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Title: Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6)
Author: Havelock Ellis
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STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME I
The Evolution of Modesty
The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity
Auto-Erotism
by
HAVELOCK ELLIS
1927
GENERAL PREFACE.
The origin of these _Studies_ dates from many years back. As a youth I was
faced, as others are, by the problem of sex. Living partly in an
Australian city where the ways of life were plainly seen, partly in the
solitude of the bush, I was free both to contemplate and to meditate many
things. A resolve slowly grew up within me: one main part of my life-work
should be to make clear the problems of sex.
That was more than twenty years ago. Since then I can honestly say that in
all that I have done that resolve has never been very far from my
thoughts. I have always been slowly working up to this central problem;
and in a book published some three years ago--_Man and Woman: a Study of
Human Secondary Sexual Characters_--I put forward what was, in my own
eyes, an introduction to the study of the primary questions of sexual
psychology.
Now that I have at length reached the time for beginning to publish my
results, these results scarcely seem to me large. As a youth, I had hoped
to settle problems for those who came after; now I am quietly content if I
do little more than state them. For even that, I now think, is much; it is
at least the half of knowledge. In this particular field the evil of
ignorance is magnified by our efforts to suppress that which never can be
suppressed, though in the effort of suppression it may become perverted. I
have at least tried to find out what are the facts, among normal people as
well as among abnormal people; for, while it seems to me that the
physician's training is necessary in order to ascertain the facts, the
physician for the most part only obtains the abnormal facts, which alone
bring little light. I have tried to get at the facts, and, having got at
the facts, to look them simply and squarely in the face. If I cannot
perhaps turn the lock myself, I bring the key which can alone in the end
rightly open the door: the key of sincerity. That is my one panacea:
sincerity.
I know that many of my friends, people on whose side I, too, am to be
found, retort with another word: reticence. It is a mistake, they say, to
try to uncover these things; leave the sexual instincts alone, to grow up
and develop in the shy solitude they love, and they will be sure to grow
up and develop wholesomely. But, as a matter of fact, that is precisely
what we can not and will not ever allow them to do. There are very few
middle-aged men and women who can clearly recall the facts of their lives
and tell you in all honesty that their sexual instincts have developed
easily and wholesomely throughout. And it should not be difficult to see
why this is so. Let my friends try to transfer their feelings and theories
from the reproductive region to, let us say, the nutritive region, the
only other which can be compared to it for importance. Suppose that eating
and drinking was never spoken of openly, save in veiled or poetic
language, and that no one ever ate food publicly, because it was
considered immoral and immodest to reveal the mysteries of this natural
function. We know what would occur. A considerable proportion of the
community, more especially the more youthful members, possessed by an
instinctive and legitimate curiosity, would concentrate their thoughts on
the subject. They would have so many problems to puzzle over: How often
ought I to eat? What ought I to eat? Is it wrong to eat fruit, which I
like? Ought I to eat grass, which I don't like? Instinct notwithstanding,
we may be quite sure that only a small minority would succeed in eating
reasonably and wholesomely. The sexual secrecy of life is even more
disastrous than such a nutritive secrecy would be; partly because we
expend such a wealth of moral energy in directing or misdirecting it,
partly because the sexual impulse normally develops at the same time as
the intellectual impulse, not in the early years of life, when wholesome
instinctive habits might be formed. And there is always some ignorant and
foolish friend who is prepared still further to muddle things: Eat a meal
every other day! Eat twelve meals a day! Never eat fruit! Always eat
grass! The advice emphatically given in sexual matters is usually not less
absurd than this. When, however, the matter is fully open, the problems of
food are not indeed wholly solved, but everyone is enabled by the
experience of his fellows to reach some sort of situation suited to his
own case. And when the rigid secrecy is once swept away a sane and natural
reticence becomes for the first time possible.
This secrecy has not always been maintained. When the Catholic Church was
at the summit of its power and influence it fully realized the magnitude
of sexual problems and took an active and inquiring interest in all the
details of normal and abnormal sexuality. Even to the present time there
are certain phenomena of the sexual life which have scarcely been
accurately described except in ancient theological treatises. As the type
of such treatises I will mention the great tome of Sanchez, _De
Matrimonio_. Here you will find the whole sexual life of men and women
analyzed in its relationships to sin. Everything is set forth, as clearly
and as concisely as it can be--without morbid prudery on the one hand, or
morbid sentimentality on the other--in the coldest scientific language;
the right course of action is pointed out for all the cases that may
occur, and we are told what is lawful, what a venial sin, what a mortal
sin. Now I do not consider that sexual matters concern the theologian
alone, and I deny altogether that he is competent to deal with them. In
his hands, also, undoubtedly, they sometimes become prurient, as they can
scarcely fail to become on the non-natural and unwholesome basis of
asceticism, and as they with difficulty become in the open-air light of
science. But we are bound to recognize the thoroughness with which the
Catholic theologians dealt with these matters, and, from their own point
of view, indeed, the entire reasonableness; we are bound to recognize the
admirable spirit in which, successfully or not, they sought to approach
them. We need to-day the same spirit and temper applied from a different
standpoint. These things concern everyone; the study of these things
concerns the physiologist, the psychologist, the moralist. We want to get
into possession of the actual facts, and from the investigation of the
facts we want to ascertain what is normal and what is abnormal, from the
point of view of physiology and of psychology. We want to know what is
naturally lawful under the various sexual chances that may befall man, not
as the born child of sin, but as a naturally social animal. What is a
venial sin against nature, what a mortal sin against nature? The answers
are less easy to reach than the theologians' answers generally were, but
we can at least put ourselves in the right attitude; we may succeed in
asking that question which is sometimes even more than the half of
knowledge.
It is perhaps a mistake to show so plainly at the outset that I approach
what may seem only a psychological question not without moral fervour. But
I do not wish any mistake to be made. I regard sex as the central problem
of life. And now that the problem of religion has practically been
settled, and that the problem of labor has at least been placed on a
practical foundation, the question of sex--with the racial questions that
rest on it--stands before the coming generations as the chief problem for
solution. Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to
reverence life until we know how to understand sex.--So, at least, it
seems to me.
Having said so much, I will try to present such results as I have to
record in that cold and dry light through which alone the goal of
knowledge may truly be seen.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
July, 1897.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
The first edition of this volume was published in 1899, following "Sexual
Inversion," which now forms Volume II. The second edition, issued by the
present publishers and substantially identical with the first edition,
appeared in the following year. Ten years have elapsed since then and this
new edition will be found to reflect the course of that long interval. Not
only is the volume greatly enlarged, but nearly every page has been partly
rewritten. This is mainly due to three causes: Much new literature
required to be taken into account; my own knowledge of the historical and
ethnographic aspects of the sexual impulse has increased; many fresh
illustrative cases of a valuable and instructive character have
accumulated in my hands. It is to these three sources of improvement that
the book owes its greatly revised and enlarged condition, and not to the
need for modifying any of its essential conclusions. These, far from
undergoing any change, have by the new material been greatly strengthened.
It may be added that the General Preface to the whole work, which was
originally published in 1898 at the beginning of "Sexual Inversion," now
finds its proper place at the outset of the present volume.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
Carbis Bay,
Cornwall, Eng.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The present volume contains three studies which seem to me to be necessary
_prolegomena_ to that analysis of the sexual instinct which must form the
chief part of an investigation into the psychology of sex. The first
sketches the main outlines of a complex emotional state which is of
fundamental importance in sexual psychology; the second, by bringing
together evidence from widely different regions, suggests a tentative
explanation of facts that are still imperfectly known; the third attempts
to show that even in fields where we assume our knowledge to be adequate a
broader view of the phenomena teaches us to suspend judgment and to adopt
a more cautious attitude. So far as they go, these studies are complete in
themselves; their special use, as an introduction to a more comprehensive
analysis of sexual phenomena, is that they bring before us, under varying
aspects, a characteristic which, though often ignored, is of the first
importance in obtaining a clear understanding of the facts: the tendency
of the sexual impulse to appear in a spontaneous and to some extent
periodic manner, affecting women differently from men. This is a tendency
which, later, I hope to make still more apparent, for it has practical and
social, as well as psychological, implications. Here--and more especially
in the study of those spontaneous solitary manifestations which I call
auto-erotic--I have attempted to clear the ground, and to indicate the
main lines along which the progress of our knowledge in these fields may
best be attained.
It may surprise many medical readers that in the third and longest study I
have said little, save incidentally, either of treatment or prevention.
The omission of such considerations at this stage is intentional. It may
safely be said that in no other field of human activity is so vast an
amount of strenuous didactic morality founded on so slender a basis of
facts. In most other departments of life we at least make a pretence of
learning before we presume to teach; in the field of sex we content
ourselves with the smallest and vaguest minimum of information, often
ostentatiously second-hand, usually unreliable. I wish to emphasize the
fact that before we can safely talk either of curing or preventing these
manifestations we must know a great deal more than we know at present
regarding their distribution, etiology, and symptomatology; and we must
exercise the same coolness and caution as--if our work is to be
fruitful--we require in any other field of serious study. We must approach
these facts as physicians, it is true, but also as psychologists,
primarily concerned to find out the workings of such manifestations in
fairly healthy and normal people. If we found a divorce-court judge
writing a treatise on marriage we should smile. But it is equally absurd
for the physician, so long as his knowledge is confined to disease, to
write regarding sex at large; valuable as the facts he brings forward may
be, he can never be in a position to generalize concerning them. And to
me, at all events, it seems that we have had more than enough pictures of
gross sexual perversity, whether furnished by the asylum or the brothel.
They are only really instructive when they are seen in their proper
perspective as the rare and ultimate extremes of a chain of phenomena
which we may more profitably study nearer home.
Yet, although we are, on every hand, surrounded by the normal
manifestations of sex, conscious or unconscious, these manifestations are
extremely difficult to observe, and, in those cases in which we are best
able to observe them, it frequently happens that we are unable to make any
use of our knowledge. Moreover, even when we have obtained our data, the
difficulties--at all events, for an English investigator--are by no means
overcome. He may take for granted that any serious and precise study of
the sexual instinct will not meet with general approval; his work will be
misunderstood; his motives will be called in question; among those for
whom he is chiefly working he will find indifference. Indeed, the pioneer
in this field may well count himself happy if he meets with nothing worse
than indifference. Hence it is that the present volume will not be
published in England, but that, availing myself of the generous sympathy
with which my work has been received in America, I have sought the wider
medical and scientific audience of the United States. In matters of faith,
"liberty of prophesying" was centuries since eloquently vindicated for
Englishmen; the liberty of investigating facts is still called in
question, under one pretence or another, and to seek out the most vital
facts of life is still in England a perilous task.
I desire most heartily to thank the numerous friends and correspondents,
some living in remote parts of the world, who have freely assisted me in
my work with valuable information and personal histories. To Mr. F.H.
Perry-Coste I owe an appendix which is by far the most elaborate attempt
yet made to find evidence of periodicity in the spontaneous sexual
manifestations of sleep; my debts to various medical and other
correspondents are duly stated in the text. To many women friends and
correspondents I may here express my gratitude for the manner in which
they have furnished me with intimate personal records, and for the
cross-examination to which they have allowed me to subject them. I may
already say here, what I shall have occasion to say more emphatically in
subsequent volumes, that without the assistance I have received from women
of fine intelligence and high character my work would be impossible. I
regret that I cannot make my thanks more specific.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
CONTENTS.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY.
I.
The Definition of Modesty--The Significance of Modesty--Difficulties in
the Way of Its Analysis--The Varying Phenomena of Modesty Among Different
Peoples and in Different Ages.
II.
Modesty an Agglomeration of Fears--Children in Relation to
Modesty--Modesty in Animals--The Attitude of the Medicean Venus--The
Sexual Factor of Modesty Based on Sexual periodicity and on the Primitive
Phenomena of Courtship--The Necessity of Seclusion in Primitive Sexual
Intercourse--The Meaning of Coquetry--The Sexual Charm of Modesty--Modesty
as an Expression of Feminine Erotic Impulse--The Fear of Causing Disgust
as a Factor of Modesty--The Modesty of Savages in Regard to Eating in the
Presence of Others--The Sacro-Pubic Region as a Focus of Disgust--The Idea
of Ceremonial Uncleanliness--The Custom of Veiling the Face--Ornaments and
Clothing--Modesty Becomes Concentrated in the Garment--The Economic Factor
in Modesty--The Contribution of Civilization to Modesty--The Elaboration
of Social Ritual.
III.
The Blush the Sanction of Modesty--The Phenomena of Blushing--Influences
Which Modify the Aptitude to Blush--Darkness, Concealment of the Face,
Etc.
IV.
Summary of the Factors of Modesty--The Future of Modesty--Modesty an
Essential Element of Love.
THE PHENOMENA OF SEXUAL PERIODICITY.
I.
The Various Physiological and Psychological Rhythms--Menstruation--The
Alleged Influence of the Moon--Frequent Suppression of Menstruation among
Primitive Races--Mittelschmerz--Possible Tendency to a Future
Intermenstrual Cycle--Menstruation among Animals--Menstruating Monkeys and
Apes--What is Menstruation--Its Primary Cause Still Obscure--The Relation
of Menstruation to Ovulation--The Occasional Absence of Menstruation in
Health--The Relation of Menstruation to "Heat"--The Prohibition of
Intercourse during Menstruation--The Predominance of Sexual Excitement at
and around the Menstrual Period--Its Absence during the Period Frequently
Apparent only.
II.
The Question of a Monthly Sexual Cycle in Men--The Earliest Suggestions of
a General Physiological Cycle in Men--Periodicity in Disease--Insanity,
Heart Disease, etc.--The Alleged Twenty-three Days' Cycle--The
Physiological Periodicity of Seminal Emissions during Sleep--Original
Observations--Fortnightly and Weekly Rhythms.
III.
The Annual Sexual Rhythm--In Animals--In Man--Tendency of the Sexual
Impulse to become Heightened in Spring and Autumn--The Prevalence of
Seasonal Erotic Festivals--The Feast of Fools--The Easter and Midsummer
Bonfires--The Seasonal Variations in Birthrate--The Causes of those
Variations--The Typical Conception-rate Curve for Europe--The Seasonal
Periodicity of Seminal Emissions During Sleep--Original
Observations--Spring and Autumn the Chief Periods of Involuntary Sexual
Excitement--The Seasonal Periodicity of Rapes--Of Outbreaks among
Prisoners--The Seasonal Curves of Insanity and Suicide--The Growth of
Children According to Season--The Annual Curve of Bread-consumption in
Prisons--Seasonal Periodicity of Scarlet Fever--The Underlying Causes of
these Seasonal Phenomena.
AUTO-EROTISM: A STUDY OF THE SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SEXUAL
IMPULSE.
I.
Definition of Auto-erotism--Masturbation only Covers a Small Portion of
the Auto-erotic Field--The Importance of this Study, especially
To-day--Auto-erotic Phenomena in Animals--Among Savage and Barbaric
Races--The Japanese _rin-no-tama_ and other Special Instruments for
Obtaining Auto-erotic Gratification--Abuse of the Ordinary Implements and
Objects of Daily Life--The Frequency of Hair-pin in the Bladder--The
Influence of Horse-exercise and Railway Traveling--The Sewing-machine and
the Bicycle--Spontaneous Passive Sexual Excitement--_Delectatio
Morosa_--Day-dreaming--_Pollutio_--Sexual Excitement During Sleep--Erotic
Dreams--The Analogy of Nocturnal Enuresis--Differences in the Erotic
Dreams of Men and Women--The Auto-erotic Phenomena of Sleep in the
Hysterical--Their Frequently Painful Character.
II.
Hysteria and the Question of Its Relation to the Sexual Emotions--The
Early Greek Theories of its Nature and Causation--The Gradual Rise of
Modern Views--Charcot--The Revolt Against Charcot's Too Absolute
Conclusions--Fallacies Involved--Charcot's Attitude the Outcome of his
Personal Temperament--Breuer and Freud--Their Views Supplement and
Complete Charcot's--At the Same Time they Furnish a Justification for the
Earlier Doctrine of Hysteria--But They Must Not be Regarded as Final--The
Diffused Hysteroid Condition in Normal Persons--The Physiological Basis of
Hysteria--True Pathological Hysteria is Linked on to almost Normal States,
especially to Sex-hunger.
III.
The Prevalence of Masturbation--Its Occurrence in Infancy and
Childhood--Is it More Frequent in Males or Females?--After Adolescence
Apparently more Frequent in Women--Reasons for the Sexual Distribution of
Masturbation--The Alleged Evils of Masturbation--Historical Sketch of the
Views Held on This Point--The Symptoms and Results of Masturbation--Its
Alleged Influence in Causing Eye Disorders--Its Relation to Insanity and
Nervous Disorders--The Evil Effects of Masturbation Usually Occur on the
Basis of a Congenitally Morbid Nervous System--Neurasthenia Probably the
Commonest Accompaniment of Excessive Masturbation--Precocious Masturbation
Tends to Produce Aversion to Coitus--Psychic Results of Habitual
Masturbation--Masturbation in Men of Genius--Masturbation as a Nervous
Sedative--Typical Cases--The Greek Attitude toward Masturbation--Attitude
of the Catholic Theologians--The Mohammedan Attitude--The Modern
Scientific Attitude--In What Sense is Masturbation Normal?--The Immense
Part in Life Played by Transmuted Auto-erotic Phenomena.
APPENDIX A.
The Influence of Menstruation on the Position of Women.
APPENDIX B.
Sexual Periodicity in Men.
APPENDIX C.
The Auto-erotic Factor in Religion.
INDEX.
DIAGRAMS.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY.
I.
The Definition of Modesty--The Significance of Modesty--Difficulties in
the Way of Its Analysis--The Varying Phenomena of Modesty Among Different
Peoples and in Different Ages.
Modesty, which may be provisionally defined as an almost instinctive fear
prompting to concealment and usually centering around the sexual
processes, while common to both sexes is more peculiarly feminine, so that
it may almost be regarded as the chief secondary sexual character of women
on the psychical side. The woman who is lacking in this kind of fear is
lacking, also, in sexual attractiveness to the normal and average man. The
apparent exceptions seem to prove the rule, for it will generally be found
that the women who are, not immodest (for immodesty is more closely
related to modesty than mere negative absence of the sense of modesty),
but without that fear which implies the presence of a complex emotional
feminine organization to defend, only make a strong sexual appeal to men
who are themselves lacking in the complementary masculine qualities. As a
psychical secondary sexual character of the first rank, it is necessary,
before any psychology of sex can be arranged in order, to obtain a clear
view of modesty.
The immense importance of feminine modesty in creating masculine
passion must be fairly obvious. I may, however, quote the
observations of two writers who have shown evidence of insight
and knowledge regarding this matter.
Casanova describes how, when at Berne, he went to the baths, and
was, according to custom, attended by a young girl, whom he
selected from a group of bath attendants. She undressed him,
proceeded to undress herself, and then entered the bath with him,
and rubbed him thoroughly all over, the operation being performed
in the most serious manner and without a word being spoken. When
all was over, however, he perceived that the girl had expected
him to make advances, and he proceeds to describe and discuss his
own feelings of indifference under such circumstances. "Though
without gazing on the girl's figure, I had seen enough to
recognize that she had all that a man can desire to find in a
woman: a beautiful face, lively and well-formed eyes, a beautiful
mouth, with good teeth, a healthy complexion, well-developed
breasts, and everything in harmony. It is true that I had felt
that her hands could have been smoother, but I could only
attribute this to hard work; moreover, my Swiss girl was only
eighteen, and yet I remained entirely cold. What was the cause of
this? That was the question that I asked myself."
"It is clear," wrote Stendhal, "that three parts of modesty are
taught. This is, perhaps, the only law born of civilization which
produces nothing but happiness. It has been observed that birds
of prey hide themselves to drink, because, being obliged to
plunge their heads in the water, they are at that moment
defenceless. After having considered what passes at Otaheite, I
can see no other natural foundation for modesty. Love is the
miracle of civilization. Among savage and very barbarous races we
find nothing but physical love of a gross character. It is
modesty that gives to love the aid of imagination, and in so
doing imparts life to it. Modesty is very early taught to little
girls by their mothers, and with extreme jealousy, one might say,
by _esprit de corps_. They are watching in advance over the
happiness of the future lover. To a timid and tender woman there
ought to be no greater torture than to allow herself in the
presence of a man something which she thinks she ought to blush
at. I am convinced that a proud woman would prefer a thousand
deaths. A slight liberty taken on the tender side by the man she
loves gives a woman a moment of keen pleasure, but if he has the
air of blaming her for it, or only of not enjoying it with
transport, an awful doubt must be left in her mind. For a woman
above the vulgar level there is, then, everything to gain by very
reserved manners. The play is not equal. She hazards against a
slight pleasure, or against the advantage of appearing a little
amiable, the danger of biting remorse, and a feeling of shame
which must render even the lover less dear. An evening passed
gaily and thoughtlessly, without thinking of what comes after, is
dearly paid at this price. The sight of a lover with whom one
fears that one has had this kind of wrong must become odious for
several days. Can one be surprised at the force of a habit, the
slightest infractions of which are punished with such atrocious
shame? As to the utility of modesty, it is the mother of love. As
to the mechanism of the feeling, nothing is simpler. The mind is
absorbed in feeling shame instead of being occupied with desire.
Desires are forbidden, and desires lead to actions. It is evident
that every tender and proud woman--and these two things, being
cause and effect, naturally go together--must contract habits of
coldness which the people whom she disconcerts call prudery. The
power of modesty is so great that a tender woman betrays herself
with her lover rather by deeds than by words. The evil of
modesty is that it constantly leads to falsehood." (Stendhal, _De
l'Amour_, Chapter XXIV.)
It thus happens that, as Adler remarks (_Die Mangelhafte
Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 133), the sexual impulse in
women is fettered by an inhibition which has to be conquered. A
thin veil of reticence, shyness, and anxiety is constantly cast
anew over a woman's love, and her wooer, in every act of
courtship, has the enjoyment of conquering afresh an oft-won
woman.
An interesting testimony to the part played by modesty in
effecting the union of the sexes is furnished by the fact--to
which attention has often been called--that the special modesty
of women usually tends to diminish, though not to disappear, with
the complete gratification of the sexual impulses. This may be
noted among savage as well as among civilized women. The
comparatively evanescent character of modesty has led to the
argument (Venturi, _Degenerazioni Psico-sessuali_, pp. 92-93)
that modesty (_pudore_) is possessed by women alone, men
exhibiting, instead, a sense of decency which remains at about
the same level of persistency throughout life. Viazzi ("Pudore
nell 'uomo e nella donna," _Rivista Mensile di Psichiatria
Forense_, 1898), on the contrary, following Sergi, argues that
men are, throughout, more modest than women; but the points he
brings forward, though often just, scarcely justify his
conclusion. While the young virgin, however, is more modest and
shy than the young man of the same age, the experienced married
woman is usually less so than her husband, and in a woman who is
a mother the shy reticences of virginal modesty would be rightly
felt to be ridiculous. ("Les petites pudeurs n'existent pas pour
les mères," remarks Goncourt, _Journal des Goncourt_, vol. iii,
p. 5.) She has put off a sexual livery that has no longer any
important part to play in life, and would, indeed, be
inconvenient and harmful, just as a bird loses its sexual plumage
when the pairing season is over.
Madame Céline Renooz, in an elaborate study of the psychological
sexual differences between men and women (_Psychologie Comparée
de l'Homme et de la Femme_, 1898, pp. 85-87), also believes that
modesty is not really a feminine characteristic. "Modesty," she
argues, "is masculine shame attributed to women for two reasons:
first, because man believes that woman is subject to the same
laws as himself; secondly, because the course of human evolution
has reversed the psychology of the sexes, attributing to women
the psychological results of masculine sexuality. This is the
origin of the conventional lies which by a sort of social
suggestion have intimidated women. They have, in appearance at
least, accepted the rule of shame imposed on them by men, but
only custom inspires the modesty for which they are praised; it
is really an outrage to their sex. This reversal of psychological
laws has, however, only been accepted by women with a struggle.
Primitive woman, proud of her womanhood, for a long time
defended her nakedness which ancient art has always represented.
And in the actual life of the young girl to-day there is a moment
when, by a secret atavism, she feels the pride of her sex, the
intuition of her moral superiority, and cannot understand why she
must hide its cause. At this moment, wavering between the laws of
Nature and social conventions, she scarcely knows if nakedness
should or should not affright her. A sort of confused atavistic
memory recalls to her a period before clothing was known, and
reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal the customs of that human
epoch."
In support of this view the authoress proceeds to point out that
the _décolleté_ constantly reappears in feminine clothing, never
in male; that missionaries experience great difficulty in
persuading women to cover themselves; that, while women accept
with facility an examination by male doctors, men cannot force
themselves to accept examination by a woman doctor, etc. (These
and similar points had already been independently brought forward
by Sergi, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xiii, 1892.)
It cannot be said that Madame Renooz's arguments will all bear
examination, if only on the ground that nakedness by no means
involves absence of modesty, but the point of view which she
expresses is one which usually fails to gain recognition, though
it probably contains an important element of truth. It is quite
true, as Stendhal said, that modesty is very largely taught; from
the earliest years, a girl child is trained to show a modesty
which she quickly begins really to feel. This fact cannot fail to
strike any one who reads the histories of pseudo-hermaphroditic
persons, really males, who have from infancy been brought up in
the belief that they are girls, and who show, and feel, all the
shrinking reticence and blushing modesty of their supposed sex.
But when the error is discovered, and they are restored to their
proper sex, this is quickly changed, and they exhibit all the
boldness of masculinity. (See e.g., Neugebauer, "Beobachtungen
aus dem Gebiete des Scheinzwittertumes," _Jahrbuch für Sexuelle
Zwischenstufen_, Jahrgang iv, 1902, esp. p. 92.) At the same time
this is only one thread in the tangled skein with which we are
here concerned. The mass of facts which meets us when we turn to
the study of modesty in women cannot be dismissed as a group of
artificially-imposed customs. They gain rather than lose in
importance if we have to realize that the organic sexual demands
of women, calling for coyness in courtship, lead to the temporary
suppression of another feminine instinct of opposite, though
doubtless allied, nature.
But these somewhat conflicting, though not really contradictory,
statements serve to bring out the fact that a woman's modesty is
often an incalculable element. The woman who, under some
circumstances and at some times, is extreme in her reticences,
under other circumstances or at other times, may be extreme in
her abandonment. Not that her modesty is an artificial garment,
which she throws off or on at will. It is organic, but like the
snail's shell, it sometimes forms an impenetrable covering, and
sometimes glides off almost altogether. A man's modesty is more
rigid, with little tendency to deviate toward either extreme.
Thus it is, that, when uninstructed, a man is apt to be impatient
with a woman's reticences, and yet shocked at her abandonments.
The significance of our inquiry becomes greater when we reflect that to
the reticences of sexual modesty, in their progression, expansion, and
complication, we largely owe, not only the refinement and development of
the sexual emotions,--"_la pudeur_" as Guyau remarked, "_a civilisé
l'amour_"--but the subtle and pervading part which the sexual instinct has
played in the evolution of all human culture.
"It is certain that very much of what is best in religion, art,
and life," remark Stanley Hall and Allin, "owes its charm to the
progressively-widening irradiation of sexual feeling. Perhaps the
reluctance of the female first long-circuited the exquisite
sensations connected with sexual organs and acts to the antics of
animal and human courtship, while restraint had the physiological
function of developing the colors, plumes, excessive activity,
and exuberant life of the pairing season. To keep certain parts
of the body covered, irradiated the sense of beauty to eyes,
hair, face, complexion, dress, form, etc., while many savage
dances, costumes and postures are irradiations of the sexual act.
Thus reticence, concealment, and restraint are among the prime
conditions of religion and human culture." (Stanley Hall and
Allin, "The Psychology of Tickling," _American Journal of
Psychology_, 1897, p. 31.)
Groos attributes the deepening of the conjugal relation among
birds to the circumstance that the male seeks to overcome the
reticence of the female by the display of his charms and
abilities. "And in the human world," he continues, "it is the
same; without the modest reserve of the woman that must, in most
cases, be overcome by lovable qualities, the sexual relationship
would with difficulty find a singer who would extol in love the
highest movements of the human soul." (Groos, _Spiele der
Menschen_, p. 341.)
I have not, however, been, able to find that the subject of modesty has
been treated in any comprehensive way by psychologists. Though valuable
facts and suggestions bearing on the sexual emotions, on disgust, the
origins of tatooing, on ornament and clothing, have been, brought forward
by physiologists, psychologists, and ethnographists, few or no attempts
appear to have been made to reach a general synthetic statement of these
facts and suggestions. It is true that a great many unreliable, slight, or
fragmentary efforts have been made to ascertain the constitution or basis
of this emotion.[1] Many psychologists have regarded modesty simply as the
result of clothing. This view is overturned by the well-ascertained fact
that many races which go absolutely naked possess a highly-developed sense
of modesty. These writers have not realized that physiological modesty is
earlier in appearance, and more fundamental, than anatomical modesty. A
partial contribution to the analysis of modesty has been made by Professor
James, who, with his usual insight and lucidity, has set forth certain of
its characteristics, especially the element due to "the application to
ourselves of judgments primarily passed upon our mates." Guyau, in a very
brief discussion of modesty, realized its great significance and touched
on most of its chief elements.[2] Westermarck, again, followed by Grosse,
has very ably and convincingly set forth certain factors in the origin of
ornament and clothing, a subject which many writers imagine to cover the
whole field of modesty. More recently Ribot, in his work on the emotions,
has vaguely outlined most of the factors of modesty, but has not developed
a coherent view of their origins and relationships.
Since the present _Study_ first appeared, Hohenemser, who
considers that my analysis of modesty is unsatisfactory, has made
a notable attempt to define the psychological mechanism of shame.
("Versuch einer Analyse der Scham," _Archiv für die Gesamte
Psychologie_, Bd. II, Heft 2-3, 1903.) He regards shame as a
general psycho-physical phenomenon, "a definite tension of the
whole soul," with an emotion superadded. "The state of shame
consists in a certain psychic lameness or inhibition," sometimes
accompanied by physical phenomena of paralysis, such as sinking
of the head and inability to meet the eye. It is a special case
of Lipps's psychic stasis or damming up (_psychische Stauung_),
always produced when the psychic activities are at the same time
drawn in two or more different directions. In shame there is
always something present in consciousness which conflicts with
the rest of the personality, and cannot be brought into harmony
with it, which cannot be brought, that is, into moral (not
logical) relationship with it. A young man in love with a girl is
ashamed when told that he is in love, because his reverence for
one whom he regards as a higher being cannot be brought into
relationship with his own lower personality. A child in the same
way feels shame in approaching a big, grown-up person, who seems
a higher sort of being. Sometimes, likewise, we feel shame in
approaching a stranger, for a new person tends to seem higher and
more interesting than ourselves. It is not so in approaching a
new natural phenomenon, because we do not compare it with
ourselves. Another kind of shame is seen when this mental contest
is lower than our personality, and on this account in conflict
with it, as when we are ashamed of sexual thoughts. Sexual ideas
tend to evoke shame, Hohenemser remarks, because they so easily
tend to pass into sexual feelings; when they do not so pass (as
in scientific discussions) they do not evoke shame.
It will be seen that this discussion of modesty is highly
generalized and abstracted; it deals simply with the formal
mechanism of the process. Hohenemser admits that fear is a form
of psychic stasis, and I have sought to show that modesty is a
complexus of fears. We may very well accept the conception of
psychic stasis at the outset. The analysis of modesty has still
to be carried very much further.
The discussion of modesty is complicated by the difficulty, and even
impossibility, of excluding closely-allied emotions--shame, shyness,
bashfulness, timidity, etc.--all of which, indeed, however defined, adjoin
or overlap modesty.[3] It is not, however, impossible to isolate the main
body of the emotion of modesty, on account of its special connection, on
the whole, with the consciousness of sex. I here attempt, however
imperfectly, to sketch out a fairly-complete analysis of its constitution
and to trace its development.
In entering upon this investigation a few facts with regard to
the various manifestations of modesty may be helpful to us. I
have selected these from scattered original sources, and have
sought to bring out the variety and complexity of the problems
with which we are here concerned.
The New Georgians of the Solomon Islands, so low a race that they
are ignorant both of pottery and weaving, and wear only a loin
cloth, "have the same ideas of what is decent with regard to
certain acts and exposures that we ourselves have;" so that it is
difficult to observe whether they practice circumcision.
(Somerville, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1897, p.
394.)
In the New Hebrides "the closest secrecy is adopted with regard
to the penis, not at all from a sense of decency, but to avoid
Narak, the _sight_ even of that of another man being considered
most dangerous. The natives of this savage island, accordingly,
wrap the penis around with many yards of calico, and other like
materials, winding and folding them until a preposterous bundle
18 inches, or 2 feet long, and 2 inches or more in diameter is
formed, which is then supported upward by means of a belt, in the
extremity decorated with flowering grasses, etc. The testicles
are left naked." There is no other body covering. (Somerville,
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1894, p. 368.)
In the Pelew Islands, says Kubary, as quoted by Bastian, it is
said that when the God Irakaderugel and his wife were creating
man and woman (he forming man and she forming woman), and were at
work on the sexual organs, the god wished to see his consort's
handiwork. She, however, was cross, and persisted in concealing
what she had made. Ever since then women wear an apron of
pandanus-leaves and men go naked. (A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in
Oceanien_, p. 112.)
In the Pelew Islands, Semper tells us that when approaching a
large water-hole he was surprised to hear an affrighted,
long-drawn cry from his native friends. "A girl's voice answered
out of the bushes, and my people held us back, for there were
women bathing there who would not allow us to pass. When I
remarked that they were only women, of whom they need not be
afraid, they replied that it was not so, that women had an
unbounded right to punish men who passed them when bathing
without their permission, and could inflict fines or even death.
On this account, the women's bathing place is a safe and favorite
spot for a secret rendezvous. Fortunately a lady's toilet lasts
but a short time in this island." (Carl Semper, _Die
Palau-Inseln_, 1873, p. 68.)
Among the Western Tribes of Torres Strait, Haddon states, "the
men were formerly nude, and the women wore only a leaf petticoat,
but I gather that they were a decent people; now both sexes are
prudish. A man would never go nude before me. The women would
never voluntarily expose their breasts to white men's gaze; this
applies to quite young girls, less so to old women. Amongst
themselves they are, of course, much less particular, but I
believe they are becoming more so.... Formerly, I imagine, there
was no restraint in speech; now there is a great deal of prudery;
for instance, the men were always much ashamed when I asked for
the name of the sexual parts of a woman." (A.C. Haddon,
"Ethnography of the Western Tribes of Torres Straits," _Journal
of the Anthropological Institute_, 1890, p. 336.) After a
subsequent expedition to the same region, the author reiterates
his observations as to the "ridiculously prudish manner" of the
men, attributable to missionary influence during the past thirty
years, and notes that even the children are affected by it. "At
Mabuiag, some small children were paddling in the water, and a
boy of about ten years of age reprimanded a little girl of five
or six years because she held up her dress too high." (_Reports
of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_,
vol. v, p. 272.)
"Although the women of New Guinea," Vahness says, "are very
slightly clothed, they are by no means lacking in a
well-developed sense of decorum. If they notice, for instance,
that any one is paying special attention to their nakedness, they
become ashamed and turn round." When a woman had to climb the
fence to enter the wild-pig enclosure, she would never do it in
Vahness's presence. (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Verhdlgen.,
1900, Heft 5, p. 415.)
In Australia "the feeling of decency is decidedly less prevalent
among males than females;" the clothed females retire out of
sight to bathe. (Curr, _Australian Race_.)
"Except for waist-bands, forehead-bands, necklets, and armlets,
and a conventional pubic tassel, shell, or, in the case of the
women, a small apron, the Central Australian native is naked. The
pubic tassel is a diminutive structure, about the size of a
five-shilling piece, made of a few short strands of fur-strings
flattened out into a fan-shape and attached to the pubic hair. As
the string, especially at _corrobboree_ times, is covered with
white kaolin or gypsum, it serves as a decoration rather than a
covering. Among the Arunta and Luritcha the women usually wear
nothing, but further north, a small apron is made and worn."
(Baldwin Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_, p. 572.)
Of the Central Australians Stirling says: "No sense of shame of
exposure was exhibited by the men on removal of the diminutive
articles worn as conventional coverings; they were taken off
_coram populo_, and bartered without hesitation. On the other
hand, some little persuasion was necessary to allow inspection of
the effect of [urethral] sub-incision, assent being given only
after dismissal to a distance of the women and young children. As
to the women, it was nearly always observed that when in camp
without clothing they, especially the younger ones, exhibited by
their attitude a keen sense of modesty, if, indeed, a
consciousness of their nakedness can be thus considered. When we
desired to take a photograph of a group of young women, they were
very coy at the proposal to remove their scanty garments, and
retired behind a wall to do so; but once in a state of nudity
they made no objection to exposure to the camera." (_Report of
the Horn Scientific Expedition_, 1896, vol. iv, p. 37.)
In Northern Queensland "phallocrypts," or "penis-concealers,"
only used by the males at _corrobborees_ and other public
rejoicings, are either formed of pearl-shell or opossum-string.
The _koom-pa-ra_, or opossum-string form of phallocrypt, forms a
kind of tassel, and is colored red; it is hung from the
waist-belt in the middle line. In both sexes the privates are
only covered on special public occasions, or when in close
proximity to white settlements. (W. Roth, _Ethnological Studies
among the Northwest-Central-Queensland Aborigines_, 1897, pp.
114-115.)
"The principle of chastity," said Forster, of his experiences in
the South Sea Islands in their unspoilt state, "we found in many
families exceedingly well understood. I have seen many fine women
who, with a modesty mixed with politeness, refuse the greatest
and most tempting offers made them by our forward youths; often
they excuse themselves with a simple _tirra-tano_, 'I am
married,' and at other times they smiled and declined it with
_epia_, 'no.' ... Virtuous women hear a joke without emotion,
which, amongst us, might put some men to the blush. Neither
austerity and anger, nor joy and ecstasy is the consequence, but
sometimes a modest, dignified, serene smile spreads itself over
their face, and seems gently to rebuke the uncouth jester." (J.R.
Forster, _Observations made During a Voyage Round the World_,
1728, p. 392.)
Captain Cook, at Tahiti, in 1769, after performing Divine service
on Sunday, witnessed "Vespers of a very different kind. A young
man, near six feet high, performed the rites of Venus with a
little girl about eleven or twelve years of age, before several
of our people and a great number of the natives, without the
least sense of its being indecent or improper, but, as it
appeared, in perfect conformity to the custom of the place. Among
the spectators were several women of superior rank, who may
properly be said to have assisted at the ceremony; for they gave
instructions to the girl how to perform her part, which, young as
she was, she did not seem much to stand in need of." (J.
Hawkesworth, _Account of the Voyages_, etc., 1775, vol. i, p.
469.)
At Tahiti, according to Cook, it was customary to "gratify every
appetite and passion before witnesses," and it is added, "in the
conversation of these people, that which is the principal source
of their pleasure is always the principal topic; everything is
mentioned without any restraint or emotion, and in the most
direct terms, by both sexes." (Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol ii, p.
45.)
"I have observed," Captain Cook wrote, "that our friends in the
South Seas have not even the idea of indecency, with respect to
any object or any action, but this was by no means the case with
the inhabitants of New Zealand, in whose carriage and
conversation there was as much modest reserve and decorum with
respect to actions, which yet in their opinion were not criminal,
as are to be found among the politest people in Europe. The women
were not impregnable; but the terms and manner of compliance were
as decent as those in marriage among us, and according to their
notions, the agreement was as innocent. When any of our people
made an overture to any of their young women, he was given to
understand that the consent of her friends was necessary, and by
the influence of a proper present it was generally obtained; but
when these preliminaries were settled, it was also necessary to
treat the wife for a night with the same delicacy that is here
required by the wife for life, and the lover who presumed to take
any liberties by which this was violated, was sure to be
disappointed." (Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 254.)
Cook found that the people of New Zealand "bring the prepuce over
the gland, and to prevent it from being drawn back by contraction
of the part, they tie the string which hangs from the girdle
round the end of it. The glans, indeed, seemed to be the only
part of their body which they were solicitous to conceal, for
they frequently threw off all their dress but the belt and
string, with the most careless indifference, but showed manifest
signs of confusion when, to gratify our curiosity, they were
requested to untie the string, and never consented but with the
utmost reluctance and shame.... The women's lower garment was
always bound fast round them, except when they went into the
water to catch lobsters, and then they took great care not to be
seen by the men. We surprised several of them at this employment,
and the chaste Diana, with her nymphs, could not have discovered
more confusion and distress at the sight of Actæon, than these
women expressed upon our approach. Some of them hid themselves
among the rocks, and the rest crouched down in the sea till they
had made themselves a girdle and apron of such weeds as they
could find, and when they came out, even with this veil, we could
see that their modesty suffered much pain by our presence."
(Hawkesworth, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 257-258.)
In Rotuma, in Polynesia, where the women enjoy much freedom, but
where, at all events in old days, married people were, as a rule,
faithful to each other, "the language is not chaste according to
our ideas, and there is a great deal of freedom in speaking of
immoral vices. In this connection a man and his wife will speak
freely to one another before their friends. I am informed,
though, by European traders well conversant with the language,
that there are grades of language, and that certain coarse
phrases would never be used to any decent woman; so that
probably, in their way, they have much modesty, only we cannot
appreciate it." (J. Stanley Gardiner, "The Natives of Rotuma,"
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, May, 1898, p. 481.)
The men of Rotuma, says the same writer, are very clean, the
women also, bathing twice a day in the sea; but "bathing in
public without the _kukuluga_, or _sulu_ [loin-cloth, which is
the ordinary dress], around the waist is absolutely unheard of,
and would be much looked down upon." (_Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, 1898, p. 410.)
In ancient Samoa the only necessary garment for either man or
woman was an apron of leaves, but they possessed so "delicate a
sense of propriety" that even "while bathing they have a girdle
of leaves or some other covering around the waist." (Turner,
_Samoa a Hundred Years Ago_, p. 121.)
After babyhood the Indians of Guiana are never seen naked. When
they change their single garment they retire. The women wear a
little apron, now generally made of European beads, but the
Warraus still make it of the inner bark of a tree, and some of
seeds. (Everard im Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_, 1883.)
The Mandurucu women of Brazil, according to Tocantins (quoted by
Mantegazza), are completely naked, but they are careful to avoid
any postures which might be considered indecorous, and they do
this so skilfully that it is impossible to tell when they have
their menstrual periods. (Mantegazza, _Fisiologia della Donna_,
cap 9.)
The Indians of Central Brazil have no "private parts." In men the
little girdle, or string, surrounding the lower part of the
abdomen, hides nothing; it is worn after puberty, the penis being
often raised and placed beneath it to lengthen the prepuce. The
women also use a little strip of bast that goes down the groin
and passes between the thighs. Among some tribes (Karibs, Tupis,
Nu-Arwaks) a little, triangular, coquettishly-made piece of
bark-bast comes just below the mons veneris; it is only a few
centimetres in width, and is called the _uluri. In both sexes
concealment of the sexual mucous membrane is attained_. These
articles cannot be called clothing. "The red thread of the
Trumai, the elegant _uluri_, and the variegated flag of the
Bororó attract attention, like ornaments, instead of drawing
attention away." Von den Steinen thinks this proceeding a
necessary protection against the attacks of insects, which are
often serious in Brazil. He does think, however, that there is
more than this, and that the people are ashamed to show the
glans penis. (Karl von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern
Zentral-Brasiliens_, 1894, pp. 190 et seq.)
Other travelers mention that on the Amazon among some tribes the
women are clothed and the men naked; among others the women
naked, and the men clothed. Thus, among the Guaycurus the men are
quite naked, while the women wear a short petticoat; among the
Uaupás the men always wear a loin-cloth, while the women are
quite naked.
"The feeling of modesty is very developed among the Fuegians, who
are accustomed to live naked. They manifest it in their bearing
and in the ease with which they show themselves in a state of
nudity, compared with the awkwardness, blushing, and shame which
both men and women exhibit if one gazes at certain parts of their
bodies. Among themselves this is never done even between husband
and wife. There is no Fuegian word for modesty, perhaps because
the feeling is universal among them." The women wear a minute
triangular garment of skin suspended between the thighs and never
removed, being merely raised during conjugal relations. (Hyades
and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii, pp.
239, 307, and 347.)
Among the Crow Indians of Montana, writes Dr. Holder, who has
lived with them for several years, "a sense of modesty forbids
the attendance upon the female in labor of any male, white man or
Indian, physician or layman. This antipathy to receiving
assistance at the hands of the physician is overcome as the
tribes progress toward civilization, and it is especially
noticeable that half-breeds almost constantly seek the
physician's aid." Dr. Holder mentions the case of a young woman
who, although brought near the verge of death in a very difficult
first confinement, repeatedly refused to allow him to examine
her; at last she consented; "her modest preparation was to take
bits of quilt and cover thighs and lips of vulva, leaving only
the aperture exposed.... Their modesty would not be so striking
were it not that, almost to a woman, the females of this tribe
are prostitutes, and for a consideration will admit the
connection of any man." (A.B. Holder, _American Journal of
Obstetrics_, vol. xxv, No. 6, 1892.)
"In every North American tribe, from the most northern to the
most southern, the skirt of the woman is longer than that of the
men. In Esquimau land the _parka_ of deerskin and sealskin
reaches to the knees. Throughout Central North America the
buckskin dress of the women reached quite to the ankles. The
West-Coast women, from Oregon to the Gulf of California, wore a
petticoat of shredded bark, of plaited grass, or of strings, upon
which were strung hundreds of seeds. Even in the most tropical
areas the rule was universal, as anyone can see from the codices
or in pictures of the natives." (Otis T. Mason, _Woman's Share in
Primitive Culture_, p. 237.)
Describing the loin-cloth worn by Nicobarese men, Man says: "From
the clumsy mode in which this garment is worn by the Shom
Pen--necessitating frequent readjustment of the folds--one is led
to infer that its use is not _de rigueur_, but reserved for
special occasions, as when receiving or visiting strangers."
(E.H. Man, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1886, p.
442.)
The semi-nude natives of the island of Nias in the Indian Ocean
are "modest by nature," paying no attention to their own nudity
or that of others, and much scandalized by any attempt to go
beyond the limits ordained by custom. When they pass near places
where women are bathing they raise their voices in order to warn
them of their presence, and even although any bold youth
addressed the women, and the latter replied, no attempt would be
made to approach them; any such attempt would be severely
punished by the head man of the village. (Modigliani, _Un Viaggio
a Nias_, p. 460.)
Man says that the Andamanese in modesty and self-respect compare
favorably with many classes among civilized peoples. "Women are
so modest that they will not renew their leaf-aprons in the
presence of one another, but retire to a secluded spot for this
purpose; even when parting with one of their _bod_ appendages
[tails of leaves suspended from back of girdle] to a female
friend, the delicacy they manifest for the feelings of the
bystanders in their mode of removing it amounts to prudishness;
yet they wear no clothing in the ordinary sense." (_Journal of
the Anthropological Institute_, 1883, pp. 94 and 331.)
Of the Garo women of Bengal Dalton says: "Their sole garment is a
piece of cloth less than a foot in width that just meets around
the loins, and in order that it may not restrain the limbs it is
only fastened where it meets under the hip at the upper corners.
The girls are thus greatly restricted in the positions they may
modestly assume, but decorum is, in their opinion, sufficiently
preserved if they only keep their legs well together when they
sit or kneel." (E.T. Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, 1872, p. 66.)
Of the Naga women of Assam it is said: "Of clothing there was not
much to see; but in spite of this I doubt whether we could excel
them in true decency and modesty. Ibn Muhammed Wali had already
remarked in his history of the conquest of Assam (1662-63), that
the Naga women only cover their breasts. They declare that it is
absurd to cover those parts of the body which everyone has been
able to see from their births, but that it is different with the
breasts, which appeared later, and are, therefore, to be covered.
Dalton (_Journal of the Asiatic Society_, Bengal, 41, 1, 84) adds
that in the presence of strangers Naga women simply cross their
arms over their breasts, without caring much what other charms
they may reveal to the observer. As regards some clans of the
naked Nagas, to whom the Banpara belong, this may still hold
good." (K. Klemm, "Peal's Ausflug nach Banpara," _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, 1898, Heft 5, p. 334.)
"In Ceylon, a woman always bathes in public streams, but she
never removes all her clothes. She washes under the cloth, bit by
bit, and then slips on the dry, new cloth, and pulls out the wet
one from underneath (much in the same sliding way as servant
girls and young women in England). This is the common custom in
India and the Malay States. The breasts are always bare in their
own houses, but in the public roads are covered whenever a
European passes. The vulva is never exposed. They say that a
devil, imagined as a white and hairy being, might have
intercourse with them." (Private communication.)
In Borneo, "the _sirat_, called _chawal_ by the Malays, is a
strip of cloth a yard wide, worn round the loins and in between
the thighs, so as to cover the pudenda and perinæum; it is
generally six yards or so in length, but the younger men of the
present generation use as much as twelve or fourteen yards
(sometimes even more), which they twist and coil with great
precision round and round their body, until the waist and stomach
are fully enveloped in its folds." (H. Ling Roth, "Low's Natives
of Borneo," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1892, p.
36.)
"In their own houses in the depths of the forest the Dwarfs are
said to neglect coverings for decency in the men as in the women,
but certainly when they emerge from the forest into the villages
of the agricultural Negroes, they are always observed to be
wearing some small piece of bark-cloth or skin, or a bunch of
leaves over the pudenda. Elsewhere in all the regions of Africa
visited by the writer, or described by other observers, a neglect
of decency in the male has only been recorded among the Efik
people of Old Calabar. The nudity of women is another question.
In parts of West Africa, between the Niger and the Gaboon
(especially on the Cameroon River, at Old Calabar, and in the
Niger Delta), it is, or was, customary for young women to go
about completely nude before they were married. In Swaziland,
until quite recently, unmarried women and very often matrons went
stark naked. Even amongst the prudish Baganda, who made it a
punishable offense for a man to expose any part of his leg above
the knee, the wives of the King would attend at his Court
perfectly naked. Among the Kavirondo, all unmarried girls are
completely nude, and although women who have become mothers are
supposed to wear a tiny covering before and behind, they very
often completely neglect to do so when in their own villages.
Yet, as a general rule, among the Nile Negroes, and still more
markedly among the Hamites and people of Masai stock, the women
are particular about concealing the pudenda, whereas the men are
ostentatiously naked. The Baganda hold nudity in the male to be
such an abhorrent thing that for centuries they have referred
with scorn and disgust to the Nile Negroes as the 'naked people.'
Male nudity extends northwest to within some 200 miles of
Khartum, or, in fact, wherever the Nile Negroes of the
Dinka-Acholi stock inhabit the country." (Sir H.H. Johnston,
_Uganda Protectorate_, vol. ii, pp. 669-672.)
Among the Nilotic Ja-luo, Johnston states that "unmarried men go
naked. Married men who have children wear a small piece of goat
skin, which, though quite inadequate for purposes of decency, is,
nevertheless, a very important thing in etiquette, for a married
man with a child must on no account call on his mother-in-law
without wearing this piece of goat's skin. To call on her in a
state of absolute nudity would be regarded as a serious insult,
only to be atoned for by the payment of goats. Even if under the
new dispensation he wears European trousers, he must have a piece
of goat's skin underneath. Married women wear a tail of strings
behind." It is very bad manners for a woman to serve food to her
husband without putting on this tail. (Sir H.H. Johnston, _Uganda
Protectorate_, vol. ii, p. 781.)
Mrs. French-Sheldon remarks that the Masai and other East African
tribes, with regard to menstruation, "observe the greatest
delicacy, and are more than modest." (_Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, 1894, p. 383.)
At the same time the Masai, among whom the penis is of enormous
size, consider it disreputable to conceal that member, and in the
highest degree reputable to display it, even ostentatiously. (Sir
H.H. Johnston, _Kilima-njaro Expedition_, p. 413.)
Among the African Dinka, who are scrupulously clean and delicate
(smearing themselves with burnt cows' dung, and washing
themselves daily with cows' urine), and are exquisite cooks,
reaching in many respects a higher stage of civilization, in
Schweinfurth's opinion, than is elsewhere attained in Africa,
only the women wear aprons. The neighboring tribes of the red
soil--Bongo, Mittoo, Niam-Niam, etc.--are called "women" by the
Dinka, because among these tribes the men wear an apron, while
the women obstinately refuse to wear any clothes whatsoever of
skin or stuff, going into the woods every day, however, to get a
supple bough for a girdle, with, perhaps, a bundle of fine grass.
(Schweinfurth, _Heart of Africa_, vol. i, pp. 152, etc.)
Lombroso and Carrara, examining some Dinka negroes brought from
the White Nile, remark: "As to their psychology, what struck us
first was the exaggeration of their modesty; not in a single case
would the men allow us to examine their genital organs or the
women their breasts; we examined the tattoo-marks on the chest of
one of the women, and she remained sad and irritable for two days
afterward." They add that in sexual and all other respects these
people are highly moral. (Lombroso and Carrara, _Archivio di
Psichiatria_, 1896, vol. xvii, fasc. 4.)
"The negro is very rarely knowingly indecent or addicted to
lubricity," says Sir H.H. Johnston. "In this land of nudity,
which I have known for seven years, I do not remember once having
seen an indecent gesture on the part of either man or woman, and
only very rarely (and that not among unspoiled savages) in the
case of that most shameless member of the community--the little
boy." He adds that the native dances are only an apparent
exception, being serious in character, though indecent to our
eyes, almost constituting a religious ceremony. The only really
indecent dance indigenous to Central Africa "is one which
originally represented the act of coition, but it is so altered
to a stereotyped formula that its exact purport is not obvious
until explained somewhat shyly by the natives.... It may safely
be asserted that the negro race in Central Africa is much more
truly modest, is much more free from real vice, than are most
European nations. Neither boys nor girls wear clothing (unless
they are the children of chiefs) until nearing the age of
puberty. Among the Wankonda, practically no covering is worn by
the men except a ring of brass wire around the stomach. The
Wankonda women are likewise almost entirely naked, but generally
cover the pudenda with a tiny bead-work apron, often a piece of
very beautiful workmanship, and exactly resembling the same
article worn by Kaffir women. A like degree of nudity prevails
among many of the Awemba, among the A-lungu, the Batumbuka, and
the Angoni. Most of the Angoni men, however, adopt the Zulu
fashion of covering the glans penis with a small wooden case or
the outer shell of a fruit. The Wa-Yao have a strong sense of
decency in matters of this kind, which is the more curious since
they are more given to obscenity in their rites, ceremonies, and
dances than any other tribe. Not only is it extremely rare to see
any Yao uncovered, but both men and women have the strongest
dislike to exposing their persons even to the inspection of a
doctor. The Atonga and many of the A-nyanga people, and all the
tribes west of Nyassa (with the exception possibly of the
A-lunda) have not the Yao regard for decency, and, although they
can seldom or ever be accused of a deliberate intention to expose
themselves, the men are relatively indifferent as to whether
their nakedness is or is not concealed, though the women are
modest and careful in this respect." (H.H. Johnston, _British
Central Africa_, 1897, pp. 408-419.)
In Azimba land, Central Africa, H. Crawford Angus, who has spent
many years in this part of Africa, writes: "It has been my
experience that the more naked the people, and the more to us
obscene and shameless their manners and customs, the more moral
and strict they are in the matter of sexual intercourse." He
proceeds to give a description of the _chensamwali_, or
initiation ceremony of girls at puberty, a season of rejoicing
when the girl is initiated into all the secrets of marriage, amid
songs and dances referring to the act of coition. "The whole
matter is looked upon as a matter of course, and not as a thing
to be ashamed of or to hide, and, being thus openly treated of
and no secrecy made about it, you find in this tribe that the
women are very virtuous. They know from the first all that is to
be known, and cannot see any reason for secrecy concerning
natural laws or the powers and senses that have been given them
from birth." (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1898, Heft 6, p.
479.)
Of the Monbuttu of Central Africa, another observer says: "It is
surprising how a Monbuttu woman of birth can, without the aid of
dress, impress others with her dignity and modesty." (_British
Medical Journal_. June 14, 1890.)
"The women at Upoto wear no clothes whatever, and came up to us
in the most unreserved manner. An interesting gradation in the
arrangement of the female costume has been observed by us: as we
ascended the Congo, the higher up the river we found ourselves,
the higher the dress reached, till it has now, at last,
culminated in absolute nudity." (T.H. Parke, _My Personal
Experiences in Equatorial Africa_, 1891, p. 61.)
"There exists throughout the Congo population a marked
appreciation of the sentiment of decency and shame as applied to
private actions," says Mr. Herbert Ward. In explanation of the
nudity of the women at Upoto, a chief remarked to Ward that
"concealment is food for the inquisitive." (_Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, 1895, p. 293.)
In the Gold Coast and surrounding countries complete nudity is
extremely rare, except when circumstances make it desirable; on
occasion clothing is abandoned with unconcern. "I have on several
occasions," says Dr. Freeman, "seen women at Accra walk from the
beach, where they have been bathing, across the road to their
houses, where they would proceed to dry themselves, and resume
their garments; and women may not infrequently be seen bathing in
pools by the wayside, conversing quite unconstrainedly with their
male acquaintances, who are seated on the bank. The mere
unclothed body conveys to their minds no idea of indecency.
Immodesty and indelicacy of manner are practically unknown." He
adds that the excessive zeal of missionaries in urging their
converts to adopt European dress--which they are only too ready
to do--is much to be regretted, since the close-fitting, thin
garments are really less modest than the loose clothes they
replace, besides being much less cleanly. (R.A. Freeman, _Travels
and Life in Ashanti and Jaman_, 1898, p. 379.)
At Loango, says Pechuel-Loesche, "the well-bred negress likes to
cover her bosom, and is sensitive to critical male eyes; if she
meets a European when without her overgarment, she instinctively,
though not without coquetry, takes the attitude of the Medicean
Venus." Men and women bathe separately, and hide themselves from
each other when naked. The women also exhibit shame when
discovered suckling their babies. (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_,
1878, pp. 27-31.)
The Koran (Sura XXIV) forbids showing the pudenda, as well as the
face, yet a veiled Mohammedan woman, Stern remarks, even in the
streets of Constantinople, will stand still and pull up her
clothes to scratch her private parts, and in Beyrout, he saw
Turkish prostitutes, still veiled, place themselves in the
position for coitus. (B. Stern, _Medizin, etc., in der Türkei_,
vol. ii, p. 162.)
"An Englishman surprised a woman while bathing in the Euphrates;
she held her hands over her face, without troubling as to what
else the stranger might see. In Egypt, I have myself seen quite
naked young peasant girls, who hastened to see us, after covering
their faces." (C. Niebuhr, _Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien_,
1774, vol. i, p. 165.)
When Helfer was taken to visit the ladies in the palace of the
Imam of Muskat, at Buscheir, he found that their faces were
covered with black masks, though the rest of the body might be
clothed in a transparent sort of crape; to look at a naked face
was very painful to the ladies themselves; even a mother never
lifts the mask from the face of her daughter after the age of
twelve; that is reserved for her lord and husband. "I observed
that the ladies looked at me with a certain confusion, and after
they had glanced into my face, lowered their eyes, ashamed. On
making inquiries, I found that my uncovered face was indecent, as
a naked person would be to us. They begged me to assume a mask,
and when a waiting-woman had bound a splendidly decorated one
round my head, they all exclaimed: 'Tahip! tahip!'--beautiful,
beautiful." (J.W. Helfer, _Reisen in Vorderasian und Indien_,
vol. ii, p. 12.)
In Algeria--in the provinces of Constantine, in Biskra, even
Aures,--"among the women especially, not one is restrained by any
modesty in unfastening her girdle to any comer" (when a search
was being made for tattoo-marks on the lower extremities). "In
spite of the great licentiousness of the manners," the same
writer continues, "the Arab and the Kabyle possess great personal
modesty, and with difficulty are persuaded to exhibit the body
nude; is it the result of real modesty, or of their inveterate
habits of active pederasty? Whatever the cause, they always hide
the sexual organs with their hands or their handkerchiefs, and
are disagreeably affected even by the slightest touch of the
doctor." (Batut, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, January
15, 1893.)
"Moslem modesty," remarks Wellhausen, "was carried to great
lengths, insufficient clothing being forbidden. It was marked
even among the heathen Arabs, as among Semites and old
civilizations generally; we must not be deceived by the
occasional examples of immodesty in individual cases. The Sunna
prescribes that a man shall not uncover himself even to himself,
and shall not wash naked--from fear of God and of spirits; Job
did so, and atoned for it heavily. When in Arab antiquity
grown-up persons showed themselves naked, it was only under
extraordinary circumstances, and to attain unusual ends.... Women
when mourning uncovered not only the face and bosom, but also
tore all their garments. The messenger who brought bad news tore
his garments. A mother desiring to bring pressure to bear on her
son took off her clothes. A man to whom vengeance is forbidden
showed his despair and disapproval by uncovering his posterior
and strewing earth on his head, or by raising his garment behind
and covering his head with it. This was done also in fulfilling
natural necessities." (Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_,
1897, pp. 173, 195-196.)
Mantegazza mentions that a Lapland woman refused even for the sum
of 150 francs to allow him to photograph her naked, though the
men placed themselves before the camera in the costume of Adam
for a much smaller sum. In the same book Mantegazza remarks that
in the eighteenth century, travelers found it extremely difficult
to persuade Samoyed women to show themselves naked. Among the
same people, he says, the newly-married wife must conceal her
face from her husband for two months after marriage, and only
then yield to his embraces. (Mantegazza, _La Donna_, cap. IV.)
"The beauty of a Chinese woman," says Dr. Matignon, "resides
largely in her foot. 'A foot which is not deformed is a
dishonor,' says a poet. For the husband the foot is more
interesting than the face. Only the husband may see his wife's
foot naked. A Chinese woman is as reticent in showing her feet to
a man as a European woman her breasts. I have often had to treat
Chinese women with ridiculously small feet for wounds and
excoriations, the result of tight-bandaging. They exhibited the
prudishness of school-girls, blushed, turned their backs to
unfasten the bandages, and then concealed the foot in a cloth,
leaving only the affected part uncovered. Modesty is a question
of convention; Chinese have it for their feet," (J. Matignon, "A
propos d'un Pied de Chinoise," _Archives d'Anthropologie
Criminelle_, 1898, p. 445.)
Among the Yakuts of Northeast Siberia, "there was a well-known
custom according to which a bride should avoid showing herself or
her uncovered body to her father-in-law. In ancient times, they
say, a bride concealed herself for seven years from her
father-in-law, and from the brothers and other masculine
relations of her husband.... The men also tried not to meet her,
saying, 'The poor child will be ashamed.' If a meeting could not
be avoided the young woman put a mask on her face.... Nowadays,
the young wives only avoid showing to their male relatives-in-law
the uncovered body. Amongst the rich they avoid going about in
the presence of these in the chemise alone. In some places, they
lay especial emphasis on the fact that it is a shame for young
wives to show their uncovered hair and feet to the male relatives
of their husbands. On the other side, the male relatives of the
husband ought to avoid showing to the young wife the body
uncovered above the elbow or the sole of the foot, and they ought
to avoid indecent expressions and vulgar vituperations in her
presence.... That these observances are not the result of a
specially delicate modesty, is proved by the fact that even young
girls constantly twist thread upon the naked thigh, unembarrassed
by the presence of men who do not belong to the household; nor do
they show any embarrassment if a strange man comes upon them when
uncovered to the waist. The one thing which they do not like, and
at which they show anger, is that such persons look carefully at
their uncovered feet.... The former simplicity, with lack of
shame in uncovering the body, is disappearing." (Sieroshevski,
"The Yakuts," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
Jan.-June, 1901, p. 93.)
"In Japan (Captain ---- tells me), the bathing-place of the women
was perfectly open (the shampooing, indeed, was done by a man),
and Englishmen were offered no obstacle, nor excited the least
repugnance; indeed, girls after their bath would freely pass,
sometimes as if holding out their hair for innocent admiration,
and this continued until countrymen of ours, by vile laughter and
jests, made them guard themselves from insult by secrecy. So
corruption spreads, and heathenism is blacker by our contact."
(Private communication.)
"Speaking once with a Japanese gentleman, I observed that we
considered it an act of indecency for men and women to wash
together. He shrugged his shoulders as he answered: 'But these
Westerns have such prurient minds!'" (Mitford, _Tales of Old
Japan_, 1871.)
Dr. Carl Davidsohn, who remarks that he had ample opportunity of
noting the great beauty of the Japanese women in a national
dance, performed naked, points out that the Japanese have no
æsthetic sense for the nude. "This was shown at the Jubilee
Exposition at Kyoto. Here, among many rooms full of art objects,
one was devoted to oil pictures in the European manner. Among
these only one represented a nude figure, a Psyche, or Truth. It
was the first time such a picture had been seen. Men and women
crowded around it. After they had gazed at it for a time, most
began to giggle and laugh; some by their air and gestures clearly
showed their disgust; all found that it was not æsthetic to paint
a naked woman, though in Nature, nakedness was in no way
offensive to them. In the middle of the same city, at a fountain
reputed to possess special virtues, men and women will stand
together naked and let the water run over them." (Carl
Davidsohn, "Das Nackte bei den Japanern," _Globus_, 1896, No.
16.)
"It is very difficult to investigate the hairiness of Ainu
women," Baelz remarks, "for they possess a really incredible
degree of modesty. Even when in summer they bathe--which happens
but seldom--they keep their clothes on." He records that he was
once asked to examine a girl at the Mission School, in order to
advise as regards the treatment of a diseased spine; although she
had been at the school for seven years, she declared that "she
would rather die than show her back to a man, even though a
doctor." (Baelz, "Die Aino," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1901,
Heft 2, p. 178.)
The Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, appear to have been accustomed
to cover the foreskin with the _kynodesme_ (a band), or the
_fibula_ (a ring), for custom and modesty demanded that the glans
should be concealed. Such covering is represented in persons who
were compelled to be naked, and is referred to by Celsus as
"decori causâ." (L. Stieda, "Anatomisch-archäologische Studien,"
_Anatomische Hefte_, Bd. XIX, Heft 2, 1902.)
"Among the Lydians, and, indeed, among the barbarians generally,
it is considered a deep disgrace, even for a man, to be seen
naked." (Herodotus, Book I, Chapter X.)
"The simple dress which is now common was first worn in Sparta,
and there, more than anywhere else, the life of the rich was
assimilated to that of the people. The Lacedæmonians, too, were
the first who, in their athletic exercises, stripped naked and
rubbed themselves over with oil. This was not the ancient custom;
athletes formerly, even when they were contending at Olympia,
wore girdles about their loins [earlier still, the Mycenæans had
always worn a loin-cloth], a practice which lasted until quite
lately, and still persists among barbarians, especially those of
Asia, where the combatants at boxing and wrestling matches wear
girdles." (Thucydides, _History_, Book I, Chapter VI.)
"The notion of the women exercising naked in the schools with the
men ... at the present day would appear truly ridiculous.... Not
long since it was thought discreditable and ridiculous among the
Greeks, as it is now among most barbarous nations, for men to be
seen naked. And when the Cretans first, and after them the
Lacedæmonians, began the practice of gymnastic exercises, the
wits of the time had it in their power to make sport of those
novelties.... As for the man who laughs at the idea of undressed
women going through gymnastic exercises, as a means of revealing
what is most perfect, his ridicule is but 'unripe fruit plucked
from the tree of wisdom.'" (Plato, _Republic_, Book V.)
According to Plutarch, however, among the Spartans, at all
events, nakedness in women was not ridiculous, since the
institutes of Lycurgus ordained that at solemn feasts and
sacrifices the young women should dance naked and sing, the young
men standing around in a circle to see and hear them. Aristotle
says that in his time Spartan girls only wore a very slight
garment. As described by Pausanias, and as shown by a statue in
the Vatican, the ordinary tunic, which was the sole garment worn
by women when running, left bare the right shoulder and breast,
and only reached to the upper third of the thighs. (M.M. Evans,
_Chapters on Greek Dress_, p. 34.)
Among the Greeks who were inclined to accept the doctrines of
Cynicism, it was held that, while shame is not unreasonable, what
is good may be done and discussed before all men. There are a
number of authorities who say that Crates and Hipparchia
consummated their marriage in the presence of many spectators.
Lactantius (_Inst._ iii, 15) says that the practice was common,
but this Zeller is inclined to doubt. (Zeller, _Socrates and the
Socratic Schools_, translated from the Third German Edition,
1897.)
"Among the Tyrrhenians, who carry their luxury to an
extraordinary pitch, Timæus, in his first book, relates that the
female servants wait on the men in a state of nudity. And
Theopompus, in the forty-third book of his _History_, states that
it is a law among the Tyrrhenians that all their women should be
in common; and that the women pay the greatest attention to their
persons, and often practice gymnastic exercises, naked, among the
men, and sometimes with one another; for that it is not accounted
shameful for them to be seen naked.... Nor is it reckoned among
the Tyrrhenians at all disgraceful either to do or suffer
anything in the open air, or to be seen while it is going on; for
it is quite the custom of their country, and they are so far from
thinking it disgraceful that they even say, when the master of
the house is indulging his appetite, and anyone asks for him,
that he is doing so and so, using the coarsest possible words....
And they are very beautiful, as is natural for people to be who
live delicately, and who take care of their persons." (Athenæus,
_Deipnosophists_, Yonge's translation, vol. iii, p. 829.)
Dennis throws doubt on the foregoing statement of Athenæus
regarding the Tyrrhenians or Etruscans, and points out that the
representations of women in Etruscan tombs shows them as clothed,
even the breast being rarely uncovered. Nudity, he remarks, was a
Greek, not an Etruscan, characteristic. "To the nudity of the
Spartan women I need but refer; the Thessalian women are
described by Persæus dancing at banquets naked, or with a very
scanty covering (_apud_ Athenæus, xiii, c. 86). The maidens of
Chios wrestled naked with the youths in the gymnasium, which
Athenæus (xiii, 20) pronounces to be 'a beautiful sight.' And at
the marriage feast of Caranus, the Macedonian women tumblers
performed naked before the guests (Athenæus, iv, 3)." (G. Dennis,
_Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, 1883, vol. i, p. 321.)
In Rome, "when there was at first much less freedom in this
matter than in Greece, the bath became common to both sexes, and
though each had its basin and hot room apart, they could see each
other, meet, speak, form intrigues, arrange meetings, and
multiply adulteries. At first, the baths were so dark that men
and women could wash side by side, without recognizing each other
except by the voice; but soon the light of day was allowed to
enter from every side. 'In the bath of Scipio,' said Seneca,
'there were narrow ventholes, rather than windows, hardly
admitting enough light to outrage modesty; but nowadays, baths
are called caves if they do not receive the sun's rays through
large windows.' ... Hadrian severely prohibited this mingling of
men and women, and ordained separate lavaera for the sexes.
Marcus Aurelius and Alexander Severus renewed this edict, but in
the interval, Heliogabalus had authorized the sexes to meet in
the baths." (Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. ii, Ch.
XVIII; cf. Smith's _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_,
Art. Balneæ.)
In Rome, according to ancient custom, actors were compelled to
wear drawers (_subligaculum_) on the stage, in order to safeguard
the modesty of Roman matrons. Respectable women, it seems, also
always wore some sort of _subligaculum_, even sometimes when
bathing. The name was also applied to a leathern girdle laced
behind, which they were occasionally made to wear as a girdle of
chastity. (Dufour, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 150.) Greek women also
wore a cloth round the loins when taking the bath, as did the men
who bathed there; and a woman is represented bathing and wearing
a sort of thin combinations reaching to the middle of the thigh.
(Smith's _Dictionary_, loc. cit.) At a later period, St.
Augustine refers to the _compestria_, the drawers or apron worn
by young men who stripped for exercise in the _campus_. (_De
Civitate Dei_, Bk. XIV, Ch. XVII.)
Lecky (_History of Morals_, vol. ii, p. 318), brings together
instances of women, in both Pagan and early Christian times, who
showed their modesty by drawing their garments around them, even
at the moment that they were being brutally killed. Plutarch, in
his essay on the "Virtues of Women,"--moralizing on the
well-known story of the young women of Milesia, among whom an
epidemic of suicide was only brought to an end by the decree that
in future women who hanged themselves should be carried naked
through the market-places,--observes: "They, who had no dread of
the most terrible things in the world, death and pain, could not
abide the imagination of dishonor, and exposure to shame, even
after death."
In the second century the physician Aretæus, writing at Rome,
remarks: "In many cases, owing to involuntary restraint from
modesty at assemblies, and at banquets, the bladder becomes
distended, and from the consequent loss of its contractile power,
it no longer evacuates the urine." (_On the Causes and Symptoms
of Acute Diseases_, Book II, Chapter X.)
Apuleius, writing in the second century, says: "Most women, in
order to exhibit their native gracefulness and allurements,
divest themselves of all their garments, and long to show their
naked beauty, being conscious that they shall please more by the
rosy redness of their skin than by the golden splendor of their
robes." (Thomas Taylor's translation of _Metamorphosis_, p. 28.)
