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,