life, or woman’s desire for self-expression, her desire to
live and find her true destiny” crope out everywhere in their writings
and only serve to befuddle weak minds. What does self-expression,
nature, destiny, mean in the mouths of people, drunk with the ravages
of sensual pleasure? What will it profit to these apostles of
sensuality, when they have fulfilled their nature, when they have found
their destiny? At the hour of death they hold in their hands only the
ashes of spent fancies.[DN]
_Philosophy of pleasure._—Another philosophy of life akin to the
morality of love is the philosophy of pleasure or rather of happiness.
The partisans of the hedonic philosophy proclaim the sole reason of
man’s existence is to procure the greatest possible amount of happiness
in this world.
Now in a certain respect, this is quite true. The ultimate appraiser
of all relative values is the promotion of happiness. The hedonic is
the supreme test of terrestrial values. The motive for most of man’s
actions is the desire for happiness. All advances of humanity, the
ethical, the artistic, the scientific and especially the material,
have contributed to the enhancement of human welfare. Civilization
means the victory of man over nature, in the interest of the greatest
good to the greatest number. Culture is the pursuit of happiness of
humanity. Progress means the advance towards a higher and higher level
of humanity’s well-being. Commerce, industry, art and science must
enhance the welfare of human society. Social ends cannot be served
unless they tend to the gratification of the desire for happiness. In
all dreams of a future utopia, human welfare and happiness is the goal.
But is it possible that the attainment of happiness and of the fleeting
transitory joy shall be the only purpose of life? The philosophy of
pleasure allots to man not only the right but also the duty of making
his attainment of happiness the only aim of his life. All law, custom,
and ethics, the three spontaneous regulators of the species “man,” are
claimed by this philosophy to exist for the sole purpose to plane the
road that leads to happiness.
But if this be true, if the value of life be only hedonic, if the sole
and only meaning of life is to enjoy and die, then man’s existence is
mere vanity. Then the community, nation, race and humanity have no
positive value. Civilization is a failure, progress is worthless, and
all our virtues are only the aberrations of the spirit. This is the
pessimism in which all philosophies, that proclaim the hedonic to be
the only aim of existence, must end and actually do end.[DO] But if
life has no meaning at all, if everything is, as Heine sings,
“Fantastic, aimless is my song
“As love, as life, as creator and creation.”
mere vanity, whence this will to live, this most deep-seated part of
our being, this unparalleled tenacity to life, manifested in the lowest
plant to the highest animal. There must be something behind this will
to live, something behind this tenacity not only of the individual’s
life, but of the life of future generations. If the only end in life
are joys that know no bounds, whence comes the emotion that causes
men to die for an abstract principle, such as honor, truth, liberty,
justice, etc.? Who has implanted in man this spirituality, this will to
work for a future he knows not?
_Moral standard in nature._—Behind the tenacity of every organic being
to life must be searched the standard of morality, behind this tenacity
must lie the will of the First Cause, of the Supreme Intelligence. The
place to look for the will of the Creative Power is, therefore, nature.
But the philosopher must not look only in one part of nature, insensate
or irrational nature, but in entire nature, human nature included.
It was the trick of the ages for the philosopher, high up on a
pedestal, to discuss the immutable laws of irrational nature in the
cosmos, without including the rational philosopher himself as a part of
nature. It was “Hic homo, hic natura.”
The truth of evolution has swept away for ever this kind of sophistry.
Evolution teaches unity in nature. The mineral, vegetable and animal
kingdoms are composed of the same elements. The transition from one
kingdom into another is almost imperceptible. There is no line to be
drawn between living and non-living matter. Botanists and zoologists
are often at a loss to determine to which kingdom certain specimens
belong.[DP] There is unity in nature, and man is no less an integral
part of nature than the air or the stars.
Now, man is a rational being. Hence an integral part of nature is
rational, and there is rationality in nature. If a thousand millions
of human brains, or a thousand million kilograms of brain-matter on
our planet possess intelligence, reason, wisdom, judgment, memory,
foresight, mind and ideas, then there is rationality in nature. Even
if this rationality is now only perceivable in the human brain, it
must, eons ago, have been present in potentiality in the primordial
cell, which developed into the human brain, the flower of organic
life. Nay, rationality must have transcended the primordial cell. “The
soul, or the power of judgment, being the factor that makes experience
possible,” says Bergson, “cannot be a complex of experience only, it
transcends experience.”
The soul, mind and body become a unity in man, a trinitarian unity,
a “Dreieinigkeit.” There is interdependence between the physical and
the mental. The higher psychic centres are dominated and domineered by
the lower, or vegetative centres. But two things, mutually dependent,
are not for that matter equivalent. The subtle and delicate influences
by which soul and body affect each other do not make them identical.
The mind which includes intellect and emotion is something entirely
different from the brain-cell. The action between mind and brain-cell
is absolutely unknown to us.
Everything tends to show that there is an intelligence behind the
creative energy in the world. All nature is in motion, in vibration,
in harmony. Five hundred millions of stars, all flaming suns, whirling
through space and carrying along with them systems of planets and
satellites, can not do so without a directing intelligence. The
universe must be supported by a principle, immanent or transcendent.
Human logic, which itself is transcendental, forces every real thinker
to acknowledge wisdom in nature. Natural, immutable laws do not explain
the harmony of things, which the soul, tuned to the high, distinctly
perceives. Who was the legislator of these laws but a transcendental
intelligence? Besides, there is an infinite beyond of which gravitation
is a puzzle. No man can imagine a limit beyond which there is nothing;
on the other hand, nobody can imagine the infinite in time and space,
things going on and on without end. Both are inconceivable, still one
must be true.
The feeling of extension and duration must hence be transcendental in
man, for it is entirely independent of reason. Reality itself—Das Ding
an sich—is inconceivable by reason and is transcendental. The very idea
of a thing is transcendental and eternal. “The logos, or the logical
axiom,” says Bergson, “is eternal. The logical essence of a circle,
e. c., the possibility of drawing a circle, is eternal and infinite. It
has neither place nor date; for ‘Nowhere,’ at ‘No moment’ has drawing a
circle begun to be possible.”
If reason and all its attributes are transcendental and eternal, then
reason can only be a part of a larger reason. From nothing comes
nothing. If there were no reason in the nature of the universe, whence
did the primordial cell, which eons later developed into the brain of
an Aristoteles, Kant, Spencer, get its reason? Whence do emotions,
such as philanthropy and pity, honor and sense of duty, justice and
love of truth, and all other ethical values come from? What is it that
comprehends, feels, loves, wills, hopes, fears? It is the soul in
man, a part of the Intelligence in the Universe, which Hinduism calls
Trimutri, Judaism designates as Jehovah, and Christianity terms Logos.
All these different names mean one and the same thing, i. e., the
transcendental intelligence behind the universe, of which man is the
conscious part of the scheme.
Hence the philosopher looking for the will of the Supreme Intelligence,
will have to return to nature, and especially to human nature. For as
Protagoras cogently once said: πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος, “man
is the measure of all things.” Now, what does nature will? We find in
organic nature excessive production and wholesale destruction. The
abundance of the reproductive cells in plant and animal is simply
amazing. Every ejaculation in man contains two or three hundred million
spermatozoa, each one of them sufficient for impregnation. Each ovary
of the new-born baby girl contains about thirty thousand ova, each
potentially a human being. The first effort of growth is to set aside a
part of the germ itself for future reproduction, so that the germ may
be indefinitely multiplied and handed down to untold generations. The
reproductive cells, the cells which have not lost the primary power
of multiplication, are of the first consideration; the specialized
cells, or the somatic cells which cannot reproduce any longer, are
of secondary importance. Nature’s sole solicitation is the race. The
supreme law of organic nature is the preservation of the kind. Her sole
aim is the perpetuation of the species, hence the abundance of the
germ-plasm in plant and animal. Nature takes no chances. She secures
the continuance of the kind by the extravagant production of material
and the ruthless destruction of all that is superfluous. Nature
preserves the individual until it has brought forth its offspring,
after the message is delivered, the messenger is discharged. Nature
has no regard for the individual. The fly is destined as a prey to the
spider, the spider to the swallow, the swallow to the hawk, the hawk
to the eagle, and the eagle to the hunter. But what is the hunter’s
destiny?
Here nature is silent. The crown of creation seems to be here for no
purpose. Man seems to have no value whatever. The individual does
not count, it is created to be destroyed. Nature is careless of the
single life. The individual may wither, the race is more and more.[DQ]
Everything that serves to improve the race is in harmony with nature.
But to what purpose is the race here? Cosmic nature owes us the
answer. But when we return to a certain part of nature, the conscious
part of nature, human nature, we find the hints for the reason of our
existence. It is the experience of the divine urge of progress and the
certainty that the crown of altruism is of the highest value in life.
Both these qualities are transcendental, bestowed already upon the
primordial cell by the creative power of the universe. Self-sacrifice
resides in every cell. In every drop of pus millions of dead white
corpuscles, or cells can be seen who, in the defence of the colony or
the human body, sacrificed themselves in the struggle with the invading
bacteria. This cellular self-sacrifice has developed in man into the
impulse to serve others, the inner possession of every human heart.
Altruism becomes thus the criterion of morality. There is no morality
for him who lives in solitude, there is only right conduct. Morality is
bound up with altruism, which on the highest scale of moral development
overcomes egotism. Man feels then a moral obligation within himself to
serve others in the face of human need, of hunger, thirst, loneliness,
nakedness, sickness, etc. This obligation is felt in obedience to
Kant’s categorical imperative. The moral feeling is a part of man’s
life, it is transcendental. Morality and character are functions of
the brain like memory or imagination. The essence of morality is as
unexplainable by mechanical laws as the nature of life itself. The
creative power that gave life to man implanted in him moral aspirations
of the whole soul. The moral law is hence based upon human feeling.
What the throbbing heart of the best of humanity considers right is
the will of the Supreme Intelligence, and hence the moral law. Human
feeling and human longing are the basis of every moral action. When
it is agreed among the best men, everywhere, and in every epoch,
that altruism is noble and that egotism is ignoble, then altruism
is the foundation of morality. The larger the altruistic circle is,
the praiseworthier it is. To benefit one’s family is laudable, but a
service rendered in the interest of the community, of the nation, or
of the human race, is far worthier. The highest degree of morality is
hence reached in actions rendered in the interest of the race.
CHAPTER XXIII
SEXUAL MORALITY
The racial interest is also the cause of the double standard of
sex-morality of the two sexes. This is best seen by the study of the
evolution of sexual morality, or the history of marriage.[DR]
1) In the first stage, the lowest conceivable stage of savagery, when
men still lived in hordes, mankind lived in a state of “promiscuous”
intercourse like the gregarious animals. All the males of the horde
protected the females and their offspring. In the prehuman period, when
horde-life was not yet known, the semi-human creatures must have lived
in pairs, where every male protected his female and her offspring.
Without this protection the race would have died.
2) In the second stage the irregular state was abandoned and the
“consanguineous family” developed. It was founded upon intermarriage of
brothers and sisters, own or collateral, in a group. Marriage between
parents and children, as in the preceding stage, is now decreed immoral
and is prohibited.
3) In the third stage the prohibition of intermarriage in the same
clan was decreed. Experience has taught even these primitive men that
the offspring of consanguineous marriages were often deficient and
degenerate. The prohibition of intermarriage in the same clan excluded
own brothers and sisters from the marriage relations, or, in other
words, incest is now considered immoral. This so-called “punaluan
family”[DS] was founded upon intermarriage of several sisters, own or
collateral, with each other’s husbands, in a group, the joint husbands
not being necessarily kinsmen of each other, but all belonging to other
tribes than their joint wives, or of several brothers with each other’s
wives, in a group. In this so-called exogamous[DT] marriage each group
of men were conjointly married to the group of women. Adultery was as
yet unknown. The children, in all these three stages, could only know
their mother. Inheritance follows in the female line, and gynocracy or
matriarchate, the government by women, prevails. The common mother of
the clan is the origin and ruler of the same.
4) In the fourth stage communal marriage is replaced by the “pairing
family.” It is founded upon the marriage between single pairs, but
without an exclusive cohabitation. The marriage is continued during the
pleasure of the parties. Marriage between any relatives is entirely
prohibited and considered immoral. Hence marriage in a group is now
impossible. Marriage is still exogamous. The male leaves his clan and
marries into another clan. When he dies, his personal property, which
consisted of his arms and dress, is handed over to his former clan.
The main fortune remains in the clan of the wife. The children may now
know their father, yet they belong to their mother’s clan. Communistic
housekeeping prevails throughout the whole clan. Matriarchate is still
in force. The woman is still the undisputed mistress of the house and
clan. The males have only to provide the clan with food from day to
day, by hunting and fishing, and to fight the clan’s battles in its
protection. Property and descent go in the female line, and kinship is
counted through the mother.
5) During the fifth stage sources of wealth, hitherto unthought of,
develop by the training of animals and the breeding of herds. The
males, who have hitherto always been the providers of food for the
clan, are consequently the possessors of the herds, which now form
the main source of subsistence. Lest with the death of the man, his
property, the flocks, should be handed over to the former clan, change
of descent from the female to the male line is established. The man
is now the ruler. The common ancestor, formerly only the leader in
war, is now the head of the clan and manager of its possessions.
Apart of the head other leaders were necessary in the frequent wars.
The latter become preeminent among the other members of the clan and
receive individual allotments from the common wealth of the clan.[DU]
With the growth of their influence these allotments ripen finally into
individual ownership and are inherited by the children.
6) The progress during the sixth stage was caused by the law of
inheritance. Inheritance in the male line requires that the father
should know his child. The strictest fidelity of the wife is,
therefore, a condition sine qua non, her faithfulness is of the
greatest racial importance. The woman no less than the man was
interested in female purity, in the interest of her children. This
strict fidelity, exacted from the wife by men and women alike, leads to
the ‘patriarchal family’ as found in the Bible. It is founded upon the
marriage of one man with one or more wives.[DV]
Now, polygamy is a physical impossibility. Where no man or woman
remains unmated, general polygyny or polyandry is practically
impossible. The number of the two sexes is nearly equal. If infanticide
is not practiced (male infanticide has seldom been practiced, except in
Egypt, Exod. I, 16), and war captives or slaves are not available, the
general public must be content with one mate.[DW] Polygyny in this way
led to “monogamy,” founded upon marriage between single couples with
an exclusive cohabitation, as is now the rule in most of the civilized
nations.