Christianity seems to have profoundly affected habits of thought
and feeling by uniting together the merely natural emotion of
sexual reserve with, on the one hand, the masculine virtue of
modesty--_modestia_--and, on the other, the prescription of
sexual abstinence. Tertullian admirably illustrates this
confusion, and his treatises _De Pudicitia_ and _De Cultu
Feminarum_ are instructive from the present point of view. In the
latter he remarks (Book II, Chapter I): "Salvation--and not of
women only, but likewise of men--consists in the exhibition,
principally, of modesty. Since we are all the temple of God,
modesty is the sacristan and priestess of that temple, who is to
suffer nothing unclean or profane to enter it, for fear that the
God who inhabits it should be offended.... Most women, either
from simple ignorance or from dissimulation, have the hardihood
so to walk as if modesty consisted only in the integrity of the
flesh, and in turning away from fornication, and there were no
need for anything else,--in dress and ornament, the studied
graces of form,--wearing in their gait the self-same appearance
as the women of the nations from whom the sense of _true_ modesty
is absent."
The earliest Christian ideal of modesty, not long maintained, is
well shown in an epistle which, there is some reason to suppose,
was written by Clement of Rome. "And if we see it to be requisite
to stand and pray for the sake of the woman, and to speak words
of exhortation and edification, we call the brethren and all the
holy sisters and maidens, likewise all the other women who are
there, with all modesty and becoming behavior, to come and feast
on the truth. And those among us who are skilled in speaking,
speak to them, and exhort them in those words which God has given
us. And then we pray, and salute one another, the men the men.
But the women and the maidens will wrap their hands in their
garments; we also, with circumspection and with all purity, our
eyes looking upward, shall wrap our right hand in our garments;
and then they will come and give us the salutation on our right
hand, wrapped in our garments. Then we go where God permits us."
(_Two Epistles Concerning Virginity_; Second Epistle, Chapter
III, vol. xiv. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, p. 384.)
"Women will scarce strip naked before their own husbands,
affecting a plausible pretense of modesty," writes Clement of
Alexandria, about the end of the second century, "but any others
who wish may see them at home, shut up in their own baths, for
they are not ashamed to strip before spectators, as if exposing
their persons for sale. The baths are opened promiscuously to men
and women; and there they strip for licentious indulgence (for,
from looking, men get to loving), as if their modesty had been
washed away in the bath. Those who have not become utterly
destitute of modesty shut out strangers, but bathe with their own
servants, and strip naked before their slaves, and are rubbed by
them, giving to the crouching menial liberty to lust, by
permitting fearless handling, for those who are introduced before
their naked mistresses while in the bath, study to strip
themselves in order to show audacity in lust, casting off fear in
consequence of the wicked custom. The ancient athletes, ashamed
to exhibit a man naked, preserved their modesty by going through
the contest in drawers; but these women, divesting themselves of
their modesty along with their chemise, wish to appear beautiful,
but, contrary to their wish, are simply proved to be wicked."
(Clement of Alexandria, _Pædagogus_, Book III, Chapter V. For
elucidations of this passage, see Migne's _Patrologiæ Cursus
Completus_, vol. vii.) Promiscuous bathing was forbidden by the
early Apostolical Constitutions, but Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage,
found it necessary, in the third century, to upbraid even virgins
vowed to chastity for continuing the custom. "What of those," he
asks, "who frequent baths, who prostitute to eyes that are
curious to lust, bodies that are dedicated to chastity and
modesty? They who disgracefully behold naked men, and are seen
naked by men? Do they not themselves afford enticement to vice?
Do they not solicit and invite the desires of those present to
their own corruption and wrong? 'Let every one,' say you, 'look
to the disposition with which he comes thither: my care is only
that of refreshing and washing my poor body.' That kind of
defence does not clear you, nor does it excuse the crime of
lasciviousness and wantonness. Such a washing defiles; it does
not purify nor cleanse the limbs, but stains them. You behold no
one immodestly, but you, yourself, are gazed upon immodestly; you
do not pollute your eyes with disgraceful delight, but in
delighting others you yourself are polluted; you make a show of
the bathing-place; the places where you assemble are fouler than
a theatre. There all modesty is put off; together with the
clothing of garments, the honor and modesty of the body is laid
aside, virginity is exposed, to be pointed at and to be
handled.... Let your baths be performed with women, whose
behavior is modest towards you." (Cyprian, _De Habitu Virginum_,
cap. 19, 21.) The Church carried the same spirit among the
barbarians of northern Europe, and several centuries later the
promiscuous bathing of men and women was prohibited in some of
the Penitentials. (The custom was, however, preserved here and
there in Northern Europe, even to the end of the eighteenth
century, or later. In Rudeck's _Geschichte der öffentlichen
Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_, an interesting chapter, with
contemporary illustrations, is devoted to this custom; also, Max
Bauer, _Das Geschlechtsleben in der Deutschen Vergangenheit_, pp.
216-265.)
"Women," says Clement again, "should not seek to be graceful by
avoiding broad drinking vessels that oblige them to stretch their
mouths, in order to drink from narrow alabastra that cause them
indecently to throw back the head, revealing to men their necks
and breasts. The mere thought of what she is ought to inspire a
woman with modesty.... On no account must a woman be permitted to
show to a man any portion of her body naked, for fear lest both
fall: the one by gazing eagerly, the other by delighting to
attract those eager glances." (_Pædagogus_, Book II, Chapter V.)
James, Bishop of Nisibis, in the fourth century, was a man of
great holiness. We are told by Thedoret that once, when James had
newly come into Persia, it was vouchsafed to him to perform a
miracle under the following circumstances: He chanced to pass by
a fountain where young women were washing their linen, and, his
modesty being profoundly shocked by the exposure involved in this
occupation, he cursed the fountain, which instantly dried up, and
he changed the hair of the girls from black to a sandy color.
(Jortin, _Remarks on Ecclesiastical History_, vol. iii, p. 4.)
Procopius, writing in the sixth century after Christ, and
narrating how the Empress Theodora, in early life, would often
appear almost naked before the public in the theatre, adds that
she would willingly have appeared altogether nude, but that "no
woman is allowed to expose herself altogether, unless she wears
at least short drawers over the lower part of the abdomen."
Chrysostom mentions, at the end of the fourth century, that
Arcadius attempted to put down the August festival (Majuma),
during which women appeared naked in the theatres, or swimming in
large baths.
In mediæval days, "ladies, at all events, as represented by the
poets, were not, on the whole, very prudish. Meleranz surprised a
lady who was taking a bath under a lime tree; the bath was
covered with samite, and by it was a magnificent ivory bed,
surrounded by tapestries representing the history of Paris and
Helen, the destruction of Troy, the adventures of Æneas, etc. As
Meleranz rides by, the lady's waiting-maids run away; she
herself, however, with quick decision, raises the samite which
covers the tub, and orders him to wait on her in place of the
maids. He brings her shift and mantle, and shoes, and then stands
aside till she is dressed; when she has placed herself on the
bed, she calls him back and commands him to drive away the flies
while she sleeps. Strange to say, the men are represented as more
modest than the women. When two maidens prepared a bath for
Parzival, and proposed to bathe him, according to custom, the
inexperienced young knight was shy, and would not enter the bath
until they had gone; on another occasion, he jumped quickly into
bed when the maidens entered the room. When Wolfdieterich was
about to undress, he had to ask the ladies who pressed around him
to leave him alone for a short time, as he was ashamed they
should see him naked. When Amphons of Spain, bewitched by his
step-mother into a were-wolf, was at last restored, and stood
suddenly naked before her, he was greatly ashamed. The maiden who
healed Iwein was tender of his modesty. In his love-madness, the
hero wanders for a time naked through the wood; three women find
him asleep, and send a waiting-maid to annoint him with salve;
when he came to himself, the maiden hid herself. On the whole,
however, the ladies were not so delicate; they had no hesitation
in bathing with gentlemen, and on these occasions would put their
finest ornaments on their heads. I know no pictures of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries representing such a scene, but
such baths in common are clearly represented in miniatures of the
fifteenth century." (A. Schultz, _Das Höfische Leben zur Zeit der
Minnesänger_, vol. i, p. 225.)
"In the years 1450-70, the use of the cod-piece was introduced,
whereby the attributes of manhood were accentuated in the most
shameless manner. It was, in fact, the avowed aim at that period
to attract attention to these parts. The cod-piece was sometimes
colored differently from the rest of the garments, often stuffed
out to enlarge it artificially, and decorated with ribbons."
(Rudeck, _Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in
Deutschland_, pp. 45-48; Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_,
vol. vi, pp. 21-23. Groos refers to the significance of this
fashion, _Spiele der Menschen_, p. 337.)
"The first shirt began to be worn [in Germany] in the sixteenth
century. From this fact, as well as from the custom of public
bathing, we reach the remarkable result, that for the German
people, the sight of complete nakedness was the daily rule up to
the sixteenth century. Everyone undressed completely before going
to bed, and, in the vapor-baths, no covering was used. Again, the
dances, both of the peasants and the townspeople, were
characterized by very high leaps into the air. It was the chief
delight of the dancers for the male to raise his partner as high
as possible in the air, so that her dress flew up. That feminine
modesty was in this respect very indifferent, we know from
countless references made in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. It must not be forgotten that throughout the middle
ages women wore no underclothes, and even in the seventeenth
century, the wearing of drawers by Italian women was regarded as
singular. That with the disappearance of the baths, and the use
of body-linen, a powerful influence was exerted on the creation
of modesty, there can be little doubt." (Rudeck, op. cit., pp.
57, 399, etc.)
In 1461, when Louis XI entered Paris, three very beautiful
maidens, quite naked, represented the Syrens, and declaimed poems
before him; they were greatly admired by the public. In 1468,
when Charles the Bold entered Lille, he was specially pleased,
among the various festivities, with a representation of the
Judgment of Paris, in which the three goddesses were nude. When
Charles the Fifth entered Antwerp, the most beautiful maidens of
the city danced before him, in nothing but gauze, and were
closely contemplated by Dürer, as he told his friend, Melancthon.
(B. Ritter, "Nuditäten im Mittelalter," _Jahrbücher für
Wissenschaft und Kunst_, 1855, p. 227; this writer shows how
luxury, fashion, poverty, and certain festivals, all combined to
make nudity familiar; cf. Fahne, _Der Carneval_, p. 249. Dulaure
quotes many old writers concerning the important part played by
nude persons in ancient festivals, _Des Divinités Génératrices_,
Chapter XIV.)
Passek, a Polish officer who wrote an account of his campaigns,
admired the ladies of Denmark in 1658, but considered their
customs immodest. "Everyone sleeps naked as at birth, and none
consider it shameful to dress or undress before others. No
notice, even, is taken of the guest, and in the light one garment
is taken off after another, even the chemise is hung on the hook.
Then the door is bolted, the light blown out, and one goes to
bed. As we blamed their ways, saying that among us a woman would
not act so, even in the presence of her husband alone, they
replied that they knew nothing of such shame, and that there was
no need to be ashamed of limbs which God had created. Moreover,
to sleep without a shift was good, because, like the other
garments, it sufficiently served the body during the day. Also,
why take fleas and other insects to bed with one? Although our
men teased them in various ways, they would not change their
habits." (Passek, _Denkwürdigkeiten_, German translation, p. 14.)
Until late in the seventeenth century, women in England, as well
as France, suffered much in childbirth from the ignorance and
superstition of incompetent midwives, owing to the prevailing
conceptions of modesty, which rendered it impossible (as it is
still, to some extent, in some semi-civilized lands) for male
physicians to attend them. Dr. Willoughby, of Derby, tells how,
in 1658, he had to creep into the chamber of a lying-in woman on
his hands and knees, in order to examine her unperceived. In
France, Clement was employed secretly to attend the mistresses of
Louis XIV in their confinements; to the first he was conducted
blindfold, while the King was concealed among the bed-curtains,
and the face of the lady was enveloped in a network of lace. (E.
Malins, "Midwifery and Midwives," _British Medical Journal_, June
22, 1901; Witkowski, _Histoire des Accouchements_, 1887, pp. 689
et seq.) Even until the Revolution, the examination of women in
France in cases of rape or attempted outrage was left to a jury
of matrons. In old English manuals of midwifery, even in the
early nineteenth century, we still find much insistence on the
demands of modesty. Thus, Dr. John Burns, of Glasgow, in his
_Principles of Midwifery_, states that "some women, from motives
of false delicacy, are averse from examination until the pains
become severe." He adds that "it is usual for the room to be
darkened, and the bed-curtains drawn close, during an
examination." Many old pictures show the accoucheur groping in
the dark, beneath the bed-clothes, to perform operations on women
in childbirth. (A. Kind, "Das Weib als Gebärerin in der Kunst,"
_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. II, Heft 5, p. 203.)
In Iceland, Winkler stated in 1861 that he sometimes slept in the
same room as a whole family; "it is often the custom for ten or
more persons to use the same room for living in and sleeping,
young and old, master and servant, male and female, and from
motives of economy, all the clothes, without exception, are
removed." (G. Winkler, _Island; seine Bewohner_, etc., pp. 107,
110.)
"At Cork," saye Fynes Moryson, in 1617, "I have seen with these
eyes young maids stark naked grinding corn with certain stones to
make cakes thereof." (Moryson, _Itinerary_, Part 3, Book III,
Chapter V.)
"In the more remote parts of Ireland," Moryson elsewhere says,
where the English laws and manners are unknown, "the very chief
of the Irish, men as well as women, go naked in very winter-time,
only having their privy parts covered with a rag of linen, and
their bodies with a loose mantle. This I speak of my own
experience." He goes on to tell of a Bohemian baron, just come
from the North of Ireland, who "told me in great earnestness that
he, coming to the house of Ocane, a great lord among them, was
met at the door with sixteen women, all naked, excepting their
loose mantles; whereof eight or ten were very fair, and two
seemed very nymphs, with which strange sight, his eyes being
dazzled, they led him into the house, and then sitting down by
the fire with crossed legs, like tailors, and so low as could not
but offend chaste eyes, desired him to sit down with them. Soon
after, Ocane, the lord of the country, came in, all naked
excepting a loose mantle, and shoes, which he put off as soon as
he came in, and entertaining the baron after his best manner in
the Latin tongue, desired him to put off his apparel, which he
thought to be a burthen to him, and to sit naked by the fire with
this naked company. But the baron... for shame, durst not put off
his apparel." (Ib. Part 3, Book IV, Chapter II.)
Coryat, when traveling in Italy in the early part of the
seventeenth century, found that in Lombardy many of the women
and children wore only smocks, or shirts, in the hot weather. At
Venice and Padua, he found that wives, widows, and maids, walk
with naked breasts, many with backs also naked, almost to the
middle. (Coryat, _Crudities_, 1611. The fashion of _décolleté_
garments, it may be remarked, only began in the fourteenth
century; previously, the women of Europe generally covered
themselves up to the neck.)
In Northern Italy, some years ago, a fire occurred at night in a
house in which two girls were sleeping, naked, according to the
custom. One threw herself out and was saved, the other returned
for a garment, and was burnt to death. The narrator of the
incident [a man] expressed strong approval of the more modest
girl's action. (Private communication.) It may be added that the
custom of sleeping naked is still preserved, also (according to
Lippert and Stratz), in Jutland, in Iceland, in some parts of
Norway, and sometimes even in Berlin.
Lady Mary Wortley Montague writes in 1717, of the Turkish ladies
at the baths at Sophia: "The first sofas were covered with
cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies, and on the
second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of
rank in their dress, all being in a state of Nature; that is, in
plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect
concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest
gesture among them. They walked and moved with the same majestic
grace which Milton describes of our general mother. I am here
convinced of the truth of a reflection I had often made, that if
it was the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly
observed." (_Letters and Works_, 1866, vol. i, p. 285.)
At St. Petersburg, in 1774, Sir Nicholas Wraxall observed "the
promiscuous bathing of not less than two hundred persons, of both
sexes. There are several of these public bagnios," he adds, "in
Petersburg, and every one pays a few copecks for admittance.
There are, indeed, separate spaces for the men and women, but
they seem quite regardless of this distinction, and sit or bathe
in a state of absolute nudity among each other." (Sir N. Wraxall,
_A Tour Through Some of the Northern Parts of Europe_, 3d ed.,
1776, p. 248.) It is still usual for women in the country parts
of Russia to bathe naked in the streams.
In 1790, Wedgwood wrote to Flaxman: "The nude is so general in
the work of the ancients, that it will be very difficult to avoid
the introduction of naked figures. On the other hand, it is
absolutely necessary to do so, or to keep the pieces for our own
use; for none, either male or female, of the present generation
will take or apply them as furniture if the figures are naked."
(Meteyard, _Life of Wedgwood_, vol. ii, p. 589.)
Mary Wollstonecraft quotes (for reprobation and not for
approval) the following remarks: "The lady who asked the
question whether women may be instructed in the modern system of
botany, was accused of ridiculous prudery; nevertheless, if she
had proposed the question to me, I should certainly have
answered: 'They cannot!'" She further quotes from an educational
book: "It would be needless to caution you against putting your
hand, by chance, under your neck-handkerchief; for a modest woman
never did so." (Mary Wollstonecraft, _The Rights of Woman_, 1792,
pp. 277, 289.)
At the present time a knowledge of the physiology of plants is
not usually considered inconsistent with modesty, but a knowledge
of animal physiology is still so considered by many. Dr. H.R.
Hopkins, of New York, wrote in 1895, regarding the teaching of
physiology: "How can we teach growing girls the functions of the
various parts of the human body, and still leave them their
modesty? That is the practical question that has puzzled me for
years."
In England, the use of drawers was almost unknown among women
half a century ago, and was considered immodest and unfeminine.
Tilt, a distinguished gynecologist of that period, advocated such
garments, made of fine calico, and not to descend below the knee,
on hygienic grounds. "Thus understood," he added, "the adoption
of drawers will doubtless become more general in this country,
as, being worn without the knowledge of the general observer,
they will be robbed of the prejudice usually attached to an
appendage deemed masculine." (Tilt, _Elements of Health_, 1852,
p. 193.) Drawers came into general use among women during the
third quarter of the nineteenth century.
Drawers are an Oriental garment, and seem to have reached Europe
through Venice, the great channel of communication with the East.
Like many other refinements of decency and cleanliness, they were
at first chiefly cultivated by prostitutes, and, on this account,
there was long a prejudice against them. Even at the present day,
it is said that in France, a young peasant girl will exclaim, if
asked whether she wears drawers: "I wear drawers, Madame? A
respectable girl!" Drawers, however, quickly became acclimatized
in France, and Dufour (op. cit., vol. vi, p. 28) even regards
them as essentially a French garment. They were introduced at the
Court towards the end of the fourteenth century, and in the
sixteenth century were rendered almost necessary by the new
fashion of the _vertugale_, or farthingale. In 1615, a lady's
_caleçons_ are referred to as apparently an ordinary garment. It
is noteworthy that in London, in the middle of the same century,
young Mrs. Pepys, who was the daughter of French parents, usually
wore drawers, which were seemingly of the closed kind. (_Diary_
of S. Pepys, ed. Wheatley, May 15, 1663, vol. iii.) They were
probably not worn by Englishwomen, and even in France, with the
decay of the farthingale, they seem to have dropped out of use
during the seventeenth century. In a technical and very complete
book, _L'Art de la Lingerie_, published in 1771, women's drawers
are not even mentioned, and Mercier (_Tableau de Paris_, 1783,
vol. vii, p. 54) says that, except actresses, Parisian women do
not wear drawers. Even by ballet dancers and actresses on the
stage, they were not invariably worn. Camargo, the famous dancer,
who first shortened the skirt in dancing, early in the eighteenth
century, always observed great decorum, never showing the leg
above the knee; when appealed to as to whether she wore drawers,
she replied that she could not possibly appear without such a
"precaution." But they were not necessarily worn by dancers, and
in 1727 a young _ballerina_, having had her skirt accidentally
torn away by a piece of stage machinery, the police issued an
order that in future no actress or dancer should appear on the
stage without drawers; this regulation does not appear, however,
to have been long strictly maintained, though Schulz (_Ueber
Paris und die Pariser_, p. 145) refers to it as in force in 1791.
(The obscure origin and history of feminine drawers have been
discussed from time to time in the _Intermédiaire des Chercheurs
et Curieux_, especially vols. xxv, lii, and liii.)
Prof. Irving Rosse, of Washington, refers to "New England
prudishness," and "the colossal modesty of some New York
policemen, who in certain cases want to give written, rather than
oral testimony." He adds: "I have known this sentiment carried to
such an extent in a Massachusetts small town, that a shop-keeper
was obliged to drape a small, but innocent, statuette displayed
in his window." (Irving Rosse, _Virginia Medical Monthly_,
October, 1892.) I am told that popular feeling in South Africa
would not permit the exhibition of the nude in the Art
Collections of Cape Town. Even in Italy, nude statues are
disfigured by the addition of tin fig-leaves, and sporadic
manifestations of horror at the presence of nude statues, even
when of most classic type, are liable to occur in all parts of
Europe, including France and Germany. (Examples of this are
recorded from time to time in _Sexual-reform_, published as an
appendix to _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_.)
Some years ago, (1898), it was stated that the Philadelphia
_Ladies' Home Journal_ had decided to avoid, in future, all
reference to ladies' under-linen, because "the treatment of this
subject in print calls for _minutiæ_ of detail which is extremely
and pardonably offensive to refined and sensitive women."
"A man, married twenty years, told me that he had never seen his
wife entirely nude. Such concealment of the external reproductive
organs, by married people, appears to be common. Judging from my
own inquiry, very few women care to look upon male nakedness, and
many women, though not wanting in esthetic feeling, find no
beauty in man's form. Some are positively repelled by the sight
of nakedness, even that of a husband or lover. On the contrary,
most men delight in gazing upon the uncovered figure of women.
It seems that only highly-cultivated and imaginative women enjoy
the spectacle of a finely-shaped nude man (especially after
attending art classes, and drawing from the nude, as I am told by
a lady artist). Or else the majority of women dissemble their
curiosity or admiration. A woman of seventy, mother of several
children, said to a young wife with whom I am acquainted: 'I have
never seen a naked man in my life.' This old lady's sister
confessed that she had never looked at _her own_ nakedness in the
whole course of her life. She said that it 'frightened' her. She
was the mother of three sons. A maiden woman of the same family
told her niece that women were 'disgusting, because they have
monthly discharges.' The niece suggested that women have no
choice in the matter, to which the aunt replied: 'I know that;
but it doesn't make them less disgusting,' I have heard of a girl
who died from hæmorrhage of the womb, refusing, through shame, to
make the ailment known to her family. The misery suffered by some
women at the anticipation of a medical examination, appears to be
very acute. Husbands have told me of brides who sob and tremble
with fright on the wedding-night, the hysteria being sometimes
alarming. E, aged 25, refused her husband for six weeks after
marriage, exhibiting the greatest fear of his approach. Ignorance
of the nature of the sexual connection is often the cause of
exaggerated alarm. In Jersey, I used to hear of a bride who ran
to the window and screamed 'murder,' on the wedding-night."
(Private communication.)
At the present day it is not regarded as incompatible with
modesty to exhibit the lower part of the thigh when in swimming
costume, but it is immodest to exhibit the upper part of the
thigh. In swimming competitions, a minimum of clothing must be
combined with the demands of modesty. In England, the regulations
of the Swimming Clubs affiliated to the Amateur Swimming
Association, require that the male swimmer's costume shall extend
not less than eight inches from the bifurcation downward, and
that the female swimmer's costume shall extend to within not more
than three inches from the knee. (A prolonged discussion, we are
told, arose as to whether the costume should come to one, two, or
three inches from the knee, and the proposal of the youngest lady
swimmer present, that the costume ought to be very scanty, met
with little approval.) The modesty of women is thus seen to be
greater than that of men by, roughly speaking, about two inches.
The same difference may be seen in the sleeves; the male sleeve
must extend for two inches, the female sleeve four inches, down
the arm. (Daily Papers, September 26, 1898.)
"At ----, bathing in a state of Nature was _de rigueur_ for the
_élite_ of the bathers, while our Sunday visitors from the slums
frequently made a great point of wearing bathing costumes; it was
frequently noticed that those who were most anxious to avoid
exposing their persons were distinguished by the foulness of
their language. My impression was that their foul-mindedness
deprived them of the consciousness of safety from coarse jests.
If I were bathing alone among blackguards, I should probably feel
uncomfortable myself, if without costume." (Private
communication.)
A lady in a little city of the south of Italy, told Paola
Lombroso that young middle-class girls there are not allowed to
go out except to Mass, and cannot even show themselves at the
window except under their mother's eye; yet they do not think it
necessary to have a cabin when sea-bathing, and even dispense
with a bathing costume without consciousness of immodesty. (P.
Lombroso, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1901, p. 306.)
"A woman mentioned to me that a man came to her and told her in
confidence his distress of mind: he feared he had _corrupted_ his
wife because she got into a bath in his presence, with her baby,
and enjoyed his looking at her splashing about. He was deeply
distressed, thinking he must have done her harm, and destroyed
her modesty. The woman to whom this was said felt naturally
indignant, but also it gave her the feeling as if every man may
secretly despise a woman for the very things he teaches her, and
only meets her confiding delight with regret or dislike."
(Private communication.)
"Women will occasionally be found to hide diseases and symptoms
from a bashfulness and modesty so great and perverse as to be
hardly credible," writes Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, an experienced
coroner. "I have known several cases of female deaths, reported
as sudden, and of cause unknown, when the medical man called in
during the latter hours of life has been quite unaware that his
lady patient was dying of gangrene of a strangulated femoral
hernia, or was bleeding to death from the bowel, or from ruptured
varices of the vulva." (_British Medical Journal_, Feb. 29,
1908.)
The foregoing selection of facts might, of course, be
indefinitely enlarged, since I have not generally quoted from any
previous collection of facts bearing on the question of modesty.
Such collections may be found in Ploss and Max Bartels _Das
Weib_, a work that is constantly appearing in new and enlarged
editions; Herbert Spencer, _Descriptive Sociology_ (especially
under such headings as "Clothing," "Moral Sentiments," and
"Æsthetic Products"); W.G. Sumner, _Folkways_, Ch. XI;
Mantegazza, _Amori degli Uomini_, Chapter II; Westermarck,
_Marriage_, Chapter IX; Letourneau, _L'Evolution de la Morale_,
pp. 126 et seq.; G. Mortimer, _Chapters on Human Love_, Chapter
IV; and in the general anthropological works of Waitz-Gerland,
Peschel, Ratzel and others.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The earliest theory I have met with is that of St. Augustine, who
states (_De Civitate Dei_, Bk. XIV, Ch. XVII) that erections of the penis
never occurred until after the Fall of Man. It was the occurrence of this
"shameless novelty" which made nakedness indecent. This theory fails to
account for modesty in women.
[2] Guyau, _L'Irreligion de l'Avenir_, Ch. VII.
[3] Timidity, as understood by Dugas, in his interesting essay on that
subject, is probably most remote. Dr. H. Campbell's "morbid shyness"
(_British Medical Journal_, September 26, 1896) is, in part, identical
with timidity, in part, with modesty. The matter is further complicated by
the fact that modesty itself has in English (like virtue) two distinct
meanings. In its original form it has no special connection with sex or
women, but may rather be considered as a masculine virtue. Cicero regards
"modestia" as the equivalent of the Greek sôphrosunê. This is the
"modesty" which Mary Wollstonecraft eulogized in the last century, the
outcome of knowledge and reflection, "soberness of mind," "the graceful
calm virtue of maturity." In French, it is possible to avoid the
confusion, and _modestie_ is entirely distinct from _pudeur_. It is, of
course, mainly with _pudeur_ that I am here concerned.
II.
Modesty an Agglomeration of Fears--Children in Relation to
Modesty--Modesty in Animals--The Attitude of the Medicean Venus--The
Sexual Factor of Modesty Based on Sexual Periodicity and on the Primitive
Phenomena of Courtship--The Necessity of Seclusion in Primitive Sexual
Intercourse--The Meaning of Coquetry--The Sexual Charm of Modesty--Modesty
as an Expression of Feminine Erotic Impulse--The Fear of Causing Disgust
as a Factor of Modesty--The Modesty of Savages in Regard to Eating in the
Presence of Others--The Sacro-Pubic Region as a Focus of Disgust--The Idea
of Ceremonial Uncleanliness--The Custom of Veiling the Face--Ornaments and
Clothing--Modesty Becomes Concentrated in the Garment--The Economic Factor
in Modesty--The Contribution of Civilization to Modesty--The Elaboration
of Social Ritual.
That modesty--like all the closely-allied emotions--is based on fear, one
of the most primitive of the emotions, seems to be fairly evident.[4] The
association of modesty and fear is even a very ancient observation, and is
found in the fragments of Epicharmus, while according to one of the most
recent definitions, "modesty is the timidity of the body." Modesty is,
indeed, an agglomeration of fears, especially, as I hope to show, of two
important and distinct fears: one of much earlier than human origin, and
supplied solely by the female; the other of more distinctly human
character, and of social, rather than sexual, origin.
A child left to itself, though very bashful, is wholly devoid of
modesty.[5] Everyone is familiar with the shocking _inconvenances_ of
children in speech and act, with the charming ways in which they
innocently disregard the conventions of modesty their elders thrust upon
them, or, even when anxious to carry them out, wholly miss the point at
issue: as when a child thinks that to put a little garment round the neck
satisfies the demands of modesty. Julius Moses states that modesty in the
uncovering of the sexual parts begins about the age of four. But in cases
when this occurs it is difficult to exclude teaching and example. Under
civilized conditions the convention of modesty long precedes its real
development. Bell has found that in love affairs before the age of nine
the girl is more aggressive than the boy and that at that age she begins
to be modest.[6] It may fairly be said that complete development of
modesty only takes place at the advent of puberty.[7] We may admit, with
Perez, one of the very few writers who touch on the evolution of this
emotion, that modesty may appear at a very early age if sexual desire
appears early.[8] We should not, however, be justified in asserting that
on this account modesty is a purely sexual phenomenon. The social impulses
also develop about puberty, and to that coincidence the compound nature of
the emotion of modesty may well be largely due.
The sexual factor is, however, the simplest and most primitive element of
modesty, and may, therefore, be mentioned first. Anyone who watches a
bitch, not in heat, when approached by a dog with tail wagging gallantly,
may see the beginnings of modesty. When the dog's attentions become a
little too marked, the bitch squats firmly down on the front legs and hind
quarters though when the period of oestrus comes her modesty may be flung
to the air and she eagerly turns her hind quarters to her admirer's nose
and elevates her tail high in the air. Her attitude of refusal is
equivalent, that is to say, to that which in the human race is typified by
the classical example of womanly modesty in the Medicean Venus, who
withdraws the pelvis, at the same time holding one hand to guard the
pubes, the other to guard the breasts.[9] The essential expression in each
case is that of defence of the sexual centers against the undesired
advances of the male.[10]
Stratz, who criticizes the above statement, argues (with
photographs of nude women in illustration) that the normal type
of European surprised modesty is shown by an attitude in which
the arms are crossed over the breast, the most sexually
attractive region, while the thighs are pressed together, one
being placed before the other, the shoulder raised and the back
slightly curved; occasionally, he adds, the hands may be used to
cover the face, and then the crossed arms conceal the breasts.
The Medicean Venus, he remarks, is only a pretty woman coquetting
with her body. Canova's Venus in the Pitti (who has drapery in
front of her, and presses her arms across her breast) being a
more accurate rendering of the attitude of modesty. But Stratz
admits that when a surprised woman is gazed at for some time, she
turns her head away, sinks or closes her eyes, and covers her
pubes (or any other part she thinks is being gazed at) with one
hand, while with the other she hides her breast or face. This he
terms the secondary expression of modesty. (Stratz, _Die
Frauenkleidung_, third ed., p. 23.)
It is certainly true that the Medicean Venus merely represents an
artistic convention, a generalized tradition, not founded on
exact and precise observation of the gestures of modesty, and it
is equally true that all the instinctive movements noted by
Stratz are commonly resorted to by a woman whose nakedness is
surprised. But in the absence of any series of carefully recorded
observations, one may doubt whether the distinction drawn by
Stratz between the primary and the secondary expression of
modesty can be upheld as the general rule, while it is most
certainly not true for every case. When a young woman is
surprised in a state of nakedness by a person of the opposite, or
even of the same, sex, it is her instinct to conceal the primary
centers of sexual function and attractiveness, in the first
place, the pubes, in the second place the breasts. The exact
attitude and the particular gestures of the hands in achieving
the desired end vary with the individual, and with the
circumstances. The hand may not be used at all as a veil, and,
indeed, the instinct of modesty itself may inhibit the use of the
hand for the protection of modesty (to turn the back towards the
beholder is often the chief impulse of blushing modesty, even
when clothed), but the application of the hand to this end is
primitive and natural. The lowly Fuegian woman, depicted by
Hyades and Deniker, who holds her hand to her pubes while being
photographed, is one at this point with the Roman Venus described
by Ovid (_Ars Amatoria_, Book II):--
"Ipsa Venus pubem, quoties velamnia ponit,
Protegitur læva semireducta manus."
It may be added that young men of the lower social classes, at
all events in England, when bathing at the seaside in complete
nudity, commonly grasp the sexual organs with one hand, for
concealment, as they walk up from the sea.
The sexual modesty of the female animal is rooted in the sexual
periodicity of the female, and is an involuntary expression of the organic
fact that the time for love is not now. Inasmuch as this fact is true of
the greater part of the lives of all female animals below man, the
expression itself becomes so habitual that it even intrudes at those
moments when it has ceased to be in place. We may see this again
illustrated in the bitch, who, when in heat, herself runs after the male,
and again turns to flee, perhaps only submitting with much persuasion to
his embrace. Thus, modesty becomes something more than a mere refusal of
the male; it becomes an invitation to the male, and is mixed up with his
ideas of what is sexually desirable in the female. This would alone serve
to account for the existence of modesty as a psychical secondary sexual
character. In this sense, and in this sense only, we may say, with Colin
Scott, that "the feeling of shame is made to be overcome," and is thus
correlated with its physical representative, the hymen, in the rupture of
which, as Groos remarks, there is, in some degree, a disruption also of
modesty. The sexual modesty of the female is thus an inevitable by-product
of the naturally aggressive attitude of the male in sexual relationships,
and the naturally defensive attitude of the female, this again being
founded on the fact that, while--in man and the species allied to him--the
sexual function in the female is periodic, and during most of life a
function to be guarded from the opposite sex, in the male it rarely or
never needs to be so guarded.[11]
Both male and female, however, need to guard themselves during the
exercise of their sexual activities from jealous rivals, as well as from
enemies who might take advantage of their position to attack them. It is
highly probable that this is one important sexual factor in the
constitution of modesty, and it helps to explain how the male, not less
than the female, cultivates modesty, and shuns publicity, in the exercise
of sexual functions. Northcote has especially emphasized this element in
modesty, as originating in the fear of rivals. "That from this seeking
after secrecy from motives of fear should arise an instinctive feeling
that the sexual act must always be hidden, is a natural enough sequence.
And since it is not a long step between thinking of an act as needing
concealment and thinking of it as wrong, it is easily conceivable that
sexual intercourse comes to be regarded as a stolen and therefore, in some
degree, a sinful pleasure."[12]
Animals in a state of nature usually appear to seek seclusion for sexual
intercourse, although this instinct is lost under domestication. Even the
lowest savages, also, if uncorrupted by civilized influences, seek the
solitude of the forest or the protection of their huts for the same
purpose; the rare cases in which coitus is public seem usually to involve
a ceremonial or social observance, rather than mere personal
gratification. At Loango, for instance, it would be highly improper to
have intercourse in an exposed spot; it must only be performed inside the
hut, with closed doors, at night, when no one is present.[13]
It is on the sexual factor of modesty, existing in a well-marked
form even among animals, that coquetry is founded. I am glad to
find myself on this point in agreement with Professor Groos, who,
in his elaborate study of the play-instinct, has reached the same
conclusion. So far from being the mere heartless play by which a
woman shows her power over a man, Groos points out that coquetry
possesses "high biological and psychological significance," being
rooted in the antagonism between the sexual instinct and inborn
modesty. He refers to the roe, who runs away from the stag--but
in a circle. (Groos, _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 339;
also the same author's _Die Spiele der Thiere_, pp. 288 _et
seq._) Another example of coquetry is furnished by the female
kingfisher (_Alcedo ispida_), which will spend all the morning in
teasing and flying away from the male, but is careful constantly
to look back, and never to let him out of her sight. (Many
examples are given by Büchner, in _Liebe und Liebesleben in der
Tierwelt_.) Robert Müller (_Sexualbiologie_, p. 302) emphasizes
the importance of coquetry as a lure to the male.
"It is quite true," a lady writes to me in a private letter,
"that 'coquetry is a poor thing,' and that every milkmaid can
assume it, but a woman uses it principally in self-defence, while
she is finding out what the man himself is like." This is in
accordance with the remark of Marro, that modesty enables a woman
"to put lovers to the test, in order to select him who is best
able to serve the natural ends of love." It is doubtless the
necessity for this probationary period, as a test of masculine
qualities, which usually leads a woman to repel instinctively a
too hasty and impatient suitor, for, as Arthur Macdonald remarks,
"It seems to be instinctive in young women to reject the
impetuous lover, without the least consideration of his
character, ability, and fitness."
This essential element in courtship, this fundamental attitude of pursuer
and pursued, is clearly to be seen even in animals and savages; it is
equally pronounced in the most civilized men and women, manifesting itself
in crude and subtle ways alike. Shakespeare's Angelo, whose virtue had
always resisted the temptations of vice, discovered at last that
"modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness."
"What," asked the wise Montaigne, "is the object of that virginal shame,
that sedate coldness, that severe countenance, that pretence of not
knowing things which they understand better than we who teach them, except
to increase in us the desire to conquer and curb, to trample under our
appetite, all that ceremony and those obstacles? For there is not only
matter for pleasure, but for pride also, in ruffling and debauching that
soft sweetness and infantine modesty."[14] The masculine attitude in the
face of feminine coyness may easily pass into a kind of sadism, but is
nevertheless in its origin an innocent and instinctive impulse. Restif de
la Bretonne, describing his own shame and timidity as a pretty boy whom
the girls would run after and kiss, adds: "It is surprising that at the
same time I would imagine the pleasure I should have in embracing a girl
who resisted, in inspiring her with timidity, in making her flee and in
pursuing her; that was a part which I burned to play."[15] It is the
instinct of the sophisticated and the unsophisticated alike. The Arabs
have developed an erotic ideal of sensuality, but they emphasize the
importance of feminine modesty, and declare that the best woman is "she
who sees not men and whom they see not."[16] This deep-rooted modesty of
women towards men in courtship is intimately interwoven with the marriage
customs and magic rites of even the most primitive peoples, and has
survived in many civilized practices to-day.[17] The prostitute must be
able to simulate the modesty she may often be far from feeling, and the
immense erotic advantage of the innocent over the vicious woman lies
largely in the fact that in her the exquisite reactions of modesty are
fresh and vigorous. "I cannot imagine anything that is more sexually
exciting," remarks Hans Menjago, "than to observe a person of the opposite
sex, who, by some external or internal force, is compelled to fight
against her physical modesty. The more modest she is the more sexually
exciting is the picture she presents."[18] It is notable that even in
abnormal, as well as in normal, erotic passion the desire is for innocent
and not for vicious women, and, in association with this, the desired
favor to be keenly relished must often be gained by sudden surprise and
not by mutual agreement. A foot fetichist writes to me: "It is the
_stolen_ glimpse of a pretty foot or ankle which produces the greatest
effect on me." A urolagnic symbolist was chiefly excited by the act of
urination when he caught a young woman unawares in the act. A fetichistic
admirer of the nates only desired to see this region in innocent girls,
not in prostitutes. The exhibitionist, almost invariably, only exposes
himself to apparently respectable girls.
A Russian correspondent, who feels this charm of women in a
particularly strong degree, is inclined to think that there is an
element of perversity in it. "In the erotic action of the idea of
feminine enjoyment," he writes, "I think there are traces of a
certain perversity. In fact, owing to the impressions of early
youth, woman (even if we feel contempt for her in theory) is
placed above us, on a certain pedestal, as an almost sacred
being, and the more so because mysterious. Now sensuality and
sexual desire are considered as rather vulgar, and a little
dirty, even ridiculous and degrading, not to say bestial. The
woman who enjoys it, is, therefore, rather like a profaned altar,
or, at least, like a divinity who has descended on to the earth.
To give enjoyment to a woman is, therefore, like perpetrating a
sacrilege, or at least like taking a liberty with a god. The
feelings bequeathed to us by a long social civilization maintain
themselves in spite of our rational and deliberate opinions.
Reason tells us that there is nothing evil in sexual enjoyment,
whether in man or woman, but an unconscious feeling directs our
emotions, and this feeling (having a germ that was placed in
modern men by Christianity, and perhaps by still older religions)
says that woman _ought_ to be an absolutely pure being, with
ethereal sensations, and that in her sexual enjoyment is out of
place, improper, scandalous. To arouse sexual emotions in a
woman, if not to profane a sacred host, is, at all events, the
staining of an immaculate peplos; if not sacrilege, it is, at
least, irreverence or impertinence. For all men, the chaster a
woman is, the more agreeable it is to bring her to the orgasm.
That is felt as a triumph of the body over the soul, of sin over
virtue, of earth over heaven. There is something diabolic in such
pleasure, especially when it is felt by a man intoxicated with
love, and full of religious respect for the virgin of his
election. This feeling is, from a rational point of view, absurd,
and in its tendencies, immoral; but it is delicious in its
sacredly voluptuous subtlety. Defloration thus has its powerful
fascination in the respect consciously or unconsciously felt for
woman's chastity. In marriage, the feeling is yet more
complicated: in deflowering his bride, the Christian (that is,
any man brought up in a Christian civilization) has the feeling
of committing a sort of sin (for the 'flesh' is, for him, always
connected with sin) which, by a special privilege, has for him
become legitimate. He has received a special permit to corrupt
innocence. Hence, the peculiar prestige for civilized Christians,
of the wedding night, sung by Shelley, in ecstatic verses:--
"'Oh, joy! Oh, fear! What will be done
In the absence of the sun!'"
This feeling has, however, its normal range, and is not, _per
se_, a perversity, though it may doubtless become so when unduly
heightened by Christian sentiment, and especially if it leads, as
to some extent it has led in my Russian correspondent, to an
abnormal feeling of the sexual attraction of girls who have only
or scarcely reached the age of puberty. The sexual charm of this
period of girlhood is well illustrated in many of the poems of
Thomas Ashe, and it is worthy of note, as perhaps supporting the
contention that this attraction is based on Christian feeling,
that Ashe had been a clergyman. An attentiveness to the woman's
pleasure remains, in itself, very far from a perversion, but
increases, as Colin Scott has pointed out, with civilization,
while its absence--the indifference to the partner's pleasure--is
a perversion of the most degraded kind.
There is no such instinctive demand on the woman's part for innocence in
the man.[19] In the nature of things that could not be. Such emotion is
required for properly playing the part of the pursued; it is by no means
an added attraction on the part of the pursuer. There is, however, an
allied and corresponding desire which is very often clearly or latently
present in the woman: a longing for pleasure that is stolen or forbidden.
It is a mistake to suppose that this is an indication of viciousness or
perversity. It appears to be an impulse that occurs quite naturally in
altogether innocent women. The exciting charm of the risky and dangerous
naturally arises on a background of feminine shyness and timidity. We may
trace its recognition at a very early stage of history in the story of Eve
and the forbidden fruit that has so often been the symbol of the masculine
organs of sex. It is on this ground that many have argued the folly of
laying external restrictions on women in matters of love. Thus in quoting
the great Italian writer who afterwards became Pope Pius II, Robert Burton
remarked: "I am of Æneas Sylvius' mind, 'Those jealous Italians do very
ill to lock up their wives; for women are of such a disposition they will
mostly covet that which is denied most, and offend least when they have
free liberty to trespass.'"[20]
It is the spontaneous and natural instinct of the lover to desire modesty
in his mistress, and by no means any calculated opinion on his part that
modesty is the sign of sexual emotion. It remains true, however, that
modesty is an expression of feminine erotic impulse. We have here one of
the instances, of which there, are so many, of that curious and
instinctive harmony by which Nature has sought the more effectively to
bring about the ends of courtship. As to the fact itself there can be
little doubt. It constantly forces itself on the notice of careful
observers, and has long been decided in the affirmative by those who have
discussed the matter. Venette, one of the earliest writers on the
psychology of sex, after discussing the question at length, decided that
the timid woman is a more ardent lover than the bold woman.[21] "It is the
most pudent girl," remarked Restif de la Bretonne whose experience of
women was so extensive, "the girl who blushes most, who is most disposed
to the pleasures of love," he adds that, in girls and boys alike, shyness
is a premature consciousness of sex.[22] This observation has even become
embodied in popular proverbs. "Do as the lasses do--say no, but take it,"
is a Scotch saying, to which corresponds the Welsh saying, "The more
prudish the more unchaste."[23]
It is not, at first, quite clear why an excessively shy and
modest woman should be the most apt for intimate relationships
with a man, and in such a case the woman is often charged with
hypocrisy. There is, however, no hypocrisy in the matter. The shy
and reserved woman holds herself aloof from intimacy in ordinary
friendship, because she is acutely sensitive to the judgments of
others, and fears that any seemingly immodest action may make an
unfavorable opinion. With a lover, however, in whose eyes she
feels assured that her actions can not be viewed unfavorably,
these barriers of modesty fall down, and the resulting intimacy
becomes all the more fascinating to the woman because of its
contrast with the extreme reserve she is impelled to maintain in
other relationships. It thus happens that many modest women who,
in non-sexual relationships with their own sex, are not able to
act with the physical unreserve not uncommon with women among
themselves, yet feel no such reserve with a man, when they are
once confident of his good opinion. Much the same is true of
modest and sensitive men in their relations with women.
This fundamental animal factor of modesty, rooted in the natural facts of
the sexual life of the higher mammals, and especially man, obviously will
not explain all the phenomena of modesty. We must turn to the other great
primary element of modesty, the social factor.
We cannot doubt that one of the most primitive and universal of the social
characteristics of man is an aptitude for disgust, founded, as it is, on a
yet more primitive and animal aptitude for disgust, which has little or no
social significance. In nearly all races, even the most savage, we seem
to find distinct traces of this aptitude for disgust in the presence of
certain actions of others, an emotion naturally reflected in the
individual's own actions, and hence a guide to conduct. Notwithstanding
our gastric community of disgust with lower animals, it is only in man
that this disgust seems to become transformed and developed, to possess a
distinctly social character, and to serve as a guide to social
conduct.[24] The objects of disgust vary infinitely according to the
circumstances and habits of particular races, but the reaction of disgust
is fundamental throughout.
The best study of the phenomena of disgust known to me is, without doubt,
Professor Richet's.[25] Richet concludes that it is the _dangerous_ and
the _useless_ which evoke disgust. The digestive and sexual excretions and
secretions, being either useless or, in accordance with widespread
primitive ideas, highly dangerous, the genito-anal region became a
concentrated focus of disgust.[26] It is largely for this reason, no
doubt, that savage men exhibit modesty, not only toward women, but toward
their own sex, and that so many of the lowest savages take great
precautions in obtaining seclusion for the fulfillment of natural
functions. The statement, now so often made, that the primary object of
clothes is to accentuate, rather than to conceal, has in it--as I shall
point out later--a large element of truth, but it is by no means a
complete account of the matter. It seems difficult not to admit that,
alongside the impulse to accentuate sexual differences, there is also in
both men and women a genuine impulse to concealment among the most
primitive peoples, and the invincible repugnance often felt by savages to
remove the girdle or apron, is scarcely accounted for by the theory that
it is solely a sexual lure.
In this connection it seems to me instructive to consider a special form
of modesty very strongly marked among savages in some parts of the world.
I refer to the feeling of immodesty in eating. Where this feeling exists,
modesty is offended when one eats in public; the modest man retires to
eat. Indecency, said Cook, was utterly unknown among the Tahitians; but
they would not eat together; even brothers and sisters had their separate
baskets of provisions, and generally sat some yards apart, with their
backs to each other, when they ate.[27] The Warrua of Central Africa,
Cameron found, when offered a drink, put up a cloth before their faces
while they swallowed it, and would not allow anyone to see them eat or
drink; so that every man or woman must have his own fire and cook for
himself.[28] Karl von den Steinen remarks, in his interesting book on
Brazil, that though the Bakairi of Central Brazil have no feeling of shame
about nakedness, they are ashamed to eat in public; they retire to eat,
and hung their heads in shame-faced confusion when they saw him innocently
eat in public. Hrolf Vaughan Stevens found that, when he gave an Orang
Laut (Malay) woman anything to eat, she not only would not eat it if her
husband were present, but if any man were present she would go outside
before eating or giving her children to eat.[29] Thus among these peoples
the act of eating in public produces the same feelings as among ourselves
the indecent exposure of the body in public.[30]
It is quite easy to understand how this arises. Whenever there is any
pressure on the means of subsistence, as among savages at some time or
another there nearly always is, it must necessarily arouse a profound and
mixed emotion of desire and disgust to see another person putting into his
stomach what one might just as well have put into one's own.[31] The
special secrecy sometimes observed by women is probably due to the fact
that women would be less able to resist the emotions that the act of
eating would arouse in onlookers. As social feeling develops, a man
desires not only to eat in safety, but also to avoid being an object of
disgust, and to spare his friends all unpleasant emotions. Hence it
becomes a requirement of ordinary decency to eat in private. A man who
eats in public becomes--like the man who in our cities exposes his person
in public--an object of disgust and contempt.
Long ago, when a hospital student on midwifery duty in London slums, I had
occasion to observe that among the women of the poor, and more especially
in those who had lost the first bloom of youth, modesty consisted chiefly
in the fear of being disgusting. There was an almost pathetic anxiety, in
the face of pain and discomfort, not to be disgusting in the doctor's
eyes. This anxiety expressed itself in the ordinary symptoms of modesty.
But, as soon as the woman realized that I found nothing disgusting in
whatever was proper and necessary to be done under the circumstances, it
almost invariably happened that every sign of modesty at once
disappeared.[32] In the special and elementary conditions of parturition,
modesty is reduced to this one fear of causing disgust; so that, when that
is negated, the emotion is non-existent, and the subject becomes, without
effort, as direct and natural as a little child. A fellow-student on
similar duty, who also discovered for himself the same character of
modesty--that if he was careful to guard her modesty the woman was careful
also, and that if he was not the woman was not--remarked on it to me with
sadness; it seemed to him derogatory to womanhood that what he had been
accustomed to consider its supreme grace should be so superficial that he
could at will set limits to it.[33] I thought then, as I think still, that
that was rather a perversion of the matter, and that nothing becomes
degrading because we happen to have learned something about its
operations. But I am more convinced than ever that the fear of causing
disgust--a fear quite distinct from that of losing a sexual lure or
breaking a rule of social etiquette--plays a very large part in the
modesty of the more modest sex, and in modesty generally. Our Venuses, as
Lucretius long since remarked and Montaigne after him, are careful to
conceal from their lovers the _vita postscenia_, and that fantastic fate
which placed so near together the supreme foci of physical attraction and
physical repugnance, has immensely contributed to build up all the
subtlest coquetries of courtship. Whatever stimulates self-confidence and
lulls the fear of evoking disgust--whether it is the presence of a beloved
person in whose good opinion complete confidence is felt, or whether it is
merely the grosser narcotizing influence of a slight degree of
intoxication--always automatically lulls the emotion of modesty.[34]
Together with the animal factor of sexual refusal, this social fear of
evoking disgust seems to me the most fundamental element in modesty.
It is, of course, impossible to argue that the fact of the sacro-pubic
region of the body being the chief focus of concealment proves the
importance of this factor of modesty. But it may fairly be argued that it
owes this position not merely to being the sexual centre, but also as
being the excretory centre. Even among many lower mammals, as well as
among birds and insects, there is a well-marked horror of dirt, somewhat
disguised by the varying ways in which an animal may be said to define
"dirt." Many animals spend more time and energy in the duties of
cleanliness than human beings, and they often show well-marked anxiety to
remove their own excrement, or to keep away from it.[35] Thus this element
of modesty also may be said to have an animal basis.
It is on this animal basis that the human and social fear of arousing
disgust has developed. Its probably wide extension is indicated not only
by the strong feeling attached to the constant presence of clothing on
this part of the body,--such constant presence being quite uncalled for if
the garment or ornament is merely a sort of sexual war-paint,--but by the
repugnance felt by many savages very low down in the scale to the public
satisfaction of natural needs, and to their more than civilized
cleanliness in this connection;[36] it is further of interest to note that
in some parts of the world the covering is not in front, but behind;
though of this fact there are probably other explanations. Among civilized
people, also, it may be added, the final and invincible seat of modesty is
sometimes not around the pubes, but the anus; that is to say, that in such
cases the fear of arousing disgust is the ultimate and most fundamental
element of modesty.[37]
The concentration of modesty around the anus is sometimes very
marked. Many women feel so high a degree of shame and reserve
with regard to this region, that they are comparatively
indifferent to an anterior examination of the sexual organs. A
similar feeling is not seldom found in men. "I would permit of an
examination of my genitals by a medical man, without any feeling
of discomfort," a correspondent writes, "but I think I would
rather die than submit to any rectal examination." Even
physicians have been known to endure painful rectal disorders for
years, rather than undergo examination.
"Among ordinary English girls," a medical correspondent writes,
"I have often noticed that the dislike and shame of allowing a
man to have sexual intercourse with them, when newly married, is
simply due to the fact that the sexual aperture is so closely
apposed to the anus and bladder. If the vulva and vagina were
situated between a woman's shoulder blades, and a man had a
separate instrument for coitus, not used for any excretory
purpose, I do not think women would feel about intercourse as
they sometimes do. Again, in their ignorance of anatomy, women
often look upon the vagina and womb as part of the bowel and its
exit of discharge, and sometimes say, for instance,
'inflammation of the _bowel_', when they mean _womb_. Again,
many, perhaps most, women believe that they pass water through
the vagina, and are ignorant of the existence of the separate
urethral orifice. Again, women associate the vulva with the anus,
and so feel ashamed of it; even when speaking to their husbands,
or to a doctor, or among themselves; they have absolutely no name
for the vulva (I mean among the upper classes, and people of
gentle birth), but speak of it as 'down below,' 'low down,' etc."
Even though this feeling is largely based on wrong and ignorant
ideas, it must still be recognized that it is to some extent
natural and inevitable. "How much is risked," exclaims Dugas, "in
the privacies of love! The results may be disillusion, disgust,
the consciousness of physical imperfection, of brutality or
coldness, of æsthetic disenchantment, of a sentimental shock,
seen or divined. To be without modesty, that is to say, to have
no fear of the ordeals of love, one must be sure of one's self,
of one's grace, of one's physical emotions, of one's feelings,
and be sure, moreover, of the effect of all these on the nerves,
the imagination, and the heart of another person. Let us suppose
modesty reduced to æsthetic discomfort, to a woman's fear of
displeasing, or of not seeming beautiful enough. Even thus
defined, how can modesty avoid being always awake and restless?
What woman could repeat, without risk, the tranquil action of
Phryne? And even in that action, who knows how much may not have
been due to mere professional insolence!" (Dugas, "La Pudeur,"
_Revue Philosophique_, November, 1903.) "Men and Women," Schurtz
points out (_Altersklassen und Männerbünde_, pp. 41-51), "have
certainly the capacity mutually to supplement and enrich each
other; but when this completion fails, or is not sought, the
difference may easily become a strong antipathy;" and he proceeds
to develop the wide-reaching significance of this psychic fact.
I have emphasized the proximity of the excretory centres to the sexual
focus in discussing this important factor of modesty, because, in
analyzing so complex and elusive an emotion as modesty it is desirable to
keep as near as possible to the essential and fundamental facts on which
it is based. It is scarcely necessary to point out that, in ordinary
civilized society, these fundamental facts are not usually present at the
surface of consciousness and may even be absent altogether; on the
foundation of them may arise all sorts of idealized fears, of delicate
reserves, of æsthetic refinements, as the emotions of love become more
complex and more subtle, and the crude simplicity of the basis on which
they finally rest becomes inevitably concealed.
Another factor of modesty, which reaches a high development in savagery,
is the ritual element, especially the idea of ceremonial uncleanness,
based on a dread of the supernatural influences which the sexual organs
and functions are supposed to exert. It may be to some extent rooted in
the elements already referred to, and it leads us into a much wider field
than that of modesty, so that it is only necessary to touch slightly on it
here; it has been exhaustively studied by Frazer and by Crawley. Offences
against the ritual rendered necessary by this mysterious dread, though
more serious than offences against sexual reticence or the fear of causing
disgust, are so obviously allied that they all reinforce one another and
cannot easily be disentangled.
Nearly everywhere all over the world at a primitive stage of thought, and
even to some extent in the highest civilization, the sight of the sexual
organs or of the sexual act, the image or even the names of the sexual
parts of either man or woman, are believed to have a curiously potent
influence, sometimes beneficent, but quite as often maleficent. The two
kinds of influence may even be combined, and Riedel, quoted by Ploss and
Bartels,[38] states that the Ambon islanders carve a schematic
representation of the vulva on their fruit trees, in part to promote the
productiveness of the trees, and in part to scare any unauthorized person
who might be tempted to steal the fruit. The precautions prescribed as
regards coitus at Loango[39] are evidently associated with religious
fears. In Ceylon, again (as a medical correspondent there informs me),
where the penis is worshipped and held sacred, a native never allows it to
be seen, except under compulsion, by a doctor, and even a wife must
neither see it nor touch it nor ask for coitus, though she must grant as
much as the husband desires. All savage and barbarous peoples who have
attained any high degree of ceremonialism have included the functions not
only of sex, but also of excretion, more or less stringently within the
bounds of that ceremonialism.[40] It is only necessary to refer to the
Jewish ritual books of the Old Testament, to Hesiod, and to the customs
prevalent among Mohammedan peoples. Modesty in eating, also, has its roots
by no means only in the fear of causing disgust, but very largely in this
kind of ritual, and Crawley has shown how numerous and frequent among
primitive peoples are the religious implications of eating and
drinking.[41] So profound is this dread of the sacred mystery of sex, and
so widespread is the ritual based upon it, that some have imagined that
here alone we may find the complete explanation of modesty, and Salomon
Reinach declares that "at the origin of the emotion of modesty lies a
taboo."[42]
Durkheim ("La Prohibition de l'Inceste," _L'Année Sociologique_,
1898, p. 50), arguing that whatever sense of repugnance women may
inspire must necessarily reach the highest point around the womb,
which is hence subjected to the most stringent taboo,
incidentally suggests that here is an origin of modesty. "The
sexual organs must be veiled at an early period, to prevent the
dangerous effluvia which they give off from reaching the
environment. The veil is often a method of intercepting magic
action. Once constituted, the practice would be maintained and
transformed."
It was doubtless as a secondary and derived significance that the
veil became, as Reinach ("Le Voile de l'Oblation," op. cit., pp.
299-311) shows it was, alike among the Romans and in the Catholic
Church, the sign of consecration to the gods.
At an early stage of culture, again, menstruation is regarded as a process
of purification, a dangerous expulsion of vitiated humors. Hence the term
_katharsis_ applied to it by the Greeks. Hence also the mediæval view of
women: "_Mulier speciosa templum ædificatum super cloacam_," said
Boethius. The sacro-pubic region in women, because it includes the source
of menstruation, thus becomes a specially heightened seat of taboo.
According to the Mosiac law (Leviticus, Chapter XX, v. 18), if a man
uncovered a menstruating woman, both were to be cut off.
It is probable that the Mohammedan custom of veiling the face and head
really has its source solely in another aspect of this ritual factor of
modesty. It must be remembered that this custom is not Mohammedan in its
origin, since it existed long previously among the Arabians, and is
described by Tertullian.[43] In early Arabia very handsome men also veiled
their faces, in order to preserve themselves from the evil eye, and it has
been conjectured with much probability that the origin of the custom of
women veiling their faces may be traced to this magico-religious
precaution.[44] Among the Jews of the same period, according to
Büchler,[45] the women had their heads covered and never cut their hair;
to appear in the streets without such covering would be like a prostitute
and was adequate ground for divorce; adulterous women were punished by
uncovering their heads and cutting their hair. It is possible, though not
certain, that St. Paul's obscure injunction to women to cover their heads
"because of the angels," may really be based on the ancient reason, that
when uncovered they would be exposed to the wanton assaults of spirits (1
Corinthians, Ch. XI, vv. 5-6),[46] exactly as Singhalese women believe
that they must keep the vulva covered lest demons should have intercourse
with them. Even at the present day St. Paul's injunction is still observed
by Christendom, which is, however, far from accepting, or even perhaps
understanding, the folk-lore ground on which are based such injunctions.
Crawley thus summarizes some of the evidence concerning the
significance of the veil:--
"Sexual shyness, not only in woman, but in man, is intensified at
marriage, and forms a chief feature of the dangerous sexual
properties mutually feared. When fully ceremonial, the idea takes
on the meaning that satisfaction of these feelings will lead to
their neutralization, as, in fact, it does. The bridegroom in
ancient Sparta supped on the wedding night at the men's mess, and
then visited his bride, leaving her before daybreak. This
practice was continued, and sometimes children were born before
the pair had ever seen each other's faces by day. At weddings in
the Babar Islands, the bridegroom has to hunt for his bride in a
darkened room. This lasts a good while if she is shy. In South
Africa, the bridegroom may not see his bride till the whole of
the marriage ceremonies have been performed. In Persia, a husband
never sees his wife till he has consummated the marriage. At
marriages in South Arabia, the bride and bridegroom have to sit
immovable in the same position from noon till midnight, fasting,
in separate rooms. The bride is attended by ladies, and the groom
by men. They may not see each other till the night of the fourth
day. In Egypt, the groom cannot see the face of his bride, even
by a surreptitious glance, till she is in his absolute
possession. Then comes the ceremony, which he performs, of
uncovering her face. In Egypt, of course, this has been
accentuated by the seclusion and veiling of women. In Morocco, at
the feast before the marriage, the bride and groom sit together
on a sort of throne; all the time, the poor bride's eyes are
firmly closed, and she sits amidst the revelry as immovable as a
statue. On the next day is the marriage. She is conducted after
dark to her future home, accompanied by a crowd with lanterns and
candles. She is led with closed eyes along the street by two
relatives, each holding one of her hands. The bride's head is
held in its proper position by a female relative, who walks
behind her. She wears a veil, and is not allowed to open her eyes
until she is set on the bridal bed, with a girl friend beside
her. Amongst the Zulus, the bridal party proceeds to the house of
the groom, having the bride hidden amongst them. They stand
facing the groom, while the bride sings a song. Her companions
then suddenly break away, and she is discovered standing in the
middle, with a fringe of beads covering her face. Amongst the
people of Kumaun, the husband sees his wife first after the
joining of hands. Amongst the Bedui of North East Africa, the
bride is brought on the evening of the wedding-day by her girl
friends, to the groom's house. She is closely muffled up. Amongst
the Jews of Jerusalem, the bride, at the marriage ceremony,
stands under the nuptial canopy, her eyes being closed, that she
may not behold the face of her future husband before she reaches
the bridal chamber. In Melanesia, the bride is carried to her new
home on some one's back, wrapped in many mats, with palm-fans
held about her face, because she is supposed to be modest and
shy. Among the Damaras, the groom cannot see his bride for four
days after marriage. When a Damara woman is asked in marriage,
she covers her face for a time with the flap of a headdress made
for this purpose. At the Thlinkeet marriage ceremony, the bride
must look down, and keep her head bowed all the time; during the
wedding-day, she remains hiding in a corner of the house, and the
groom is forbidden to enter. At a Yezedee marriage, the bride is
covered from head to foot with a thick veil, and when arrived at
her new home, she retires behind a curtain in the corner of a
darkened room, where she remains for three days before her
husband is permitted to see her. In Corea, the bride has to cover
her face with her long sleeves, when meeting the bridegroom at
the wedding. The Manchurian bride uncovers her face for the first
time when she descends from the nuptial couch. It is dangerous
even to see dangerous persons. Sight is a method of contagion in
primitive science, and the idea coincides with the psychological
aversion to see dangerous things, and with sexual shyness and
timidity. In the customs noticed, we can distinguish the feeling
that it is dangerous to the bride for her husband's eyes to be
upon her, and the feeling of bashfulness in her which induces her
neither to see him nor to be seen by him. These ideas explain the
origin of the bridal veil and similar concealments. The bridal
veil is used, to take a few instances, in China, Burmah, Corea,
Russia, Bulgaria, Manchuria, and Persia, and in all these cases
it conceals the face entirely." (E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_,
pp. 328 et seq.)
Alexander Walker, writing in 1846, remarks: "Among old-fashioned
people, of whom a good example may be found in old country people
of the middle class in England, it is indecent to be seen with
the head unclothed; such a woman is terrified at the chance of
being seen In that condition, and if intruded on at that time,
she shrieks with terror, and flies to conceal herself." (A.
Walker, _Beauty_, p. 15.) This fear of being seen with the head
uncovered exists still, M. Van Gennep informs me, in some regions
of France, as in Brittany.
So far it has only been necessary to refer incidentally to the connection
of modesty with clothing. I have sought to emphasize the unquestionable,
but often forgotten, fact that modesty is in its origin independent of
clothing, that physiological modesty takes precedence of anatomical
modesty, and that the primary factors of modesty were certainly developed
long before the discovery of either ornament or garments. The rise of
clothing probably had its first psychical basis on an emotion of modesty
already compositely formed of the elements we have traced. Both the main
elementary factors, it must be noted, must naturally tend to develop and
unite in a more complex, though--it may well be--much less intense,
emotion. The impulse which leads the female animal, as it leads some
African women when found without their girdles, to squat firmly down on
the earth, becomes a more refined and extended play of gesture and
ornament and garment. A very notable advance, I may remark, is made when
this primary attitude of defence against the action of the male becomes a
defence against his eyes. We may thus explain the spread of modesty to
various parts of the body, even when we exclude the more special influence
of the evil eye. The breasts very early become a focus of modesty in
women; this may be observed among many naked, or nearly naked, negro
races; the tendency of the nates to become the chief seat of modesty in
many parts of Africa may probably be, in large part, thus explained, since
the full development of the gluteal regions is often the greatest
attraction an African woman can possess.[47] The same cause contributes,
doubtless, to the face becoming, in some races, the centre of modesty. We
see the influence of this defence against strange eyes in the special
precautions in gesture or clothing taken by the women in various parts of
the world, against the more offensive eyes of civilized Europeans.
But in thus becoming directed only against sight, and not against action,
the gestures of modesty are at once free to become merely those of
coquetry. When there is no real danger of offensive action, there is no
need for more than playful defence, and no serious anxiety should that
defence be taken as a disguised invitation. Thus the road is at once fully
open toward the most civilized manifestations of the comedy of courtship.
In the same way the social fear of arousing disgust combines easily and
perfectly with any new development in the invention of ornament or
clothing as sexual lures. Even among the most civilized races it has often
been noted that the fashion of feminine garments (as also sometimes the
use of scents) has the double object of concealing and attracting. It is
so with the little apron of the young savage belle. The heightening of the
attraction is, indeed, a logical outcome of the fear of evoking disgust.
It is possible, as some ethnographists have observed,[48] that intercrural
cords and other primitive garments have a physical ground, inasmuch as
they protect the most sensitive and unprotected part of the body,
especially in women. We may note in this connection the significant
remarks of K. von den Steinen, who argues that among Brazilian tribes the
object of the _uluri_, etc., is to obtain a maximum of protection for the
mucous membrane with a minimum of concealment. Among the Eskimo, as Nansen
noted, the corresponding intercrural cord is so thin as to be often
practically invisible; this may be noted, I may add, in the excellent
photographs of Eskimo women given by Holm.
But it is evident that, in the beginning, protection is to little or no
extent the motive for attaching foreign substances to the body. Thus the
tribes of Central Australia wear no clothes, although they often suffer
from the cold. But, in addition to armlets, neck-bands and head-bands,
they have string or hair girdles, with, for the women, a very small apron
and, for the men, a pubic tassel. The latter does not conceal the organs,
being no larger than a coin, and often brilliantly coated with white
pipeclay, especially during the progress of _corrobborees_, when a large
number of men and women meet together; it serves the purpose of drawing
attention to the organs.[49] When Forster visited the unspoilt islanders
of the Pacific early in the eighteenth century, he tells us that, though
they wore no clothes, they found it necessary to cover themselves with
various ornaments, especially on, the sexual parts. "But though their
males," he remarks, "were to all appearances equally anxious in this
respect with their females, this part of their dress served only to make
that more conspicuous which it intended to hide."[50] He adds the
significant remark that "these ideas of decency and modesty are only
observed at the age of sexual maturity," just as in Central Australia
women may only wear aprons after the initiation of puberty.
"There are certain things," said Montaigne, "which are hidden in order to
be shown;" and there can be no doubt that the contention of Westermarck
and others, that ornament and clothing were, in the first place, intended,
not to conceal or even to protect the body, but, in large part, to render
it sexually attractive, is fully proved.[51] We cannot, in the light of
all that has gone before, regard ornaments and clothing as the sole cause
of modesty, but the feelings that are thus gathered around the garment
constitute a highly important factor of modesty.
Among some Australian tribes it is said that the sexual organs
are only covered during their erotic dances; and it is further
said that in some parts of the world only prostitutes are
clothed. "The scanty covering," as Westermarck observes, "was
found to act as the most powerful obtainable sexual stimulus." It
is undoubtedly true that this statement may be made not merely of
the savage, but of the most civilized world. All observers agree
that the complete nudity of savages, unlike the civilized
_décolleté_ or _détroussé_, has no suggestion of sexual
allurement. (Westermarck quotes numerous testimonies on this
point, op. cit., pp. 192 et seq.) Dr. R.W. Felkin remarks
concerning Central Africa, that he has never met more indecency
than in Uganda, where the penalty of death is inflicted on an
adult found naked in the street. (_Edinburgh Medical Journal_,
April, 1884.) A study of pictures or statuary will alone serve to
demonstrate that nakedness is always chaster in its effects than
partial clothing. As a well-known artist, Du Maurier, has
remarked (in _Trilby_), it is "a fact well known to all painters
and sculptors who have used the nude model (except a few shady
pretenders, whose purity, not being of the right sort, has gone
rank from too much watching) that nothing is so chaste as nudity.
Venus herself, as she drops her garments and steps on to the
model-throne, leaves behind her on the floor every weapon in her
armory by which she can pierce to the grosser passions of men."
Burton, in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (Part III, Sect. II,
Subsect. 3), deals at length with the "Allurements of Love," and
concludes that "the greatest provocations of lust are from our
apparel." The artist's model, as one informs me, is much less
exposed to liberties from men when nude than when she is
partially clothed, and it may be noted that in Paris studios the
model who poses naked undresses behind a screen.
An admirable poetic rendering of this element in the philosophy
of clothing has been given by Herrick, that master of erotic
psychology, in "A Lily in Crystal," where he argues that a lily
in crystal, and amber in a stream, and strawberries in cream,
gain an added delight from semi-concealment; and so, he
concludes, we obtain
"A rule, how far, to teach,
Your nakedness must reach."
In this connection, also, it is worth noting that Stanley Hall,
in a report based on returns from nearly a thousand persons,
mostly teachers, ("The Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of
Psychology_, 1898, p. 366), finds that of the three functions of
clothes--protection, ornament, and Lotzean "self-feeling"--the
second is by far the most conspicuous in childhood. The attitude
of children is testimony to the primitive attitude toward
clothing.
It cannot, however, be said that the use of clothing for the sake
of showing the natural forms of the body has everywhere been
developed. In Japan, where nakedness is accepted without shame,
clothes are worn to cover and conceal, and not to reveal, the
body. It is so, also, in China. A distinguished Chinese
gentleman, who had long resided in Europe, once told Baelz that
he had gradually learnt to grasp the European point of view, but
that it would be impossible to persuade his fellow-countrymen
that a woman who used her clothes to show off her figure could
possibly possess the least trace of modesty. (Baelz, _Zeitschrift
für Ethnologie_, 1901, Heft 2, p. 179.)
The great artistic elaboration often displayed by articles of ornament or
clothing, even when very small, and the fact--as shown by Karl von den
Steinen regarding the Brazilian _uluri_--that they may serve as common
motives in general decoration, sufficiently prove that such objects
attract rather than avoid attention. And while there is an invincible
repugnance among some peoples to remove these articles, such repugnance
being often strongest when the adornment is most minute, others have no
such repugnance or are quite indifferent whether or not their aprons are
accurately adjusted. The mere presence or possession of the article gives
the required sense of self-respect, of human dignity, of sexual
desirability. Thus it is that to unclothe a person, is to humiliate him;
this was so even in Homeric times, for we may recall the threat of
Ulysses to strip Thyestes.[52]
When clothing is once established, another element, this time a
social-economic element, often comes in to emphasize its importance and
increase the anatomical modesty of women. I mean the growth of the
conception of women as property. Waitz, followed by Schurtz and
Letourneau, has insisted that the jealousy of husbands is the primary
origin of clothing, and, indirectly, of modesty. Diderot in the eighteenth
century had already given clear expression to the same view. It is
undoubtedly true that only married women are among some peoples clothed,
the unmarried women, though full grown, remaining naked. In many parts of
the world, also, as Mantegazza and others have shown, where the men are
naked and the women covered, clothing is regarded as a sort of disgrace,
and men can only with difficulty be persuaded to adopt it. Before marriage
a woman was often free, and not bound to chastity, and at the same time
was often naked; after marriage she was clothed, and no longer free. To
the husband's mind, the garment appears--illogically, though naturally--a
moral and physical protection against any attack on his property.[53] Thus
a new motive was furnished, this time somewhat artificially, for making
nakedness, in women at all events, disgraceful. As the conception of
property also extended to the father's right over his daughters, and the
appreciation of female chastity developed, this motive spread to unmarried
as well as married women. A woman on the west coast of Africa must always
be chaste because she is first the property of her parents and afterwards
of her husband,[54] and even in the seventeenth century of Christendom so
able a thinker as Bishop Burnet furnished precisely the same reason for
feminine chastity.[55] This conception probably constituted the chief and
most persistent element furnished to the complex emotion of modesty by the
barbarous stages of human civilization.
