Unless eye and hand continually supply it with fresh fuel.”
On the other hand, it is asserted in the laws of the Hindus that sexual desire in women can as little be satisfied or fed full as a devouring fire can be fed full of combustible materials, or as the ocean can be overfilled by the rivers that pour their waters into it.
Lombroso finds a proof of the sexual indifference of women and of the greater sexual needs of man, in the existence of prostitution, with which can be contrasted the existence only among the degenerate classes (both rich and poor) of a small group of male prostitutes (alfons, souteneurs). This author also refers to the rarity and uniformity in women of the sexual psychoses so frequent in men, as indications of the minor intensity of sexual desire in the former; and he refers also to a series of facts, as for instance, to the occurrence of platonic love, which, though indeed often hypocritical, has a real existence more often in the female sex than in the male; to the long-enduring chastity of girls, and to vows of chastity, which are rarely made except by females; moreover, the ready adaptation of women to polygamy, as well as their scrupulous observance of monogamy, which latter for the male is nominal rather than actual. If in general the opposite view concerning women prevails, this is ascribed by Lombroso to the fact, that love is the most important circumstance in a woman’s life. The reason therefore, however, is to be found, not in the erotic sphere, but in the desire for the satisfaction of the maternal instinct, and in a woman’s need for protection. A celebrated accoucheur, Giordano, has remarked: “Man loves woman for the sake of the vulva; what woman loves in man is the husband and the father. Comprehensively we may express the matter by saying that woman has less eroticism and more sexuality.”
As a rule, remarks Erb, it is believed that the sexual impulse is less intense in women than in men. This is true enough, he writes, as regards youthful and virgin individuals, who have not yet come into intimate contact with men, and in whom sexual desire and sensibility have not yet been directly excited; later, however, when sexual intercourse has been begun, a change usually takes place, and the sexual needs become active in women also, and demand satisfaction. It is well known that not a few women experience powerful and uncontrolled sensual inclinations, just like those of men. On the other hand, we must insist that quite a large number of women possess the so-called naturae frigidae, and have no sensual inclination to sexual intercourse, to which they are either indifferent, or in some cases strongly averse, even regarding it with horror. This lack of the sexual sense in women, is especially common in hysterical subjects, and Erb reports that he has encountered quite a large number of cases of this character. Whether in quite healthy women with normal sexual impulse, complete abstinence from sexual intercourse, too often compulsory but sometimes voluntarily undertaken, is harmful in its consequences—this, says Erb, is a question very difficult to answer. Many such unfortunate women have assured him that they suffered severely in consequence of their enforced continence; the majority of these became neurasthenic or hysterical. The complication of purely physical influences with mental influences, increases the difficulty of the problem. Neurologists have observed women on whom continence was forced either during marriage or after its dissolution, who thereupon fell into a state of severe nervous exhaustion or nervous excitement, or suffered from threatening or even actually developed psychoses. That sexual abstinence is “absolutely harmless,” as moralists and many physicians would so gladly believe, appears to Erb a quite unwarrantable assumption.
“In the processes of reproduction,” continues Erb in his discussion of this subject, “woman is the principal sufferer. With inhuman cruelty, nature has condemned woman to a far more difficult rôle than man in the intercourse of the sexes and in the preservation of the species; she is overpowered and forced by man, she is compelled to make the most severe sacrifices for the sake of the new generation, first when it is germinating within her womb, and later when it is entrusted to her care; and only too frequently she fails to find the respect and protection due to her for the performance of these functions! Compared with the sacrifices made by woman, the temporary continence which is all that is demanded from man will be admitted to be a small matter! It is fortunate that as a rule the young woman who has never come into intimate contact with the male, appears to be endowed by nature with a relatively weak sexual impulse! This unequal and unjust distribution of the male and female rôles on the part of nature may be regretted, but it cannot be altered.”
