The sexual life of woman in its physiological, pathological and hygienic aspects

by E. Heinrich Kisch

To the female, intercourse is harmful when performed with undue frequency, or during menstruation, or indiscriminately throughout pregnancy, or during the puerperium, or incompletely or in an unnatural manner, or finally when performed in an unsuitable bodily attitude.

“Unduly frequent performance of the act of coitus,” writes Hegar, “which is liable to occur either in marital or in illicit intercourse, gives rise to anæmia, defective nutrition, muscular weakness, intellectual and nervous exhaustion. Young and healthy individuals recuperate rapidly after excesses of brief duration, as is often seen in young married pairs. Sickly and elderly persons, on the other hand, are much more severely affected by sexual excess, and recover therefrom but slowly if at all. Long continued sexual excesses ultimately wear out even the strongest.”

Intercourse effected by force, or with a girl of immature age, is distinguished as rape, a punishable offence both in Germany and in Austria. The offence is defined as extra-marital intercourse with a female under the age of fourteen years, with or without the latter’s consent; or extra-marital intercourse with a female of any age against her will or deprived of the power of resistance—either by the use of actual force, by the employment of threats, or by loss of consciousness. With regard to the last specification, the law regards as rape intercourse with a woman unable to resist through loss of consciousness, whether that loss of consciousness is or is not produced by the direct action of the violator.

In the female, the act of intercourse, alike physically, in its natural consequences, and mentally, is at once more difficult and of more enduring results than in the male. A writer of the new school, who according to his own admission has no other interest than the study of the sexual life, writes of himself: “I have often enough had intercourse with members of the other sex, in a few cases, indeed, out of pure inclination; but in all cases alike the aim and the result were the same—as soon as I had gained my end, the affair was finished. Passion, a bestial act, exhaustion, commonly a feeling of loathing; in the best possible case a fugitive but not an agreeable memory; voilà tout.” To women, such a description, happily, is applicable only in the most exceptional cases.

With the completion of coitus, the voluntary and conscious action of the two parties to the act is at an end; the subsequent stages of the function of generation are independent alike of consciousness and will.

When complete intromission of the penis has been effected, and ejaculation takes place, the semen is usually deposited at the os uteri or in the immediate neighborhood of that orifice. During the act of ejaculation, a peristaltic contraction of the vagina occurs, by means of which the semen at the os uteri is subjected to a moderate degree of pressure; the contraction and the pressure may perhaps persist for some little time after the completion of the coitus. In rabbits on heat, such contractions of the vagina, by means of which the semen was forced under pressure into the interior of the uterus, have been actually observed.

During coitus, the uterine muscle is also active. During strong sexual excitement, the uterus descends in the pelvis, the downward movement being increased by the pressure on the woman’s abdomen. The os uteri externum is drawn open, and the aperture, hitherto flattened, now becomes rounded. At the same time, the secretion of the cervical glands is expelled, and small quantities of semen are sucked into the cervical canal. The plicae palmatae offer a certain hindrance to the entrance of the semen; but the surface of the interior of the canal is rendered much smoother by the free secretion of mucus by the cervical glands. Further, it appears highly probable that during the excitement of coitus, the mouths of the Fallopian tubes, ordinarily more or less tightly closed, become widely opened, so that the entrance of the spermatozoa is favored.

The muscular movements of the uterus were observed by J. Beck in a woman suffering from prolapse. During sexual excitement, the os uteri opened and closed rapidly five or six times in succession, remaining at last firmly closed. Further, in bitches on heat, Basch and Hoffmann observed the vaginal portion of the cervix to descend in the vagina, the os uteri opened, mucus was extruded, and the os was then retracted.

Hohl, Litzmann, and others have reported, that in women endowed with great nervous susceptibility, friction of the vaginal portion of the cervix with the finger arouses sexual sensation, with rounding of the os uteri externum, descent of the uterus, and hardening of the vaginal portion; this latter is regarded by Graily Hewitt and by Wernich as a necessary accompaniment of copulation. Henle believes that the hardening and protrusion of the vaginal portion of the cervix are due to a change in the tension of the delicate vessels of this structure, which have an exceptionally thick muscular coat; Rouget compares the mechanism with that by which erection of the penis is produced. These authors consider that sexual excitement is indispensable for the erection of the vaginal portion of the cervix.

Thus, Hohl writes: “Numerous observations have shown that in females endowed with a considerable degree of nervous susceptibility, and especially in nulliparae, during examination and during any increasing irritation, not only is there an increased secretion of the vaginal mucus, but also a momentary descent of the uterus and an opening of the os uteri externum, so that this orifice has the appearance for the instant of the open mouth of a tube.” Litzmann reports that during the vaginal examination of a young, extremely erethistic woman, the uterus suddenly assumed a more vertical position, and came lower down in the pelvis; at the same time, the lips of the cervix became equal in length, the os uteri externum became rounded, soft, and penetrable by the finger; whilst the breathing and the voice indicated the occurrence of intense sexual excitement. Rouget assumes that the body and the fundus of the uterus constitute an erectile organ, which however possesses capability for erection only during the period of ovulation; Hewitt, on the other hand, considers it extremely probable that the erection may occur at any time during sexual intercourse, whether ovulation is proceeding or not. A. Wernich considers, basing his views in part on personal observations, that erection of the lower segment of the uterus occurs, like erection of the penis, whenever a moderate degree of sexual excitement is experienced; in women, however, he believes that erection is seldom extreme, and that it declines with the other symptoms of sexual excitement, viz., flushing of the face, moisture and glistening of the eyes, peculiar groaning expiration, etc. Whereas during ovulation, erection is merely a necessary concomitant of the other menstrual processes; during coitus, erection not only occurs much more powerfully, but it is also an important—perhaps the most important—contributory factor in effecting fertilization.