This economic factor necessarily involved the introduction of a new moral
element into modesty. If a woman's chastity is the property of another
person, it is essential that she shall be modest in order that men may not
be tempted to incur the penalties involved by the infringement of property
rights. Thus modesty is strictly inculcated on women in order that men may
be safeguarded from temptation. The fact was overlooked that modesty is
itself a temptation. Immodesty being, on this ground, disapproved by men,
a new motive for modesty is furnished to women. In the book which the
Knight of the Tower, Landry, wrote in the fourteenth century, for the
instruction of his daughters, this factor of modesty is naïvely revealed.
He tells his daughters of the trouble that David got into through the
thoughtlessness of Bathsheba, and warns them that "every woman ought
religiously to conceal herself when dressing and washing, and neither out
of vanity nor yet to attract attention show either her hair, or her neck,
or her breast, or any part which ought to be covered." Hinton went so far
as to regard what he termed "body modesty," as entirely a custom imposed
upon women by men with the object of preserving their own virtue. While
this motive is far from being the sole source of modesty, it must
certainly be borne in mind as an inevitable outcome of the economic factor
of modesty.
In Europe it seems probable that the generally accepted conceptions of
mediæval chivalry were not without influence in constituting the forms in
which modesty shows itself among us. In the early middle ages there seems
to have been a much greater degree of physical familiarity between the
sexes than is commonly found among barbarians elsewhere. There was
certainly considerable promiscuity in bathing and indifference to
nakedness. It seems probable, as Durkheim points out,[56] that this state
of things was modified in part by the growing force of the dictates of
Christian morality, which regarded all intimate approaches between the
sexes as sinful, and in part by the influence of chivalry with its
æsthetic and moral ideals of women, as the representative of all the
delicacies and elegancies of civilization. This ideal was regarded as
incompatible with the familiarities of the existing social relationships
between the sexes, and thus a separation, which at first existed only in
art and literature, began by a curious reaction to exert an influence on
real life.
The chief new feature--it is scarcely a new element--added to modesty when
an advanced civilization slowly emerges from barbarism is the elaboration
of its social ritual.[57] Civilization expands the range of modesty, and
renders it, at the same time, more changeable. The French seventeenth
century, and the English eighteenth, represent early stages of modern
European civilization, and they both devoted special attention to the
elaboration of the minute details of modesty. The frequenters of the Hotel
Rambouillet, the _précieuses_ satirized by Molière, were not only engaged
in refining the language; they were refining feelings and ideas and
enlarging the boundaries of modesty.[58] In England such famous and
popular authors as Swift and Sterne bear witness to a new ardor of modesty
in the sudden reticences, the dashes, and the asterisks, which are found
throughout their works. The altogether new quality of literary prurience,
of which Sterne is still the classical example, could only have arisen on
the basis of the new modesty which was then overspreading society and
literature. Idle people, mostly, no doubt, the women in _salons_ and
drawing-rooms, people more familiar with books than with the realities of
life, now laid down the rules of modesty, and were ever enlarging it, ever
inventing new subtleties of gesture and speech, which it would be immodest
to neglect, and which are ever being rendered vulgar by use and ever
changing.
It was at this time, probably, that the custom of inventing an
arbitrary private vocabulary of words and phrases for the purpose
of disguising references to functions and parts of the body
regarded as immodest and indecent, first began to become common.
Such private slang, growing up independently in families, and
especially among women, as well as between lovers, is now almost
universal. It is not confined to any European country, and has
been studied in Italy by Niceforo (_Il Gergo_, 1897, cap. 1 and
2), who regards it as a weapon of social defence against an
inquisitive or hostile environment, since it enables things to be
said with a meaning which is unintelligible to all but the
initiated person. While it is quite true that the custom is
supported by the consciousness of its practical advantages, it
has another source in a desire to avoid what is felt to be the
vulgar immodesty of direct speech. This is sufficiently shown by
the fact that such slang is mostly concerned with the sacro-pubic
sphere. It is one of the chief contributions to the phenomena of
modesty furnished by civilization. The claims of modesty having
effected the clothing of the body, the impulse of modesty finds a
further sphere of activity--half-playful, yet wholly
imperative--in the clothing of language.
Modesty of speech has, however, a deep and primitive basis,
although in modern Europe it only became conspicuous at the
beginning of the eighteenth century. "All over the world," as
Dufour put it, "to do is good, to say is bad." Reticences of
speech are not adequately accounted for by the statement that
modesty tends to irradiate from the action to the words
describing the action, for there is a tendency for modesty to be
more deeply rooted in the words than in the actions. "Modest
women," as Kleinpaul truly remarks, "have a much greater horror
of saying immodest things than of doing them; they believe that
fig-leaves were especially made for the mouth." (Kleinpaul,
_Sprache ohne Worte_, p. 309.) It is a tendency which is linked
on to the religious and ritual feeling which we have already
found to be a factor of modesty, and which, even when applied to
language, appears to have an almost or quite instinctive basis,
for it is found among the most primitive savages, who very
frequently regard a name as too sacred or dangerous to utter.
Among the tribes of Central Australia, in addition to his
ordinary name, each individual has his sacred or secret name,
only known to the older and fully initiated members of his own
totemic group; among the Warramunga, it is not permitted to women
to utter even a man's ordinary name, though she knows it.
(Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p.
581.) In the mysterious region of sex, this feeling easily takes
root. In many parts of the world, men use among themselves, and
women use among themselves, words and even languages which they
may not use without impropriety in speaking to persons of the
opposite sex, and it has been shown that exogamy, or the fact
that the wife belongs to a different tribe, will not always
account for this phenomenon. (Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, p. 46.)
A special vocabulary for the generative organs and functions is
very widespread. Thus, in northwest Central Queensland, there is
both a decent and an indecent vocabulary for the sexual parts; in
Mitakoodi language, for instance, _me-ne_ may be used for the
vulva in the best aboriginal society, but _koon-ja_ and _pukkil_,
which are names for the same parts, are the most blackguardly
words known to the natives. (W. Roth, _Ethnological Studies Among
the Queensland Aborigines_, p. 184.) Among the Malays, _puki_ is
also a name for the vulva which it is very indecent to utter, and
it is only used in public by people under the influence of an
obsessive nervous disorder. (W. Gilman Ellis, "Latah," _Journal
of Mental Science_, Jan., 1897.) The Swahili women of Africa have
a private metaphorical language of their own, referring to sexual
matters (Zache, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, Heft 2-3, pp.
70 et seq.), and in Samoa, again, young girls have a euphemistic
name for the penis, _aualuma_, which is not that in common use
(_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, Heft 1, p. 31); exactly the
same thing is found in Europe, to-day, and is sometimes more
marked among young peasant women than among those of better
social class, who often avoid, under all circumstances, the
necessity for using any definite name.
Singular as it may seem, the Romans, who in their literature
impress us by their vigorous and naked grip of the most private
facts of life, showed in familiar intercourse a dread of obscene
language--a dread ultimately founded, it is evident, on religious
grounds--far exceeding that which prevails among ourselves to-day
in civilization. "It is remarkable," Dufour observes, "that the
prostitutes of ancient Rome would have blushed to say an indecent
word in public. The little tender words used between lovers and
their mistresses were not less correct and innocent when the
mistress was a courtesan and the lover an erotic poet. He called
her his rose, his queen, his goddess, his dove, his light, his
star, and she replied by calling him her jewel, her honey, her
bird, her ambrosia, the apple of her eye, and never with any
licentious interjection, but only 'I will love!' (_Amabo_), a
frequent exclamation, summing up a whole life and vocation. When
intimate relations began, they treated each other as 'brother'
and 'sister.' These appellations were common among the humblest
and the proudest courtesans alike." (Dufour, _Histoire de la
Prostitution_, vol. ii, p. 78.) So excessive was the Roman horror
of obscenity that even physicians were compelled to use a
euphemism for _urina_, and though the _urinal_ or _vas urinarium_
was openly used at the dining-table (following a custom
introduced by the Sybarites, according to Athenæus, Book XII,
cap. 17), the decorous guest could not ask for it by name, but
only by a snap of the fingers (Dufour, op. cit., vol. ii, p.
174).
In modern Europe, as seems fairly evident from the early
realistic dramatic literature of various countries, no special
horror of speaking plainly regarding the sacro-pubic regions and
their functions existed among the general population until the
seventeenth century. There is, however, one marked exception.
Such a feeling clearly existed as regards menstruation. It is not
difficult to see why it should have begun at this function. We
have here not only a function confined to one sex and, therefore,
easily lending itself to a vocabulary confined to one sex; but,
what is even of more importance, the belief which existed among
the Romans, as elsewhere throughout the world, concerning the
specially dangerous and mysterious properties of menstruation,
survived throughout mediæval times. (See e.g., Ploss and Bartels,
_Das Weib_, Bd. I, XIV; also Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_,
fourth ed. Ch. XI.) The very name, _menses_ ("monthlies"), is a
euphemism, and most of the old scientific names for this function
are similarly vague. As regards popular feminine terminology
previous to the eighteenth century, Schurig gives us fairly ample
information (_Parthenologia_, 1729, pp. 27 et seq.). He remarks
that both in Latin and Germanic countries, menstruation was
commonly designated by some term equivalent to "flowers,"
because, he says, it is a blossoming that indicates the
possibility of fruit. German peasant women, he tells us, called
it the rose-wreath (Rosenkrantz). Among the other current
feminine names for menstruation which he gives, some are purely
fanciful; thus, the Italian women dignified the function with the
title of "marchese magnifico;" German ladies, again, would use
the locution, "I have had a letter," or would say that their
cousin or aunt had arrived. These are closely similar to the
euphemisms still used by women.
It should be added that euphemisms for menstruation are not
confined to Europe, and are found among savages. According to
Hill Tout (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1904, p.
320; and 1905, p. 137), one of these euphemisms was "putting on
the moccasin," and in another branch of the same people, "putting
the knees together," "going outside" (in allusion to the
customary seclusion at this period in a solitary hut), and so on.
It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that this process is an
intensification of modesty. It is, on the contrary, an attenuation of it.
The observances of modesty become merely a part of a vast body of rules of
social etiquette, though a somewhat stringent part on account of the vague
sense still persisting of a deep-lying natural basis. It is a significant
coincidence that the eighteenth century, which was marked by this new
extension of the social ritual of modesty, also saw the first appearance
of a new philosophic impulse not merely to analyze, but to dissolve the
conception of modesty. This took place more especially in France.
The swift rise to supremacy, during the seventeenth century, of logical
and rational methods of thinking, in conjunction with the new development
of geometrical and mathematical science, led in the eighteenth century to
a widespread belief in France that human customs and human society ought
to be founded on a strictly logical and rational basis. It was a belief
which ignored those legitimate claims of the emotional nature which the
nineteenth century afterwards investigated and developed, but it was of
immense service to mankind in clearing away useless prejudices and
superstitions, and it culminated in the reforms of the great Revolution
which most other nations have since been painfully struggling to attain.
Modesty offered a tempting field for the eighteenth century philosophic
spirit to explore.
The manner in which the most distinguished and adventurous minds of the
century approached it, can scarcely be better illustrated than by a
conversation, reported by Madame d'Epinay, which took place in 1750 at the
table of Mlle. Quinault, the eminent actress. "A fine virtue," Duclos
remarked, "which one fastens on in the morning with pins." He proceeded to
argue that "a moral law must hold good always and everywhere, which
modesty does not." Saint-Lambert, the poet, observed that "it must be
acknowledged that one can say nothing good about innocence without being a
little corrupted," and Duclos added "or of modesty without being
impudent." Saint-Lambert finally held forth with much poetic enthusiasm
concerning the desirability of consummating marriages in public.[59] This
view of modesty, combined with the introduction of Greek fashions, gained
ground to such an extent that towards the end of the century women, to the
detriment of their health, were sometimes content to dress in transparent
gauze, and even to walk abroad in the Champs Elysées without any clothing;
that, however, was too much for the public.[60] The final outcome of the
eighteenth century spirit in this direction was, as we know, by no means
the dissolution of modesty. But it led to a clearer realization of what is
permanent in its organic foundations and what is merely temporary in its
shifting manifestations. That is a realization which is no mean task to
achieve, and is difficult for many, even yet. So intelligent a traveler as
Mrs. Bishop (Miss Bird), on her first visit to Japan came to the
conclusion that Japanese women had no modesty, because they had no
objection to being seen naked when bathing. Twenty years later she
admitted to Dr. Baelz that she had made a mistake, and that "a woman may
be naked and yet behave like a lady."[61] In civilized countries the
observances of modesty differ in different regions, and in different
social classes, but, however various the forms may be, the impulse itself
remains persistent.[62]
Modesty has thus come to have the force of a tradition, a vague but
massive force, bearing with special power on those who cannot reason, and
yet having its root in the instincts of all people of all classes.[63] It
has become mainly transformed into the allied emotion of decency, which
has been described as "modesty fossilized into social customs." The
emotion yields more readily than in its primitive state to any
sufficiently-strong motive. Even fashion in the more civilized countries
can easily inhibit anatomical modesty, and rapidly exhibit or accentuate,
in turn, almost any part of the body, while the savage Indian woman of
America, the barbarous woman of some Mohammedan countries, can scarcely
sacrifice her modesty in the pangs of childbirth. Even when, among
uncivilized races, the focus of modesty may be said to be eccentric and
arbitrary, it still remains very rigid. In such savage and barbarous
countries modesty possesses the strength of a genuine and irresistible
instinct. In civilized countries, however, anyone who places
considerations of modesty before the claims of some real human need
excites ridicule and contempt.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Fliess (_Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und weiblichen
Geschlechts-Organen_, p. 194) remarks on the fact that, in the Bible
narrative of Eden, shame and fear are represented as being brought into
the world together: Adam feared God because he was naked. Melinaud
("Psychologie de la Pudeur," _La Revue_, Nov. 15, 1901) remarks that shame
differs from modesty in being, not a fear, but a kind of grief; this
position seems untenable.
[5] Bashfulness in children has been dealt with by Professor Baldwin; see
especially his _Mental Development in the Child and the Race_, Chapter VI,
pp. 146 et seq., and _Social Interpretations in Mental Development_,
Chapter VI.
[6] Bell, "A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love Between the Sexes,"
_American Journal Psychology_, July, 1902.
[7] Professor Starbuck (_Psychology of Religion_, Chapter XXX) refers to
unpublished investigations showing that recognition of the rights of
others also exhibits a sudden increment at the age of puberty.
[8] Perez, _L'Enfant de Trois à Sept Ans_, 1886, pp. 267-277.
[9] It must be remembered that the Medicean Venus is merely a
comparatively recent and familiar embodiment of a natural attitude which
is very ancient, and had impressed sculptors at a far earlier period.
Reinach, indeed, believes ("La Sculpture en Europe," _L'Anthropologie_,
No. 5, 1895) that the hand was first brought to the breast to press out
the milk, and expresses the idea of exuberance, and that the attitude of
the Venus of Medici as a symbol of modesty came later; he remarks that, as
regards both hands, this attitude may be found in a figurine of Cyprus,
2,000 years before Christ. This is, no doubt, correct, and I may add that
Babylonian figurines of Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, represent her as
clasping her hands to her breasts or her womb.
[10] When there is no sexual fear the impulse of modesty may be entirely
inhibited. French ladies under the old Régime (as A. Franklin points out
in his _Vie Privée d'Autrefois_) sometimes showed no modesty towards their
valets, not admitting the possibility of any sexual advance, and a lady
would, for example, stand up in her bath while a valet added hot water by
pouring it between her separated feet.
[11] I do not hereby mean to deny a certain degree of normal periodicity
even to the human male; but such periodicity scarcely involves any element
of sexual fear or attitude of sexual defence, in man because it is too
slight to involve complete latency of the sexual functions, in other
species because latency of sexual function in the male is always
accompanied by corresponding latency in the female.
[12] H. Northcote, _Christianity and the Sex Problem_, p. 8. Crawley had
previously argued (_The Mystic Rose_, pp. 134, 180) that this same
necessity for solitude during the performance of nutritive, sexual, and
excretory functions, is a factor in investing such functions with a
potential sacredness, so that the concealment of them became a religious
duty.
[13] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1878, p. 26.
[14] _Essais_, livre ii, Ch. XV.
[15] _Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. i, p. 89.
[16] Lane, _Arabian Society_, p. 228. The Arab insistence on the value of
virginal modesty is well brought out in one of the most charming stories
of the _Arabian Nights_, "The History of the Mirror of Virginity."
[17] This has especially been emphasized by Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_,
pp. 181, 324 et seq., 353.
[18] _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. II, Heft 8, p. 358.
[19] This, however, is not always or altogether true of experienced women.
Thus, the Russian correspondent already referred to, who as a youth was
accustomed, partly out of shyness, to feign complete ignorance of sexual
matters, informs me that it repeatedly happened to him at this time that
young married women took pleasure in imposing on themselves, not without
shyness but with evident pleasure, the task of initiating him, though they
always hastened to tell him that it was for his good, to preserve him from
bad women and masturbation. Prostitutes, also, often take pleasure in
innocent men, and Hans Ostwald tells (_Sexual-Probleme_, June, 1908, p.
357) of a prostitute who fell violently in love with a youth who had never
known a woman before; she had never met an innocent man before, and it
excited her greatly. And I have been told of an Italian prostitute who
spoke of the exciting pleasure which an unspoilt youth gave her by his
freshness, _tutta questa freschezza_.
[20] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Sect. III. Mem. IV. Subs. I.
[21] N. Venette, _La Génération de l'Homme_, Part II, Ch. X.
[22] _Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. i, p. 94.
[23] Kryptadia, vol. ii, p. 26, 31. Ib. vol. iii, p. 162.
[24] "Modesty is, at first," said Renouvier, "a fear which we have of
displeasing others, and of blushing at our own natural imperfections."
(Renouvier and Prat, _La Nouvelle Monadologie_, p. 221.)
[25] C. Richet, "Les Causes du Dégoût," _L'Homme et l'Intelligence_, 1884.
This eminent physiologist's elaborate study of disgust was not written as
a contribution to the psychology of modesty, but it forms an admirable
introduction to the investigation of the social factor of modesty.
[26] It is interesting to note that where, as among the Eskimo, urine, for
instance, is preserved as a highly-valuable commodity, the act of
urination, even at table, is not regarded as in the slightest degree
disgusting or immodest (Bourke, _Scatologic Rites_, p. 202).
[27] Hawkesworth, _An Account of the Voyages_, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 52.
[28] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol. vi, p. 173.
[29] Stevens, "Mittheilungen aus dem Frauenleben der Orang Belendas,"
_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Heft 4, p. 167, 1896. Crawley, (_Mystic
Rose_, Ch. VIII, p. 439) gives numerous other instances, even in Europe,
with, however, special reference to sexual taboo. I may remark that
English people of lower class, especially women, are often modest about
eating in the presence of people of higher class. This feeling is, no
doubt, due, in part, to the consciousness of defective etiquette, but that
very consciousness is, in part, a development of the fear of causing
disgust, which is a component of modesty.
[30] Shame in regard to eating, it may be added, occasionally appears as a
neurasthenic obsession in civilization, and has been studied as a form of
psychasthenia by Janet. See e.g., (Raymond and Janet, _Les Obsessions et
la Psychasthénie_, vol. ii, p. 386) the case of a young girl of 24, who,
from the age of 12 or 13 (the epoch of puberty) had been ashamed to eat in
public, thinking it nasty and ugly to do so, and arguing that it ought
only to be done in private, like urination.
[31] "Desire and disgust are curiously blended," remarks Crawley (_The
Mystic Rose_, p. 139), "when, with one's own desire unsatisfied, one sees
the satisfaction of another; and here we may see the altruistic stage
beginning; this has two sides, the fear of causing desire in others, and
the fear of causing disgust; in each case, personal isolation is the
psychological result."
[32] Hohenemser argues that the fear of causing disgust cannot be a part
of shame. But he also argues that shame is simply psychic stasis, and it
is quite easy to see, as in the above case, that the fear of causing
disgust is simply a manifestation of psychic stasis. There is a conflict
in the woman's mind between the idea of herself which she has already
given, and the more degraded idea of herself which she fears she is likely
to give, and this conflict is settled when she is made to feel that the
first idea may still be maintained under the new circumstances.
[33] We neither of us knew that we had merely made afresh a very ancient
discovery. Casanova, more than a century ago, quoted the remark of a
friend of his, that the easiest way to overcome the modesty of a woman is
to suppose it non-existent; and he adds a saying, which he attributes to
Clement of Alexandria, that modesty, which seems so deeply rooted in
women, only resides in the linen that covers them, and vanishes when it
vanishes. The passage to which Casanova referred occurs in the
_Pædagogus_, and has already been quoted. The observation seems to have
appealed strongly to the Fathers, always glad to make a point against
women, and I have met with it in Cyprian's _De Habitu Feminarum_. It also
occurs in Jerome's treatise against Jovinian. Jerome, with more scholarly
instinct, rightly presents the remark as a quotation: "_Scribit Herodotus
quod mulier cum veste deponat et verecundiam_." In Herodotus the saying is
attributed to Gyges (Book I, Chapter VIII). We may thus trace very far
back into antiquity an observation which in English has received its
classical expression from Chaucer, who, in his "Wife of Bath's Prologue,"
has:--
"He sayde, a woman cast hir shame away,
When she cast of hir smok."
I need not point out that the analysis of modesty offered above robs this
venerable saying of any sting it may have possessed as a slur upon women.
In such a case, modesty is largely a doubt as to the spectator's attitude,
and necessarily disappears when that doubt is satisfactorily resolved. As
we have seen, the Central Australian maidens were very modest with regard
to the removal of their single garment, but when that removal was
accomplished and accepted, they were fearless.
[34] The same result occurs more markedly under the deadening influence of
insanity. Grimaldi (_Il Manicomio Moderno_, 1888) found that modesty is
lacking in 50 per cent, of the insane.
[35] For some facts bearing on this point, see Houssay, _Industries of
Animals_, Chapter VII. "The Defence and Sanitation of Dwellings;" also P.
Ballion, _De l'Instinct de Propreté chez les Animaux_.
[36] Thus, Stevens mentions (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, p. 182, 1897)
that the Dyaks of Malacca always wash the sexual organs, even after
urination, and are careful to use the left hand in doing so. The left hand
is also reserved for such uses among the Jekris of the Niger coast
(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, p. 122, 1898).
[37] Lombroso and Ferrero--who adopt the derivation of _pudor_ from
_putere_; i.e., from the repugnance caused by the decomposition of the
vaginal secretions--consider that the fear of causing disgust to men is
the sole origin of modesty among savage women, as also it remains the sole
form of modesty among some prostitutes to-day. (_La Donna Delinquente_, p.
540.) Important as this factor is in the constitution of the emotion of
modesty, I need scarcely add that I regard so exclusive a theory as
altogether untenable.
[38] _Das Weib_, Ch. VI.
[39] For references as to a similar feeling among other savages, see
Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 152.
[40] See e.g., Bourke, _Scatologic Rites_, pp. 141, 145, etc.
[41] Crawley, op. cit., Ch. VII.
[42] S, Reinach, _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, p. 172.
[43] Tertullian, _De Virginibus Velandis_, cap. 17. Hottentot women, also
(Fritsch, _Eingeborene Südafrika's_, p. 311), cover their head with a
cloth, and will not be persuaded to remove it.
[44] Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, p. 196. The same custom is
found among Tuareg men though it is not imperative for the women
(Duveyrier, _Les Touaregs du Nord_, p. 291).
[45] Quoted in _Zentralblatt für Anthropologie_, 1906, Heft I, p. 21.
[46] Or rather, perhaps, because the sight of their nakedness might lead
the angels into sin. See W.G. Sumner, _Folkways_, p. 431.
[47] In Moruland, Emin Bey remarked that women are mostly naked, but some
wear a girdle, with a few leaves hanging behind. The women of some negro
tribes, who thus cover themselves behind, if deprived of this sole
covering, immediately throw themselves on the ground on their backs, in
order to hide their nakedness.
[48] E.g., Letourneau, _L'Evolution de la Morale_, p. 146.
[49] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 683.
[50] J.R. Forster, _Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World_,
1728, p. 395.
[51] Westermarck (_History of Human Marriage_, Ch. IX) ably sets forth
this argument, with his usual wealth of illustration. Crawley (_Mystic
Rose_, p. 135) seeks to qualify this conclusion by arguing that tattooing,
etc., of the sex organs is not for ornament but for the purpose of
magically insulating the organs, and is practically a permanent amulet or
charm.
[52] _Iliad_, II, 262. Waitz gives instances (_Anthropology_, p. 301)
showing that nakedness is sometimes a mark of submission.
[53] The Celtic races, in their days of developed barbarism, seem to have
been relatively free from the idea of proprietorship in women, and it was
probably among the Irish (as we learn from the seventeenth century
_Itinerary_ of Fynes Moryson) that the habit of nakedness was longest
preserved among the upper social class women of Western Europe.
[54] A.B. Ellis, _Tshi-Speaking Peoples_, p. 280.
[55] Burnet, _Life and Death of Rochester_, p. 110.
[56] _L'Année Sociologique_, seventh year, 1904, p. 439.
[57] Tallemont des Réaux, who began to write his _Historiettes_ in 1657,
says of the Marquise de Rambouillet: "Elle est un peu trop délicate ... on
n'oscrait prononcer le mot de _cul_. Cela va dans l'excès." Half a century
later, in England, Mandeville, in the Remarks appended to his _Fable of
the Bees_, refers to the almost prudish modesty inculcated on children
from their earliest years.
[58] In one of its civilized developments, this ritualized modesty becomes
prudery, which is defined by Forel (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, Fifth ed., p.
125) as "codified sexual morality." Prudery is fossilized modesty, and no
longer reacts vitally. True modesty, in an intelligent civilized person,
is instinctively affected by motives and circumstances, responding
sensitively to its relationships.
[59] _Memoires de Madame d'Epinay_, Part I, Ch. V. Thirty years earlier,
Mandeville had written, in England, that "the modesty of women is the
result of custom and education."
[60] Goncourt, _Histoire de la Société Française pendant le Directoire_,
p. 422. Clothes became so gauze-like, and receded to such an extent from
the limbs, that for a time the chemise was discarded as an awkward and
antiquated garment.
[61] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1901, Heft 2, p. 179.
[62] In the rural districts of Hanover, Pastor Grashoff states, "even when
natural necessities are performed with the greatest possible freedom,
there is no offence to modesty, in rural opinion." But he makes a
statement which is both contradictory and false, when he adds that
"modesty is, to the country man in general, a foreign idea."
(_Geschlechtlich-Sittliche Verhältnisse im Deutsche Reiche_, vol. ii, p.
45.)
[63] It is frequently stated that prostitutes are devoid of modesty, but
this is incorrect; they possess a partial and diminished modesty which,
for a considerable period still remains genuine (see e.g., Reuss, _La
Prostitution_, p. 58). Lombroso and Ferrero (_La Donna_, p. 540) refer to
the objection of prostitutes to be examined during the monthly periods as
often greater than that of respectable women. Again, Callari states
("Prostituzione in Sicilia," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1903, p. 205),
that Sicilian prostitutes can only with difficulty be persuaded to expose
themselves naked in the practice of their profession. Aretino long since
remarked (in _La Pippa_) that no women so detest gratuitous _décolletage_
as prostitutes. When prostitutes do not possess modesty, they frequently
simulate it, and Ferriani remarks (in his _Delinquenti Minorenni_) that of
ninety-seven minors (mostly females) accused of offences against public
decency, seventy-five simulated a modesty which, in his opinion, they were
entirely without.
III.
The Blush the Sanction of Modesty--The Phenomena of Blushing--Influences
Which Modify the Aptitude to Blush--Darkness, Concealment of the Face,
Etc.
It is impossible to contemplate this series of phenomena, so radically
persistent whatever its changes of form, and so constant throughout every
stage of civilization, without feeling that, although modesty cannot
properly be called an instinct, there must be some physiological basis to
support it. Undoubtedly such a basis is formed by that vasomotor mechanism
of which the most obvious outward sign is, in human beings, the blush. All
the allied emotional forms of fear--shame, bashfulness, timidity--are to
some extent upheld by this mechanism, but such is especially the case with
the emotion we are now concerned with.[64] The blush is the sanction of
modesty.
The blush is, indeed, only a part, almost, perhaps, an accidental
part, of the organic turmoil with which it is associated.
Partridge, who has studied the phenomena of blushing in one
hundred and twenty cases (_Pedagogical Seminary_, April, 1897),
finds that the following are the general symptoms: tremors near
the waist, weakness in the limbs, pressure, trembling, warmth,
weight or beating in the chest, warm wave from feet upward,
quivering of heart, stoppage and then rapid beating of heart,
coldness all over followed by heat, dizziness, tingling of toes
and fingers, numbness, something rising in throat, smarting of
eyes, singing in ears, prickling sensations of face, and pressure
inside head. Partridge considers that the disturbance is
primarily central, a change in the cerebral circulation, and that
the actual redness of the surface comes late in the nerve storm,
and is really but a small part of it.
There has been some discussion as to why, and indeed how far,
blushing is confined to the face. Henle (_Ueber das Erröthen_)
thought that we blush in the face because all nervous phenomena
produced by mental states appear first in the face, owing to the
anatomical arrangement of the nerves of the body. Darwin
(_Expression of the Emotions_) argued that attention to a part
tends to produce capillary activity in the part, and that the
face has been the chief object of attention. It has also been
argued, on the other hand, that the blush is the vestigial
remains of a general erethism of sex, in which shame originated;
that the blush was thus once more widely diffused, and is so
still among the women of some lower races, its limitation to the
face being due to sexual selection and the enhanced beauty thus
achieved. Féré once had occasion to examine, when completely
nude, a boy of thirteen whose sexual organs were deformed; when
accused of masturbation he became covered by a blush which spread
uniformly over his face, neck, body and limbs, before and behind,
except only the hands and feet. Féré asks whether such a
universal blush is more common than we imagine, or whether the
state of nudity favors its manifestation. (_Comptes Rendus,
Société de Biologie_, April 1, 1905.) It may be added that
Partridge mentions one case in which the hands blushed.
The sexual relationships of blushing are unquestionable. It occurs chiefly
in women; it attains its chief intensity at puberty and during
adolescence; its most common occasion is some more or less sexual
suggestion; among one hundred and sixty-two occasions of blushing
enumerated by Partridge, by far the most frequent cause was teasing,
usually about the other sex. "An erection," it has been said, "is a
blushing of the penis." Stanley Hall seems to suggest that the sexual
blush is a vicarious genital flushing of blood, diverted from the genital
sphere by an inhibition of fear, just as, in girls, giggling is also very
frequently a vicarious outlet of shame; the sexual blush would thus be the
outcome of an ancestral sex-fear; it is as an irradiation of sexual
erethism that the blush may contain an element of pleasure.[65]
Bloch remarks that the blush is sexual, because reddening of the
face, as well as of the genitals, is an accompaniment of sexual
emotion (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil
II, p. 39). "Do you not think," a correspondent writes, "that
the sexual blush, at least, really represents a vaso-relaxor
effect quite the same as erection? The embarrassment which arises
is due to a perception of this fact under circumstances which are
felt to be unsuited for such a condition. There may arise the
fear of awakening disgust by the exhibition of a state which is
out of place. I have noticed that such a blush is produced when a
sufficiently young and susceptible woman is pumped full of
compliments. This blush seems accompanied by pleasure which does
not always change to fear or disgust, but is felt to be
attractive. When discomfort arises, most women say that they feel
this because 'it looks as if they had no control over
themselves.' When they feel that there is no need for control,
they no longer feel fear, and the relaxor effect has a wider
field of operation, producing a general rosiness, erection of
spinal sexual organs, etc. Such a blush would thus be a partial
sexual equivalent, and allow of the inhibition of other sexual
effects, through the warning it gives, and the fear aroused, as
well as being in itself a slight outlet of relaxor energy. When
the relationships of the persons concerned allow freedom to the
special sexual stimuli, as in marriage, blushing does not occur
so often, and when it does it has not so often the consequent of
fear."
There can be no doubt that the blush is sexually attractive. The
blush is the expression of an impulse to concealment and flight,
which tends automatically to arouse in the beholder the
corresponding impulse of pursuit, so that the central situation
of courtship is at once presented. Women are more or less
conscious of this, as well as men, and this recognition is an
added source of embarrassment when it cannot become a source of
pleasure. The ancient use of rouge testifies to the beauty of the
blush, and Darwin stated that, in Turkish slave-markets, the
girls who readily blushed fetched the highest prices. To evoke a
blush, even by producing embarrassment, is very commonly a cause
of masculine gratification.
Savages, both men and women, blush even beneath a dusky skin (for
the phenomenon of blushing among different races, see Waitz,
_Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, Bd. I, pp. 149-150), and it is
possible that natural selection, as well as sexual selection, has
been favorable to the development of the blush. It is scarcely an
accident that, as has been often observed, criminals, or the
antisocial element of the community--whether by the habits of
their lives or by congenital abnormality--blush less easily than
normal persons. Kroner (_Das körperliche Gefühl_, 1887, p. 130)
remarks: "The origin of a specific connection between shame and
blushing is the work of a _social selection_. It is certainly an
immediate advantage for a man not to blush; indirectly, however,
it is a disadvantage, because in other ways he will be known as
shameless, and on that account, as a rule, he will be shut out
from propagation. This social selection will be specially
exercised on the female sex, and on this account, women blush to
a greater extent, and more readily, than men."
The importance of the blush, and the emotional confusion behind it, as the
sanction of modesty is shown by the significant fact that, by lulling
emotional confusion, it is possible to inhibit the sense of modesty. In
other words, we are here in the presence of a fear--to a large extent a
sex-fear--impelling to concealment, and dreading self-attention; this fear
naturally disappears, even though its ostensible cause remains, when it
becomes apparent that there is no reason for fear.
That is the reason why nakedness in itself has nothing to do with modesty
or immodesty; it is the conditions under which the nakedness occurs which
determine whether or not modesty will be roused. If none of the factors of
modesty are violated, if no embarrassing self-attention is excited, if
there is a consciousness of perfect propriety alike in the subject and in
the spectator, nakedness is entirely compatible with the most scrupulous
modesty. A. Duval, a pupil of Ingres, tells that a female model was once
quietly posing, completely nude, at the École des Beaux Arts. Suddenly she
screamed and ran to cover herself with her garments. She had seen a
workman on the roof gazing inquisitively at her through a skylight.[66]
And Paola Lombroso describes how a lady, a diplomatist's wife, who went to
a gathering where she found herself the only woman in evening dress, felt,
to her own surprise, such sudden shame that she could not keep back her
tears.
It thus comes about that the emotion of modesty necessarily depends on
the feelings of the people around. The absence of the emotion by no means
signifies immodesty, provided that the reactions of modesty are at once
set in motion under the stress of a spectator's eye that is seen to be
lustful, inquisitive, or reproachful. This is proved to be the case among
primitive peoples everywhere. The Japanese woman, naked as in daily life
she sometimes is, remains unconcerned because she excites no disagreeable
attention, but the inquisitive and unmannerly European's eye at once
causes her to feel confusion. Stratz, a physician, and one, moreover, who
had long lived among the Javanese who frequently go naked, found that
naked Japanese women felt no embarrassment in his presence.
It is doubtless as a cloak to the blush that we must explain the curious
influence of darkness in restraining the manifestations of modesty, as
many lovers have discovered, and as we may notice in our cities after
dark. This influence of darkness in inhibiting modesty is a very ancient
observation. Burton, in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, quotes from Dandinus
the saying "_Nox facit impudentes_," directly associating this with
blushing, and Bargagli, the Siennese novelist, wrote in the sixteenth
century that, "it is commonly said of women, that they will do in the dark
what they would not do in the light." It is true that the immodesty of a
large city at night is to some extent explained by the irruption of
prostitutes at that time; prostitutes, being habitually nearer to the
threshold of immodesty, are more markedly affected by this influence. But
it is an influence to which the most modest women are, at all events in
some degree, susceptible. It has, indeed, been said that a woman is always
more her real self in the dark than in the glare of daylight; this is part
of what Chamberlain calls her night-inspiration.
"Traces of the night-inspiration, of the influence of the
primitive fire-group, abound in woman. Indeed, it may be said
(the life of Southern Europe and of American society of to-day
illustrates this point abundantly) that she is, in a sense, a
night-being, for the activity, physical and moral, of modern
women (revealed e.g. in the dance and the nocturnal
intellectualities of society) in this direction is remarkable.
Perhaps we may style a good deal of her ordinary day-labor as
rest, or the commonplaces and banalities of her existence, her
evening and night life being the true side of her activities"
(A.F. Chamberlain, "Work and Rest," _Popular Science Monthly_,
March, 1902). Giessler, who has studied the general influence of
darkness on human psychic life, reaches conclusions which
harmonize with these (C.M. Giessler, "Der Einfluss der Dunkelheit
auf das Seelenleben des Menschen," _Vierteljahrsschrift für
wissenschaftliche Philosophie_, 1904, pp. 255-279). I have not
been able to see Giessler's paper, but, according to a summary of
it, he comes to the result that in the dark the soul's activities
are nearer to its motor pole than to its sensitive pole, and that
there is a tendency for phenomena belonging to the early period
of development to be prominent, motor memory functioning more
than representative memory, attention more than apperception,
imagination more than logical thinking, egoistic more than
altruistic morals.
It is curious to note that short-sightedness, naturally, though
illogically, tends to exert the same influence as darkness in this
respect; I am assured by short-sighted persons of both sexes that they are
much more liable to the emotions of shyness and modesty with their glasses
than without them; such persons with difficulty realize that they are not
so dim to others as others are to them. To be in the company of a blind
person seems also to be a protection against shyness.[67] It is
interesting to learn that congenitally blind children are as sensitive to
appearances as normal children, and blush as readily.[68] This would seem
to be due to the fact that the habitually blind have permanently adjusted
their mental focus to that of normal persons, and react in the same manner
as normal persons; blindness is not for them, as it is for the
short-sighted without their glasses, a temporary and relative, almost
unconscious refuge from clear vision.
It is, of course, not as the mere cloak of a possible blush that darkness
gives courage; it is because it lulls detailed self-realization, such
conscious self-realization being always a source of fears, and the blush
their definite symbol and visible climax. It is to the blush that we must
attribute a curious complementary relationship between the face and the
sacro-pubic region as centres of anatomical modesty. The women of some
African tribes who go naked, Emin Bey remarked, cover the face with the
hand under the influence of modesty. Martial long since observed (Lib.
iii, LXVIII) that when an innocent girl looks at the penis she gazes
through her fingers. Where, as among many Mohammedan peoples, the face is
the chief focus of modesty, the exposure of the rest of the body,
including sometimes even the sacro-pubic region, and certainly the legs
and thighs, often becomes a matter of indifference.[69]
This concealment of the face is more than a convention; it has a
psychological basis. We may observe among ourselves the well-marked
feminine tendency to hide the face in order to cloak a possible blush, and
to hide the eyes as a method of lulling self-consciousness, a method
fabulously attributed to the ostrich with the same end of concealment.[70]
A woman who is shy with her lover will sometimes experience little or no
difficulty in showing any part of her person provided she may cover her
face. When, in gynecological practice, examination of the sexual organs is
necessary, women frequently find evident satisfaction in concealing the
face with the hands, although not the slightest attention is being
directed toward the face, and when an unsophisticated woman is betrayed
into a confession which affects her modesty she is apt to turn her back to
her interlocutor. "When the face of woman is covered," it has been said,
"her heart is bared," and the Catholic Church has recognized this
psychological truth by arranging that in the confessional the penitent's
face shall not be visible. The gay and innocent freedom of southern women
during Carnival is due not entirely to the permitted license of the season
or the concealment of identity, but to the mask that hides the face. In
England, during Queen Elizabeth's reign and at the Restoration, it was
possible for respectable women to be present at the theatre, even during
the performance of the most free-spoken plays, because they wore masks.
The fan has often subserved a similar end.[71]
All such facts serve to show that, though the forms of modesty may change,
it is yet a very radical constituent of human nature in all stages of
civilization, and that it is, to a large extent, maintained by the
mechanism of blushing.
FOOTNOTES:
[64] Melinaud ("Pourquoi Rougit-on?" _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1 Octobre,
1893) points out that blushing is always associated with fear, and
indicates, in the various conditions under which it may arise,--modesty,
timidity, confusion,--that we have something to conceal which we fear may
be discovered. "All the evidence," Partridge states, "seems to point to
the conclusion that the mental state underlying blushing belongs to the
fear family. The presence of the feeling of dread, the palpitation of the
heart, the impulse to escape, to hide, the shock, all confirms this view."
[65] G. Stanley Hall, "A Study of Fears," _American Journal Psychology_,
1897.
[66] Men are also very sensitive to any such inquisitiveness on the part
of the opposite sex. To this cause, perhaps, and possibly, also, to the
fear of causing disgust, may be ascribed the objection of men to undress
before women artists and women doctors. I am told there is often
difficulty in getting men to pose nude to women artists. Sir Jonathan
Hutchinson was compelled, some years ago, to exclude lady members of the
medical profession from the instructive demonstrations at his museum, "on
account of the unwillingness of male patients to undress before them." A
similar unwillingness is not found among women patients, but it must be
remembered that, while women are accustomed to men as doctors, men (in
England) are not yet accustomed to women as doctors.
[67] "I am acquainted with the case of a shy man," writes Dr. Harry
Campbell, in his interesting study of "Morbid Shyness" (_British Medical
Journal_, September 26, 1896), "who will make himself quite at home in the
house of a blind person, and help himself to wine with the utmost
confidence, whereas if a member of the family, who can see, comes into the
room, all his old shyness returns, and he wishes himself far away."
[68] Stanley Hall ("Showing Off and Bashfulness," _Pedagogical Seminary_,
June, 1903), quotes Dr. Anagnos, of the Perkins Institute for the Blind,
to this effect.
[69] Thus, Sonnini, in the eighteenth century, noted that the country
women in Egypt only wore a single garment, open from the armpits to the
knees on each side, so that it revealed the body at every movement; "but
this troubles the women little, provided the face is not exposed."
(_Voyage dans la Haute et Basse Egypte_, 1779, vol. i, p, 289.) When
Casanova was at Constantinople, the Comte de Bonneval, a convert to Islam,
assured him that he was mistaken in trying to see a woman's face when he
might easily obtain greater favors from her. "The most reserved of Turkish
women," the Comte assured him, "only carries her modesty in her face, and
as soon as her veil is on she is sure that she will never blush at
anything." (_Mémoires_, vol. i, p. 429.)
[70] It is worth noting that this impulse is rooted in the natural
instinctive acts and ideas of childhood. Stanley Hall, dealing with the
"Early Sense of Self," in the report already mentioned, refers to the eyes
as perhaps even more than the hands, feet, and mouth, "the centres of that
kind of self-consciousness which is always mindful of how the self appears
to others," and proceeds to mention "the very common impression of young
children that if the eyes are covered or closed they cannot be seen. Some
think the entire body thus vanishes from sight of others; some, that the
head also ceases to be visible; and a still higher form of this curious
psychosis is that, when they are closed, the soul cannot be seen."
(_American Journal of Psychology_, vol. ix, No. 3, 1898.) The instinctive
and unreasoned character of this act is further shown by its occurrence in
idiots. Näcke mentions that he once had occasion to examine the abdomen of
an idiot, who, thereupon, attempted to draw down his shirt with the left
hand, while with the right he covered his eyes.
[71] Cf. Stanley Hall and T. Smith, "Showing Off and Bashfulness,"
_American Journal of Psychology_, June, 1903.
IV.
Summary of the Factors of Modesty--The Future of Modesty--Modesty an
Essential Element of Love.
We have seen that the factors of modesty are numerous. To attempt to
explain modesty by dismissing it as merely an example of psychic
paralysis, of _Stauung_, is to elude the problem by the statement of what
is little more than a truism. Modesty is a complexus of emotions with
their concomitant ideas which we must unravel to comprehend.
We have found among the factors of modesty: (1) the primitive animal
gesture of sexual refusal on the part of the female when she is not at
that moment of her generative life at which she desires the male's
advances; (2) the fear of arousing disgust, a fear primarily due to the
close proximity of the sexual centre to the points of exit of those
excretions which are useless and unpleasant, even in many cases to
animals; (3) the fear of the magic influence of sexual phenomena, and the
ceremonial and ritual practices primarily based on this fear, and
ultimately passing into simple rules of decorum which are signs and
guardians of modesty; (4) the development of ornament and clothing,
concomitantly fostering alike the modesty which represses male sexual
desire and the coquetry which seeks to allure it; (5) the conception of
women as property, imparting a new and powerful sanction to an emotion
already based on more natural and primitive facts.
It must always be remembered that these factors do not usually occur
separately. Very often they are all of them implied in a single impulse of
modesty. We unravel the cord in order to investigate its construction, but
in real life the strands are more or less indistinguishably twisted
together.
It may still be asked finally whether, on the whole, modesty really
becomes a more prominent emotion as civilization advances. I do not think
this position can be maintained. It is a great mistake, as we have seen,
to suppose that in becoming extended modesty also becomes intensified. On
the contrary, this very extension is a sign of weakness. Among savages,
modesty is far more radical and invincible than among the civilized. Of
the Araucanian women of Chile, Treutler has remarked that they are
distinctly more modest than the Christian white population, and such
observations might be indefinitely extended. It is, as we have already
noted, in a new and crude civilization, eager to mark its separation from
a barbarism it has yet scarcely escaped, that we find an extravagant and
fantastic anxiety to extend the limits of modesty in life, and art, and
literature. In older and more mature civilizations--in classical
antiquity, in old Japan, in France--modesty, while still a very real
influence, becomes a much less predominant and all-pervading influence. In
life it becomes subservient to human use, in art to beauty, in literature
to expression.
Among ourselves we may note that modesty is a much more invincible motive
among the lower social classes than among the more cultivated classes.
This is so even when we should expect the influence of occupation to
induce familiarity. Thus I have been told of a ballet-girl who thinks it
immodest to bathe in the fashion customary at the seaside, and cannot make
up her mind to do so, but she appears on the stage every night in tights
as a matter of course; while Fanny Kemble, in her _Reminiscences_, tells
of an actress, accustomed to appear in tights, who died a martyr to
modesty rather than allow a surgeon to see her inflamed knee. Modesty is,
indeed, a part of self-respect, but in the fully-developed human being
self-respect itself holds in check any excessive modesty.[72]
We must remember, moreover, that there are more definite grounds for the
subordination of modesty with the development of civilization. We have
seen that the factors of modesty are many, and that most of them are based
on emotions which make little urgent appeal save to races in a savage or
barbarous condition. Thus, disgust, as Richet has truly pointed out,
necessarily decreases as knowledge increases.[73] As we analyze and
understand our experiences better, so they cause us less disgust. A rotten
egg is disgusting, but the chemist feels no disgust toward sulphuretted
hydrogen; while a solution of propylamin does not produce the disgusting
impression of that human physical uncleanliness of which it is an odorous
constituent. As disgust becomes analyzed, and as self-respect tends to
increased physical purity, so the factor of disgust in modesty is
minimized. The factor of ceremonial uncleanness, again, which plays so
urgent a part in modesty at certain stages of culture, is to-day without
influence except in so far as it survives in etiquette. In the same way
the social-economic factor of modesty, based on the conception of women as
property, belongs to a stage of human development which is wholly alien to
an advanced civilization. Even the most fundamental impulse of all, the
gesture of sexual refusal, is normally only imperative among animals and
savages. Thus civilization tends to subordinate, if not to minimize,
modesty, to render it a grace of life rather than a fundamental social law
of life. But an essential grace of life it still remains, and whatever
delicate variations it may assume we can scarcely conceive of its
disappearance.
In the art of love, however, it is more than a grace; it must always be
fundamental. Modesty is not indeed the last word of love, but it is the
necessary foundation for all love's most exquisite audacities, the
foundation which alone gives worth and sweetness to what Sénancour calls
its "delicious impudence."[74] Without modesty we could not have, nor
rightly value at its true worth, that bold and pure candor which is at
once the final revelation of love and the seal of its sincerity.
Even Hohenemser--who argues that for the perfect man there could
be no shame, because shame rests on an inner conflict in one's
own personality, and "the perfect man knows no inner
conflict"--believes that, since humanity is imperfect, modesty
possesses a high and, indeed, symptomatic value, for "its
presence shows that according to the measure of a man's ideal
personality, his valuations are established."
Dugas goes further, and asserts that the ideals of modesty
develop with human development, and forever take on new and finer
forms. "There is," he declares, "a very close relationship
between naturalness, or sincerity, and modesty, for in love,
naturalness is the ideal attained, and modesty is only the fear
of coming short of that ideal. Naturalness is the sign and the
test of perfect love. It is the sign of it, for, when love can
show itself natural and true, one may conclude that it is
purified of its unavowable imperfections or defects, of its alloy
of wretched and petty passions, its grossness, its chimerical
notions, that it has become strong and healthy and vigorous. It
is the ordeal of it, for to show itself natural, to be always
true, without shrinking, it must have all the lovable qualities,
and have them without seeking, as a second nature. What we call
'natural,' is indeed really acquired; it is the gift of a
physical and moral evolution which it is precisely the object of
modesty to keep. Modesty is the feeling of the true, that is to
say, of the healthy, in love; it long exists as a vision, not yet
attained; vague, yet sufficiently clear for all that deviates
from it to be repelled as offensive and painful. At first, a
remote and seemingly inaccessible ideal, as it comes nearer it
grows human and individual, and emerges from the region of dream,
ceasing not to be loved as ideal, even when it is possessed as
real.
"At first sight, it seems paradoxical to define modesty as an
aspiration towards truth in love; it seems, on the contrary, to
be an altogether factitious feeling. But to simplify the problem,
we have to suppose modesty reduced to its normal functions,
disengaged from its superstitions, its variegated customs and
prejudices, the true modesty of simple and healthy natures, as
far removed from prudery as from immodesty. And what we term the
natural, or the true in love, is the singular mingling of two
forms of imaginations, wrongly supposed to be incompatible: ideal
aspiration and the sense for the realities of life. Thus defined,
modesty not only repudiates that cold and dissolving criticism
which deprives love of all poetry, and prepares the way for a
brutal realism; it also excludes that light and detached
imagination which floats above love, the mere idealism of heroic
sentiments, which cherishes poetic illusions, and passes, without
seeing it, the love that is real and alive. True modesty implies
a love not addressed to the heroes of vain romances, but to
living people, with their feet on the earth. But on the other
hand, modesty is the respect of love; if it is not shocked by
its physical necessities, if it accepts physiological and
psychological conditions, it also maintains the ideal of those
moral proprieties outside of which, for all of us, love cannot be
enjoyed. When love is really felt, and not vainly imagined,
modesty is the requirement of an ideal of dignity, conceived as
the very condition of that love. Separate modesty from love, that
is, from love which is not floating in the air, but crystallized
around a real person, and its psychological reality, its poignant
and tragic character, disappears." (Dugas, "La Pudeur," _Revue
Philosophique_, Nov., 1903.) So conceived, modesty becomes a
virtue, almost identical with the Roman _modestia_.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] Freud remarks that one may often hear, concerning elderly ladies,
that in their youth in the country, they suffered, almost to collapse,
from hæmorrhages from the genital passage, because they were too modest to
seek medical advice and examination; he adds that it is extremely rare to
find such an attitude among our young women to-day. (S. Freud, _Zur
Neurosenlehre_, 1906, p. 182.) It would be easy to find evidence of the
disappearance of misplaced signs of modesty formerly prevalent, although
this mark of increasing civilization has not always penetrated to our laws
and regulations.
[73] "Disgust," he remarks, "is a sort of synthesis which attaches to the
total form of objects, and which must diminish and disappear as scientific
analysis separates into parts what, as a whole, is so repugnant."
[74] Sénancour, _De l'Amour_, 1834, vol. i, p. 316. He remarks that a
useless and false reserve is due to stupidity rather than to modesty.
THE PHENOMENA OF SEXUAL PERIODICITY.
I.
The Various Physiological and Psychological Rhythms--Menstruation--The
Alleged Influence of the Moon--Frequent Suppression of Menstruation among
Primitive Races--Mittelschmerz--Possible Tendency to a Future
Intermenstrual Cycle--Menstruation among Animals--Menstruating Monkeys and
Apes--What is Menstruation--Its Primary Cause Still Obscure--The Relation
of Menstruation to Ovulation--The Occasional Absence of Menstruation in
Health--The Relation of Menstruation to "Heat"--The Prohibition of
Intercourse during Menstruation--The Predominance of Sexual Excitement at
and around the Menstrual Period--Its Absence during the Period Frequently
Apparent only.
Throughout the vegetable and animal worlds the sexual functions are
periodic. From the usually annual period of flowering in plants, with its
play of sperm-cell and germ-cell and consequent seed-production, through
the varying sexual energies of animals, up to the monthly effervescence of
the generative organism in woman, seeking not without the shedding of
blood for the gratification of its reproductive function, from first to
last we find unfailing evidence of the periodicity of sex. At first the
sun, and then, as some have thought, the moon, have marked throughout a
rhythmic impress on the phenomena of sex. To understand these phenomena we
have not only to recognize the bare existence of that periodic fact, but
to realize its implications.
Rhythm, it is scarcely necessary to remark, is far from characterizing
sexual activity alone. It is the character of all biological activity,
alike on the physical and the psychic sides. All the organs of the body
appear to be in a perpetual process of rhythmic contraction and expansion.
The heart is rhythmic, so is the respiration. The spleen is rhythmic, so
also the bladder. The uterus constantly undergoes regular rhythmic
contractions at brief intervals. The vascular system, down to the smallest
capillaries, is acted on by three series of vibrations, and every
separate fragment of muscular tissue possesses rhythmic contractility.
Growth itself is rhythmic, and, as Malling-Hansen and subsequent observers
have found, follows a regular annual course as well as a larger cycle. On
the psychic sides attention is rhythmic. We are always irresistibly
compelled to impart a rhythm to every succession of sounds, however
uniform and monotonous. A familiar example of this is the rhythm we can
seldom refrain from hearing in the puffing of an engine. A series of
experiments, by Bolton, on thirty subjects showed that the clicks of an
electric telephone connected in an induction-apparatus nearly always fell
into rhythmic groups, usually of two or four, rarely of three or five, the
rhythmic perception being accompanied by a strong impulse to make
corresponding muscular movements.[75]
It is, however, with the influence--to some extent real, to some extent,
perhaps, only apparent--of cosmic rhythm that we are here concerned. The
general tendency, physical and psychic, of nervous action to fall into
rhythm is merely interesting from the present point of view as showing a
biological predisposition to accept any periodicity that is habitually
imposed upon the organism.[76] Menstruation has always been associated
with the lunar revolutions.[77] Darwin, without specifically mentioning
menstruation, has suggested that the explanation of the allied cycle of
gestation in mammals, as well as incubation in birds, may be found in the
condition under which ascidians live at high and low water in consequence
of the phenomena of tidal change.[78] It must, however, be remembered that
the ascidian origin of the vertebrates has since been contested from many
sides, and, even if we admit that at all events some such allied
conditions in the early history of vertebrates and their ancestors tended
to impress a lunar cycle on the race, it must still be remembered that the
monthly periodicity of menstruation only becomes well marked in the human
species.[79] Bearing in mind the influence exerted on both the habits and
the emotions even of animals by the brightness of moonlight nights, it is
perhaps not extravagant to suppose that, on organisms already ancestrally
predisposed to the influence of rhythm in general and of cosmic rhythm in
particular, the periodically recurring full moon, not merely by its
stimulation of the nervous system, but possibly by the special
opportunities which it gave for the exercise of the sexual functions,
served to implant a lunar rhythm on menstruation. How important such a
factor may be we have evidence in the fact that the daily life of even the
most civilized peoples is still regulated by a weekly cycle which is
apparently a segment of the cosmic lunar cycle.
Mantegazza has suggested that the sexual period became established with
relation to the lunar period because moonlight nights were favorable to
courting,[80] and Nelson remarks that in his experience young and robust
persons are subject to recurrent periods of wakefulness at night which
they attribute to the action of the full moon. One may perhaps refer also
to the tendency of bright moonlight to stir the emotions of the young,
especially at puberty, a tendency which in neurotic persons may become
almost morbid.[81]
It is interesting to point out that, the farther back we are able to trace
the beginnings of culture, the more important we find the part played by
the moon. Next to the alteration of day and night, the moon's changes are
the most conspicuous and startling phenomena of Nature; they first suggest
a basis for reckoning time; they are of the greatest use in primitive
agriculture; and everywhere the moon is held to have vast influence on the
whole of organic life. Hahn has suggested that the reason why mythological
systems do not usually present the moon in the supreme position which we
should expect, is that its immense importance is so ancient a fact that it
tends, with mythological development, to become overlaid by other
elements.[82] According to Seler, Quetzalcouatl and Tezeatlipoca, the two
most considerable figures in the Mexican pantheon, are to be regarded
mainly as complementary forms of the moon divinity, and the moon was the
chief Mexican measurer of time.[83] Even in Babylonia, where the sun was
most specially revered, at the earliest period the moon ranked higher,
being gradually superseded by the worship of the sun.[84] Although such
considerations as these will by no means take us as far back as the
earliest appearance of menstruation, they may serve to indicate that the
phases of the moon probably played a large part in the earliest evolution
of man. With that statement we must at present rest content.
It is possible that the monthly character of menstruation, while
representing a general tendency of the human race, always and everywhere
prevalent, may be modified in the future. It is a noteworthy fact that
among many primitive races menstruation only occurs at long intervals.
Thus among Eskimo women menstruation follows the peculiar cosmic
conditions to which the people are subjected; Cook, the ethnologist of the
Peary North Greenland expedition, found that menstruation only began after
the age of nineteen, and that it was usually suppressed during the winter
months, when there is no sun, only about one in ten women continuing to
menstruate during this period.[85] It was stated by Velpeau that Lapland
and Greenland women usually only menstruate every three months, or even
only two or three times during the year. On the Faroe Islands it is said
that menstruation is frequently absent. Among the Samoyeds, Mantegazza
mentions that menstruation is so slight that some travelers have denied
its existence. Azara noted among the Guaranis of Paraguay that
menstruation was not only slight in amount, but the periods were separated
by long intervals. Among the Indians in North America, again, menstruation
appears to be scanty. Thus, Holder, speaking of his experience with the
Crow Indians of Montana, says: "I am quite sure that full-blood Indians in
this latitude do not menstruate so freely as white women, not usually
exceeding three days."[86] Among the naked women of Tierra del Fuego, it
is said that there is often no physical sign of the menses for six months
at a time. These observations are noteworthy, though they clearly
indicate, on the whole, that primitiveness in race is a very powerless
factor without a cold climate. On the other hand, again, there is some
reason to suppose that in Europe there is a latent tendency in some women
for the menstrual cycle to split up further into two cycles, by the
appearance of a latent minor climax in the middle of the monthly interval.
I allude to the phenomenon usually called _Mittelschmerz_, middle period,
or intermenstrual pain.
Since the investigations of Goodman, Stephenson, Van Ott, Reinl,
Jacobi, and others, it has been generally recognized that
menstruation is a continuous process, the flow being merely the
climax of a menstrual cycle, a physiological wave which is in
constant flux or reflux. This cycle manifests itself in all a
woman's activities, in metabolism, respiration, temperature,
etc., as well as on the nervous and psychic side. The healthier
the woman is, the less conscious is the cyclic return of her
life, but the cycle may be traced (as Hegar has found) even
before puberty takes place, while Salerni has found that even in
amenorrhoea the menstrual cycle still manifests itself in the
temperature and respiration. (_Rivista Sperimentale di
Freniatria_, XXX, fasc. 2-3.)
For a summary of the phenomena of the menstrual cycle, see
Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth ed., revised and
enlarged, Ch. XI; "The Functional Periodicity of Women." Cf.
Keller, _Archives Générales de Médecine_, May, 1897; Hegar,
_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1901, Heft 2 and 3;
Helen MacMurchy, _Lancet_, Oct. 5. 1901; A.E. Giles,
_Transactions Obstetrical Society London_, vol. xxxix, p. 115,
etc.
_Mittelschmerz_ is a condition of pain occurring about the middle
of the intermenstrual period, either alone or accompanied by a
slight sanguineous discharge, or, more frequently, a
non-sanguineous discharge. (In a case described by Van Voornveld,
the manifestation was confined to a regularly occurring rise of
temperature.) The phenomenon varies, but seems usually to occur
about the fourteenth day, and to last two or three days. Laycock,
in 1840 (_Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 46), gave instances of
women with an intermenstrual period. Depaul and Guéniot
(_Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_, Art.,
"Menstruation," p. 694) speak of intermenstrual symptoms, and
even actual flow, as occurring in women who are in a perfect
state of health, and constituting genuine "_règles
surnuméraries_." The condition is, however, said to have been
first fully described by Valleix; then, in 18725 by Sir William
Priestley; and subsequently by Fehling, Fasbender, Sorel,
Halliday Croom, Findley, Addinsell, and others. (See, for
instance, "Mittelschmerz," by J. Halliday Croom, _Transactions of
Edinburgh Obstetrical Society_, vol. xxi, 1896. Also, Krieger,
_Menstruation_, pp. 68-69.) Fliess (_Die Beziehungen zwischen
Nase und weiblichen Geschlechts-Organen_, p. 118) goes so far as
to assert that an intermenstrual period of menstrual
symptoms--which he terms _Nebenmenstruation_--is "a phenomenon
well known to most healthy women." Observations are at present
too few to allow any definite conclusions, and in some of the
cases so far recorded a pathological condition of the sexual
organs has been found to exist. Rosner, of Cracow, however, found
that only in one case out of twelve was there any disease present
(_La Gynécologie_, June, 1905), and Storer, who has met with
twenty cases, insists on the remarkable and definite regularity
of the manifestations, wholly unlike those of neuralgia (_Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal_, April 19, 1900). There is no
agreement as to the cause of _Mittelschmerz_. Addinsell
attributed it to disease of the Fallopian tubes. This, however,
is denied by such competent authorities as Cullingworth and Bland
Sutton. Others, like Priestley, and subsequently Marsh (_American
Journal of Obstetrics_, July, 1897), have sought to find the
explanation in the occurrence of ovulation. This theory is,
however, unsupported by facts, and eventually rests on the
exploded belief that ovulation is the cause of menstruation.
Rosner, following Richelet, vaguely attributes it to the diffused
hyperæmia which is generally present. Van de Velde also
attributes it to an abnormal fall of vascular tone, causing
passive congestion of the pelvic viscera. Others again, like
Armand Routh and MacLean, in the course of an interesting
discussion on _Mittelschmerz_ at the Obstetric Society of London,
on the second day of March, 1898, believe that we may trace here
a double menstruation, and would explain the phenomenon by
assuming that in certain cases there is an intermenstrual as well
as a menstrual cycle. The question is not yet ripe for
settlement, though it is fully evident that, looking broadly at
the phenomena of rut and menstruation, the main basis of their
increasing frequency as we rise toward civilized man is increase
of nutrition, heat and sunlight being factors of nutrition. When
dealing with civilized man, however, we are probably concerned
not merely with general nutrition, but with the nervous direction
of that nutrition.
At this stage it is natural to inquire what the corresponding phenomena
are among animals. Unfortunately, imperfect as is our comprehension of the
human phenomena, our knowledge of the corresponding phenomena among
animals is much more fragmentary and incomplete. Among most animals
menstruation does not exist, being replaced by what is known as heat, or
oestrus, which usually occurs once or twice a year, in spring and in
autumn, sometimes affecting the male as well as the female.[87] There is,
however, a great deal of progression in the upward march of the phenomena,
as we approach our own and allied zoölogical series. Heat in domesticated
cows usually occurs every three weeks. The female hippopotamus in the
Zoölogical Gardens has been observed to exhibit monthly sexual excitement,
with swelling and secretion from the vulva. Progression is not only toward
greater frequency with higher evolution or with increased domestication,
but there is also a change in the character of the flow. As Wiltshire,[88]
in his remarkable lectures on the "Comparative Physiology of
Menstruation," asserted as a law, the more highly evolved the animal, the
more sanguineous the catamenial flow.
It is not until we reach the monkeys that this character of the flow
becomes well marked. Monthly sanguineous discharges have been observed
among many monkeys. In the seventeenth century various observers in many
parts of the world--Bohnius, Peyer, Helbigius, Van der Wiel, and
others--noted menstruation in monkeys.[89] Buffon observed it among
various monkeys as well as in the orang-utan. J.G. St. Hilaire and Cuvier,
many years ago, declared that menstruation exists among a variety of
monkeys and lower apes. Rengger described a vaginal discharge in a species
of cebus in Paraguay, while Raciborski observed in the Jardin des Plantes
that the menstrual hæmorrhage in guenons was so abundant that the floor of
the cage was covered by it to a considerable extent; the same variety of
monkey was observed at Surinam, by Hill, a surgeon in the Dutch army, who
noted an abundant sanguineous flow occurring at every new moon, and
lasting about three days, the animal at this time also showing signs of
sexual excitement.[90]
The macaque and the baboon appear to be the non-human animals, in which
menstruation has been most carefully observed. In the former, besides the
flow, Bland Sutton remarks that "all the naked or pale-colored parts of
the body, such as the face, neck, and ischial regions, assume a lively
pink color; in some cases, it is a vivid red."[91] The flow is slight, but
the coloring lasts several days, and in warm weather the labia are much
swollen.
Heape[92] has most fully and carefully described menstruation in monkeys.
He found at Calcutta that the _Macacus cynomolgus_ menstruated regularly
on the 20th of December, 20th of January, and about the 20th of February.
The _Cynocephalus porcaria_ and the _Semnopithecus entellus_ both
menstruated each month for about four days. In the _Macaci rhesus_ and
_cynomolgus_ at menstruation "the nipples and vulva become swollen and
deeply congested, and the skin of the buttocks swollen, tense, and of a
brilliant-red or even purple color. The abdominal wall also, for a short
space upward, and the inside of the thighs, sometimes as far down as the
heel, and the under surface of the tail for half its length or more, are
all colored a vivid red, while the skin of the face, especially about the
eyes, is flushed or blotched with red." In late gestation the coloring is
still more vivid. Something similar is to be seen in the males also.
Distant, who kept a female baboon for some time, has recorded the dates of
menstruation during a year. He found that nine periods occurred during the
year. The average length between the periods was nearly six weeks, but
they occurred more frequently in the late autumn and the winter than in
the summer.[93]
It is an interesting fact, Heape noted, that, notwithstanding
menstruation, the seasonal influence, or rut, still persisted in the
monkeys he investigated.
In the anthropoid apes, Hartmann remarks that several observers have
recorded periodic menstruation in the chimpanzee, with flushing and
enlargement of the external parts, and protrusion of the external lips,
which are not usually visible, while there is often excessive enlargement
and reddening of these parts and of the posterior callosities during
sexual excitement. Very little, however, appears to be definitely known
regarding any form of menstruation in the higher apes. M. Deniker, who has
made a special study of the anthropoid apes, informs me that he has so far
been unable to make definite observations regarding the existence of
menstruation. Moll remarks that he received information regarding such a
phenomenon in the orang-utan. A pair of orang-utans was kept in the Berlin
Zoölogical Gardens some years ago, and the female was stated to have at
intervals a menstrual flow resembling that of women, and during this
period to refrain from sexual congress, which was otherwise usually
exercised at regular intervals, at least every two or three days; Moll
adds, however, that, while his informant is a reliable man, the length of
time that has elapsed may have led him to make mistakes in details. Keith,
in a paper read before the Zoölogical Society of London, has described
menstruation in a chimpanzee; it occurred every twenty-third or
twenty-fourth day, and lasted for three days; the discharge was profuse,
and first appeared in about the ninth or tenth year.[94]
What is menstruation? It is easy to describe it, by its obvious symptoms,
as a monthly discharge of blood from the uterus, but nearly as much as
that was known in the infancy of the world. When we seek to probe more
intimately into the nature of menstruation we are still baffled, not
merely as regards its cause, but even as regards its precise mechanism.
"The primary cause of menstruation remains unexplained"; "the cause of
menstruation remains as obscure as ever"; so conclude two of the most
thorough and cautious investigators into this subject.[95] It is, however,
widely accepted that the main cause of menstruation is a rhythmic
contraction of the uterus,--the result of a disappointed preparation for
impregnation,--a kind of miniature childbirth. This seems to be the most
reasonable view of menstruation; i.e., as an abortion of a decidua.
Burdach (according to Beard) was the first who described menstruation as
an abortive parturition. "The hypothesis," Marshall and Jolly conclude,
"that the entire pro-oestrous process is of the nature of a preparation
for the lodgment of the ovum is in accordance with the facts."[96]
Fortunately, since we are here primarily concerned with its psychological
aspects, the precise biological cause and physiological nature of
menstruation do not greatly concern us.
There is, however, one point which of late years has been definitely
determined, and which should not be passed without mention: the relation
of menstruation to ovulation. It was once supposed that the maturation of
an ovule in the ovaries was the necessary accompaniment, and even cause,
of menstruation. We now know that ovulation proceeds throughout the whole
of life, even before birth, and during gestation,[97] and that removal of
the ovaries by no means necessarily involves a cessation of menstruation.
It has been shown that regular and even excessive menstruation may take
place in the congenital absence of a trace of ovaries or Fallopian
tubes.[98] On the other hand, a rudimentary state of the uterus, and a
complete absence of menstruation, may exist with well-developed ovaries
and normal ovulation.[99] We must regard the uterus as to some extent an
independent organ, and menstruation as a process which arose, no doubt,
with the object, teleologically speaking, of cooperating more effectively
with ovulation, but has become largely independent.[100]
It is sometimes stated that menstruation may be entirely absent
in perfect health. Few cases of this condition have, however,
been recorded with the detail necessary to prove the assertion.
One such case was investigated by Dr. H.W. Mitchell, and
described in a paper read to the New York County Medical Society,
February 22, 1892 (to be found in _Medical Reprints_, June,
1892). The subject was a young, unmarried woman, 24 years of age.
She was born in Ireland, and, until her emigration, lived quietly
at home with her parents. Being then twenty years of age, she
left home and came to New York. Up to that time no signs of
menstruation had appeared, and she had never heard that such a
function existed. Soon after her arrival in New York, she
obtained a situation as a waiting-maid, and it was noticed, after
a time, that she was not unwell at each month. Friends filled her
ears with wild stories about the dreadful effects likely to
follow the absence of menstruation. This worried her greatly, and
as a consequence she became pale and anæmic, with loss of flesh,
appetite, and sleep, and a long train of imaginary nervous
symptoms. She presented herself for treatment, and insisted upon
a uterine examination. This revealed no pathological condition
of her uterus. She was assured that she would not die, or become
insane, nor a chronic invalid. In consequence she soon forgot
that she differed in any way from other girls. A course of
chalybeate tonics, generous diet, and proper care of her general
health, soon restored her to her normal condition. After close
observation for several years, she submitted to a thorough
examination, although entirely free from any abnormal symptoms.
The examination revealed the following physical condition:
Weight, 105 pounds (her weight before leaving Ireland was 130);
girth of chest, twenty-nine and a half inches; girth of abdomen,
twenty-five inches; girth of pelvis, thirty-four and a half
inches; girth of thigh, upper third, twenty inches; heart
healthy, sounds and rhythm perfectly normal; pulse, 76; lungs
healthy; respiratory murmur clear and distinct over every part;
respiration, easy and twenty per minute; the mammæ are well
developed, firm, and round; nipples, small, no areola; her skin
is soft, smooth, and healthy; figure erect, plump, and
symmetrical; her bowels are regular; kidneys, healthy. She has a
good appetite, sleeps well, and in no particular shows any sign
of ill health. The uterine examination reveals a short vagina,
and a small, round cervix uteri, rather less in size than the
average, and projecting very slightly into the vaginal canal.
Depth of uterus from os to fundus, two and a quarter inches, is
very nearly normal. No external sign of abnormal ovaries. She is
a well-developed, healthy young woman, performing all her
physiological functions naturally and regularly, except the
single function of menstruation. No vicarious menstruation takes
the place of the natural function, though she has been watched
very closely during the past two years, nor the least periodical
excitement. It is added that, though the clitoris is normal, the
mons veneris is almost destitute of hair, and the labia rather
undeveloped, while, "as far as is known," sexual instincts and
desire are entirely absent. These latter facts, I may add, would
seem to suggest that, in spite of the health of the subject,
there is yet some concealed lack of development of the sexual
system, of congenital character. In a case recorded by Plant
(_Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 9, 1896, summarized in the
_British Medical Journal_, April 4, 1896), in which the internal
sexual organs were almost wholly undeveloped, and menstruation
absent, the labia were similarly undeveloped, and the pubic hair
scanty, while the axillary hair was wholly absent, though that of
the head was long and strong.
