The first striking fact in the ontogeny of sexual life is the following: All the sexual organs, both external and internal, remain in an embryonic and non-functional state, not only in the embryo but for a long time in the child. The organs and their elements exist, but they are still small, imperfectly developed, and in a state of rest. At the time of puberty, which varies in different individuals, the sexual glands and the other copulatory apparatus enlarge and begin to functionate. In the European races puberty occurs between the age of twelve and seventeen years in girls, and between fourteen and nineteen in boys; it is generally earlier in the South and later in the North. It is curious to note that the correlative irradiations of the sexual appetite in the human mind develop much earlier than the organs, or even the sexual appetite. Again, the sexual appetite often appears before the normal development of the genital organs. In other rare cases the sexual appetite is absent in the adult, even when the corresponding organs are well-developed. (Vide Chapter VIII.) Such irregularities of the sexual appetite belong to the domain of pathology.
On the other hand, it is quite normal for young girls and boys to show early signs of mental differences corresponding to those we have described in Chapter V. In young girls we observe coquetry and jealousy and the desire for finery. Their love of dolls and the care they take of them, is very characteristic of the precocious instinct of their sex. This is an early sign of instinctive maternal love, before the development of any sexual sensation or function. Among boys we observe a tendency to brag and to boast of their strength before girls, to show their contempt for dolls and the coquetry of little girls, and also to pose as protectors, etc.
Sexual jealousy already exists in young children. We see little boys, seeking for the favors of little girls, show violent jealousy when another is preferred to them. All these phenomena depend either on subconscious instincts, or on vague sexual presentiments which play a large part in the infantile exaltation of sentiment. Portraits of pretty women, the sight of certain parts of the body or feminine clothing often provoke exalted sentiments in boys; girls rather admire boldness, an imposing presence and often beauty, in the other sex.
Puberty is produced by certain phenomena which occur in the sexual organs. In the boy erections occur at an early age when the penis is still very small. It is curious to note that certain pathological conditions and friction of the glans penis, especially in the case of phimosis and as a result of bad example, are often sufficient to produce sexual sensations and appetites in very young boys. The same thing is produced in little girls by excitation of the clitoris. All these phenomena lead to onanism or masturbation, of which we shall speak later on. As the testicles of young boys do not secrete semen, masturbation only provokes secretion from the accessory glands, but this is accompanied by orgasm.
More singular still are cases of coitus between little boys and girls whose sexual glands are still undeveloped and produce no germinal cells. Although they are pathological, these phenomena are characteristic, because they clearly show that the brain has acquired by phylogeny a sexual appetite relatively independent of the development of the sexual glands. No doubt the sexual appetite does not develop, or disappears, in eunuchs when they are castrated quite young; but it is preserved together with the secretions and functions of the external genitals when castration is performed after puberty is established.
The important conclusion which results from these facts is that the existence of a sexual excitation or appetite of this nature is not sufficient to prove that they are normal. In Chapter VIII we shall prove that not only the anomalies of the hereditary sexual disposition, but artificial excitations and bad habits may also produce all kinds of misconduct and excesses which should be energetically combated.
We have described in Chapter IV the great individual variations of the sexual appetite in the two sexes, as well as that of the sexual power in man. The sexual power and appetite in man are strongest between the years of twenty and forty. We may even consider this period as the most advantageous for the procreation of strong and healthy offspring and that the procreator is at his best before the age of thirty.
The ontogenetic development of the sexual appetite and love generally produces in man a peculiar phenomenon. While habitual gratification and education of the sexual appetite tends to make it more and more calculating and cynical, love, on the contrary, becomes more elevated and refined with age and less egoistical than in youth. Owing to general mental development, the education of sentiments progresses and becomes refined, while the sexual appetite diminishes in intensity and becomes more imperious and more coarse. We are only speaking here of normal cases.
In youth, the intoxication of love combined with intense sexual appetite triumphs; when the appetite is once satisfied the unbridled and egoistic passions of this age come to the surface and are often antagonistic to love. At a more advanced age, on the contrary, love becomes more constant and more tranquil. The mistake that is so often made is the confusion of love with sexual appetite. The novelists who speculate on the eroticism of the public are no doubt more interested in describing sexual passion and amorous intoxication, with all the catastrophes and conflicts which arise from them, than the tranquil and regular love of a couple more advanced in age, the greatest happiness of which consists in harmony of sentiment and thought, as well as the mutual regard and devotion of the couple for each other.
Sexual appetite and sexual power in man become extinguished between the ages of sixty and eighty; old men of eighty are sometimes still capable, but they are no longer fecund. As a rule sexual power diminishes before sexual appetite, and this sometimes leads old men to use artificial means to revive their power, or to satisfy their sexual desires. This explains why the egoists who have never known true love often become so base in their sexual manifestations when they grow old. Their experience of sexual life makes them experts in the art of seduction. If this fact appears to be antagonistic to the law that true love is refined with advancing age, we must bear in mind that the ontogenetic development of the sexual appetite is not the same as that of love; that in some respects it develops in a contrary direction; and that the result may consequently become inverted according as one or other predominates. It is needless to say that there are a number of intermediate gradations, and that inverse phenomena may be produced concurrently in the same individual.