I may further indicate as differential characteristics, that in woman the sexual impulse is more accessible to voluntary control than it is in man, the ardor of female sexual passion is more readily diminished than that of the male; and again that in the female the gratification of the sexual impulse is less narrowly restricted than in the male. Excessive sexual gratification on the one hand and suppression of sexual desire on the other are, generally speaking, less harmful to the female organism than to the male. In these differentiæ is to be found, in my opinion, the influence which determines the type of sexuality in the respective sexes.
The following account is given by Havelock Ellis of the differential characters of the sexual impulse in the female: “In courtship, woman plays a more passive part than man; in woman the physiological mechanism of the sexual processes is more complicated, and the orgasm develops more deliberately; the sexual impulse in woman needs more frequently to be actively stimulated; the culmination of sexual activity is attained later in the life of woman than in the life of man, the strength of sexual desire in woman becomes greater after she has entered upon regular sexual intercourse, women bear sexual excesses better than men; the sexual sphere is larger and more widely diffused in women than it is in men; finally, in woman the sexual impulse exhibits a distinct tendency to periodic exacerbations, and it is in any case much more variable than in man.” The same author, who has published several notable biological studies on subjects connected with sex, maintains that the source of erotic pleasure in the case of the male lies in activity, but in the female in the passive state, in the experience of compulsion, and he holds that sexual subordination is a necessary element in the sexual enjoyment of women.
Hegar maintains that under the term sexual impulse two distinct conceptions are confounded: First, the impulse toward copulation, the desire of carnal union with a member of the opposite sex; secondly, the impulse toward reproduction, the desire for children. At the same time, this author admits that it is questionable if we can properly speak of an impulse toward reproduction, when reproduction is merely a consequence of copulation; in the case of civilized man, at any rate, so much reflection is connected with the idea of reproduction that it can hardly be proper to speak of anything of the nature of an impulse. In the case of woman, the expression is less unsuitable, since in woman special organs exist for the maintenance of the ovum after fertilization, and these organs may perhaps lead to the production of this peculiar form of mental activity.
According to Darwin, a comparatively less intensity of sexual desire is common to the females of all species of the animal kingdom. The female demands a prolonged courtship, and often endeavors for a considerable time to elude the male. In the lowest classes of the animal kingdom the female leads a separate existence as soon as she has been fertilized by the male, the sexual functions being thus subordinated to the maternal. Among birds at the pairing season the male is always the more passionate and active of the two, whilst the female commonly remains passive and occupies herself in building the nest. Among mammals, it is difficult to determine whether sexual feeling is stronger in the female or in the male; but it is certain that sexual relations are seldom long lasting, they continue in most cases only during the period of heat or rut, and at most only till the birth of the young.
From these phenomena witnessed in the animal kingdom, many naturalists have concluded that in females of the human species also, sexual sensibility and the intensity of the sexual impulse are less than in the males, and even that the sexual sense in general is but little developed in the female sex, or sometimes entirely wanting. The complicated apparatus which the primary and secondary sexual characters of the female combine to make up, exists, according to this view, not for the gratification of the sexual impulse, but for the fulfilment of the function of motherhood. “Love in women,” says Lombroso, “is in its fundamental nature no more than a secondary character of motherhood, and all the feelings of affection that bind woman to man arise, not from sexual impulses, but from the instincts, acquired by adaptation, of subordination and self-surrender.”
Mantegazza lays stress on the fact that in the female, sexual desire is very rarely accompanied by pains analogous to those which occur in man, in whom sexual excitement manifests itself in painful tension of the testicle and the seminal vesicles, or in spasmodic, long-continued priapism.
Sergi writes to Lombroso: “The normal woman loves to be flattered and wooed by man, but yields herself to his sexual desires only like an animal at the sacrifice. It is well known how much pains must be taken, how many caresses must be expended, before a woman will yield with pleasure to a man’s desires, and will share his sexual passion. Without the employment of these means, a woman remains cold and gives as little satisfaction as she feels. There are girls who are quite obtuse to the joys of love, and either resist energetically a man’s approaches, or yield to him passively, without ardor and without enthusiasm. It is well known, also, that among the lower races of mankind, means are employed to stimulate the sexual sensibility in women, means that seem to us to amount to torture; and that the male, with the same end in view, undergoes the most painful operations, from which it is apparent that the slight sexual sensibility of women in these lower grades of civilization is fully recognized.” And again: “If a normal woman marries for love, she hides that love deep in her heart, and even on the wedding-day exhibits no great sexual excitement; she often complains later that in her husband the love-fervor of the first days still continues; the very moderate sexual needs of the wife form a natural and most valuable check to the much more powerful passion of the male.”
Saint Prospêre expresses himself to a similar effect: “Women do not fall in consequence of the excessive power of the senses—in this domain they are overlords, in striking contrast to men, whose weakest side is here. It is not by means of the senses that a woman is to be overcome; her weakness lies elsewhere—in her heart, in her vanity.” And de Lambert wrote the epigram, “Women play with love, and yield themselves to love, but they do not abandon themselves to love.”
Well known also is the saying of Dante:
“We know how speedily in women the fire of love is consumed