_Female chastity._—All the changes in the marriage relations of the
sexes were thus made out of altruistic motives, in the interest of
the progeny with the sacrifice of personal comfort. Promiscuity,
consanguineous marriage, punaluan family, and the pairing family
followed each other in the interest of the health of the offspring. The
last change to female monogamy was made in the economic interest of the
progeny. The husband in sacrificing his own comfort, while providing
food and shelter for his children, must be certain that he is the
father of these children. Uncertainty would make him negligent, and the
existence of the race would be jeopardized.[DX]
Adultery on the part of the husband does not necessarily alter the
relations of the children to the parents and each other; unchastity
of the wife, however, either altogether breaks the family bond or
weakens it through doubt. The purity of the woman and her faithfulness
are, therefore, of the greatest racial importance, and it is eminently
proper that she should be in the van of moral progress. The highest
moral character, says Kant, is that which does the good not out of
inclination but from a sense of duty guided by reason, and there is
good reason for female chastity.[DY]
In the lowest savage life the woman was free and even the ruler. At
that time not the remotest vestige of the idea of chastity was to be
found. The gratification of the instinct was simply a natural process
that contained in it neither good nor evil. The jewel of chastity had
no more value than a grain of sand. For ages the sentiment of chastity
had no existence. Fornication, adultery and incest were the common
order of things, accepted by public opinion and even consecrated by
religion. Later on, chastity was known, not as a virtue but as a
necessity. But the severe punishment to which the wife was subjected
for her transgressions from the straight path of chastity has led to
the constant inculcations at home and in the community that impurity
in the woman is unholy, hated by God and most infamous. These constant
inculcations have created such a strong sentiment of female purity that
the old philosophers maintained that it was an innate instinct, always
present under normal conditions.
When the spotless purity of the wife was once accepted as the moral law
of the race, it was of vital importance for her that the man should
also be limited to one permanent mate. She had to place obstacles in
his way of finding gratification of his sensual desires elsewhere
except with a permanent mate. To accomplish her purpose, general female
chastity was of the greatest help to her. Strict female chastity is the
best means to preserve the man’s fidelity. This fact is at the bottom
of woman’s hatred for her lax sister. She never forgives the woman who
lowers the value of feminine favors. If men can find gratification of
their desires for a little money on the streets or for a small gift
among his female acquaintances, all the obstacles that chaste women
have devised for many centuries become futile and are of no avail.
Hence woman hates her fallen sister relentlessly. The law of obstacles
is at the bottom of the restrictions women have themselves imposed
upon their sex. After chastity in the wife has been dictated to her by
economic reasons, woman has been forced to develop her moral standard.
Her sexual passivity comes to woman’s aid in maintaining her purity. It
makes it easier for her to refuse a man’s advances than it is for him
to curb his passions.[DZ]
The law of obstacles has also created modesty and coyness, the twin
sisters of chastity. To increase the obstacles to men’s advances, the
woman imposed upon herself great restraint when in men’s company. All
the exterior modesty which women require in expression, dress and
behavior of their sex is to be explained by the desire to increase
the obstacles. Feminine coyness prolongs the period of courtship.
By keeping the suitor in suspense and doubt the imagination and the
sentimental side of love are developed.[EA]
Modesty and coyness, though appearing to be natural and inherited
sentiments, are nothing more than natural obstacles that tend to
increase the value of the favor granted. Woman, for this reason,
watches not only over her own modesty, but is anxious also to protect
the modesty of her sister. She watches with jealous eyes that feminine
modesty should not be offended in any way. She is ever ready to succor
her sister with all her means, in confinements, at accidents or in
cases of sickness where the presence of men might offend feminine
modesty.[EB]
Honor and virtue in woman did not originally take their rise from any
innate moral sense,—for a religious rite or a legal form even to-day
mark for her the whole difference between irredeemable sin and absolute
duty,—but from the mode of her position and in accordance with the
conditions of her relation to men.[EC] Her morality is founded rather
upon the rule of reason which is the best judge of duty. Woman’s
modesty and coyness are nothing else but reason applied to human
actions and regulating man’s appetites, desires and affections for the
good of the family, community, nation and of the human race.
Thus the fascinating details of the evolution of the marriage
relations among men teach the lesson that the strong sentiment of
chastity, this powerful moral law that controls human actions as the
law of gravitation rules the world, has grown slowly from microscopic
beginnings until it has assumed a racial consciousness which underlies
that of the individual. Throughout the three periods of the history
of mankind—savagery, barbarism, and civilization—the human heart felt
a law within, written by the strong hand of the Creator, that man has
to sacrifice personal comfort and freedom of action in the interest of
posterity, and that it is preferable to suffer the pain of repressed
passion and to bear its trial in the interest of that general morality
which our conscience tells us to be of such fundamental value.
CHAPTER XXIV
MALE CHASTITY
The history of the evolution of marriage furnishes the reason for
woman’s chastity. The purity of the wife and her faithfulness are of
the greatest racial importance. Chastity has been forced upon her in
a just and laudable cause, not by men[ED] but by economic conditions.
When the moral law once had been established restricting the wife
to a permanent mate, she had to place obstacles, in the form of
general chastity, modesty and coyness, in the way of man’s finding
gratification of his sensual desires elsewhere except with a permanent
mate.
Now, is there a racial reason why men should be as chaste as women?
There are two valid racial reasons why in the interest of posterity men
should be held to as strict a form of chastity as women are. The two
reasons are the “Spirocheta pallida” and the “Gonococcus,” or in other
words, “syphilis” and “gonorrhoea.”
Of the triad of venereal infections, “chancroid” (chancroid may produce
extensive ulcerative processes and mutilate the sexual organs),
“syphilis” and “gonorrhoea” the two latter are of the greatest menace
to the continuation of the human race. Especially gonorrhoea is
undermining the vital forces of humanity, on account of its wide spread
among men.
Neisser, the discoverer of the gonococcus, claims that of the adult
male population inhabiting large cities only an insignificant
proportion escapes gonorrhoeal infection.[EE]
The reason of the spread of gonorrhoea is the mistaken idea that
gonorrhoea is a local trouble. Even among the educated people who have
had the best opportunities of education and refinement, there are
very few who know that gonorrhoea, once acquired, may remain latent
for years and still be the means of infecting an innocent wife and
destroying the eyesight of her child. The so-called cure of gonorrhoea
is not seldom only the establishment of toleration of the presence
of the gonococcus on the part of the individual’s urethra. But the
imperceptible discharge still remains virulently contagious to the
healthy virginal genito-urinary passage of the young wife and to the
delicate tender conjunctiva of the new-born baby.
The non-multiplying gonococci, which have apparently been deprived
of their power to cause suppuration any longer at the point of the
first infection, may possess full virulence and also the capacity of
producing suppuration if transferred to some other mucous membrane,
especially in the virginal vulva, urethra, Bartholinian glands, cervix,
tubes, ovaries and peritoneum of the newly-married wife.[EF]
Even if the non-multiplying gonococci should remain inactive in the
female genital tract in the beginning of married life, they may
do a great deal of damage later on. Gonococci may remain in the
genital tract during the entire period of pregnancy, without clinical
manifestations, and yet become active during the puerperium, which
explains many obscure cases of puerperal infection. In this way the
ignorance of the prolonged infectious character of latent chronic
gonorrhoea has ruined many and many a young wife. The individual
considers himself cured, while in fact the gonorrhoea remains
contagious for many years to the innocent wife and her child.
The disease is markedly accentuated in virulence and danger in the wife
and mother in fulfilling her marital and maternal functions, and the
results of the disease are appalling. Eighty per cent. of the deaths
from inflammatory diseases, peculiar to women, seventy-five per cent.
of all special surgical operations performed on women, many of them
serious desexing operations, and sixty per cent. of all the work done
by specialists in diseases of women are the result of gonorrhoea.
Besides the numerous fatal operations in the wake of gonorrhoea of the
urogenital tract, septicaemia or pyaemia may sometimes develop, which,
as a rule, lead to death.
The so-called one-child sterility is accounted for, in a large measure,
by the extension of a preexisting gonorrhoeal infection during the
puerperium. In this way fifty per cent. or more of all the infected
women are rendered sterile, in addition many are condemned to a
life-long invalidism. The aspirations, centred in motherhood and
children, are thus swept away.
Besides mutilating the innocent women, gonorrhoea destroys the eyesight
of innocent babies. From seventy to eighty per cent. of the ophthalmia,
which blots out the eyes of babies, and fifteen to twenty-five
per cent. of all blindness is caused by gonococcus infection. In
the passage of the child through the infected maternal parts, the
conjunctiva becomes, as a rule, infected, and the danger of blindness
is imminent.[EG]
Besides this danger of infecting the innocent mother and child,
gonorrhoea is not such an innocent disease even for the man himself.
It is not a local disease only, it is a general infection and its
manifestations may be as grave to the individual as syphilis. The
infection may ascend to the urinary passages and cause a catarrh of
the bladder and an infection of the ureters and kidneys. It may affect
the genital organs, as the testicles and prostate in men, and uterus
and tubes and ovaries in women. The germs of gonorrhoea may enter the
blood and attack the joints. (Osier says: In many respects gonorrhoeal
arthritis is the most damaging, disabling and serious of all the
complications of gonorrhoea.) The germs may also enter the heart and
cause endocarditis and they may invade the brain and cause meningitis
and myelitis.[EH]
_Syphilis._—The other most appalling venereal disease is syphilis. The
constitutional disturbances caused by syphilis and the risks to the
offspring make this disease one of the most dreaded affections known
to medical science. Even the primary infection may become disastrous
to the man and woman. Still the acute stage, but for its contagiosity,
would be of secondary importance. Syphilis is essentially a chronic
disease. The duration of the disease is unlimited. It may remain latent
for years and then break out, either in form of chronic inflammations
or in form of syphilitic tumors or gummata. Fournier found during the
tertiary period of syphilis, as late as in the tenth year after the
primary infection, mucous papules in the mouth and in the vagina, which
had recently reappeared. This shows that even during the tertiary stage
syphilis may become a source of infection for others.[EI]
Syphilis plays an important rôle in the etiology of almost every known
disease. Syphilis spares no tissue or structure, it affects every organ
of the body.
In the alimentary canal and its accessory glands, syphilis may cause
cicatrical obstructions of the esophagus, affections of the stomach
and intestines and gummatous productions of the rectum. The liver,
and sometimes the pancreas are affected, either in form of chronic
syphilitic inflammations or in form of gummatous nodules.
The following case is very instructive. The patient, a young girl
eleven years of age, who for some time previously suffered from
diabetes insipidus, could not be aroused from her quiet sleep one
morning. The author saw the child at about 4 P. M. She was still
quietly sleeping, and no matter which means he applied to awaken
her, going so far as to burn the soles of her feet, she could not be
aroused. The following morning the author found the child sitting in
bed perfectly well and only awaiting his permission to go to school.
The next morning the child was found again in a comatous state from
which she could not be aroused by every known means. In this state she
died the following night.
At the autopsy, the author found a small nodule, of the size of a
large pea, on the left side of the dura mater, pressing upon the left
frontal lobe, and at the point of entrance of the vena portae he
discovered the liver turned into a grayish-looking mass of the size of
a child’s hand.
Both, the nodule of the dura mater and the liver, were taken to
the Pathological Institute, where the two tumors were found to be
syphilitic gummata. The child was suffering from hereditary syphilis.
In the respiratory tract we find, in the first place, the affections
of the nose. The septum of the nose is often destroyed, and the nose
sinks in, in the form of a triangle. The palate is sometimes destroyed
already in the secondary stage, and the patient’s speech is greatly
impaired. The syphilitic affections of the larynx cause extensive
destructions of the organ and a permanent impairment of the phonation.
Deformities of the trachea are not seldom the consequences of syphilis.
Pneumonia may also be caused by syphilis. Infiltrations of the lungs
are not such a rare occurrence. Gummata of the lungs may undergo the
destructive process, and cavities are formed which are not infrequently
diagnosed as tuberculosis.
The circulatory system is very often affected by syphilis, in the form
of arteriosclerosis. Gummata are sometimes found in all the muscular
parts of the heart. Syphilitic myocarditis and sclerotic endocarditis
are not rare. The syphilitic affection of the ganglia and the nerves
of the heart are the cause of different forms of angina pectoris. The
spleen and the other blood-producing organs, the bone-marrow, are
frequently the seat of syphilitic manifestations. Pseudoleukaemia is
often caused by syphilis. The different aneurisms are often caused by
syphilis of the arteries.
The genito-urinary system is especially affected by syphilis. Apart
from the initial affection, which is usually found at the genitals,
tertiary syphilis of the genital organs is not rare. Syphilitic
orchitis and gummata of the penis and testicles are often observed.
Gummata are also found on the external genitals of women. The ovaries
are often affected in form of diffuse or gummatous oöphoritis. Syphilis
is not seldom the etiological factor of Bright’s disease.
The skeleton is also often affectedly syphilis. Besides the
bone-marrow, the bones themselves are especially subject to syphilitic
lesions. No joint escapes the attack of syphilis. The most frequently
affected joints are the knees and the elbows.
The muscles are affected by syphilis in form of an irritative myositis
and of chronic interstitial inflammations. Gummatous infiltrations of
the muscles are no rarity. The tendons are affected in form of an acute
irritative tendo-synovitis. Swelling of the bursae is quite frequently
met with in syphilitic patients.
Syphilis of the nervous system is especially disastrous for the
patient. Syphilis not rarely causes cerebral and spinal meningitis.
Most of the tumors found in the brain are of syphilitic origin and
cause headaches, insomnia, flashing of light before the eyes, vertigo,
epileptic convulsions, a retarded pulse, polyuria and polydipsia, and
greatly affect the eyesight. Gummata of the brain also cause aphasia,
hemiplegia and paralysis. Syphilis of the spinal cord manifests itself
by heavy weight of the extremities, neuralgia, paralysis of the muscles
and paresis of the bladder and rectum. The insanity caused by syphilis
may mimic every known form of mental derangement, such as mania,
melancholia, paretic dementia, locomotor ataxia and general paresis.
Any of these terrible diseases may be the gift the young wife receives
from her infected husband in the wedding-night. Still the danger from
syphilis for the woman is by far less imminent than that threatening
her from gonorrhoea. No man, except he be an idiot, would think of
getting married while still suffering from syphilis of the initial and
secondary stages, when the disease is highly infectious. During the
latent and tertiary stages the danger of infecting the wife is very
slight indeed. But there is no immunity for the offspring, during the
latent and tertiary stages.
The two venereal diseases are thus, each in its way, inflicting the
greatest suffering upon the innocent wife and child, disrupting the
family and causing the degeneration of the race. There is no greater
scourge devastating every nation to-day than the two venereal diseases.
No other disease has such a murderous influence upon the offspring as
syphilis, and no other disease is so destructive to the health and
reproductive function of woman as gonorrhoea.
Thus the dangers of venereal diseases beset not only the individual but
through the individual the whole race. Both venereal diseases respect
no social position and recoil before no virtue. They ramify through
every class and rank of society. Like “pallida mors” they approach with
equal step the habitations of the poor and the palaces of the rich.
With these dangers staring at him, no man has a right to justify the
double standard of sex-morality. No young man should even think of
exposing himself, his future wife and offspring to all these dangers
for the mere pittance of a short momentary enjoyment in the company
of the pestiferous individuals, of these fallen angels whom the Bible
describes as the “strange woman which flattereth with her words, her
feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell, going down to the
chambers of death.”
These meretricious women are constantly seeking those whom they may
devour and are laughing at the wholesale ruin they are spreading.
These unscrupulous courtesans are individuals without industry,
preferring indolent lives with a show of finery and a brief period of
gratification of their sensuality. They indulge their selfish lust ad
libitum, with no thought as to what the result may be.