The modern advocates of the rights of women, who demand that in the sexual sphere also, woman should receive emancipation, oppose the view that in the male the sexual impulse is stronger than in the female, and also the view that whilst in the male the impulse is simply one toward sexual congress, in the female the determining motive to intercourse is furnished by the desire for motherhood. They complain of “the perverse repression in woman of the sexual impulse and its physiological gratification,” since sexual energy and sexual sensibility are equal in intensity and identical in quality in the female and in the male. Thus, Johanna Elberskirchen writes (Die Sexualempfindung bei Weib und Mann—Sexual Sensation in Woman and Man): “Body and soul, the whole being is subordinated to a single powerful feeling and impulse, a single will flows through nerves and blood, forcing and driving the female toward the male with irresistible power; the yearning, the longing for the relief of sexual tension, the craving for the euphoria and fleshly delight that dominate the whole personality. And this elementary sexual longing it is that clouds the woman’s brain, that drives her into the man’s arms, that leads her to forget all the shame threatening her and her child, that brings her to sexual union—not the longing for a child, not the so-called impulse to motherhood.” And again: “Woman yearns for love, all her love-organs cry out for love, soul and body * * *. We do not long only for the rude sexual act. We spiritualise it—at least some of us do so; at any rate we individualize it. It is one particular man whom we desire, he alone can still our longing, our bodily and mental hunger for love. He satisfies us with all his love-affinities.” Naturally, also, the consequence is deduced, “a free course must be given to sexual sensation in women, and to the satisfaction of sexual desire, within physiological limits, within the bounds of physiological necessity.”
Löwenfeld asserts that in the life of woman the sexual functions play a comparatively much greater part than in the life of man, woman’s thoughts and feelings are, that is to say, much more powerfully influenced by sexual matters than those of men; but none the less he is of opinion that in the normal woman the desire for sexual satisfaction is on the average less keen than in the normal man. Distinctly greater in woman is the erotic element only, the need to love and to be loved after an ideal manner, which is excited by the reproductive glands just as much as is the simple sensual desire. Very frequently, manifestations of this ideal need are erroneously attributed to the sensual impulse, yet this latter may be entirely absent in cases in which the erotic element is strongly developed. According to Löwenfeld, the sexual impulse is altogether wanting in young girls before the time of puberty, and in elderly women (in the case of the latter we consider this assertion most questionable); this lack of the sexual impulse persists in girls for an indeterminate time even after puberty, as long as they remain free from all experience of sexual stimulation. In this respect they offer a notable contrast to males of the same age. In normal girls, according to the same author, erotic dreams and similar occurrences are entirely wanting, and specific sexual sensations therefore remain absolutely unknown to them; hence it follows that the sexual impulse cannot, properly speaking, arise in such individuals, and in so far as they experience any desire for sexual intercourse it can only take the form of a craving for some enjoyment, the nature of which is entirely unknown. The absolute lack of the sexual impulse (complete frigidity) persists, according to Löwenfeld, in a not inconsiderable proportion of women even after their introduction to sexual intercourse—Effertz estimates that such complete frigidity is permanent in 10 per cent. of all women—and in a still greater proportion of women the sensual impulse never exceeds a certain minimal intensity (partial frigidity). It is probable that in the higher classes of society, inherited predisposition, education, and perhaps also higher intelligence, combine to diminish the intensity of the sexual impulse. In contrast with these women of frigid temperament, however, we meet with women, certainly in very limited numbers, whose sexual passions are extremely powerful, and whose needs no man can satisfy.
Hegar, who considers that the sexual impulse in women is seldom very powerful, draws the following conclusions in respect of the influence of sexual gratification, on the one hand, or of continence, on the other, on the duration of life and on physical and mental health: “As far as comparisons between married women and women vowed to celibacy (nuns and members of other celibate religious orders) justify any conclusion, sexual activity and inactivity, respectively, would appear to have little influence on the duration of life. Comparisons between married and single women show, indeed, that the gratification of the sexual impulse and the processes of reproduction are distinctly injurious when experienced before the attainment of complete sexual maturity. In married women up to the age of thirty, in some countries even up to the age of forty, the mortality is greater than in unmarried women. The notably smaller mortality of married women, as compared with unmarried, after the age of forty, is usually explained as the result of the complete fulfilment of the genital functions. It may, however, find a truer explanation in the selection effected by marriage, especially when we take into consideration that from the women thus selected the weaker individuals have been previously weeded out by the processes of reproduction:
“The lesser mortality of married men from the age of twenty upwards is to be explained by the selection of the fit which occurs in marriage, by the smaller proportion of marriages among men engaged in hazardous occupations, and by the deterioration in the quality of the unmarried which results from emigration. Still the directly favorable influence of marriage is undeniable, and, no doubt, the ethical factors of this institution have a beneficial effect, whereas the gratification of the sexual impulse hardly enters into the account.
“Suicide is certainly very little dependent upon repression of the sexual impulse, since all the motives arising out of the affairs of love play together but a small part among the causes of suicide.