We may now regard as purely academic the discussion formerly carried on as
to whether menstruation is to be regarded as analogous to heat in female
animals. For many centuries at least the resemblance has been sufficiently
obvious. Raciborski and Pouchet, who first established the regular
periodicity of ovulation in mammals, identified heat and
menstruation.[101] During the past century there was, notwithstanding, an
occasional tendency to deny any real connection. No satisfactory grounds
for this denial have, however, been brought forward. Lawson Tait, indeed,
and more recently Beard, have stated that menstruation cannot be the
period of heat, because women have a disinclination to the approach of the
male at that time.[102] But, as we shall see later, this statement is
unfounded. An argument which might, indeed, be brought forward is the very
remarkable fact that, while in animals the period of heat is the only
period for sexual intercourse, among all human races, from the very
lowest, the period of menstruation is the one period during which sexual
intercourse is strictly prohibited, sometimes under severe penalties, even
life itself. This, however, is a social, not a physiological, fact.
Ploss and Bartels call attention to the curious contrast, in this
respect, between heat and menstruation. The same authors also
mention that in the Middle Ages, however, preachers found it
necessary to warn their hearers against the sin of intercourse
during the menstrual period. It may be added that Aquinas and
many other early theologians held, not only that such intercourse
was a deadly sin, but that it engendered leprous and monstrous
children. Some later theologians, however, like Sanchez, argued
that the Mosaic enactments (such as Leviticus, Ch. XX, v. 18) no
longer hold good. Modern theologians--in part influenced by the
tolerant traditions of Liguori, and, in part, like Debreyne
(_Moechialogie_, pp. 275 et seq.) informed by medical science--no
longer prohibit intercourse during menstruation, or regard it as
only a venial sin.
We have here a remarkable, but not an isolated, example of the tendency of
the human mind in its development to rebel against the claims of primitive
nature. The whole of religion is a similar remolding of nature, a
repression of natural impulses, an effort to turn them into new channels.
Prohibition of intercourse during menstruation is a fundamental element of
savage ritual, an element which is universal merely because the conditions
which caused it are universal, and because--as is now beginning to be
generally recognized--the causes of human psychic evolution are everywhere
the same. A strictly analogous phenomenon, in the sexual sphere itself, is
the opposed attitude in barbarism and civilization toward the sexual
organs. Under barbaric conditions and among savages, when no
magico-religious ideas intervene, the sexual organs are beautiful and
pleasurable objects. Under modern conditions this is not so. This
difference of attitude is reflected in sculpture. In savage and barbaric
carvings of human beings, the sexual organs of both sexes are often
enormously exaggerated. This is true of the archaic European figures on
which Salomon Reinach has thrown so much light, but in modern sculpture,
from the time when it reached its perfection in Greece onward, the sexual
regions in both men and women are systematically minimized.[103]
With advancing culture--as again we shall see later--there is a conflict
of claims, and certain considerations are regarded as "higher" and more
potent than merely "natural" claims. Nakedness is more natural than
clothing, and on many grounds more desirable under the average
circumstances of life, yet, everywhere, under the stress of what are
regarded as higher considerations, there is a tendency for all races to
add more and more to the burden of clothes. In the same way it happens
that the tendency of the female to sexual intercourse during
menstruation[104] has everywhere been overlaid by the ideas of a culture
which has insisted on regarding menstruation as a supernatural phenomenon
which, for the protection of everybody, must be strictly tabooed.[105]
This tendency is reinforced, and in high civilization replaced, by the
claims of an æsthetic regard for concealment and reserve during this
period. Such facts are significant for the early history of culture, but
they must not blind us to the real analogy between heat and menstruation,
an analogy or even identity which may be said to be accepted now by most
careful investigators.[106]
If it is, perhaps, somewhat excessive to declare, with Johnstone, that
"woman is the only animal in which rut is omnipresent," we must admit that
the two groups of phenomena merge into or replace each other, that their
object is identical, that they involve similar psychic conditions. Here,
also, we see a striking example of the way in which women preserve a
primitive phenomenon which earlier in the zoölogical series was common to
both sexes, but which man has now lost. Heat and menstruation, with
whatever difference of detail, are practically the same phenomenon. We
cannot understand menstruation unless we bear this in mind.
On the psychic side the chief normal and primitive characteristic of the
menstrual state is the more predominant presence of the sexual impulse.
There are other mental and emotional signs of irritability and instability
which tend to slightly impair complete mental integrity, and to render, in
some unbalanced individuals explosions of anger or depression, in rarer
cases crime, more common;[107] but the heightening of the sexual impulse,
languor, shyness, and caprice are the more human manifestations of an
emotional state which in some of the lower female animals during heat may
produce a state of fury.
The actual period of the menstrual flow, at all events the first two or
three days, does not, among European women, usually appear to show any
heightening of sexual emotion.[108] This heightening occurs usually a few
days before, and especially during, the latter part of the flow, and
immediately after it ceases.[109] I have, however, convinced myself by
inquiry that this absence of sexual feeling during the height of the flow
is, in large part, apparent only. No doubt, the onset of the flow, often
producing a general depression of vitality, may tend directly to depress
the emotions, which are heightened by the general emotional state and
local congestion of the days immediately preceding; but among some women,
at all events, who are normal and in good health, I find that the period
of menstruation itself is covered by the period of the climax of sexual
feeling. Thus, a married lady writes: "My feelings are always very strong,
not only just before and after, but during the period; very unfortunately,
as, of course, they cannot then be gratified"; while a refined girl of 19,
living a chaste life, without either coitus or masturbation, which she has
never practiced, habitually feels very strong sexual excitement about the
time of menstruation, and more especially during the period; this desire
torments her life, prevents her from sleeping at these times, and she
looks upon it as a kind of illness.[110] I could quote many other similar
and equally emphatic statements, and the fact that so cardinal a
relationship of the sexual life of women should be ignored or denied by
most writers on this matter, is a curious proof of the prevailing
ignorance.[111]
This ignorance has been fostered by the fact that women, often disguise
even to themselves the real state of their feelings. One lady remarks that
while she would be very ready for coitus during menstruation, the thought
that it is impossible during that time makes her put the idea of it out of
her mind. I have reason to think that this statement may be taken to
represent the real feelings of very many women. The aversion to coitus is
real, but it is often due, not to failure of sexual desire, but to the
inhibitory action of powerful extraneous causes. The absence of active
sexual desire in women during the height of the flow may thus be regarded
as, in part, a physiological fact, following from the correspondence of
the actual menstrual flow to the period of _pro-oestrum_, and in part, a
psychological fact due to the æsthetic repugnance to union when in such a
condition, and to the unquestioned acceptance of the general belief that
at such a period intercourse is out of the question. Some of the strongest
factors of modesty, especially the fear of causing disgust and the sense
of the demands of ceremonial ritual, would thus help to hold in check the
sexual emotions during this period, and when, under the influence of
insanity, these motives are in abeyance, the coincidence of sexual desire
with the menstrual flow often becomes more obvious.[112]
It must be added that, especially among the lower social classes, the
primitive belief of the savage that coitus during menstruation is bad for
the man still persists. Ploss and Bartels mention that among the peasants
in some parts of Germany, where it is believed that impregnation is
impossible during menstruation, coitus at that time would be frequent were
it not thought dangerous for the man.[113] It has also been a common
belief both in ancient and modern times that coitus during menstruation
engenders monsters.[114]
Notwithstanding all the obstacles that are thus placed in the way of
coitus during menstruation, there is nevertheless good reason to believe
that the first coitus very frequently takes place at this point of least
psychic resistance. When still a student I was struck by the occurrence of
cases in which seduction took place during the menstrual flow, though at
that time they seemed to me inexplicable, except as evidencing brutality
on the part of the seducer. Négrier,[115] in the lying-in wards of the
Hôtel-Dieu at Angers, constantly found that the women from the country who
came there pregnant as the result of a single coitus had been impregnated
at or near the menstrual epoch, more especially when the period coincided
with a feast-day, as St. John's Day or Christmas.
Whatever doubt may exist as to the most frequent state of the sexual
emotions during the period of menstruation, there can be no doubt whatever
that immediately before and immediately after, very commonly at both
times,--this varying slightly in different women,--there is usually a
marked heightening of actual desire. It is at this period (and sometimes
during the menstrual flow) that masturbation may take place in women who
at other times have no strong auto-erotic impulse. The only women who do
not show this heightening of sexual emotion seem to be those in whom
sexual feelings have not yet been definitely called into consciousness, or
the small minority, usually suffering from some disorder of sexual or
general health, in whom there is a high degree of sexual anæsthesia.[116]
The majority of authorities admit a heightening of sexual emotion
before or after the menstrual crisis. See e.g., Krafft-Ebing, who
places it at the post-menstrual period (_Psychopathia Sexualis_,
Eng. translation of tenth edition, p. 27). Adler states that
sexual feeling is increased before, during and after menstruation
(_Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, p.
88). Kossmann (Senator and Kaminer, _Health and Disease in
Relation to Marriage_, I, 249), advises intercourse just after
menstruation, or even during the latter days of the flow, as the
period when it is most needed. Guyot says that the eight days
after menstruation are the period of sexual desire in women
(_Bréviaire de l'Amour Expérimentale_, p. 144). Harry Campbell
investigated the periodicity of sexual desire in healthy women of
the working classes, in a series of cases, by inquiries made of
their husbands who were patients at a London hospital. People of
this class are not always skilful in observation, and the method
adopted would permit many facts to pass unrecorded; it is,
therefore, noteworthy that only in one-third of the cases had no
connection between menstruation and sexual feeling been observed;
in the other two-thirds, sexual feeling was increased, either
before, after, or during the flow, or at all of these times; the
proportion of cases in which sexual feeling was increased before
the flow, to those in which it was increased after, was as three
to two. (H. Campbell, _Nervous Organization of Men and Women_, p.
203.)
Even this elementary fact of the sexual life has, however, been
denied, and, strange to say, by two women doctors. Dr. Mary
Putnam Jacobi, of New York, who furnished valuable contributions
to the physiology of menstruation, wrote some years ago, in a
paper on "The Theory of Menstruation," in reference to the
question of the connection between oestrus and menstruation:
"Neither can any such rhythmical alternation of sexual instinct
be demonstrated in women as would lead to the inference that the
menstrual crisis was an expression of this," i.e., of oestrus.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, again, in her book on _The Human Element
in Sex_, asserts that the menstrual flow itself affords complete
relief for the sexual feelings in women (like sexual emissions
during sleep in men), and thus practically denies the prevalence
of sexual desire in the immediately post-menstrual period, when,
on such a theory, sexual feeling should be at its minimum. It is
fair to add that Dr. Blackwell's opinion is merely the survival
of a view which was widely held a century ago, when various
writers (Bordeu, Roussel, Duffieux, J. Arnould, etc.), as Icard
has pointed out, regarded menstruation as a device of Providence
for safeguarding the virginity of women.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] Thaddeus L. Bolton, "Rhythm," _American Journal of Psychology_,
January, 1894.
[76] It is scarcely necessary to warn the reader that this statement does
not prejudge the question of the inheritance of acquired characters,
although it fits in with Semon's Mnemic theory. We can, however, very well
suppose that the organism became adjusted to the rhythms of its
environment by a series of congenital variations. Or it might be held, on
the basis of Weismann's doctrine, that the germ-plasm has been directly
modified by the environment.
[77] Thus, the Papuans, in some districts, believe that the first
menstruation is due to an actual connection, during sleep, with the moon
in the shape of a man, the girl dreaming that a real man is embracing her.
(_Reports Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 206.)
[78] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 164.
[79] While in the majority of women the menstrual cycle is regular for the
individual, and corresponds to the lunar month of 28 days, it must be
added that in a considerable minority it is rather longer, or, more
usually, shorter than this, and in many individuals is not constant.
Osterloh found a regular type of menstruation in 68 per cent, healthy
women, four weeks being the most usual length of the cycle; in 21 per
cent, the cycle was always irregular. See Näcke, "Die Menstruation und ihr
Einfluss bei chronischen Psychosen," _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, 1896, Bd,
28, Heft 1.
[80] Among the Duala and allied negro peoples of Bantu stock dances of
markedly erotic character take place at full moon. Gason describes the
dances and sexual festivals of the South Australian blacks, generally
followed by promiscuous intercourse, as taking place at full moon.
(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, November, 1894, p. 174.) In
all parts of the world, indeed, including Christendom, festivals are
frequently regulated by the phases of the moon.
[81] It has often been held that the course of insanity is influenced by
the moon. Of comparatively recent years, this thesis has been maintained
by Koster (_Ueber die Gesetze des periodischen Irreseins und verwandter
Nervenzustände_, Bonn, 1882), who argues in detail that periodic insanity
tends to fall into periods of seven days or multiples of seven.
[82] Ed. Hahn, _Demeter und Baubo_, p. 23.
[83] E. Seler, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1907, Heft I, p. 39. And as
regards the primitive importance of the moon, see also Frazer, _Adonis,
Attis, Osiris_, Ch. VIII.
[84] Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia_, 1898, pp. 68, 75-79, 461.
[85] Even in England, Barnes has known women of feeble sexual constitution
who menstruated only in summer (R. Barnes, _Diseases of Women_, 1878, p.
192).
[86] A.B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes among American Indians," _American
Journal of Obstetrics_, No. 6, 1892.
[87] In the male, the phenomenon is termed rut, and is most familiar in
the stag. I quote from Marshall and Jolly some remarks on the infrequency
of rut: "'The male wild Cat,' Mr. Cocks informs us, (like the stag), 'has
a rutting season, calls loudly, almost day and night, making far more
noise than the female.' This information is of interest, inasmuch as the
males of most carnivores, although they undoubtedly show signs of
increased sexual activity at some times more than at others, are not known
to have anything of the nature of a regularly recurrent rutting season.
Nothing of the kind is known in the Dog, nor, so far as we are aware, in
the males of the domestic Cat, or the Ferret, all of which seem to be
capable of copulation at any time of the year. On the other hand, the
males of Seals appear to have a rutting season at the same time as the
sexual season of the female." (Marshall and Jolly, "Contributions to the
Physiology of Mammalian Reproduction," _Philosophical Transactions_, 1905,
B. 198.)
[88] A. Wiltshire, _British Medical Journal_, March, 1883. The best
account of heat known to me is contained in Ellenberger's _Vergleichende
Physiologie der Haussaügethiere_, 1892, Band 4, Theil 2, pp. 276-284.
[89] Schurig (_Parthenologia_, 1729, p. 125), gives numerous references
and quotations.
[90] Quoted by Icard, _La Femme_, etc., p. 63.
[91] Bland Sutton, _Surgical Diseases of the Ovaries_, and _British
Gynecological Journal_, vol. ii.
[92] W. Heape, "The Menstruation of _Semnopithecus Entellus_,"
_Philosophical Transactions_, 1894; "Menstruation and Ovulation of
_Macacus Rhesus_," _Philosophical Transactions_, 1897.
[93] W.L. Distant, "Notes on the Chacma Baboon," _Zoölogist_, January,
1897, p, 29.
[94] _Nature_, March 23, 1899.
[95] W. Heape, "The Menstruation of _Semnopithecus Entellus_,"
_Philosophical Transactions_, 1894, p. 483; Bland Sutton, _Surgical
Diseases of the Ovaries_, 1896.
[96] T. Bryce and J. Teacher (_Contributions to the Study of the Early
Development of the Human Ovum_, 1908), putting the matter somewhat
differently, regard menstruation as a cyclical process, providing for the
maintenance of the endometrium in a suitable condition of immaturity for
the production of the decidua of pregnancy, which they believe may take
place at any time of the month, though most favorably shortly before or
after a menstrual period which has been accompanied by ovulation.
[97] Robinson, _American Gynecological and Obstetrical Journal_, August,
1905.
[98] Bossi, _Annali di Ostetrica e Ginecologia_, September, 1896;
summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, October 31, 1896. As regards
the more normal influence of the ovaries over the uterus, see e.g.
Carmichael and F.H.A. Marshall, "Correlation of the Ovarian and Uterine
Functions," _Proceedings Royal Society_, vol. 79, Series B, 1907.
[99] Beuttner, _Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 49, 1893; summarized in
_British Medical Journal_, December, 1893. Many cases show that pregnancy
may occur in the absence of menstruation. See, e.g., _Nouvelles Archives
d'Obstétrique et de Gynécologie_, 25 Janvier, 1894, supplement, p. 9.
[100] It is still possible, and even probable, that the primordial cause
of both phenomena is the same. Heape (_Transactions Obstetrical Society of
London_, 1898, vol. xl, p. 161) argues that both menstruation and
ovulation are closely connected with and influenced by congestion, and
that in the primitive condition they are largely due to the same cause.
This primary cause he is inclined to regard as a ferment, due to a change
in the constitution of the blood brought about by climatic influences and
food, which he proposes to call gonadin. (W. Heape, _Proceedings of Royal
Society_, 1905, vol. B. 76, p. 266.) Marshall, who has found that in the
ferret and other animals, ovulation may be dependent upon copulation, also
considers that ovulation and menstruation, though connected and able to
react on each other, may both be dependent upon a common cause; he finds
that in bitches and rats heat can be produced by injection of extract from
ovaries in the oestrous state (F.H.A. Marshall, _Philosophical
Transactions_, 1903, vol. B. 196; also Marshall and Jolly, id., 1905, B.
198). Cf. C.J. Bond, "An Inquiry Into Some Points in Uterine and Ovarian
Physiology and Pathology in Rabbits," _British Medical Journal_, July 21,
1906.
[101] Pouchet, _Théorie de l'Ovulation Spontanée_, 1847. As Blair Bell and
Pontland Hick remark ("Menstruation," _British Medical Journal_, March 6,
1909), the repeated oestrus of unimpregnated animals (once a fortnight in
rabbits) is surely comparable to menstruation.
[102] Tait, _Provincial Medical Journal_, May, 1891; J. Beard, _The Span
of Gestation_, 1897, p. 69. Lawson Tait is reduced to the assertion that
ovulation and menstruation are identical.
[103] As Moll points out, even the secondary sexual characters have
undergone a somewhat similar change. The beard was once an important
sexual attraction, but men can now afford to dispense with it without fear
of loss in attractiveness. (_Libido Sexualis_, Band I, p. 387.) These
points are discussed at greater length in the fourth volume of these
_Studies_, "Sexual Selection in Man."
[104] It is not absolutely established that in menstruating animals the
period of menstruation is always a period of sexual congress; probably
not, the influence of menstruation being diminished by the more
fundamental influence of breeding seasons, which affect the male also;
monkeys have a breeding season, though they menstruate regularly all the
year round.
[105] See Appendix A.
[106] Bland Sutton, loc. cit., p. 896.
[107] See H. Ellis, _Man and Woman_, Chapter XI.
[108] This is by no means true of European women only. Thus, we read in an
Arabic book, _The Perfumed Garden_, that women have an aversion to coitus
during menstruation. On the other hand, the old Hindoo physician, Susruta,
appears to have stated that a tendency to run after men is one of the
signs of menstruation.
[109] The actual period of the menstrual flow corresponds, in Heape's
terminology, to the congestive stage, or _pro-oestrum_, in female animals;
the _oestrus_, or period of sexual desire, immediately follows the
_pro-oestrum_, and is the direct result of it. See Heape, "The 'Sexual
Season' of Mammals," _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_, 1900,
vol. xliv, Part I.
[110] It may be noted that (as Barnes, Oliver, and others have pointed
out) there is heightened blood-pressure during menstruation. Haig remarks
that he has found a tendency for high pressure to be accompanied by
increased sexual appetite (_Uric Acid_, 6th edition, p. 155).
[111] Sir W.F. Wade, however, remarked, some years ago, in his Ingleby
Lectures (_Lancet_, June 5, 1886): "It is far from exceptional to find
that there is an extreme enhancement of concupiscence in the immediate
precatamenial period," and adds, "I am satisfied that evidence is
obtainable that in some instances, ardor is at its maximum during the
actual period, and suspect that cases occur in which it is almost, if not
entirely, limited to that time." Long ago, however, the genius of Haller
had noted the same fact. More recently, Icard (_La Femme_, Chapter VI and
elsewhere, e.g., p. 125) has brought forward much evidence in confirmation
of this view. It may be added that there is considerable significance in
the fact that the erotic hallucinations, which are not infrequently
experienced by women under the influence of nitrous oxide gas, are more
likely to appear at the monthly period than at any other time. (D.W.
Buxton, _Anesthetics_, 1892, p. 61.)
[112] Gehrung considers that in healthy young girls amorous sensations are
normal during menstruation, and in some women persist, during this period,
throughout life. More usually, however, as menstrual period after
menstrual period recurs, without the natural interruption of pregnancy,
the feeling abates, and gives place to sensations of discomfort or pain.
He ascribes this to the vital tissues being sapped of more blood than can
be replaced in the intervals. "The vital powers, being thus kept in
abeyance, the amative sensations are either not developed, or destroyed.
This, superadded by the usual moral and religious teachings, is amply
sufficient, by degrees, to extinguish or prevent such feelings with the
great majority. The sequestration as 'unclean,' of women during their
catamenial period, as practiced in olden times, had the same tendency."
(E.C. Gehrung, "The Status of Menstruation," _Transactions American
Gynecology Society_, 1901, p. 48.)
[113] It is possible there may be an element of truth in this belief.
Diday, of Lyons, found that chronic urethorrhoea is an occasional result
of intercourse during menstruation. Raciborski (_Traité de la
Menstruation_, 1868, p. 12), who also paid attention to this point, while
confirming Diday, came to the conclusion that some special conditions must
be present on one or both sides.
[114] See, e.g., Ballantyne, "Teratogenesis," _Transactions of the
Edinburgh Obstetrical Society_, 1896, vol. xxi, pp. 324-25.
[115] As quoted by Icard, _La Femme_, etc., p. 194. I have not been able
to see Négrier's work.
[116] I deal with the question of sexual anæsthesia in women in the third
volume of these _Studies_: "The Sexual Impulse in Women."
II.
The Question of a Monthly Sexual Cycle in Men--The Earliest Suggestions of
a General Physiological Cycle in Men--Periodicity in Disease--Insanity,
Heart Disease, etc.--The Alleged Twenty-three Days' Cycle--The
Physiological Periodicity of Seminal Emissions during Sleep--Original
Observations--Fortnightly and Weekly Rhythms.
For some centuries, at least, inquisitive observers here and there have
thought they found reason to believe that men, as well as women, present
various signs of a menstrual physiological cycle. It would be possible to
collect a number of opinions in favor of such a monthly physiological
periodicity in men. Precise evidence, however, is, for the most part,
lacking. Men have expended infinite ingenuity in establishing the remote
rhythms of the solar system and the periodicity of comets. They have
disdained to trouble about the simpler task of proving or disproving the
cycles of their own organisms.[117] It is over half a century since
Laycock wrote that "the _scientific_ observation and treatment of disease
are impossible without a knowledge of the mysterious revolutions
continually taking place in the system"; yet the task of summarizing the
whole of our knowledge regarding these "mysterious revolutions" is even
to-day no heavy one. As to the existence of a monthly cycle in the sexual
instincts of men, with a single exception, I am not aware that any attempt
has been made to bring forward definite evidence.[118] A certain interest
and novelty attaches, therefore, to the evidence I am able to produce,
although that evidence will not suffice to settle the question finally.
The great Italian physician, Sanctorius, who was in so many ways the
precursor of our modern methods of physiological research by the means of
instruments of precision, was the first, so far as I am aware, to suggest
a monthly cycle of the organism in men. He had carefully studied the
weight of the body with reference to the amount of excretions, and
believed that a monthly increase in weight to the amount of one or two
pounds occurred in men, followed by a critical discharge of urine, this
crisis being preceded by feelings of heaviness and lassitude.[119] Gall,
another great initiator of modern views, likewise asserted a monthly cycle
in men. He insisted that there is a monthly critical period, more marked
in nervous people than in others, and that at this time the complexion
becomes dull, the breath stronger, digestion more laborious, while there
is sometimes disturbance of the urine, together with general _malaise_, in
which the temper takes part; ideas are formed with more difficulty, and
there is a tendency to melancholy, with unusual irascibility and mental
inertia, lasting a few days. More recently Stephenson, who established the
cyclical wave-theory of menstruation, argued that it exists in men also,
and is really "a general law of vital energy."[120]
Sanctorius does not appear to have published the data on which
his belief was founded. Keill, an English, follower of
Sanctorius, in his _Medicina Statica Britannica_ (1718),
published a series of daily (morning and evening) body-weights
for the year, without referring to the question of a monthly
cycle. A period of maximum weight is shown usually, by Keill's
figures, to occur about once a month, but it is generally
irregular, and cannot usually be shown to occur at definite
intervals. Monthly discharges of blood from the sexual organs and
other parts of the body in men have been recorded in ancient and
modern times, and were treated of by the older medical writers as
an affliction peculiar to men with a feminine system. (Laycock,
_Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 79.) A summary of such cases will
be found in Gould and Pyle (_Anomalies and Curiosities of
Medicine_, 1897, pp. 27-28). Laycock (_Lancet_, 1842-43, vols. i
and ii) brought forward cases of monthly and fortnightly cycles
in disease, and asserted "the general principle that there are
greater and less cycles of movements going on in the system,
involving each other, and closely connected with the organization
of the individual." He was inclined to accept lunar influence,
and believed that the physiological cycle is made up of definite
fractions and multiples of a period of seven days, especially a
unit of three and a half days. Albrecht, a somewhat erratic
zoölogist, put forth the view a few years ago that there are
menstrual periods in men, giving the following reasons: (1) males
are rudimentary females, (2) in all males of mammals, a
rudimentary masculine uterus (Müller's ducts) still persists, (3)
totally hypospadic male individuals menstruate; and believed that
he had shown that in man there is a rudimentary menstruation
consisting in an almost monthly periodic appearance, lasting for
three or four days, of white corpuscles in the urine (_Anomalo_,
February, 1890). Dr. Campbell Clark, some years since, made
observations on asylum attendants in regard to the temperature,
during five weeks, which tended to show that the normal male
temperature varies considerably within certain limits, and that
"so far as I have been able to observe, there is one marked and
prolonged rise every month or five weeks, averaging three days,
occasional lesser rises appearing irregularly and of shorter
duration. These observations are only made in three cases, and I
have no proof that they refer to the sexual appetite" (Campbell
Clark, "The Sexual Reproductive Functions," Psychological
Section, British Medical Association, Glasgow, 1888; also,
private letters). Hammond (_Treatise on Insanity_, p. 114) says:
"I have certainly noted in some of my friends, the tendency to
some monthly periodic abnormal manifestations. This may be in the
form of a headache, or a nasal hæmorrhage, or diarrhoea, or
abundant discharge of uric acid, or some other unusual
occurrence. I think," he adds, "this is much more common than is
ordinarily supposed, and a careful examination or inquiry will
generally, if not invariably, establish the existence of a
periodicity of the character referred to."
Dr. Harry Campbell, in his book on _Differences in the Nervous
Organization of Men and Women_, deals fully with the monthly
rhythm (pp. 270 et seq.), and devotes a short chapter to the
question, "Is the Menstrual Rhythm peculiar to the Female Sex?"
He brings forward a few pathological cases indicating such a
rhythm, but although he had written a letter to the _Lancet_,
asking medical men to supply him with evidence bearing on this
question, it can scarcely be said that he has brought forward
much evidence of a convincing kind, and such as he has brought
forward is purely pathological. He believes, however, that we may
accept a monthly cycle in men. "We may," he concludes, "regard
the human being--both male and female--as the subject of a
monthly pulsation which begins with the beginning of life, and
continues till death," menstruation being regarded as a function
accidentally ingrafted upon this primordial rhythm.
It is not unreasonable to argue that the possibility of such a
menstrual cycle is increased, if we can believe that in women,
also, the menstrual cycle persists even when its outward
manifestations no longer occur. Aëtius said that menstrual
changes take place during gestation; in more modern times, Buffon
was of the same opinion. Laycock also maintained that menstrual
changes take place during pregnancy (_Nervous Diseases of Women_,
p. 47). Fliess considers that it is certainly incorrect to assert
that the menstrual process is arrested during pregnancy, and he
refers to the frequency of monthly epistaxis and other nasal
symptoms throughout this period (W. Fliess, _Beziehungen zwischen
Nase und Geschlechts-Organen_, pp. 44 et seq.). Beard, who
attaches importance to the persistence of a cyclical period in
gestation, calls it the muffled striking of the clock. Harry
Campbell (_Causation of Disease_, p. 54) has found
post-climacteric menstrual rhythm in a fair sprinkling of cases
up to the age of sixty.
It is somewhat remarkable that, so far as I have observed, none of these
authors refer to the possibility of any heightening of the sexual appetite
at the monthly crisis which they believe to exist in men. This omission
indicates that, as is suggested by the absence of definite statements on
the matter of increase of sexual desire at menstruation, it was an ignored
or unknown fact. Of recent years, however, many writers, especially
alienists, have stated their conviction that sexual desire in men tends to
be heightened at approximately monthly intervals, though they have not
always been able to give definite evidence in support of their statements.
Clouston, for instance, has frequently asserted this monthly
periodic sexual heightening in men. In the article,
"Developmental Insanity," in Tuke's _Psychological Dictionary_,
he refers to the periodic physiological heightening of the
reproductive _nisus_; and, again, in an article on "Alternation,
Periodicity, and Relapse in Mental Diseases" (_Edinburgh Medical
Journal_, July, 1882), he records the case of "an insane
gentleman, aged 49, who, for the past twenty-six years, has been
subject to the most regularly occurring brain-exaltation every
four weeks, almost to a day. It sometimes passes off without
becoming acutely maniacal, or even showing itself in outward
acts; at other times it becomes so, and lasts for periods of from
one to four weeks. It is always preceded by an uncomfortable
feeling in the head, and pain in the back, mental hebetude, and
slight depression. The _nisus generativus_ is greatly increased,
and he says that, if in that condition, he has full and free
seminal emissions during sleep, the excitement passes off; if
not, it goes on. A full dose of bromide or iodide of potassium
often, but not always, has the effect of stopping the excitement,
and a very long walk sometimes does the same. When the
excitement gets to a height, it is always followed by about a
week of stupid depression." In the same article Clouston remarks:
"I have for a long time been impressed with the relationship of
the mental and bodily alternations and periodicities in insanity
to the great physiological alternations and periodicities, and I
have generally been led to the conclusion that they are the same
in all essential respects, and only differ in degree of intensity
or duration. By far the majority of the cases in women follow the
law of the menstrual and sexual periodicity; the majority of the
cases in men follow the law of the more irregular periodicities
of the _nisus generativus_ in that sex. Many of the cases in both
sexes follow the seasonal periodicity which perhaps in man is
merely a reversion to the seasonal generative activities of the
majority of the lower animals." He found that among 338 cases of
insanity, chiefly mania and melancholia, 46 per cent, of females
and 40 per cent, of males showed periodicity,--diurnal, monthly,
seasonal, or annual, and more marked in women than in men, and in
mania than in melancholia,--and adds: "I found that the younger
the patient, the greater is the tendency to periodic remission
and relapse. The phenomenon finds its acme in the cases of
pubescent and adolescent insanity."
Conolly Norman, in the article "Mania, Hysterical" (Tuke's
_Psychological Dictionary_), states that "the activity of the
sexual organs is probably in both sexes fundamentally periodic."
Krafft-Ebing records the case of a neurasthenic Russian, aged 24,
who experienced sexual desires of urologinic character, with fair
regularity, every four weeks (_Psychopathia Sexualis_), and Näcke
mentions the case of a man who had nocturnal emissions at
intervals of four weeks (_Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_,
1908, p. 363), while Moll (_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, pp. 621-623)
recorded the case of a man, otherwise normal, who had attacks of
homosexual feeling every four weeks, and Rohleder (_Zeitschrift
für Sexualwissenschaft_, Nov., 1908) gives the case of an
unmarried slightly neuropathic physician who for several days
every three to five weeks has attacks of almost satyriacal sexual
excitement.
Féré, whose attention was called to this point, from time to time
noted the existence of sexual periodicity. Thus, in a case of
general paralysis, attacks of continuous sexual excitement, with
sleeplessness, occurred every twenty-eight days; at other times,
the patient, a man of 42, in the stage of dementia, slept well,
and showed no signs of sexual excitation (_Société de Biologie_,
October 6, 1900). In another case, of a man of sound heredity and
good health till middle life, periodic sexual manifestations
began from puberty, with localized genital congestion, erotic
ideas, and copious urination, lasting for two or three days.
These manifestations became menstrual, with a period of
intermenstrual excitement appearing regularly, but never became
intense. Between the age of 36 and 42, the intermenstrual crises
gradually ceased; at about 45, the menstrual crises ceased; the
periodic crises continued, however, with the sole manifestation
of increased frequency of urination (_Société de Biologie_, July
23, 1904). In a third case, of sexual neurasthenia, Féré found
that from puberty, onwards to middle life, there appeared, every
twenty-five to twenty-eight days, tenderness and swelling below
the nipple, accompanied by slight sexual excitation and erotic
dreams, lasting for one or two days (_Revue de Médecine_, March,
1905).
It is in the domain of disease that the most strenuous and, on the whole,
the most successful efforts have been made to discover a menstrual cycle
in men. Such a field seems promising at the outset, for many morbid
exaggerations or defects of the nervous system might be expected to
emphasize, or to free from inhibition, fundamental rhythmical processes of
the organism which in health, and under the varying conditions of social
existence, are overlaid by the higher mental activities and the pressure
of external stimuli. In the eighteenth century Erasmus Darwin wrote a
remarkable and interesting chapter on "The Periods of Disease," dealing
with solar and lunar influence on biological processes.[121] Since then,
many writers have brought forward evidence, especially in the domain of
nervous and mental disease, which seems to justify a belief that, under
pathological conditions, a tendency to a male menstrual rhythm may be
clearly laid bare.
We should expect an organ so primitive in character as the heart, and with
so powerful a rhythm already stamped upon its nervous organization, to be
peculiarly apt to display a menstrual rhythm under the stress of abnormal
conditions. This expectation might be strengthened by the menstrual rhythm
which Mr. Perry-Coste has found reason to suspect in pulse-frequency
during health. I am able to present a case in which such a periodicity
seems to be indicated. It is that of a gentleman who suffered severely for
some years before his death from valvular disease of the heart, with a
tendency to pulmonary congestion, and attacks of "cardiac asthma." His
wife, a lady of great intelligence, kept notes of her husband's
condition,[122] and at last observed that there was a certain periodicity
in the occurrence of the exacerbations. The periods were not quite
regular, but show a curious tendency to recur at about thirty days'
interval, a few days before the end of every month; it was during one of
these attacks that he finally died. There was also a tendency to minor
attacks about ten days after the major attacks. It is noteworthy that the
subject showed a tendency to periodicity when in health, and once remarked
laughingly before his illness: "I am just like a woman, always most
excitable at a particular time of the month."
Periodicity has been noted in various disorders of nervous
character. Periodic insanity has long been known and studied
(see, e.g., Pilcz, _Die periodischen Geistesstörungen_, 1901); it
is much commoner in women than in men. Periodicity has been
observed in stammering (a six-weekly period in one case), and
notably in hemicrania or migraine, by Harry Campbell, Osler, etc.
(The periodicity of a case of hemicrania has been studied in
detail by D. Fraser Harris, _Edinburgh Medical Journal_, July,
1902.) But the cycle in these cases is not always, or even
usually, of a menstrual type.
It is now possible to turn to an investigation which, although of very
limited extent, serves to place the question of a male menstrual cycle for
the first time on a sound basis. If there is such a cycle analogous to
menstruation in women, it must be a recurring period of nervous erethism,
and it must be demonstrably accompanied by greater sexual activity. In the
_American Journal of Psychology_ for 1888, Mr. Julius Nelson, afterward
Professor of Biology at the Rutgers College of Agriculture, New Brunswick,
published a study of dreams in which he recorded the results of detailed
observations of his dreams, and also of seminal emissions during sleep (by
him termed "gonekbole" or "ecbole"), during a period of something over two
years. Mr. Nelson found that both dreams and ecboles fell into a
physiological cycle of 28 days. The climax of maximum dreaming (as
determined by the number of words in the dream record) and the climax of
maximum ecbole fell at the same point of the cycle, the ecbolic climax
being more distinctly marked than the dream climax.
The question of cyclic physiological changes is considerably
complicated by our uncertainty regarding the precise length of
the cycle we may expect to find. Nelson finds a 28-day cycle
satisfactory. Perry-Coste, as we shall see, accepts a strictly
lunar cycle of 29½ days. Fliess has argued that in both women and
men, many physiological facts fall into a cycle of 23 days, which
he calls male, the 28-day cycle being female. (W. Fliess, _Die
Beziehungen zwischen Nase und weiblichen Geschlechts-Organen_,
1897, pp. 113 et seq.) Although Fliess brings forward a number of
minutely-observed cases, I cannot say that I am yet convinced of
the reality of this 23-day cycle. It is somewhat curious,
however, that at the same time as Fliess, though in apparent
independence, and from a different point of view, another worker
also suggested that there is a 23-day physiological cycle (John
Beard, _The Span of Gestation and the Cause of Birth_, Jena,
1897). Beard approaches the question from the embryological
standpoint, and argues that there is what he terms an "ovulation
unit" of about 23½ days, in the interval from the end of one
menstruation to the beginning of the next. Two "ovulation units"
make up one "critical unit," and the length of pregnancy,
according to Beard, is always a multiple of the "critical unit;"
in man, the gestation period amounts to six critical units. These
attempts to prove a new physiological cycle deserve careful study
and further investigation. The possibility of such a cycle should
be borne in mind, but at present we are scarcely entitled to
accept it.
So far as I am aware, Professor Nelson's very interesting series of
observations, which, for the first time, placed the question of a
menstrual rhythm in men on a sound and workable basis, have not directly
led to any further observations. I am, however, in possession of a much
more extended series of ecbolic observations completed before Nelson's
paper was published, although the results have only been calculated at a
comparatively-recent date. I now propose to present a summary of these
observations, and consider how far they confirm Nelson's conclusions.
These observations cover no less a period than twelve years, between the
ages of 17 and 29, the subject, W.K., being a student, and afterward
schoolmaster, leading, on the whole, a chaste life. The records were
faithfully made throughout the whole of this long period. Here, if
anywhere, should be material for the construction of a menstrual rhythm
on an ecbolic basis. While the results are in many respects instructive,
it can scarcely, perhaps, be said that they absolutely demonstrate a
monthly cycle. When summated in a somewhat similar manner to that adopted
by Nelson in his ecbolic observations, it is not difficult to regard the
maximum, which is reached on the 19th to 21st days of the summated
physiological month, as a real menstrual ecbolic climax, for no other
three consecutive days at all approach these in number of ecboles, while
there is a marked depression occurring four days earlier, on the 16th day
of the month. If, however, we split up the curve by dividing the period of
twelve years into two nearly equal periods, the earlier of about seven
years and the latter of about four years, and summate these separately,
the two curves do not present any parallel as regards the menstrual cycle.
It scarcely seems to me, therefore, that these curves present any
convincing evidence in this case of a monthly ecbolic cycle (and,
therefore, I refrain from reproducing them), although they seem to suggest
such a cycle. Nor is there any reason to suppose that by adopting a
different cycle of thirty days, or of twenty-three days, any more
conclusive results would be obtained.
It seems, however, when we look at these curves more closely, that they
are not wholly without significance. If I am justified in concluding that
they scarcely demonstrate a monthly cycle, it may certainly be added that
they show a rudimentary tendency for the ecboles to fall into a
fortnightly rhythm, and a very marked and unmistakable tendency to a
weekly rhythm. The fortnightly rhythm is shown in the curve for the
earlier period, but is somewhat disguised in the curve for the total
period, because the first climax is spread over two days, the 7th and 8th
of the month. If we readjust the curve for the total period by presenting
the days in pairs, the fortnightly tendency is more clearly brought out
(Chart I).
A more pronounced tendency still is traceable to a weekly rhythm. This is,
indeed, the most unquestionable fact brought out by these curves. All the
maxima occur on Saturday or Sunday, with the minima on Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, or Friday. This very pronounced weekly rhythm will serve to
swamp more or less completely any monthly rhythm on a 28-day basis.
Although here probably seen in an exaggerated form, it is almost certainly
a characteristic of the ecbolic curve generally.[123] I have been told by
several young men and women, especially those who work hard during the
week, that Saturday, and especially Sunday afternoon, are periods when the
thoughts spontaneously go in an erotic direction, and at this time there
is a special tendency to masturbation or to spontaneous sexual excitement.
It is on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, according to Guerry's
tables,[124] that the fewest suicides are committed, Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday, with, however, a partial fall on Wednesday, those on which
most suicides are committed, so that there would appear to be an
antagonism between sexual activity and the desire to throw off life. It
also appears (in the reports of the Bavarian factory inspectors) that
accidents in factories have a tendency to occur chiefly at the beginning
of the week, and toward the end rather than in the middle.[125] Even
growth, as Fleischmann has shown in the case of children, tends to fall
into weekly cycles. It is evident that the nervous system is profoundly
affected by the social influences resulting from the weekly cycle.
The analysis of this series of ecbolic curves may thus be said to recall
the suggestion of Laycock, that the menstrual cycle is really made up of
four weekly cycles, the periodic unit, according to Laycock, being three
and one-half days. I think it would, however, be more correct to say that
the menstrual cycle, perhaps originally formed with reference to the
influence of the moon on the sexual and social habits of men and other
animals, tends to break up by a process of segmentation into fortnightly
and weekly cycles. If we are justified in assuming that there is a male
menstrual cycle, we must conclude that in such a case as that just
analyzed, the weekly rhythm has become so marked as almost entirely to
obliterate the larger monthly rhythm.
However constituted, there seems little doubt that a physiological weekly
cycle really exists. This was, indeed, very clearly indicated many years
ago by the observations of Edward Smith, who showed that there are weekly
rhythms in pulse, respiration, temperature, carbonic acid evolution, urea,
and body-weight, Sunday being the great day of repair and increase of
weight.[126]
In an appendix to this volume I am able to present the results of another
long series of observations of nocturnal ecbolic manifestations carried
out by Mr. Perry-Coste, who has elaborately calculated the results, and
has convinced himself that on the basis of a strictly lunar month, thus
abolishing the disturbing influence of the weekly rhythm, which in his
case also appears, a real menstrual rhythm may be traced.[127]
It does not appear to me, however, even yet, that a final answer to the
question whether a menstrual sexual rhythm occurs in men can be decisively
given in the affirmative. That such a cycle will be proved in many cases
seems to me highly probable, but before this can be decisively affirmed it
is necessary that a much larger number of persons should be induced to
carry out on themselves the simple, but protracted, series of observations
that are required.
Since the first edition of this volume appeared, numerous series
of ecbolic records have reached me from different parts of the
world. The most notable of these series comes from a professional
man, of scientific training, who has for the past six years lived
in different parts of India, where the record was kept. Though
the record extends over nearly six years, there are two breaks in
it, due to a visit to England, and to loss of interest. Both
involuntary and voluntary discharges are included in the record.
The involuntary discharges occurred during sleep, usually with an
erotic dream, in which the subject invariably awaked and
frequently made an effort to check the emission. The voluntary
discharges in most cases commenced during sleep, or in the
half-waking state; deliberate masturbation, when fully awake, was
comparatively rare. The proportion of involuntary to more or less
voluntary ecboles was about 3 to 1. A third kind of sexual
manifestation (of frequency intermediate between the other two
forms) is also included, in which a high degree of erethism is
induced during the half waking state, culminating in an orgasm in
which the power of preventing discharge has been artificially
acquired. The subject, E.M., was 32 years of age when the record
began. He belongs to a healthy family, and is himself physically
sound, 5 feet 6 inches in height, but weight low, due to rickets
in infancy. In early life he stammered badly; his temperament is
emotional and self-conscious, while his work is unusually
exacting, and he lives for most of the year in a very trying
climate. As a boy he was very religious, and has always felt
obliged to resist sexual vice to the utmost, though there have
been occasional lapses.
As regards lunar periodicity, E.M., has summated his results in a
curve, after the same manner as Mr. Perry-Coste, beginning with
the new moon. The periods covered include 54 lunar months, and
the total number of discharges is 176; the average frequency is
about 3 per month of twenty-eight days. The curve, for the most
part, zigzags between a frequency of 4 and 9, but on the
twenty-fourth day it falls to 1, and then rises uninterruptedly
to a height of 11 on the twenty-seventh day, falling to 2 on the
next day. Whether a really menstrual rhythm is thus indicated I
do not undertake to decide, but I am inclined to agree with E.M.
himself that there is no definite evidence of it. "It looks to
me," he writes, "as if the only real rhythm (putting aside the
annual cycle) will be found to be the average period between the
ecboles, varying in different persons, but in my case, about nine
and one-eighth days. May not the ecbolic period in men be
compared to the menstrual period in women, and be an example of
the greater katabolic activity of men? There is the period of
tumescence, and the ecbole constituting the detumescence. The
week-end holiday would hasten the detumescence, but about every
third week-end there would tend to be delay to enable the system
to get back into its regulation nine or ten days' stride. This
might possibly be the explanation of the curves. The recent
emissions were nearly all involuntary during sleep. Age may have
something to do with the change in character."
E.M.'s curves frequently show the influence of weekly
periodicity, in the tendency to ecbole on Sunday, or sometimes on
Saturday or Monday. In recent years there has been some tendency
for this climax to be thrown towards the middle of the week, but,
on the whole, Wednesday is the point of lowest frequency.
In another case, the subject, A.N., who has spent nearly all his
life in the State of Indiana, has kept a record of sexual
manifestations between the ages of 30 and 34. The data, which
cover four years, have not been sent to me in a form which
enables the possibility of a monthly curve to be estimated, but
A.N., who has himself arranged the data on a lunar monthly basis,
considers that a monthly curve is thus revealed. "My memoranda,"
he writes, "show that discharges occur most frequently on the
first, second, and third days after new moon. There is also
another period on the fourteenth and fifteenth, which might
indicate a semi-lunar rhythm. The days of minimum discharge are
the seventh, eighth, twenty-second, and twenty-third." It may be
added that the yearly average of ecbolic manifestations, varying
between 50 and 55, comes out as 52, or exactly one per week.
A weekly periodicity is very definitely shown by A.N.'s data.
Sunday once more stands at the head of the week as regards
frequency, in this case very decisively. The figures are as follows:--
Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat.
48 21 24 35 28 26 27
In another case which has reached me from the United States, the
data are slighter, but deserve note, as the subject is a trained
psychologist, and I quote the case in his own words. Here, it
will be seen, there appears to be a tendency for the ecbolic
cycle to cover a period of about six weeks. In this case, also,
there is a tendency for the climax to occur about Saturday or
Sunday. "X. is 38 years old, unmarried, fair health, pretty good
heredity; university trained, and engaged in academic pursuits.
He thinks he may have completed puberty at about 13, though he
has no proof that he was in the full possession of his sex-powers
until he was 15 years 3 months old (when he had his first
emission). His sex life has been normal. He masturbated somewhat
when he slept with other boys (or men) during early manhood, but
not to excess.
"During the autumn of 1889 (when 28 years of age) he observed
that at certain times he had an itching feeling about the
testicles; that he felt slightly irritable; that the penis
erected with the slightest provocation, and that this peculiar
feeling usually passed away with a nightly emission. Indeed, so
regular was the matter that he usually wore a loin garment at
these times, to prevent the semen getting on the bedding. This
peculiar feeling ordinarily continued for two or three days. He
recalls at these times that he felt that he would like to wrestle
with some one, for there seemed to be a muscular tension. These
states returned with apparent regularity, and the intervals
seemed to be about six weeks, though no effort was made to
measure the periods until 1893. The following notes are taken
from the diaries of X.:--
"Thursday, December 29, 1892. The peculiar feeling.
(This is the only entry.)
"Thursday, February 9, 1893. The peculiar feeling.
(The diary notes that X. awoke nights to find erections, and
that the feeling continued until Sunday night following, when
there was an emission.)
"Friday, March 27, 1893. The peculiar feeling.
(The diary notes that there was an emission the next night,
and that the feeling disappeared.)
"Wednesday, May 3, 1893. The peculiar feeling.
(The diary notes that it continued until Saturday night, when
X. had sexual relations, and that it then disappeared.)
"Wednesday, June 14, 1893. The peculiar feeling.
(The diary states that the next night X. had an emission,
and the disappearance of the feeling.)
"Thursday, July 27, 1893. The peculiar feeling.
(The diary notes that it was apparent at about 3 o'clock
that afternoon. That night at 10 o'clock, X. had sexual
intercourse, and the feeling was not noted the next day.)
"Friday, September 8, 1893. The peculiar feeling.
(Continued until Tuesday, the 11th, and then disappeared.
No sexual intercourse, and no nightly emission.)
"Wednesday, October 25, 1893. The peculiar feeling.
(Continued until Saturday night, when there was a nightly
emission.)
"Saturday, December 9, 1893. The peculiar feeling.
(Continued until Monday night, when there was sexual
relations.)
"It will be noted that the intervals observed were of about six
weeks' duration, excepting one, that from September to October,
when it was nearly seven weeks.
"These observations were not recorded after 1893. X. thinks that
in 1894 the intervals were longer, an opinion which is based on
the fact that for a period of six months he had no sexual
intercourse and no nightly emissions. The times during this six
months when he had the 'peculiar feeling,' the sensation was so
slight as to be scarcely noted. In 1895, the feeling seemed more
pronounced than ever before, and X. thinks that it may have
recurred as often as once a month. In 1896, 1897, and 1898, the
intervals, he thinks, lengthened--at times, he thought, wholly
disappeared. During 1899, while they did not recur often, when
they did come the sensation was pronounced, although the
emission was less common. There was a peculiar 'heavy' feeling
about the testicles, and a marked tendency towards erection of
the penis, especially at night-time (while sleeping). X. often
awoke to find a tense erection. Moreover, these feelings usually
continued a week.
"1. In general, X. is of the opinion that as he grows older these
intervals lengthen, though this inference is not based on
_recorded_ data.
"2. He notes that a discharge (through sexual intercourse or in
sleep) invariably brings the peculiar feeling to a close for the
time being.
"3. He notes that sexual intercourse _at the time_ stops it; but,
when there has been sexual intercourse within a week or ten days
of the time (based upon the observations of 1893), that it had no
tendency to check the feeling."
In another case, that of F.C., an Irish farmer, born in
Waterford, the data are still more meagre, though the periodicity
is stated to be very pronounced. He is chaste, steady, with
occasional lapses from strict sobriety, healthy and mentally
normal, living a regular open-air life, far from the artificial
stimuli of towns. The observations refer to a period when he was
from 20 to 27 years of age. During this period, nocturnal
emissions occurred at regular intervals of exactly a month. They
were ushered in by fits of irritability and depression, and
usually occurred in dreamless sleep. The discharges were abundant
and physically weakening, but they relieved the psychic symptoms,
though they occasioned mental distress, since F.C. is scrupulous
in a religious sense, and also apprehensive of bad constitutional
effects, the result of reading alarmist quack pamphlets.
In another case known to me, a young man leading a chaste life,
experienced crises of sexual excitement every ten to fourteen
days, the crisis lasting for several days.
Finally, an interesting contribution to this subject, suggested
by this _Study_, has been made and published (in the proceedings
of the Amsterdam International Congress of Psychology, in 1907)
by the well-known Amsterdam neurologist and psychologist, Dr.
L.S.A.M. Von Römer under the title, "Ueber das Verhältniss
zwischen Mondalter und Sexualität." Von Römer's data are made up
not of nocturnal involuntary emissions, but of the voluntary acts
of sexual intercourse of an unmarried man, during a period of
four years. Von Römer believes that these, to a much greater
extent than those of a married man, would be liable to periodic
influence, if such exist. On making a curve of exact lunar length
(similarly to Perry-Coste), he finds that there are, every month,
two maxima and two minima, in a way that approximately resemble
Perry-Coste's curve. The main point in Von Römer's results is,
however, the correspondence that he finds with the actual lunar
phases; the chief maximum occurs at the time of the full moon,
and the secondary maximum at the time of the new moon, the minima
being at the first and fourth quarters. He hazards no theory in
explanation of this coincidence, but insists on the need for
further observations. It will be seen that A.N.'s results (_ante_
p. 117) seem in the main to correspond to Von Römer's.
FOOTNOTES:
[117] Even counting the pulse is a comparatively recent method of
physiological examination. It was not until 1450 that Nicolas of Cusa
advocated counting the pulse-beats. (Binz, _Deutsche medizinische
Wochenschrift_, October 6, 1898.)
[118] I leave this statement as it stands, though since the first
publication of this book it has ceased to be strictly accurate.
[119] Sanctorius, _Medicina Statica_, Sect. I, aph. lxv.
[120] _American Journal of Obstetrics_, xiv, 1882.
[121] _Zoönomia_, Section XXXVI.
[122] I reproduced these notes in full in earlier editions of this volume.
[123] Moll refers to the case of a man whose erotic dreams occurred every
fortnight, and always on Friday night (_Libido Sexualis_, Band I, p. 136).
One is inclined to suspect an element of autosuggestion in such a case;
still, the coincidence is noteworthy.
[124] See Durkheim, _Le Suicide_, p. 101.
[125] We must, of course, see here the results of the disorganization
produced by holidays, and the exhaustion produced by the week's labor; but
such influences are still the social effects of the cosmic week.
[126] E. Smith, _Health and Disease_, Chapter III. I may remark that,
according to Kemsoes (_Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift_, January 20,
1908, and _British Medical Journal_, January 29, 1898), school-children
work best on Monday and Tuesday.
[127] See Appendix B.
III.
The Annual Sexual Rhythm--In Animals--In Man--Tendency of the Sexual
Impulse to become Heightened in Spring and Autumn--The Prevalence of
Seasonal Erotic Festivals--The Feast of Fools--The Easter and Midsummer
Bonfires--The Seasonal Variations in Birthrate--The Causes of those
Variations--The Typical Conception-rate Curve for Europe--The Seasonal
Periodicity of Seminal Emissions During Sleep--Original
Observations--Spring and Autumn the Chief Periods of Involuntary Sexual
Excitement--The Seasonal Periodicity of Rapes--Of Outbreaks among
Prisoners--The Seasonal Curves of Insanity and Suicide--The Growth of
Children According to Season--The Annual Curve of Bread-consumption in
Prisons--Seasonal Periodicity of Scarlet Fever--The Underlying Causes of
these Seasonal Phenomena.
That there are annual seasonal changes in the human organism, especially
connected with the sexual function, is a statement that has been made by
physiologists and others from time to time, and the statement has even
reached the poets, who have frequently declared that spring is the season
of love.
Thus, sixty years ago, Laycock, an acute pioneer in the
investigation of the working of the human organism, brought
together (in a chapter on "The Periodic Movements in the
Reproductive Organs of Woman," in his _Nervous Diseases of
Women_, 1840, pp. 61-70) much interesting evidence to show that
the system undergoes changes about the vernal and autumnal
equinoxes, and that these changes are largely sexual.
Edward Smith, also a notable pioneer in this field of human
periodicity, and, indeed, the first to make definite observations
on a number of points bearing on it, sums up, in his remarkable
book, _Health and Disease as Influenced by Daily, Seasonal, and
Other Cyclical Changes in the Human System_ (1861), to the effect
that season is a more powerful influence on the system than
temperature or atmospheric pressure; "in the early and middle
parts of spring every function of the body is in its highest
degree of efficiency," while autumn is "essentially a period of
change from the minimum toward the maximum of vital conditions."
He found that in April and May most carbonic acid is evolved,
there being then a progressive diminution to September, and then
a progressive increase; the respiratory rate also fell from a
maximum in April to a minimum maintained at exactly the same
level throughout August, September, October, and November;
spring was found to be the season of maximum, autumn of minimum,
muscular power; sensibility to tactile and temperature
impressions was also greater in spring.
Kulischer, studying the sexual customs of various human races,
concluded that in primitive times, only at two special
seasons--at spring and in harvest-time--did pairing take place;
and that, when pairing ceased to be strictly confined to these
periods, its symbolical representation was still so confined,
even among the civilized nations of Europe. He further argued
that the physiological impulse was only felt at these periods.
(Kulischer, "Die geschlechtliche Zuchtwahl bei den Menschen in
der Urzeit," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1876, pp. 152 and
157.) Cohnstein ("Ueber Prädilectionszeiten bei Schwangerschaft,"
_Archiv für Gynäkologie_, 1879) also suggested that women
sometimes only conceive at certain periods of the year.
Wiltshire, who made various interesting observations regarding
the physiology of menstruation, wrote: "Many years ago, I
concluded that every women had a law peculiar to herself, which
governed the times of her bringing forth (and conceiving); that
she was more prone to bring forth at certain epochs than at
others; and subsequent researches have established the accuracy
of the forecast." He further stated his belief in a "primordial
seasonal aptitude for procreation, the impress of which still
remains, and, to some extent, governs the breeding-times of
humanity." (A. Wiltshire, "Lectures on the Comparative Physiology
of Menstruation," _British Medical Journal_, March, 1883, pp.
502, etc.)
Westermarck, in a chapter of his _History of Human Marriage_,
dealing with the question of "A Human Pairing Season in Primitive
Times," brings forward evidence showing that spring, or, rather,
early summer, is the time for increase of the sexual instinct,
and argues that this is a survival of an ancient pairing season;
spring, he points out, is a season of want, rather than
abundance, for a frugivorous species, but when men took to herbs,
roots, and animal food, spring became a time of abundance, and
suitable for the birth of children. He thus considers that in
man, as in lower animals, the times of conception are governed by
the times most suitable for birth.
Rosenstadt, as we shall see later, also believes that men to-day
have inherited a physiological custom of procreating at a certain
epoch, and he thus accounts for the seasonal changes in the
birthrate.
Heape, who also believes that "at one period of its existence the
human species had a special breeding season," follows Wiltshire
in suggesting that "there is some reason to believe that the
human female is not always in a condition to breed." (W. Heape,
"Menstruation and Ovulation of _Macacus rhesus_," _Philosophical
Transactions_, 1897; id. "The Sexual Season of Mammals,"
_Quarterly Journal Microscopical Science_, 1900.)
Except, however, in one important respect, with which we shall presently
have to deal, few attempts have been made to demonstrate any annual
organic sexual rhythm. The supposition of such annual cycle is usually
little more than a deduction from the existence of the well-marked
seasonal sexual rhythm in animals. Most of the higher animals breed only
once or twice a year, and at such a period that the young are born when
food is most plentiful. At other periods the female is incapable of
breeding, and without sexual desires, while the male is either in the same
condition or in a condition of latent sexuality. Under the influence of
domestication, animals tend to lose the strict periodicity of the wild
condition, and become apt for breeding at more frequent intervals. Thus
among dogs in the wild state the bitch only experiences heat once a year,
in the spring. Among domesticated dogs, there is not only the spring
period of heat, early in the year, but also an autumn period, about six
months later; the primitive period, however, remains the most important
one, and the best litters of pups are said to be produced in the spring.
The mare is in season in spring and summer; sheep take the ram in
autumn.[128] Many of the menstruating monkeys also, whether or not sexual
desire is present throughout the year, only conceive in spring and in
autumn. Almost any time of the year may be an animal's pairing season,
this season being apparently in part determined by the economic conditions
which will prevail at birth. While it is essential that animals should be
born during the season of greatest abundance, it is equally essential that
pairing, which involves great expenditure of energy, should also take
place at a season of maximum physical vigor.
As an example of the sexual history of an animal through the
year, I may quote the following description, by Dr. A.W.
Johnstone, of the habits of the American deer: "Our common
American deer, in winter-time, is half-starved for lack of
vegetation in the woods; the low temperature, snow, and ice, make
his conditions of life harder for lack of the proper amount of
food, whereby he becomes an easier prey to carnivorous animals.
He has difficulty even in preserving life. In spring he sheds his
winter coat, and is provided with a suit of lighter hair, and
while this is going on the male grows antlers for defence. The
female about this time is far along in pregnancy, and when the
antlers are fully grown she drops the fawn. When the fawns are
dropped vegetation is plentiful and lactation sets in. During
this time the male is kept fully employed in getting food and
guarding his more or less helpless family. As the season advances
the vegetation increases and the fawn begins to eat grass. When
the summer heat commences the little streams begin to dry up, and
the animal once more has difficulty in supporting life because of
the enervating heat, the effect of drought on the vegetation, and
the distance which has to be traveled to get water; therefore,
fully ten months in each year the deer has all he can do to live
without extra exertion incident to rutting. Soon after the autumn
rains commence vegetation becomes more luxurious, the antlers of
the male and new suits of hair for both are fully grown, heat of
the summer is gone, food and drink are plentiful everywhere, the
fawns are weaned, and both sexes are in the very finest
condition. Then, and then only, in the whole year, comes the rut,
which, to them as to most other animals, means an unwonted amount
of physical exercise besides the everyday runs for life from
their natural enemies, and an unusual amount of energy is used
up. If a doe dislikes the attention of a special buck, miles of
racing result. If jealous males meet, furious battles take place.
The strain on both sexes could not possibly be endured at any
other season of the year. With approach of cold weather, climatic
deprivations and winter dangers commence and rut closes. In all
wild animals, rut occurs only when the climatic and other
conditions favor the highest physical development. This law holds
good in all wild birds, for it is then only that they can stand
the strain incident to love-making. The common American crow is a
very good study. In the winter he travels around the ricefields
of the South, leading a tramp's existence in a country foreign to
him, and to which he goes only to escape the rigors of the
northern climate. For several weeks in the spring he goes about
the fields, gathering up the worms and grubs. After his long
flight from the South he experiences several weeks of an almost
ideal existence, his food is plentiful, he becomes strong and
hearty, and then he turns to thoughts of love. In the pairing
season he does more work than at any other time in the year:
fantastic dances, racing and chasing after the females, and
savage fights with rivals. He endures more than would be possible
in his ordinary physical state. Then come the care of the young
and the long flights for water and food during the drought of the
summer. After the molt, autumn finds him once more in flock, and
with the first frosts he is off again to the South. In the wild
state, rut is the capstone of perfect physical condition." (A.W.
Johnstone, "The Relation of Menstruation to the other
Reproductive Functions," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, vol.
xxxii, 1895.)
Wiltshire ("Lectures on the Comparative Physiology of
Menstruation," _British Medical Journal_, March, 1888) and
Westermarck (_History of Human Marriage_, Chapter II) enumerate
the pairing season of a number of different animals.
With regard to the breeding seasons of monkeys, little seems to
be positively known. Heape made special inquiries with reference
to the two species whose sexual life he investigated. He was
informed that _Semnopithecus entellus_ breeds twice a year, in
April and in October. He accepts Aitcheson's statement that the
_Macacus rhesus_, in Simla, copulates in October, and adds that
in the very different climate of the plains it appears to
copulate in May. He concludes that the breeding season varies
greatly in dependence on climate, but believes that the breeding
season is always preserved, and that it affects the sexual
aptitude of the male. He could not make his monkeys copulate
during February or March, but is unable to say whether or not
sexual intercourse is generally admitted outside the breeding
season. He quotes the observation of Breschet that monkeys
copulate during pregnancy.
In primitive human races we very frequently trace precisely the same
influence of the seasonal impulse as may be witnessed in the higher
animals, although among human races it does not always result that the
children are born at the time of the greatest plenty, and on account of
the development of human skill such a result is not necessary. Thus Dr.
Cook found among the Eskimo that during the long winter nights the
secretions are diminished, muscular power is weak, and the passions are
depressed. Soon after the sun appears a kind of rut affects the young
population. They tremble with the intensity of sexual passion, and for
several weeks much of the time is taken up with courtship and love. Hence,
the majority of the children are born nine months later, when the four
months of perpetual night are beginning. A marked seasonal periodicity of
this kind is not confined to the Arctic regions. We may also find it in
the tropics. In Cambodia, Mondière has found that twice a year, in April
and September, men seem to experience a "veritable rut," and will
sometimes even kill women who resist them.[129]
These two periods, spring and autumn--the season for greeting the
appearance of life and the season for reveling in its final
fruition--seem to be everywhere throughout the world the most usual
seasons for erotic festivals. In classical Greece and Rome, in India,
among the Indians of North and South America, spring is the most usual
season, while in Africa the yam harvest of autumn is the season chiefly
selected. There are, of course, numerous exceptions to this rule, and it
is common to find both seasons observed. Taking, indeed, a broad view of
festivals throughout the world, we may say that there are four seasons
when they are held: the winter solstice, when the days begin to lengthen
and primitive man rejoices in the lengthening and seeks to assist it;[130]
the vernal equinox, the period of germination and the return of life; the
summer solstice, when the sun reaches its height; and autumn, the period
of fruition, of thankfulness, and of repose. But it is rarely that we find
a people seriously celebrating more than two of these festival seasons.
In Australia, according to Müller as quoted by Ploss and Bartels, marriage
and conception take place during the warm season, when there is greatest
abundance of food, and to some extent is even confined to that period.
Oldfield and others state that the Australian erotic festivals take place
only in spring. Among some tribes, Müller adds, such as the Watschandis,
conception is inaugurated by a festival called _kaaro_, which takes place
in the warm season at the first new moon after the yams are ripe. The
leading feature of this festival is a moonlight dance, representing the
sexual act symbolically. With their spears, regarded as the symbols of the
male organ, the men attack bushes, which represent the female organs.
They thus work themselves up to a state of extreme sexual excitement.[131]
Among the Papuans of New Guinea, also, according to Miklucho-Macleay,
conceptions chiefly occur at the end of harvest, and Guise describes the
great annual festival of the year which takes place at the time of the yam
and banana harvest, when the girls undergo a ceremony of initiation and
marriages are effected.[132] In Central Africa, says Sir H.H. Johnston, in
his _Central Africa_, sexual orgies are seriously entered into at certain
seasons of the year, but he neglects to mention what these seasons are.
The people of New Britain, according to Weisser (as quoted by Ploss and
Bartels), carefully guard their young girls from the young men. At certain
times, however, a loud trumpet is blown in the evening, and the girls are
then allowed to go away into the bush to mix freely with the young men. In
ancient Peru (according to an account derived from a pastoral letter of
Archbishop Villagomez of Lima), in December, when the fruit of the
_paltay_ is ripe, a festival was held, preceded by a five days' fast.
During the festival, which lasted six days and six nights, men and women
met together in a state of complete nudity at a certain spot among the
gardens, and all raced toward a certain hill. Every man who caught up with
a woman in the race was bound at once to have intercourse with her.
Very instructive, from our present point of view, is the account given by
Dalton, of the festivals of the various Bengal races. Thus the Hos (a
Kolarian tribe), of Bengal, are a purely agricultural people, and the
chief festival of the year with them is the _mágh parah_. It is held in
the month of January, "when the granaries are full of grain, and the
people, to use their own expression, full of devilry." It is the festival
of the harvest-home, the termination of the year's toil, and is always
held at full moon. The festival is a _saturnalia_, when all rules of duty
and decorum are forgotten, and the utmost liberty is allowed to women and
girls, who become like bacchantes. The people believe that at this time
both men and women become overcharged with vitality, and that a safety
valve is absolutely necessary. The festival begins with a religious
sacrifice made by the village priest or elders, and with prayers for the
departed and for the vouchsafing of seasonable rain and good crops. The
religious ceremonies over, the people give themselves up to feasting and
to drinking the home-made beer, the preparation of which from fermented
rice is one of a girl's chief accomplishments. "The Ho population," wrote
Dalton, "are at other seasons quiet and reserved in manner, and in their
demeanor toward women gentle and decorous; even in their flirtations they
never transcend the bounds of decency. The girls, though full of spirits
and somewhat saucy, have innate notions of propriety that make them modest
in demeanor, though devoid of all prudery, and of the obscene abuse, so
frequently heard from the lips of common women in Bengal, they appear to
have no knowledge. They are delicately sensitive under harsh language of
any kind, and never use it to others; and since their adoption of clothing
they are careful to drape themselves decently, as well as gracefully; but
they throw all this aside during the _mágh_ feast. Their nature appears to
undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in
gross language, and parents their children; men and women become almost
like animals in the indulgence of their amorous propensities. They enact
all that was ever portrayed by prurient artists in a bacchanalian festival
or pandean orgy; and as the light of the sun they adore, and the presence
of numerous spectators, seems to be no restraint on their indulgence, it
cannot be expected that chastity is preserved when the shades of night
fall on such a scene of licentiousness and debauchery." While, however,
thus representing the festival as a mere debauch, Dalton adds that
relationships formed at this time generally end in marriage. There is also
a flower festival in April and May, of religious nature, but the dances
at this festival are quieter in character.[133]
In Burmah the great festival of the year is the full moon of October,
following the Buddhist Lent season (which is also the wet season), during
which there is no sexual intercourse. The other great festival is the New
Year in March.[134]
In classical times the great festivals were held at the same time as in
northern and modern Europe. The _brumalia_ took place in midwinter, when
the days were shortest, and the _rosalia_, according to early custom in
May or June, and at a later time about Easter. After the establishment of
Christianity the Church made constant efforts to suppress this latter
festival, and it was referred to by an eighth century council as "a wicked
and reprehensible holiday-making." These festivals appear to be intimately
associated with Dionysus worship, and the flower-festival of Dionysus, as
well as the Roman Liberales in honor of Bacchus, was celebrated in March
with worship of Priapus. The festivals of the Delian Apollo and of
Artemis, both took place during the first week in May and the Roman
Bacchanales in October.[135]
The mediæval Feast of Fools was to a large extent a seasonal orgy licensed
by the Church. It may be traced directly back through the barbatories of
the lower empire to the Roman _saturnalia_, and at Sens, the ancient
ecclesiastical metropolis of France, it was held at about the same time as
the _saturnalia_, on the Feast of the Circumcision, i.e., New Year's Day.
It was not, however, always held at this time; thus at Evreux it took
place on the 1st of May.[136]
The Easter bonfires of northern-central Europe, the Midsummer (St. John's
Eve) fires of southern-central Europe, still bear witness to the ancient
festivals.[137] There is certainly a connection between these bonfires and
erotic festivals; it is noteworthy that they occur chiefly at the period
of spring and early summer, which, on other grounds, is widely regarded as
the time for the increase of the sexual instinct, while the less frequent
period for the bonfires is that of the minor sexual climax. Mannhardt was
perhaps the first to show how intimately these spring and early summer
festivals--held with bonfires and dances and the music of violin--have
been associated with love-making and the choice of a mate.[138] In spring,
the first Monday in Lent (Quadrigesima) and Easter Eve were frequent days
for such bonfires. In May, among the Franks of the Main, the unmarried
women, naked and adorned with flowers, danced on the Blocksberg before the
men, as described by Herbels in the tenth century.[139] In the central
highlands of Scotland the Beltane fires were kindled on the 1st of May.
Bonfires sometimes took place on Halloween (October 31st) and Christmas.
But the great season all over Europe for these bonfires, then often held
with erotic ceremonial, is the summer solstice, the 23d of June, the eve
of Midsummer, or St. John's Day.[140]
The Bohemians and other Slavonic races formerly had meetings with sexual
license. This was so up to the beginning of the sixteenth century on the
banks of rivers near Novgorod. The meetings took place, as a rule, the day
before the Festival of John the Baptist, which, in pagan times, was that
of a divinity known by the name of Jarilo (equivalent to Priapus). Half a
century later, a new ecclesiastical code sought to abolish every vestige
of the early festivals held on Christmas Day, on the Day of the Baptism,
of Our Lord, and on John the Baptist's Day. A general feature of all these
festivals (says Kowalewsky) was the prevalence of the promiscuous
intercourse of the sexes. Among the Ehstonians, at the end of the
eighteenth century, thousands of persons would gather around an old ruined
church (in the Fellinschen) on the Eve of St. John, light a bonfire, and
throw sacrificial gifts into it. Sterile women danced naked among the
ruins; much eating and drinking went on, while the young men and maidens
disappeared into the woods to do what they would. Festivals of this
character still take place at the end of June in some districts. Young
unmarried couples jump barefoot over large fires, usually near rivers or
ponds. Licentiousness is rare.[141] But in many parts of Russia the
peasants still attach little value to virginity, and even prefer women who
have been mothers. The population of the Grisons in the sixteenth century
held regular meetings not less licentious than those of the Cossacks.
These were abolished by law. Kowalewsky regards all such customs as a
survival of early forms of promiscuity.[142]
Frazer (_Golden Bough_, 2d ed., 1900, vol. iii, pp. 236-350)
fully describes and discusses the dances, bonfires and festivals
of spring and summer, of Halloween (October 31), and Christmas.
He also explains the sexual character of these festivals. "There
are clear indications," he observes (p. 305), "that even human
fecundity is supposed to be promoted by the genial heat of the
fires. It is an Irish belief that a girl who jumps thrice over
the midsummer bonfire will soon marry and become the mother of
many children; and in various parts of France they think that if
a girl dances round nine fires she will be sure to marry within a
year. On the other hand, in Lechrain, people say that if a young
man and woman, leaping over the midsummer fire together, escape
unsmirched, the young woman will not become a mother within
twelve months--the flames have not touched and fertilized her.
The rule observed in some parts of France and Belgium, that the
bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent should be kindled by the
person who was last married, seems to belong to the same class of
ideas, whether it be that such a person is supposed to receive
from, or impart to, the fire a generative and fertilizing
influence. The common practice of lovers leaping over the fires
hand-in-hand may very well have originated in a notion that
thereby their marriage would be more likely to be blessed with
offspring. And the scenes of profligacy which appear to have
marked the midsummer celebration among the Ehstonians, as they
once marked the celebration of May Day among ourselves, may have
sprung, not from the mere license of holiday-makers, but from a
crude notion that such orgies were justified, if not required, by
some mysterious bond which linked the life of man, to the courses
of the heavens at the turning-point of the year."