Most of the devotees of Venus vulgativa spend their brief lives,
trying to lead boys and young men into wickedness and mischief. As
a rule, they are all unclean and diseased and rejoice to return to
their partners, the so-called “prostituants,” the infection they have
received from other prostituants. The young man, therefore, will
in the majority of cases surely carry away some foul disease from
these women. When we consider how difficult and rare a thing it is to
thoroughly cure a woman of gonorrhoea, it is easily understood how
dangerous it is for the youth to trust himself at any time in her
subsequent life within her infected presence.
Hence the youth have no right to become the main contributors to the
resources of the venal woman, whether of the street or of the palatial
home. Clandestine vice is, as a rule, more dangerous in regard to
contracting venereal diseases than the immorality of the street. The
majority of young men drift into illicit, sensual life and its dangers
and pitfalls without the least physiological necessity. Until the
age of twenty of the woman and twenty-five of the man is reached,
youth itself gains by complete abstinence. The teens, says Ellen Key,
should be the age of the erotic prologue not of the drama. Premature
erotic claims are less the result of the needs of the organism than
the influence of the imagination upon it. The young boys of sixteen
to twenty-five are only in love with love. It is the longing for love
rather than love itself that renders them an easy prey for the venal
woman.
Masculine chastity must not, therefore, be laughed at. The necessity
of self-control and of chastity must be impressed upon the mind of the
young man as the only way to secure the strong mental and physical
qualities for the future paternal relations.[EJ]
There is not the slightest shadow of support in any teachings of
physiology or hygiene for the double standard of morality of the
sexes. There is no reason why a moral wrong in the woman should be
a justifiable necessity with the man. From no medical studies and
investigations anywhere attainable, would the physical necessity of
sowing of “wild oats” for a young man hold good. No one will deny that,
as far as the gentler sex is concerned, continence (at least between
the age of sixteen to thirty-five) is compatible with health, then
the general belief of young men that sensual indulgence is necessary
for healthy manhood, has no justification in physiology. Purity is
as little injurious to a man as to a woman. It is a most absurd and
erroneous teaching that, unless inclination is gratified, a man’s
health will suffer.
The instinct of generation has been compared with the instinct of
hunger and thirst, and as the latter must be satisfied, so must the
former be gratified. But there is no proper parallelism between these
two instincts. Food and drink are vital necessities of the organism
from the first day of conception, to replace the stuffs consumed in the
metabolism of the vital functions. The generative instinct appears a
number of years after birth, hence does not serve any vital necessity.
This instinct could, if at all, only be compared with the instinct of
micturition or defecation, and the relief of the physical pressure in
the generative organs is brought about by the self-regulating action of
nocturnal emissions. It may be more natural and agreeable for a healthy
man and woman, after they have reached a certain age, to indulge in the
exercise of their organs of generation at reasonable intervals, than to
abstain from it. But to proclaim that this abstinence, compatible with
health in women, is injurious to men, is sheer absurdity.
It is especially hard to understand how any medical men could recommend
to a young man to resort to illicit relations for health and to
jeopardize his own health and that of his future family. If it is
justified to recommend illicit relations to a young man, as a cure for
masturbation and its resulting neurasthenia, instead of explaining
to him that a healthy hygiene and the exercise of his will-power
will make easy the control of the desire without any loss of health,
then why not recommend the same remedy to young women. Continence
is no more injurious to the man than to the woman. The conventional
view that incontinence in men is a necessary condition of health
must be corrected. Instead of the popular fallacy that a young man
is physically the worse for a clean moral life, the entire weight of
evidence of the world’s foremost medical scholars is unreservedly of
the opinion that he is physically better for it.[EK] It is recognized
by the highest authorities that continence is perfectly compatible
with the most perfect health. Chastity properly understood is health,
it never does any harm to mind or body.[EL] It is the consensus of
the opinions of most of the great medical thinkers that it is not
prejudicial to the health of a man to keep his body clean until he has
found a true mate in life.[EM]
The boy who has just passed adolescence ought, therefore, to learn
that the injudicious premature use of the organs of generation is
prejudicial to his health and is beset with great dangers.[EN] There
is a great distinction between puberty and nubility, and the boy must
learn to check his sensual impulses until marriage which is not so very
hard to accomplish.
There are enough sexual stoics in the world to prove by practical
experience that continence is not only possible but also practicable.
Caesar says of the ancient Teutons: “Ante annum vicesimum sextum
feminis notionem habere inter res turpissimas habeatur.” “It was
considered one of the most shameful things to have any relations with
a woman before the twenty-sixth year of age” (Bellum Gallicum). Yet
no one will dispute that the ancient Teutons were strong and healthy.
These ancient barbarians seem to have learned by experience that
before this time sexual maturity is not yet complete. The same thing
was found in modern times by Eulenburg (Zeitschr. f. Bekämpf. d.
Geschlechtskrankheiten, 1907, p. 194), that the combined statistics
teach that complete sexual maturity is reached by the woman only after
the twentieth year of age, and by the man not before the twenty-fifth
year.
Besides the historic proof there are daily examples which show the
compatibility of chastity with health at any age. Many young men,
engaged to be married, remain chaste for long periods without detriment
to their health, although often living in continuous sexual excitement.
Patients suffering from venereal diseases abstain during long periods
of treatment without any impairment of their general health. Men
remain chaste and healthy during long periods when their wives are
ill or during the periods of confinements. Athletes, training for
some physical contest, remain in enforced continence and yet healthy.
Seafaring men are often continent for long periods without injury.
It is not known that the discoverers of the North Pole have greatly
suffered by their enforced continence.
These few examples tend to show that abstinence is not detrimental
to health. In fact, no other condition of life is more thoroughly
consistent with perfect mental and physical vigor than absolute
chastity. The instinct only needs to be controlled. Continence is only
a matter of habit. When the young man has not been debased by vile
practices, it is usually a comparatively easy task to be continent and
requires no extraordinary efforts. Every year of voluntary effort, at
chastity, renders the task easier by force of habit.[EO]
Hence when the young man has been taught the advisability of sensual
control, when the positive assurance has been given to him that total
abstinence can be maintained without loss of power and when his
fears of impairing his health have been dispelled, he will exercise
his will-power and refrain from a departure from moral standards,
especially when the dearth of wholesome information regarding the
dangers of such a departure has been removed.
In large cities sensual control is made very hard for the young
man. The unfortunate phase of the life in a big city is the early
introduction of the youth to temptations and vicious conditions. Vice
is obtruding upon him at every nook and corner. A vile so-called
literature, a suggestive perverse art and an obscene stage panders his
sensual curiosity.
But because, forsooth, it is hard to control that does not mean that
he has to yield to temptation. It is true that the sexual appetite may
assume imperiousness, but only in a certain class of men, in hereditary
weaklings, whose imagination is constantly fed by lascivious thoughts
and sensual images.
But the cause of the unchastity of boys is not that they become
sensually mature earlier than they could judiciously enter into
matrimony, the trouble lies in the fact that boys cannot see why they
should abstain from a tickling amusement, which in their opinion does
nobody any harm. Herein lies the greatest obstacle to continence. The
youth does not know the ethical why, especially in our modern times
with its religious laxity. The ethics of religion, even in its best
days, had not had the power to control sensual passion and to create
total abstinence, although religion, especially Christianity, has
preached the same for the last two thousand years. In modern times with
the almost divine worship of the personality of the individual the
religious motive for chastity seems to fail entirely.
Hence the ethics of evolution and the ethics of sex-hygiene must be
tried. If the theory of evolution is right, and the purpose of our
being in this world is to assert life, then the aim of life can not be
the single individual but the species, which can only be preserved by
the right offspring. The child or what is the same the family[EP] will
have to furnish the motive for man’s continence. The importance of the
chastity of women to the family has been recognized from the earliest
history. It is now time to teach the man the importance of his chastity
to the family, state and nation. He has to know his responsibility
just as the woman knows hers. Rational chastity must be founded upon
the sentiment of human responsibility. The average man in his heart
does not acknowledge to himself that there is any competent reason
why he should control his passion beyond the sentimental idea of the
justice of men’s remaining chaste if they require it of women. It must,
therefore, be shown to the man that there is also an important racial
reason for him to abandon promiscuous life.[EQ]
If it is shown to the young man, at a time when his heart and mind are
still in the thrall of the early and eternal poetry of the race, that
it is as important to humanity that he should be chaste as it is for
the woman to be pure, then he will refrain from illicit indulgence.
The following case is very instructive in this respect. A student
of philosophy at one of the greatest German universities who led
a promiscuous life like any other student, gave up such life
immediately after reading Tolstoy’s Kreutzer-Sonate. For the first
time, as he expressed it, he saw the reason why he should be as chaste
as he expects his bride to be.
This shows what a moral lesson may do even for him who grew up to
manhood without any sex-instruction. The young man who has the desire
not to be dominated or controlled by sensual passions and propensities,
requires settled principles, a firm purpose, and a strong will. But if
the training of his will-power has begun from early childhood, thus
effecting the needed self-discipline, and if disgust against everything
vulgar, as the company of lax women, has been implanted in his heart,
he will find the means to get out of the way of vice and to avoid the
contamination by venal sensuality. The best means of vast importance
as occupying and consuming the sexual powers in a substitute form are
bodily and mental labors. These labors, as a rule, are lulling to sleep
sensuality.
If the control of the sex-reflexes is not cultivated, if the training
of the will is ignored, meretricious venery will surely take hold of
him and infect him, it being only a matter of time when it happens.
The young man will exercise continence if he has been taught from
early childhood that his sensual yearnings must be restrained like his
propensity to overeat, to overdrink or to overexercise. Because a young
man wants a thing it is not necessarily good for him to have it. Man
has little right to satisfy his desire by unchastity, says Ellen Key,
as he has to satisfy hunger by theft.[ER]
If the young man has learned in time the responsibility and duty of the
man towards the woman, if he has been made aware of the fact that one
false step ruins the girl irremediably for her entire life, if his
attention has been called upon the serious consequences for the woman,
such as pregnancy, motherhood and social ostracism, he will not so
easily ever try to seduce an innocent girl. He will treat every woman
he meets with in life as he wishes his own sister or future wife to be
treated by others.
The young man has further to learn that every union of bodies without
the harmony of the souls is humiliating and immoral. That does not
mean that the idea should be imparted to our youth that the sexual
impulse is something low and bestial, as some moralists would like us
to believe. On the contrary, we must teach our youth that a healthy
and natural exercise of the human organism is a precious blessing that
must not be squandered and recklessly defiled. We must teach the young
man that for the future offspring’s sake the monogamic marriage is the
only one which the ideal man will resort to. Until his mate is found
he will have to control his sensual desires. The control of sensuality
develops the deeper feelings of love. Bought love kills the finest
instruments of mental activity. Promiscuity destroys the relations of
the young companionship. Free love leaves all the best human qualities
undeveloped. To form the healthy germ of society, marriage must be
unitary and permanent. The individual love assists the elevation of the
race. Monogamy was victorious from the experience of its advantages. It
exists for the sake of the race.
The race-enhancing form of union is a permanent monogamy. From the
physiological standpoint monogamic marriage is a natural and healthful
institution. It affords a free outlet to sensuality without generally
exhausting it by the unceasing excitement in the presence of new
objects. Novelty is the chief stimulus to the sexual feeling and is
the main cause of overindulgence and its sequels. In centralizing
affection upon one person, marriage furnishes the greatest scope of
its development and expansion. Marriage favors the development of a
great number of faculties which otherwise would be in danger of being
abused. Marriage contributes to the general morality of mankind by the
regularity which it brings to all the actions of life, by the calmness
which it spreads over human existence, and by the harmony which it
introduces into the functional exercise of all our necessities. It
creates in man a greater attachment to life in helping to overcome a
great number of difficulties. Marriage, therefore, contributes to the
progress of humanity, and man is by duty bound that the selection of
a mate should contribute to the enhancement of the human race. Every
individual acquires duties towards the race. The man or the woman who
transgresses the path of strict monogamy has done a disservice to
humanity. From the point of view of evolutionary ethics, men and women
must make absolute chastity the rule of their lives.
FOOTNOTES:
[DG] In a treatise on the science of sex-attraction, such as this,
the author is of the opinion, that the much-mooted question about
the double standard of sexual morality of the two sexes ought to be
thoroughly discussed.
In human affairs there is no effect without its adequate cause.
Codified law, custom and ethics, the three determiners and regulators
of human conduct, have all their reasons. If there is a double standard
of sex-morality there must be a reason for it. What is this reason?
Is this reason still extant? Is there still any justification for the
existence of the double moral standard? Have not any other reasons
arisen for a change of this double standard?
In modern times law and ethics do not know of any double standard of
sex-morality. In no civilized country do the laws punish any voluntary
sexual misconduct but adultery, and in the latter the prohibition is
for men and women alike. Ethics, on the other hand, allows sexual
relations in marriage only, and then mostly for the purpose of
propagation. Even such a radical as Zola says: “Si l’enfant n’est pas
au bout, l’amour n’est qu’une saleté inutile.” But as far as custom is
concerned there is no question of the existence of a double standard
of sex-morality. Even the most violent, rabid free-lover will resent
any allegations of a dissolute character in his mother, while he will
listen with perfect equanimity to narrations of the fast life of his
father. Whence comes this difference, which seems to be ingrained in
the heart of every man and woman? What is the cause of this phenomenon?
The answer that men with the power in their hands have sexually
enslaved womankind, shows not only ignorance of history and biology (no
species could survive for any length of time without the harmonious
coöperation of the two sexes. Where the female of the species is
actually kept subject to the male, where she is treated with cruelty
by him, or where the male neglects to protect and take loving care
of the female, the species has no survival power and dies), but also
poor logic. If the double standard of morality were not due to racial
evolution, if it could have been changed without hurting the race,
sensual men would have changed it long ago, because it is against
these men’s interest to have all women live in strict chastity. An
unchaste man needs an unchaste female partner. If all women—prostitutes
included, sic!—were chaste, where on earth could he get his partner?
Hence the assertion, frequently found, especially in feministic
literature, that men-made laws sexually enslaved women, is entirely
illogical.
In fact, among the culture-nations laws against unchastity never
existed. Even the Bible has only laws against adultery. The adulteress
and her paramour were both stoned (Deuteron. xxii, 24), but the sexual
relations of the unmarried woman with any man were entirely ignored by
the law. Even rape was no criminal offense—the father of the girl had
only a civil action against the rapist (Deuteron. xxii, 28). Such laws
would just suit sensual men. It is in their interest that all women
except their own wives should lead dissolute lives. But it is in the
interest of the married woman, where adultery is prohibited, that all
other women should be strictly chaste, so that her husband would be
compelled to be faithful to her. Hence it is custom (and in matters of
custom woman rules supreme) that dictates chastity. The punishment of
a woman’s false step is social ostracism, decreed by women themselves,
not by men-made laws. The men-made laws, on the contrary, strike men
harder than women. The punishment of the woman’s misconduct in marriage
is loss of husband and children, while the man loses wife and children
and has to pay her alimony, during her natural life, in the bargain.
