“We are told that in the East there was once a woman named Moarbeda who was a philosopher and considered to be the wisest woman of her time. When Moarbeda was once asked: ‘In what part of a woman’s body does her mind reside?’ she replied: ‘Between her thighs.’”—Havelock Ellis: Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Vol. 3: The Sexual Impulse in Women.[69]
The amativeness of woman, as compared with that of man, is a question, of course, entirely beyond the scope of this note. We must be content with examining some of the most interesting and pertinent extracts from the works of those qualified to speak on the subject.
At the outset we are confronted with the striking fact that, while the ancients were prone to regard woman as generally amative, even lustful, modern thought has exactly reversed this opinion. “It seems to have been reserved for the nineteenth century,” says Havelock Ellis, (op. cit. supra), “to state that women are apt to be congenitally incapable of experiencing complete sexual satisfaction, and peculiarly liable to sexual anaesthesia. This idea appears to have been almost unknown to the eighteenth century....”
Thus we have two schools of thought, one attributing to woman an intense sexual impulse, even greater than in man, the other holding her sexually frigid by nature and erotic only by pretence or accident. We may helpfully quote again from our Havelock Ellis, who has summarised in masterly fashion the various authorities on both sides:—
“In the treatise On Generation, (chap. 5), which until recent times was commonly ascribed to Hippocrates,” he says, “it is stated that men have greater pleasure in coïtus than women, though the pleasure of women lasts longer, and this opinion, though not usually accepted, was treated with great respect by medical authors down to the end of the 17th century.... Gall had stated decisively that the sexual desires of men are stronger and more imperious than those of women. (Fonctions du Cerveau, 1825).... Raciborski declared that three-fourths of women merely endure the approaches of men. (De la Puberté chez la Femme).
“‘When the question is carefully inquired into and without prejudice,’ said Lawson Tait, ‘it is found that women have their sexual appetites far less developed than men.’ (Lawson Tait, Provincial Medical Journal, 1891). ‘The sexual instinct is very powerful in man and comparatively weak in women,’ he stated elsewhere. (Diseases of Women, 1889). Hammond stated that ... ‘it is doubtful if in one-tenth of the instances of intercourse they [women] experience the slightest pleasurable sensation from first to last.’ (Hammond, Sexual Impotence).
“Lombroso and Ferrero consider that sexual sensibility ... is less pronounced in women.... ‘Woman is naturally and organically frigid....’ (Lombroso and Ferrero, La Donna Deliquente, la Prostituta, e la Donna Normale, 1893). Krafft-Ebing was of opinion that women require less sexual satisfaction than men, being less sensual.... ‘The sensuality of men,’ Moll states, ‘is in my opinion very much greater than that of women.’
“Adler, who discusses the direction at some length, decides that the sexual needs of women are less than those of men, though in some cases the orgasm in quantity and quality greatly exceeds that of men. He believes, not only that the sexual impulse in women is absolutely less than in men, and requires stronger stimulation to arouse it, but that also it suffers from a latency due to inhibition, which acts like a foreign body in the brain ... and demands great skill in the man who is to awaken the woman to love.”
Here we have one side of the question—a side strangely at variance with ancient thought, romance and history. The supposed frigidity of women is characterised by Havelock Ellis as ‘an opinion of very recent growth ... confined, on the whole, to a few countries.’ (Studies, vol. 3, page 196). He goes on to quote Brierre de Boismont, who wrote: ‘Turn to history, and on every page you will be able to recognise the predominance of erotic ideas in women.’ It is the same to-day, he adds, and he attributes it to the fact that men are more easily able to gratify their sexual impulses. (Des Hallucinations, 1862).