As regards these primitive festivals, although the evidence is scattered
and sometimes obscure, certain main conclusions clearly emerge. In early
Europe there were, according to Grimm, only two seasons, sometimes
regarded as spring and winter, sometimes as spring and autumn, and for
mythical purposes these seasons were alone available.[143] The appearance
of each of these two seasons was inaugurated by festivals which were
religious and often erotic in character. The Slavonic year began in March,
at which time there was formerly, it is believed, a great festival, not
only in Slavonic but also in Teutonic countries. In Northern Germany there
were Easter bonfires always associated with mountains or hills. The Celtic
bonfires were held at the beginning of May, while the Teutonic May-day, or
_Walpurgisnacht_, is a very ancient sacred festival, associated with
erotic ceremonial, and regarded by Grimm as having a common origin with
the Roman _floralia_ and the Greek _dionysia_. Thus, in Europe, Grimm
concludes: "there are four different ways of welcoming summer. In Sweden
and Gothland a battle of winter and summer, a triumphal entry of the
latter. In Schonen, Denmark, Lower Saxony, and England, simply May-riding,
or fetching of the May-wagon. On the Rhine merely a battle of winter and
summer, without immersion, without the pomp of an entry. In Franconia,
Thuringia, Meissen, Silesia, and Bohemia only the carrying out of wintry
death; no battle, no formal introduction of summer. Of these festivals the
first and second fall in May, the third and fourth in March. In the first
two, the whole population take part with unabated enthusiasm; in the last
two only the lower poorer class.... Everything goes to prove that the
approach of summer was to our forefathers a holy tide, welcomed by
sacrifice, feast, and dance, and largely governing and brightening the
people's life."[144] The early spring festival of March, the festival of
Ostara, the goddess of spring, has become identified with the Christian
festival of Resurrection (just as the summer solstice festival has been
placed beneath the patronage of St. John the Baptist); but there has been
only an amalgamation of closely-allied rites, for the Christian festival
also may be traced back to a similar origin. Among the early Arabians the
great _ragab_ feast, identified by Ewald and Robertson Smith with the
Jewish _paschal_ feast, fell in the spring or early summer, when the
camels and other domestic animals brought forth their young and the
shepherds offered their sacrifices.[145] Babylonia, the supreme early
centre of religious and cosmological culture, presents a more decisive
example of the sex festival. The festival of Tammuz is precisely analogous
to the European festival of St. John's Day. Tammuz was the solar god of
spring vegetation, and closely associated with Ishtar, also an
agricultural deity of fertility. The Tammuz festival was, in the earliest
times, held toward the summer solstice, at the time of the first wheat and
barley harvest. In Babylonia, as in primitive Europe, there were only two
seasons; the festival of Tammuz, coming at the end of winter and the
beginning of summer, was a fast followed by a feast, a time of mourning
for winter, of rejoicing for summer. It is part of the primitive function
of sacred ritual to be symbolical of natural processes, a mysterious
representation of natural processes with the object of bringing them
about.[146] The Tammuz festival was an appeal to the powers of Nature to
exhibit their generative functions; its erotic character is indicated not
only by the well-known fact that the priestesses of Ishtar (the Kadishtu,
or "holy ones") were prostitutes, but by the statements in Babylonian
legends concerning the state of the earth during Ishtar's winter absence,
when the bull, the ass, and man ceased to reproduce. It is evident that
the return of spring, coincident with the Tammuz festival, was regarded as
the period for the return of the reproductive instinct even in man.[147]
So that along this line also we are led back to a great procreative
festival.
Thus the great spring festivals were held between March and June,
frequently culminating in a great orgy on Midsummer's Eve. The next great
season of festivals in Europe was in autumn. The beginning of August was a
great festival in Celtic lands, and the echoes of it, Rhys remarks, have
not yet died out in Wales.[148] The beginning of November, both in Celtic
and Teutonic countries, was a period of bonfires.[149] In Germanic
countries especially there was a great festival at the time. The Germanic
year began at Martinmas (November 11th), and the great festival of the
year was then held. It is the oldest Germanic festival on record, and
retained its importance even in the Middle Ages. There was feasting all
night, and the cattle that were to be killed were devoted to the gods; the
goose was associated with this festival.[150] These autumn festivals
culminated in the great festival of the winter solstice which we have
perpetuated in the celebrations of Christmas and New Year. Thus, while
the two great primitive culminating festivals of spring and autumn
correspond exactly (as we shall see) with the seasons of maximum
fecundation, even in the Europe of to-day, the earlier spring (March)
and--though less closely--autumn (November) festivals correspond with the
periods of maximum spontaneous sexual disturbance, as far as I have been
able to obtain precise evidence of such disturbance. That the maximum of
physiological sexual excitement should tend to appear earlier than the
maximum of fecundation is a result that might be expected.
The considerations so far brought forward clearly indicate that among
primitive races there are frequently one or two seasons in the
year--especially spring and autumn--during which sexual intercourse is
chiefly or even exclusively carried on, and they further indicate that
these primitive customs persist to some extent even in Europe to-day. It
would still remain, to determine whether any such influence affects the
whole mass of the civilized population and determines the times at which
intercourse, or fecundation, most frequently takes place.
This question can be most conveniently answered by studying the seasonal
variation in the birthrate, calculating back to the time of conception.
Wargentin, in Sweden, first called attention to the periodicity of the
birthrate in 1767.[151] The matter seems to have attracted little further
attention until Quetelet, who instinctively scented unreclaimed fields of
statistical investigation, showed that in Belgium and Holland there is a
maximum of births in February, and, consequently, of conceptions in May,
and a minimum of births about July, with consequent minimum of conceptions
in October. Quetelet considered that the spring maximum of conceptions
corresponded to an increase of vitality after the winter cold. He pointed
out that this sexual climax was better marked in the country than in
towns, and accounted for this by the consideration that in the country
the winter cold is more keenly felt. Later, Wappäus investigated the
matter in various parts of northern and southern Europe as well as in
Chile, and found that there was a maximum of conceptions in May and June
attributable to season, and in Catholic countries strengthened by customs
connected with ecclesiastical seasons. This maximum was, he found,
followed by a minimum in September, October, and November, due to
gradually increasing exhaustion, and the influence of epidemic diseases,
as well as the strain of harvest-work. The minimum is reached in the south
earlier than in the north. About November conceptions again become more
frequent, and reach the second maximum at about Christmas and New Year.
This second maximum is very slightly marked in southern countries, but
strongly marked in northern countries (in Sweden the absolute maximum of
conceptions is reached in December), and is due, in the opinion of
Wappäus, solely to social causes. Villermé reached somewhat similar
results. Founding his study on 17,000,000 births, he showed that in France
it was in April, May, and June, or from the spring equinox to the summer
solstice, and nearer to the solstice than the equinox, that the maximum of
fecundations takes place; while the minimum of births is normally in July,
but is retarded by a wet and cold summer in such a manner that in August
there are scarcely more births than in July, and, on the other hand, a
very hot summer, accelerating the minimum of births, causes it to fall in
June instead of in July.[152] He also showed that in Buenos Ayres, where
the seasons are reversed, the conception-rate follows the reversed
seasons, and is also raised by epochs of repose, of plentiful food, and of
increased social life. Sormani studied the periodicity of conception in
Italy, and found that the spring maximum in the southern provinces occurs
in May, and gradually falls later as one proceeds northward, until, in the
extreme north of the peninsula, it occurs in July. In southern Italy there
is only one maximum and one minimum; in the north there are two. The
minimum which follows the spring or summer maximum increases as we
approach the south, while the minimum associated with the winter cold
increases as we approach the north.[153] Beukemann, who studied the matter
in various parts of Germany, found that seasonal influence was specially
marked in the case of illegitimate births. The maximum of conceptions of
illegitimate children takes place in the spring and summer of Europe
generally; in Russia it takes place in the autumn and winter, when the
harvest-working months for the population are over, and the period of
rest, and also of minimum deathrate (September, October, and November),
comes round. In Russia the general conception-rate has been studied by
various investigators. Here the maximum number of conceptions is in
winter, the minimum varying among different elements of the population.
Looked at more closely, there are maxima of conceptions in Russia in
January and in April. (In Russian towns, however, the maximum number of
conceptions occurs in the autumn.) The special characteristics of the
Russian conception-rate are held to be due to the prevalence of marriages
in autumn and winter,[154] to the severely observed fasts of spring, and
to the exhausting harvest-work of summer.
It is instructive to compare the conception-rate of Europe with that of a
non-European country. Such a comparison has been made by S.A. Hill for the
Northwest Provinces of India. Here the Holi and other erotic festivals
take place in spring; but spring is not the period when conceptions
chiefly take place; indeed, the prevalence of erotic festivals in spring
appears to Hill an argument in favor of those festivals having originated
in a colder climate. The conceptions show a rise through October and
November to a maximum in December and January, followed by a steady and
prolonged fall to a minimum in September. This curve can be accounted for
by climatic and economic conditions. September is near the end of the long
and depressing hot season, when malarial influences are rapidly
increasing to a maximum, the food-supply is nearly exhausted, and there is
the greatest tendency to suicide. With October it forms the period of
greatest mortality. December, on the other hand, is the month when food is
most abundant, and it is also a very healthy month.[155]
For a summary of the chief researches into this question, see
Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_; also, Rosenstadt, "Zur Frage nach
den Ursachen welche die Zahl der Conceptionen, etc,"
_Mittheilungen aus den embryologischen Institute Universität
Wien_, second series, fasc. 4, 1890. Rosenstadt concludes that
man has inherited from animal ancestors a "physiological custom"
which has probably been further favored by climatic and social
conditions. "Primitive man," he proceeds, "had inherited from his
ancestors the faculty of only reproducing himself at determined
epochs. On the arrival of this period of rut, fecundation took
place on a large scale, this being very easy, thanks to the
promiscuity in which primitive man lived. With the development of
civilization, men give themselves up to sexual relations all the
year around, but the 'physiological custom' of procreating at a
certain epoch has not completely disappeared; it remains as a
survival of the animal condition, and manifests itself in the
recrudescence of the number of conceptions during certain months
of the year." O. Rosenbach ("Bemerkungen über das Problem einer
Brunstzeit beim Menschen," _Archiv für Rassen und
Gesellschafts-Biologie_, Bd. III, Heft 5) has also argued in
favor of a chief sexual period in the year in man, with secondary
and even tertiary climaxes, in March, August, and December. He
finds that in some families, for several generations, birthdays
tend to fall in the same months, but his paper is, on the whole,
inconclusive.
Some years ago, Prof. J.B. Haycraft argued, on the basis of data
furnished by Scotland, that the conception-rate corresponds to
the temperature-curve (Haycraft, "Physiological Results of
Temperature Variation," _Transactions of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh_, vol. xxix, 1880). "Temperature," he concluded, "is
the main factor regulating the variations in the number of
conceptions which occur during the year. It increases their
number with its elevation, and this on an average of 0.5 per
cent, for an elevation of 1° F." Whether or not this theory may
fit the facts as regards Scotland, it is certainly altogether
untenable when we take a broader view of the phenomena.
Recently Dr. Paul Gaedeken of Copenhagen has argued in a detailed
statistical study ("La Réaction de l'Organisme sous l'Influence
Physico-Chimiques des Agents Météorologiques," _Archives
d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Feb., 1909) that the
conception-rate, as well as the periodicity of suicide and allied
phenomena, is due to the action of the chemical rays on the
unpigmented skin in early spring, this action being
physiologically similar to that of alcohol. He seeks thus to
account for the marked and early occurrence of such periodic
phenomena in Greenland and other northern countries where there
is much chemical action (owing to the clear air) in early spring,
but little heat. This explanation would not cover an autumnal
climax, the existence of which Gaedeken denies.
In order to obtain a fairly typical conception-curve for Europe, and to
allow the variations of local habit and custom to some extent to
annihilate each other, I have summated the figures given by Mayr for about
a quarter of a million births in Germany, France, and Italy,[156]
obtaining a curve (Chart 2) of the conception-rate which may be said
roughly to be that of Europe generally. If we begin at September as the
lowest point, we find an autumn rise culminating in the lesser maximum of
Christmas, followed by a minor depression in January and February. Then
comes the great spring rise, culminating in May, and followed after June
by a rapid descent to the minimum.
In Canada (see e.g., _Report of the Registrar General of the
Province of Ontario_ for 1904), the maximum and minimum of
conceptions alike fall later than in Europe; the months of
maximum conception are June, July, and August; of minimum
conception, January, February, and March. June is the favorite
month for marriage.
It would be of some interest to know the conception-curve for the
well-to-do classes, who are largely free from the industrial and
social influences which evidently, to a great extent, control the
conception-rate. It seems probable that the seasonal influence
would here be specially well shown. The only attempt I have made
in this direction is to examine a well-filled birthday-book. The
entries show a very high and equally maintained maximum of
conceptions throughout April, May and June, followed by a marked
minimum during the next three months, and an autumn rise very
strongly marked, in November. There is no December rise. As will
be seen, there is here a fairly exact resemblance to the yearly
ecbolic curve of people of the same class. The inquiry needs,
however, to be extended to a very much larger number of cases.
Mr. John Douglass Brown, of Philadelphia, has kindly prepared and
sent me, since the above was written, a series of curves showing
the, annual periodicity of births among the educated classes in
the State of Pennsylvania, using the statistics as to 4,066
births contained in the Biographical Catalogue of Matriculates of
the College of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Brown prepared
four curves: the first, covering the earliest period, 1757-1859;
the second, the period 1860-1876; the third, 1877-1893; while the
fourth presented the summated results for the whole period. (The
dates named are those of the entry to classes, and not of actual
occurrence of birth.) A very definite and well-marked curve is
shown, and the average number of births (not conceptions) per
day, for the whole period, is as follows:--
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
10.5 11.4 11 8.3 10.2 10.5 11.5 12.6 12.3 11.6 12 11.7
There is thus a well-marked minimum of conceptions (a depression
appearing here in each of the three periods, separately) about
the month of July. (In the second period, however, which contains
the smallest number of births, the minimum occurs in September.)
From that low minimum there is steady and unbroken rise up to the
chief maximum in November. (In the first period, however, the
maximum is delayed till January, and in the second period it is
somewhat diffused.) There is a tendency to a minor maximum in
February, specially well marked in the third and most important
period, and in the first period delayed until March.
A very curious and perhaps not accidental coincidence might be briefly
pointed out before we leave this part of the subject. It is found[157] by
taking 3000 cases of children dying under one year that, among the general
population, children born in February and September (and therefore
conceived in May and December) appear to possess the greatest vitality,
and those born in June, and, therefore, conceived in September, the least
vitality.[158] As we have seen, May and December are precisely the periods
when conceptions in Europe generally are at a maximum, and September is
precisely the period when they are at a minimum, so that, if this
coincidence is not accidental, the strongest children are conceived when
there is the strongest tendency to procreate, and the feeblest children
when that tendency is feeblest.
Nelson, in his study of dreams and their relation to seasonal ecbolic
manifestations, does not present any yearly ecbolic curve, as the two
years and a half over which his observations extend scarcely supply a
sufficient basis. On examining his figures, however, I find there is a
certain amount of evidence of a yearly rhythm. There are spring and autumn
climaxes throughout (in February and in November); there is no December
rise. During one year there is a marked minimum from May to September,
though it is but slightly traceable in the succeeding year. These figures
are too uncertain to prove anything, but, as far as they go, they are in
fair agreement with the much more extensive record, that of W.K. (_ante_
p. 113), which I have already made use of in discussing the question of a
monthly rhythm. This record, covering nearly twelve years, shows a general
tendency, when the year is divided into four periods (November-January,
February-April, May-July, August-October) and the results summated, to
rise steadily throughout, from the minimum in the winter period to the
maximum in the autumn period. This steady upward progress is not seen in
each year taken separately. In three years there is a fall in passing from
the November-January to the February-April quarter (always followed by a
rise in the subsequent quarter); in three cases there is a fall in passing
from the second to the third quarter (again always followed by a rise in
the following quarter), and in two successive years there is a fall in
passing from the third to the fourth quarter. If, however, beginning at
the second year, we summate the results for each year with those for all
previous years, a steady rise from season to season is seen throughout. If
we analyze the data according to the months of the year, still more
precise and interesting results (as shown in the curve, Chart 3) are
obtained; two maximum points are seen, one in spring (March), one in
autumn (October, or, rather, August-October), and each of these maximum
points is followed by; a steep and sudden descent to the minimum points in
April and in December. If we compare this result with Perry-Coste's also
extending over a long series of years, we find a marked similarity. In
both alike there are spring and autumn maxima, in both the autumn maximum
is the highest, and in both also there is an intervening fall. In both
cases, again, the maxima are followed by steep descents, but while in both
the spring maximum occurs in March, in Perry-Coste's case the second
maximum, though of precisely similar shape, occurs earlier, in
June-September instead of August-October. In Perry-Coste's case, also,
there is an apparently abnormal tendency, only shown in the more recent
years of the record, to an additional maximum in January. The records
certainly show far more points of agreement than of discrepancy, and by
their harmony, as well with each other as with themselves, when the years
are taken separately, certainly go far to prove that there is a very
marked annual rhythm in the phenomena of seminal emissions during sleep,
or, as Nelson has termed it, the ecbolic curve. We see, also, that the
great yearly organic climax of sexual effervescence corresponds with the
period following harvest, which, throughout the primitive world, has been
a season of sexual erethism and orgy; though those customs have died out
of our waking lives, they are still imprinted on our nervous texture, and
become manifest during sleep.
The fresh records that have reached me since the first edition of
this book was published show well-marked annual curves, though
each curve always has some slight personal peculiarities of its
own. The most interesting and significant is that of E.M. (see
_ante_ p. 116), covering four years. It is indicated by the
following monthly frequencies, summated for the four years:--
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
16 13 14 22 19 19 12 12 14 14 12 24
E.M. lives in India. April, May, and June, are hot months, but
not unhealthy, and during this season, moreover, he lives in the
hills, under favorable conditions, getting plenty of outdoor
exercise. July, August, and September, are nearly as hot, but
much damper, and more trying; during these months, E.M. is living
in the city, and his work is then, also, more exacting than at
other times, September is the worst month of all; he has a short
holiday at the end of it. During December, January, and February,
the climate is very fine, and E.M.'s work is easier. It will be
seen that his ecbolic curve corresponds to his circumstances and
environment, although until he analyzed the record he had no idea
that any such relationship existed. Unfavorable climatic
conditions and hard work, favorable conditions and lighter work,
happen to coincide in his life, and the former depress the
frequency of seminal emissions; the latter increase their
frequency. At the same time, the curve is not out of harmony with
the northern curves. There is what corresponds to a late spring
(April) climax, and another still higher, late autumn (December)
climax. A very interesting point is the general resemblance of
the ecbolic curves to the Indian conception-curves as set forth
by Hill (_ante_ p. 140). The conception-curve is at its lowest
point in September, and at its highest point in December-January,
and this ecbolic curve follows it, except that both the minimum
and the maximum are reached a little earlier. When compared with
the English annual ecbolic curves (W.K. and Perry-Coste), both
spring and autumn maxima fall rather later, but all agree in
representing the autumn rise as the chief climax.
The annual curve of A.N. (_ante_ p. 117), who lives in Indiana,
U.S.A., also covers four years. It presents the usual spring
(May-June, in this case) and autumn (September-October) climaxes.
The exact monthly results, summated for the four years, are given
below; in order to allow for the irregular lengths of the months,
I have reduced them to daily averages, for convenience treating
the four years as one year:--
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
13 9 13 20 23 22 20 20 21 23 9 16
.42 .32 .42 .66 .74 .73 .64 .64 .70 .74 .30 .52
In his book on _Adolescence_, Stanley Hall refers to three
ecbolic records in his possession, all made by men who were
doctors of philosophy, and all considering themselves normal. The
best of these records made by "a virtuous, active and able man,"
covered nearly eight years. Stanley Hall thus summarizes the
records, which are not presented in detail: "The best of these
records averages about three and a half such experiences per
month, the most frequent being 5.14 for July, and the least
frequent 2.28, for September, for all the years taken together.
There appears also a slight rise in April, and another in
November, with a fall in December." The frequency varies in the
different individuals. There was no tendency to a monthly cycle.
In the best case, the minimum number for the year was
thirty-seven, and the maximum, fifty. Fifty-nine per cent. of all
were at an interval of a week or less; forty per cent. at an
interval of from one to four days; thirty-four per cent, at an
interval of from eight to seventeen days, the longest being
forty-two days. Poor condition, overwork, and undersleep, led to
infrequency. Early morning was the most common time. Normally
there was a sense of distinct relief, but in low conditions, or
with over-frequency, depression. (G.S. Hall, _Adolescence_, vol.
i, p. 453.) I may add that an anonymous article on "Nocturnal
Emissions" (_American Journal of Psychology_, Jan., 1904) is
evidently a fuller presentation of the first of Stanley Hall's
three cases. It is the history of a healthy, unmarried, chaste
man, who kept a record of his nocturnal emissions (and their
accompanying dreams) from the age of thirty to thirty-eight. In
what American State he lived is not mentioned. He was ignorant of
the existence of any previous records. The yearly average was 37
to 50, remaining fairly constant; the monthly average was 3.43. I
reproduce the total results summated for the months, separately,
and I have worked out the daily average for each month, for
convenience counting the summated eight years as one year:--
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
27 27 27 31 29 28 36 25 18 27 30 24
.87 .94 .87 1.03 .93 .93 1.16 .81 .60 .87 1.00 .77
Here, as in all the other curves we have been able to consider,
we may see the usual two points of climax in spring and in
autumn; the major climax covers April, May, June, and July, the
minor autumnal climax is confined to November. In the light of
the evidence which has thus accumulated, we may conclude that the
existence of an annual ecbolic curve, with its spring and autumn
climaxes, as described in the first edition of this book, is now
definitely established.
If we are to believe, as these records tend to show, that the nocturnal
and involuntary voice of the sexual impulse usually speaks at least as
loudly in autumn as in spring, we are confronted by a certain divergence
of the sleeping sexual impulse from the waking sexual instinct, as
witnessed by the conception-curve, and also, it may be added, by the
general voice of tradition, and, indeed, of individual feeling, which
concur, on the whole, in placing the chief epoch of sexual activity in
spring and early summer, more especially as regards women.[159] It is not
impossible to reconcile the contradiction, assuming it to be real, but I
will refrain here from suggesting the various explanations which arise.
We need a broader basis of facts.
There are many facts to show that early spring and, to a certain extent,
autumn are periods of visible excitement, mainly sexual in character. We
have already seen that among the Eskimo menstruation and sexual desire
occur chiefly in spring, but cases are known of healthy women in temperate
climes who only menstruate twice a year, and in such cases the menstrual
epochs appear to be usually in spring and autumn. Such, at all events, was
the case in a girl of 20, whose history has been recorded by Dr. Mary
Wenck, of Philadelphia.[160] She menstruated first when 15 years old. Six
months later the flow again appeared for the second time, and lasted three
weeks, without cessation. Since then, for five years, she menstruated
during March and September only, each time for three weeks, the flow being
profuse, but not exhaustingly so, without pain or systemic disturbance.
Examination revealed perfectly normal uterus and ovarian organs.
Treatment, accompanied by sitz-baths during the time of month the flow
should appear, accomplished nothing. The semi-annual flow continued and
the girl seemed in excellent health.
It is a remarkable fact that, as noted by Dr. Hamilton Wey at Elmira,
sexual outbursts among prisoners appear to occur at about March and
October. "Beginning with the middle of February," writes Dr. Wey in a
private letter, "and continuing for about two months, is a season of
ascending sexual wave; also the latter half of September and the month of
October. We are now (March 30th) in the midst of a wave."
According to Chinese medicine, it is the spring which awakens
human passions. In early Greek tradition, spring and summer were
noted as the time of greatest wantonness. "In the season of
toilsome summer," says Hesiod (_Works and Days_, xi, 569-90),
"the goats are fattest, wine is best, women most wanton, and men
weakest." It was so, also, in the experience of the Romans. Pliny
(_Natural History_, Bk. XII, Ch. XLIII) states that when the
asparagus blooms and the cicada sings loudest, is the season when
women are most amorous, but men least inclined to pleasure.
Paulus Ægineta said that hysteria specially abounds during spring
and autumn in lascivious girls and sterile women, while more
recent observers have believed that hysteria is particularly
difficult to treat in autumn. Oribasius (_Synopsis_, lib. i, cap.
6) quotes from Rufus to the effect that sexual feeling is most
strong in spring, and least so in summer. Rabelais said that it
was in March that the sexual impulse is strongest, referring this
to the early warmth of spring, and that August is the month least
favorable to sexual activity (_Pantagruel_, liv. v, Ch. XXIX).
Nipho, in his book on love dedicated to Joan of Aragon, discussed
the reasons why "women are more lustful and amorous in summer,
and men in winter." Venette, in his _Génération de l'homme_,
harmonized somewhat conflicting statements with the observation
that spring is the season of love for both men and women; in
summer, women are more amorous than men; in autumn, men revive to
some extent, but are still oppressed by the heat, which,
sexually, has a less depressing effect on women. There is
probably a real element of truth in this view, and both extremes
of heat and cold may be regarded as unfavorable to masculine
virility. It is highly probable that the well-recognized tendency
of piles to become troublesome in spring and in autumn, is due to
increased sexual activity. Piles are favored by congestion, and
sexual excitement is the most powerful cause of sudden congestion
in the genito-anal region. Erasmus Darwin called attention to the
tendency of piles to recur about the equinoxes (_Zoönomia_,
Section XXXVI), and since his days Gant, Bonavia, and Cullimore
have correlated this periodicity with sexual activity.
Laycock, quoting the opinions of some earlier authorities as to
the prevalence of sexual feeling in spring, stated that that
popular opinion "appears to be founded on fact" (_Nervous
Diseases of Women_, p. 69). I find that many people, and perhaps
especially women, confirm from their own experience, the
statement that sexual feeling is strongest in spring and summer.
Wichmann states that pollutions are most common in spring (being
perhaps the first to make that statement), and also nymphomania.
(In the eighteenth century, Schurig recorded a case of extreme
and life-long sexual desire in a woman whose salacity was always
at its height towards the festival of St. John, _Gynæcologia_, p.
16.) A correspondent in the Argentine Republic writes to me that
"on big estancias, where we have a good many shepherds, nearly
always married, or, rather, I should say, living with some woman
(for our standard of morality is not very high in these parts),
we always look out for trouble in springtime, as it is a very
common thing at this season for wives to leave their husbands and
go and live with some other man." A corresponding tendency has
been noted even among children. Thus, Sanford Bell ("The Emotion
of Love Between the Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July,
1902) remarks: "The season of the year seems to have its effect
upon the intensity of the emotion of sex-love among children. One
teacher, from Texas, who furnished me with seventy-six cases,
said that he had noticed that in the matter of love children
seemed 'fairly to break out in the springtime.' Many of the
others who reported, incidentally mentioned the love affairs as
beginning in the spring. This also agrees with my own
observations."
Crichton-Browne remarks that children in springtime exhibit restlessness,
excitability, perversity, and indisposition to exertion that are not
displayed at other times. This condition, sometimes known as "spring
fever," has been studied in over a hundred cases, both children and
adults, by Kline. The majority of these report a feeling of tiredness,
languor, lassitude, sometimes restlessness, sometimes drowsiness. There is
often a feeling of suffocation, and a longing for Nature and fresh air and
day-dreams, while work seems distasteful and unsatisfactory. Change is
felt to be necessary at all costs, and sometimes there is a desire to
begin some new plan of life.[161] In both sexes there is frequently a wave
of sexual emotion, a longing for love. Kline also found by examination of
a very large number of cases that between the ages of four and seventeen
it is in spring that running away from home most often occurs. He suggests
that this whole group of phenomena may be due to the shifting of the
metabolic processes from the ordinary grooves into reproductive channels,
and seeks to bring it into connection with the migrations of animals for
reproductive purposes.[162]
It has long been known that the occurrence of insanity follows an annual
curve,[163] and though our knowledge of this curve, being founded on the
date of admissions to asylums, cannot be said to be quite precise, it
fairly corresponds to the outbreaks of acute insanity. The curve
presented in Chart 4 shows the admissions to the London County Council
Lunatic Asylums during the years 1893 to 1897 inclusive; I have arranged
it in two-month periods, to neutralize unimportant oscillations. In order
to show that this curve is not due to local or accidental circumstances,
we may turn to France and take a special and chronic form of mental
disease: Garnier, in his _Folie à Paris_, presents an almost exactly
similar curve of the admissions of cases of general paralysis to the
Infirmerie Spéciale at Paris during the years 1886-88 (Chart 5). Both
curves alike show a major climax in spring and a minor climax in autumn.
Crime in general in temperate climates tends to reach its maximum
at the beginning of the hot season, usually in June. Thus, in
Belgium, the minimum is in February; the maximum in June, thence
gradually diminishing (Lentz, _Bulletin Société Médecine Mentale
Belgique_, March, 1901). In France, Lacassagne has summated the
data extending over more than 40 years, and finds that for all
crimes June is the maximum month, the minimum being reached in
November. He also gives the figures for each class of crime
separately, and every crime is found to have its own yearly
curve. Poisonings show a chief maximum in May, with slow fall and
a minor climax in December; assassinations have a February and a
November climax. Parricides culminate in May-June, and in October
(Lacassagne's tables are given by Laurent, _Les Habitués des
Prisons de Paris_, Ch. 1).
Notwithstanding the general tendency for crime to reach its
maximum in the first hot month (a tendency not necessarily due to
the direct influence of heat), we also find, when we consider the
statistics of crime generally (including sexual crime), that
there is another tendency for minor climaxes in spring and
autumn. Thus, in Italy, Penta, taking the statistics of nearly
four thousand crimes (murder, highway robbery, and sexual
offences), found the maximum in the first summer months, but
there were also minor climaxes in spring and in August and
September (Penta, _Rivista Mensile di Psichiatria_, 1899). In
nearly all Europe (as is shown by a diagram given by Lombroso and
Laschi, at the end of the first volume of _Le Crime Politique_),
while the chief climaxes occur about July, there is, in most
countries, a distinct tendency to spring (usually about March)
and autumn (September and November) climaxes, though they rarely
rise as high as the July climax.
If we consider the separate periodicity of sexual offences, we
find that they follow the rule for crimes generally, and usually
show a chief maximum in early summer. Aschaffenburg finds that
the annual periodicity of the sexual impulse appears more
strongly marked the more abnormal its manifestations, which he
places in the following order of increasing periodicity:
conceptions in marriage, conceptions out of marriage, offences
against decency, rape, assaults on children (_Centralblatt für
Nervenheilkunde_, January, 1903). In France, rapes and offences
against modesty are most numerous in May, June, and July, as
Villermé, Lacassagne, and others have shown. Villermé,
investigating 1,000 such cases, found a gradual ascent in
frequency (only slightly broken in March) to a maximum in June
(oscillating between May and July, when the years are considered
separately), and then a gradual descent to a minimum in December.
Legludic gives, for the 159 cases he had investigated, a table
showing a small February-March climax, and a large June-August
maximum, the minimum being reached in November-January.
(Legludic, _Attentats aux Moeurs_, 1896, p. 16.) In Germany,
Aschaffenburg finds that sexual offences begin to increase in
March and April, reach a maximum in June or July, and fall to a
minimum in winter (_Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1903, Heft
2). In Italy, Penta shows that sexual offences reach a minor
climax in May (corresponding, in his experience, with the maximum
for crimes generally, as well as with the maximum for
conceptions), and a more marked climax in August-September
(Penta, _I Pervertimenti Sessuali_, 1893, p. 115; id. _Rivista
Mensile di Psichiatria_, 1899).
Corre, in his _Crime en Pays Créole_, presents charts of the
seasonal distribution of crime in Guadeloupe, with relation to
temperature, which show that while, in a mild temperature like
that of France and England, crime attains its maximum in the hot
season, it is not so in a more tropical climate; in July, when in
Guadeloupe the heat attains its maximum degree, crime of all
kinds falls suddenly to a very low minimum. Even in the United
States, where the summer heat is often excessive, it tends to
produce a diminution of crime.
Dexter, in an elaborate study of the relationship of conduct to
the weather, shows that in the United States assaults present the
maximum of frequency in April and October, with a decrease during
the summer and the winter. "The unusual and interesting fact
demonstrated here with a certainty that cannot be doubted is," he
concludes, "that the unseasonably hot days of spring and autumn
are the pugnacious ones, even though the actual heat be much less
than for summer. We might infer from this that conditions of
heat, up to a certain extent, are vitalizing, while, at the same
time, irritating, but above that limit, heat is so devitalizing
in its effects as to leave hardly energy enough to carry on a
fight." (E.G. Dexter, _Conduct and the Weather_, 1899, pp. 63 _et
seq._)
It is not impossible that the phenomena of seasonal periodicity
in crimes may possess a real significance in relation to sexual
periodicity. If, as is possible, the occurrence of spring and
autumn climaxes of criminal activity is due less to any special
exciting causes at these seasons than to the depressing
influences of heat and cold in summer and winter, it may appear
reasonable to ask whether the spring and autumn climaxes of
sexual activity are not really also largely due to a like
depressing influence of extreme temperatures at the other two
seasons.
Not only is there periodicity in criminal conduct, but even within the
normal range of good and bad conduct seasonal periodicity may still be
traced. In his _Physical and Industrial Training of Criminals_, H.D. Wey
gives charts of the conduct of seven prisoners during several years, as
shown by the marks received. These charts show that there is a very
decided tendency to good behavior during summer and winter, while in
spring (February, March, and April) and in autumn (August, September and
October) there are very marked falls to bad conduct, each individual
tending to adhere to a conduct-curve of his own. Wey does not himself
appear to have noticed this seasonal periodicity. Marro, however, has
investigated this question in Turin on a large scale and reaches results
not very dissimilar from those shown by Wey's figures in New York. He
noted the months in which over 4,000 punishments were inflicted on
prisoners for assaults, insults, threatening language, etc., and shows the
annual curve in Tavola VI of his _Caratteri dei Delinquenti_. There is a
marked and isolated climax in May; a still more sudden rise leads to the
chief maximum of punishment in August; and from the minimum in October
there is rapid ascent during the two following months to a climax much
inferior to that of May.
The seasonal periodicity of bad conduct in prisons is of interest
as showing that we cannot account for psychic periodicity by
invoking exclusively social causes. This theory of psychic
periodicity has been seriously put forward, but has been
investigated and dismissed, so far as crime in Holland is
concerned, by J.R.B. de Roos, in the Transactions of the sixth
Congress of Criminal Anthropology, at Turin, in 1906 (_Archivio
di Psichiatria_ fasc. 3, 1906).
The general statistics of suicides in Continental Europe show a very
regular and unbroken curve, attaining a maximum in June and a minimum in
December, the curve rising steadily through the first six months, sinking
steadily through the last six months, but always reaching a somewhat
greater height in May than in July.[164] Morselli shows that in various
European countries there is always a rise in spring and in autumn (October
or November).[165] Morselli attributes these spring and autumn rises to
the influence of the strain of the early heat and the early cold.[166] In
England, also, if we take a very large number of statistics, for instance,
the figures for London during the twenty years between 1865 and 1884, as
given by Ogle (in a paper read before the Statistical Society in 1886), we
find that, although the general curve has the same maximum and minimum
points, it is interrupted by a break on each side of the maximum, and
these two breaks occur precisely at about March and October.[167] This is
shown in the curve in Chart 6, which presents the daily average for the
different months.
The growth of children follows an annual rhythm. Wahl, the director of an
educational establishment for homeless girls in Denmark, who investigated
this question, found that the increase of weight for all the ages
investigated was constantly about 33 per cent. greater in the summer
half-year than in the winter half-year. It was noteworthy that even the
children who had not reached school-age, and therefore could not be
influenced by school-life, showed a similar, though slighter, difference
in the same direction. It is, however, Malling-Hansen, the director of an
institution for deaf-mutes in Copenhagen, who has most thoroughly
investigated this matter over a great many years. He finds that there are
three periods of growth throughout the year, marked off in a fairly sharp
manner, and that during each of these periods the growth in weight and
height shows constant characteristics. From about the end of November up
to about the end of March is a period when growth, both in height and
weight, proceeds at a medium rate, reaching neither a maximum nor a
minimum; increase in weight is slight, the increase in height, although
trifling, preponderating. After this follows a period during which the
children show a marked increase in height, while increase in weight is
reduced to a minimum. The children constantly lose in weight during this
period of growth in height almost as much as they gain in the preceding
period. This period lasts from March and April to July and August. Then
follows the third period, which continues until November and December.
During this period increase in height is very slight, being at its early
minimum; increase in weight, on the other hand, at the beginning of the
period (in September and October), is rapid and to the middle of December
very considerable, daily increase in weight being three times as great as
during the winter months. Thus it may be said that the spring sexual
climax corresponds, roughly, with growth in height and arrest of growth in
weight, while the autumn climax corresponds roughly with a period of
growth in weight and arrest of growth in height. Malling-Hansen found that
slight variations in the growth of the children were often dependent on
changes in temperature, in such a way that a rise of temperature, even
lasting for only a few days, caused an increase of growth, and a fall of
temperature a decrease in growth. At Halle, Schmid-Monnard found that
nearly all growth in weight took place in the second half of the year, and
that the holidays made little difference. In America, Peckham has shown
that increase of growth is chiefly from the 1st of May to the 1st of
September.[168] Among young girls in St. Petersburg, Jenjko found that
increase in weight takes place in summer. Goepel found that increase in
height takes place mostly during the first eight months of the year,
reaching a maximum in August, declining during the autumn and winter, in
February being _nil_, while in March there is sometimes loss in weight
even in healthy children.
In the course of a study as to the consumption of bread in Normal schools
during each month of the year, as illustrating the relationship between
intellectual work and nutrition, Binet presents a number of curves which
bring out results to which he makes no allusion, as they are outside his
own investigation. Almost without exception, these curves show that there
is an increase in the consumption of bread in spring and in autumn, the
spring rise being in February, March, and April; the autumn rise in
October or November. There are, however, certain fallacies in dealing with
institutions like Normal schools, where the conditions are not perfectly
regular throughout the year, owing to vacations, etc. It is, therefore,
instructive to find that under the monotonous conditions of prison-life
precisely the same spring and autumn rises are found. Binet takes the
consumption of bread in the women's prison at Clermont, where some four
hundred prisoners, chiefly between the ages of thirty and forty, are
confined, and he presents two curves for the years 1895 and 1896. The
curves for these two years show certain marked disagreements with each
other, but both unite in presenting a distinct rise in April, preceded and
followed by a fall, and both present a still more marked autumn rise, in
one case in September and November, in the other case in October.[169]
Some years ago, Sir J. Crichton-Browne stated that a
manifestation of the sexual stimulus of spring is to be found in
the large number of novels read during the month of March
("Address in Psychology" at the annual meeting of the British
Medical Association, Leeds, 1889; _Lancet_, August 14, 1889).
The statement was supported by figures furnished by lending
libraries, and has since been widely copied. It would certainly
be interesting if we could so simply show the connection between
love and season, by proving that when the birds began to sing
their notes, the young person's fancy naturally turns to brood
over the pictures of mating in novels. I accordingly applied to
Mr. Capel Shaw, Chief Librarian of the Birmingham Free Libraries
(specially referred to by Sir J. Crichton-Browne), who furnished
me with the Reports for 1896 and 1897-98 (this latter report is
carried on to the end of March, 1898).
The readers who use the Birmingham Free Lending Libraries are
about 30,000 in number; they consist very largely of young people
between the ages of 14 and 25; somewhat less than half are women.
Certainly we seem to have here a good field for the determination
of this question. The monthly figures for each of the ten
Birmingham libraries are given separately, and it is clear at a
glance that without exception the maximum number of readers of
prose-fiction at all the libraries during 1897-98 is found in the
month of March. (I have chiefly taken into consideration the
figures for 1897-98; the figures for 1896 are somewhat abnormal
and irregular, probably owing to a decrease in readers,
attributed to increased activity in trade, and partly to a
disturbing influence caused by the opening of a large new library
in the course of the year, suddenly increasing the number of
readers, and drafting off borrowers from some of the other
libraries.) Not only so, but there is a second, or autumnal
climax, almost equaling the spring climax, and occuring with
equal certainty, appearing during 1897-98 either in October or
November, and during 1896, constantly in October. Thus, the
periodicity of the rate of consumption of prose-fiction
corresponds with the periodicity which is found to occur in the
conception rate and in sexual ecbolic manifestations.
It is necessary, however, to examine somewhat more closely the
tables presented in these reports, and to compare the rate of the
consumption of novels with that of other classes of literature.
In the first place, if, instead of merely considering the
consumption of novels per month, we make allowance for the
varying length of the months, and consider the average _daily_
consumption per month, the supremacy of March at once vanishes.
February is really the month during which most novels were read
during the first quarter of 1898, except at two libraries, where
February and March are equal. The result is similar if we
ascertain the daily averages for the first quarter in 1897,
while, in 1896 (which, however, as I have already remarked, is a
rather abnormal year), the daily average for March in many of the
libraries falls below that for January, as well as for February.
Again, when we turn to the other classes of books, we find that
this predominance which February possesses, and to some extent
shares with March and January, by no means exclusively applies to
novels. It is not only shared by both music and poetry,--which
would fit in well with the assumption of a sexual _nisus_,--but
the department of "history, biography, voyages, and travels"
shares it also with considerable regularity; so, also, does that
of "arts, sciences, and natural history," and it is quite well
marked in "theology, moral philosophy, etc.," and in "juvenile
literature." We even have to admit that the promptings of the
sexual instinct bring an increased body of visitors to the
reference library (where there are no novels), for here, also,
both the spring and autumnal climaxes are quite distinct.
Certainly this theory carries us a little too far.
The main factor in producing this very marked annual periodicity
seems to me to be wholly unconnected with the sexual impulse. The
winter half of the year (from the beginning of October to the end
of March), when outdoor life has lost its attractions, and much
time must be spent in the house, is naturally the season for
reading. But during the two central months of winter, December
and January, the attraction of reading meets with a powerful
counter-attraction in the excitement produced by the approach of
Christmas, and the increased activity of social life which
accompanies and for several weeks follows Christmas. In this way
the other four winter months--October and November at the
autumnal end, and February and March at the spring end--must
inevitably present the two chief reading climaxes of the year;
and so the reports of lending libraries present us with figures
which show a striking, but fallacious, resemblance to the curves
which are probably produced by more organic causes.
I am far from wishing to deny that the impulse which draws young
men and women to imaginative literature is unconnected with the
obscure promptings of the sexual instinct. But, until the
disturbing influence I have just pointed out is eliminated, I see
no evidence here for any true seasonal periodicity. Possibly in
prisons--the value of which, as laboratories of experimental
psychology we have scarcely yet begun to realize--more reliable
evidence might be obtained; and those French and other prisons
where novels are freely allowed to the prisoners might yield
evidence as regards the consumption of fiction as instructive as
that yielded at Clermont concerning the consumption of bread.
Certain diseases show a very regular annual curve. This is notably the
case with scarlet fever. Caiger found in a London fever hospital a marked
seasonal prevalence: there was a minor climax in May (repeated in July),
and a great autumnal climax in October, falling to a minimum in December
and January. This curve corresponds closely to that usually observed in
London.[170] It is not peculiar to London, or to urban districts, for in
rural districts we find nearly the same spring minor maximum and major
autumnal maximum. In Russia it is precisely the same. Many other epidemic
diseases show very similar curves.
An annual curve may be found in the expulsive force of the bladder as
measured by the distance to which the urinary stream can be projected.
This curve, as ascertained for one case, is interesting on account of the
close relationship between sexual and vesical activity. After a minimum
point in autumn there is a rise through the early part of the year to a
height maintained through spring and summer, and reaching its maximum in
August.[171] This may be said to correspond with the general tendency
found in some cases of nocturnal seminal emissions from a winter minimum
to an autumn maximum.
There is an annual curve in voluntary muscle strength. Thus in Antwerp,
where the scientific study of children is systematically carried out by a
Pedological Bureau, Schuyten found that, measured by the dynamometer, both
at the ages of 8 and 9, both boys and girls showed a gradual increase of
strength from October to January, a fall from January to March and a rise
to June or July. March was the weakest month, June and July the
strongest.[172]
Schuyten also found an annual curve for mental ability, as tested by power
of attention, which for much of the year corresponded to the curve of
muscular strength, being high during the cold winter months. Lobsien, at
Kiel, seeking to test Schuyten's results and adopting a different method
so as to gauge memory as well as attention, came to conclusions which
confirmed those of Schuyten. He found a very marked increase of ability in
December and January, with a fall in April; April and May were the
minimum months, while July and October also stood low.[173] The inquiries
of Schuyten and Lobsien thus seem to indicate that the voluntary aptitudes
of muscular and mental force in children reach their maximum at a time of
the year when most of the more or less involuntary activities we have been
considering show a minimum of energy. If this conclusion should be
confirmed by more extended investigations, it would scarcely be matter for
surprise and would involve no true contradiction. It would, indeed, be
natural to suppose that the voluntary and regulated activities of the
nervous system should work most efficiently at those periods when they are
least exposed to organic and emotional disturbance.
So persistent a disturbing element in spring and autumn suggests that some
physiological conditions underlie it, and that there is a real metabolic
disturbance at these times of the year. So few continuous observations
have yet been made on the metabolic processes of the body that it is not
easy to verify such a surmise with absolute precision. Edward Smith's
investigations, so far as they go, support it, and Perry-Coste's
long-continued observations of pulse-frequency seem to show with fair
regularity a maximum in early spring and another maximum in late
autumn.[174] I may also note that Haig, who has devoted many years of
observations to the phenomena of uric-acid excretion, finds that uric acid
tends to be highest in the spring months, (March, April, May) and lowest
at the first onset of cold in October.[175]
Thus, while the sexual climaxes of spring and autumn are rooted in animal
procreative cycles which in man have found expression in primitive
festivals--these, again, perhaps, strengthening and developing the sexual
rhythm--they yet have a wider significance. They constitute one among many
manifestations of spring and autumn physiological disturbance
corresponding with fair precision to the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.
They resemble those periods of atmospheric tension, of storm and wind,
which accompany the spring and autumn phases in the earth's rhythm, and
they may fairly be regarded as ultimately a physiological reaction to
those cosmic influences.
FOOTNOTES:
[128] F. Smith, _Veterinary Physiology_; Dalziel, _The Collie_.
[129] Mondière, Art "Cambodgiens," _Dictionnaire des Sciences
Anthropologiques_.
[130] This primitive aspect of the festival is well shown by the human
sacrifices which the ancient Mexicans offered at this time, in order to
enable the sun to recuperate his strength. The custom survives in a
symbolical form among the Mokis, who observe the festivals of the winter
solstice and the vernal equinox. ("Aspects of Sun-worship among the Moki
Indians," _Nature_, July 28, 1898.) The Walpi, a Tusayan people, hold a
similar great sun-festival at the winter solstice, and December is with
them a sacred month, in which there is no work and little play. This
festival, in which there is a dance dramatizing the fructification of the
earth and the imparting of virility to the seeds of corn, is fully
described by J. Walter Fewkes (_American Anthropologist_, March, 1898).
That these solemn annual dances and festivals of North America frequently
merge into "a lecherous _saturnalia_" when "all is joy and happiness," is
stated by H.H. Bancroft (_Native Races of Pacific States_, vol. i, p.
352).
[131] As regards the northern tribes of Central Australia, Spencer and
Gillen state that, during the performance of certain ceremonies which
bring together a large number of natives from different parts, the
ordinary marital rules are more or less set aside (_Northern Tribes of
Central Australia_, p. 136). Just in the same way, among the Siberian
Yakuts, according to Sieroshevski, during weddings and at the great
festivals of the year, the usual oversight of maidens is largely removed.
(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1901, p. 96.)
[132] R.E. Guise, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1899, pp.
214-216.
[133] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, pp. 196 et seq. W. Crooke (_Journal
of the Anthropological Institute_, p. 243, 1899) also refers to the annual
harvest-tree dance and _saturnalia_, and its association with the seasonal
period for marriage. We find a similar phenomenon in the Malay Peninsula:
"In former days, at harvest-time, the Jakuns kept an annual festival, at
which, the entire settlement having been called together, fermented
liquor, brewed from jungle fruits, was drunk; and to the accompaniments of
strains of their rude and incondite music, both sexes, crowning themselves
with fragrant leaves and flowers, indulged in bouts of singing and
dancing, which grew gradually wilder throughout the night, and terminated
in a strange kind of sexual orgie." (W.W. Skeat, "The Wild Tribes of the
Malay Peninsula," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902, p.
133.)
[134] Fielding Hall, _The Soul of a People_, 1898, Chapter XIII.
[135] See e.g., L. Dyer, _Studies of the Gods in Greece_, 1891, pp. 86-89,
375, etc.
[136] For a popular account of the Feast of Fools, see Loliée, "La Fête
des Fous," _Revue des Revues_, May 15, 1898; also, J.G. Bourke,
_Scatologic Rites of all Nations_, pp. 11-23.
[137] J. Grimm (_Teutonic Mythology_, p. 615) points out that the
observance of the spring or Easter bonfires marks off the Saxon from the
Franconian peoples. The Easter bonfires are held in Lower Saxony,
Westphalia, Lower Hesse, Geldern, Holland, Friesland, Jutland, and
Zealand. The Midsummer bonfires are held on the Rhine, in Franconia,
Thuringia, Swabia, Bavaria, Austria, and Silesia. Schwartz (_Zeitschrift
für Ethnologie_, 1896, p. 151) shows that at Lauterberg, in the Harz
Mountains, the line of demarcation between these two primitive districts
may still be clearly traced.
[138] _Wald und Feldkulte_, 1875, vol. i, pp. 422 et seq. He also mentions
(p. 458) that St. Valentine's Day (14th of February),--or Ember Day, or
the last day of February,--when the pairing of birds was supposed to take
place, was associated, especially in England, with love-making and the
choice of a mate. In Lorraine, it may be added, on the 1st of May, the
young girls chose young men as their valentines, a custom known by this
name to Rabelais.
[139] Rochholz, _Drei gaugöttinnen_, p, 37.
[140] Mannhardt, ibid., pp. 466 et seq. Also J.G. Frazer, _Golden Bough_,
vol ii, Chapter IV. For further facts and references, see K. Pearson (_The
Chances of Death_, 1897, vol, ii, "Woman as Witch," "Kindred
Group-marriage," and Appendix on "The '_Mailehn_' and '_Kiltgang_,'") who
incidentally brings together some of the evidence concerning primitive
sex-festivals in Europe. Also, E. Hahn, _Demeter und Baubo_, 1896, pp.
38-40; and for some modern survivals, see Deniker, _Races of Man_, 1900,
Chapter III. On a lofty tumulus near the megalithic remains at Carnac, in
Brittany, the custom still prevails of lighting a large bonfire at the
time of the summer solstice; it is called Tan Heol, or Tan St. Jean. In
Ireland, the bonfires also take place on St. John's Eve, and a
correspondent, who has often witnessed them in County Waterford, writes
that "women, with garments raised, jump through these fires, and conduct
which, on ordinary occasions would be reprobated, is regarded as excusable
and harmless." Outside Europe, the Berbers of Morocco still maintain this
midsummer festival, and in the Rif they light bonfires; here the fires
seem to be now regarded as mainly purificatory, but they are associated
with eating ceremonies which are still regarded as multiplicative.
(Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-Lore_, March, 1905.)
[141] Mannhardt (op. cit., p. 469) quotes a description of an Ehstonian
festival in the Island of Moon, when the girls dance in a circle round the
fire, and one of them,--to the envy of the rest, and the pride of her own
family,--is chosen by the young men, borne away so violently that her
clothes are often torn, and thrown down by a youth, who places one leg
over her body in a kind of symbolical coitus, and lies quietly by her side
till morning. The spring festivals of the young people of Ukrainia, in
which, also, there is singing, dancing, and sleeping together, are
described in "Folk-Lore de l'Ukrainie." Kryptadia, vol. v, pp. 2-6, and
vol. viii, pp. 303 et seq.
[142] M. Kowalewsky, "Marriage Among the Early Slavs," _Folk-Lore_,
December, 1890.
[143] A. Tille, however (_Yule and Christmas_, 1899), while admitting that
the general Aryan division of the year was dual, follows Tacitus in
asserting that the Germanic division of the year (like the Egyptian) was
tripartite: winter, spring, and summer.
[144] Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_ (English translation by Stallybrass),
pp. 612-630, 779, 788.
[145] Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, 1897, p. 98.
[146] See, e.g., the chapter on ritual in Gérard-Varet's interesting book,
_L'Ignorance et l'Irreflexion_, 1899, for a popular account of this and
allied primitive conceptions.
[147] Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia_, especially pp. 485, 571; regarding
the priestesses, Jastrow remarks: "Among many nations, the mysterious
aspects of woman's fertility lead to rites that, by a perversion of their
original import, appear to be obscene. The prostitutes were priestesses
attached to the Ishtar cult, and who took part in ceremonies intended to
symbolize fertility." Whether there is any significance in the fact that
the first two months of the Babylonian year (roughly corresponding to our
March and April), when we should expect births to be at a maximum, were
dedicated to Ea and Bel, who, according to varying legends, were the
creators of man, and that New Year's Day was the festival of Bau, regarded
as the mother of mankind, I cannot say, but the suggestion may be put
forward.
[148] _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 421.
[149] Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, p. 1465. In England, the November,
bonfires have become merged into the Guy Fawkes celebrations. In the East,
the great primitive autumn festivals seem to have fallen somewhat earlier.
In Babylonia, the seventh month (roughly corresponding to September) was
specially sacred, though nothing is known of its festivals, and this also
was the sacred festival month of the Hebrews, and originally of the Arabs.
In Europe, among the southern Slavs, the Reigen, or Kolo--wild dances by
girls, adorned with flowers, and with skirts girt high, followed by sexual
intercourse--take place in autumn, during the nights following harvest
time.
[150] A. Tille, _Yule and Christmas_, p. 21, etc.
[151] Long before Wargentin, however, Rabelais had shown some interest in
this question, and had found that there were most christenings in October
and November, this showing, he pointed out, that the early warmth of
spring influenced the number of conceptions (_Pantagruel_, liv. v, Ch.
XXIX). The spring maximum of conceptions is not now so early in France.
[152] Villermé, "De la Distribution par mois des conceptions," _Annales
d'Hygiène Publique_, tome v, 1831, pp. 55-155.
[153] Sormani, _Giornale di Medicina Militare_, 1870.
[154] Throughout Europe, it may be said, marriages tend to take place
either in spring or autumn (Oettinger _Moralstatistik_, p. 181, gives
details). That is to say, that there is a tendency for marriages to take
place at the season of the great public festivals, during which sexual
intercourse was prevalent in more primitive times.
[155] Hill, _Nature_, July 12, 1888.
[156] G. Mayr, _Die Gesetzmässigkeit im Gesellschaftsleben_, 1877, p. 240.
[157] Edward Smith (_Health and Disease_), who attributes this to the
lessened vitality of offspring at that season. Beukemann also states that
children born in September have most vitality.
[158] Westermarck has even suggested that the December maximum of
conceptions may be due to better chance of survival for September
offspring (_Human Marriage_, Chapter II). It may be noted that though the
maximum of conceptions is in May, relatively the smallest proportion of
boys is conceived at that time. (Rauber, _Der Ueberschuss an
Knabengeburten_, p. 39.)
[159] Krieger found that the great majority of German women investigated
by him menstruated for the first time in September, October, or November.
In America, Bowditch states that the first menstruation of country girls
more often occurs in spring than at any other season.
[160] _Women's Medical Journal_, 1894.
[161] It is, perhaps, worth while noting that the wisdom of the mediæval
Church found an outlet for this "spring fever" in pilgrimages to remote
shrines. As Chaucer wrote, in the _Canterbury Tales_:--
"Whané that Aprille with his showers sote
The droughts of March hath piercèd to the root,
Thaen longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seeken strangé stronds."
[162] L.W. Kline, "The Migratory Impulse," _American Journal of
Psychology_, 1898, vol. x, especially pp. 21-24.
[163] Mania comes to a crisis in spring, said the old physician, Aretæus
(Bk. 1, Ch. V).
[164] This is, at all events, the case in France, Prussia, and Italy. See,
for instance, Durkheim's discussion of the cosmic factors of suicide, _Le
Suicide_, 1897, Chapter III. In Spain, as Bernaldo de Quirós shows
(_Criminologia_, p. 69), there is a slight irregular rise in December, but
otherwise the curve is perfectly regular, with maximum in June, and
minimum in January.
[165] This holds good of a south European country, taken separately. A
chart of the annual incidence of suicide by hanging, in Roumania,
presented by Minovici (_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1905, p.
587), shows climaxes of equal height in May and September.
[166] Morselli, _Suicide_, pp. 55-72.
[167] Ogle himself was inclined to think that these breaks were
accidental, being unaware of the allied phenomena with which they may be
brought into line. It is true that (as Gaedeken objects to me) the
autumnal break is very slight, but it is probably real when we are dealing
with so large a mass of data.
[168] _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1891, p. 298. For a very full summary
and bibliography of investigations regarding growth, see F. Burk, "Growth
of Children in Height and Weight," _American Journal of Psychology_,
April, 1898.
[169] _L'Année Psychologique_, 1898.
[170] _Lancet_, June 6, 1891. Edward Smith had pointed out many years
earlier that scarlet fever is most fatal in periods of increasing
vitality.
[171] Havelock Ellis, "The Bladder as a Dynamometer," _American Journal of
Dermatology_, May, 1902.
[172] See, e.g., summary in _Internationales Centrablatt für
Anthropologie_, 1902, Heft 4, p. 207.
[173] Summarized in _Zeitschrift für Psychologie der Sinnesorgane_, 1903,
p. 135.
[174] Camerer found that from September to November is the period of
greatest metabolic activity.
[175] Haig, _Uric Acid_, 6th edition, 1903, p. 33.
AUTO-EROTISM: A STUDY OF THE SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SEXUAL
IMPULSE.
I.
Definition of Auto-erotism--Masturbation only Covers a Small Portion of
the Auto-erotic Field--The Importance of this Study, especially
To-day--Auto-erotic Phenomena in Animals--Among Savage and Barbaric
Races--The Japanese _rin-no-tama_ and other Special Instruments for
Obtaining Auto-erotic Gratification--Abuse of the Ordinary Implements and
Objects of Daily Life--The Frequency of Hair-pin in the Bladder--The
Influence of Horse-exercise and Railway Traveling--The Sewing-machine and
the Bicycle--Spontaneous Passive Sexual Excitement--_Delectatio
Morosa_--Day-dreaming--_Pollutio_--Sexual Excitement During Sleep--Erotic
Dreams--The Analogy of Nocturnal Enuresis--Differences in the Erotic
Dreams of Men and Women--The Auto-erotic Phenomena of Sleep in the
Hysterical--Their Frequently Painful Character.
By "auto-erotism" I mean the phenomena of spontaneous sexual emotion
generated in the absence of an external stimulus proceeding, directly or
indirectly, from another person. In a wide sense, which cannot be wholly
ignored here, auto-erotism may be said to include those transformations of
repressed sexual activity which are a factor of some morbid conditions as
well as of the normal manifestation of art and poetry, and, indeed, more
or less color the whole of life.
Such a definition excludes the normal sexual excitement aroused by the
presence of a beloved person of the opposite sex; it also excludes the
perverted sexuality associated with an attraction to a person of the same
sex; it further excludes the manifold forms of erotic fetichism, in which
the normal focus of sexual attraction is displaced, and voluptuous
emotions are only aroused by some object--hair, shoes, garments,
etc.--which, to the ordinary lover, are of subordinate--though still,
indeed, considerable--importance.[176] The auto-erotic field remains
extensive; it ranges from occasional voluptuous day-dreams, in which the
subject is entirely passive, to the perpetual unashamed efforts at sexual
self-manipulation witnessed among the insane. It also includes, though
chiefly as curiosities, those cases in which individuals fall in love with
themselves. Among auto-erotic phenomena, or on the borderland, we must
further include those religious sexual manifestations for an ideal object,
of which we may find evidence in the lives of saints and ecstatics.[177]
The typical form of auto-erotism is the occurrence of the sexual orgasm
during sleep.
I do not know that any apology is needful for the invention of the term
"auto-erotism."[178] There is no existing word in current use to indicate
the whole range of phenomena I am here concerned with. We are familiar
with "masturbation," but that, strictly speaking, only covers a special
and arbitrary subdivision of the field, although, it is true, the
subdivision with which physicians and alienists have chiefly occupied
themselves. "Self-abuse" is somewhat wider, but by no means covers the
whole ground, while for various reasons it is an unsatisfactory term.
"Onanism" is largely used, especially in France, and some writers even
include all forms of homosexual connection under this name; it may be
convenient to do so from a physiological point of view, but it is a
confusing and antiquated mode of procedure, and from the psychological
standpoint altogether illegitimate; "onanism" ought never to be used in
this connection, if only on the ground that Onan's device was not
auto-erotic, but was an early example of withdrawal before emission, or
_coitus interruptus_.
While the name that I have chosen may possibly not be the best, there
should be no question as to the importance of grouping all these phenomena
together. It seems to me that this field has rarely been viewed in a
scientifically sound and morally sane light, simply because it has not
been viewed as a whole. We have made it difficult so to view it by
directing our attention on the special group of auto-erotic facts--that
group included under masturbation--which was most easy to observe and
which in an extreme form came plainly under medical observation in
insanity and allied conditions, and we have wilfully torn this group of
facts away from the larger group to which it naturally belongs. The
questions which have been so widely, so diversely, and--it must
unfortunately be added--often so mischievously discussed, concerning the
nature and evils of masturbation are not seen in their true light and
proportions until we realize that masturbation is but a specialized form
of a tendency which in some form or in some degree normally affects not
only man, but all the higher animals. From a medical point of view it is
often convenient to regard masturbation as an isolated fact; but in order
to understand it we must bear in mind its relationships. In this study of
auto-erotism I shall frequently have occasion to refer to the old entity
of "masturbation," because it has been more carefully studied than any
other part of the auto-erotic field; but I hope it will always be borne in
mind that the psychological significance and even the medical diagnostic
value of masturbation cannot be appreciated unless we realize that it is
an artificial subdivision of a great group of natural facts.
The study of auto-erotism is far from being an unimportant or merely
curious study. Yet psychologists, medical and non-medical, almost without
exception, treat its manifestations--when they refer to them at all--in a
dogmatic and off-hand manner which is far from scientific. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the most widely divergent opinions are
expressed. Nor is it surprising that ignorant and chaotic notions among
the general population should lead to results that would be ludicrous if
they were not pathetic. To mention one instance known to me: a married
lady who is a leader in social-purity movements and an enthusiast for
sexual chastity, discovered, through reading some pamphlet against
solitary vice, that she had herself been practicing masturbation for years
without knowing it. The profound anguish and hopeless despair of this
woman in face of what she believed to be the moral ruin of her whole life
cannot well be described. It would be easy to give further examples,
though scarcely a more striking one, to show the utter confusion into
which we are thrown by leaving this matter in the hands of blind leaders
of the blind. Moreover, the conditions of modern civilization render
auto-erotism a matter of increasing social significance. As our
marriage-rate declines, and as illicit sexual relationships continue to be
openly discouraged, it is absolutely inevitable that auto-erotic phenomena
of one kind or another, not only among women but also among men, should
increase among us both in amount and intensity. It becomes, therefore, a
matter of some importance, both to the moralist and the physician, to
investigate the psychological nature of these phenomena and to decide
precisely what their attitude should be toward them.
I do not purpose to enter into a thorough discussion of all the aspects of
auto-erotism. That would involve a very extensive study indeed. I wish to
consider briefly certain salient points concerning auto-erotic phenomena,
especially their prevalence, their nature, and their moral, physical, and
other effects. I base my study partly on the facts and opinions which
during the last thirty years have been scattered through the periodical
and other medical literature of Europe and America, and partly on the
experience of individuals, especially of fairly normal individuals.
Among animals in isolation, and sometimes in freedom--though this can less
often be observed--it is well known that various forms of spontaneous
solitary sexual excitement occur. Horses when leading a lazy life may be
observed flapping the penis until some degree of emission takes place.
Welsh ponies, I learn from a man who has had much experience with these
animals, habitually produce erections and emissions in their stalls; they
do not bring their hind quarters up during this process, and they close
their eyes, which does not take place when they have congress with mares.
The same informant observed that bulls and goats produce emissions by
using their forelegs as a stimulus, bringing up their hind quarters, and
mares rub themselves against objects. I am informed by a gentleman who is
a recognized authority on goats, that they sometimes take the penis into
the mouth and produce actual orgasm, thus practicing auto-fellatio. As
regards ferrets, the Rev. H. Northcote states: "I am informed by a
gentleman who has had considerable experience of ferrets, that if the
bitch, when in heat, cannot obtain a dog she pines and becomes ill. If a
smooth pebble is introduced into the hutch, she will masturbate upon it,
thus preserving her normal health for one season. But if this artificial
substitute is given to her a second season, she will not, as formerly, be
content with it."[179]
Stags in the rutting season, when they have no partners, rub themselves
against trees to produce ejaculation. Sheep masturbate; as also do camels,
pressing themselves down against convenient objects; and elephants
compress the penis between the hind legs to obtain emissions.[180]
Blumenbach observed a bear act somewhat similarly on seeing other bears
coupling, and hyenas, according to Ploss and Bartels, have been seen
practicing mutual masturbation by licking each other's genitals. Mammary
masturbation, remarks Féré, is found in certain female and even male
animals, like the dog and the cat.[181] Apes are much given to
masturbation, even in freedom, according to the evidence of good
observers; for while no female apes are celibates, many of the males are
obliged to lead a life of celibacy.[182] Male monkeys use the hand in
masturbation, to rub and shake the penis.[183]
In the human species these phenomena are by no means found in civilization
alone. To whatever extent masturbation may have been developed by the
conditions of European life, which carry to the utmost extreme the
concomitant stimulation, and repression of the sexual emotions, it is far
from being, as Mantegazza has declared it to be, one of the moral
characteristics of Europeans.[184] It is found among the people of nearly
every race of which we have any intimate knowledge, however natural the
conditions under which men and women may live.[185] Thus, among the Nama
Hottentots, among the young women at all events, Gustav Fritsch found that
masturbation is so common that it is regarded as a custom of the country;
no secret is made of it, and in the stories and legends of the race it is
treated as one of the most ordinary facts of life. It is so also among the
Basutos, and the Kaffirs are addicted to the same habit.[186] The Fuegians
have a word for masturbation, and a special word for masturbation by
women.[187] When the Spaniards first arrived at Vizcaya, in the
Philippines, they found that masturbation was universal, and that it was
customary for the women to use an artificial penis and other abnormal
methods of sexual gratification. Among the Balinese, according to Jacobs
(as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), masturbation is general; in the boudoir
of many a Bali beauty, he adds, and certainly in every harem, may be found
a wax penis to which many hours of solitude are devoted. Throughout the
East, as Eram, speaking from a long medical experience, has declared,
masturbation is very prevalent, especially among young girls. In Egypt,
according to Sonnini, it is prevalent in harems. In India, a medical
correspondent tells me, he once treated the widow of a wealthy Mohammedan,
who informed him that she began masturbation at an early age, "just like
all other women." The same informant tells me that on the _façade_ of a
large temple in Orissa are bas-reliefs, representing both men and women,
alone, masturbating, and also women masturbating men. Among the Tamils of
Ceylon masturbation is said to be common. In Cochin China, Lorion remarks,
it is practiced by both sexes, but especially by the married women.[188]
Japanese women have probably carried the mechanical arts of auto-erotism
to the highest degree of perfection. They use two hollow balls about the
size of a pigeon's egg (sometimes one alone is used), which, as described
by Joest, Christian, and others,[189] are made of very thin leaf of brass;
one is empty, the other (called the little man) contains a small heavy
metal ball, or else some quicksilver, and sometimes metal tongues which
vibrate when set in movement; so that if the balls are held in the hand
side by side there is a continuous movement. The empty one is first
introduced into the vagina in contact with the uterus, then the other; the
slightest movement of the pelvis or thighs, or even spontaneous movement
of the organs, causes the metal ball (or the quicksilver) to roll, and the
resulting vibration produces a prolonged voluptuous titillation, a gentle
shock as from a weak electric inductive apparatus; the balls are called
_rin-no-tama_, and are held in the vagina by a paper tampon. The women who
use these balls delight to swing themselves in a hammock or rocking-chair,
the delicate vibration of the balls slowly producing the highest degree of
sexual excitement. Joest mentions that this apparatus, though well known
by name to ordinary girls, is chiefly used by the more fashionable
_geishas_, as well as by prostitutes. Its use has now spread to China,
Annam, and India. Japanese women also, it is said, frequently use an
artificial penis of paper or clay, called e.g.. Among the Atjeh, again,
according to Jacobs (as quoted by Ploss), the young of both sexes
masturbate and the elder girls use an artificial penis of wax. In China,
also, the artificial penis--made of rosin, supple and (like the classical
instrument described by Herondas) rose-colored--is publicly sold and
widely used by women.[190]
It may be noticed that among non-European races it is among women, and
especially among those who are subjected to the excitement of a life
professionally devoted to some form of pleasure, that the use of the
artificial instruments of auto-erotism is chiefly practiced. The same is
markedly true in Europe. The use of an artificial penis in solitary sexual
gratification may be traced down from classic times, and doubtless
prevailed in the very earliest human civilization, for such an instrument
is said to be represented in old Babylonian sculptures, and it is referred
to by Ezekiel (Ch. XVI. v. 17). The Lesbian women are said to have used
such instruments, made of ivory or gold with silken stuffs and linen.
Aristophanes (_Lysistrata_, v. 109) speaks of the manufacture by the
Milesian women of a leather artificial penis, or olisbos. In the British
Museum is a vase representing a _hetaira_ holding such instruments, which,
as found at Pompeii, may be seen in the museum at Naples. One of the best
of Herondas's mimes, "The Private Conversation," presents a dialogue
between two ladies concerning a certain olisbos (or nbôn), which one of
them vaunts as a dream of delight. Through the Middle Ages (when from time
to time the clergy reprobated the use of such instruments[191]) they
continued to be known, and after the fifteenth century the references to
them became more precise. Thus Fortini, the Siennese novelist of the
sixteenth century, refers in his _Novelle dei Novizi_ (7th Day, Novella
XXXIX) to "the glass object filled with warm water which nuns use to calm
the sting of the flesh and to satisfy themselves as well as they can"; he
adds that widows and other women anxious to avoid pregnancy availed
themselves of it. In Elizabethan England, at the same time, it appears to
have been of similar character and Marston in his satires tells how Lucea
prefers "a glassy instrument" to "her husband's lukewarm bed." In
sixteenth century France, also, such instruments were sometimes made of
glass, and Brantôme refers to the godemiche; in eighteenth century Germany
they were called _Samthanse_, and their use, according to Heinse, as
quoted by Dühren, was common among aristocratic women. In England by that
time the dildo appears to have become common. Archemholtz states that
while in Paris they are only sold secretly, in London a certain Mrs.
Philips sold them openly on a large scale in her shop in Leicester Square.
John Bee in 1835, stating that the name was originally dil-dol, remarks
that their use was formerly commoner than it was in his day. In France,
Madame Gourdan, the most notorious brothel-keeper of the eighteenth
century, carried on a wholesale trade in _consolateurs_, as they were
called, and "at her death numberless letters from abbesses and simple nuns
were found among her papers, asking for a 'consolateur' to be sent."[192]
The modern French instrument is described by Gamier as of hardened red
rubber, exactly imitating the penis and capable of holding warm milk or
other fluid for injection at the moment of orgasm; the compressible
scrotum is said to have been first added in the eighteenth century.[193]
In Islam the artificial penis has reached nearly as high a development as
in Christendom. Turkish women use it and it is said to be openly sold in
Smyrna. In the harems of Zanzibar, according to Baumann, it is of
considerable size, carved out of ebony or ivory, and commonly bored
through so that warm water may be injected. It is here regarded as an Arab
invention.[194]
Somewhat similar appliances may be traced in all centres of civilization.
But throughout they appear to be frequently confined to the world of
prostitutes and to those women who live on the fashionable or
semi-artistic verge of that world. Ignorance and delicacy combine with a
less versatile and perverted concentration on the sexual impulse to
prevent any general recourse to such highly specialized methods of
solitary gratification.