Yet the fallacy is repeated again and again about men wishing to
enslave their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.
But why does custom punish woman’s misconduct and why not man’s? Why
does the Biblical law discriminate between men and women in regard to
adultery? A married woman’s adultery is punished with death, while
the law is silent about the married man’s adultery with a single
woman. Why this discrimination that is as old as history? Was there a
justification for the double standard, and should not the twentieth
century change the double into a single standard? If changed, should
men become as chaste as women or should womankind be pulled down into
the gutter of sensuality to meet the demands of men?
The majority of mankind—women included—believes in the justification of
the double standard of sex-morality for the two sexes. Men are thought
to have greater erotic needs than women.
Recently there arose a new spirit in the domain of sex-morality which
demands a single standard for both sexes. The societies for moral
prophylaxis demand that men should become as chaste as women. In this
way the social evil and its satellites, the venereal diseases, would
disappear. On the other hand, the radicals have raised a unanimous
revolt against self-control in the domain of chastity for either
sex. These new moralists preach the right of men and women to the
fulfillment of every instinct, every impulse, every dream in all its
fullness. This is proclaimed as the new standard of sex-morality.
But in truth this subjugation of the individual to the instincts is
a complete denial of morality. For morality is the arrest of the
instincts by the intellect.
In this part of our treatise the author will try to find the reason for
the double standard of sexual morality for the two sexes. Why since the
dawn of history the married woman was kept to a rigorous chastity. How
the chastity of the single woman has developed as a corollary of the
law of adultery, and he will thoroughly discuss the reasons why the
double standard of morality is at present utterly without justification.
[DH] The parallel points in both creeds dealing with social justice are
among others the following:
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor “Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself.”—Moses iii, 19, 18. as thyself.”—Matth. xxii, 39.
”Hatred stirreth up strifes, but “Charity suffers long and is
love covers all sins.”—Prov. x, 12. kind.”—I Corinth. xiii, 4.
“I dwell with him that is of “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
contrite and humble spirit.”—Isaia for theirs is the kingdom of
57, 15. heaven.”—Matth. v, 3.
“He has sent me to comfort all “Blessed are they that mourn;
that mourn.”—Isaia 61, 2. for they shall be comforted.”
—Matth. v, 4.
“He that followeth after mercy “Blessed are the merciful.”
findeth life.”—Prov. 21, 21. —Matth. v, 7.
“They that sow in tears shall “Blessed are ye that hunger
reap in joy, he that goeth forth now, for ye shall be filled;
and weepeth, shall come again blessed are ye that weep now,
rejoicing.”—Psalm 126, 5. for ye shall laugh.”
—Luke vi, 21.
“A man’s pride shall bring him “Whosoever shall exalt himself
low, but honor shall uphold the shall be abased, and he that
humble in spirit.”—Prov. 29, 23. shall humble himself shall be
—Matth. 23, 12.
“He shall save the humble person.” “God resisteth the proud, but
—Job xxii, 29. giveth grace unto the humble.”
exalted.”—James iv, 6.
“Ho, everyone that thirsteth “Come unto me all ye that labor
come ye to the waters and he and are heavy laden, I will
that hath no money come ye buy give you rest.”—Matth. xi, 28.
and eat.”—Isaiah 55, 1.
“Thou shalt not harden thine “Give to every man that asketh
heart, nor shut thine hand from of thee.”—Luke vi, 30.
the poor brother, but thou shalt
open thine hand wide unto him.”
—Moses v, 15, 7.
“Judge righteously between “Judge not according to the
every man: ye shall not respect appearance but judge righteous
persons in judgment.”—Moses v, judgment.”—John vii, 24.
1, 16.
[DI] Socialism applies the same tactics towards Christianity, as
Christianity used towards Judaism. Christianity borrowed Israel’s
greatest Book, the Bible, written from the first chapter of Genesis to
the last of Revelations, at different times in different languages, but
always by the sons of Israel, appropriated the moral tenets of these
Jewish prophets and rabbis (Jesus is often addressed by the title rabbi
in the New Testament) and repudiated the descendants of these Jewish
thinkers. Christianity, for generations, deprived these descendants
of the enjoyment of these human rights, their ancestors have woven
for mankind, and accused them of forming an element destructive of
social peace, in whose great Book social peace and justice were first
preached. The Hammurabi codex, which in regard to civil and criminal
statutes shows a certain parallelism with the Pentateuch, is far
inferior to these books in the multitude of social laws.
[DJ] If you meet with your neighbor on the sidewalk push him into the
middle of the road and let him be mangled by the passing vehicles.
Then you have made a long stride forward toward the perfect man. If
you do not do it to him he will do it to you. Only the stronger has a
right to survive, so that a perfect aristocracy may arise. But while
this doctrine of the survival of the strongest was with Nietzsche only
a philosophical dream, the prototype of the Superman, which is “Push
forward; overcome obstacles; take wherever you can find; grasp and do
not let go; live your own life fully, it is all you have; let others
look out for themselves,” has always been in existence since time
immemorial.
[DK] The spirit of this intoxication of work is shown in phrases such
as this: “Women deteriorated to the point where she was unfitted to do
a fair share of the world’s work.” Is work a privilege or a necessity?
Who is the power that has decreed this share of the world’s work? Do
animals in freedom work? By the way, the alleged deterioration which
presupposes a transmission from mother to daughter, with the exclusion
of her son, is a biological impossibility. If the deterioration has
become a unit-character, the mother must transmit half of it to her son
and half to her daughter, so that boy and girl are still born equal.
The only way such deterioration could be transmitted from mother to
daughter—who inherits half the good qualities of her father to balance
this deterioration—is that it has become a sex-unit-character, like the
female breasts, hair or skin, which is contrary to all the teachings
of biology. Even Lamarck would never claim that such an acquired
characteristic as deterioration for work could be transmitted from
mother to daughter with the exclusion of her son. On the other hand,
if deterioration is not a unit-character transmissible to the son, it
cannot be transmitted to the daughter either.
[DL] When the sweet-sixteen is punished by her mother for flirting with
boys, then her personality has been violated.
[DM] This voluptuous sensuality is given naturally the poetical name
of love, with which it really has nothing in common except the final
sex-expression and its desire.
[DN] The psychic bulwark, says Ch. v. Ehrenfels, against the horrors
of the thought of death and against the terrors of existence can only
be raised by man when he puts himself into a certain relation to the
metaphysical riddles of the universe, into a relation to the contrast
between the fleeting and eternal, between the movable and immovable,
between the finite and the infinite. The ethical values of individual
conduct may be thus characterized as those which are awakened in
man, when he places himself, with his wishes and actions, before the
tribunal of the eternal and inscrutable. Individual moral conduct, in
contrast to social morality which is determined by the moral imperative
and ethical relative values, is in this way regulated by the perennial
threats of the inevitable appearance of death.
To escape from this thought the morality of love recommends the plunge
into the whirl of sensual life. But at the approach of death man sees
that the transitory intoxication of the senses is also pure vanity. For
it is almost axiomatic among thinking men that the only way to acquire
the ability to look upon the terrors of existence and the fleetingness
of life with equanimity and consolation is to put their labors in such
a direction, where there is hope for the continuation of their works
beyond the individual existence far into the infinite, such as the
artist hopes of his art, the scientist of his science, and the creative
genius of his creation.
[DO] Even Homer, the happy, life-enjoying Greek poet, expresses the
same pessimism (Iliad ix, 318).
ἴση μοῖρα μένοντι καὶ εἰ μάλα τις πολεμίζοι
ἐν δὲ ἰῇ τιμῇ ἠμὲν κακὸς ἠδὲ καὶ ἐσθλός
κατθαν’ ὁμῶς ὅτ’ ἀεργὸς ἀνὴρ ὅ τε πολλὰ ἐοργώς
“The same fate awaits him who remains home and him who risks his life
in the war for his country; in the same estimation are held the coward
and the brave. They both die in the same way, the idler and he who has
accomplished ever so much in life.”
The greatest rhapsody of pessimism is found in the Bible, in
Ecclesiastes. The quintessence of the royal preacher’s philosophy is,
“All is vanity.” “One generation passes away, the other comes, without
aim or end, purpose or intent.” Here is the sun, speeding through the
heavens, for which purpose or intent?
“The sun riseth and the sun sets and hasteth to the same place, where
it rose”; without aim or end. Here is the wind blowing furiously a
gale, to which purpose or intent?
“The wind goes to the south and turns to the north, it whirls about
continually and returns again according to his circuit,” without aim or
end. Here is the river, the torrent rushing down a precipice, to which
purpose or intent? “All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not
full, unto the place from whence the rivers came, thither they return
again”; without aim or end. All things turn in a circuit without aim or
end, purpose or intent. All is vanity and vexation of the spirit.
“What happens to the fool, so it happens to the wise. There is no
remembrance of the wise more than of the fool forever. How dieth the
wise man? As the fool. In the days to come shall all be forgotten” (ii,
15, 16).
Then the preacher turned, in search for a definite purpose in life,
to different philosophies of human conduct, he becomes in turn a
work-worshipper, love-worshipper, pleasure-worshipper; and what did
he find? “There is nothing good in the things God has created but
for a man to rejoice” (iii, 12). Thus it appears to him that the
philosophy of pleasure is the only purpose in life. But a little later
he finds that also this philosophy is of no profit. “But a man has no
preeminence above the beast; for all is vanity” (iii, 19).
Then comes a passage which shows how pessimism blinds the keenest
observer. “There is one alone, he has neither child nor brother, yet
is there no end of all his labor, neither is his eye satisfied with
riches, neither says he, for whom do I labor? This also is vanity” (iv,
8).
Now, this fact of the lonely man working for the future without
apparent purpose, ought to have given the philosopher a hint, that
there must be something behind this will to labor without aim or
end. “Arbores serit agricola quarum fructibus nunquam fruetur.” But
pessimist as our philosopher is, he returns to his philosophy. “This
also is vanity.”
[DP] Jagadis Chandra Bose (The Modern Review, Calcutta, 1914) succeeded
in establishing the perfect parallelism between animal and plant. He
found that all plants are sensitive and that in certain of them are
tissues which beat spontaneously like the heart-beat of the animal.
Response to electric stimulus, too, is identical in the plant and in
the animal. In short, the life of the plant is the life of the animal
in almost all its incidents, only in less degree.
[DQ] In nature the individual counts for nothing, the race for
everything. Nature is pitiless in the destruction of individuals.
Thousands of animal lives are consumed to feed one lion throughout its
life, millions of plant lives to feed one ox. In nature the individual
is as ruthlessly sacrificed as in war. In this respect war is more in
harmony with the designs of nature than peace.
In peace all the manifestations of life are individualistic. Eating,
drinking, sleeping, and amusing one’s self are all actions in the
interest of the preservation of the individual. Even the impulse of the
preservation of the kind, or of propagation, is in the last analysis
individualistic in nature. It is the aspiration to save at least one
part of the individual from general annihilation. The child is the
part of the parents which survives after the parents’ death. All the
activities of man, even the noblest, partake of a certain egoistic
element. The mother in sacrificing her life to save her child is
unconsciously merely sacrificing the older part in order to save the
younger part, of herself. But when the very existence of the individual
is in jeopardy, when life itself is at stake, then all ideals centering
in altruism are cast aside, and the Satanic cynic grins, muttering the
Biblical verses:
“Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
“But put forth thine hand, and touch his bone and his flesh,
“And he will curse thee to thy face.” (Job ii, 4-5.)
But all egoistic tendencies are silent in war. Here the individual
is merely an insignificant little wheel in the huge war-machine.
Here the individual counts for nothing, the nation for everything,
the individual must perish that the nation may flourish ever after.
Now, what is the modern nation, but an idea, what is the monarch in
western countries or the flag, but a symbol? Men live as happy, as
content, as free in London, Brussels, Paris, or Berlin. Ostend, e. g.,
would not materially change its mode of life, whether it is Belgian,
French, British, or German. (The semi-Asiatic Russia naturally forms
an exception. Anyone who has lived near the German-Russian frontier
and has observed the sunny German village with its clean paved
streets, lined with pretty large-windowed brick houses, all supplied
with the modern urban comforts, where tidiness and cleanliness, light
and well-being, happiness and prosperity dwell; and compared with
this sunshine, only a hundred yards away, on the Russian side, has
seen the dirty, streetless Russian village, with its windowless,
straw-roofed, low, wooden shanties where man and beast live under one
roof in squalor, filth, poverty and misery—and here it is where real
civilization reveals itself, not in the borrowed, French mannerism in
the palace of Petrograd—will not doubt for one moment that there is a
vast difference between the life under a semi-Asiatic civilization and
that under western civilizations. At this corner of the world, war is
utilitarian as among the barbarians in ancient times. Here the Teutonic
civilization is in war against the slavery of the knout.) But what are
the western nations fighting for? They are fighting for an ideal; here
men give their lives for a symbol.
Herein lies the chief service of war. (War is also calling out men’s
higher virtues, such as love and devotion to the fatherland, sympathy
with one’s compatriots, display of sacrifice, return to simple life,
etc.) It is the creator of the highest idealism, which is capable
of the supreme sacrifice, life itself. Such high idealism is found
only among the warlike nations of the world throughout human history.
These same warlike nations, the Hebrews (the Bible is replete of
war-narratives), the Greeks, the Romans and the Teutons, have also
built up the higher civilizations. Only those absorbed in the category
of the ideal, in the enthusiasm of humanity, can be seized by the great
ecstatic impulsion to war. The vulgar, the ignorant, the selfish,
engrossed in their own small affairs and engulfed in the mire of
utilitarianism, for whom the only meaning, worth and work of life is
barter, have no conception of the highest sacrifice, which is life, and
can not comprehend the meaning of war, nor do they ever contribute to
the ideal edifice of a higher civilization.
[DR] The author will follow here the discoveries of Morgan as described
in his “Ancient Society.”
Morgan divides the human history into three periods—savagery, barbarism
and civilization. He then subdivides the first two epochs into three
stages each.
In the lower stage of savagery man lived on trees and in caves. His
food consisted of fruits, thus being compelled to live in warm climates
where his food was always to be had. In this stage men lived in a kind
of monogamy.
The middle stage of savagery begins with the discovery of fire. Fish
was added to man’s food. In this way men were able to move in hordes in
colder climates.
The upper stage of savagery dates back from the invention of the bow
wherewith man could hunt his prey.
The lower stage of barbarism begins with introduction of pottery, the
middle stage with the introduction of agriculture and the upper stage
with the discovery of metals. The last is the stage wherein the Homeric
Greeks live.
Simultaneously with humanity’s advance from the lower to the higher
stages, the relations of the sexes also changed.
[DS] Punalua is an Indian word for uncle. In this family the children
do not know their father, but they know the brother of their mother.
The uncle is thus the relative who looks after the special interests of
his sister’s children within the clan.
