“The sexual impulse is so powerful, in certain life periods it is an elementary force which so overwhelmingly dominates the entire organism of woman, that it leaves no room in her mind for thoughts of reproduction; on the contrary, she greatly desires sexual intercourse even when she is very much afraid of becoming pregnant or when there can be no question of any pregnancy occurring” (see Kisch, “The Sexual Life of Woman,” English translation, Rebman, 1908).
I have myself asked a great many cultured women about this matter. Without exception, they declared the theory of the lesser sexual sensibility of women to be erroneous; many were even of opinion that sexual sensibility was greater and more enduring in woman than in man.[30]
When we actually consider the physical bases of feminine sexuality, we must admit that women’s sexual sphere is a much more widely extended one than that of men. The author of “Splitter” has very well characterized this fact when he says:
“Women are in fact pure sex from knees to neck. We men have concentrated our apparatus in a single place, we have extracted it, separated it from the rest of the body, because prèt à partir. They (women) are a great sexual surface or target; we have only a sexual arrow. Procreation is their proper element, and when they are engaged in it they remain at home in their own sphere; we for this purpose must go elsewhere out of ourselves. In the matter of time also our part in procreation is concentrated. We may devote to the matter barely ten minutes; women give as many months. Properly speaking, they procreate unceasingly, they stand continually at the witches’ cauldron, boiling and brewing; while we lend a hand merely in passing, and do no more than throw one or two fragments into the vessel.”
It is possible, however, that the greater extension of the sexual sphere in woman gives rise, if one may use the expression, to a greater dispersal of sexual sensations, which are not, as they are in man, closely concentrated to a particular point, and for this reason the spontaneous resolution of the libido (in the form of the sexual orgasm) is rendered more difficult.
Recently Havelock Ellis has made a searching investigation into the nature of the sexual impulse in woman. He found the following differences by which it was distinguished from the sexual impulse of the male:
1. The sexual impulse of woman shows greater external passivity.
2. It is more complicated, less readily arises spontaneously, more frequently needs external stimulus, while the orgasm develops more slowly than in man.
3. It develops in its full strength only after the commencement of regular sexual intercourse.
4. The boundary beyond which sexual excess begins is less easily reached than in man.