On the other hand, the use, or rather abuse, of the ordinary objects and
implements of daily life in obtaining auto-erotic gratification, among the
ordinary population in civilized modern lands, has reached an
extraordinary degree of extent and variety we can only feebly estimate by
the occasional resulting mischances which come under the surgeon's hands,
because only a certain proportion of such instruments are dangerous. Thus
the banana seems to be widely used for masturbation by women, and appears
to be marked out for the purpose by its size and shape[195]; it is,
however, innocuous, and never comes under the surgeon's notice; the same
may probably be said of the cucumbers and other vegetables more especially
used by country and factory girls in masturbation; a lady living near
Vichy told Pouillet that she had often heard (and had herself been able to
verify the fact) that the young peasant women commonly used turnips,
carrots, and beet-roots. In the eighteenth century Mirabeau, in his
_Erotikca Biblion_ gave a list of the various objects used in convents
(which he describes as "vast theatres" of such practices) to obtain
solitary sexual excitement. In more recent years the following are a few
of the objects found in the vagina or bladder whence they could only be
removed by surgical interference[196]: Pencils, sticks of sealing-wax,
cotton-reels, hair-pins (and in Italy very commonly the bone-pins used in
the hair), bodkins, knitting-needles, crochet-needles, needle-cases,
compasses, glass stoppers, candles, corks, tumblers, forks, tooth-picks,
toothbrushes, pomade-pots (in a case recorded by Schroeder with a
cockchafer inside, a makeshift substitute for the Japanese _rin-no-tama_),
while in one recent English case a full-sized hen's egg was removed from
the vagina of a middle-aged married woman. More than nine-tenths of the
foreign bodies found in the female bladder or urethra are due to
masturbation. The age of the individuals in whom such objects have been
found is usually from 17 to 30, but in a few cases they have been found in
girls below 14, infrequently in women between 40 and 50; the large
objects, naturally, are found chiefly in the vagina, and in married
women.[197]
Hair-pins have, above all, been found in the female bladder with special
frequency; this point is worth some consideration as an illustration of
the enormous frequency of this form of auto-erotism. The female urethra is
undoubtedly a normal centre of sexual feeling, as Pouillet pointed out
many years ago; a woman medical correspondent, also, writes that in some
women the maximum of voluptuous sensation is at the vesical sphincter or
orifice, though not always so limited. E.H. Smith, indeed, considers that
"the urethra is the part in which the orgasm occurs," and remarks that in
sexual excitement mucus always flows largely from the urethra.[198] It
should be added that when once introduced the physiological mechanism of
the bladder apparently causes the organ to tend to "swallow" the foreign
object. Yet for every case in which the hair-pin disappears and is lost
in the bladder, from carelessness or the oblivion of the sexual spasm,
there must be a vast number of cases in which the instrument is used
without any such unfortunate result. There is thus great significance in
the frequency with which cases of hair-pin in the bladder are strewn
through the medical literature of all countries.
In 1862, a German surgeon found the accident so common that he invented a
special instrument for extracting hair-pins from the female bladder, as,
indeed, Italian and French surgeons have also done. In France, Denucé, of
Bordeaux, came to the conclusion that hair-pin in the bladder is the
commonest result of masturbation as known to the surgeon. In England cases
are constantly being recorded. Lawson Tait, stating that most cases of
stone in the bladder in women are due to the introduction of a foreign
body, very often a hair-pin, adds: "I have removed hair-pins encrusted
with phosphates from ten different female bladders, and not one of the
owners of these bladders would give any account of the incident."[199]
Stokes, again, records that during four years he had four cases of
hair-pin in the female urethra.[200] In New York one physician met with
four cases in a short experience.[201] In Switzerland Professor Reverdin
had a precisely similar experience.[202]
There is, however, another class of material objects, widely employed for
producing physical auto-erotism, which in the nature of things never
reaches the surgeon. I refer to the effects that, naturally or
unnaturally, may be produced by many of the objects and implements of
daily life that do not normally come in direct contact with the sexual
organs. Children sometimes, even when scarcely more than infants, produce
sexual excitement by friction against the corner of a chair or other piece
of furniture, and women sometimes do the same.[203] Guttceit, in Russia,
knew women who made a large knot in their chemises to rub against, and
mentions a woman who would sit on her naked heel and rub it against her.
Girls in France, I am informed, are fond of riding on the
_chevaux-de-bois_, or hobby-horses, because of the sexual excitement thus
aroused; and that the sexual emotions play a part in the fascination
exerted by this form of amusement everywhere is indicated by the ecstatic
faces of its devotees.[204] At the temples in some parts of Central India,
I am told, swings are hung up in pairs, men and women swinging in these
until sexually excited; during the months when the men in these districts
have to be away from home the girls put up swings to console themselves
for the loss of their husbands.
It is interesting to observe the very wide prevalence of
swinging, often of a religious or magic character, and the
evident sexual significance underlying it, although this is not
always clearly brought out. Groos, discussing the frequency of
swinging (_Die Spiele der Menschen_, p. 114) refers, for
instance, to the custom of the Gilbert Islanders for a young man
to swing a girl from a coco palm, and then to cling on and swing
with her. In ancient Greece, women and grown-up girls were fond
of see-saws and swings. The Athenians had, indeed, a swinging
festival (Athenæus, Bk. XIV, Ch. X). Songs of a voluptuous
character, we gather from Athenæus, were sung by the women at
this festival. J.G. Frazer (_The Golden Bough_, vol. ii, note A,
"Swinging as a Magical Rite") discusses the question, and brings
forward instances in which men, or, especially, women swing. "The
notion seems to be," he states, "that the ceremony promotes
fertility, whether in the vegetable or in the animal kingdom;
though why it should be supposed to do so, I confess myself
unable to explain" (loc. cit., p. 450). The explanation seems,
however, not far to seek, in view of the facts quoted above, and
Frazer himself refers to the voluptuous character of the songs
sometimes sung.
Even apart from actual swinging of the whole body, a swinging
movement may suffice to arouse sexual excitement, and may,--at
all events, in women,--constitute an essential part of methods of
attaining solitary sexual gratification. Kiernan thus describes
the habitual auto-erotic procedure of a young American woman:
"The patient knelt before a chair, let her elbows drop on its
seat, grasping the arms with a firm grip, then commenced a
swinging, writhing motion, seeming to fix her pelvis, and moving
her trunk and limbs. The muscles were rigid, the face took on a
passionate expression; the features were contorted, the eyes
rolled, the teeth were set, and the lips compressed, while the
cheeks were purple. The condition bore a striking resemblance to
the passional stage of grand hysteria. The reveling took only a
moment to commence, but lasted a long time. Swaying induced a
pleasurable sensation, accompanied with a feeling of suction upon
the clitoris. Almost immediately after, a sensation of bursting,
caused by discharge from the vulvo-vaginal glands, occurs,
followed by a rapture prolonged for an indefinite time." The
accompanying sexual imagery is so vivid as almost to become
hallucinatory. (J.G. Kiernan, "Sex Transformation and Psychic
Impotence," _American Journal of Dermatology_, vol. ix, No. 2.)
Somewhat similarly sensations of sexual character are sometimes
experienced by boys when climbing up a pole. It is not even necessary that
there should be direct external contact with the sexual organs, and Howe
states that gymnastic swinging poles around which boys swing while
supporting the whole weight on the hands, may suffice to produce sexual
excitement.
Several writers have pointed out that riding, especially in women, may
produce sexual excitement and orgasm.[205] It is well-known, also, that
both in men and women the vibratory motion of a railway-train frequently
produces a certain degree of sexual excitement, especially when sitting
forward. Such excitement may remain latent and not become specifically
sexual.[206] I am not aware that this quality of railway traveling has
ever been fostered as a sexual perversion, but the sewing-machine has
attracted considerable attention on account of its influence in exciting
auto-erotic manifestations. The early type of sewing-machine, especially,
was of very heavy character and involved much up and down movement of the
legs; Langdon Down pointed out many years ago that this frequently
produced great sexual erethism which led to masturbation.[207] According
to one French authority, it is a well-recognized fact that to work a
sewing-machine with the body in a certain position produces sexual
excitement leading to the orgasm. The occurrence of the orgasm is
indicated to the observer by the machine being worked for a few seconds
with uncontrollable rapidity. This sound is said to be frequently heard in
large French workrooms, and it is part of the duty of the superintendents
of the rooms to make the girls sit properly.[208]
"During a visit which I once paid to a manufactory of military
clothing," Pouillet writes, "I witnessed the following scene. In
the midst of the uniform sound produced by some thirty
sewing-machines, I suddenly heard one of the machines working
with much more velocity than the others. I looked at the person
who was working it, a brunette of 18 or 20. While she was
automatically occupied with the trousers she was making on the
machine, her face became animated, her mouth opened slightly, her
nostrils dilated, her feet moved the pedals with constantly
increasing rapidity. Soon I saw a convulsive look in her eyes,
her eyelids were lowered, her face turned pale and was thrown
backward; hands and legs stopped and became extended; a
suffocated cry, followed by a long sigh, was lost in the noise of
the workroom. The girl remained motionless a few seconds, drew
out her handkerchief to wipe away the pearls of sweat from her
forehead, and, after casting a timid and ashamed glance at her
companions, resumed her work. The forewoman, who acted as my
guide, having observed the direction of my gaze, took me up to
the girl, who blushed, lowered her face, and murmured some
incoherent words before the forewoman had opened her mouth, to
advise her to sit fully on the chair, and not on its edge.
"As I was leaving, I heard another machine at another part of the
room in accelerated movement. The forewoman smiled at me, and
remarked that that was so frequent that it attracted no notice.
It was specially observed, she told me, in the case of young
work-girls, apprentices, and those who sat on the edge of their
seats, thus much facilitating friction of the labia."
In cases where the sewing-machine does not lead to direct self-excitement
it has been held, as by Fothergill,[209] to predispose to frequency of
involuntary sexual orgasm during sleep, from the irritation set up by the
movement of the feet in the sitting posture during the day. The essential
movement in working the sewing-machine is the flexion and extension of the
ankle, but the muscles of the thighs are used to maintain the feet firmly
on the treadle, the thighs are held together, and there is a considerable
degree of flexion or extension of the thighs on the trunk; by a special
adjustment of the body, and sometimes perhaps merely in the presence of
sexual hyperæsthesia, it is thus possible to act upon the sexual organs;
but this is by no means a necessary result of using the sewing-machine,
and inquiry of various women, with well-developed sexual feelings, who are
accustomed to work the treadle, has not shown the presence of any tendency
in this direction.
Sexual irritation may also be produced by the bicycle in women. Thus,
Moll[210] remarks that he knows many married women, and some unmarried,
who experience sexual excitement when cycling; in several cases he has
ascertained that the excitement is carried as far as complete orgasm. This
result cannot, however, easily happen unless the seat is too high, the
peak in contact with the organs, and a rolling movement is adopted; in the
absence of marked hyperæsthesia these results are only effected by a bad
seat or an improper attitude, the body during cycling resting under proper
conditions on the buttocks, and the work being mainly done by the muscles
of the thighs and legs which control the ankles, flexion of the thigh on
the pelvis being very small. Most medical authorities on cycling are of
opinion that when cycling leads to sexual excitement the fault lies more
with the woman than with the machine. This conclusion does not appear to
me to be absolutely correct. I find on inquiry that with the old-fashioned
saddle, with an elevated peak rising toward the pubes, a certain degree of
sexual excitement, not usually producing the orgasm (but, as one lady
expressed it, making one feel quite ready for it), is fairly common among
women. Lydston finds that irritation of the genital organs may
unquestionably be produced in both males and females by cycling. The
aggravation of hæmorrhoids sometimes produced by cycling indicates also
the tendency to local congestion. With the improved flat saddles, however,
constructed with more definite adjustment to the anatomical formation of
the parts, this general tendency is reduced to a negligible minimum.
Reference may be made at this point to the influence of tight-lacing. This
has been recognized by gynæcologists as a factor of sexual excitement and
a method of masturbation.[211] Women who have never worn corsets sometimes
find that, on first putting them on, sexual feeling is so intensified that
it is necessary to abandon their use.[212] The reason of this (as Siebert
points out in his _Buch für Eltern_) seems to be that the corset both
favors pelvic congestion and at the same time exerts a pressure on the
abdominal muscles which brings them into the state produced during coitus.
It is doubtless for the same reason that, as some women have found, more
distension of the bladder is possible without corsets than with them.
In a further class of cases no external object whatever is used to procure
the sexual orgasm, but the more or less voluntary pressure of the thighs
alone is brought to bear upon the sexual regions. It is done either when
sitting or standing, the thighs being placed together and firmly crossed,
and the pelvis rocked so that the sexual organs are pressed against the
inner and posterior parts of the thighs.[213] This is sometimes done by
men, and is fairly common among women, especially, according to
Martineau,[214] among those who sit much, such as dressmakers and
milliners, those who use the sewing-machine, and those who ride. Vedeler
remarks that in his experience in Scandinavia, thigh-friction is the
commonest form of masturbation in women. The practice is widespread, and a
medical correspondent in India tells me of a Brahmin widow who confessed
to this form of masturbation. I am told that in London Board Schools, at
the present time, thigh-rubbing is not infrequent among the girl scholars;
the proportion mentioned in one school was about ten per cent, of the
girls over eleven; the thigh-rubbing is done more or less openly and is
interpreted by the uninitiated as due merely to a desire to relieve the
bladder. It is found in female infants. Thus, Townsend records the case of
an infant, 8 months old, who would cross her right thigh over the left,
close her eyes and clench her fists; after a minute or two there would be
complete relaxation, with sweating and redness of face; this would occur
about once a week or oftener; the child was quite healthy, with no
abnormal condition of the genital organs.[215] The frequency of
thigh-friction among women as a form of masturbation is due to the fact
that it is usually acquired innocently and it involves no indecorum. Thus
Soutzo reports the case of a girl of 12 who at school, when having to wait
her turn at the water-closet, for fear of wetting herself would put her
clothes between her legs and press her thighs together, moving them
backwards and forwards in the effort to control the bladder; she
discovered that a pleasurable sensation was thus produced and acquired the
habit of practicing the manoeuvre for its own sake; at the age of 17 she
began to vary it in different ways; thus she would hang from a tree with
her legs swinging and her chemise pressed between her thighs which she
would rub together.[216] Thigh-friction in some of its forms is so
comparatively decorous a form of masturbation that it may even be
performed in public places; thus, a few years ago, while waiting for a
train at a station on the outskirts of a provincial town, I became aware
of the presence of a young woman, sitting alone on a seat at a little
distance, whom I could observe unnoticed. She was leaning back with legs
crossed, swinging the crossed foot vigorously and continuously; this
continued without interruption for some ten minutes after I first observed
her; then the swinging movement reached a climax; she leant still further
back, thus bringing the sexual region still more closely in contact with
the edge of the bench and straightened and stiffened her body and legs in
what appeared to be a momentary spasm; there could be little doubt as to
what had taken place. A few moments later she slowly walked from her
solitary seat into the waiting-room and sat down among the other waiting
passengers, quite still now and with uncrossed legs, a pale quiet young
woman, possibly a farmer's daughter, serenely unconscious that her
manoeuvre had been detected, and very possibly herself ignorant of its
true nature.
There are many other forms in which the impulse of auto-erotism presents
itself. Dancing is often a powerful method of sexual excitement, not only
among civilized but among savage peoples, and Zache describes the erotic
dances of Swaheli women as having a masturbatory object.[217] Stimulation
of the nates is a potent adjuvant to the production of self-excitement,
and self-flagellation with rods, etc., is practiced by some individuals,
especially young women.[218] Urtication is another form of this
stimulation; Reverdin knew a young woman who obtained sexual gratification
by flogging herself with chestnut burrs, and it is stated that in some
parts of France (departments of the Ain and Côte d'Or) it is not uncommon
for young girls to masturbate by rubbing the leaves of the _Linaria
cymbalaria_ (here called "pinton" or "timbarde") on to the sexual parts,
thus producing a burning sensation.[219] Stimulation of the mamma,
normally an erogenous centre in women, may occasionally serve as a method
for obtaining auto-erotic satisfaction, including the orgasm, in both
sexes. I have been told of a case in a man, and a medical correspondent in
India informs me that he knows a Eurasian woman, addicted to masturbation,
who can only obtain the orgasm by rubbing the genitals with one hand while
with the other she rubs and finally squeezes her breasts. The tactile
stimulation even of regions of the body which are not normally erogenous
zones in either sex may sometimes lead on to sexual excitement;
Hirschsprung, as well as Freud, believes that this is often the case as
regards finger-sucking and toe-sucking in infancy. Even stroking the chin,
remarks Debreyne, may produce a pollution.[220] Taylor refers to the case
of a young woman of 22, who was liable to attacks of choreic movements of
the hands which would terminate in alternately pressing the middle finger
on the tip of the nose and the tragus of the ear, when a "far-away,
pleased expression" would appear on her face; she thus produced sexual
excitement and satisfaction. She had no idea of wrong-doing and was
surprised and ashamed when she realized the nature of her act.[221]
Most of the foregoing examples of auto-erotism, are commonly included, by
no means correctly, under the heading of "masturbation." There are,
however, a vast number of people, possessing strong sexual emotions and
living a solitary life, who experience, sometimes by instinct and
sometimes on moral grounds, a strong repugnance for these manifestations
of auto-erotism. As one highly intelligent lady writes: "I have sometimes
wondered whether I could produce it (complete sexual excitement)
mechanically, but I have a curious unreasonable repugnance to trying the
experiment. It would materialize it too much." The same repugnance may be
traced in the tendency to avoid, so far as possible, the use of the hands.
It is quite common to find this instinctive unreasoning repugnance among
women, a healthy repugnance, not founded on any moral ground. In men the
same repugnance exists, more often combined with, or replaced by, a very
strong moral and æsthetic objection to such practices. But the presence of
such a repugnance, however invincible, is very far from carrying us
outside the auto-erotic field. The production of the sexual orgasm is not
necessarily dependent on any external contact or voluntary mechanical
cause.
As an example, though not of specifically auto-erotic manifestations, I
may mention the case of a man of 57, a somewhat eccentric preacher, etc.,
who writes: "My whole nature goes out so to some persons, and they thrill
and stir me so that I have an emission while sitting by them with no
thought of sex, only the gladness of soul found its way out thus, and a
glow of health suffused the whole body. There was no spasmodic conclusion,
but a pleasing gentle sensation as the few drops of semen passed." (In
reality, no doubt, not semen, but urethral fluid.) This man's condition
may certainly be considered somewhat morbid; he is attracted to both men
and women, and the sexual impulse seems to be irritable and weak; but a
similar state of things exists so often in women, no doubt due to sexual
repression, and in individuals who are in a general state of normal and
good health, that in these it can scarcely be called morbid. Brooding on
sexual images, which the theologians termed _delectatio morosa_, may lead
to spontaneous orgasm in either sex, even in perfectly normal persons.
Hammond described as a not uncommon form of "psychic coitus," a condition
in which the simple act of imagination alone, in the presence of the
desired object, suffices to produce orgasm. In some public conveyance,
theatre, or elsewhere, the man sees a desirable woman and by concentrating
his attention on her person and imagining all the stages of intimacy he
quickly succeeds in producing orgasm.[222] Niceforo refers to an Italian
work-girl of 14 who could obtain ejaculation of mucus four times a day, in
the workroom in the presence of the other girls, without touching herself
or moving her body, by simply thinking of sexual things.[223]
If the orgasm occurs spontaneously, without the aid of mental impressions,
or any manipulations _ad hoc_, though under such conditions it ceases to
be sinful from the theological standpoint, it certainly ceases also to be
normal. Sérieux records the case of a somewhat neurotic woman of 50, who
had been separated from her husband for ten years, and since lived a
chaste life; at this age, however, she became subject to violent crises of
sexual orgasm, which would come on without any accompaniment of voluptuous
thoughts. MacGillicuddy records three cases of spontaneous orgasm in women
coming under his notice.[224] Such crises are frequently found in both men
and women, who, from moral reasons, ignorance, or on other grounds are
restrained from attaining the complete sexual orgasm, but whose sexual
emotions are, literally, continually dribbling from them. Schrenck-Notzing
knows a lady who is spontaneously sexually excited on hearing music or
seeing pictures without anything lascivious in them; she knows nothing of
sexual relationships. Another lady is sexually excited on seeing beautiful
and natural scenes, like the sea; sexual ideas are mixed up in her mind
with these things, and the contemplation of a specially strong and
sympathetic man brings the orgasm on in about a minute. Both these ladies
"masturbate" in the streets, restaurants, railways, theatres, without
anyone perceiving it.[225] A Brahmin woman informed a medical
correspondent in India that she had distinct though feeble orgasm, with
copious outflow of mucus, if she stayed long near a man whose face she
liked, and this is not uncommon among European women. Evidently under such
conditions there is a state of hyperæsthetic weakness. Here, however, we
are passing the frontiers of strictly auto-erotic phenomena.
_Delectatio morosa_, as understood by the theologians, is
distinct from desire, and also distinct from the definite
intention of effecting the sexual act, although it may lead to
those things. It is the voluntary and complacent dallying in
imagination with voluptuous thoughts, when no effort is made to
repel them. It is, as Aquinas and others point out, constituted
by this act of complacent dallying, and has no reference to the
duration of the imaginative process. Debreyne, in his
_Moechialogie_ (pp. 149-163), deals fully with this question, and
quotes the opinions of theologians. I may add that in the early
Penitentials, before the elaboration of Catholic theology, the
voluntary emission of semen through the influence of evil
thoughts, was recognized as a sin, though usually only if it
occurred in church. In Egbert's Penitential of the eighth or
ninth century (cap. IX, 12), the penance assigned for this
offence in the case of a deacon, is 25 days; in the case of a
monk, 30 days; a priest, 40 days; a bishop, 50. (Haddon and
Stubbs, _Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents_, vol. iii, p.
426.)
The frequency of spontaneous orgasm in women seems to have been
recognized in the seventeenth century. Thus, Schurig
(_Syllepsilogia_, p. 4), apparently quoting Riolan, states that
some women are so wanton that the sight of a handsome man, or of
their lover, or speech with such a one, will cause them to
ejaculate their semen.
There is, however, a closely allied, and, indeed, overlapping form of
auto-erotism which may be considered here: I mean that associated with
revery, or day-dreaming. Although this is a very common and important
form of auto-erotism, besides being in a large proportion of cases the
early stage of masturbation, it appears to have attracted little
attention.[226] The day-dream has, indeed, been studied in its chief form,
in the "continued story," by Mabel Learoyd, of Wellesley College. The
continued story is an imagined narrative, more or less peculiar to the
individual, by whom it is cherished with fondness, and regarded as an
especially sacred mental possession, to be shared only, if at all, with
very sympathizing friends. It is commoner among girls and young women than
among boys and young men; among 352 persons of both sexes, 47 per cent.
among the women and only 14 per cent. among the men, have any continued
story. The starting-point is an incident from a book, or, more usually,
some actual experience, which the subject develops; the subject is nearly
always the hero or the heroine of the story. The growth of the story is
favored by solitude, and lying in bed before going to sleep is the time
specially sacred to its cultivation.[227] No distinct reference, perhaps
naturally enough, is made by Miss Learoyd to the element of sexual emotion
with which these stories are often strongly tinged, and which is
frequently their real motive. Though by no means easy to detect, these
elaborate and more or less erotic day-dreams are not uncommon in young
men and especially in young women. Each individual has his own particular
dream, which is always varying or developing, but, except in very
imaginative persons, to no great extent. Such a day-dream is often founded
on a basis of pleasurable personal experience, and develops on that basis.
It may involve an element of perversity, even though that element finds no
expression in real life. It is, of course, fostered by sexual abstinence;
hence its frequency in young women. Most usually there is little attempt
to realize it. It does not necessarily lead to masturbation, though it
often causes some sexual congestion or even spontaneous sexual orgasm. The
day-dream is a strictly private and intimate experience, not only from its
very nature, but also because it occurs in images which the subject finds
great difficulty in translating into language, even when willing to do so.
In other cases it is elaborately dramatic or romantic in character, the
hero or heroine passing through many experiences before attaining the
erotic climax of the story. This climax tends to develop in harmony with
the subject's growing knowledge or experience; at first, merely a kiss, it
may develop into any refinement of voluptuous gratification. The day-dream
may occur either in normal or abnormal persons. Rousseau, in his
_Confessions_, describes such dreams, in his case combined with masochism
and masturbation. A distinguished American novelist, Hamlin Garland, has
admirably described in _Rose of Dutcher's Coolly_ the part played in the
erotic day-dreams of a healthy normal girl at adolescence by a
circus-rider, seen on the first visit to a circus, and becoming a majestic
ideal to dominate the girl's thoughts for many years.[228]
Raffalovich[229] describes the process by which in sexual inverts the
vision of a person of the same sex, perhaps seen in the streets or the
theatre, is evoked in solitary reveries, producing a kind of "psychic
onanism," whether or not it leads on to physical manifestations.
Although day-dreaming of this kind has at present been very little
studied, since it loves solitude and secrecy, and has never been counted
of sufficient interest for scientific inquisition, it is really a process
of considerable importance, and occupies a large part of the auto-erotic
field. It is frequently cultivated by refined and imaginative young men
and women who lead a chaste life and would often be repelled by
masturbation. In such persons, under such circumstances, it must be
considered as strictly normal, the inevitable outcome of the play of the
sexual impulse. No doubt it may often become morbid, and is never a
healthy process when indulged in to excess, as it is liable to be by
refined young people with artistic impulses, to whom it is in the highest
degree seductive and insidious.[230] As we have seen, however,
day-dreaming is far from always colored by sexual emotion; yet it is a
significant indication of its really sexual origin that, as I have been
informed by persons of both sexes, even in these apparently non-sexual
cases it frequently ceases altogether on marriage.
Even when we have eliminated all these forms of auto-erotic activity,
however refined, in which the subject takes a voluntary part, we have
still left unexplored an important portion of the auto-erotic field, a
portion which many people are alone inclined to consider normal: sexual
orgasm during sleep. That under conditions of sexual abstinence in healthy
individuals there must inevitably be some auto-erotic manifestations
during waking life, a careful study of the facts compels us to believe.
There can be no doubt, also, that, under the same conditions, the
occurrence of the complete orgasm during sleep with, in men, seminal
emissions, is altogether normal. Even Zeus himself, as Pausanias has
recorded, was liable to such accidents: a statement which, at all events,
shows that to the Greek mind there was nothing derogatory in such an
occurrence.[231] The Jews, however, regarded it as an impurity,[232] and
the same idea was transmitted to the Christian church and embodied in the
word _pollutio_, by which the phenomenon was designated in ecclesiastical
phraseology.[233] According to Billuart and other theologians, pollution
in sleep is not sin, unless voluntarily caused; if, however, it begins in
sleep, and is completed in the half-waking state, with a sense of
pleasure, it is a venial sin. But it seems allowable to permit a nocturnal
pollution to complete itself on awaking, if it occurs without intention;
and St. Thomas even says "_Si pollutio placeat ut naturæ exoneratio vel
alleviatio peccatum non creditur_."
Notwithstanding the fair and logical position of the more
distinguished Latin theologians, there has certainly been a
widely prevalent belief in Catholic countries that pollution
during sleep is a sin. In the "Parson's Tale," Chaucer makes the
parson say: "Another sin appertaineth to lechery that cometh in
sleeping; and the sin cometh oft to them that be maidens, and eke
to them that be corrupt; and this sin men clepe pollution, that
cometh in four manners;" these four manners being (1) languishing
of body from rank and abundant humors, (2) infirmity, (3) surfeit
of meat and drink, and (4) villainous thoughts. Four hundred
years later, Madame Roland, in her _Mémoires Particulières_,
presented a vivid picture of the anguish produced in an innocent
girl's mind by the notion of the sinfulness of erotic dreams. She
menstruated first at the age of 14. "Before this," she writes, "I
had sometimes been awakened from the deepest sleep in a
surprising manner. Imagination played no part; I exercised it on
too many serious subjects, and my timorous conscience preserved
it from amusement with other subjects, so that it could not
represent what I would not allow it to seek to understand. But an
extraordinary effervescence aroused my senses in the heat of
repose, and, by virtue of my excellent constitution, operated by
itself a purification which was as strange to me as its cause.
The first feeling which resulted was, I know not why, a sort of
fear. I had observed in my _Philotée_, that we are not allowed to
obtain any pleasure from our bodies except in lawful marriage.
What I had experienced could be called a pleasure. I was then
guilty, and in a class of offences which caused me the most shame
and sorrow, since it was that which was most displeasing to the
Spotless Lamb. There was great agitation in my poor heart,
prayers and mortifications. How could I avoid it? For, indeed, I
had not foreseen it, but at the instant when I experienced it, I
had not taken the trouble to prevent it. My watchfulness became
extreme. I scrupulously avoided positions which I found specially
exposed me to the accident. My restlessness became so great that,
at last I was able to awake before the catastrophe. When I was
not in time to prevent it, I would jump out of bed, with naked
feet on to the polished floor, and with crossed arms pray to the
Saviour to preserve me from the wiles of the devil. I would then
impose some penance on myself, and I have carried out to the
letter what the prophet King probably only transmitted to us as a
figure of Oriental speech, mixing ashes with my bread and
watering it with my tears."
To the early Protestant mind, as illustrated by Luther, there was
something diseased, though not impure, in sexual excitement during sleep;
thus, in his _Table Talk_ Luther remarks that girls who have such dreams
should be married at once, "taking the medicine which God has given." It
is only of comparatively recent years that medical science has obtained
currency for the belief that this auto-erotic process is entirely normal.
Blumenbach stated that nocturnal emissions are normal.[234] Sir James
Paget declared that he had never known celibate men who had not such
emissions from once or twice a week to twice every three months, both
extremes being within the limits of good health, while Sir Lauder Brunton
considers once a fortnight or once a month about the usual frequency, at
these periods the emissions often following two nights in succession.
Rohleder believes that they may normally follow for several nights in
succession. Hammond considers that they occur about once a fortnight.[235]
Ribbing regards ten to fourteen days as the normal interval.[236]
Löwenfeld puts the normal frequency at about once a week;[237] this seems
to be nearer the truth as regards most fairly healthy young men. In proof
of this it is only necessary to refer to the exact records of healthy
young adults summarized in the study of periodicity in the present volume.
It occasionally happens, however, that nocturnal emissions are entirely
absent. I am acquainted with some cases. In other fairly healthy young men
they seldom occur except at times of intellectual activity or of anxiety
and worry.
Lately there has been some tendency for medical opinion to revert
to the view of Luther, and to regard sexual excitement during
sleep as a somewhat unhealthy phenomenon. Moll is a distinguished
advocate of this view. Sexual excitement during sleep is the
normal result of celibacy, but it is another thing to say that it
is, on that account, satisfactory. We might, then, Moll remarks,
maintain that nocturnal incontinence of urine is satisfactory,
since the bladder is thus emptied. Yet, we take every precaution
against this by insisting that the bladder shall be emptied
before going to sleep. (_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, p. 552.) This
remark is supported by the fact, to which I find that both men
and women can bear witness, that sexual excitement during sleep
is more fatiguing than in the waking state, though this is not an
invariable rule, and it is sometimes found to be refreshing. In
a similar way, Eulenburg (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 55) states
that nocturnal emissions are no more normal than coughing or
vomiting.
Nocturnal emissions are usually, though not invariably, accompanied by
dreams of a voluptuous character in which the dreamer becomes conscious in
a more or less fantastic manner of the more or less intimate presence or
contact of a person of the opposite sex. It would seem, as a general rule,
that the more vivid and voluptuous the dream, the greater is the physical
excitement and the greater also the relief experienced on awakening.
Sometimes the erotic dream occurs without any emission, and not
infrequently the emission takes place after the dreamer has awakened.
The widest and most comprehensive investigation of erotic dreams
is that carried out by Gualino, in northern Italy, and based on
inquiries among 100 normal men--doctors, teachers, lawyers,
etc.--who had all had experience of the phenomenon. (L. Gualino,
"Il Sogno Erotico nell' Uomo Normale," _Rivista di Psicologia_,
Jan.-Feb., 1907.) Gualino shows that erotic dreams, with
emissions (whether or not seminal), began somewhat earlier than
the period of physical development as ascertained by Marro for
youths of the same part of northern Italy. Gualino found that all
his cases had had erotic dreams at the age of seventeen; Marro
found 8 per cent, of youths still sexually undeveloped at that
age, and while sexual development began at thirteen years, erotic
dreams began at twelve. Their appearance was preceded, in most
cases for some months, by erections. In 37 per cent, of the cases
there had been no actual sexual experiences (either masturbation
or intercourse); in 23 per cent, there had been masturbation; in
the rest, some form of sexual contact. The dreams are mainly
visual, tactual elements coming second, and the _dramatis
persona_ is either an unknown woman (27 per cent, cases), or only
known by sight (56 per cent.), and in the majority is, at all
events in the beginning, an ugly or fantastic figure, becoming
more attractive later in life, but never identical with the woman
loved during waking life. This, as Gualino points out, accords
with the general tendency for the emotions of the day to be
latent in sleep. Masturbation only formed the subject of the
dream in four cases. The emotional state in the pubertal stage,
apart from pleasure, was anxiety (37 per cent.), desire (17 per
cent.), fear (14 per cent.). In the adult stage, anxiety and fear
receded to 7 per cent, and 6 per cent., respectively.
Thirty-three of the subjects, as a result of sexual or general
disturbances, had had nocturnal emissions without dreams; these
were always found exhausting. Normally (in more than 90 per
cent.) erotic dreams are the most vivid of all dreams. In no case
was there knowledge of any monthly or other cyclic periodicity in
the occurrence of the manifestations. In 34 per cent, of cases,
they tended to occur very soon after sexual intercourse. In
numerous cases they were peculiarly frequent (even three in one
night) during courtship, when the young man was in the habit of
kissing and caressing his betrothed, but ceased after marriage.
It was not noted that position in bed or a full bladder exerted
any marked influence in the occurrence of erotic dreams;
repletion of the seminal vesicles is regarded as the main factor.
In Germany erotic dreams have been discussed by Volkelt (_Die
Traum-Phantasie_, 1875, pp. 78-82), and especially by Löwenfeld
(_Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1908), while in America, Stanley Hall
thus summarizes the general characteristics of erotic dreams in
men: "In by far the most cases, consciousness, even when the act
causes full awakening from sleep, finds only scattered images,
single words, gestures, and acts, many of which would perhaps
normally constitute no provocation. Many times the mental
activity seems to be remote and incidental, and the mind retains
in the morning nothing except, perhaps, a peculiar dress pattern,
the shape of a finger-nail, the back of a neck, the toss of a
head, the movement of a foot, or the dressing of the hair. In
such cases, these images stand out for a time with the
distinctness of a cameo, and suggest that the origin of erotic
fetichisms is largely to be found in sexual dreams. Very rarely
is there any imagery of the organs themselves, but the tendency
to irradiation is so strong as to re-enforce the suggestion of so
many other phenomena in this field, that nature designs this
experience to be long circuited, and that it may give a peculiar
ictus to almost any experience. When waking occurs just
afterward, it seems at least possible that there may be much
imagery that existed, but failed to be recalled to memory,
possibly because the flow of psychic impressions was over very
familiar fields, and this, therefore, was forgotten, while any
eruption into new or unwonted channels, stood out with
distinctness. All these psychic phenomena, although very
characteristic of man in his prime, are not so of the dreams of
dawning puberty, which are far more vivid." (G. Stanley Hall,
_Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 455.)
I may, further, quote the experience of an anonymous
contributor--a healthy and chaste man between 30 and 38 years of
age--to the _American Journal of Psychology_ ("Nocturnal
Emissions," Jan., 1904): "Legs and breasts often figured
prominently in these dreams, the other sexual parts, however,
very seldom, and then they turned out to be male organs in most
cases. There were but two instances of copulation dreamt. Girls
and young women were the, usual _dramatis personæ_, and,
curiously enough, often the aggressors. Sometimes the face or
faces were well known; sometimes, only once seen; sometimes,
entirely unknown. The orgasm occurs at the most erotic part of
the dream, the physical and psychical running parallel. This most
erotic or suggestive part of the dream was very often quite an
innocent looking incident enough. As, for example: while passing
a strange young woman, overtaken on the street, she calls after
me some question. At first, I pay no heed, but when she calls
again, I hesitate whether to turn back and answer or
not--emission. Again, walking beside a young woman, she said,
'Shall I take your arm?' I offered it, and she took it, entwining
her arm around it, and raising it high--emission. I could feel
stronger erection as she asked the question. Sometimes, a word
was enough; sometimes, a gesture. Once emission took place on my
noticing the young woman's diminished finger-nails. Another
example of fetichism was my being curiously attracted in a dream
by the pretty embroidered figure on a little girl's dress. As an
illustration of the strange metamorphoses that occur in dreams, I
one night, in my dream (I had been observing partridges in the
summer) fell in love with a partridge, which changed under my
caresses to a beautiful girl, who yet retained an indescribable
wild-bird innocence, grace, and charm--a sort of Undina!"
These experiences may be regarded as fairly typical of the erotic
dreams of healthy and chaste young men. The bird, for instance,
that changes into a woman while retaining some elements of the
bird, has been encountered in erotic dreams by other young men.
It is indeed remarkable that, as De Gubernatis observes, "the
bird is a well-known phallic symbol," while Maeder finds
("Interprétations de Quelques Rêves," _Archives de Psychologie_,
April, 1907) that birds have a sexual significance both in life
and in dreams. The appearance of male organs in the dream-woman
is doubtless due to the dreamer's greater familiarity with those
organs; but, though it occurs occasionally, it can scarcely be
said to be the rule in erotic dreams. Even men who have never had
connection with a woman, are quite commonly aware of the presence
of a woman's sexual organs in their erotic dreams.
Moll's comparison of nocturnal emissions of semen with nocturnal
incontinence of urine suggests an interesting resemblance, and at
the same time seeming contrast. In both cases we are concerned
with viscera which, when overfilled or unduly irritable,
spasmodically eject their contents during sleep. There is a
further resemblance which usually becomes clear when, as
occasionally happens, nocturnal incontinence of urine persists on
to late childhood or adolescence: both phenomena are frequently
accompanied by vivid dreams of appropriate character. (See e.g.
Ries, "Ueber Enuresis Nocturna," _Monatsschrift für
Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle Hygiene_, 1904; A.P. Buchan, nearly
a century ago, pointed out the psychic element in the
experiences of young persons who wetted the bed, _Venus sine
Concubitu_, 1816, p. 47.) Thus, in one case known to me, a child
of seven, who occasionally wetted the bed, usually dreamed at the
same time that she wanted to make water, and was out of doors,
running to find a suitable spot, which she at last found, and, on
awaking, discovered that she had wetted the bed; fifteen years
later she still sometimes had similar dreams, which caused her
much alarm until, when thoroughly awake, she realized that no
accident had happened; these later dreams were not the result of
any actual strong desire to urinate. In another case with which I
am acquainted, a little girl of eight, after mental excitement or
indigestible meals, occasionally wetted the bed, dreaming that
she was frightened by some one running after her, and wetted
herself in consequence, after the manner of the Ganymede in the
eagle's clutch, as depicted by Rembrandt. These two cases, it may
be noted, belong to two quite different types. In the first case,
the full bladder suggests to imagination the appropriate actions
for relief, and the bladder actually accepts the imaginative
solution offered; it is, according to Fiorani's phrase,
"somnambulism of the bladder." In the other case, there is no
such somnambulism, but a psychic and nervous disturbance, not
arising in the bladder at all, irradiates convulsively, and
whether or not the bladder is overfull, attacks a vesical nervous
system which is not yet sufficiently well-balanced to withstand
the inflow of excitement. In children of somewhat nervous
temperament, manifestations of this kind may occur as an
occasional accident, up to about the age of seven or eight; and
thereafter, the nervous control of the bladder having become
firmly established, they cease to happen, the nervous energy
required to affect the bladder sufficing to awake the dreamer. In
very rare cases, however, the phenomenon may still occasionally
happen, even in adolescence or later, in individuals who are
otherwise quite free from it. This is most apt to occur in young
women even in waking life. In men it is probably extremely rare.
The erotic dream seems to differ flagrantly from the vesical
dream, in that it occurs in adult life, and is with difficulty
brought under control. The contrast is, however, very
superficial. When we remember that sexual activity only begins
normally at puberty, we realize that the youth of twenty is, in
the matter of sexual control, scarcely much older than in the
matter of vesical control he was at the age of six. Moreover, if
we were habitually, from our earliest years, to go to bed with a
full bladder, as the chaste man goes to bed with unrelieved
sexual system, it would be fully as difficult to gain vesical
control during sleep as it now is to gain sexual control.
Ultimately, such sexual control is attained; after the age of
forty, it seems that erotic dreams with emission become more and
more rare; either the dream occurs without actual emission,
exactly as dreams of urination occur in adults with full bladder,
or else the organic stress, with or without dreams, serves to
awaken the sleeper before any emission has occurred. But this
stage is not easily or completely attained. St. Augustine, even
at the period when he wrote his _Confessions_, mentions, as a
matter of course, that sexual dreams "not merely arouse pleasure,
but gain the consent of the will." (X. 41.) Not infrequently
there is a struggle in sleep, just as the hypnotic subject may
resist suggestions; thus, a lady of thirty-five dreamed a sexual
dream, and awoke without excitement; again she fell asleep, and
had another dream of sexual character, but resisted the tendency
to excitement, and again awoke; finally, she fell asleep and had
a third sexual dream, which was this time accompanied by the
orgasm. (This has recently been described also by Näcke, who
terms it _pollutio interrupta, Neurologisches Centralblatt_, Oct.
16, 1909; the corresponding voluntary process in the waking state
is described by Rohleder and termed _masturbatio interrupta,
Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Aug., 1908.) The factors
involved in the acquirement of vesical and sexual control during
sleep are the same, but the conditions are somewhat different.
There is a very intimate connection between the vesical and the
sexual spheres, as I have elsewhere pointed out (see e.g. in the
third volume of these _Studies_, "Analysis of the Sexual
Impulse"). This connection is psychic as well as organic. Both in
men and women, a full bladder tends to develop erotic dreams.
(See e.g. K.A. Scherner, _Das Leben des Traums_, 1861, pp. 187 et
seq.; Spitta also points out the connection between vesical and
erotic dreams, _Die Schlaf und Traumzustände_, 2d ed., 1882, pp.
250 et seq.) Raymond and Janet state (_Les Obscessions_, vol. ii,
p. 135) that nocturnal incontinence of urine, accompanied by
dreams of urination, may be replaced at puberty by masturbation.
In the reverse direction, Freud believes (_Monatsschrift für
Psychiatrie_, Bd. XVIII, p. 433) that masturbation plays a large
part in causing the bed-wetting of children who have passed the
age when that usually ceases, and he even finds that children are
themselves aware of the connection.
The diagnostic value of sexual dreams, as an indication of the
sexual nature of the subject when awake, has been emphasized by
various writers. (E.g., Moll, _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_,
Ch. IX; Näcke, "Der Traum als feinstes Reagens für die Art des
sexuellen Empfindens," _Monatsschrift für Kriminalpsychologie_,
1905, p. 500.) Sexual dreams tend to reproduce, and even to
accentuate, those characteristics which make the strongest sexual
appeal to the subject when awake.
At the same time, this general statement has to be qualified,
more especially as regards inverted dreams. In the first place, a
young man, however normal, who is not familiar with the feminine
body when awake, is not likely to see it when asleep, even in
dreams of women; in the second place, the confusions and
combinations of dream imagery often tend to obliterate sexual
distinctions, however free from perversions the subjects may be.
Thus, a correspondent tells me of a healthy man, of very pure
character, totally inexperienced in sexual matters, and never
having seen a woman naked, who, in his sexual dreams, always sees
the woman with male organs, though he has never had any sexual
inclinations for men, and is much in love with a lady. The
confusions and associations of dream imagery, leading to abnormal
combinations, may be illustrated by a dream which once occurred
to me after reading Joest's account of how a young negress, whose
tattoo-marks he was sketching, having become bored, suddenly
pressed her hands to her breasts, spirting two streams of
lukewarm milk into his face, and ran away laughing; I dreamed of
a woman performing a similar action, not from her breasts,
however, but from a penis with which she was furnished. Again, by
another kind of confusion, a man dreams sexually that he is with
a man, although the figure of the partner revealed in the dream
is a woman. The following dream, in a normal man who had never
been, or wished to be, in the position shown by the dream, may be
quoted: "I dreamed that I was a big boy, and that a younger boy
lay close beside me, and that we (or, certainly, he) had seminal
emissions; I was complacently passive, and had a feeling of shame
when the boy was discovered. On awaking I found I had had no
emission, but was lying very close to my wife. The day before, I
had seen boys in a swimming-match." This was, it seems to me, an
example of dream confusion, and not an erotic inverted dream.
(Näcke also brings forward inverted dreams by normal persons; see
e.g. his "Beiträge zu den sexuellen Träumen," _Archiv für
Kriminal-Anthropologie_, Bd. XX, 1908, p. 366.)
So far as I have been able to ascertain, there seem to be, generally
speaking, certain differences in the manifestations of auto-erotism during
sleep in men and women which I believe to be not without psychological
significance. In men the phenomenon is fairly simple; it usually appears
about puberty continues at intervals of varying duration during sexual
life provided the individual is living chastely, and is generally, though
not always, accompanied by erotic dreams which lead up to the climax, its
occurrence being, to some extent, influenced by a variety of
circumstances: physical, mental, or emotional excitement, alcohol taken
before retiring, position in bed (as lying on the back), the state of the
bladder, sometimes the mere fact of being in a strange bed, and to some
extent apparently by the existence of monthly and yearly rhythms. On the
whole, it is a fairly definite and regular phenomenon which usually leaves
little conscious trace on awaking, beyond probably some sense of fatigue
and, occasionally, a headache. In women, however, the phenomena of
auto-erotism during sleep seem to be much more irregular, varied, and
diffused. So far as I have been able to make inquiries, it is the
exception rather than the rule for girls to experience definitely erotic
dreams about the period of puberty or adolescence.[238] Auto-erotic
phenomena during sleep in women who have never experienced the orgasm when
awake are usually of a very vague kind; while it is the rule in a chaste
youth for the orgasm thus to manifest itself, it is the exception in a
chaste girl. It is not, as a rule, until the orgasm has been definitely
produced in the waking state--under whatever conditions it may have been
produced--that it begins to occur during sleep, and even in a strongly
sexual woman living a repressed life it is often comparatively
infrequent.[239] Thus, a young medical woman who endeavors to deal
strenuously with her physical sexual emotions writes: "I sleep soundly,
and do not dream at all. Occasionally, but very rarely, I have had
sensations which awakened me suddenly. They can scarcely be called dreams,
for they are mere impulses, nothing connected or coherent, yet prompted, I
know, by sexual feeling. This is probably an experience common to all."
Another lady (with a restrained psycho-sexual tendency to be attracted to
both sexes), states that her first sexual sensations with orgasm were felt
in dreams at the age of 16, but these dreams, which she has now forgotten,
were not agreeable and not erotic; two or three years later spontaneous
orgasm began to occur occasionally when awake, and after this, orgasm
took place regularly once or twice a week in sleep, but still without
erotic dreams; she merely dreamt that the orgasm was occurring and awoke
as it took place.
It is possible that to the comparative rarity in chaste women of complete
orgasm during sleep, we may in part attribute the violence with which
repressed sexual emotion in women often manifests itself.[240] There is
thus a difference here between men and women which is of some significance
when we are considering the natural satisfaction of the sexual impulse in
chaste women.
In women, who have become accustomed to sexual intercourse, erotic dreams
of fully developed character occur, with complete orgasm and accompanying
relief--as may occasionally be the case in women who are not acquainted
with actual intercourse;[241] some women, however, even when familiar with
actual coitus, find that sexual dreams, though accompanied by emissions,
are only the symptoms of desire and do not produce actual relief.
Some interest attaches to cases in which young women, even girls at
puberty, experience dreams of erotic character, or at all events dream
concerning coitus or men in erection, although they profess, and almost
certainly with truth, to be quite ignorant of sexual phenomena. Several
such dreams of remarkable character have been communicated to me. One can
imagine that the psychologists of some schools would see in these dreams
the spontaneous eruption of the experiences of the race. I am inclined to
regard them as forgotten memories, such as we know to occur sometimes in
sleep. The child has somehow seen or heard of sexual phenomena and felt no
interest, and the memory may subsequently be aroused in sleep, under the
stimulation of new-born sexual sensations.
It is a curious proof of the ignorance which has prevailed in
recent times concerning the psychic sexual nature of women that,
although in earlier ages the fact that women are normally liable
to erotic dreams was fully recognized, in recent times it has
been denied, even by writers who have made a special study of the
sexual impulse in women. Eulenburg (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, 1895,
pp. 31, 79) appears to regard the appearances of sexual phenomena
during sleep, in women, as the result of masturbation. Adler, in
what is in many respects an extremely careful study of sexual
phenomena in women (_Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des
Weibes_, 1904, p. 130), boldly states that they do not have
erotic dreams. In 1847, E. Guibout ("Des Pollutions Involontaires
chez la Femme," _Union Médicale_, p. 260) presented the case of a
married lady who masturbated from the age of ten, and continued
the practice, even after her marriage at twenty-four, and at
twenty-nine began to have erotic dreams with emissions every few
nights, and later sometimes even several times a night, though
they ceased to be voluptuous; he believed the case to be the
first ever reported of such a condition in a woman. Yet,
thousands of years ago, the Indian of Vedic days recognized
erotic dreams in women as an ordinary and normal occurrence.
(Löwenfeld quotes a passage to this effect from the Oupnek'hat,
_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, 2d ed., p. 114.) Even savages
recognize the occurrence of erotic dreams in women as normal, for
the Papuans, for instance, believe that a young girl's first
menstruation is due to intercourse with the moon in the shape of
a man, the girl dreaming that a man is embracing her. (_Reports
Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v., p. 206.) In the
seventeenth century, Rolfincius, in a well-informed study (_De
Pollutione Nocturna_, a Jena Inaugural Dissertation, 1667),
concluded that women experience such manifestations, and quotes
Aristotle, Galen, and Fernelius, in the same sense. Sir Thomas
Overbury, in his _Characters_, written in the early part of the
same century, describing the ideal milkmaid, says that "her
dreams are so chaste that she dare tell them," clearly implying
that It was not so with most women. The notion that women are not
subject to erotic dreams thus appears to be of comparatively
recent origin.
One of the most interesting and important characters by which the erotic
dreams of women--and, indeed, their dreams generally--differ from those of
men is in the tendency to evoke a repercussion on the waking life, a
tendency more rarely noted in men's erotic dreams, and then only to a
minor extent. This is very common, even in healthy and normal women, and
is exaggerated to a high degree in neurotic subjects, by whom the dream
may even be interpreted as a reality, and so declared on oath, a fact of
practical importance.
Hersman--having met with a case in which a school-girl with chorea, after
having dreamed of an assault, accused the principal of a school of
assault, securing his conviction--obtained the opinions of various
American alienists as to the frequency with which such dreams in unstable
mental subjects lead to delusions and criminal accusations. Dercum, H.C.
Wood, and Rohé had not personally met with such cases; Burr believed that
there was strong evidence "that a sexual dream may be so vivid as to make
the subject believe she has had sexual congress"; Kiernan knew of such
cases; C.H. Hughes, in persons with every appearance of sanity, had known
the erotic dreams of the night to become the erotic delusions of the day,
the patient protesting violently the truth of her story; while Hersman
reports the case[242] of a young lady in an asylum who had nightly
delusions that a medical officer visited her every night, and had to do
with her, coming up the hot-air flue. I am acquainted with a similar case
in a clever, but highly neurotic, young woman, who writes: "For years I
have been trying to stamp out my passional nature, and was beginning to
succeed when a strange thing happened to me last autumn. One night, as I
lay in bed, I felt an influence so powerful that a man seemed present with
me. I crimsoned with shame and wonder. I remember that I lay upon my back,
and marveled when the spell had passed. The influence, I was assured, came
from a priest whom I believed in and admired above everyone in the world.
I had never dreamed of love in connection with him, because I always
thought him so far above me. The influence has been upon me ever
since--sometimes by day and nearly always by night; from it I generally go
into a deep sleep, which lasts until morning. I am always much refreshed
when I awake. This influence has the best effect upon my life that
anything has ever had as regards health and mind. It is the knowledge that
I am loved _fittingly_ that makes me so indifferent to my future. What
worries me is that I sometimes wonder if I suffer from a nervous disorder
merely." The subject thus seemed to regard these occurrences as
objectively caused, but was sufficiently sane to wonder whether her
experiences were not due to mental disorder.[243]
The tendency of the auto-erotic phenomena of sleep to be manifested with
such energy as to flow over into the waking life and influence conscious
emotion and action, while very well marked in normal and healthy women, is
seen to an exaggerated extent in hysterical women, in whom it has,
therefore, chiefly been studied. Sante de Sanctis, who has investigated
the dreams of many classes of people, remarks on the frequently sexual
character of the dreams of hysterical women, and the repercussion of such
dreams on the waking life of the following day; he gives a typical case of
hysterical erotic dreaming in an uneducated servant-girl of 23, in whom
such dreams occur usually a few days before the menstrual period; her
dreams, especially if erotic, make an enormous impression on her; in the
morning she is bad-tempered if they were unpleasant, while she feels
lascivious and gives herself up to masturbation if she has had erotic
dreams of men; she then has a feeling of pleasure throughout the day, and
her sexual organs are bathed with moisture.[244] Pitres and Gilles de la
Tourette, two of Charcot's most distinguished pupils, in their elaborate
works on hysteria, both consider that dreams generally have a great
influence on the waking life of the hysterical, and they deal with the
special influence of erotic dreams, to which, doubtless, we must refer
those conceptions of _incubi_ and _succubi_ which played so vast and so
important a part in the demonology of the Middle Ages, and while not
unknown in men were most frequent in women. Such erotic dreams--as these
observers, confirming the experience of old writers, have found among the
hysterical to-day--are by no means always, or even usually, of a
pleasurable character. "It is very rare," Pitres remarks, when insisting
on the sexual character of the hallucinations of the hysterical, "for
these erotic hallucinations to be accompanied by agreeable voluptuous
sensations. In most cases the illusion of sexual intercourse even provokes
acute pain. The witches of old times nearly all affirmed that in their
relations with the devil they suffered greatly.[245] They said that his
organ was long and rough and pointed, with scales which lifted on
withdrawal and tore the vagina." (It seems probable, I may remark, that
the witches' representations, both of the devil and of sexual intercourse,
were largely influenced by familiarity with the coupling of animals). As
Gilles de la Tourette is careful to warn his readers, we must not too
hastily assume, from the prevalence of nocturnal auto-erotic phenomena in
hysterical women, that such women are necessarily sexual and libidinous in
excess; the disorder is in them psychic, he points out, and not physical,
and they usually receive sexual approaches with indifference and
repugnance, because their sexual centres are anæsthetic or hyperæsthetic.
"During the period of sexual activity they seek much more the care and
delicate attention of men than the genital act, which they often only
tolerate. Many households, begun under the happiest auspices--the bride
all the more apt to believe that she loves her betrothed in virtue of her
suggestibility, easily exalted, perhaps at the expense of the
senses--become hells on earth. The sexual act has for the hysterical woman
more than one disillusion; she cannot understand it; it inspires her with
insurmountable repugnance."[246] I refer to these hysterical phenomena
because they present to us, in an extreme form, facts which are common
among women whom, under the artificial conditions of civilized life, we
are compelled to regard as ordinarily healthy and normal. The frequent
painfulness of auto-erotic phenomena is by no means an exclusively
hysterical phenomenon, although often seen in a heightened form in
hysterical conditions. It is probably to some extent simply the result of
a conflict in consciousness with a merely physical impulse which is strong
enough to assert itself in spite of the emotional and intellectual
abhorrence of the subject. It is thus but an extreme form of the disgust
which all sexual physical manifestations tend to inspire in a person who
is not inclined to respond to them. Somewhat similar psychic disgust and
physical pain are produced in the attempts to stimulate the sexual
emotions and organs when these are exhausted by exercise. In the detailed
history which Moll presents, of the sexual experiences of a sister in an
American nursing guild,--a most instructive history of a woman fairly
normal except for the results of repressed sexual emotion, and with strong
moral tendencies,--various episodes are narrated well illustrating the way
in which sexual excitement becomes unpleasant or even painful when it
takes place as a physical reflex which the emotions and intellect are all
the time struggling against.[247] It is quite probable, however, that
there is a physiological, as well as a psychic, factor in this phenomenon,
and Sollier, in his elaborate study of the nature and genesis of hysteria,
by insisting on the capital importance of the disturbance of sensibility
in hysteria, and the definite character of the phenomena produced in the
passage between anæsthesia and normal sensation, has greatly helped to
reveal the mechanism of this feature of auto-erotic excitement in the
hysterical.
No doubt there has been a tendency to exaggerate the unpleasant character
of the auto-erotic phenomena of hysteria. That tendency was an inevitable
reaction against an earlier view, according to which hysteria was little
more than an unconscious expression of the sexual emotions and as such was
unscientifically dismissed without any careful investigation. I agree with
Breuer and Freud that the sexual needs of the hysterical are just as
individual and various as those of normal women, but that they suffer from
them more, largely through a moral struggle with their own instincts, and
the attempt to put them into the background of consciousness.[248] In many
hysterical and psychically abnormal women, auto-erotic phenomena, and
sexual phenomena generally, are highly pleasurable, though such persons
may be quite innocent of any knowledge of the erotic character of the
experience. I have come across interesting and extreme examples of this in
the published experiences of the women followers of the American religious
leader, T.L. Harris, founder of the "Brotherhood of the New Life." Thus,
in a pamphlet entitled "Internal Respiration," by Respiro, a letter is
quoted from a lady physician, who writes: "One morning I awoke with a
strange new feeling in the womb, which lasted for a day or two; I was so
very happy, but the joy was in my womb, not in my heart."[249] "At last,"
writes a lady quoted in the same pamphlet, "I fell into a slumber, lying
on my back with arms and feet folded, a position I almost always find
myself in when I awake, no matter in which position I may go to sleep.
Very soon I awoke from this slumber with a most delightful sensation,
every fibre tingling with an exquisite glow of warmth. I was lying on my
left side (something I am never able to do), and was folded in the arms of
my counterpart. Unless you have seen it, I cannot give you an idea of the
beauty of his flesh, and with what joy I beheld and felt it. Think of it,
luminous flesh; and Oh! such tints, you never could imagine without
seeing. He folded me so closely in his arms," etc. In such cases there is
no conflict between the physical and the psychic, and therefore the
resulting excitement is pleasurable and not painful.
At this point our study of auto-erotism brings us into the sphere of
mysticism. Leuba, in a penetrating and suggestive essay on Christian
mysticism, after quoting the present _Study_, refers to the famous
passages in which St. Theresa describes how a beautiful little angel
inserted a flame-tipped dart into her heart until it descended into her
bowels and left her inflamed with divine love. "What physiological
difference," he asks, "is there between this voluptuous sensation and that
enjoyed by the disciple of the Brotherhood of New Life? St. Theresa says
'bowels,' the woman doctor says 'womb,' that is all."[250]
The extreme form of auto-erotism is the tendency for the sexual
emotion to be absorbed and often entirely lost in
self-admiration. This Narcissus-like tendency, of which the
normal germ in women is symbolized by the mirror, is found in a
minor degree in some men, and is sometimes well marked in women,
usually in association with an attraction for other persons, to
which attraction it is, of course, normally subservient. "The
mirror," remarks Bloch (_Beiträge_ 1, p. 201), "plays an
important part in the genesis of sexual aberration.... It cannot
be doubted that many a boy and girl have first experienced sexual
excitement at the sight of their own bodies in a mirror."
Valera, the Spanish novelist, very well described this impulse in
his _Genio y Figura_. Rafaela, the heroine of this novel, says
that, after her bath: "I fall into a puerility which may be
innocent or vicious, I cannot decide. I only know that it is a
purely contemplative act, a disinterested admiration of beauty.
It is not coarse sensuality, but æsthetic platonism. I imitate
Narcissus; and I apply my lips to the cold surface of the mirror
and kiss my image. It is the love of beauty, the expression of
tenderness and affection for what God has made manifest, in an
ingenuous kiss imprinted on the empty and incorporeal
reflection." In the same spirit the real heroine of the _Tagebuch
einer Verlorenen_ (p. 114), at the point when she was about to
become a prostitute, wrote: "I am pretty. It gives me pleasure to
throw off my clothes, one by one, before the mirror, and to look
at myself, just as I am, white as snow and straight as a fir,
with my long, fine, hair, like a cloak of black silk. When I
spread abroad the black stream of it, with both hands, I am like
a white swan with black wings."
A typical case known to me is that of a lady of 28, brought up on
a farm. She is a handsome woman, of very large and fine
proportions, active and healthy and intelligent, with, however,
no marked sexual attraction to the opposite sex; at the same time
she is not inverted, though she would like to be a man, and has a
considerable degree of contempt for women. She has an intense
admiration for her own person, especially her limbs; she is
never so happy as when alone and naked in her own bedroom, and,
so far as possible, she cultivates nakedness. She knows by heart
the various measurements of her body, is proud of the fact that
they are strictly in accordance with the canons of proportion,
and she laughs proudly at the thought that her thigh is larger
than many a woman's waist. She is frank and assured in her
manners, without sexual shyness, and, while willing to receive
the attention and admiration of others, she makes no attempt to
gain it, and seems never to have experienced any emotions
stronger than her own pleasure in herself. I should add that I
have had no opportunity of detailed examination, and cannot speak
positively as to the absence of masturbation.
In the extreme form in which alone the name of Narcissus may
properly be invoked, there is comparative indifference to sexual
intercourse or even the admiration of the opposite sex. Such a
condition seems to be rare, except, perhaps, in insanity. Since I
called attention to this form of auto-erotism (_Alienist and
Neurologist_, April, 1898), several writers have discussed the
condition, especially Näcke, who, following out the suggestion,
terms the condition Narcissism. Among 1,500 insane persons, Näcke
has found it in four men and one woman (_Psychiatrische en
Neurologische Bladen_, No. 2, 1899), Dr. C.H. Hughes writes (in a
private letter) that he is acquainted with such cases, in which
men have been absorbed in admiration of their own manly forms,
and of their sexual organs, and women, likewise, absorbed in
admiration of their own mammæ and physical proportions,
especially of limbs. "The whole subject," he adds, "is a singular
phase of psychology, and it is not all morbid psychology, either.
It is closely allied to that æsthetic sense which admires the
nude in art."
Féré (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, 2d ed., p. 271) mentions a woman who
experienced sexual excitement in kissing her own hand. Näcke knew
a woman in an asylum who, during periodical fits of excitement,
would kiss her own arms and hands, at the same time looking like
a person in love. He also knew a young man with dementia præcox?
who would kiss his own image ("Der Kuss bei Geisteskranken,"
_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, Bd. LXIII, p. 127).
Moll refers to a young homosexual lawyer, who experienced great
pleasure in gazing at himself in a mirror (_Konträre
Sexualempfindung_, 3d ed., p. 228), and mentions another inverted
man, an admirer of the nates of men, who, chancing to observe his
own nates in a mirror, when changing his shirt, was struck by
their beauty, and subsequently found pleasure in admiring them
(_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, Theil I, p. 60). Krafft-Ebing knew a
man who masturbated before a mirror, imagining, at the same time,
how much better a real lover would be.
The best-observed cases of Narcissism have, however, been
recorded by Rohleder, who confers upon this condition the
ponderous name of automonosexualism, and believes that it has not
been previously observed (H. Rohleder, _Der Automonosexualismus_,
being Heft 225 of _Berliner Klinik_, March, 1907). In the two
cases investigated by Rohleder, both men, there was sexual
excitement in the contemplation of the individual's own body,
actually or in a mirror, with little or no sexual attraction to
other persons. Rohleder is inclined to regard the condition as
due to a congenital defect in the "sexual centre" of the brain.
FOOTNOTES:
[176] All the above groups of phenomena are dealt with in other volumes of
these _Studies_: the manifestations of normal sexual excitement, in vols.
iii, iv, and v; homosexuality, in vol. ii, and erotic fetichism, in vol.
v.
[177] See Appendix C.
[178] Letamendi, of Madrid, has suggested "_auto-erastia_" to cover what
is probably much the same field. In the beginning of the nineteenth
century, Hufeland, in his _Makrobiotic_, invented the term "_geistige
Onanie_," to express the filling and heating of the imagination with
voluptuous images, without unchastity of body; and in 1844, Kaan, in his
_Psychopathia Sexualis_, used, but did not invent, the term "_onania
psychica_." Gustav Jaeger, in his _Entdeckung der Seele_, proposed
"monosexual idiosyncrasy," to indicate the most animal forms of
masturbation taking place without any correlative imaginative element, a
condition illustrated by cases given in Moll's _Untersuchungen über die
Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, pp. 13 et seq. Dr. Laupts (a pseudonym for the
accomplished psychologist, Dr. Saint-Paul) uses the term _autophilie_, for
solitary vice. (_Perversion et Perversité Sexuelles_, 1896, p. 337.) But
all these terms only cover a portion of the field.
[179] H. Northcote, _Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 231.
[180] Rosse observed two elephants procuring erection by entwining their
proboscides, the act being completed by one elephant opening his mouth and
allowing the other to tickle the roof of it. (I. Rosse, _Virginia Medical
Monthly_, October, 1892.)
[181] Féré, "Perversions sexuelles chez les animaux," _Revue
Philosophique_, May, 1897.
[182] Tillier, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1889, p. 270.
[183] Moll, _Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, p. 76. The same author mentions
(ibid., p. 373) that parrots living in solitary confinement masturbate by
rubbing the posterior part of the body against some object until
ejaculation occurs. Edmund Selous ("Habits of the Peewit," _Zoölogist_,
April, 1902) suggests that the peewit, when rolling on the ground, and
exerting pressure on the anal region, is moved by a sexual impulse to
satisfy desire; he adds that actual orgasm appears eventually to take
place, a spasm of energy passing through the bird.
[184] Dr. J.W. Howe (_Excessive Venery, Masturbation, and Continence_,
London and New York, 1883, p. 62) writes of masturbation: "In savage lands
it is of rare occurrence. Savages live in a state of Nature. No moral
obligations exist which compel them to abstain from a natural
gratification of their passions. There is no social law which prevents
them from following the dictates of their lower nature. Hence, they have
no reason for adopting onanism as an outlet for passions. The moral
trammels of civilized society, and ignorance of physiological laws, give
origin to the vice." Every one of these six sentences is incorrect or
misleading. They are worth quoting as a statement of the popular view of
savage life.
[185] I can recall little evidence of its existence among the Australian
aborigines, though there is, in the Wiradyuri language, spoken over a
large part of New South Wales, a word (whether ancient or not, I do not
know) meaning masturbation (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
July-Dec., 1904, p. 303). Dr. W. Roth (_Ethnological Studies Among the
Northwest-Central Queensland Aborigines_, p. 184), who has carefully
studied the blacks of his district, remarks that he has no evidence as to
the practice of either masturbation or sodomy among them. More recently
(1906) Roth has stated that married men in North Queensland and elsewhere
masturbate during their wives' absence. As regards the Maori of New
Zealand, Northcote adds, there is a rare word for masturbation (as also at
Rarotonga), but according to a distinguished Maori scholar there are no
allusions to the practice in Maori literature, and it was probably not
practiced in primitive times. The Maori and the Polynesians of the Cook
Islands, Northcote remarks, consider the act unmanly, applying to it a
phrase meaning "to make women of themselves." (Northcote, loc. cit., p.
232.)
[186] Greenlees, _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1895. A gentleman long
resident among the Kaffirs of South Natal, told Northcote, however, that
he had met with no word for masturbation, and did not believe the practice
prevailed there.
[187] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii, p.
295.
[188] _La Criminalité en Cochin-Chine_, 1887, p. 116; also Mondière,
"Monographie de la Femme Annamite," _Mémoires Société d'Anthropologie_,
tome ii, p. 465.
[189] Christian, article on "Onanisme," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des
Sciences Médicales_; Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_; Moraglia, "Die Onanie
beim normalen Weibe," _Zeitschrift für Criminal-Anthropologie_, 1897;
Dartigues, _De la Procréation Volontaire des Sexes_, p. 32. In the
eighteenth century, the _rin-no-tama_ was known in France, sometimes as
"pommes d'amour." Thus Bachaumont, in his Journal (under date July 31,
1773), refers to "a very extraordinary instrument of amorous mystery,"
brought by a traveler from India; he describes this "boule erotique" as
the size of a pigeon's egg, covered with soft skin, and gilded. Cf. F.S.
Krauss, _Geschlechtsleben in Brauch und Sitte der Japaner_, Leipzig, 1907.
[190] It may be worth mentioning that the Salish Indians of British
Columbia have a myth of an old woman having intercourse with young women,
by means of a horn worn as a penis (_Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, July-Dec., 1904, p. 342).
[191] In Burchard's Penitential (cap. 142-3), penalties are assigned to
the woman who makes a phallus for use on herself or other women.
(Wasserschleben, _Bussordnungen der abendländlichen Kirche_, p. 658.) The
_penis succedaneus_, the Latin _phallus_ or _fascinum_, is in France
called _godemiche_; in Italy, _passatempo_, and also _diletto_, whence
_dildo_, by which it is most commonly known in England. For men, the
corresponding _cunnus succedaneus_ is, in England, called _merkin_, which
meant originally (as defined in old editions of Bailey's _Dictionary_)
"counterfeit hair for women's privy parts."
[192] Dühren, _Der Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit_, 3d ed., pp. 130, 232;
id. _Geschlechtsleben in England_, Bd. II, pp. 284 et seq.
[193] Gamier, _Onanisme_, p. 378.
[194] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, p. 669.
[195] The mythology of Hawaii, one may note, tells of goddesses who were
impregnated by bananas they had placed beneath their garments. B. Stern
mentions (_Medizin in der Türkei_, Bd. II, p. 24) that the women of Turkey
and Egypt use the banana, as well as the cucumber, etc., for masturbation.
In a poem in the _Arabian Nights_, also ("History of the Young Nour with
the Frank"), we read: "O bananas, of soft and smooth skins, which dilate
the eyes of young girls ... you, alone among fruits are endowed with a
pitying heart, O consolers of widows and divorced women." In France and
England they are not uncommonly used for the same purpose.
[196] See, e.g., Winckel, _Die Krankheiten der weiblichen Harnrohre und
Blase_, 1885, p. 211; and "Lehrbuch der Frauenkrankheiten," 1886, p. 210;
also, Hyrtl, _Handbuch du Topographischen Anatomie_, 7th ed., Bd. II, pp.
212-214. Grünfeld (_Wiener medizinische Blätter_, November 26, 1896),
collected 115 cases of foreign body in the bladder--68 in men, 47 in
women; but while those found in men were usually the result of a surgical
accident, those found in women were mostly introduced by the patients
themselves. The patient usually professes profound ignorance as to how the
object came there; or she explains that she accidentally sat down upon it,
or that she used it to produce freer urination. The earliest surgical case
of this kind I happen to have met with, was recorded by Plazzon, in Italy,
in 1621 (_De Partibus Generationi Inservientibus_, lib. ii, Ch. XIII); it
was that of a certain honorable maiden with a large clitoris, who, seeking
to lull sexual excitement with the aid of a bone needle, inserted it in
the bladder, whence it was removed by Aquapendente.
[197] A. Poulet, _Traité des Corps étrangers en Chirurgie_, 1879. English
translation, 1881, vol. ii, pp. 209, 230. Rohleder (_Die Masturbation_,
1899, pp. 24-31) also gives examples of strange objects found in the
sexual organs.
[198] E.H. Smith, "Signs of Masturbation in the Female," _Pacific Medical
Journal_, February, 1903, quoted by R.W. Taylor, _Practical Treatise on
Sexual Disorders_, 3d ed., p. 418.
[199] L. Tait, _Diseases of Women_, 1889, vol. i, p. 100.
[200] _Obstetric Journal_, vol. i, 1873, p. 558. Cf. G.J. Arnold,
_British, Medical Journal_, January 6, 1906, p. 21.
[201] Dudley, _American Journal of Obstetrics_, July, 1889, p. 758.
[202] A. Reverdin, "Epingles à Cheveux dans la Vessie," _Revue Médicale de
la Suisse Romande_, January 20, 1888. His cases are fully recorded, and
his paper is an able and interesting contribution to this by-way of sexual
psychology. The first case was a school-master's wife, aged 22, who
confessed in her husband's presence, without embarrassment or hesitation,
that the manoeuvre was habitual, learned from a school-companion, and
continued after marriage. The second was a single woman of 42, a _curé's_
servant, who attempted to elude confession, but on leaving the doctor's
house remarked to the house-maid, "Never go to bed without taking out your
hair-pins; accidents happen so easily." The third was an English girl of
17 who finally acknowledged that she had lost two hair-pins in this way.
The fourth was a child of 12, driven by the pain to confess that the
practice had become a habit with her.
[203] "One of my patients," remarks Dr. R.T. Morris, of New York,
(_Transactions of the American Association of Obstetricians_, for 1892,
Philadelphia, vol. v), "who is a devout church-member, had never allowed
herself to entertain sexual thoughts referring to men, but she masturbated
every morning, when standing before the mirror, by rubbing against a key
in the bureau-drawer. A man never excited her passions, but the sight of a
key in any bureau-drawer aroused erotic desires."
[204] Freud (_Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, p. 118) refers to the
sexual pleasure of swinging. Swinging another person may be a source of
voluptuous excitement, and one of the 600 forms of sexual pleasure
enumerated in De Sade's _Les 120 Journées de Sodome_ is (according to
Dühren) to propel a girl vigorously in a swing.
[205] The fact that horse exercise may produce pollutions was well
recognized by Catholic theologians, and Sanchez states that this fact need
not be made a reason for traveling on foot. Rolfincius, in 1667, pointed
out that horse-riding, in those unaccustomed to it, may lead to nocturnal
pollutions. Rohleder (_Die Masturbation_, pp. 133-134) brings together
evidence regarding the influence of horse exercise in producing sexual
excitement.