[DT] Many scholars differentiate between endogamous and exogamous
tribes. But Morgan has shown that Endogamy and Exogamy are only two
different stages, that in the course of evolution every human tribe has
passed through the endogamous and exogamous stages. The Bible knows
yet the exogamous stage. “Therefore, shall a man leave his father and
mother and shall cleave unto his wife” (Genesis ii, 24). This shows
that exogamy lasted into the stage of the pairing family. In the
patriarchic family of the Bible, it is the woman who leaves her clan
and joins that of her husband. The same is the case among the Homeric
Greeks (Ilias vi, 29).
[DU] Homer often describes such gifts. Meleager is offered by the
Aetolians fifty acres of land, if he agreed to fight the Kouretes
(Ilias ix, 578).
[DV] The transition from the matriarchate to the patriarchate has been
dramatized in the Orestea of Aeschylus.
Apollo proclaims:
“Not is the mother the child’s progenitor.
“She shelters and carries only the awakened life.
“The father begets, she only preserves him the pledge.”
The Erinnyes thereupon lament:
“Thus thou sinkest, the gods’ ancient epoch.”
[DW] For this reason polygamy even in the countries where it was
theoretically allowed was very rarely actually met with. Throughout
the entire history of the polygamous Jews only about half a dozen
polygamous marriages are recorded.
Tacitus found among the Teutons only a few nobles to possess concubines
besides their wives.
[DX] “It is, indeed,” says Hartmann, “her own bed which the immoral
wife besmirches. While the husband misconducts himself outside the
family circle, the iniquity of the woman is bound to effect a change in
the home.”
Even the unchastity of the single woman has far more serious biological
consequences than that of the man. Her transgression creates a perfect
blood chaos in her future offspring. Long after a man’s death a woman
sometimes bears children to another man, who resemble the first. The
absorbed sperma seems to leave an indelible impression upon the woman.
[DY] The masculine morality is as yet very little influenced by reason.
Hence the male standard of morality of sex is as yet very low. So much
so that with meretricious venery rampant, male monogamy is as yet a
dream of the idealist. Yet there is a valid reason why the man should
not be inferior to woman in the standard of chastity. If there was no
racial reason for his chastity in ancient times, there is a good reason
for him to be chaste now.
[DZ] The man, says Schopenhauer, can beget a hundred children annually
if he had so many wives, hence he is looking for many; the woman can
only beget one child and is hence always desirous to preserve the
supporter of her offspring.
[EA] Female coyness is found in many animals where it serves to
increase the tumescence of the male. Animal coyness is especially
developed during pregnancy when no animal admits the male any longer.
[EB] Feminine modesty and coyness have become real instinctive
sentiments by which woman dominates man. This dominance is so great
that among all peoples the male sex is and was always subjected to the
rule of the female despite appearances to the contrary, and in the face
of all the laws against her.
[EC] Virtue and moral consciousness, says Schrenk-Notzing, are not
inherited in any person, man or woman. We inherit only the disposition
to goodness and right-willing as we may that of cruelty.
[ED] The radical preachers of revolt against chastity are fond to
assert that chastity has been forced upon women by men. This assertion
does not betray profound logic. The entire institution of monogamy, or
of marriage for that matter, is in the interest of woman and eminently
adapted to her needs only. Woman’s greatest need is to love and to be
loved, a man can more readily sublimate his sexual instinct into higher
channels.
The same shallowness of observation is shown in catch-phrases, such
as this: “Once women married because they were not permitted to work
at all, now they marry because they are forced to work beyond their
endurance.” And why do men marry? Not for the satisfaction of their
sexual desires; this they can have without the valuable privilege of
being allowed to support some other men’s daughters. No, men and women
marry because, if they are not degenerates, they are driven to marriage
by the permanent mating instinct, which is innate in man for the
benefit of the offspring.
[EE] Noeggerat claims that, in the city of New York, of 1000 married
men 800 have had gonorrhoea, 90 per cent. of all these have not been
healed and can infect their wives. As a result, at least three out of
every five married women in New York have gonorrhoea as a gift of their
husbands.
These statistics may be somewhat exaggerated, still the percentage of
diseased young men is appalling. At least 50 per cent. of young men
approaching the age of maturity become infected with venereal diseases
in a single year.
Kirchner, of the Prussian ministerium of cultus, claims that about
one hundred thousand men suffer daily of venereal diseases within the
Prussian monarchy. The result is a loss of a daily income of at least
250,000 marks, or a loss of 90,000,000 marks a year.
Rogers claims that over ninety per cent. of our young men stray from
the paths of virtue before marriage; sixty per cent. contract venereal
diseases which are difficult to cure. More wives than prostitutes have
venereal diseases, innocently contracted from husbands. Thousands of
unborn babies are annually killed by parental infection. Sixty per
cent. of the blindness in this country is due to venereal diseases.
One-eighth of all cases in New York hospitals are venereal. Two hundred
thousand infected persons walk the streets of New York daily.
Among men the author meets with in his practice or socially, the man
who never had gonorrhoea once at least in his life is an extreme rarity.
[EF] When a newly married woman experiences a burning pain in
urinating, noticing at the same time a certain leucorrhoea, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it is caused by the gonococcus. If
two weeks after she was married, she feels pain in her lower abdomen,
the case is suspicious of gonorrhoeal salpingitis. The gonorrhoeal
infection reaches the tubes about ten to fourteen days after the
initial infection of the cervix. The vagina may not be affected at all.
Gonorrhoeal vaginitis is exceedingly rare. The pavement epithelium,
covering the vaginal surface, seems to afford protection against the
specific infection. Gonorrhoeal endometritis is also rare. Gonorrhoea
infects the female genital tract by jumps. From the urethra and vulva
the infection jumps to the cervix and hence to the tubes and ovaries.
[EG] According to Neisser there are in Germany thirty thousand blind
persons whose loss of sight may be thus accounted for.
[EH] These gonorrhoeal complications may serve as a deterrent for the
individual but would have nothing to do with morality, if they would
not also be met with in the innocent party. If gonorrhoea and its
complications would only affect the individual that voluntarily exposes
itself to infection, it would be of no more moral concern than measles
or pneumonia. But gonorrhoea insidiously strikes the innocent women and
children. Hence it is subject to the “moral imperative,” “Thou shalt
not kill, blind or maim your wife and child.” To give such a loathsome
disease to another person is hence a moral crime, apart from the fact
that the misconduct of the unchaste man is to the detriment of himself
and of the race and is immoral. Still writers who call themselves
independent thinkers demand yet better proofs of the immorality of
man’s unchastity.
The only excuse for the men who carry gonorrhoea into their families
is that they do not know the consequences. As a rule, the misfortune
comes upon the family quite unaware. The man cannot even be blamed
of negligence. Not only the woman acquires gonorrhoea without her
knowledge and in absence of all local or general symptoms, but even the
man does not know that he is still harboring infectious material in his
genital tract.
Prof. Bum has found gonococci in the urine and in the urethral
secretions, five and ten years after the onset of the infection. At
such a late period no man ever thinks of still being infectious, and in
this way he becomes not infrequently unaware the murderer of his mate.
[EI] The prevalence of syphilis is estimated at 18 per cent. of the
adult population. Ruggles found in New York City, in the better class
of families, one-third of the sons of adult age to be infected with
syphilis. Syphilis causes about forty per cent. of all miscarriages.
The mortality of syphilitic children is about sixty per cent. Syphilis
is the only disease transmitted to the offspring in full virulence.
Sixty to eighty per cent. of all infected children die before they are
born, or come into the world with the mark of death upon them. The
mortality of the children who have inherited syphilis from the father
is about twenty-eight per cent., of those who have inherited it from
the mother is over sixty per cent. A large number of those who survive
childhood dies from hereditary syphilis between the ages of ten and
twenty.
[EJ] Let several men in the club or at the saloon-bar touch in their
conversation the topic of sex, and they will poke fun at the man who
never had a venereal disease.
[EK] Among the European working-classes and peasants, according to
Ellen Key, the free union of love has long been the custom. This
premature sexual life contributes to hinder the full bodily and mental
development of the lower classes.
[EL] All ethical possessions in the inner man, his modesty, morality,
his divine adoration, his aesthetic and his social service are all due
to the repression of sexuality.
[EM] Pflüger (In Jacobsohn’s Article, St. Petersburg Med. Wochenschr.,
1907, p. 97) says: If all the authorities of the world should proclaim
the innocuousness of continence, it would have no influence upon youth,
for forces are here active which will break every obstacle.
Thus even Pflüger admits that continence is compatible with perfect
health and only thinks that the force of sensuality would sweep aside
all recommendations of abstinence. Now, about the possibility of total
abstinence, there may be a great difference of opinion. But granted
absolute abstinence is only an ideal, no ideal can be realized,
otherwise it would not be an ideal. We can only approach an ideal,
and this would be a great gain in regard to sexual continence. Näcke
says that absolute sexual abstinence is an utopia just as the total
abolition of prostitution, public and clandestine, or the absolute
abstinence from alcohol. Man’s impulses are too powerful, but they may
be restrained and kept in proper bounds.
[EN] Statistics show that it is not at all the question about the men
being continent, but about the boy controlling early passions. Most men
contract venereal diseases between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five.
The mature man is always able to control his passions. The more
healthy, says Chassaignac, and the nearer the normal an individual is,
the better he can not only control his passions, but the less is his
condition likely to be disturbed by continence. It is the neurasthenic
who is most prone to be upset by an attempted or enforced continence
and who, as well, is most given to excess.
[EO] The Talmudists, the keenest observers of human life and conduct,
knew this when they said אבר קטן יש באדם משביעו רעב ומרעיבו שבע
(Sanhedrin, p. 107A). “There is a small organ in the body of a man
which is always hungry if one is trying to satisfy it, and is always
satisfied if one starves it.”
[EP] The family, i. e., near their father and mother, is the only
institution where children were meant to be brought up. No collective
work, settlements, vacation homes or asylums can protect or guide
friendless children properly. The spiritual and emotional education of
the child, the awakening of its higher sentiments can only be carried
out in the atmosphere of the parental home, under the guidance of love
and affection of those who have given life to this child.
[EQ] Since men’s deviation from the strict path of chastity jeopardizes
the very existence of the race, sexual morality must be binding upon
all men, under all conditions without any regard to the original reason
for the establishment of the moral law. A law, in its nature, can
not acknowledge any exceptions. There may be a case where infection
could be excluded with absolute certainty, just as there may be a case
where the father’s doubt would have no consequences for the child.
Embezzlement is also sometimes allowed and even a duty, as Cicero shows
in “De Officiis,” “Si gladium quis apud te sana mente deposuerit,
repetat insaniens, reddere peccatum sit officium non reddere.” In a
remote future, under communism, as Mardach paints it, all the reasons
for male or female sexual morality may become non-existent. Then the
standard will surely change. But in our present state of society one
standard of morality must be established for men and women, from which
no one should have a right to deviate, no matter even if the reasons
for the standard are not applicable in the particular case.
[ER] The imperious instinct which decrees the perpetuation of the race,
says Lewis, can be controlled and directed aright by the consistent
knowledge of truth. When the young man has been taught the dignity
of virility, when he has learned that purity is conducive to bodily
development, while vice carries with it the most serious diseases in
its train and the danger not only of ruining his own life but also
the health of his future bride and the entire progeny, he will not
stoop to vice for the gratification of his desires. The average man
is not a criminal, he does not wreck the life and health of his wife
and children knowingly and wilfully. In most cases he does it through
ignorance of the nature and terrible consequences of the disease.
