CONTENTS OF CHAPTER III
Origin and purpose of the reproductive organs — Progressive differentiation of these organs — Original identity of their rudiments in the two sexes — Weininger’s theory of the intermixture of the sexual elements — This theory anticipated by Heinse — Bisexuality — The actual significance of bisexuality trifling — Phylogenetic explanation of the organs of sexual congress — Bölsche’s three problems — The “aperture-problem” — Connexion between the genital aperture and the urinary passage — Between the genital aperture and the anus — Significance in relation to certain sexual aberrations — The “member-problem” — Earlier modes of fixation during coitus — Sucking and biting — The action of the limbs (the embrace) — The penis — Its various forms — The penis-bone — The free character of the human penis — The descent of the testicles — The feminine rudiment of the penis — Its original function rendered superfluous by the further evolution of the sexual orifice — Transformation into the clitoris and the labia minora — The “libido-problem” — Voluptuousness a phenomenon of distance-love — Questionable specificity of voluptuousness — Theory of the “sexual sense” and of the “sexual cells” — Relations of voluptuousness to tickling and to painful sensations — A special variety of contact stimuli — Localization to the genital organs — The sexual impulse — Relative independence of the impulse from the reproductive glands — Genesis of sexual excitement — Stage of prelibido (sexual tension) — Terminal libido (sexual gratification) — Symptoms and early appearance of prelibido — Causes of sexual tension — Freud’s chemical theory of sexual tension — The act of sexual intercourse — Roubaud’s description of coitus — Demeanour of woman in coitus — Magendie on this subject — Dr. Theopold’s observations — Physiological phenomena associated with coitus — Sadistic and masochistic elements — The normal position during sexual intercourse — Figuræ Veneris — Significance of the normal position in relation to civilization.
CHAPTER III
As the progressive evolution of the multicellular organism continued, and there occurred an increasing differentiation of the individual portions of the body, it became necessary that the very simple process of reproduction of the unicellular organism (by simple cell-division or by conjugation) should, in the multicellular organisms of the metazoa, be ensured and facilitated by the development of new apparatus. This was all the more necessary because, owing to the differentiation of the other organs, the originally independent reproductive elements became more and more dependent upon the parent organism, and lost their former capacity for obtaining nourishment by means of their own activity. Hence it became necessary that the period of time elapsing between the moment when the reproductive cells were freed from the parent organism and the moment in which they coalesced to form a new individual should be shortened to a minimum. This purpose is subserved by apparatus which renders possible the secure and rapid coalescence of the two reproductive elements, having the form of special excretory canals with contractile walls, through which the two sexual elements pass. These are the “copulatory organs,” by means of which the distance between the two loving individuals is abridged. According to the exhaustive investigations of Ferdinand Simon, the perfection and differentiation of these conducting canals proceeds pari passu with the higher development of the organism.
Simultaneously therewith proceeds the differentiation of the proper internal reproductive organs, the rudiments of which are identical in the two sexes. A portion of these primitively identical structures undergoes further development in the male, another portion undergoes further development in the female, whilst in both sexes rudiments of the earlier condition are retained, and these bear witness to the primitive state in which both reproductive glands were present in a single individual (hermaphroditism). In this sense Weininger’s theory applies—viz., that there is no absolutely male and no absolutely female individual, that in every man there is something of woman, and in every woman something of man, and that between the two various transitional forms, sexual “intermediate stages,” exist. Therefore, according to this view, every individual has in his composition so many fractions “man” and so many fractions “woman,” and according to the preponderance of one set of elements or the other, he must be assigned to one or the other sex. This theory, which Weininger regards as his own discovery, is by no means new, and already finds a place in Heinse’s “Ardinghello,” where we read:
“I find it therefore necessary to assume the existence in Nature of masculine and feminine elements. That man is nearest perfection who is composed entirely of masculine elements, and that woman perhaps is nearest perfection who contains only so many feminine elements as to be able to remain woman; whilst that man is the worst who contains only so many masculine elements as to qualify for the title of man.”
Magnus Hirschfeld, to whom this noteworthy passage in Heinse’s book appears to be unknown, has recently, in his valuable monographs, “Sexual Stages of Transition” (Leipzig, 1905) and “The Nature of Love” (Leipzig, 1906), thoroughly investigated these relations, and quotes, among others, sayings of Darwin and Weismann, according to which the latent presence of opposite sexual characters in every sexually differentiated bion must be regarded as a normal arrangement. Unquestionably the widely diffused phenomenon of “psychical hermaphroditism,” or “spiritual bisexuality,” is connected with the physical facts just enumerated, and provides us with the key for the understanding of the nature of homosexuality. Both these states—the physical and the mental—may be referred to primitive conditions of sexuality. They cannot play any serious part in the future course of human evolution, of which the progressive differentiation of the sexes is so marked a characteristic. In contrast with this differentiation, these rudimentary sexual conditions are practically devoid of significance. Suggestion, indeed, the influence of momentary tendencies of the time and of transient mental states, may temporarily deceive us. And when, for example, Hirschfeld maintains that in the central nervous system of women the more masculine, rational qualities, and in the central nervous system of men the more feminine, emotional qualities, are respectively on the increase, we must answer, in the first place, that this is not generally true, and, in the second place, that, in so far as it is true, it is a passing phenomenon, which has already provoked a powerful reaction in the opposite direction.[13] The exuviæ of a dead condition cannot again be vitalized.
The original purpose of the organs of sexual congress is, then, to safeguard and to facilitate, in the more complicated conditions peculiar to multicellular organisms, the conjugation of the two reproductive cells. They do not exist, as Eduard von Hartmann assumes, as a mere lure to voluptuousness, to induce man to continue the practice of sexual congress, purely instinctive in his animal ancestors, but now endangered by the development of the higher type of consciousness. For animals without organs of sexual congress also experience a voluptuous sensation at the instant of the sexual orgasm and of procreation.