[206] A correspondent, to whom the idea was presented for the first time,
wrote: "Henceforward I shall know to what I must attribute the
bliss--almost the beatitude--I so often have experienced after traveling
for four or five hours in a train." Penta mentions the case of a young
girl who first experienced sexual desire at the age of twelve, after a
railway journey.
[207] Langdon Down, _British Medical Journal_, January 12, 1867.
[208] Pouillet, _L'Onanisme chez la Femme_, Paris, 1880; Fournier, _De
l'Onanisme_, 1885; Rohleder, _Die Masturbation_, p. 132.
[209] _West-Riding Asylum Reports_, 1876, vol. vi.
[210] _Das Nervöse Weib_, 1898, p. 193.
[211] In the Appendix to volume iii of these _Studies_, I have recorded
the experience of a lady who found sexual gratification in this manner.
[212] Dr. J.G. Kiernan, to whom I am indebted for a note on this point,
calls my attention also to the case of a homosexual and masochistic man
(_Medical Record_, vol. xix) whose feelings were intensified by
tight-lacing.
[213] Some women are also able to produce the orgasm, when in a state of
sexual excitement, by placing a cushion between the knees and pressing the
thighs firmly together.
[214] _Leçons sur les Déformations Vulvaires_, p. 64. Martineau was
informed by a dressmaker that it is very frequent in workrooms and can
usually be done without attracting attention. An ironer informed him that
while standing at her work, she crossed her legs, slightly bending the
trunk forward and supporting herself on the table by the hands; then a few
movements of contraction of the adductor muscles of the thigh would
suffice to produce the orgasm.
[215] C.W. Townsend, "Thigh-friction in Children under one Year," Annual
Meeting of the American Pediatric Society, Montreal, 1896. Five cases are
recorded by this writer, all in female infants.
[216] Soutzo, _Archives de Neurologie_, February, 1903, p. 167.
[217] Zache, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, p. 72. I have discussed
what may be regarded as the normally sexual influence of dancing, in the
third volume of these _Studies_, "The Analysis of the Sexual Impulse."
[218] The case has been recorded of a Russian who had the spontaneous
impulse to self-flagellation on the nates with a rod, for the sake of
sexual excitement, from the age of 6. (_Rivista Mensile di Psichiatria_
April, 1900, p. 102.)
[219] Kryptadia, vol. v, p. 358. As regards the use of nettles, see
Dühren, _Geschlechtsleben in England_, Bd. II, p. 392.
[220] Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, p. 177.
[221] R.W. Taylor, _A Practical Treatise on Sexual Disorders_, 3rd ed.,
Ch. XXX.
[222] Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, pp. 70 et seq.
[223] Niceforo, _Il Gergo_, p. 98.
[224] _Functional Disorders of the Nervous System in Women_, p. 114.
[225] Schrenck-Notzing, _Suggestions-therapie_, p. 13. A. Kind (_Jahrbuch
für Sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Jahrgang ix, 1908, p. 58) gives the case of
a young homosexual woman, a trick cyclist at the music halls, who often,
when excited by the sight of her colleague in tights, would experience the
orgasm while cycling before the public.
[226] Janet has, however, used day-dreaming--which he calls "_reveries
subconscients_"--to explain a remarkable case of demon-possession, which
he investigated and cured. (_Névroses et Idées fixes_, vol. i, pp. 390 et
seq.)
[227] "Minor Studies from the Psychological Laboratory of Wellesley
College," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vii, No. 1. G.E.
Partridge ("Reverie," _Pedagogical Seminary_, April, 1898) well describes
the physical accompaniments of day-dreaming, especially in Normal School
girls between sixteen and twenty-two. Pick ("Clinical Studies in
Pathological Dreaming," _Journal of Mental Sciences_, July, 1901) records
three more or less morbid cases of day-dreaming, usually with an erotic
basis, all in apparently hysterical men. An important study of
day-dreaming, based on the experiences of nearly 1,500 young people (more
than two-thirds girls and women), has been published by Theodate L. Smith
("The Psychology of Day Dreams," _American Journal Psychology_, October,
1904). Continued stories were found to be rare--only one per cent. Healthy
boys, before fifteen, had day-dreams in which sports, athletics, and
adventure had a large part; girls put themselves in the place of their
favorite heroines in novels. After seventeen, and earlier in the case of
girls, day-dreams of love and marriage were found to be frequent. A
typical confession is that of a girl of nineteen: "I seldom have time to
build castles in Spain, but when I do, I am not different from most
Southern girls; i.e., my dreams are usually about a pretty fair specimen
of a six-foot three-inch biped."
[228] The case has been recorded of a married woman, in love with her
doctor, who kept a day-dream diary, at last filling three bulky volumes,
when it was discovered by her husband, and led to an action for divorce;
it was shown that the doctor knew nothing of the romance in which he
played the part of hero. Kiernan, in referring to this case (as recorded
in John Paget's _Judicial Puzzles_), mentions a similar case in Chicago.
[229] _Uranisme_, p. 125.
[230] The acute Anstie remarked, more than thirty years ago, in his work
on _Neuralgia_: "It is a comparatively frequent thing to see an unsocial,
solitary life (leading to the habit of masturbation) joined with the bad
influence of an unhealthy ambition, prompting to premature and false work
in literature and art." From the literary side, M. Léon Bazalgette has
dealt with the tendency of much modern literature to devote itself to what
he calls "mental onanism," of which the probable counterpart, he seems to
hint, is a physical process of auto-erotism. (Léon Bazalgette, "L'onanisme
considéré comme principe createur en art," _L'Esprit Nouveau_, 1898.)
[231] Pausanias, _Achaia_, Chapter XVII. The ancient Babylonians believed
in a certain "maid of the night," who appeared to men in sleep and roused
without satisfying their passions. (Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia_, p.
262.) This succubus was the Assyrian Liler, connected with the Hebrew
Lilith. There was a corresponding incubus, "the little night man," who had
nocturnal intercourse with women. (Cf. Ploss, _Das Weib_, 7th ed., pp. 521
et seq.) The succubus and the incubus (the latter being more common) were
adopted by Christendom; St. Augustine (_De Civitate Dei_, Bk. XV, Ch.
XXIII) said that the wicked assaults of sylvans and fauns, otherwise
called incubi, on women, are so generally affirmed that it would be
impudent to deny them. Incubi flourished in mediæval belief, and can
scarcely, indeed, be said to be extinct even to-day. They have been
studied by many authors; see, e.g., Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_,
vol. v, Ch. XXV, Saint-André, physician-in-ordinary to the French King,
pointed out in 1725 that the incubus was a dream. It may be added that the
belief in the succubus and incubus appears to be widespread. Thus, the
West African Yorubas (according to A.B. Ellis) believe that erotic dreams
are due to the god Elegbra, who, either as a male or a female, consorts
with men and women in sleep.
[232] "If any man's seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall
bathe all his flesh in water and be unclean until the even. And every
garment, and every skin, whereon is the seed of copulation, shall be
washed with water and be unclean until the even." Leviticus, XV, v. 16-17.
[233] It should be added that the term _pollutio_ also covers voluntary
effusion of semen outside copulation. (Debreyne, _Moechialogie_,
p. 8; for a full discussion of the opinions of theologians concerning
nocturnal and diurnal pollutions, see the same author's _Essai sur la
Théologie Morale_, pp. 100-149.)
[234] _Memoirs_, translated by Bendyshe, p. 182.
[235] _Sexual Impotence_, p. 137.
[236] _L'Hygiène Sexuelle_, p. 169.
[237] _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, p. 164.
[238] I may here refer to the curious opinion expressed by Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell, that, while the sexual impulse in man is usually relieved by
seminal emissions during sleep, in women it is relieved by the occurrence
of menstruation. This latter statement is flagrantly at variance with the
facts; but it may perhaps be quoted in support of the view expressed above
as to the comparative rarity of sexual excitement during sleep in young
girls.
[239] Löwenfeld has recently expressed the same opinion. Rohleder believes
that pollutions are physically impossible in a _real_ virgin, but that
opinion is too extreme.
[240] It may be added that in more or less neurotic women and girls,
erotic dreams may be very frequent and depressing. Thus, J.M. Fothergill
(_West-Riding Asylum Report_, 1876, vol. vi) remarks: "These dreams are
much more frequent than is ordinarily thought, and are the cause of a
great deal of nervous depression among women. Women of a highly-nervous
diathesis suffer much more from these drains than robust women. Not only
are these involuntary orgasms more frequent among such women, but they
cause more disturbance of the general health in them than in other women."
[241] I may remark here that a Russian correspondent considers that I have
greatly underestimated the frequency of erotic manifestations during sleep
in young girls. "All the women I have interrogated on this point," he
informs me, "say that they have had such pollutions from the time of
puberty, or even earlier, accompanied by erotic dreams. I have put the
question to some twenty or thirty women. It is true that they were of
southern race (Italian, Spanish, and French), and I believe that
Southerners are, in this matter, franker than northern women, who consider
the activity of the flesh as shameful, and seek to conceal it." My
correspondent makes no reference to the chief point of sexual difference,
so far as my observation goes, which is that erotic dreams are
comparatively rare in those women "_who have yet had no sort of sexual
experience in waking life_." Whether or not this is correct, I do not
question the frequency of erotic dreams in girls who have had such
experience.
[242] C.C. Hersman, "Medico-legal Aspects of Eroto-Choreic Insanities,"
_Alienist and Neurologist_, July, 1897. I may mention that Pitres (_Leçons
cliniques sur l'Hystérie_, vol. ii, p. 34) records the almost identical
case of a hysterical girl in one of his wards, who was at first grateful
to the clinical clerk to whom her case was intrusted, but afterward
changed her behavior, accused him of coming nightly through the window,
lying beside her, caressing her, and then exerting violent coitus three or
four times in succession, until she was utterly exhausted. I may here
refer to the tendency to erotic excitement in women under the influence of
chloroform and nitrous oxide, a tendency rarely or never noted in men, and
of the frequency with which the phenomenon is attributed by the subject to
actual assault. See H. Ellis, _Man and Woman_, pp. 269-274.
[243] In Australia, some years ago, a man was charged with rape, found
guilty of "attempt," and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment, on
the accusation of a girl of 13, who subsequently confessed that the charge
was imaginary; in this case, the jury found it impossible to believe that
so young a girl could have been lying, or hallucinated, because she
narrated the details of the alleged offence with such circumstantial
detail. Such cases are not uncommon, and in some measure, no doubt, they
may be accounted for by auto-erotic nocturnal hallucinations.
[244] Sante de Sanctis, _I sogni e il sonno nell'isterismo e nella
epilessia_, Rome, 1896, p. 101.
[245] Pitres, _Leçons cliniques sur l'Hystérie_, vol. ii, pp. 37 et seq.
The Lorraine inquisitor, Nicolas Remy, very carefully investigated the
question of the feelings of witches when having intercourse with the
Devil, questioning them minutely, and ascertained that such intercourse
was usually extremely painful, filling them with icy horror (See, e.g.,
Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. v, p. 127; the same author
presents an interesting summary of the phenomena of the Witches' Sabbath).
But intercourse with the Devil was by no means always painful. Isabel
Gowdie, a Scotch witch, bore clear testimony to this point: "The youngest
and lustiest women," she stated, "will have very great pleasure in their
carnal copulation with him, yea, much more than with their own
husbands.... He is abler for us than any man can be. (Alack! that I should
compare him to a man!)" Yet her description scarcely sounds attractive; he
was a "large, black, hairy man, very cold, and I found his nature as cold
within me as spring well-water." His foot was forked and cloven; he was
sometimes like a deer, or a roe; and he would hold up his tail while the
witches kissed that region (Pitcairn, _Criminal Trials in Scotland_, vol.
iii, Appendix VII; see, also, the illustrations at the end of Dr. A.
Marie's _Folie et Mysticisme_, 1907).
[246] Gilles de la Tourette, loc. cit., p. 518. Erotic hallucinations have
also been studied by Bellamy, in a Bordeaux thesis, _Hallucinations
Erotiques_, 1900-1901.
[247] On one occasion, when still a girl, whenever an artist whom she
admired touched her hand she felt erection and moisture of the sexual
parts, but without any sensation of pleasure; a little later, when an
uncle's knee casually came in contact with her thigh, ejaculation of mucus
took place, though she disliked the uncle; again, when a nurse, on
casually seeing a man's sexual organs, an electric shock went through her,
though the sight was disgusting to her; and when she had once to assist a
man to urinate, she became in the highest degree excited, though without
pleasure, and lay down on a couch in the next room, while a conclusive
ejaculation took place. (Moll, _Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, p. 354.)
[248] Breuer and Freud, _Studien über Hysterie_, 1895, p. 217.
[249] Calmeil (_De la Folie_, vol. i, p. 252) called attention to the
large part played by uterine sensations in the hallucinations of some
famous women ascetics, and added: "It is well recognized that the
narrative of such sensations nearly always occupies the first place in the
divagations of hysterical virgins."
[250] H. Leuba, "Les Tendances Religieuses chez les Mystiques Chrétiens,"
_Revue Philosophique_, November, 1902, p. 465. St. Theresa herself states
that physical sensations played a considerable part in this experience.
II.
Hysteria and the Question of Its Relation to the Sexual Emotions--The
Early Greek Theories of its Nature and Causation--The Gradual Rise of
Modern Views--Charcot--The Revolt Against Charcot's Too Absolute
Conclusions--Fallacies Involved--Charcot's Attitude the Outcome of his
Personal Temperament--Breuer and Freud--Their Views Supplement and
Complete Charcot's--At the Same Time they Furnish a Justification for the
Earlier Doctrine of Hysteria--But They Must Not be Regarded as Final--The
Diffused Hysteroid Condition in Normal Persons--The Physiological Basis of
Hysteria--True Pathological Hysteria is Linked on to almost Normal States,
especially to Sex-hunger.
The nocturnal hallucinations of hysteria, as all careful students of this
condition now seem to agree, are closely allied to the hysterical attack
proper. Sollier, indeed, one of the ablest of the more recent
investigators of hysteria, has argued with much force that the subjects of
hysteria really live in a state of pathological sleep, of
vigilambulism.[251] He regards all the various accidents of hysteria as
having a common basis in disturbances of sensibility, in the widest sense
of the word "sensibility,"--as the very foundation of personality,--while
anæsthesia is "the real _sigillum hysteriæ_." Whatever the form of
hysteria, we are thus only concerned with a more or less profound state of
vigilambulism: a state in which the subject seems, often even to himself,
to be more or less always asleep, whether the sleep may be regarded as
local or general. Sollier agrees with Féré that the disorder of
sensibility may be regarded as due to an exhaustion of the sensory centres
of the brain, whether as the result of constitutional cerebral weakness,
of the shock of a violent emotion, or of some toxic influence on the
cerebral cells.
We may, therefore, fitly turn from the auto-erotic phenomena of sleep
which in women generally, and especially in hysterical women, seem to
possess so much importance and significance, to the question--which has
been so divergently answered at different periods and by different
investigators--concerning the causation of hysteria, and especially
concerning its alleged connection with conscious or unconscious sexual
emotion.[252]
It was the belief of the ancient Greeks that hysteria came from the womb;
hence its name. We first find that statement in Plato's _Timæus_: "In men
the organ of generation--becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal
disobedient to reason, and maddened with the sting of lust--seeks to gain
absolute sway; and the same is the case with the so-called womb, or
uterus, of women; the animal within them is desirous of procreating
children, and, when remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets
discontented and angry, and, wandering in every direction through the
body, closes up the passages of the breath, and, by obstructing
respiration,[253] drives them to extremity, causing all varieties of
disease."
Plato, it is true, cannot be said to reveal anywhere a very scientific
attitude toward Nature. Yet he was here probably only giving expression to
the current medical doctrine of his day. We find precisely the same
doctrine attributed to Hippocrates, though without a clear distinction
between hysteria and epilepsy.[254] If we turn to the best Roman
physicians we find again that Aretæus, "the Esquirol of antiquity," has
set forth the same view, adding to his description of the movements of the
womb in hysteria: "It delights, also, in fragrant smells, and advances
toward them; and it has an aversion to foetid smells, and flies from them;
and, on the whole, the womb is like an animal within an animal."[255]
Consequently, the treatment was by applying foetid smells to the nose and
rubbing fragrant ointments around the sexual parts.[256]
The Arab physicians, who carried on the traditions of Greek medicine,
appear to have said nothing new about hysteria, and possibly had little
knowledge of it. In Christian mediæval Europe, also, nothing new was added
to the theory of hysteria; it was, indeed, less known medically than it
had ever been, and, in part it may be as a result of this ignorance, in
part as a result of general wretchedness (the hysterical phenomena of
witchcraft reaching their height, Michelet points out, in the fourteenth
century, which was a period of special misery for the poor), it flourished
more vigorously. Not alone have we the records of nervous epidemics, but
illuminated manuscripts, ivories, miniatures, bas-reliefs, frescoes, and
engravings furnish the most vivid iconographic evidence of the prevalence
of hysteria in its most violent forms during the Middle Ages. Much of this
evidence is brought to the service of science in the fascinating works of
Dr. P. Richer, one of Charcot's pupils.[257]
In the seventeenth century Ambroise Paré was still talking, like
Hippocrates, about "suffocation of the womb"; Forestus was still, like
Aretæus, applying friction to the vulva; Fernel was still reproaching
Galen, who had denied that the movements of the womb produced hysteria.
It was in the seventeenth century (1618) that a French physician, Charles
Lepois (Carolus Piso), physician to Henry II, trusting, as he said, to
experience and reason, overthrew at one stroke the doctrine of hysteria
that had ruled almost unquestioned for two thousand years, and showed that
the malady occurred at all ages and in both sexes, that its seat was not
in the womb, but in the brain, and that it must be considered a nervous
disease.[258] So revolutionary a doctrine could not fail to meet with
violent opposition, but it was confirmed by Willis, and in 1681, we owe to
the genius of Sydenham a picture of hysteria which for lucidity,
precision, and comprehensiveness has only been excelled in our own times.
It was not possible any longer to maintain the womb theory of Hippocrates
in its crude form, but in modified forms, and especially with the object
of preserving the connection which many observers continued to find
between hysteria and the sexual emotions, it still found supporters in the
eighteenth and even the nineteenth centuries. James, in the middle of the
eighteenth century, returned to the classical view, and in his _Dictionary
of Medicine_ maintained that the womb is the seat of hysteria. Louyer
Villermay in 1816 asserted that the most frequent causes of hysteria are
deprivation of the pleasures of love, griefs connected with this passion,
and disorders of menstruation. Foville in 1833 and Landouzy in 1846
advocated somewhat similar views. The acute Laycock in 1840 quoted as
"almost a medical proverb" the saying, "_Salacitas major, major ad
hysteriam proclivitas_," fully indorsing it. More recently still Clouston
has defined hysteria as "the loss of the inhibitory influence exercised on
the reproductive and sexual instincts of women by the higher mental and
moral functions" (a position evidently requiring some modification in view
of the fact that hysteria is by no means confined to women), while the
same authority remarks that more or less concealed sexual phenomena are
the chief symptoms of "hysterical insanity."[259] Two gynæcologists of
high position in different parts of the world, Hegar in Germany and
Balls-Headley in Australia, attribute hysteria, as well as anæmia, largely
to unsatisfied sexual desire, including the non-satisfaction of the "ideal
feelings."[260] Lombroso and Ferrero, again, while admitting that the
sexual feelings might be either heightened or depressed in hysteria,
referred to the frequency of what they termed "a paradoxical sexual
instinct" in the hysterical, by which, for instance, sexual frigidity is
combined with intense sexual pre-occupations; and they also pointed out
the significant fact that the crimes of the hysterical nearly always
revolve around the sexual sphere.[261] Thus, even up to the time when the
conception of hysteria which absolutely ignored and excluded any sexual
relationship whatever had reached its height, independent views favoring
such a relationship still found expression.
Of recent years, however, such views usually aroused violent antagonism.
The main current of opinion was with Briquet (1859), who, treating the
matter with considerable ability and a wide induction of facts,
indignantly repelled the idea that there is any connection between
hysteria and the sexual facts of life, physical or psychic. As he himself
admitted, Briquet was moved to deny a sexual causation of hysteria by the
thought that such an origin would be degrading for women ("_a quelque
chose de dégradant pour les femmes_").
It was, however, the genius of Charcot, and the influence of his able
pupils, which finally secured the overthrow of the sexual theory of
hysteria. Charcot emphatically anathematized the visceral origin of
hysteria; he declared that it is a psychic disorder, and to leave no
loop-hole of escape for those who maintained a sexual causation he
asserted that there are no varieties of hysteria, that the disease is one
and indivisible. Charcot recognized no primordial cause of hysteria beyond
heredity, which here plays a more important part than in any other
neuropathic condition. Such heredity is either direct or more occasionally
by transformation, any deviation of nutrition found in the ancestors
(gout, diabetes, arthritis) being a possible cause of hysteria in the
descendants. "We do not know anything about the nature of hysteria,"
Charcot wrote in 1892; "we must make it objective in order to recognize
it. The dominant idea for us in the etiology of hysteria is, in the widest
sense, its hereditary predisposition. The greater number of those
suffering from this affection are simply born _hystérisables_, and on them
the occasional causes act directly, either through autosuggestion or by
causing derangement of general nutrition, and more particularly of the
nutrition of the nervous system."[262] These views were ably and
decisively stated in Gilles de la Tourette's _Traité de l'Hystérie_,
written under the inspiration of Charcot.
While Charcot's doctrine was thus being affirmed and generally accepted,
there were at the same time workers in these fields who, though they by no
means ignored this doctrine of hysteria or even rejected it, were inclined
to think that it was too absolutely stated. Writing in the _Dictionary of
Psychological Medicine_ at the same time as Charcot, Donkin, while
deprecating any exclusive emphasis on the sexual causation, pointed out
the enormous part played by the emotions in the production of hysteria,
and the great influence of puberty in women due to the greater extent of
the sexual organs, and the consequently large area of central innervation
involved, and thus rendered liable to fall into a state of unstable
equilibrium. Enforced abstinence from the gratification of any of the
inherent and primitive desires, he pointed out, may be an adequate
exciting cause. Such a view as this indicated that to set aside the
ancient doctrine of a physical sexual cause of hysteria was by no means to
exclude a psychic sexual cause. Ten years earlier Axenfeld and Huchard had
pointed out that the reaction against the sexual origin of hysteria was
becoming excessive, and they referred to the evidence brought forward by
veterinary surgeons showing that unsatisfied sexual desire in animals may
produce nervous symptoms very similar to hysteria.[263] The present
writer, when in 1894 briefly discussing hysteria as an element in
secondary sexual characterization, ventured to reflect the view, confirmed
by his own observation, that there was a tendency to unduly minimize the
sexual factor in hysteria, and further pointed out that the old error of a
special connection between hysteria and the female sexual organs, probably
arose from the fact that in woman the organic sexual sphere is larger than
in man.[264]
When, indeed, we analyze the foundation of the once predominant opinions
of Charcot and his school regarding the sexual relationships of hysteria,
it becomes clear that many fallacies and misunderstandings were involved.
Briquet, Charcot's chief predecessor, acknowledged that his own view was
that a sexual origin of hysteria would be "degrading to women"; that is to
say, he admitted that he was influenced by a foolish and improper
prejudice, for the belief that the unconscious and involuntary morbid
reaction of the nervous system to any disturbance of a great primary
instinct can have "_quelque chose de dégradant_" is itself an immoral
belief; such disturbance of the nervous system might or might not be
caused, but in any case the alleged "degradation" could only be the
fiction of a distorted imagination. Again, confusion had been caused by
the ancient error of making the physical sexual organs responsible for
hysteria, first the womb, more recently the ovaries; the outcome of this
belief was the extirpation of the sexual organs for the cure of hysteria.
Charcot condemned absolutely all such operations as unscientific and
dangerous, declaring that there is no such thing as hysteria of menstrual
origin.[265] Subsequently, Angelucci and Pierracini carried out an
international inquiry into the results of the surgical treatment of
hysteria, and condemned it in the most unqualified manner.[266] It is
clearly demonstrated that the physical sexual organs are not the seat of
hysteria. It does not, however, follow that even physical sexual desire,
when repressed, is not a cause of hysteria. The opinion that it was so
formed an essential part of the early doctrine of hysteria, and was
embodied in the ancient maxim: "_Nubat illa et morbus effugiet_." The
womb, it seemed to the ancients, was crying out for satisfaction, and when
that was received the disease vanished.[267] But when it became clear that
sexual desire, though ultimately founded on the sexual apparatus, is a
nervous and psychic fact, to put the sexual organs out of count was not
sufficient; for the sexual emotions may exist before puberty, and persist
after complete removal of the sexual organs. Thus it has been the object
of many writers to repel the idea that unsatisfied sexual desire can be a
cause of hysteria. Briquet pointed out that hysteria is rare among nuns
and frequent among prostitutes. Krafft-Ebing believed that most
hysterical women are not anxious for sexual satisfaction, and declared
that "hysteria caused through the non-satisfaction of the coarse sensual
sexual impulse I have never seen,"[268] while Pitres and others refer to
the frequently painful nature of sexual hallucinations in the hysterical.
But it soon becomes obvious that the psychic sexual sphere is not confined
to the gratification of conscious physical sexual desire. It is not true
that hysteria is rare among nuns, some of the most tremendous epidemics of
hysteria, and the most carefully studied, having occurred in
convents,[269] while the hysterical phenomena sometimes associated with
revivals are well known. The supposed prevalence among prostitutes would
not be evidence against the sexual relationships of hysteria; it has,
however, been denied, even by so great an authority as Parent-Duchâtelet
who found it very rare, even in prostitutes in hospitals, when it was
often associated with masturbation; in prostitutes, however, who returned
to a respectable life, giving up their old habits, he found hysteria
common and severe.[270] The frequent absence of physical sexual feeling,
again, may quite reasonably be taken as evidence of a disorder of the
sexual emotions, while the undoubted fact that sexual intercourse usually
has little beneficial effect on pronounced hysteria, and that sexual
excitement during sleep and sexual hallucinations are often painful in
the same condition, is far from showing that injury or repression of the
sexual emotions had nothing to do with the production of the hysteria. It
would be as reasonable to argue that the evil effect of a heavy meal on a
starving man must be taken as evidence that he was not suffering from
starvation. The fact, indeed, on which Gilles de la Tourette and others
have remarked, that the hysterical often desire not so much sexual
intercourse as simple affection, would tend to show that there is here a
real analogy, and that starvation or lesion of the sexual emotions may
produce, like bodily starvation, a rejection of those satisfactions which
are demanded in health. Thus, even a mainly _a priori_ examination of the
matter may lead us to see that many arguments brought forward in favor of
Charcot's position on this point fall to the ground when we realize that
the sexual emotions may constitute a highly complex sphere, often hidden
from observation, sometimes not conscious at all, and liable to many
lesions besides that due to the non-satisfaction of sexual desire. At the
same time we are not thus enabled to overthrow any of the positive results
attained by Charcot and his school.
It may, however, be pointed out that Charcot's attitude toward hysteria
was the outcome of his own temperament. He was primarily a neurologist,
the bent of his genius was toward the investigation of facts that could be
objectively demonstrated. His first interest in hysteria, dating from as
far back as 1862, was in hystero-epileptic convulsive attacks, and to the
last he remained indifferent to all facts which could not be objectively
demonstrated. That was the secret of the advances he was enabled to make
in neurology. For purely psychological investigation he had no liking, and
probably no aptitude. Anyone who was privileged to observe his methods of
work at the Salpêtrière will easily recall the great master's towering
figure; the disdainful expression, sometimes, even, it seemed, a little
sour; the lofty bearing which enthusiastic admirers called Napoleonic. The
questions addressed to the patient were cold, distant, sometimes
impatient. Charcot clearly had little faith in the value of any results so
attained. One may well believe, also, that a man whose superficial
personality was so haughty and awe-inspiring to strangers would, in any
case, have had the greatest difficulty in penetrating the mysteries of a
psychic world so obscure and elusive as that presented by the
hysterical.[271]
The way was thus opened for further investigations on the psychic side.
Charcot had affirmed the power, not only of physical traumatism, but even
of psychic lesions--of moral shocks--to provoke its manifestations, but
his sole contribution to the psychology of this psychic malady,--and this
was borrowed from the Nancy school,--lay in the one word "suggestibility";
the nature and mechanism of this psychic process he left wholly
unexplained. This step has been taken by others, in part by Janet, who,
from 1889 onward, has not only insisted that the emotions stand in the
first line among the causes of hysteria, but has also pointed out some
portion of the mechanism of this process; thus, he saw the significance of
the fact, already recognized, that strong emotions tend to produce
anæsthesia and to lead to a condition of mental disaggregation, favorable
to abulia, or abolition of will-power. It remained to show in detail the
mechanism by which the most potent of all the emotions effects its
influence, and, by attempting to do this, the Viennese investigators,
Breuer and especially Freud, have greatly aided the study of
hysteria.[272] They have not, it is important to remark, overturned the
positive elements in their great forerunner's work. Freud began as a
disciple of Charcot, and he himself remarks that, in his earlier
investigations of hysteria, he had no thought of finding any sexual
etiology for that malady; he would have regarded any such suggestion as an
insult to his patient. The results reached by these workers were the
outcome of long and detailed investigation. Freud has investigated many
cases of hysteria in minute detail, often devoting to a single case over a
hundred hours of work. The patients, unlike those on whom the results of
the French school have been mainly founded, all belonged to the educated
classes, and it was thus possible to carry out an elaborate psychic
investigation which would be impossible among the uneducated. Breuer and
Freud insist on the fine qualities of mind and character frequently found
among the hysterical. They cannot accept suggestibility as an invariable
characteristic of hysteria, only abnormal excitability; they are far from
agreeing with Janet (although on many points at one with him), that
psychic weakness marks hysteria; there is merely an appearance of mental
weakness, they say, because the mental activity of the hysterical is split
up, and only a part of it is conscious.[273] The superiority of character
of the hysterical is indicated by the fact that the conflict between their
ideas of right and the bent of their inclinations is often an element in
the constitution of the hysterical state. Breuer and Freud are prepared to
assert that the hysterical are among "the flower of humanity," and they
refer to those qualities of combined imaginative genius and practical
energy which characterized St. Theresa, "the patron saint of the
hysterical."
To understand the position of Breuer and Freud we may start from the
phenomenon of "nervous shock" produced by physical traumatism, often of a
very slight character. Charcot had shown that such "nervous shock," with
the chain of resulting symptoms, is nothing more or less than hysteria.
Breuer and Freud may be linked on to Charcot at this point. They began by
regarding the most typical hysteria as really a _psychic traumatism_; that
is to say, that it starts in a lesion, or rather in repeated lesions, of
the emotional organism. It is true that the school of Charcot admitted the
influence of moral shock, especially of the emotion of fear, but that
merely as an "_agent provocateur_," and with a curious perversity Gilles
de la Tourette, certainly reflecting the attitude of Charcot, in his
elaborate treatise on hysteria fails to refer to the sphere of the sexual
emotions even when enumerating the "_agents provocateurs_."[274]
The influence of fear is not denied by Breuer and Freud, but they have
found that careful psychic analysis frequently shows that the shock of a
commonplace "fear" is really rooted in a lesion of the sexual emotions. A
typical and very simple illustration is furnished in a case, recorded by
Breuer, in which a young girl of seventeen had her first hysterical attack
after a cat sprang on her shoulders as she was going downstairs. Careful
investigation showed that this girl had been the object of somewhat ardent
attentions from a young man whose advances she had resisted, although her
own sexual emotions had been aroused. A few days before, she had been
surprised by this young man on these same dark stairs, and had forcibly
escaped from his hands. Here was the real psychic traumatism, the
operation of which merely became manifest in the cat. "But in how many
cases," asks Breuer, "is a cat thus reckoned as a completely sufficient
_causa efficiens_?"
In every case that they have investigated Breuer and Freud have found some
similar secret lesion of the psychic sexual sphere. In one case a
governess, whose training has been severely upright, is, in spite of
herself and without any encouragement, led to experience for the father of
the children under her care an affection which she refuses to acknowledge
even to herself; in another, a young woman finds herself falling in love
with her brother-in-law; again, an innocent girl suddenly discovers her
uncle in the act of sexual intercourse with her playmate, and a boy on his
way home from school is subjected to the coarse advances of a sexual
invert. In nearly every case, as Freud eventually found reason to believe,
a primary lesion of the sexual emotions dates from the period of puberty
and frequently of childhood, and in nearly every case the intimately
private nature of the lesion causes it to be carefully hidden from
everyone, and even to be unacknowledged by the subject of it. In the
earlier cases Breuer and Freud found that a slight degree of hypnosis is
necessary to bring the lesion into consciousness, and the accuracy of the
revelations thus obtained has been tested by independent witness. Freud
has, however, long abandoned the induction of any degree of hypnosis; he
simply tries to arrange that the patient shall feel absolutely free to
tell her own story, and so proceeds from the surface downwards, slowly
finding and piecing together such essential fragments of the history as
may be recovered, in the same way he remarks, as the archæologist
excavates below the surface and recovers and puts together the fragments
of an antique statue. Much of the material found, however, has only a
symbolic value requiring interpretation and is sometimes pure fantasy.
Freud now attaches great importance to dreams as symbolically representing
much in the subject's mental history which is otherwise difficult to
reach.[275] The subtle and slender clues which Freud frequently follows in
interpreting dreams cannot fail sometimes to arouse doubt in his readers'
minds, but he certainly seems to have been often successful in thus
reaching latent facts in consciousness. The primary lesion may thus act as
"a foreign body in consciousness." Something is introduced into psychic
life which refuses to merge in the general flow of consciousness. It
cannot be accepted simply as other facts of life are accepted; it cannot
even be talked about, and so submitted to the slow usure by which our
experiences are worn down and gradually transformed. Breuer illustrates
what happens by reference to the sneezing reflex. "When an irritation to
the nasal mucous membrane for some reason fails to liberate this reflex,
a feeling of excitement and tension arises. This excitement, being unable
to stream out along motor channels, now spreads itself over the brain,
inhibiting other activities.... _In the highest spheres of human activity
we may watch the same process_." It is a result of this process that, as
Breuer and Freud found, the mere act of confession may greatly relieve the
hysterical symptoms produced by this psychic mechanism, and in some cases
may wholly and permanently remove them. It is on this fact that they
founded their method of treatment, devised by Breuer and by him termed the
cathartic method, though Freud prefers to call it the "analytic" method.
It is, as Freud points out, the reverse of the hypnotic method of
suggestive treatment; there is the same difference, Freud remarks, between
the two methods as Leonardo da Vinci found for the two technical methods
of art, _per via di porre_ and _per via di levare_; the hypnotic method,
like painting, works by putting in, the cathartic or analytic method, like
sculpture, works by taking out.[276]
It is part of the mechanism of this process, as understood by these
authors, that the physical symptoms of hysteria are constituted, by a
process of conversion, out of the injured emotions, which then sink into
the background or altogether out of consciousness. Thus, they found the
prolonged tension of nursing a near and dear relative to be a very
frequent factor in the production of hysteria. For instance, an originally
rheumatic pain experienced by a daughter when nursing her father becomes
the symbol in memory of her painful psychic excitement, and this perhaps
for several reasons, but chiefly because _its presence in consciousness
almost exactly coincided with that excitement_. In another way, again,
nausea and vomiting may become a symbol through the profound sense of
disgust with which some emotional shock was associated. Then the symbol
begins to have a life of its own, and draws hidden strength from the
emotion with which it is correlated. Breuer and Freud have found by
careful investigation that the pains and physical troubles of hysteria are
far from being capricious, but may be traced in a varying manner to an
origin in some incident, some pain, some action, which was associated with
a moment of acute psychic agony. The process of conversion was an
involuntary escape from an intolerable emotion, comparable to the physical
pain sometimes sought in intense mental grief, and the patient wins some
relief from the tortured emotions, though at the cost of psychic
abnormality, of a more or less divided state of consciousness and of
physical pain, or else anæsthesia. In Charcot's third stage of the
hysterical convulsion, that of "_attitudes passionnelles_," Breuer and
Freud see the hallucinatory reproduction of a recollection which is full
of significance for the origin of the hysterical manifestations.
The final result reached by these workers is clearly stated by each
writer. "The main observation of our predecessors," states Breuer,[277]
"still preserved in the word 'hysteria,' is nearer to the truth than the
more recent view which puts sexuality almost in the last line, with the
object of protecting the patient from moral reproaches. Certainly the
sexual needs of the hysterical are just as individual and as various in
force as those of the healthy. But they suffer from them, and in large
measure, indeed, they suffer precisely through the struggle with them,
through the effort to thrust sexuality aside." "The weightiest fact,"
concludes Freud,[278] "on which we strike in a thorough pursuit of the
analysis is this: From whatever side and from whatever symptoms we start,
we always unfailingly reach the region of the sexual life. Here, first of
all, an etiological condition of hysterical states is revealed.... At the
bottom of every case of hysteria--and reproducible by an analytical effort
after even an interval of long years--may be found one or more facts of
precocious sexual experience belonging to earliest youth. I regard this as
an important result, as the discovery of a _caput Nili_ of
neuropathology." Ten years later, enlarging rather than restricting his
conception, Freud remarks: "Sexuality is not a mere _deus ex machina_
which intervenes but once in the hysterical process; it is the motive
force of every separate symptom and every expression of a symptom. The
morbid phenomena constitute, to speak plainly, the patient's sexual
activity."[279] The actual hysterical fit, Freud now states, may be
regarded as "the substitute for a once practiced and then abandoned
_auto-erotic_ satisfaction," and similarly it may be regarded as an
equivalent of coitus.[280]
It is natural to ask how this conception affects that elaborate picture of
hysteria laboriously achieved by Charcot and his school. It cannot be said
that it abolishes any of the positive results reached by Charcot, but it
certainly alters their significance and value; it presents them in a new
light and changes the whole perspective. With his passion for getting at
tangible definite physical facts, Charcot was on very safe ground. But he
was content to neglect the psychic analysis of hysteria, while yet
proclaiming that hysteria is a purely psychic disorder. He had no cause of
hysteria to present save only heredity. Freud certainly admits heredity,
but, as he points out, the part it plays has been overrated. It is too
vague and general to carry us far, and when a specific and definite cause
can be found, the part played by heredity recedes to become merely a
condition, the soil on which the "specific etiology" works. Here probably
Freud's enthusiasm at first carried him too far and the most important
modification he has made in his views occurs at this point: he now
attaches a preponderant influence to heredity. He has realized that sexual
activity in one form or another is far too common in childhood to make it
possible to lay very great emphasis on "traumatic lesions" of this
character, and he has also realized that an outcrop of fantasies may
somewhat later develop on these childish activities, intervening between
them and the subsequent morbid symptoms. He is thus led to emphasize anew
the significance of heredity, not, however, in Charcot's sense, as general
neuropathic disposition but as "sexual constitution." The significance of
"infantile sexual lesions" has also tended to give place to that of
"infantilism of sexuality."[281]
The real merit of Freud's subtle investigations is that--while possibly
furnishing a justification of the imperfectly-understood idea that had
floated in the mind of observers ever since the name "hysteria" was first
invented--he has certainly supplied a definite psychic explanation of a
psychic malady. He has succeeded in presenting clearly, at the expense of
much labor, insight, and sympathy, a dynamic view of the psychic processes
involved in the constitution of the hysterical state, and such a view
seems to show that the physical symptoms laboriously brought to light by
Charcot are largely but epiphenomena and by-products of an emotional
process, often of tragic significance to the subject, which is taking
place in the most sensitive recess of the psychic organism. That the
picture of the mechanism involved, presented to us by Professor Freud,
cannot be regarded as a final and complete account of the matter, may
readily be admitted. It has developed in Freud's own hands, and some of
the developments will require very considerable confirmation before they
can be accepted as generally true.[282] But these investigations have at
least served to open the door, which Charcot had inconsistently held
closed, into the deeper mysteries of hysteria, and have shown that here,
if anywhere, further research will be profitable. They have also served to
show that hysteria may be definitely regarded as, in very many cases at
least, a manifestation of the sexual emotions and their lesions; in other
words, a transformation of auto-erotism.
The conception of hysteria so vigorously enforced by Charcot and his
school is thus now beginning to appear incomplete. But we have to
recognize that that incompleteness was right and necessary. A strong
reaction was needed against a widespread view of hysteria that was in
large measure scientifically false. It was necessary to show clearly that
hysteria is a definite disorder, even when the sexual organs and emotions
are swept wholly out of consideration; and it was also necessary to show
that the lying and dissimulation so widely attributed to the hysterical
were merely the result of an ignorant and unscientific misinterpretation
of psychic elements of the disease. This was finally and triumphantly
achieved by Charcot's school.
There is only one other point in the explanation of hysteria which I will
here refer to, and that because it is usually ignored, and because it has
relationship to the general psychology of the sexual emotions. I refer to
that physiological hysteria which is the normal counterpart of the
pathological hysteria which has been described in its physical details by
Charcot, and to which alone the term should strictly be applied. Even
though hysteria as a disease may be described as one and indivisible,
there are yet to be found, among the ordinary and fairly healthy
population, vague and diffused hysteroid symptoms which are dissipated in
a healthy environment, or pass nearly unnoted, only to develop in a small
proportion of cases, under the influence of a more pronounced heredity, or
a severe physical or psychic lesion, into that definite morbid state which
is properly called hysteria.
This diffused hysteroid condition may be illustrated by the results of a
psychological investigation carried on in America by Miss Gertrude Stein
among the ordinary male and female students of Harvard University and
Radcliffe College. The object of the investigation was to study, with the
aid of a planchette, the varying liability to automatic movements among
normal individuals. Nearly one hundred students were submitted to
experiment. It was found that automatic responses could be obtained in two
sittings from all but a small proportion of the students of both sexes,
but that there were two types of individual who showed a special aptitude.
One type (probably showing the embryonic form of neurasthenia) was a
nervous, high-strung, imaginative type, not easily influenced from
without, and not so much suggestible as autosuggestible. The other type,
which is significant from our present point of view, is thus described by
Miss Stein: "In general the individuals, often blonde and pale, are
distinctly phlegmatic. If emotional, decidedly of the weakest, sentimental
order. They may be either large, healthy, rather heavy, and lacking in
vigor or they may be what we call anæmic and phlegmatic. Their power of
concentrated attention is very small. They describe themselves as never
being held by their work; they say that their minds wander easily; that
they work on after they are tired, and just keep pegging away. They are
very apt to have premonitory conversations, they anticipate the words of
their friends, they imagine whole conversations that afterward come true.
The feeling of having been there is very common with them; that is, they
feel under given circumstances that they have had that identical
experience before in all its details. They are often fatalistic in their
ideas. They indulge in day-dreams. As a rule, they are highly
suggestible."[283]
There we have a picture of the physical constitution and psychic
temperament on which the classical symptoms of hysteria might easily be
built up.[284] But these persons were ordinary students, and while a few
of their characteristics are what is commonly and vaguely called "morbid,"
on the whole they must be regarded as ordinarily healthy individuals. They
have the congenital constitution and predisposition on which some severe
psychic lesion at the "psychological moment" might develop the most
definite and obstinate symptoms of hysteria, but under favorable
circumstances they will be ordinary men and women, of no more than
ordinary abnormality or ordinary power. They are among the many who have
been called to hysteria at birth; they may never be among the few who are
chosen.
We may have to recognize that on the side of the sexual emotions, as well
as in general constitution, a condition may be traced among normal persons
that is hysteroid in character, and serves as the healthy counterpart of a
condition which in hysteria is morbid. In women such a condition Has been
traced (though misnamed) by Dr. King.[285]
Dr. King describes what he calls "sexual hysteria in women,"
which he considers a chief variety of hysteria. He adds, however,
that it is not strictly a disease, but simply an automatic
reaction of the reproductive system, which tends to become
abnormal under conditions of civilization, and to be perpetuated
in a morbid form. In this condition he finds twelve characters:
1. Time of life, usually between puberty and climacteric. 2.
Attacks rarely occur when subject is alone. 3. Subject appears
unconscious, but is not really so. 4. She is instinctively
ashamed afterward. 5. It occurs usually in single women, or in
those, single or married, whose sexual needs are unsatisfied. 6.
No external evidence of disease, and (as Aitken pointed out) the
nates are not flattened; the woman's physical condition is not
impaired, and she may be specially attractive to men. 7. Warmth
of climate and the season of spring and summer are conducive to
the condition. 8. The paroxysm in short and temporary. 9. While
light touches are painful, firm pressure and rough handling give
relief. 10. It may occur in the occupied, but an idle,
purposeless life is conducive. 11. The subject delights in
exciting sympathy and in being fondled and caressed. 12. There is
defect of will and a strong stimulus is required to lead to
action.
Among civilized women, the author proceeds, this condition does
not appear to subserve any useful purpose. "Let us, however, go
back to aboriginal woman--to woman of the woods and the fields.
Let us picture ourselves a young aboriginal Venus in one of her
earliest hysterical paroxysms. In doing so, let us not forget
some of the twelve characteristics previously mentioned. She will
not be 'acting her part' alone, or, if alone, it will be in a
place where someone else is likely soon to discover her. Let this
Venus be now discovered by a youthful Apollo of the woods, a man
with fully developed animal instincts. He and she, like any other
animals, are in the free field of Nature. He cannot but observe
to himself: 'This woman is not dead; she breathes and is warm;
she does not look ill; she is plump and rosy.' He speaks to her;
she neither hears (apparently) nor responds. Her eyes are closed.
He touches, moves, and handles her at his pleasure. She makes no
resistance. What will this primitive Apollo do next? He will cure
the fit, and bring the woman back to consciousness, satisfy her
emotions, and restore her volition--not by delicate touches that
might be 'agonizing' to her hyperesthetic skin, but by vigorous
massage, passive motions, and succussion that would be painless.
The emotional process on the part of the woman would end,
perhaps, with mingled laughter, tears, and shame; and when
accused afterward of the part which the ancestrally acquired
properties of her nervous system had compelled her to act, as a
preliminary to the event, what woman would not deny it and be
angry? But the course of Nature having been followed, the natural
purpose of the hysterical paroxysm accomplished, there would
remain as a result of the treatment--instead of one discontented
woman--two happy people, and the possible beginning of a third."
"Natural, primary sexual hysteria in woman," King concludes, "is
a temporary modification of the nervous government of the body
and the distribution of nerve-force (occurring for the most part,
as we see it to-day, in prudish women of strong moral principle,
whose volition has disposed them to resist every sort of liberty
or approach from the other sex), consisting in a transient
abdication of the general, volitional, and self-preservational
ego, while the reins of government are temporarily assigned to
the usurping power of the reproductive ego, so that the
reproductive government overrules the government by volition, and
thus, as it were, forcibly compels the woman's organism to so
dispose itself, at a suitable time and place, as to allow,
invite, and secure the approach of the other sex, whether she
will or not, to the end that Nature's imperious demand for
reproduction shall be obeyed."
This perhaps rather fantastic description is not a presentation of
hysteria in the technical sense, but we may admit that it presents a state
which, if not the real physiological counterpart of the hysterical
convulsion, is yet distinctly analogous to the latter. The sexual orgasm
has this correspondence with the hysterical fit, that they both serve to
discharge the nervous centres and relieve emotional tension. It may even
happen, especially in the less severe forms of hysteria, that the sexual
orgasm takes place during the hysterical fit; this was found by Rosenthal,
of Vienna, to be always the case in the semiconscious paroxysms of a young
girl whose condition was easily cured;[286] no doubt such cases would be
more frequently found if they were sought for. In severe forms of
hysteria, however, it frequently happens, as so many observers have noted,
that normal sexual excitement has ceased to give satisfaction, has become
painful, perverted, paradoxical. Freud has enabled us to see how a shock
to the sexual emotions, injuring the emotional life at its source, can
scarcely fail sometimes to produce such a result. But the necessity for
nervous explosion still persists.[287] It may, indeed, persist, even in an
abnormally strong degree, in consequence of the inhibition of normal
activities generally. The convulsive fit is the only form of relief open
to the tension. "A lady whom I long attended," remarks Ashwell, "always
rejoiced when the fit was over, since it relieved her system generally,
and especially her brain, from painful irritation which had existed for
several previous days." That the fit mostly fails to give real
satisfaction, and that it fails to cure the disease, is due to the fact
that it is a morbid form of relief. The same character of hysteria is
seen, with more satisfactory results for the most part, in the influence
of external nervous shock. It was the misunderstood influence of such
shocks in removing hysteria which in former times led to the refusal to
regard hysteria as a serious disease. During the Rebellion of 1745-46 in
Scotland, Cullen remarks that there was little hysteria. The same was true
of the French Revolution and of the Irish Rebellion, while Rush (in a
study _On the Influence of the American Revolution on the Human Body_)
observed that many hysterical women were "restored to perfect health by
the events of the time." In such cases the emotional tension is given an
opportunity of explosion in new and impersonal channels, and the chain of
morbid personal emotions is broken.
It has been urged by some that the fact that the sexual orgasm usually
fails to remove the disorder in true hysteria excludes a sexual factor of
hysteria. It is really, one may point out, an argument in favor of such an
element as one of the factors of hysteria. If there were no initial lesion
of the sexual emotions, if the natural healthy sexual channel still
remained free for the passage of the emotional overflow, then we should
expect that it would much oftener come into play in the removal of
hysteria. In the more healthy, merely hysteroid condition, the psychic
sexual organism is not injured, and still responds normally, removing the
abnormal symptoms when allowed to do so. It is the confusion between this
almost natural condition and the truly morbid condition, alone properly
called hysteria, which led to the ancient opinion, inaugurated by Plato
and Hippocrates, that hysteria may be cured by marriage.[288] The
difference may be illustrated by the difference between a distended
bladder which is still able to contract normally on its contents when at
last an opportunity of doing so is afforded and the bladder in which
distension has been so prolonged that nervous control had been lost and
spontaneous expulsion has become impossible. The first condition
corresponds to the constitution, which, while simulating the hysterical
condition, is healthy enough to react normally in spite of psychic
lesions; the second corresponds to a state in which, owing to the
prolonged stress of psychic traumatism,--sexual or not,--a definite
condition of hysteria has arisen. The one state is healthy, though
abnormal; the other is one of pronounced morbidity.
The condition of true hysteria is thus linked on to almost healthy states,
and especially to a condition which may be described as one of sex-hunger.
Such a suggestion may help us to see these puzzling phenomena in their
true nature and perspective.
At this point I may refer to the interesting parallel, and
probable real relationship, between hysteria and chlorosis. As
Luzet has said, hysteria and chlorosis are sisters. We have seen
that there is some ground for regarding hysteria as an
exaggerated form of a normal process which is really an
auto-erotic phenomenon. There is some ground, also, for regarding
chlorosis as the exaggeration of a physiological state connected
with sexual conditions, more specifically with the preparation
for maternity. Hysteria is so frequently associated with anæmic
conditions that Biernacki has argued that such conditions really
constitute the primary and fundamental cause of hysteria
(_Neurologisches Centralblatt_, March, 1898). And, centuries
before Biernacki, Sydenham had stated his belief that poverty of
the blood is the chief cause of hysteria.
It would be some confirmation of this position if we could
believe that chlorosis, like hysteria, is in some degree a
congenital condition. This was the view of Virchow, who regarded
chlorosis as essentially dependent on a congenital hyoplasia of
the arterial system. Stieda, on the basis of an elaborate study
of twenty-three cases, has endeavored to prove that chlorosis is
due to a congenital defect of development (_Zeitschrift für
Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie_, vol. xxxii, Part I, 1895). His
facts tend to prove that in chlorosis there are signs of general
ill-development, and that, in particular, there is imperfect
development of the breasts and sexual organs, with a tendency to
contracted pelvis. Charrin, again, regards utero-ovarian
inadequacy as at least one of the factors of chlorosis.
Chlorosis, in its extreme form, may thus be regarded as a
disorder of development, a sign of physical degeneracy. Even if
not strictly a cause, a congenital condition may, as Stockman
believes (_British Medical Journal_, December 14, 1895), be a
predisposing influence.
However it may be in extreme cases, there is very considerable
evidence to indicate that the ordinary anæmia of young women may
be due to a storing up of iron in the system, and is so far
normal, being a preparation for the function of reproduction.
Some observations of Bunge's seem to throw much light on the real
cause of what may be termed physiological chlorosis. He found by
a series of experiments on animals of different ages that young
animals contain a much greater amount of iron in their tissues
than adult animals; that, for instance, the body of a rabbit an
hour after birth contains more than four times as much iron as
that of a rabbit two and a half months old. It thus appears
probable that at the period of puberty, and later, there is a
storage of iron in the system preparatory to the exercise of the
maternal functions. It is precisely between the ages of fifteen
and twenty-three, as Stockman found by an analysis of his own
cases (_British Medical Journal_, December 14, 1895), that the
majority of cases occur; there was, indeed, he found, no case in
which the first onset was later than the age of twenty-three. A
similar result is revealed by the charts of Lloyd Jones, which
cover a vastly greater number of cases.
We owe to Lloyd Jones an important contribution to the knowledge
of chlorosis in its physiological or normal relationships. He has
shown that chlorosis is but the exaggeration of a condition that
is normal at puberty (and, in many women, at each menstrual
period), and which, there is good reason to believe, even has a
favorable influence on fertility. He found that
light-complexioned persons are more fertile than the
dark-complexioned, and that at the same time the blood of the
latter is of less specific gravity, containing less hæmoglobin.
Lloyd Jones also reached the generalization that girls who have
had chlorosis are often remarkably pretty, so that the tendency
to chlorosis is associated with all the sexual and reproductive
aptitudes that make a woman attractive to a man. His conclusion
is that the normal condition of which chlorosis is the extreme
and pathological condition, is a preparation for motherhood (E.
Lloyd Jones, "Chlorosis: The Special Anæmia of Young Women,"
1897; also numerous reports to the British Medical Association,
published in the _British Medical Journal_. There was an
interesting discussion of the theories of chlorosis at the Moscow
International Medical Congress, in 1898; see proceedings of the
congress, volume in, section v, pp. 224 et seq.).
We may thus, perhaps, understand why it is that hysteria and
anæmia are often combined, and why they are both most frequently
found in adolescent young women who have yet had no sexual
experiences. Chlorosis is a physical phenomenon; hysteria,
largely a psychic phenomenon; yet, both alike may, to some extent
at least, be regarded as sexual aptitude showing itself in
extreme and pathological forms.
FOOTNOTES:
[251] _Genèse et Nature de l'Hystérie_, 1898; and, for Sollier's latest
statement, see "Hystérie et Sommeil," _Archives de Neurologie_, May and
June, 1907. Lombroso (_L'Uomo Delinquente_, 1889, vol. ii, p. 329),
referring to the diminished metabolism of the hysterical, had already
compared them to hibernating animals, while Babinsky states that the
hysterical are in a state of subconsciousness, a state, as Metchnikoff
remarks (_Essais optimistes_, p. 270), reminiscent of our prehistoric
past.
[252] Professor Freud, while welcoming the introduction of the term
"auto-erotism," remarks that it should not be made to include the whole of
hysteria. This I fully admit, and have never questioned. Hysteria is far
too large and complex a phenomenon to be classed as entirely a
manifestation of auto-erotism, but certain aspects of it are admirable
illustrations of auto-erotic transformation.
[253] The hysterical phenomenon of _globus hystericus_ was long afterward
attributed to obstruction of respiration by the womb. The interesting case
has been recorded by E. Bloch (_Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift_, 1907, p.
1649) of a lady who had the feeling of a ball rising from her stomach to
her throat, and then sinking. This feeling was associated with thoughts of
her husband's rising and falling penis, and was always most liable to
occur when she wished for coitus.
[254] As Gilles de la Tourette points out, it is not difficult to show
that epilepsy, the _morbus sacer_ of the ancients, owed much of its sacred
character to this confusion with hysteria. Those priestesses who, struck
by the _morbus sacer_, gave forth their oracles amid convulsions, were
certainly not the victims of epilepsy, but of hysteria (_Traité de
l'Hystérie_, vol. i, p. 3).
[255] Aretæus, _On the Causes and Symptoms of Acute Diseases_, Book ii,
Chapter II.
[256] It may be noted that this treatment furnishes another instance of
the continuity of therapeutic methods, through all changes of theory, from
the earliest to the latest times. Drugs of unpleasant odor, like
asafoetida, have always been used in hysteria, and scientific medicine
to-day still finds that asafoetida is a powerful sedative to the uterus,
controlling nervous conditions during pregnancy and arresting uterine
irritation when abortion is threatened (see, e.g., Warman, _Der
Frauenarzt_, August, 1895). Again, the rubbing of fragrant ointments into
the sexual regions is but a form of that massage which is one of the
modern methods of treating the sexual disorders of women.
[257] _Les Démoniaques dans l'Art_, 1887; _Les Malades et les Difformes
dans l'Art_, 1889.
[258] Glafira Abricosoff, of Moscow, in her Paris thesis, _L'Hystérie aux
xvii et xviii siécles_, 1897, presents a summary of the various views held
at this time; as also Gilles de la Tourette, _Traité de l'Hystérie_, vol.
i, Chapter I.
[259] _Edinburgh Medical Journal_, June, 1883, p. 1123, and _Mental
Diseases_, 1887, p. 488.
[260] Hegar, _Zusammenhang der Geschlechtskrankheiten mit nervösen
Leiden_, Stuttgart, 1885. (Hegar, however, went much further than this,
and was largely responsible for the surgical treatment of hysteria now
generally recognized as worse than futile.) Balls-Headley, "Etiology of
Nervous Diseases of the Female Genital Organs," Allbutt and Playfair,
_System of Gynecology_, 1896, p. 141.
[261] Lombroso and Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente_, 1893, pp. 613-14.
[262] Charcot and Marie, article on "Hysteria," Tuke's _Dictionary of
Psychological Medicine_.
[263] Axenfeld and Huchard, _Traité des Névroses_, 1883, pp. 1092-94.
Icard (_La Femme pendant la Période Menstruelle_, pp. 120-21) has also
referred to recorded cases of hysteria in animals (Coste's and Peter's
cases), as has Gilles de la Tourette (op. cit., vol. i, p. 123). See also,
for references, Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 59.
[264] _Man and Woman_, 4th ed., p. 326. A distinguished gynæcologist,
Matthews Duncan, had remarked some years earlier (_Lancet_, May 18, 1889)
that hysteria, though not a womb disease, "especially attaches itself to
the generative system, because the genital system, more than any other,
exerts emotional power over the individual, power also in morals, power in
social questions."
[265] Gilles de la Tourette, _Archives de Tocologie et de Gynécologie_,
June, 1895.
[266] _Rivista Sperimentale di Freniatria_, 1897, p. 290; summarized in
the _Journal of Mental Science_, January, 1898.
[267] From the earliest times it was held that menstruation favors
hysteria; more recently, Landouzy recorded a number of observations
showing that hysterical attacks coincide with perfectly healthy
menstruation; while Ball has maintained that it is only during
menstruation that hysteria appears in its true color. See the opinions
collected by Icard, _La Femme pendant la Période Menstruelle_, pp. 75-81.
[268] Krafft-Ebing, "Ueber Neurosen und Psychosen durch Sexuelle
Abstinenz," _Jahrbücher für Psychiatrie_, vol. iii, 1888. It must,
however, be added that the relief of hysteria by sexual satisfaction is
not rare, and that Rosenthal finds that the convulsions are thus
diminished. (_Allgemeine Wiener Medizinal-Zeitung_, Nos. 46 and 47, 1887.)
So they are also, in simple and uncomplicated cases, according to Mongeri,
by pregnancy.
[269] "All doctors who have patients in convents," remarks Marro (_La
Pubertà_, p. 338), "know how hysteria dominates among them;" he adds that
his own experience confirms that of Raciborski, who found that nuns
devoted to the contemplative life are more liable to hysteria than those
who are occupied in teaching or in nursing. It must be added, however,
that there is not unanimity as to the prevalence of hysteria in convents.
Brachet was of the same opinion as Briquet, and so considered it rare.
Imbert-Goubeyre, also (_La Stigmatisation_, p. 436) states that during
more than forty years of medical life, though he has been connected with a
number of religious communities, he has not found in them a single
hysterical subject, the reason being, he remarks, that the unbalanced and
extravagant are refused admission to the cloister.
[270] Parent-Duchâtelet, _De la Prostitution_, vol. i, p. 242.
[271] It may not be unnecessary to point out that here and throughout, in
speaking of the psychic mechanism of hysteria, I do not admit that any
process can be _purely_ psychic. As Féré puts it in an admirable study of
hysteria (_Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine_, 1897, vol. x, p. 556):
"In the genesis of hysterical troubles everything takes place as if the
psychical and the somatic phenomena were two aspects of the same
biological fact."
[272] Pierre Janet, _L'Automatisme Psychologique_, 1889; _L'Etat mental
des Hystériques_, 1894; _Névroses et Idées fixes_, 1898; Breuer und Freud,
_Studien über Hysterie_, Vienna, 1895; the best introduction to Freud's
work is, however, to be found in the two series of his _Sammlung Kleiner
Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, published in a collected form in 1906 and
1909. It may be added that a useful selection of Freud's papers has lately
(1909) been published in English.
[273] We might, perhaps, even say that in hysteria the so-called higher
centres have an abnormally strong inhibitory influence over the lower
centres. Gioffredi (_Gazzetta degli Ospedali_, October 1, 1895) has shown
that some hysterical symptoms, such as mutism, can be cured by
etherization, thus loosening the control of the higher centres.
[274] Charcot's school could not fail to recognize the erotic tone which
often dominates hysterical hallucinations. Gilles de la Tourette seeks to
minimize it by the remark that "it is more mental than real." He means to
say that it is more psychic than physical, but he implies that the
physical element in sex is alone "real," a strange assumption in any case,
as well as destructive of Gilles de la Tourette's own fundamental
assertion that hysteria is a real disease and yet purely psychic.
[275] See, e.g., his substantial volume, _Die Traumdeutung_, 1900, 2d ed.
1909.
[276] _Sammlung_, first series, p. 208.
[277] _Studien über Hysterie_, p. 217.
[278] _Sammlung_, first series, p. 162.
[279] _Sammlung_, second series, p. 102.
[280] Ib. p. 146.
[281] _Sammlung_, first series, p. 229. Freud has developed his conception
of sexual constitution in _Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, 1905.
[282] As Moll remarks, Freud's conceptions are still somewhat subjective,
and in need of objective demonstration; but whatever may be thought of
their theories, he adds, there can be no doubt that Breuer and Freud have
done a great service by calling attention to the important action of the
sexual life on the nervous system.
[283] Gertrude Stein, "Cultivated Motor Automatism," _Psychological
Review_, May, 1898.
[284] Charcot's most faithful followers refuse to recognize a "hysteric
temperament," and are quite right, if such a conception is used to destroy
the conception of hysteria as a definite disease. We cannot, however, fail
to recognize a diathesis which, while still apparently healthy, is
predisposed to hysteria. So distinguished a disciple of Charcot as Janet
thoroughly recognizes this, and argues (_L'Etat mental_, etc., p. 298)
that "we may find in the habits, the passions, the psychic automatism of
the normal man, the germ of all hysterical phenomena." Féré held a
somewhat similar view.
[285] A.F.A. King, "Hysteria," _American Journal of Obstetrics_, May 18,
1891.
[286] M. Rosenthal, _Diseases of the Nervous System_, vol. ii, p. 44. Féré
notes similar cases (_Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine_, vol. x, p.
551). Long previously, Gall had recorded the case of a young widow of
ardent temperament who had convulsive attacks, apparently of hysterical
nature, which always terminated in sexual orgasm (_Fonctions du Cerveau_,
1825, vol. iii, p. 245).
[287] There seems to be a greater necessity for such explosive
manifestations in women than in men, whatever the reason may be. I have
brought together some of the evidence pointing in this direction in _Man
and Woman_, 4th ed., revised and enlarged, Chapters xii and xiii.
[288] There is no doubt an element of real truth in this ancient belief,
though it mainly holds good of minor cases of hysteria. Many excellent
authorities accept it. "Hysteria is certainly common in the single,"
Herman remarks (_Diseases of Women_, 1898, p. 33), "and is generally cured
by a happy marriage." Löwenfeld (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, p. 153)
says that "it cannot be denied that marriage produces a beneficial change
in the general condition of many hysterical patients," though, he adds, it
will not remove the hysterical temperament. The advantage of marriage for
the hysterical is not necessarily due, solely or at all, to the exercise
of sexual functions. This is pointed out by Mongeri, who observes
(_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1901, Heft 5, p. 917): "I have
known and treated several hysterical girls who are now married, and do not
show the least neuropathic indications. Some of these no longer have any
wish for sexual gratification, and even fulfil their marital duties
unwillingly, though loving their husbands and living with them in an
extremely happy way. In my opinion, marriage is a sovereign remedy for
neuropathic women, who need to find a support in another personality, able
to share with them the battle of life."
III.
The Prevalence of Masturbation--Its Occurrence in Infancy and
Childhood--Is it More Frequent in Males or Females?--After Adolescence
Apparently more Frequent in Women--Reasons for the Sexual Distribution of
Masturbation--The Alleged Evils of Masturbation--Historical Sketch of the
Views Held on This Point--The Symptoms and Results of Masturbation--Its
Alleged Influence in Causing Eye Disorders--Its Relation to Insanity and
Nervous Disorders--The Evil Effects of Masturbation Usually Occur on the
Basis of a Congenitally Morbid Nervous System--Neurasthenia Probably the
Commonest Accompaniment of Excessive Masturbation--Precocious Masturbation
Tends to Produce Aversion to Coitus--Psychic Results of Habitual
Masturbation--Masturbation in Men of Genius--Masturbation as a Nervous
Sedative--Typical Cases--The Greek Attitude toward Masturbation--Attitude
of the Catholic Theologians--The Mohammedan Attitude--The Modern
Scientific Attitude--In What Sense is Masturbation Normal?--The Immense
Part in Life Played by Transmuted Auto-erotic Phenomena.
The foregoing sketch will serve to show how vast is the field of life--of
normal and not merely abnormal life--more or less infused by auto-erotic
phenomena. If, however, we proceed to investigate precisely the exact
extent, degree, and significance of such phenomena, we are met by many
difficulties. We find, indeed, that no attempts have been made to study
auto-erotic phenomena, except as regards the group--a somewhat artificial
group, as I have already tried to show--collected under the term
"masturbation" while even here such attempts have only been made among
abnormal classes of people, or have been conducted in a manner scarcely
likely to yield reliable results.[289] Still there is a certain
significance in the more careful investigations which have been made to
ascertain the precise frequency of masturbation.
Berger, an experienced specialist in nervous diseases, concluded, in his
_Vorlesungen_, that 99 per cent. of young men and women masturbate
occasionally, while the hundredth conceals the truth;[290] and Hermann
Cohn appears to accept this statement as generally true in Germany. So
high an estimate has, of course, been called in question, and, since it
appears to rest on no basis of careful investigation, we need not
seriously consider it. It is useless to argue on suppositions; we must
cling to our definite evidence, even though it yields figures which are
probably below the mark. Rohleder considers that during adolescence at
least 95 per cent. of both sexes masturbate, but his figures are not
founded on precise investigation.[291] Julian Marcuse, on the basis of his
own statistics, concludes that 92 per cent. male individuals have to some
extent masturbated in youth. Perhaps, also, weight attaches to the opinion
of Dukes, physician to Rugby School, who states that from 90 to 95 per
cent. of all boys at boarding school masturbate.[292] Seerley, of
Springfield, Mass., found that of 125 academic students only 8 assured him
they had never masturbated; while of 347, who answered his questions, 71
denied that they practiced masturbation, which seems to imply that 79 per
cent. admitted that they practiced it.[293] Brockman, also in America,
among 232 theological students, of the average age of 23½ years and coming
from various parts of the United States, found that 132 spontaneously
admitted that masturbation was their most serious temptation and all but
one of these admitted that he yielded, 69 of them to a considerable
extent. This is a proportion of at least 56 per cent., the real proportion
being doubtless larger, since no question had been asked as to sexual
offenses; 75 practiced masturbation after conversion, and 24 after they
had decided to become ministers; only 66 mentioned sexual intercourse as
their chief temptation; but altogether sexual temptations outnumbered all
others together.[294] Moraglia, who made inquiry of 200 women of the lower
class in Italy, found that 120 acknowledged either that they still
masturbate or that they had done so during a long period.[295] Gualino
found that 23 per cent. men of the professional classes in North Italy
masturbate about puberty; no account was taken of those who began later.
"Here in Switzerland," a correspondent writes, "I have had occasion to
learn from adult men, whom I can trust, that they have reached the age of
twenty-five, or over, without sexual congress. '_Wir haben nicht dieses
Bedürfniss_,' is what they say. But I believe that, in the case of the
Swiss mountaineers, moderate onanism is practiced, as a rule." In hot
countries the same habits are found at a more precocious age. In
Venezuela, for instance, among the Spanish creoles, Ernst found that in
all classes boys and girls are infested with the vice of onanism. They
learn it early, in the very beginning of life, from their wet-nurses,
generally low Mulatto women, and many reasons help to foster the habit;
the young men are often dissipated and the young women often remain
single.[296] Niceforo, who shows a special knowledge of the working-girl
class at Rome, states that in many milliners' and dressmakers' workrooms,
where young girls are employed, it frequently happens that during the
hottest hours of the day, between twelve and two, when the mistress or
forewoman is asleep, all the girls without exception give themselves up to
masturbation.[297] In France a country _curé_ assured Debreyne that among
the little girls who come up for their first communion, 11 out of 12 were
given to masturbation.[298] The medical officer of a Prussian reformatory
told Rohleder that nearly all the inmates over the age of puberty
masturbated. Stanley Hall knew a reform school in America where
masturbation was practiced without exception, and he who could practice
it oftenest was regarded with hero-worship.[299] Ferriani, who has made an
elaborate study of youthful criminality in Italy, states that even if all
boys and girls among the general population do not masturbate, it is
certainly so among those who have a tendency to crime. Among 458 adult
male criminals, Marro (as he states in his _Caratteri dei Delinquenti_)
found that only 72 denied masturbation, while 386 had practiced it from an
early age, 140 of them before the age of thirteen. Among 30 criminal women
Moraglia found that 24 acknowledged the practice, at all events in early
youth (8 of them before the age of 10, a precocity accompanied by average
precocity in menstruation), while he suspected that most of the remainder
were not unfamiliar with the practice. Among prostitutes of whatever class
or position Moraglia found masturbation (though it must be pointed out
that he does not appear to distinguish masturbation very clearly from
homosexual practices) to be universal; in one group of 50 prostitutes
everyone had practiced masturbation at some period; 28 began between the
ages of 6 and 11; 19, between 12 and 14, the most usual period--a
precocious one--of commencing puberty; the remaining 3 at 15 and 16; the
average age of commencing masturbation, it may be added, was 11, while
that of the first sexual intercourse was 15.[300] In a larger group of 180
prostitutes, belonging to Genoa, Turin, Venice, etc., and among 23
"elegant cocottes," of Italian and foreign origin, Moraglia obtained the
same results; everyone admitted masturbation, and not less than 113
preferred masturbation, either solitary or mutual, to normal coitus. Among
the insane, as among idiots, masturbation is somewhat more common among
males, according to Blandford, in England, as also it is in Germany,
according to Näcke,[301] while Venturi, in Italy, has found it more common
among females.[302]
There appears to be no limit to the age at which spontaneous masturbation
may begin to appear. I have already referred to the practice of
thigh-rubbing in infants under one year of age. J.P. West has reported in
detail 3 cases of masturbation in very early childhood--2 in girls, 1 in a
boy--in which the practice had been acquired spontaneously, and could only
be traced to some source of irritation in pressure from clothing,
etc.[303] Probably there is often in such cases some hereditary lack of
nervous stability. Block has recorded the case of a girl--very bright for
her age, though excessively shy and taciturn--who began masturbating
spontaneously at the age of two; in this case the mother had masturbated
all her life, even continuing the practice after marriage, and, though she
succeeded in refraining during pregnancy, her thoughts still dwelt upon
it, while the maternal grandmother had died in an asylum from
"masturbatory insanity."
Freud considers that auto-erotic manifestations are common in infancy, and
that the rhythmic function of any sensitive spot, primarily the lips, may
easily pass into masturbation. He regards the infantile manifestations of
which thumb-sucking is the most familiar example (Lüdeln or Lutschen in
German) as auto-erotic, the germ arising in sucking the breasts since the
lips are an erogenous zone which may easily be excited by the warm stream
of milk. But this only occurs, he points out, in subjects in whom the
sensitivity of the lip zone is heightened and especially in those who at a
later age are liable to become hysterical.[304] Shuttleworth also points
out that the mere fidgetiness of a neurotic infant, even when only a few
months old, sometimes leads to the spontaneous and accidental discovery of
pleasurable sexual sensations, which for a time appease the restlessness
of nervous instability, though a vicious circle is thus established. He
has found that, especially among quite young girls of neurotic heredity,
self-induced excitement, often in the form of thigh-friction, is more
common than is usually supposed.[305]
Normally there appears to be a varying aptitude to experience the sexual
organism, or any voluptuous sensations before puberty. I find, on
eliciting the recollections of normal persons, that in some cases there
have been voluptuous sensations from casual contact with the sexual organs
at a very early age; in other cases there has been occasional slight
excitement from early years; in yet other cases complete sexual anæsthesia
until the age of puberty. That the latter condition is not due to mere
absence of peripheral irritation is shown by a case I am acquainted with,
in which a boy of 7, incited by a companion, innocently attempted, at
intervals during several weeks, to produce erection by friction of the
penis; no result of any kind followed, although erections occurred
spontaneously at puberty, with normal sexual feelings.[306]
I am indebted to a correspondent for the following notes:--
"From my observation during five years at a boarding-school, it
_seems_ that eight out of ten boys were more or less addicted to
the practice. But I would not state _positively_ that such was
the proportion of masturbators among an average of thirty pupils,
though the habit was very common. I know that in one bedroom,
sleeping seven boys, the whole number masturbated frequently. The
act was performed in bed, in the closets, and sometimes in the
classrooms during lessons. Inquiry among my friends as to onanism
in the boarding-schools to which they were sent, elicited
somewhat contradictory answers concerning the frequency of the
habit. Dr. ----, who went to a French school, told me that _all_
the older boys had younger accomplices in mutual masturbation. He
also spoke with experience of the prevalence of the practice in a
well-known public school in the west of England. B. said _all_
the boys at his school masturbated; G. stated that _most_ of his
schoolmates were onanists; L. said 'more than half' was the
proportion.