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INDEX
Abdomen, 58;
pain in lower, 394
Abélard, 258
Aberration of the spirit, 378
Ablation of genitals in sadism, 260
Abnegation, sublimity of, 372
Abortion, laws of, 364
Aboulia, 242, 352
Abraham, 3, 250
Absolute impotence, 198
Abstinence, 178, 180;
feasibility of, 5;
church and, 6;
Justinus and, 5;
to prevent conception, 364;
in women, 179
Abstract truth, 367;
principle of, 379
Abundance of reproductive cells, 381
Accelerator urinae, 77, 81
Acme of venereal paroxysm, 218
Acquaintance, chance, 333
Act—sexual, 357;
climax of, 357;
course of, 90;
duration, 357;
divine, 4
Adam, 341
Adolescence, abstinence of, 5
Adoration, 134, 228;
of vulva, 3;
of sex, 2
Adultery, 110, 111, 388;
punishment of, 367, 368
Advantage of humanity, 373
Aeschylus, 387
Affection—complex sentiment of, 133;
disinterested, 136
Affinity, 130, 139, 145
Age, remote—of prostitution, 338;
suitable for marriage, 348
Aim—of life, 377, 404;
of corset, 7;
of eugenics, 338
Aims in life, 372
Alcohol—impotence by, 182;
sex excitement by, 365
Algolagnie, 253
Alimony, 368
Allantois, 22
Allotments, 387
Aloisia Sigea, 258
Altruism—in reproduction, 12;
crown of, 383;
morality and, 384;
in sentimental love, 136
Altruistic materialists, 371
America, bodily characteristics in, 15
Amoeba, 60, 112
Amos, 5
Amphiaster, 63
Amphibia, 19
Amphimixis, 16
Anabolism, 365
Anaesthesia, 169, 314;
in children, 106;
female, 182, 209, 211;
symptoms of female, 214
Anal—kiss, 255;
depression, 26;
membrane, 23
Anatomy—of cervix, 50;
female genitals, 41;
male genitals, 29;
plants, 318;
of sex, 60
Ancient society, 385
Androcele, 117
Androgynos, 277
Anemia and marriage, 362
Angina pectoris, syphilitic, 397
Animal passion, 147
Animalism, 135
Animals—abstinence in, 180;
spayed, 345
Anjel, 234
Annihilation general, 382
Anorchismus, 190
Anther, 118
Anti-conceptional, 340;
devices, 364;
douches, 88
Anti-selection, 346
Anti-social, 340
Anti-suicide, 340
Antiquity, religion of, 2
Antorgastic libido, 216, 221;
in women, 90
Anuria, 205
Anxiety attacks, 197
Aphrodite, 2, 274
Apollo, 387
Apostoli, 215
Appetites, man’s two, 1
Approach of death, 375
Aristocracy, 340, 372
Ark, divine, 3
Art, 365
Artemis, 274
Arteriae helicinae, 38
Arteriosclerosis syphilitica, 397
Arthritis gonorrhoica, 395
Articles of attire, fetich of, 265
Asceticism, veneration of, 5
Ashereh, 3
Aspermia, 190
Aspiration of sperma, 87
Assassination in love, 134
Assimilation of food, 116, 126
Aster, 61
Atheists, 371
Athens, 346
Atonic impotence, 193
Attachment, 106, 133;
of children, 110, 324
Attraction—spiritual, 376;
impulse of, of mates, 125
Attributes of divinity, 275
Augustinus, 6
Authority—of the divine will, 371;
of religion, 326
Azoospermia, 191
Baal, 3
Bailly-Maitre, 277
Bain, 133, 259
Ball, 229
Barbarism, period of, 385
Barrus, 220
Barter, the meaning of life, 383
Bartholinian glands, 28, 45, 89
Basement membrane, 69
Bawdry, 224
Beauty, 142;
sculptor and, 8;
of sex, 56
Beck, 88
Bed for married couple, 350
Belaschko, 331
Benseman, 239
Berg, 8
Berger, 237
Bergson, 17, 103
Bestiality, 309
Bets in masturbation, 239
Bible, 3, 368, 378, 399
Binary fission, 112
Binding of sex morality, 405
Binet, 266
Biogenetic axiom, Haeckel’s, 17
Biological monogamy, 148
Birds, 19
Birth-rate, fall of, 340
Bischoff, 37
Bisexuality, 273
Blackmer, 165
Bladder—development, 23;
paresis, 204;
spasm, 205
Blastula, 18
Blending, 16
Bloch, 333
Blends, 98
Blood-chaos, 346
Blumroder, 263
Boas, 15
Boettcher’s crystals, 74, 191
Bondage, sexual, 253
Bosom, 8, 365
Botanists, 379
Bow, invention of, 385
Brachycephalic, 15
Breasts at menstruation, 320
Brehem, 351
Bride’s promise of obedience, 151
Bridgman, 327
Bright’s disease, syphilitic, 398
Brouardel, 235
Brown-Séquard, 85
Brunettes, 98
Bulbs, laceration of, 184
Bulwark against horror of death, 376
Bum, 396
Buffon, 276
Burbank, 16
Burton, 268
Business, the narcotic of, 153
Buttocks, 317
Caesar, 127
Calculation in love, 111
Calyx, 116
Capitalism, evolution of, 141
Capryl odors, 98
Career of prostitute, 332
Castrates, 186
Castration, 344;
in incest, 251;
for prevention of conception, 364
Categorical imperative, 383
Catherine de Medici, 263
Cause of drink, 153
Causes of masturbation in children, 167
Cell-hunger, 114
Cells—exhausted, 112;
abundance of reproductive, 381
Central spindle, 63
Centre—of sex, 77, 78, 80, 81, 106;
of truth, 177
Centres—growth of generative, 108;
nervous, male, 39;
female, 55
Centrosome, 61
Cerebrasthenia, 200;
e abusu sexuali, 351
Cervix—anatomy, 50;
erection, 87, 89;
ulceration of, 174
Chain of sex-activity, 111, 174
Change—of bodily characteristics in America, 15;
of female genitals, 362;
of woman’s psyche, 306
Character of masturbator, 171, 172
Characteristics, secondary, 84, 108, 137, 327
Charity, 339
Chassaignac, 402
Chastity, 177;
female, 232, 388;
health in, 402;
male, 392;
in marriage, 350;
violated, 158
Chemotropismus, erotic, 124, 130, 275
Chevalier, 284, 285
Child of love, 135
Children—attachments of, 110, 324;
education of, 318;
erethism in, 106;
exposure of, 339;
jealousy in, 106;
love of, 105;
modesty of, 106;
sex-instinct, 106
Chilodon, 113, 274
Chlorosis and marriage, 362
Chorda dorsalis, 19
Christianity and sexuality, 5;
defectives and, 339;
Judaism, 371
Chromatin, 61
Chromosomes, 61, 135
Church and abstinence, 6
Chyle, 103
Cicero, 405
Cimon, 250
Circle, essence of, 381
Circulation, 92
Circumcision—acquired characteristic, 16;
phallic ritual of, 3
Civilization, 373;
meaning of, 377;
metallic basis of, 373;
period of, 385;
war and, 373
Clan, intermarriage within, 386
Clandestine—love, 157;
vice, 400
Cleopatra, 250
Climacterium, 209
Climax of act, 357
Clitoris, 28, 44, 90, 237, 289;
emblem of, 3;
libido in anomalies of, 185;
in orgasmus retardatus, 220;
at puberty, 182
Cloaca, 20, 22, 26
Clothes—female, 307;
in homosexuality, 287;
irradiation of sex, 7;
in transvestism, 301
Coccygodynia, 352
Coeducation, 335
Coelom, 19
Coitus interruptus, 360
Colic, spermatic, 201
Colliculus, 36;
in excesses, 169;
hypertrophy of, 200, 201;
in nocturnal erections, 177;
physiology of, 72, 75, 82
Colonial protozoa, 114
Column, a sex-symbol, 3
Communal marriage, 383
Complement, soul’s, 376
Conception—favorable time of, 349;
in intermenstrual period, 349, 358;
prevention of, 340;
in rape, 360
Confinement—intercourse after, 356;
libido after, 184, 213
Conjugation, 113, 114, 275;
odor feminae during, 98;
scale of, 112;
of cells, 115
Consanguineous—family, 385;
marriage, 127
Consciousness, loss of—at orgasm, 92;
in plants, 116
Consensualism, 175
Consequences of girl’s false step, 407
Conspiracy of silence, 6
Contempt—in love, 138;
of sex, 9
Continence, 176;
habit of, 403;
obstacles of, 404;
odor feminae in, 98;
in women, 179, 400
Contra-selection, 339
Contrectation, impulse of, 104
Convulsions at orgasm, 92
Copper of Sinai, 373
Copulation, 108, 110;
duration of, 99, 357
Corals, 17
Corolla, 116
Corset, 301, 365;
aim of, 7
Cosmic value, 372
Cosmos, rationality in, 379
Costal respiration, 58, 59
Course of sexual act, 90
Courtesans—career of, 150;
character of, 399;
fashion, 7;
in Old Testament, 4;
in temples, 4
Coverings of genitals, 7
Coyness, 145, 390
Craze for luxuries, 347
Creative evolution, 13
Criterion—of love, 138;
of marital hygiene, 351;
of morality, 368, 384
Cross, symbol of, 4
Cross-dressing, 297
Cross-fertilization, 115;
in plants, 122, 123
Cryptorchismus, 190
Cunnilingus, 282, 289
Cupid in fashion, 8
Curiosity of children, 317
Custom and morality, 367, 368
Cycles of sex-excitement, 354
Cytoplasm, 61
Dalliance, 173
Dancing, 365
Danger—of syphilitic infection, 399;
of venereal diseases, 326
Danville, 132
Darwinian theory, 14
David, 3, 279
Day-dreams, 156, 172, 178, 300;
of perverts, 287
Death—approach of, 375;
bulwark against horror of, 376;
of somatic cells, 112
Defectives—Christianity and, 339;
mental, 327;
sterilization of, 344
Definition—of instinct, 102, 104, 326;
of morality, 232, 326, 369
Defloration, 98, 354
Deification of passion, 375
Delboeuf, 132
Delilah, 138
Demi-mondaine, 365;
fashion and, 7;
ideal of, 143
Depression, post-orgastic, 100
Descent—in female line, 387;
of testicles, 30
Desire—extreme, in impotence, 196;
transcendental, 100
Dessoir, 145
Destiny, man’s, 373
Determiners, 64;
of conduct, 367
Detumescence—impulse of, 104, 105, 106, 109;
in fetichism, 266
Development—of genito-urinary system, 20;
individual love, 140;
of reproductive instinct, 112;
obstruction in, of love, 146
Devices for prevention of conception, 363
Deville, 239, 276
Diabetes in impotence, 193
Diaphragma urogenitale, 34, 36
Differentiation, sexual, 138
Digger-wasp, 103
Dilatation of vagina, 354
Ding an sich, 381
Dioecious plants, 117
Diogenes, 238
Discovery of fire, 385
Diseases, gonorrhoeal female, 394
Dispareunia, offspring in, 359
Divine will, 371
Divinity—attributes of the, 275;
nature of, 275
Division, propagation by, 17
Divorce, 110
Dolichocephalic, 15
Domestic animals, menstruation in, 87
Dominion of woman, 132, 391
Double standard of morality, 367
Douches, value of anti-conceptional, 88
Dreams—erotic, 76, 203;
of perverts, 287
Dress—meaning of, 6;
mania for, 153;
peasants, 8
Drink, cause of, 153
Duboc, 132, 138
Dühren, 266
Duration—of copulation, 99;
feeling of, 381;
of career of prostitutes, 332
Dysaesthesia, 352
Echinodermata, 19
Ecclesiastes, 378
Economic—determinists, 327, 331, 338;
equality, 369
Eczema of genitals, 317
Education of children, 317;
prophylactic value of, 331
Effects—exaggerated, of masturbation, 238;
sensual, of fashion, 7
Effemination—psychical, 293;
bodily, 295
Egotism—in friendship, 156;
in sensual love, 133
Eichstedt, 87
Ejaculation—in mental erethism, 173;
premature, 198;
physiology of female, 89, 91, 94;
of male, 76, 81, 93;
praecox, 170, 201
Ekler, 160
Elgabal, 2
Elimination of degenerates, 339
Elisha, 5
Elijah, 5
Ellen Key, 348, 400, 406
Ellis, 155, 245, 280, 294
Embezzlement a duty, 405
Embryo—hermaphroditic, 22;
of plant, 122
Emissions, 110;
nocturnal, 203
Emptiness of existence, 320
Endometritis in sterility, 208
Engagements, 347
England, masturbation in, 239
Enslavery of women, 367
Enuresis nocturna, 205
Environment, 338
Envy, 157
Epileptic, 311;
crisis, 82;
guinea-pigs, 15
Equality of sexes, 242
Equatorial plate, 63
Equilibrium, moral, 345
Eram, 277
Erasmus, 278
Erb, 238
Erection—fear in, 80;
nervous control of, 77;
physiology of, 74;
of cervix, 87, 89;
of clitoris, 90;
nocturnal, 177, 174, 193, 194, 195
Erethism—in children, 106;
katabolic, 386
Erogenous zones, 97, 110, 111, 130, 182
Eros, 1;
dictature of, 374;
two desires of, 156
Erotic—chemotropismus, 130, 124, 275;
dreams, 203;
dreams of perverts, 287;
novels, 224;
murders, 148;
odors, 98;
ruminations, 375
Erotopath, 345
Essaeans, 5
Eternal—fleeting and, 376;
tribunal, 377
Ethical Why, 326, 404
Etiology—of homosexuality, 275;
of impotence, male, 169;
female, 182
Eugenics, 337
Eugenic power of sexuality, 135
Eulenburg, 403
Eunuchs, 69, 186, 219
Euthanasia, 364
Euthenics, 339
Eve, 341
Evolution—of capitalism, 141;
of emotions, 141;
of love, 147;
principle of, 141;
racial, 368;
truth of, 379;
of sex, 13
Evolutionary ethics, 404, 408
Excesses—in copulation, 198, 169;
in masturbation, 170;
in mental erethism, 172;
symptoms of, 352;
in tactile eroticism, 173
Excitation of sperma, 362
Exhibitionism—in men, 270;
in women, 272;
in nymphomaniac women, 232
Existence—purpose of, 372, 378;
reason for, 383
Exogamous marriage, 386
Exposure of children, 339
Extension, feeling of, 381
Ezekiel, 242
Failure, fear of, in impotence, 197
Fair share of world’s work, 379
Faith of life, 376;
and science, 15
Family—motive for male continence, 405;
punaluan, 386;
patriarchal, 387;
life, 125;
friend, 226
Fashion—sexuality and, 6;
sexual effects of, 7;
Cupid and, 8;
demi-monde and, 7, 143;
fickleness of, 8
Fastidiousness in sensual love, 130
Fear, 334;
in impotence, 181;
homosexuality through, 282;
erection and, 80
Fellatricia, 194, 279, 289
Female—anaesthesia, 206, 209, 211, 214, 218;
chastity, 388, 389;
clothes, 307;
devotees, 6;
ejaculation, 89, 91, 94;
fidelity, 387;
frigidity, 206, 218;
genitals, 28, 41, 83;
impersonator, 305;
inchastity, 389;
inheritance in, line, 386;
instinct of purity, 307;
nudity, 307;
orgasm, 91, 94, 95;
potency, 95;
pride, 307;
principle in nature, 3;
selfishness, 194;
transvestite, 308;
unit-characters, 374
Feminists, 136
Fertilization—of birds, 124;
of egg, 66;
of fishes, 124;
of plants, 115, 121;
of mammals, 124
Fetich—of sex-act, 111;
of love, 135;
worship, 266;
of body-portions, 265;
of garter, 268
Fetichism—articles of attire in, 264, 267;
physiological, 265;
tumescence in, 266
Fiaux, 285
Fiction, love in, 10, 149
First cause, 369
First nursing, mechanism of, 102
Fishes, 19;
nursing of eggs of, 126
Fission, binary, 112
Fissiparous reproduction, 60
Flagellation, 130, 254, 258
Flowers, 116
Fore-pleasure, 107, 111
Fournier, 396
France, masturbation in schools of, 239
Freedom in selection of mates, 341
Free love, 2, 407
Frenzy of work, 374
Frequency—of intercourse, 351;
diminished, 222
Freud, 90, 182, 249, 316
Freund, 168, 356
