The instinct of procreation is much stronger in woman than in man, and is combined with the desire to give herself passively, to play the part of one who devotes herself, who is conquered, mastered and subjugated. These negative aspirations form part of the normal sexual appetite of woman.
A peculiarity of the sexual sentiments of woman is an ill-defined pathological phenomenon with normal sensations, a phenomenon which in man, on the contrary, forms a very marked contrast with the latter; I refer to the homosexual appetite, in which the object is an individual of the same sex. Normally, the adult man produces on another man an absolutely repulsive effect from the sexual point of view; it is only pathological subjects, or those excited by sexual privation who are affected with sensual desires for other men. But in woman a certain sensual desire for caresses, connected more or less with unconscious and ill-defined sexual sensations, is not limited to the male sex but extends to other women, to children, and even to animals, apart from pathologically inverted sexual appetites. Young normal girls often like to sleep together in the same bed, to caress and kiss each other, which is not the case with normal young men. In the male sex such sensual caresses are nearly always accompanied and provoked by sexual appetite, which is not the case in women. As we have already seen, man may separate true love from the sexual appetite to such an extent that two minds, each feeling in a different way, may inhabit the same brain. A man may be a loving and devoted husband and at the same time satisfy his animal appetites with prostitutes. In woman, such sexual dualism is much more rare and always unnatural, the normal woman being much less capable than man of separating love from sexual appetite.
These facts explain the singular caprices of the sexual appetite and orgasm in the normal woman, in whom these phenomena are not easily produced without love.
The same woman who loves one man and not another is susceptible to sexual appetite and voluptuous sensations when she cohabits with the first, while she is often absolutely cold and insensible to the most passionate embraces of the second. This fact explains the possibility of prostitution as it exists among women. The worst prostitutes, who have connection with innumerable paying clients without feeling the least pleasure, generally have a "protector" with whom they are enamored and to whom they devote all their love and sincere orgasms, all the time allowing themselves to be plundered and exploited by him.
What the normal woman requires from man is love, tenderness, a firm support for life, a certain chivalrous nature, and children. She can renounce the voluptuous sensations of coitus infinitely more easily than the exigencies I have just indicated, which are for her the principal things. Nothing makes a woman more indignant than the indifference of her husband, when, for instance, he treats her simply as a housekeeper. Some have maintained that the average woman is more sensual than man, others that she is less so. Both these statements are false: she is sensual in another manner.
All the peculiarities of the sexual appetite in woman are thus the combined product of: (1) the profound influence of the sexual functions on her whole existence; (2) her passive sexual role; (3) her special mental faculties. By these, and more especially by her passive sexual role, are explained her instinctive coquettishness, her love of fiery and personal adornment, in a word her desire to please men by her external appearance, by her looks, movements and grace. These phenomena betray the instinctive sexual desires of the young girl, which as we have just seen, do not normally correspond to a direct desire for coitus.
While a virgin experiences in her youth the sensations we have just described, things change after marriage, and as a general rule after repeated sexual connections. If these do not provoke voluptuous sensations in some women, they do in the majority, and this is no doubt the normal state of affairs. Habit, then, produces an increasing desire for coitus and its sensations, and it is not rare, in the course of a long life in common, for the roles to be reversed and the woman become more libidinous than the man. This partly explains why so many widows are anxious to remarry. They easily attain their object, as men quickly succumb to the sexual desire of woman when it is expressed in an unequivocal manner.
In widows, two strong sentiments struggle against each other, with variable results in different individuals; on the one hand, feminine constancy in love, and the memory of the deceased; on the other hand, the acquired habit of sexual connection and its voluptuous sensations, which leaves a void and appeals for compensation. The sexual appetite being equal, the first sentiment prevails generally in religious women or those of a deeply moral or sentimental character, while the second prevails in women of more material or less-refined nature, or in those simply guided by their reason. In these internal struggles, the more delicate sentiments and the stronger will of the woman result from the fact that when she wishes she can overcome her appetites much better than man. But, in spite of this, the power of the sexual appetite plays an important part in the inward struggle we have just mentioned. When this appetite is absent there is no struggle, and the widow's conduct is dictated either by her own convenience, or by the instinct which naturally leads a woman to yield to the amorous advances of a man.
At the critical age, that is the time when menstruation ceases, neither the sexual appetite nor voluptuous sensations disappear, although desire diminishes normally as age advances. In this respect it is curious to note that old women possess no sexual attraction for men, while they often feel libidinous desires almost as strongly as young women. This is a kind of natural anomaly.
As we have already stated, individual differences in the sexual appetite are much greater in woman than in man. Some women are extremely excitable, and from their first youth experience violent sexual desire, causing them to masturbate or to throw themselves onto men. Such women are usually polyandrous by nature, although the sexual appetite in woman is normally much more monogamous than that of man. Such excesses in woman take on a more pathological character than in man, and go under the name of nymphomania. The insatiability of these females, who may be met with in all classes of society, may become fabulous. Night and day, with short interruptions for sleeping and eating, they are, in extreme cases, anxious for coitus. They become less exhausted than men, because their orgasm is not accompanied by loss of semen.