Friedrich, 6
Friendship, 138;
egotism in, 156
Frigidity—male, 186, 187;
female, 218, 206;
in homosexuality, 291;
men’s belief in female, 215
Friswell, 314
Fritsch, 242
Futurism, 376
Galopin, 98
Galton, 338;
law of, 16
Gamete, 63
Garnier, 357
Garter, fetich of, 268
Gartner, ducts of, 24
Gastrula, 18
Gemmiparous reproduction, 17
Genesis, 317
Genital—centres, male, 40;
female, 55;
cords, 22;
epithelium, 53, 83;
folds, 28;
groove, 26;
nerves, male, 39;
female, 55;
internal ridge, 22;
swelling, 26;
tubercle, 26
Genito-urinary system—development, 20;
anatomy, male, 29;
female, 41;
in atonic impotence, 200;
syphilitic affection of, 398
Germ cells, 14, 124
Gerstlaner, 309
Gibb, 331
Gills, 19
Giraffe, evolution of, 14
Girls—covering of, 7;
names in transvestism, 303, 305
Glabella, 56
Glycosuria, transitory, 205
Goal of materialism, 371
Goethe, 139, 256
Gold of Ophir, 373
Gonorrhoea, 79, 392, 393;
infection by, 395;
female diseases by, 394;
toleration against, 393;
ignorance about, 329;
azoospermia by, 91;
impotence by, 181, 208
Greek bacchanalia, 2
Gross, 364
Grosse, 6
Gynocracy, 386
Haeckel, 17, 130
Hagen, 98
Hammond, 97
Hammurabi codex, 371
Happiness, 377;
matrimonial, 153
Happy union, 347
Harm of masturbation, 171, 172, 324
Harmony—of things, 381;
of souls, 273
Hartman, 10, 133
Hatred in libido, 98
Hausler, 264
Hawks, monogamy of, 126
Health in chastity, 402
Heart-beat in plants, 380
Hebrew—brachycephalia of, 15;
masturbation of, women, 242;
oldest drama, 275;
sex worship, 2
Hedonic philosophy, 377
Hegar, 351
Hegel, 133
Heine, 133
Heliocentric system, 13
Helplessness of infant, 126
Henpecked man, 154, 214, 254
Henson, 358
Hereditary taint of masturbation, 166, 168
Heredity, inexorableness of, 338
Hermaphrodite—apparent, 42;
female psychic, 290, 289
Hermaphroditic—embryo, 22;
species, 115;
flowers, 117
Herodotus, 2, 311
Hesiod, 359
Heterozygous, 65
Hieronymos, 5
Hindu theology, 2
Hindus, 86
Hirschsprung, 164
History of marriage, 385
Histrionic spectacles, 307
Homosexual—marriages, 288, 296;
perversion, 285;
perversity, 280
Homosexuality—animals, 276;
clothes in, 287;
etiology of, 275;
through fear, 282;
frigidity in, 291;
in Greece, 277;
among Hebrews, 279;
for lust, 283;
Mosaic law on, 279;
nudity in, 287;
profession of, 284;
of savages, 277;
strict, 291
Homozygous, 63
Horace, 336
Horowicz, 137
Hosea, 5
Howard, 267, 333, 247
Hume, 144
Humiliation in hired love, 407
Hunger, protoplasmatic, 112, 114, 275
Hydra, 113
Hydrocele, 30
Hygiene, 314;
for adults, 347;
in defectives, 339
Hymen—development, 26;
anatomy, 46;
rupture of, 354;
imperforated, 207
Hymenoptera, 103, 306
Hyperaesthesia, 223;
of urethra, 201
Hypospadia—male, 190;
female, 207
Hysterical women, 235
Idea of a desire, 109
Ideal—in love, 131;
of human species, 132;
in love with, 141;
of immaculate virgin, 5;
materialistic, 371;
of absolute abstinence, 402;
of good, 368
Ignorance—masturbation through, 250;
prostitution by, 331
Illegitimacy, 334
Illusions, in love and friendship, 138
Image of mate, 141, 146
Imagery—male, 293;
masochistic, 255
Immoral plays, 150
Immorality, 150
Immortality of protozoa, 112
Immunity, syphilitic, 399
Impersonator, female, 305
Impotence—absolute, 198;
alcohol in, 182;
atonic, 198;
of copulation, male, 192;
female, 206;
diabetic, 193;
drugs in, 181, 184;
etiology, male, 169;
female, 182;
fear in, 181;
by gonorrhoea, 181, 208;
idiopathic, 182;
libido in, 187;
female, 208;
organic, 192;
by obesitas, 193;
by over-estimation, 197;
by over-excitation, 196;
paralytic, 193;
partial, 198;
pathology, male, 185;
female, 205;
psychic, 194;
relative, 195;
by shocks, 197;
symptomatic, 181, 193;
temporary, 195;
transitory, 194;
of voluptas, 186;
female, 206
Impotencies, four kinds, 186
Impregnation—process of, 67;
place of, 83
Impulse—of attraction of mates, 125;
of conjugation, 125;
contrectation, 104, 109;
contrectation in eunuchs, 186;
of detumescence, 104, 109;
of permanent mating, 125
Impurity—through chance acquaintances, 333;
pleasure-seeking, 333;
vanity, 333
Incest, 250;
castration in, 251;
immorality of, 368
Incontinence, male, 401
Incontinentia urinae, 205, 353
Index of sentimental love, 136
Individual allotments, 387
Individuality in love, 136
Infant, helplessness of, 126
Infatuation, 134, 138
Infusorium, 113
Inheritance in female line, 386
Inhibition, centre of—male, 40;
female, 55;
of libido, 97
Instinct—children’s sex, 106;
definition of, 102, 104, 326;
of propagation, 109, 112, 125;
of reproduction in altruism, 12;
of voluptas, 185;
of female purity, 389
Instincts perfective, 140
Instruction in sex, 315
Intellect in libido, 93
Intelligence, in universe, 14;
survival value of, 152
Intensity of libido, 95
Intercourse—in confinement, 356;
frequency, 351;
ideal, 222, 239, 244;
in lactation, 356;
in partial frigidity, 357;
positions in, 350;
in pregnancy, 355
Intermarriage, 385
Intermenstrual conception, 349, 358
Internal messages, 106, 108
Interval between confinements, 358
Intoxication—impurity by, 332;
of work, 374
Invention of bow, 385
Inverts, mode of intercourse of, 288
Ireland, yonism in, 4
Israel, 371;
sex worship in, 5
Jacobi, 165
Jacobs, 242
Jaeger, 98
Jagadis Chandra Bose, 380
James, 7
Janet, 133
Jealousy, 157;
in children, 106;
in homosexuality, 286;
and rival, 157, 159
Jews, circumcision in, 16
Job, 275, 371
Joy, nature of, 139
Juda, 4
Judaism and Christianity, 371
Judeo-Christian creed, 370
Justice—social, 369, 371;
retributory, 371
Justinus, 5
Juvenal, 279
Kant, 142, 146, 151, 155, 384, 389
Karsch, 311
Katabolism, 366
Katherine of Russia, 220
Keimepithel, 83
Key of love, 132
Key, Ellen, 139, 180
Kidney, primitive, 20
Kiernan, 264, 289, 294, 320
Kisch, 87, 234
Kiss, anal, 255
Kiss-literature, 247
Kissing, origin of, 96
Klein, 85
Knout, slavery of, 383
Krafft-Ebing, 162, 234, 253, 256, 263, 269, 270, 290, 292, 296
Kristeller, 87, 88, 89, 91
Laceration—of bulbs, 184;
of sphincter cunni, 184
Lactation, 85;
intercourse in, 356
Laker, 248
Lamarckian, 14
Lassitude, post-orgastic, 94, 100
Laurium, silver of, 373
Law—exceptions in, 405;
of Galton, 16;
of obstacles, 390;
of parity, 347;
against abortion, 364;
against unchastity, 368
Lawson-Tait, 168
Lecithin, 74
Leeches, 115
Le Pilleur, 337
Lesbian women, 242
Lesbianism among prostitutes, 284
Leucorrhoea in newly-wed, 394
Lewis, 406
Libertine in society, 330
Liberty—development of, 342;
Biblical, 371
Libidinogenous substances, 72
Libido, 92, 154;
ant-orgastic, 216, 221;
ant-orgastic in women, 90;
centre of, 78;
compelled, 99;
in confinement, 184;
impotence of, after confinement, 213;
during defloration, 98;
hatred and, 98;
inhibition of, 97;
intellect during, 93;
intensity of, 95;
pain and, 98, 184;
of perverts, 289;
senses, source of, 96;
simulation of, 215;
symptoms of, 92;
ugliness, 98
Life—aim of, 373, 377, 404;
faith in, 376;
fleetingness of, 377;
German-Russian frontier, 383;
purpose of, 372, 378;
tenacity to, 378;
triviality of, 374
Lillith, 246
Limitation of offspring, 340
Lingam, 4
Linin, 61
Liszt, 364
Literature in love, 147;
feministic, 151
Logos, 376, 381
Loiman, 248, 249
Lombroso, 165
Loseque, 270
Loss—of memory, 199;
of ovaries, 154
Love—ancients and, 1;
child of, 135;
children’s, 105;
clandestine, 138;
contempt of, 138;
of country, 11;
criterion of, 138;
evolution of, 13;
fetich of, 10;
in fiction, 10;
foundation of society, 1;
of friends, 12;
to God, 11;
hired, 407;
illusions of, 138;
key of, 132;
with love, 130, 131, 400;
in marriage, 347;
morality of, 375;
of odors, 127;
parental, 136, 139;
and passion, 140;
pathology of, 162;
rationality of true, 140;
sensual, 129, 130;
sentimental, 129, 136;
sex-attraction and, 12;
at first sight, 135, 142;
suicide in, 134
Lover, assassination of, 134
Lucian, 278
Lumen, vaginal, 74
Lungs, syphilitic cavities of, 397
Lust, 147;
selfish, 131;
homosexuality out of, 283
Lust-feeling, positive, 111
Luxuries, craze of, 347
Mackenzie, 352
Madness and love, 133
Magnan, 165, 233, 234, 268, 269
Male—chastity, 392;
frigidity, 186, 187;
genitals, 28, 29;
nerves, 39;
transvestite, 306
Man—criminal appetites in, 406;
destiny of, 373;
fidelity of, 390;
henpecked, 154, 214, 254;
origin of, 318;
passion in the mature, 402
Mania—religious, 228;
for pleasure, 348;
for dress, 153
Mantegazza, 133
Mantle fibres, 63
Mardach, 341, 405
Maria Theresia, 357
Marriage—age suitable for, 348;
chastity in, 350;
chlorosis cured by, 362;
communal, 386;
consanguineous, 127;
conventional, 100;
cure by, 179;
evolution of, 141;
exogamous, 386;
history of, 385;
love in, 347;
monogamic, 407;
prostitution in, 135;
sensuality in, 347;
shyness in, 348;
unfits to, 340;
woman and, 144
Marro, 15, 155
Maschka, 312
Masochism, 253;
imagery in, 255
Marquis de Sade, 259
Masturbation—in animals, 238;
bets in, 239;
causes of, 167, 240, 249;
in children, 164;
exaggerated effects of, 238;
harm of, 324;
hereditary taint, 166, 168;
ignorance in, 250;
impotence by, male, 170;
female, 183;
in Lesbian women, 242;
mishaps during, 243, 239;
Milesian women, 242;
moderate, 238, 241, 246;
prevention of, 322, 324;
in schools, 239;
sequels of, 324, 241, 248;
spanking and, 130;
symptoms of, 199, 323, 362;
syncope in girls, 241;
urination in, 241;
withdrawal cause of, 362;
in women, 242, 247
Masturbator, character of, 171, 172
Matchmaking, 244
Materialism, goal of, 371
Materialists, altruistic, 371
Maternal traits, 137
Mating, permanent, 127, 129
Matriarchate, 386, 387
Maturition, 63, 83;
of sperm cell, 70
Meaning of life, 383
Means—of sex-excitement, 364;
against acquired masturbation, 323
Mechanistic theory, 13, 273
Medical students, 315, 316
Mendel’s laws, 64, 338
Meningitis—gonorrhoica, 395;
syphilitica, 398
Menstruation, 84;
in animals, 86;
breasts in, 320;
intercourse in, 354;
lymphatic, 87;
male, 203;
Mosaic law on, 355;
odor at, 98;
voluptas during, 232
Mental defectives, 327;
secondary characteristics of, 137
Mental erethism, ejaculation in, 173
Meretricious venery, dissatisfaction in, 155
Metallic basis of civilization, 373
Metals, discovery of, 385
Metaphysical riddles, 376
Metazoa, 112
Meyer, 85
Micturition, 177, 197;
after ejaculation, 82
Mind and matter, 152
Ministry and sex, 396
Mitosis, 61, 70
Mixoscopy, 223, 226
Modern stage, 365
Modesty, 145, 391;
in children, 106;
extreme, in erection, 80;
in perverts, 287
Mohammed, 351
Moll, 94, 165, 237, 248, 263, 290, 311
Mollusca, 19
Monads, 114
Monera, 17
Monin, 98
Monoecious plants, 117
Monogamy, 388, 392;
in animals, 126;
biological, 148;
female, 141, 148
Mooren, 352
Moraglia, 202, 268
Moral—equilibrium, 345;
imperative, 377;
imperative in gonorrhoea, 395;
sense, 369;
standard in nature, 379
Morality, 367;
altruism in, 384;
binding of, 405;
criterion of, 368;
custom and, 367, 368;
definition of, 326, 232, 369;
of fear, 226;
of love, 375;
radicals and, 369;
religion and, 369;
new sex, 147;
of work, 374
Morgan, 385
Morning drop, 202
Morris, 244
Mortimer, 7
Morula, 17
Mucus—smell of vaginal, 98;
menstruation of, 87
Müllerian ducts, 20
Mundé, 88
Murders, erotic, 148
Music and sex, 129
Mutations, 16
Mystery—of creation, 3;
of sex-attraction, 275;
of woman’s psyche, 306
Mysticism, erotic, 247
Näcke, 402
Nahum, 371
Narcissus complex in women, 307
Narcotic of business, 153
Nasher, 331
Natural—selection, 14, 339;
laws, 8
Nature—of divinity, 275;
disregard of the individual by, 382;
female principle in, 3;
of life, 384;
rationality in, 382;
standard of morality in, 379
Necessity, homosexuality out of, 281
Neisser, 343, 393, 395
Neo-Darwinians and Lamarckians, 13
Neurasthenics, 80;
and abstinence, 17;
and intercourse, 356
New ethics, 16
Newly-wed, leucorrhoea in, 394
Nietzsche, 140, 341, 346, 371, 372
Nipple in sex, 129
Nocturnal—emissions, 110, 203, 401;
erections, 174, 177, 193, 194, 196
Noirot, 359
Nordau, 141, 150
Nubility, 402
Nudity—female, 307;
in homosexuality, 287;
obscenity of, 365;
sight of, 318;
source of libido, 97
Number—of children in a family, 358;
of spermatozoa, 382
Nursery, rules of, 317
Nursing—of the young, 129;
mechanism of, 102
Nurture, 338;
change of organism by, 15
Nymphomania, 174, 220, 229, 231, 313
Obedience, bride’s promise of, 151
Obesitas, impotence in, 193
Obscene, 318;
effect of, 366;
sentiments, 9
Obscenity in mixoscopy, 226
Obstacles—law of, 390;
to continence, 404
Obstruction in development of love, 146
Odor feminae, 98
Odors—erotic, 98;
of flowers, 120;
love of, 127
Oettinger, 359
Offspring—dispareunia and, 359;
limitation of, 340;
vita sexualis and, 358
Old Testament—phallicism in, 2;
courtesan in, 4
Onanism—in men, 174, 202;
in women, 184
Oophorines, 85
Ophir, gold of, 373
Organic impotence, 192
Orgasmus, 81, 93;
female, 91, 94, 95;
female convulsion at, 92;
observed, 88;
position during, 350;
praecox, 221;
retardatus, 221, 216, 351;
taste of, 111
Origin—of kissing, 96;
of sex-attraction, 124;
of man, 318
Origines, 6
Osiris, 3
Ova, number of, 382
Ovarian, internal secretion, 84
Ovaries, 115;
loss of, 154
Ovarines, 155
Ovary, 24, 52, 83;
of plant, 119
Ovid, 183, 215, 357
Ovulation, 83
Ovum—anatomy, 54;
maturition of, 63, 83;
wandering of, 83
Oxaluria, 205
Paget, 237, 246
Pain—in libido, 98, 184;
in lower abdomen, 394;
in masochism, 253
Pairing, family, 127, 386
Palpitation—heart, in libido, 92, 199, 361;
in masochism, 241
Panderism, 224, 226
Panmixia, 346
Paradoxia, 161, 163
Paraesthesia, 253
Parallelism in Judeo-Christian creed, 370;
in Pentateuch and Hammurabi codex, 371
Paralytic impotence, 193
Parental love, 136, 139
Paresis of bladder, 204;
of sphincter vesicae, 205
Parity, law of, 347
Parke, 168
Parkman, 6
Parthenogenesis, 151
Partial—frigidity, 357;
impotence, 198
Pascal, 254
Passion—animal, 147;
deification of, 375;
love and, 140
Pathology, 281;
of sexuality, 161;
of female impotence, 205;
of male impotence, 185
Patriarchal family, 387
Paul, 5
Peasants, 402;
dress of, 8
Penis, 28, 37, 74;
bulb of, 38;
smallness of, 192;
shrinkage of, 195
Pentateuch, 371
Perfective instincts, 140
Period of savagery, 385
Periodicity of ovulation, 83
Permanent mating, 127, 129, 178;
impulse of, 125
Personal prophylaxis, 334
Personality, religion of, 375
Perversion, homosexual, 285
Perverts—libido of, 289;
modesty of, 287
Pfaff, 312
Pflüger, 85
Phalanster, 341
Phallic ritual of circumcision, 3
Phallicism, 2
Phanerogamous plants, 116
Philo, 273, 334, 371
Philosophy—hedonic, 377;
of Nietzsche, 371
Physician—sex and, 9;
venereal diseases and, 316
Physiological fetichism, 265
Physiology—of sex, 60;
of male organs, 69;
of female, 83;
of erection, 74;
of ejaculation, 76, 81, 93
Pinard, 337
Pinworms, 317
Pirogoff, 364
Placenta, 86, 120;
of plant, 120
Plant-embryo, 122
Plants—consciousness of, 116;
fertilization of, 115, 121;
heart-beat, 380
Plato, 131, 274
Platonic sadism, 260
Plays, immoral, 150
Pleasure—mania for, 348;
impurity in, 333
Ploss, 279
Plug, Kristeller’s, 88, 89, 91
Plutarch, 131, 311
Polar bodies, 63, 83
Pollutions, 202, 321;
in females, 246, 322;
symptoms of, 203
Polygamy, 127;
impossibility of, 388
Polyuria, 205, 352
Porocz, 238
Positions in intercourse, 350
Postorgastic—depression, 100;
lassitude, 94
Potencies, four kinds, 185
Potentiality of the rational, 380
Prange, 238
Precocity, 163, 285
Pregnancy—by ignorance, 330;
intercourse during, 355;
tubal, 84
Premature ejaculation, 198
Preparation of female parts, 357
Prevention—of conception, 340, 360;
by abstinence, 364;
by castration, 364;
of masturbation, 322, 324;
of propagation of defectives, 339, 344;
of venereal infection, 335
Priapism, 80, 175, 230
Pride of female, 307
Primordial energy, 13
Private parts, covering of, 7
Production, excessive, of germs, 381
Promiscuity, 127, 148, 178, 385
Prone position, 351
Propagation—by segmentation, 17;
of the unfit, 343;
instinct of, 109, 112, 125
Prophylaxis, personal, 334
Prostatorrhoea, 202
Prostituants, 399
Prostitutes—career of, 332;
characteristics of, 327;
families they come from, 331;
lesbianism among, 284;
number of, 331;
slavery of, 332;
supply of, 337
Prostitution—extirpation of, 337;
in marriage, 135;
sources of, 331;
unhygienic embrace of, 101
Protagoras, 381
Protozoa, 17, 112, 114
Prudery—subconsciousness of, 9;
in sex instruction, 9
Pseudomasturbation, 166
Psychic impotence, 194
Psychic trauma, 197
Psychical hermaphrodites, 289, 290
Psychology of sex, 102
Puberty, 106;
characteristics of, 56;
emotions of, 108, 147;
symptoms of, 320;
homosexual perverts at, 286
Puerperium, gonococci in, 394
Punaluan family, 127, 386
Punishment of adultery, 367, 368
Purity, harmless, 401
Purpose of life, 372, 378
Quadrupeds, 86
Qualities, physical, 152
Quality of libido, 92
Rabbis, 371
Race, duties towards, 408;
nature, 382
Race-culturists, 341
Rachford, 165
Racial evolution, 368, 405
Radicals, sex morality of, 369
Rape, 99;
conception in, 360;
by feeble-minded, 343;
punishment of, 368
Rationality—in love, 140;
in nature, 380
Reality, transcendental, 381
Reason for double standard, 400;
for existence, 383;
for male chastity, 392
Recessive determiners, 64
Regimen at menstruation, 176
Relative impotence, 195
Religion, 276;
of antiquity, 2;
authority of, 326;
mania of, 228;
morality and, 369;
of personality, 375;
of sensuality, 376
Renunciation in love, 133
Repression of sexuality, 174, 376
Reproduction—instinct of, 112;
fissiparous, 60;
gemmiparous, 17
Reptiles, 19
Respiration—costal, 58, 59;
in libido, 93
Retention of urine, 317
Reti, 236
Retributory justice, 371
Reuardin, 229
Ribbing, 354
Rite, religious, 391
Rival in jealousy, 157, 159
Roe, 332
Rohleder, 87, 164
Roman—baths, 314;
law, 364
Romantic love, 129, 136, 100
Rosenkranz, 130
Rosse, 212, 236, 284, 285
Roubaud, 97, 99, 213, 362
Roundworms, 115
Rousseau, 130, 132, 168
Rut, 107, 125, 126
Sacher-Masoch, 253
Sadism, in animals, 263;
castration in, 259, 260, 262
Samaël, 246
Samson, 138
Sanval, 279
Sappho, 278
Sarcod, 114
Satyriasis, 174, 229, 231
Savagery, period of, 385
Schiller, F. v., 256
Schiller, Prof., 238
Schopenhauer, 10, 132, 263
Schrenk-Notzing, 235, 245, 253, 391
Season for offspring, 359
Secondary characteristics, 84, 108;
mental, 137
Secretion, prostatic, 72
Segregation, 343;
Mendel’s law of, 64
Self-assertion, 149, 376
Self-control, 400, 406
Self-sacrifice, 384
Semen, 73, 76
Senn, 239
Senses—in sex, 77;
in libido, 96
Sensibility of plants, 380
Sensual love, 129, 130;
egoism of, 133;
eugenic power of, 135;
fastidiousness of, 130
Sensuality, 148;
intoxication of, 375;
in marriage, 347;
religion of, 376
Sentimental love, 129, 136;
altruism in, 136
Sepals, 116
Septuaginta, 279
Sequels—of orgas. retard., 221;
of masturbation, 324
Sergi, 130
Sérieux, 245
Sermon on the Mount, 111
Sertoli’s cells, 69
Servants in masturbation, 168, 317
Service in war, 383
Seton, 126
Sex—anatomy of, 29;
beauty of, 56;
contempt of, 9;
discussion-wave of, 11;
evolution of, 13;
hygiene of, 11;
ministry and, 326;
music and, 129;
physiology of, 60
Sex-antagonism, 151
Sex-attraction—origin of, 124;
mystery of, 275;
psychology of, 102
Sex-determinism, 259
Sex-differentiation, 123
Sex-instruction, 315
Sex-morality, 147
Sex-overvaluation, 333
Sex-sense, 336;
exaggerated, 174
Sex-symbols, 4
Sex-tension, 175
Sex-urge in degenerates, 343
Sex-worship, 2
Sexo-esthetic inversion, 297
Sexual—act, 108;
anaesthesia in children, 106;
apparatus, indifferent type, 22;
bondage, 254;
chain of activity, 111, 174, 175;
secondary characteristics, 56;
differentiation, 138;
ethics, 135;
excesses, 169, 170, 175;
symptoms of excesses, 352;
excitability, 356;
cycles, 354;
excitement in abstinence, 365;
excitement by female dress, 365;
means of excitement, 364;
imagery in insanity, 232;
instinct in clothes, 7;
morality, 390;
binding of sexual morality, 405;
needs of women, 179;
organs of plants, 116;
of male, 69;
of female, 83;
passivity, 390
Sexuality and Christianity, 5;
repression of, 402;
in woman’s soul, 231
Shakespeare, 256
Shame of sex-function, 9
Sidney, 133
Silence conspiracy, 6
Silver of Laurium, 373
Simulation of libido, 215
Sinai, copper of, 374
Single standard of morality, 368
Skein, 61
Slavery of prostitutes, 332
Smell—inhibitory effect of, 97, 98;
of menstrual blood, 85;
of vaginal mucus, 98
Social—importance of org. retar., 221;
precepts, 327;
justice, 369, 371
Society’s wards, 345
Sodomy, 311
Solomon, 1
Solon, 351
Somatic cells, 14, 112, 382
Soranus, 359
Source—emotions, 381;
of energy, 116;
of light, 276
Spartans, 341, 346
Spasm of bladder, 204;
of sphincter vesicae, 205
Spaulding, 327
Spawning-bed, 124
Spencer, 10, 133
Sperm-cells, 115
Sperma—aspiration of, 87, 88, 91;
excitation of, 362;
stowed, 91;
in woman’s organism, 160
Spermatic colic, 201
Spermatogenesis, 69
Spermatorrhoea, 79, 202
Spermatozoa, 70, 71;
wandering of, 76;
number of, 382
Spermin, 69, 70;
reaction, 203
Sphincter vesic., paresis, 205;
spasm, 205
Spinoza, 133
Sponges, 17
Sports, 16, 276
Stage, modern, 365
Standard, moral, 367;
of values, 372
Stature, 56, 58
Sterility, 189, 192, 207, 222;
one child, 394;
in endometritis, 208
Sterilization, 344;
for prevention of conception, 364
Storm and stress period, 108, 320
Strabo, 127
Stuart Mills, 327
Subsistence, source of, 387
Substances, libidogenous, 72
Success, virus of, 374
Suction of sperma, 88, 91
Suicide for love, 134
Superman, 346, 372, 373
Supply of prostitutes, 337
Supreme intelligence, 379
Survival—of unfit, 339;
of strongest, 372;
value, 374;
of man, 152;
of intelligence, 152
Sury, 310
Symbolism of transvestism, 298
Symptomatic impotence, 193
Symptoms—of impotence, 200;
of excesses, 352;
of libido, 92;
of masturbation, 323, 362;
of puberty, 320;
of syphilitic brain tumors, 398;
of withdrawal, 361
Syncope—in orgasm, 92;
in masturbating girls, 241
Syphilitic—Bright’s disease, 398;
arteriosclerosis, 397;
aneurism, 397;
meningitis, 398
Syphilis—asexual disease, 328;
prevalence of, 396
Tachycarditia, 352, 361
Tactile eroticism, 173, 355;
sense, 96, 129;
sequels of tact. erotic., 175;
stimuli, 176
Talmey, 325, 335
Talmud, 71, 351, 404
Talion, law of, 345
Tarnowsky, 230, 239, 327
Teichmüller, 131
Teleology, 13
Temporary impotence, 195
Tenesmus, vesical, 205, 352
Tertiary stage, infectiousness, 396
Testicles, loss of, 154
Testines, 155
Thigh-crossing, 169
Thomalla, 239
Time—for coition, 359;
for conception, 349
Toadyism, 244
Tolstoy, 138, 278, 406
Tools and civilization, 373
Touch—source of libido, 96;
the strongest sense, 336
Townsend, 165, 244
Tragedy, the—of man, 341;
of marriage, 329
Traits that Mendelize, 65
Transcendental—desire, 109;
intelligence, 381
Transient glycosuria, 205
Transitory impotence, 194
Transmission of acquired characters, 13
Transvestism, 297;
female, 308;
male, 306
Trauma, psychic, 197
Trélat, 235
Tresses-cutters, 266
Trial in love, 140, 143
Tribadism, 277, 278, 298
Tribunal of the eternal, 377
Trimutri, 276, 381
Trinitarian unity, 380
Triviality of life, 374
Troggler, 248, 249
Trousseau, 356
Truth—centre of, 177;
of evolution, 379;
abstract, 367
Tumescence—instinct of, 104, 106;
fetichism of, 266
Ugliness and libido, 98
Uncertainty of chastity, 388
Unchastity, 389;
laws against, 368
Unicellular organisms, 113
Ungewitter, 272
Union without love, 407
Unit characters, 64;
of female, 374
Unity in nature, 379
Universe, intelligence in, 14
Urethra—hyperaesthesia, 201;
stricture of, 190
Urethrorrhoea, 201
Urogenital sinus, 23;
membrane, 23, 26;
depression, 26;
diaphragma, 34, 36
Uterus, 24, 94;
copulatory function, 87;
infantilis, 206, 210
Utilitarianism in war, 383
Utopia, 102
Vaginism, 207
Value—cosmic, 372;
of libido producing organs, 97;
positive and relative, 374
Vanity—female, 150, 156;
impurity by, 333;
of life, 378;
male, 92;
wounded male, 158
Vanswieten, 344
Variation, 124;
evolution by, 14;
fact of, 15
Varicocele, 32, 201
Varietist, 148
Vasectomy, 344
Veneration—of asceticism, 5;
exaggerated in impotence, 197
Venereal—acme of paroxysm, 218;
dangers of, diseases, 326, 328;
excesses, 198;
symptoms of excesses, 352
Verret, 270
Vertigo in masturbation, 241
Veru montanum s. colliculus, 36
Villages at frontier, 383
Viraginity, 294, 296
Virchow, 280
Virgin—ideal of, 5;
fragrance of pure, 98
Virginity of heart, 160
Virulence of transferred gonococci, 394
Virus—of success, 374;
of syphilis, 328
Vital impulse, 17
Vitalistic theory, 13
Voluptas—control of, 47, 77, 106;
in menstruation, 232
Vulgata, 279
Vulva—adoration of, 3;
anatomy of, 41;
elephantiasis of, 207
Waldstein, 160
Walker, 145, 148
Wandering of ovum, 83
Want of female responsiveness, 194, 195
War—and nature, 382;
civilization and, 383
Wassermann, 343
Webber, 352
Weininger, 150, 307
Weismann, 16
Wernich, 87
Westermark, 359
Westphal, 294
Wild goose, monogamy of, 126
Wild oats, sowing of, 329, 400
Will-power, 351, 406
Will—to live, 379;
of the supreme intelligence, 369
Wise, 294
Withdrawal, 361, 362
Wolves, monogamy of, 126
Woman—arouser of emotions, 3;
dress of, 365;
impersonator, 306;
love of, 144;
voice of, 59
Women—anaesthesia in, 182;
abstinence in, 179, 400;
ant-orgastic libido in, 90;
attachments of, 280;
Babylonian, 2;
dominion of, 132;
hysterical, 235;
insane, 315;
odors of, 98;
pollutions in, 246;
slavery of, 367;
sex-needs of, 179
Woodruff, 331
Work—frenzy of, 374;
morality of, 374
World-building, 374
Yonism, 2;
in Ireland, 4
Young girls’ erotomania, 227
Zambaco, 165
Zealots in sex, 10
Zeno, 274
Zola, 367, 374
Zones, erogenous, 97, 110, 111, 130
Zoöerastia, 6, 309, 311
Zoologists, 379
Zoroaster, 351
Zygote, 17, 64, 123
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation have been standardised.
Variations in the use of accents and ligatures have been resolved only
when in conflict with the index.
All other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
The numbering of the parts within the book has been corrected to
correspond with the contents list.
The index entry for Gold of Ophir has been corrected from 473 to 373.
The index entry Blackmar, 165 has been changed to Blackmer to
correspond with the text.
The following latin phrases have been corrected:
Chapter IX. Et dulces gemitus aptaque verba loco was originally
loco.
Crede mihi, non est veneris properanda voluptas was originally
propaganda.
Chapter XVI. præbente majorem libidinem was originally
præbant e.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.
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