"At my school, manual masturbation was both solitary and mutual;
and sometimes younger boys, who had not acquired the habit, were
induced to manipulate bigger boys. One very precocious boy of
fifteen always chose a companion of ten 'because his hand was
like a woman's.' Sometimes boys entered their friend's bed for
mutual excitement. In after-life they showed no signs of
inversion. Another boy, aged about fourteen, who had been seduced
by a servant-girl, embraced the bolster; the pleasurable
sensations, according to his statement, were heightened by
imagining that the bolster was a woman. He said that the
enjoyment of the act was greatly increased during the holidays,
when he was able to spread a pair of his sister's drawers upon
the pillow, and so intensify the illusion.
"Before puberty the boys appeared to be more continent than
afterward. A few of the older and more intelligent masturbators
regulated the habit, as some married men regulate intercourse.
The big boy referred to, who chose always the same manipulator,
professed to indulge only once in twenty days, his reason being
that more frequent repetition of the act would injure his health.
About twice a week for boys who had reached puberty, and once a
week for younger boys, was, I think, about the average
indulgence. I have never met with a parallel of one of those
cases of excessive masturbation recorded by many doctors. There
may have been such cases at this school; but, if so, the boys
concealed the frequency of their gratifications.
"My experience proved that many of the lads regarded masturbation
as reprehensible; but their plea was 'everyone does it.' Some,
often those who indulged inordinately and more secretly than
their companions, gravely condemned the practice as sinful. A few
seemed to think there was 'no harm in it,' but that the habit
might stunt the growth and weaken the body if practiced very
frequently. The greater number made no attempt to conceal the
habit, they enlarged upon the pleasure of it; it was 'ever so
much nicer than eating tarts,' etc.
"The chief cause I believe to be initiation by an older
schoolmate. But I have known accidental causes, such as the
discovery that swarming up a pole pleasurably excited the organ,
rubbing to allay irritation, and simple, curious handling of the
erect penis in the early morning before rising from bed."
I quote the foregoing communication as perhaps a fairly typical
experience in a British school, though I am myself inclined to
think that the prevalence of masturbation in schools is often
much overrated, for, while in some schools the practice is
doubtless rampant, in others it is practically unknown, or, at
all events, only practiced by a few individuals in secret. My own
early recollections of (private) school-life fail to yield any
reminiscences of any kind connected with either masturbation or
homosexuality; and, while such happy ignorance may be the
exception rather than the rule, I am certainly inclined to
believe that--owing to race and climate, and healthier conditions
of life--the sexual impulse is less precocious and less
prominently developed during the school-age in England than in
some Continental countries. It is probably to this delayed
development that we should attribute the contrast that Ferrero
finds (_L'Europa Giovane_, pp. 151-56), and certainly states too
absolutely, between the sexual reserve of young Englishmen and
the sexual immodesty of his own countrymen.
In Germany, Näcke has also stated ("Kritisches zum Kapitel der
Sexualität," _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, pp. 354-56, 1899) that he
heard nothing at school either of masturbation or homosexuality,
and he records the experience of medical friends who stated that
such phenomena were only rare exceptions, and regarded by the
majority of the boys as exhibitions of "_Schweinerei_." At other
German schools, as Hoche has shown, sexual practices are very
prevalent. It is evident that at different schools, and even at
the same school at different times, these manifestations vary in
frequency within wide limits.
Such variations, it seems to me, are due to two causes. In the
first place, they largely depend upon the character of the more
influential elder boys. In the second place, they depend upon the
attitude of the head-master. With reference to this point I may
quote from a letter written by an experienced master in one of
the most famous English public schools: "When I first came to
----, a quarter of a century ago, Dr. ---- was making a crusade
against this failing; boys were sent away wholesale; the school
was summoned and lectured solemnly; and the more the severities,
the more rampant the disease. I thought to myself that the remedy
was creating the malady, and I heard afterward, from an old boy,
that in those days they used to talk things over by the fireside,
and think there must be something very choice in a sin that
braved so much. Dr. ---- went, and, under ----, we never spoke of
such things. Curiosity died down, and the thing itself, I
believe, was lessened. We were told to warn new boys of the
dangers to health and morals of such offences, lest the innocent
should be caught in ignorance. I have only spoken to a few; I
think the great thing is not to put it in boys' heads. I have
noticed solitary faults most commonly, and then I tell the boy
how he is physically weakening himself. If you notice, it is
puppies that seem to go against Nature, but grown dogs, never.
So, if two small boys acted thus, I should think it merely an
instinctive feeling after Nature, which would amend itself. Many
here would consider it a heinous sin, but those who think such
things sins make them sins. I have seen, in the old days, most
delightful little children sent away, branded with infamy, and
scarce knowing why--you might as well expel a boy for scratching
his head when it itched. I am sure the soundest way is to treat
it as a doctor would, and explain to the boy the physical effects
of over-indulgence of any sort. When it is combated from the
monkish standpoint, the evil becomes an epidemic." I am, however,
far from anxious to indorse the policy of ignoring the sexual
phenomena of youth. It is not the speaking about such things that
should be called in question, but the wisdom and good sense of
the speaker. We ought to expect a head-master to possess both an
adequate acquaintance with the nature of the phenomena of
auto-erotism and homosexuality, and a reasonable amount of tact
in dealing with boys; he may then fairly be trusted to exercise
his own judgment. It may be doubted whether boys should be made
too alive to the existence of sexual phenomena; there can be no
doubt about their teachers. The same is, of course, true as
regards girls, among whom the same phenomena, though less
obtrusive, are not less liable to occur.
As to whether masturbation is more common in one sex than the other, there
have been considerable differences of opinion. Tissot considered it more
prevalent among women; Christian believed it commoner among men; Deslandes
and Iwan Bloch hold that there are no sexual differences, and Garnier was
doubtful. Lawson Tait, in his _Diseases of Women_, stated his opinion that
in England, while very common among boys, it is relatively rare among
women, and then usually taught. Spitzka, in America, also found it
relatively rare among women, and Dana considers it commoner in boys than
in girls or adults.[307] Moll is inclined to think that masturbation is
less common in women and girls than in the male sex. Rohleder believes
that after puberty, when it is equally common in both sexes, it is more
frequently found in men, but that women masturbate with more passion and
imaginative fervor.[308] Kellogg, in America, says it is equally prevalent
in both sexes, but that women are more secretive. Morris, also in America,
considers, on the other hand, that persistent masturbation is commoner in
women, and accounts for this by the healthier life and traditions of boys.
Pouillet, who studied the matter with considerable thoroughness in France,
came to the conclusion that masturbation is commoner among women, among
whom he found it to be equally prevalent in rich and poor, and especially
so in the great centres of civilization. In Russia, Guttceit states in his
_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, that from the ages of 10 to 16 boys masturbate
more than girls, who know less about the practice which has not for them
the charm of the forbidden, but after 16 he finds the practice more
frequent in girls and women than in youths and men. Näcke, in Germany,
believes that there is much evidence pointing in the same direction, and
Adler considers masturbation very common in women. Moraglia is decidedly
of the opinion, on the ground of his own observations already alluded to,
that masturbation is more frequent among women; he refers to the fact--a
very significant fact, as I shall elsewhere have to point out--that, while
in man there is only one sexual centre, the penis, in woman there are
several centres,--the clitoris, the vagina, the uterus, the
breasts,[309]--and he mentions that he knew a prostitute, a well-developed
brunette of somewhat nervous temperament, who boasted that she knew
fourteen ways of masturbating herself.
My own opinion is that the question of the sexual distribution of
masturbation has been somewhat obscured by that harmful tendency, to which
I have already alluded, to concentrate attention on a particular set of
auto-erotic phenomena. We must group and divide our facts rationally if we
wish to command them. If we confine our attention to very young children,
the available evidence shows that the practice is much more common in
females,[310] and such a result is in harmony with the fact that
precocious puberty is most often found in female children.[311] At
puberty and adolescence occasional or frequent masturbation is common in
both boys and girls, though, I believe, less common than is sometimes
supposed; it is difficult to say whether it is more prevalent among boys
or girls; one is inclined to conclude that it prevails more widely among
boys. The sexual impulse, and consequently the tendency to masturbation,
tend to be aroused later, and less easily in girls than in youths, though
it must also be remembered that boys' traditions and their more active
life keep the tendency in abeyance, while in girls there is much less
frequently any restraining influence of corresponding character.[312] In
my study of inversion I have found that ignorance and the same absence of
tradition are probably factors in the prevalence of homosexual tendencies
among women.[313] After adolescence I think there can be no doubt that
masturbation is more common in women than in men. Men have, by this time,
mostly adopted some method of sexual gratification with the opposite sex;
women are to a much larger extent shut out from such gratification;
moreover, while in rare cases women are sexually precocious, it more often
happens that their sexual impulses only gain strength and
self-consciousness after adolescence has passed. I have been much
impressed by the frequency with which masturbation is occasionally
(especially about the period of menstruation) practiced by active,
intelligent, and healthy women who otherwise lead a chaste life. This
experience is confirmed by others who are in a position to ascertain the
facts among normal people; thus a lady, who has received the confidence of
many women, told me that she believes that all women who remain unmarried
masturbate, as she found so much evidence pointing in this direction.[314]
This statement certainly needs some qualification, though I believe it is
not far from the truth as regards young and healthy women who, after
having normal sexual relationships, have been compelled for some reason or
other to break them off and lead a lonely life.[315] But we have to
remember that there are some women, evidently with a considerable degree
of congenital sexual anæsthesia (no doubt, in some respect or another
below the standard of normal health), in whom the sexual instinct has
never been aroused, and who not only do not masturbate, but do not show
any desire for normal gratification; while in a large proportion of other
cases the impulse is gratified passively in ways I have already referred
to. The auto-erotic phenomena which take place in this way, spontaneously,
by yielding to revery, with little or no active interference, certainly
occur much more frequently in women than in men. On the other hand,
contrary to what one might be led to expect, the closely-related
auto-erotic phenomena during sleep seem to take place more frequently in
men, although in women, as we have found ground for concluding, they
reverberate much more widely and impressively on the waking psychical
life.
We owe to Restif de la Bretonne what is perhaps the earliest
precise description of a woman masturbating. In 1755 he knew a
dark young woman, plain but well-made, and of warm temperament,
educated in a convent. She was observed one day, when gazing from
her window at a young man in whom she was tenderly interested, to
become much excited. "Her movements became agitated; I approached
her, and really believe that she was uttering affectionate
expressions; she had become red. Then she sighed deeply, and
became motionless, stretching out her legs, which she stiffened,
as if she felt pain." It is further hinted that her hands took
part in this manoeuvre (_Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. vi, p. 143).
Pictorial representations of a woman masturbating also occur in
eighteenth century engravings. Thus, in France, Baudouin's "Le
Midi" (reproduced in Fuchs's _Das Erotische Element in der
Karikatur_, Fig. 92), represents an elegant young lady in a
rococo garden-bower; she has been reading a book she has now just
dropped, together with her sunshade; she leans languorously back,
and her hand begins to find its way through her placket-hole.
Adler, who has studied masturbation in women with more care than
any previous writer, has recorded in detail the auto-erotic
manifestations involved in the case of an intelligent and
unprejudiced woman, aged 30, who had begun masturbating when
twenty, and practiced it at intervals of a few weeks. She
experienced the desire for sexual gratification under the
following circumstances: (1) spontaneously, directly before or
after menstruation; (2) as a method to cure sleeplessness; (3)
after washing the parts with warm (but not cold) water; (4) after
erotic dreams; (5) quite suddenly, without definite cause. The
phenomena of the masturbatory process fell into two stages: (1)
incomplete excitement, (2) the highest pleasurable gratification.
It only took place in the evening, or at night, and a special
position was necessary, with the right knee bent, and the right
foot against the knee of the extended left leg. The bent index
and middle fingers of the right hand were then applied firmly to
the lower third of the left labium minus, which was rubbed
against the underlying parts. At this stage, the manifestations
sometimes stopped, either from an effort of self-control or from
fatigue of the arm. There was no emission of mucus, or general
perspiration, but some degree of satisfaction and of fatigue,
followed by sleep. If, however, the manipulation was continued,
the second stage was reached, and the middle finger sank into the
vagina, while the index finger remained on the labium, the rest
of the hand holding and compressing the whole of the vulva, from
pubes to anus, against the symphysis, with a backwards and
forwards movement, the left hand also being frequently used to
support and assist the right. The parts now gave a mushroom-like
feeling to the touch, and in a few seconds, or after a longer
interval, the complete feeling of pleasurable satisfaction was
attained. At the same moment there was (but only after she had
had experience of coitus) an involuntary elevation of the pelvis,
together with emission of mucus, making the hand wet, this mucus
having an odor, and being quite distinct from the ordinary
odorless mucus of the vagina; at the same time, the finger in the
vagina felt slight contractions of the whole vaginal wall. The
climax of sexual pleasure lasted a few seconds, with its
concomitant vaginal contractions, then slowly subsided with a
feeling of general well-being, the finger at the same time
slipping out of the vagina, and she was left in a state of
general perspiration, and sleep would immediately follow; when
this was not the case, she was frequently conscious of some
degree of sensibility in the sacrum, lasting for several hours,
and especially felt when sitting. When masturbation was the
result of an erotic dream (which occurred but seldom), the first
stage was already reached in sleep, and the second was more
quickly obtained. During the act it was only occasionally that
any thoughts of men or of coitus were present, the attention
being fixed on the coming climax. The psychic state afterwards
was usually one of self-reproach. (O. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte
Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, pp. 26-29.) The
phenomena in this case may be regarded as fairly typical, but
there are many individual variations; mucus emissions and vaginal
contractions frequently occur before actual orgasm, and there is
not usually any insertion of the finger into the vagina in women
who have never experienced coitus, or, indeed, even in those who
have.
We must now turn to that aspect of our subject which in the past has
always seemed the only aspect of auto-erotic phenomena meriting attention:
the symptoms and results of chronic masturbation. It appears to have been
an Englishman who, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, first
called popular attention to the supposed evils of masturbation. His book
was published in London, and entitled: _Onania, or the Heinous Sin of
Self-pollution, and all its Frightful Consequences in both Sexes,
Considered, with Spiritual and Physical Advice_, etc. It is not a serious
medical treatise, but an early and certainly superior example of a kind of
literature which we have since become familiar with through the daily
newspapers. A large part of the book, which is cleverly written, is
devoted in the later editions to the letters of nervous and
hypochondriacal young men and women, who are too shy to visit the author,
but request him to send a bottle of his "Strengthening Tincture," and
mention that they are inclosing half a guinea, a guinea, or still larger
sum. Concerning the composition of the "Strengthening Tincture" we are not
informed.[316] This work, which was subsequently attributed to a writer
named Bekkers, is said to have passed through no less than eighty
editions, and it was translated into German. Tissot, a physician of
Lausanne, followed with his _Traité de l'Onanisme: Dissertation sur les
Maladies produites par la Masturbation_, first published in Latin (1760),
then in French (1764), and afterward in nearly all European languages. He
regarded masturbation as a crime, and as "an act of suicide." His book is
a production of amusing exaggeration and rhetoric, zealously setting forth
the prodigious evils of masturbation in a style which combines, as
Christian remarks, the strains of Rousseau with a vein of religious piety.
Tissot included only manual self-abuse under the term "onanism;" shortly
afterward, Voltaire, in his _Dictionnaire Philosophique_, took up the
subject, giving it a wider meaning and still further popularizing it.
Finally Lallemand, at a somewhat later period (1836), wrote a book which
was, indeed, more scientific in character, but which still sought to
represent masturbation as the source of all evils. These four writers--the
author of _Onania_, Tissot, Voltaire, Lallemand--are certainly responsible
for much. The mistaken notions of many medical authorities, carried on by
tradition, even down to our own time; the powerful lever which has been
put into the hand of unscrupulous quacks; the suffering, dread, and
remorse experienced in silence by many thousands of ignorant and often
innocent young people may all be traced in large measure back to these
four well-meaning, but (on this question) misguided, authors.
There is really no end to the list of real or supposed symptoms and
results of masturbation, as given by various medical writers during the
last century. Insanity, epilepsy, numerous forms of eye disease,
supra-orbital headache, occipital headache (Spitzka), strange sensations
at the top of the head (Savage), various forms of neuralgia (Anstie, J.
Chapman), tenderness of the skin in the lower dorsal region (Chapman),
mammary tenderness in young girls (Lacassagne), mammary hypertrophy
(Ossendovsky), asthma (Peyer), cardiac murmurs (Seerley), the appearance
of vesicles on wounds (Baraduc), acne and other forms of cutaneous
eruptions (the author of _Onania_, Clipson), dilated pupils (Skene,
Lewis, Moraglia), eyes directed upward and sideways (Pouillet), dark rings
around the eyes, intermittent functional deafness (Bonnier), painful
menstruation (J. Chapman), catarrh of uterus and vagina (Winckel,
Pouillet), ovarian disease (Jessett), pale and discolored skin (Lewis,
Moraglia), redness of nose (Gruner), epistaxis (Joal, J.N. Mackenzie),
morbid changes in nose (Fliess), convulsive cough of puberty (Gowers),
acidity of vagina (R.W. Shufeldt), incontinence of urine in young women
(Girandeau), warts on the hands in women (Durr, Kreichmar, von Oye),
hallucinations of smell and hearing, (Griesinger, Lewis), intermittent
functional deafness (Bonnier), indican in the urine (Herter), an
indescribable odor of the skin in women (Skene), these are but a few of
the signs and consequences of masturbation given by various prominent
authorities.[317]
That many of these manifestations do occur in connection with masturbation
is unquestionable; there is also good reason to believe that some of them
may be the results of masturbation acting on an imperfectly healthy
organism. But in all such cases we must speak with great caution, for
there appears to be little reliable evidence to show that simple
masturbation, in a well-born and healthy individual, can produce any evil
results beyond slight functional disturbances, and these only when it is
practiced in excess. To illustrate the real pathological relationships of
masturbation, a few typical and important disorders may be briefly
considered.
The delicate mechanism of the eye is one of the first portions of the
nervous apparatus to be disturbed by any undue strain on the system; it is
not surprising that masturbation should be widely incriminated as a cause
of eye troubles. If, however, we inquire into the results obtained by the
most cautious and experienced ophthalmological observers, it grows evident
that masturbation, as a cause of disease of the eye, becomes merged into
wider causes. In Germany, Hermann Cohn, the distinguished ophthalmic
surgeon of Breslau, has dealt fully with the question.[318] Cohn, who
believes that all young men and women masturbate to some extent, finds
that masturbation must be excessive for eye trouble to become apparent. In
most of his cases there was masturbation several times daily during from
five to seven years, in many during ten years, and in one during
twenty-three years. In such cases we are obviously dealing with abnormal
persons, and no one will dispute the possibility of harmful results; in
some of the cases, when masturbation was stopped, the eye trouble
improved. Even in these cases, however, the troubles were but slight, the
chief being, apparently, photopsia (a subjective sensation of light) with
otherwise normal conditions of pupil, vision, color-sense, and retina. In
some cases there was photophobia, and he has also found paralysis of
accommodation and conjunctivitis. At a later date Salmo Cohn, in his
comprehensive monograph on the relationship between the eye and the sexual
organs in women, brought together numerous cases of eye troubles in young
women associated with masturbation, but in most of these cases
masturbation had been practiced with great frequency for a long period and
the ocular affections were usually not serious.[319] In England, Power has
investigated the relations of the sexual system to eye disease. He is
inclined to think that the effects of masturbation have been exaggerated,
but he believes that it may produce such for the most part trivial
complaints as photopsisæ, muscsæ, muscular asthenopia, possibly
blepharospasm, and perhaps conjunctivitis. He goes on, however, to point
out that more serious complaints of the eye are caused by excess in normal
coitus, by sexual abstinence, and especially by disordered menstruation.
Thus we see that even when we are considering a mechanism so delicately
poised and one so easily disturbed by any jar of the system as vision,
masturbation produces no effect except when carried to an extent which
argues a hereditarily imperfect organism, while even in these cases the
effects are usually but slight, moreover, in no respect specific, but are
paralleled and even exceeded by the results of other disturbances of the
sexual system.
Let us turn to the supposed influence of masturbation in causing insanity
and nervous diseases. Here we may chiefly realize the immense influence
exerted on medical science by Tissot and his followers during a hundred
years. Mental weakness is the cause and not the result of excessive
masturbation, Gall declared,[320] but he was a man of genius, in
isolation. Sir William Ellis, an alienist of considerable reputation at
the beginning of the last century, could write with scientific equanimity:
"I have no hesitation in saying that, in a very large number of patients
in all public asylums, the disease may be attributed to that cause." He
does, indeed, admit that it may be only a symptom sometimes, but goes on
to assert that masturbation "has not hitherto been exhibited in the awful
light in which it deserves to be shown," and that "in by far the greater
number of cases" it is the true cause of dementia.[321] Esquirol lent his
name and influence to a similar view of the pernicious influence of
masturbation. Throughout the century, even down to the present day, this
point of view has been traditionally preserved in a modified form. In
apparent ignorance of the enormous prevalence of masturbation, and
without, so far as can be seen, any attempt to distinguish between cause
and effect or to eliminate the hereditary neuropathic element, many
alienists have set down a large proportion of cases of insanity, idiocy,
epilepsy, and disease of the spinal cord to uncomplicated masturbation.
Thus, at the Matteawan State Hospital (New York) for criminal lunatics and
insane prisoners, from 1875 to 1907, masturbation was the sole assigned
cause of insanity in 160 men (out of 2,595); while, according to Dr. Clara
Barrus, among 121 cases of insanity in young women, masturbation is the
cause in ten cases.[322] It is unnecessary to multiply examples, for this
traditional tendency is familiar to all.
It appears to have been largely due to Griesinger, in the middle of the
last century, that we owe the first authoritative appearance of a saner,
more discriminating view regarding the results of masturbation. Although
still to some extent fettered by the traditions prevalent in his day,
Griesinger saw that it was not so much masturbation itself as the feelings
aroused in sensitive minds by the social attitude toward masturbation
which produced evil effects. "That constant struggle," he wrote, "against
a desire which is even overpowering, and to which the individual always in
the end succumbs, that hidden strife between shame, repentance, good
intentions, and the irritation which impels to the act, this, after not a
little acquaintance with onanists, we consider to be far more important
than the primary direct physical effect." He added that there are no
specific signs of masturbation, and concluded that it is oftener a symptom
than a cause. The general progress of educated opinions since that date
has, in the main, confirmed and carried forward the results cautiously
stated by Griesinger. This distinguished alienist thought that, when
practiced in childhood, masturbation might lead to insanity. Berkhan, in
his investigation of the psychoses of childhood, found that in no single
case was masturbation a cause. Vogel, Uffelmann, and Emminghaus, in the
course of similar studies, have all come to almost similar
conclusions.[323] It is only on a congenitally morbid nervous system,
Emminghaus insists, that masturbation can produce any serious results.
"Most of the cases charged to masturbation," writes Kiernan (in a private
letter), basing his opinion on wide clinical experience, "are either
hebephrenia or hysteria in which an effect is taken for the cause."
Christian, during twenty years' experience in hospitals, asylums, and
private practice in town and country, has not found any seriously evil
effects from masturbation.[324] He thinks, indeed, that it may be a more
serious evil in women than in men. But Yellowlees considers that in women
"it is possibly less exhausting and injurious than in the other sex,"
which was also the opinion of Hammond, as well as of Guttceit, though he
found that women pushed the practice much further than men, and Näcke, who
has given special attention to this point, could not find that
masturbation is a definite cause of insanity in women in a single
case.[325] Koch also reaches a similar conclusion, as regards both sexes,
though he admits that masturbation may cause some degree of psychopathic
deterioration. Even in this respect, however, he points out that "when
practiced in moderation it is not injurious in the certain and
exceptionless way in which it is believed to be in many circles. It is the
people whose nervous systems are already injured who masturbate most
easily and practice it more immoderately than others"; the chief source of
its evil is self-reproach and the struggle with the impulse.[326]
Kahlbaum, it is true, under the influence of the older tradition, when he
erected katatonia into a separate disorder (not always accepted in later
times), regarded prolonged and excessive masturbation as a chief cause,
but I am not aware that he ever asserted that it was a sole and sufficient
cause in a healthy organism. Kiernan, one of the earliest writers on
katatonia, was careful to point out that masturbation was probably as much
effect as cause of the morbid nervous condition.[327] Maudsley (in _Body
and Mind_) recognized masturbation as a special exciting cause of a
characteristic form of insanity; but he cautiously added: "Nevertheless, I
think that self-abuse seldom, if ever, produces it without the
co-operation of the insane neurosis."[328] Schüle also recognized a
specific masturbatory insanity, but the general tendency to reject any
such nosological form is becoming marked; Krafft-Ebing long since rejected
it and Näcke decidedly opposes it. Kraepelin states that excessive
masturbation can only occur in a dangerous degree in predisposed
subjects; so, also, Forel and Löwenfeld, as at an earlier period,
Trousseau.[329] It is true that Marro, in his admirable and detailed study
of the normal and abnormal aspects of puberty, accepts a form of
masturbatory insanity; but the only illustrative case he brings forward is
a young man possessing various stigmata of degeneracy and the son of an
alcoholic father; such a case tells us nothing regarding the results of
simple masturbation.[330] Even Spitzka, who maintained several years ago
the traditional views as to the terrible results of masturbation, and
recognized a special "insanity of masturbation," stated his conclusions
with a caution that undermined his position: "Self-abuse," he concluded,
"to become a sole cause of insanity, must be begun early and carried very
far. In persons of sound antecedents it rarely, under these circumstances,
suffices to produce an actual vesania."[331] When we remember that there
is no convincing evidence to show that masturbation is "begun early and
carried very far" by "persons of sound antecedents," the significance of
Spitzka's "typical psychosis of masturbation" is somewhat annulled. It is
evident that these distinguished investigators, Marro and Spitzka, have
been induced by tradition to take up a position which their own scientific
consciences have compelled them practically to evacuate.
Recent authorities are almost unanimous in rejecting masturbation
as a cause of insanity. Thus, Rohleder, in his comprehensive
monograph (_Die Masturbation_, 1899, pp. 185-92), although taking
a very serious view of the evil results of masturbation, points
out the unanimity which is now tending to prevail on this point,
and lays it down that "masturbation is never the direct cause of
insanity." Sexual excesses of any kind, he adds (following
Curschmann), can, at the most, merely give an impetus to a latent
form of insanity. On the whole, he concludes, the best
authorities are unanimous in agreeing that masturbation may
certainly injure mental capacity, by weakening memory and
depressing intellectual energy; that, further, in hereditarily
neurotic subjects, it may produce slight psychoses like _folie du
doute_, hypochondria, hysteria; that, finally, under no
circumstances can it produce severe psychoses like paranoia or
general paralysis. "If it caused insanity, as often as some
claim," as Kellogg remarks, "the whole race would long since have
passed into masturbatic degeneracy of mind.... It is especially
injurious in the very young, and in all who have weak nervous
systems," but "the physical traits attributed to the habit are
common to thousands of neurasthenic and neurotic individuals."
(Kellogg, _A Text-book of Mental Diseases_, 1897, pp. 94-95.)
Again, at the outset of the article on "Masturbation," in Tuke's
_Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_, Yellowlees states that,
on account of the mischief formerly done by reckless statements,
it is necessary to state plainly that "unless the practice has
been long and greatly indulged, no permanent evil effects may be
observed to follow." Näcke, again, has declared ("Kritisches zum
Kapitel der Sexualität," _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, 1899): "There
are neither somatic nor psychic symptoms peculiar on onanism. Nor
is there any specific onanistic psychosis. I am prepared to deny
that onanism ever produces any psychoses in those who are not
already predisposed." That such a view is now becoming widely
prevalent is illustrated by the cautious and temperate discussion
of masturbation in a recent work by a non-medical writer,
Geoffrey Mortimer (_Chapters on Human Love_, pp. 199-205).
The testimony of expert witnesses with regard to the influence of
masturbation in producing other forms of psychoses and neuroses is
becoming equally decisive; and here, also, the traditions of Tissot are
being slowly effaced. "I have not, in the whole of my practice," wrote
West, forty years ago, "out of a large experience among children and
women, seen convulsions, epilepsy, or idiocy _induced_ by masturbation in
any child of either sex. Neither have I seen any instance in which
hysteria, epilepsy, or insanity in women after puberty was _due_ to
masturbation, as its efficient cause."[332] Gowers speaks somewhat less
positively, but regards masturbation as not so much a cause of true
epilepsy as of atypical attacks, sometimes of a character intermediate
between the hysteroid and the epileptoid form; this relationship he has
frequently seen in boys.[333] Leyden, among the causes of diseases of the
spinal cord, does not include any form of sexual excess. "In moderation,"
Erb remarks, "masturbation is not more dangerous to the spinal cord than
natural coitus, and has no bad effects";[334] it makes no difference, Erb
considers, whether the orgasm is effected normally or in solitude. This is
also the opinion of Toulouse, of Fürbringer, and of Curschmann, as at an
earlier period it was of Roubaud.
While these authorities are doubtless justified in refusing to ascribe to
masturbation any part in the production of psychic or nervous diseases, it
seems to me that they are going somewhat beyond their province when they
assert that masturbation has no more injurious effect than coitus. If
sexual coitus were a purely physiological phenomenon, this position would
be sound. But the sexual orgasm is normally bound up with a mass of
powerful emotions aroused by a person of the opposite sex. It is in the
joy caused by the play of these emotions, as well as in the discharge of
the sexual orgasm, that the satisfaction of coitus resides. In the absence
of the desired partner the orgasm, whatever relief it may give, must be
followed by a sense of dissatisfaction, perhaps of depression, even of
exhaustion, often of shame and remorse. The same remark has since been
made by Stanley Hall.[335] Practically, also, as John Hunter pointed out,
there is more probability of excess in masturbation than in coitus.
Whether, as some have asserted, masturbation involves a greater nervous
effort than coitus is more doubtful.[336] It thus seems somewhat
misleading to assert that masturbation has no more injurious effect than
coitus.[337]
Reviewing the general question of the supposed grave symptoms and signs
of masturbation, and its pernicious results, we may reach the conclusion
that in the case of moderate masturbation in healthy, well-born
individuals, no seriously pernicious results necessarily follow.[338] With
regard to the general signs, we may accept, as concerns both sexes, what
the Obstetrical and Gynecological Society of Berlin decided in 1861, in a
discussion of it in women, that there are none which can be regarded as
reliable.[339]
We may conclude finally, with Clouston, that the opposing views on the
subject may be simply explained by the fact that the writers on both sides
have ignored or insufficiently recognized the influence of heredity and
temperament. They have done precisely what so many unscientific writers on
inebriety have continued to do unto the present day, when describing the
terrible results of alcohol without pointing out that the chief factor in
such cases has not been the alcohol, but the organization on which the
alcohol acted. Excess may act, according to the familiar old-fashioned
adage, like the lighted match. But we must always remember the obvious
truth, that it makes a considerable difference whether you threw your
lighted match into a powder magazine or into the sea.
While we may thus dismiss the extravagant views widely held during the
past century, concerning the awful results of masturbation, as due to
ignorance and false tradition, it must be pointed out that, even in
healthy or moderately healthy individuals, any excess in solitary
self-excitement may still produce results which, though slight, are yet
harmful. The skin, digestion, and circulation may all be disordered;
headache and neuralgia may occur; and, as in normal sexual excess or in
undue frequency of sexual excitement during sleep, there is a certain
general lowering of nervous tone. Probably the most important of the
comparatively frequent results--though this also arises usually on a
somewhat morbid soil--is neurasthenia with its manifold symptoms. There
can be little doubt that the ancient belief, dating from the time of
Hippocrates, that sexual excesses produce spinal disease, as well as the
belief that masturbation causes insanity, are largely due to the failure
to diagnose neurasthenia.
The following case of neurasthenia, recorded by Eulenburg, may be
given as a classical picture of the nervous disturbances which
may be associated with masturbation, and are frequently regarded
as solely caused by habits of masturbation: Miss H.H., 28 years
of age, a robust brunette, with fully developed figure, without
any trace of anæmia or chlorosis, but with an apathetic
expression, bluish rings around the eyes, with hypochondriacal
and melancholy feelings. She complains of pressure on the head
("as if head would burst"), giddiness, ringing in the ears,
photopsia, hemicrania, pains in the back and at sacrum, and
symptoms of spinal adynamia, with a sense of fatigue on the least
exertion in walking or standing; she sways when standing with
closed eyes, tendon-reflexes exaggerated; there is a sense of
oppression, intercostal neuralgia, and all the signs of
neurasthenic dyspepsia; and cardialgia, nausea, flatulence,
meteorism, and alternate constipation and diarrhoea. She chiefly
complains of a feeling of weight and pain in the abdomen, caused
by the slightest movement, and of a form of pollution (with
clitoridian spasms), especially near menstruation, with copious
flow of mucus, characteristic pains, and hyperexcitability.
Menstruation was irregular and profuse. Examination showed tumid
and elongated nymphæ, with brown pigmentation; rather large
vagina, with rudimentary hymen; and retroflexion of uterus.
After much persuasion the patient confessed that, when a girl of
12, and as the result of repeated attempts at coitus by a boy of
16, she had been impelled to frequent masturbation. This had
caused great shame and remorse, which, however, had not sufficed
to restrain the habit. Her mother having died, she lived alone
with her invalid father, and had no one in whom to confide.
Regarding herself as no longer a virgin, she had refused several
offers of marriage, and thus still further aggravated her mental
condition. (Eulenburg, _Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 31.)
Since Beard first described neurasthenia, many diverse opinions
have been expressed concerning the relationships of sexual
irregularities to neurasthenia. Gilles de la Tourette, in his
little monograph on neurasthenia, following the traditions of
Charcot's school, dismisses the question of any sexual causation
without discussion. Binswanger (_Die Pathologie und Therapie der
Neurasthenie_), while admitting that nearly all neurasthenic
persons acknowledge masturbation at some period, considers it is
not an important cause of neurasthenia, only differing from
coitus by the fact that the opportunities for it are more
frequent, and that the sexual disturbances of neurasthenia are,
in the majority of cases, secondary. Rohleder, on the other hand,
who takes a very grave view of the importance of masturbation,
considers that its most serious results are a question of
neurasthenia. Krafft-Ebing has declared his opinion that
masturbation is a cause of neurasthenia. Christian, Leyden, Erb,
Rosenthal, Beard, Hummel, Hammond, Hermann Cohn, Curschmann,
Savill, Herman, Fürbringer, all attach chief importance to
neurasthenia as a result of masturbation. Collins and Phillip
(_Medical Record_, March 25, 1899), in an analysis of 333 cases
of neurasthenia, found that 123 cases were apparently due to
overwork or masturbation. Freud concludes that neurasthenia
proper can nearly always be traced to excessive masturbation, or
to spontaneous pollutions. (E.g., _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur
Neurosenlehre_, first series, p. 187.) This view is confirmed by
Gattel's careful study (_Ueber die Sexuellen Ursachen der
Neurasthenie und Angstneurose_, 1898). Gattel investigated 100
consecutive cases of severe functional nervous disorder in
Krafft-Ebing's clinic at Vienna, and found that in every case of
neurasthenia in a male (28 in all) there was masturbation, while
of the 15 women with neurasthenia, only one is recorded as not
masturbating, and she practiced _coitus reservatus_. Irrespective
of the particular form of the nervous disorder, Gattel found that
18 women out of 42, and 36 men out of 58, acknowledged
masturbation. (This shows a slightly larger proportion among the
men, but the men were mostly young, while the women were mostly
of more mature age.) It must, however, always be remembered that
we have no equally careful statistics of masturbation in
perfectly healthy persons. We must also remember that we have to
distinguish between the _post_ and the _propter_, and that it is
quite possible that neurasthenic persons are specially
predisposed to masturbation. Bloch is of this opinion, and
remarks that a vicious circle may thus be formed.
On the whole, there can be little doubt that neurasthenia is
liable to be associated with masturbation carried to an excessive
extent. But, while neurasthenia is probably the severest
affection that is liable to result from, or accompany,
masturbation, we are scarcely yet entitled to accept the
conclusion of Gattel that in such cases there is no hereditary
neurotic predisposition. We must steer clearly between the
opposite errors of those, on the one hand, who assert that
heredity is the sole cause of functional nervous disorders, and
those, on the other hand, who consider that the incident that may
call out the disorder is itself a sole sufficient cause.
In many cases it has seemed to me that masturbation, when practiced in
excess, especially if begun before the age of puberty, leads to inaptitude
for coitus, as well as to indifference to it, and sometimes to undue
sexual irritability, involving premature emission and practical impotence.
This is, however, the exception, especially if the practice has not been
begun until after puberty. In women I attach considerable importance, as a
result of masturbation, to an aversion for normal coitus in later life. In
such cases some peripheral irritation or abnormal mental stimulus trains
the physical sexual orgasm to respond to an appeal which has nothing
whatever to do with the fascination normally exerted by the opposite sex.
At puberty, however, the claim of passion and the real charm of sex begin
to make themselves felt, but, owing to the physical sexual feelings having
been trained into a foreign channel, these new and more normal sex
associations remain of a purely ideal and emotional character, without the
strong sensual impulses with which under healthy conditions they tend to
be more and more associated as puberty passes on into adolescence or
mature adult life. I am fairly certain that in many women, often highly
intellectual women, the precocious excess in masturbation has been a main
cause, not necessarily the sole efficient cause, in producing a divorce in
later life between the physical sensuous impulses and the ideal emotions.
The sensuous impulse having been evolved and perverted before the
manifestation of the higher emotion, the two groups of feelings have
become divorced for the whole of life. This is a common source of much
personal misery and family unhappiness, though at the same time the clash
of contending impulses may lead to a high development of moral character.
When early masturbation is a factor in producing sexual inversion it
usually operates in the manner I have here indicated, the repulsion for
normal coitus helping to furnish a soil on which the inverted impulse may
develop unimpeded.
This point has not wholly escaped previous observers, though they
do not seem to have noted its psychological mechanism. Tissot
stated that masturbation causes an aversion to marriage. More
recently, Loiman ("Ueber Onanismus beim Weibe," _Therapeutische
Monatshefte_, April, 1890) considered that masturbation in women,
leading to a perversion of sexual feeling, including inability to
find satisfaction in coitus, affects the associated centres.
Smith Baker, again ("The Neuropsychical Element in Conjugal
Aversion," _Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease_, September,
1892), finds that a "source of marital aversion seems to lie in
the fact that substitution of mechanical and iniquitous
excitations affords more thorough satisfaction than the mutual
legitimate ones do," and gives cases in point. Savill, also, who
believes that masturbation is more common in women than is
usually supposed, regards dyspareunia, or pain in coition, as one
of the signs of the habit.
Masturbation in women thus becomes, as Raymond and Janet point
out (_Les Obsessions_, vol. ii, p. 307) a frequent cause of
sexual frigidity in marriage. These authors illustrate the train
of evils which may thus be set up, by the case of a lady, 26
years of age, a normal woman, of healthy family, who, at the age
of 15, was taught by a servant to masturbate. At the age of 18
she married. She loved her husband, but she had no sexual
feelings in coitus, and she continued to masturbate, sometimes
several times a day, without evil consequences. At 24 she had to
go into a hospital for floating kidney, and was so obliged to
stop masturbating. She here accidentally learnt of the evil
results attributed to the habit. She resolved not to do it again,
and she kept her resolution. But while still in hospital she fell
wildly in love with a man. To escape from the constant thought of
this man, she sought relations with her husband, and at times
masturbated, but now it no longer gave her pleasure. She wished
to give up sexual things altogether. But that was easier said
than done. She became subject to nervous crises, often brought on
by the sight of a man, and accompanied by sexual excitement. They
disappeared under treatment, and she thereupon became entirely
frigid sexually. But, far from being happy, she has lost all
energy and interest in life, and it is her sole desire to attain
the sexual feelings she has lost. Adler considers that even when
masturbation in women becomes an overmastering passion, so far as
organic effects are concerned it is usually harmless, its effects
being primarily psychic, and he attaches especial significance to
it as a cause of sexual anæsthesia in normal coitus, being,
perhaps, the most frequent cause of such anæsthesia. He devotes
an important chapter to this matter, and brings forward numerous
cases in illustration (Adler, _Die Mangelhafte
Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, pp. 93-119, also 21-23). Adler
considers that the frequency of masturbation in women is largely
due to the fact that women experience greater difficulties than
men in obtaining sexual satisfaction, and so are impelled by
unsatisfying coitus to continue masturbation after marriage. He
adds that partly from natural shyness, partly from shame of
acknowledging what is commonly accounted a sin, and partly from
the fear of seeming disgusting or unworthy of sympathy in the
doctor's eyes, women are usually silent on this matter, and very
great tact and patience may be necessary before a confession is
obtained.
On the psychic side, no doubt, the most frequent and the most
characteristic result of persistent and excessive masturbation is a morbid
heightening of self-consciousness without any co-ordinated heightening of
self-esteem.[340] The man or woman who is kissed by a desirable and
desired person of the opposite sex feels a satisfying sense of pride and
elation, which must always be absent from the manifestations of
auto-erotic activity.[341] This must be so, even apart from the
masturbator's consciousness of the general social attitude toward his
practices and his dread of detection, for that may also exist as regards
normal coitus without any corresponding psychic effects. The masturbator,
if his practice is habitual, is thus compelled to cultivate an artificial
consciousness of self-esteem, and may show a tendency to mental arrogance.
Self-righteousness and religiosity constitute, as it were, a protection
against the tendency to remorse. A morbid mental soil is, of course,
required for the full development of these characteristics. The habitual
male masturbator, it must be remembered, is often a shy and solitary
person; individuals of this temperament are especially predisposed to
excesses in all the manifestations of auto-erotism, while the yielding to
such tendencies increases the reserve and the horror of society, at the
same time producing a certain suspicion of others. In some extreme cases
there is, no doubt, as Kraepelin believes, some decrease of psychic
capacity, an inability to grasp and co-ordinate external impressions,
weakness of memory, deadening of emotions, or else the general phenomena
of increased irritability, leading on to neurasthenia.
I find good reason to believe that in many cases the psychic influence of
masturbation on women is different from its effect on men. As Spitzka
observed, although it may sometimes render women self-reproachful and
hesitant, it often seems to make them bold. Boys, as we have seen, early
assimilate the tradition that self-abuse is "unmanly" and injurious, but
girls have seldom any corresponding tradition that it is "unwomanly," and
thus, whether or not they are reticent on the matter, before the forum of
their own conscience they are often less ashamed of it than men are and
less troubled by remorse.
Eulenburg considers that the comparative absence of bad effects
from masturbation in girls is largely due to the fact that,
unlike boys, they are not terrorized by exaggerated warnings and
quack literature concerning the awful results of the practice.
Forel, who has also remarked that women are often comparatively
little troubled by qualms of conscience after masturbation,
denies that this is due to a lower moral tone than men possess
(Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 247). In this connection, I may
refer to History IV, recorded in the Appendix to the fifth volume
of these _Studies_, in which it is stated that of 55 prostitutes
of various nationalities, with whom the subject had had
relations, 18 spontaneously told him that they were habitual
masturbators, while of 26 normal women, 13 made the same
confession, unasked. Guttceit, in Russia, after stating that
women of good constitution had told him that they masturbated as
much as six or ten times a day or night (until they fell asleep,
tired), without bad results, adds that, according to his
observations, "masturbation, when not excessive, is, on the
whole, a quite innocent matter, which exerts little or no
permanent effect," and adds that it never, in any case, leads to
_hypochondria onanica_ in women, because they have not been
taught to expect bad results (_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, p. 306).
There is, I think, some truth--though the exceptions are
doubtless many--in the distinction drawn by W.C. Krauss
("Masturbational Neuroses," _Medical News_, July 13, 1901): "From
my experience it [masturbation] seems to have an opposite effect
upon the two sexes, dulling the mental and making clumsy the
physical exertions of the male, while in the female it quickens
and excites the physical and psychical movements. The man is
rendered hypoesthetic, the woman hyperesthetic."
In either sex auto-erotic excesses during adolescence in young men and
women of intelligence--whatever absence of gross injury there may
be--still often produce a certain degree of psychic perversion, and tend
to foster false and high-strung ideals of life. Kraepelin refers to the
frequency of exalted enthusiasms in masturbators, and I have already
quoted Anstie's remarks on the connection between masturbation and
premature false work in literature and art. It may be added that excess in
masturbation has often occurred in men and women whose work in literature
and art cannot be described as premature and false. K.P. Moritz, in early
adult life, gave himself up to excess in masturbation, and up to the age
of thirty had no relations with women. Lenau is said--though the statement
is sometimes denied--to have been a masturbator from early life, the habit
profoundly effecting his life and work. Rousseau, in his _Confessions_,
admirably describes how his own solitary, timid, and imaginative life
found its chief sexual satisfaction in masturbation.[342] Gogol, the
great Russian novelist, masturbated to excess, and it has been suggested
that the dreamy melancholy thus induced was a factor in his success as a
novelist. Goethe, it has been asserted, at one time masturbated to excess;
I am not certain on what authority the statement is made, probably on a
passage in the seventh book of _Dichtung und Wahrheit_, in which,
describing his student-life at Leipzig, and his loss of Aennchen owing to
his neglect of her, he tells how he revenged that neglect on his own
physical nature by foolish practices from which he thinks he suffered for
a considerable period.[343] The great Scandinavian philosopher, Sören
Kierkegaard, suffered severely, according to Rasmussen, from excessive
masturbation. That, at the present day, eminence in art, literature, and
other fields may be combined with the excessive practice of masturbation
is a fact of which I have unquestionable evidence.
I have the detailed history of a man of 30, of high ability in a
scientific direction, who, except during periods of mental
strain, has practiced masturbation nightly (though seldom more
than once a night) from early childhood, without any traceable
evil results, so far as his general health and energy are
concerned. In another case, a schoolteacher, age 30, a hard
worker and accomplished musician, has masturbated every night,
sometimes more than once a night, ever since he was at school,
without, so far as he knows, any bad results; he has never had
connection with a woman, and seldom touches wine or tobacco.
Curschmann knew a young and able author who, from the age of 11
had masturbated excessively, but who retained physical and mental
freshness. It would be very easy to refer to other examples, and
I may remark that, as regards the histories recorded in various
volumes of these _Studies_, a notable proportion of those in
which excessive masturbation is admitted, are of persons of
eminent and recognized ability.
It is often possible to trace the precise mechanism of the relationship
between auto-erotic excitement and intellectual activity. Brown-Séquard,
in old age, considered that to induce a certain amount of sexual
excitement, not proceeding to emission, was an aid to mental work. Raymond
and Janet knew a man considering himself a poet, who, in order to attain
the excitation necessary to compose his ideal verses, would write with one
hand while with the other he caressed his penis, though not to the extent
of producing ejaculation.[344] We must not believe, however, that this is
by any means the method of workers who deserve to be accepted seriously;
it would be felt, to say the least, as unworthy. It is indeed a method
that would only appeal to a person of feeble or failing mental power. What
more usually happens is that the auto-erotic excitement develops, _pari
passu_ and spontaneously, with the mental activity and at the climax of
the latter the auto-erotic excitement also culminates, almost or even
quite spontaneously, in an explosion of detumescence which relieves the
mental tension. I am acquainted with such cases in both young men and
women of intellectual ability, and they probably occur much more
frequently than we usually suspect.
In illustration of the foregoing observations, I may quote the
following narrative, written by a man of letters: "From puberty
to the age of 30 (when I married), I lived in virgin continence,
in accord with my principle. During these years I worked
exceedingly hard--chiefly at art (music and poetry). My days
being spent earning my livelihood, these art studies fell into my
evening time. I noticed that productive power came in
periods--periods of irregular length, and which certainly, to a
partial extent, could be controlled by the will. Such a period of
vital power began usually with a sensation of melancholy, and it
quickened my normal revolt against the narrowness of conventional
life into a red-hot detestation of the paltriness and pettiness
with which so many mortals seem to content themselves. As the
mood grew in intensity, this scorn of the lower things mixed with
and gave place to a vivid insight into higher truths. The
oppression began to give place to a realization of the eternity
of the heroic things; the fatuities were seen as mere fashions;
love was seen as the true lord of life; the eternal romance was
evident in its glory; the naked strength and beauty of men were
known despite their clothes. In such mood my work was produced;
bitter protest and keen-sighted passion mingled in its building.
The arising vitality had certainly deep relation to the
periodicity of the sex-force of manhood. At the height of the
power of the art-creative mood would come those natural emissions
with which Nature calmly disposes of the unused force of the
male. Such emissions were natural and healthy, and not exhaustive
or hysterical. The process is undoubtedly sane and protective,
unless the subject be unhealthy. The period of creative art power
extended a little beyond the end of the period of natural seed
emission--the art work of this last stage being less vibrant, and
of a gentler force. Then followed a time of calm natural rest,
which gradually led up to the next sequence of melancholy and
power. The periods certainly varied in length of time, controlled
somewhat by the force of the mind and the mental will to create;
that is to say, I could somewhat delay the natural emission, by
which I gained an extension of the period of power."
How far masturbation in moderately healthy persons living without normal
sexual relationships may be considered normal is a difficult question only
to be decided with reference to individual cases. As a general rule, when
only practiced at rare intervals, and _faute de mieux_, in order to obtain
relief for physical oppression and mental obsession, it may be regarded as
the often inevitable result of the unnatural circumstances of our
civilized social life. When, as often happens in mental degeneracy,--and
as in shy and imaginative persons, perhaps of neurotic temperament, may
also sometimes become the case,--it is practiced in preference to sexual
relationships, it at once becomes abnormal and may possibly lead to a
variety of harmful results, mental and physical.[345]
It must always be remembered, however, that, while the practice of
masturbation may be harmful in its consequences, it is also, in the
absence of normal sexual relationships, frequently not without good
results. In the medical literature of the last hundred years a number of
cases have been incidentally recorded in which the patients found
masturbation beneficial, and such cases might certainly have been
enormously increased if there had been any open-eyed desire to discover
them. My own observations agree with those of Sudduth, who asserts that
"masturbation is, in the main, practiced for its sedative effect on the
nervous system. The relaxation that follows the act constitutes its real
attraction.... Both masturbation and sexual intercourse should be classed
as typical sedatives."[346]
Gall (_Fonctions du Cerveau_, 1825, vol. iii, p. 235) mentioned a
woman who was tormented by strong sexual desire, which she
satisfied by masturbation ten or twelve times a day; this caused
no bad results, and led to the immediate disappearance of a
severe pain in the back of the neck, from which she often
suffered. Clouston (_Mental Diseases_, 1887, p. 496) quotes as
follows from a letter written by a youth of 22: "I am sure I
cannot explain myself, nor give account of such conduct.
Sometimes I felt so uneasy at my work that I would go to the
water-closet to do it, and it seemed to give me ease, and then I
would work like a hatter for a whole week, till the sensation
overpowered me again. I have been the most filthy scoundrel in
existence," etc. Garnier presents the case of a monk, aged 33,
living a chaste life, who wrote the following account of his
experiences: "For the past three years, at least, I have felt,
every two or three weeks, a kind of fatigue in the penis, or,
rather, slight shooting pains, increasing during several days,
and then I feel a strong desire to expel the semen. When no
nocturnal pollution follows, the retention of the semen causes
general disturbance, headache, and sleeplessness. I must confess
that, occasionally, to free myself from the general and local
oppression, I lie on my stomach and obtain ejaculation. I am at
once relieved; a weight seems to be lifted from my chest, and
sleep returns." This patient consulted Gamier as to whether this
artificial relief was not more dangerous than the sufferings it
relieved. Gamier advised that if the ordinary _régime_ of a
well-ordered monastry, together with anaphrodisiac sedatives,
proved inefficacious, the manoeuvre might be continued when
necessary (P. Garnier, _Célibat et Célibataires_, 1887, p. 320).
H.C. Coe (_American Journal of Obstetrics_, p. 766, July, 1889)
gives the case of a married lady who was deeply sensitive of the
wrong nature of masturbation, but found in it the only means of
relieving the severe ovarian pain, associated with intense sexual
excitement, which attended menstruation. During the
intermenstrual period the temptation was absent. Turnbull knew a
youth who found that masturbation gave great relief to feelings
of heaviness and confusion which came on him periodically; and
Wigglesworth has frequently seen masturbation after epileptic
fits in patients who never masturbated at other times. Moll
(_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, p. 13) refers to a woman of 28, an
artist of nervous and excitable temperament, who could not find
sexual satisfaction with her lover, but only when masturbating,
which she did once or twice a day, or oftener; without
masturbation, she said, she would be in a much more nervous
state. A friend tells me of a married lady of 40, separated from
her husband on account of incompatibility, who suffered from
irregular menstruation; she tried masturbation, and, in her own
words, "became normal again;" she had never masturbated
previously. I have also been informed of the case of a young
unmarried woman, intellectual, athletic, and well developed, who,
from the age of seven or eight, has masturbated nearly every
night before going to sleep, and would be restless and unable to
sleep if she did not.
Judging from my own observations among both sexes, I should say that in
normal persons, well past the age of puberty, and otherwise leading a
chaste life, masturbation would be little practiced except for the
physical and mental relief it brings. Many vigorous and healthy unmarried
women or married women apart from their husbands, living a life of sexual
abstinence, have asserted emphatically that only by sexually exciting
themselves, at intervals, could they escape from a condition of nervous
oppression and sexual obsession which they felt to be a state of hysteria.
In most cases this happens about the menstrual period, and, whether
accomplished as a purely physical act--in the same way as they would
soothe a baby to sleep by rocking it or patting it--or by the co-operation
of voluptuous mental imagery, the practice is not cultivated for its own
sake during the rest of the month.
In illustration of the foregoing statements I will here record a
few typical observations of experiences with regard to
masturbation. The cases selected are all women, and are all in a
fairly normal, and, for the most part, excellent, state of
health; some of them, however, belong to somewhat neurotic
families, and these are persons of unusual mental ability and
intelligence.
OBSERVATION I.--Unmarried, aged 38. She is very vigorous and
healthy, of a strongly passionate nature, but never masturbated
until a few years ago, when she was made love to by a man who
used to kiss her, etc. Although she did not respond to these
advances, she was thrown into a state of restless sexual
excitement; on one occasion, when in bed in this restless state,
she accidentally found, on passing her hand over her body, that,
by playing with "a round thing" [clitoris] a pleasurable feeling
was produced. She found herself greatly relieved and quieted by
these manipulations, though there remained a feeling of tiredness
afterward. She has sometimes masturbated six times in a night,
especially before and after the menstrual period, until she was
unable to produce the orgasm or any feeling of pleasure.
OBSERVATION II.--Unmarried, aged 45, of rather nervous
temperament. She has for many years been accustomed, usually
about a week before the appearance of the menses, to obtain
sexual relief by kicking out her legs when lying down. In this
way, she says, she obtains complete satisfaction. She never
touches herself. On the following day she frequently has pains
over the lower part of the abdomen, such pains being apparently
muscular and due to the exertion.
OBSERVATION III.--Aged 29, recently married, belonging to a
neurotic and morbid family, herself healthy, and living usually
in the country; vivacious, passionate, enthusiastic,
intellectual, and taking a prominent part in philanthropic
schemes and municipal affairs; at the same time, fond of society,
and very attractive to men. For many years she had been
accustomed to excite herself, though she felt it was not good for
her. The habit was merely practiced _faute de mieux_. "I used to
sit on the edge of the bed sometimes," she said, "and it came
over me so strongly that I simply couldn't resist it. I felt that
I should go mad, and I thought it was better to touch myself than
be insane.... I used to press my clitoris in.... It made me very
tired afterward--not like being with my husband." The confession
was made from a conviction of the importance of the subject, and
with the hope that some way might be found out of the
difficulties which so often beset women.
OBSERVATION IV.--Unmarried, aged 27; possesses much force of
character and high intelligence; is actively engaged in a
professional career. As a child of seven or eight she began to
experience what she describes as lightning-like sensations,
"mere, vague, uneasy feelings or momentary twitches, which took
place alike in the vulva or the vagina or the uterus, not
amounting to an orgasm and nothing like it." These sensations,
it should be added, have continued into adult life. "I always
experience them just before menstruation, and afterward for a few
days, and, occasionally, though it seems to me not so often,
during the period itself. I may have the sensation four or five
times during the day; it is not dependent at all upon external
impressions, or my own thoughts, and is sometimes absent for days
together. It is just one flash, as if you would snap your
fingers, and it is over."
As a child, she was, of course, quite unconscious that there was
anything sexual in these sensations. They were then usually
associated with various imaginary scenes. The one usually
indulged in was that a black bear was waiting for her up in a
tree, and that she was slowly raised up toward the bear by means
of ropes and then lowered again, and raised, feeling afraid of
being caught by the bear, and yet having a morbid desire to be
caught. In after years she realized that there was a physical
sexual cause underlying these imaginations, and that what she
liked was a feeling of resistance to the bear giving rise to the
physical sensation.
At a somewhat later age, though while still a child, she
cherished an ideal passion for a person very much older than
herself, this passion absorbing her thoughts for a period of two
years, during which, however, there was no progress made in
physical sensation. It was when she was nearly thirteen years of
age, soon after the appearance of menstruation, and under the
influence of this ideal passion, that she first learned to
experience conscious orgasm, which was not associated with the
thought of any person. "I did not associate it with anything high
or beautiful, owing to the fact that I had imbibed our current
ideas in regard to sexual feelings, and viewed them in a very
poor light indeed." She considers that her sexual feelings were
stronger at this period than at any other time in her life. She
could, however, often deny herself physical satisfaction for
weeks at a time, in order that she might not feel unworthy of the
object of her ideal passion. "As for the sexual satisfaction,"
she writes, "it was experimental. I had heard older girls speak
of the pleasure of such feelings, but I was not taught anything
by example, or otherwise. I merely rubbed myself with the
wash-rag while bathing, waiting for a result, and having the same
peculiar feeling I had so often experienced. I am not aware of
any ill effects having resulted, but I felt degraded, and tried
hard to overcome the habit. No one had spoken to me of the habit,
but from the secrecy of grown people, and passages I had heard
from the Bible, I conceived the idea that it was a reprehensible
practice. And, while this did not curb my desire, it taught me
self-control, and I vowed that each time should be the last. I
was often able to keep the resolution for two or three weeks."
Some four years later she gradually succeeded in breaking herself
of the practice in so far as it had become a habit; she has,
however, acquired a fuller knowledge of sexual matters, and,
though she has still a great dread of masturbation as a vice, she
does not hesitate to relieve her physical feelings when it seems
best to her to do so. "I am usually able to direct my thoughts
from these sensations," she writes, "but if they seem to make me
irritable or wakeful, I relieve myself. It is a physical act,
unassociated with deep feeling of any kind. I have always felt
that it was a rather unpleasant compromise with my physical
nature, but certainly necessary in my case. Yet, I have abstained
from gratification for very long periods. If the feeling is not
strong at the menstrual period, I go on very well without either
the sensation or the gratification until the next period. And,
strange as it may seem, the best antidote I have found and the
best preventive is to think about spiritual things or someone
whom I love. It is simply a matter of training, I suppose,--a
sort of mental gymnastics,--which draws the attention away from
the physical feelings." This lady has never had any sexual
relationships, and, since she is ambitious, and believes that the
sexual emotions may be transformed so as to become a source of
motive power throughout the whole of life, she wishes to avoid
such relationships.
OBSERVATION V.--Unmarried, aged 31, in good health, with,
however, a somewhat hysterical excess of energy. "When I was
about 26 years of age," she writes, "a friend came to me with the
confession that for several years she had masturbated, and had
become such a slave to the habit that she severely suffered from
its ill effects. At that time I had never heard of self-abuse by
women. I listened to her story with much sympathy and interest,
but some skepticism, and determined to try experiments upon
myself, with the idea of getting to understand the matter in
order to assist my friend. After some manipulation, I succeeded
in awakening what had before been unconscious and unknown. I
purposely allowed the habit to grow upon me, and one night--for I
always operated upon myself before going to sleep, never in the
morning--I obtained considerable pleasurable satisfaction, but
the following day my conscience awoke; I also felt pain located
at the back of my head and down the spinal column. I ceased my
operations for a time, and then began again somewhat regularly,
once a month, a few days after menstruation. During those months
in which I exercised moderation, I think I obtained much local
relief with comparatively little injury, but, later on, finding
myself in robust health, I increased my experiments, the habit
grew upon me, and it was only with an almost superhuman effort
that I broke myself free. Needless to say that I gave no
assistance to my suffering friend, nor did I ever refer to the
subject after her confession to me.
"Some two years later I heard of sexual practices between women
as a frequent habit in certain quarters. I again interested
myself in masturbation, for I had been told something that led me
to believe that there was much more for me to discover. Not
knowing the most elementary physiology, I questioned some of my
friends, and then commenced again. I restricted myself to relief
from local congestion and irritation by calling forth the
emission of mucus, rather than by seeking pleasure. At the same
time, I sought to discover what manipulation of the clitoris
would lead to. The habit grew upon me with startling rapidity,
and I became more or less its slave, but I suffered from no very
great ill effects until I started in search of more discoveries.
I found that I was a complete ignoramus as to the formation of a
woman's body, and by experiments upon myself sought to discover
the vagina. I continued my operations until I obtained an
entrance. I think the rough handling of myself during this final
stage disturbed my nervous system, and caused me considerable
pain and exhaustion at the back of my head, the spinal column,
the back of my eyes, and a general feeling of languor, etc.
"I could not bear to be the slave of a habit, and after much
suffering and efforts, which only led to falls to lower depths of
conscious failure, my better self rebelled, until, by a great
effort and much prayer, I kept myself pure for a whole week. This
partial recovery gave me hope, but then I again fell a victim to
the habit, much to my chagrin, and became hopeless of ever
retracing my steps toward my ideal of virtue. For some days I
lost energy, spirit, and hope; my nervous system appeared to be
ruined, but I did not really despair of victory in the end. I
thought of all the drunkards chained by their intemperate habits,
of inveterate smokers who could not exist without tobacco, and of
all the various methods by which men were slaves, and the longing
to be freed of what had, in my case, proved to be a painful and
unnecessary habit, increased daily until, after one night when I
struggled with myself for hours, I believed I had finally
succeeded.
"At times, when I reached a high degree of sexual excitement, I
felt that I was at least one step removed from those of morbid
and repressed sex, who had not the slightest suspicion of the
latent joys of womanhood within them. For a little while the
habit took the shape of an exalted passion, but I rapidly tired
it out by rough, thoughtless, and too impatient handling.
Revulsion set in with the pain of an exhausted and badly used
nervous system, and finding myself the slave of a passion, I
determined to endeavor to be its master.
"In conclusion, I should say that masturbation has proved itself
to be to me one of the blind turnings of my life's history, from
which I have gained much valuable experience."
The practice was, however, by no means thus dismissed. Some time
later the subject writes: "I have again restarted masturbation
for the relief of localized feelings. One morning I was engaged
in reading a very heavy volume which, for convenience sake, I
held in my lap, leaning back on my chair. I had become deep in
my study for an hour or so when I became aware of certain
feelings roused by the weight of the book. Being tempted to see
what would happen by such conduct, I shifted so that the edge of
the volume came in closer contact. The pleasurable feelings
increased, so I gave myself up to my emotions for some thirty
minutes.
"Notwithstanding the intense pleasure I enjoyed for so long a
period, I maintain that it is wiser to refrain, and, although I
admit in the same breath that, by gentle treatment, such pleasure
may be harmless to the general health, it does lead to a desire
for solitude, which is not conducive to a happy frame of mind.
There is an accompanying reticence of speech concerning the
pleasure, which, therefore, appears to be unnatural, like the
eating of stolen fruit. After such an event, one seems to require
to fly to the woods, and to listen to the song of the birds, so
as to shake off after-effects."
In a letter dated some months later, she writes: "I think I have
risen above the masturbation habit." In the same letter the
writer remarks: "If I had consciously abnormal or unsatisfied
appetites I would satisfy them in the easiest and least harmful
way."
Again, eighteen months later, she writes: "It is curious to note
that for months this habit is forgotten, but awakens sometimes to
self-assertion. If a feeling of pressure is felt in the head, and
a slight irritation elsewhere, and experience shows that the time
has come for pacification, exquisite pleasure can be enjoyed,
never more than twice a month, and sometimes less often."
OBSERVATION VI.--Unmarried, actively engaged in the practice of
her profession. Well-developed, feminine in contour, but boyish
in manner and movements; strong, though muscles small, and
healthy, with sound nervous system; never had anæmia. Thick brown
hair; pubic hair thick, and hair on toes and legs up to
umbilicus; it began to appear at the age of 10 (before pubic
hair) and continued until 18. A few stray hairs round nipples,
and much dark down on upper lip, as well as light down on arms
and hands. Hips, normal; nates, small; labia minora, large; and
clitoris, deeply hooded. Hymen thick, vagina, probably small.
Considerable pigmentation of parts. Menstruation began at 15, but
not regular till 17; is painless and scanty; the better the state
of health, the less it is. No change of sexual or other feelings
connected with it; it lasts one to three days.
"I believe," she writes, "my first experience of physical sex
sensations was when I was about 16, and in sleep. But I did not
then recognize it, and seldom, indeed, gave the subject of sex a
thought. I was a child far beyond the age of childhood. The
accompanying dreams were disagreeable, but I cannot remember what
they were about. It was not until I was nearly 19 that I knew the
sexual orgasm in my waking state. It surprised me completely,
but I knew that I had known it before in my sleep.
"The knowledge came one summer when I was leading a rather
isolated life, and my mind was far from sex subjects, being deep
in books, Carlyle, Ruskin, Huxley, Darwin, Scott, etc. I noticed
that when I got up in the morning I felt very hot and
uncomfortable. The clitoris and the parts around were swollen and
erect, and often tender and painful. I had no idea what it was,
but found I was unable to pass my water for an hour or two. One
day, when I was straining a little to pass water, the full orgasm
occurred. The next time it happened, I tried to check it by
holding myself firmly, of course, with the opposite result. I do
not know that I found it highly pleasurable, but it was a very
great relief. I allowed myself a good many experiments, to come
to a conclusion in the matter, and I thought about it. I was much
too shy to speak to any one, and thought it was probably a sin. I
tried not to do it, and not to think about it, saying to myself
that surely I was lord of my body. But I found that the matter
was not entirely under my control. However unwilling or passive I
might be, there were times when the involuntary discomfort was
not in my keeping. My touching myself or not did not save me from
it. Because it sometimes gave me pleasure, I thought it might be
a form of self-indulgence, and did not do it until it could
scarcely be helped. Soon the orgasm began to occur fairly
frequently in my sleep, perhaps once or twice a week. I had no
erotic dreams, then or at any other time, but I had nights of
restless sleep, and woke as it occurred, dreaming that it was
happening, as, in fact, it was. At times I hardly awoke, but went
to sleep again in a moment. I continued for two or three years to
be sorely tried by day at frequent intervals. I acquired a
remarkable degree of control, so that, though one touch or
steadily directed thought would have caused the orgasm, I could
keep it off, and go to sleep without 'wrong doing.' Of course,
when I fell asleep, my control ended. All this gave me a good
deal of physical worry, and kept my attention unwillingly fixed
upon the matter. I do not think my body was readily irritable,
but I had unquestionably very strong sexual impulses.
"After a year or two, when I was working hard, I could not afford
the attention the control cost me, or the prolonged mitigated
sexual excitement it caused. I took drugs for a time, but they
lost effect, produced lassitude, and agreed with me badly. I
therefore put away my scruples and determined to try the effect
of giving myself an instant and business-like relief. Instead of
allowing my feelings to gather strength, I satisfied them out of
hand. Instead of five hours of heat and discomfort, I did not
allow myself five minutes, if I could help it.
"The effect was marvelous. I practically had no more trouble. The
thing rarely came to me at all by day, and though it continued at
times by night, it became less frequent and less strong; often it
did not wake me. The erotic images and speculations that had
begun to come to me died down. I left off being afraid of my
feelings, or, indeed, thinking about them. I may say that I had
decided that I should be obliged to lead a single life, and that
the less I thought about matters of sex, the more easy I should
find life. Later on I had religious ideas which helped me
considerably in my ideals of a decent, orderly, self-contained
life. I do not lay stress on these; they were not at all
emotional, and my physical and psychical development do not
appear to have run much on parallel lines. I had a strong moral
sense before I had a religious one, and a 'common-sense' which I
perhaps trusted more than either.
"When I was about 28 I thought I might perhaps leave off the
habit of regular relief I had got into. (It was not regular as
regards time, being anything from one day to six weeks.) The
change was probably made easier by a severe illness I had had. I
gave this abstinence a fair trial for several years (until I was
about 34), but my nocturnal manifestations certainly gathered
strength, especially when I got much better in health, and,
finally, as at puberty, began to worry my waking life. I reasoned
that by my attempt at abstinence I had only exchanged control for
uncontrol, and reverted to my old habits of relief, with the same
good results as before. The whole trouble subsided and I got
better at once. (The orgasm during sleep continued, and occurs
about once a fortnight; it is increased by change of air,
especially at the seaside, when it may occur on two or three
nights running.) I decided that, for the proper control of my
single life, relief was normal and right. It would be very
difficult for anyone to demonstrate the contrary to me. My aim
has always been to keep myself in the best condition of physical
and mental balance that a single person is capable of."
There is some interest in briefly reviewing the remarkable transformations
in the attitude toward masturbation from Greek times down to our own day.
The Greeks treated masturbation with little opprobrium. At the worst they
regarded it as unmanly, and Aristophanes, in various passages, connects
the practice with women, children, slaves, and feeble old men. Æschines
seems to have publicly brought it as a charge against Demosthenes that he
had practiced masturbation, though, on the other hand, Plutarch tells us
that Diogenes--described by Zeller, the historian of Greek philosophy, as
"the most typical figure of ancient Greece"--was praised by Chrysippus,
the famous philosopher, for masturbating in the market-place. The more
strenuous Romans, at all events as exemplified by Juvenal and Martial,
condemned masturbation more vigorously.[347] Aretæus, without alluding to
masturbation, dwells on the tonic effects of retaining the semen; but, on
the other hand, Galen regarded the retention of semen as injurious, and
advocated its frequent expulsion, a point of view which tended to justify
masturbation. In classical days, doubtless, masturbation and all other
forms of the auto-erotic impulse were comparatively rare. So much scope
was allowed in early adult age for homosexual and later for heterosexual
relationships that any excessive or morbid development of solitary
self-indulgence could seldom occur. The case was altered when Christian
ideals became prominent. Christian morality strongly proscribed sexual
relationships except under certain specified conditions. It is true that
Christianity discouraged all sexual manifestations, and that therefore its
ban fell equally on masturbation, but, obviously, masturbation lay at the
weakest line of defence against the assaults of the flesh; it was there
that resistance would most readily yield. Christianity thus probably led
to a considerable increase of masturbation. The attention which the
theologians devoted to its manifestations clearly bears witness to their
magnitude. It is noteworthy that Mohammedan theologians regarded
masturbation as a Christian vice. In Islam both doctrine and practice
tended to encourage sexual relationships, and not much attention was paid
to masturbation, nor even any severe reprobation directed against it. Omer
Haleby remarks that certain theologians of Islam are inclined to consider
the practice of masturbation in vogue among Christians as allowable to
devout Mussulmans when alone on a journey; he himself regards this as a
practice good neither for soul nor body (seminal emissions during sleep
providing all necessary relief); should, however, a Mussulman fall into
this error, God is merciful![348]
In Theodore's Penitential of the seventh century, forty days'
penance is prescribed for masturbation. Aquinas condemned
masturbation as worse than fornication, though less heinous than
other sexual offences against Nature; in opposition, also, to
those who believed that _distillatio_ usually takes place without
pleasure, he observed that it was often caused by sexual emotion,
and should, therefore, always be mentioned to the confessor.
Liguori also regarded masturbation as a graver sin than
fornication, and even said that _distillatio_, if voluntary and
with notable physical commotion, is without doubt a mortal sin,
for in such a case it is the beginning of a pollution. On the
other hand, some theologians have thought that _distillatio_ may
be permitted, even if there is some commotion, so long as it has
not been voluntarily procured, and Caramuel, who has been
described as a theological _enfant terrible_, declared that
"natural law does not forbid masturbation," but that proposition
was condemned by Innocent XI. The most enlightened modern
Catholic view is probably represented by Debreyne, who, after
remarking that he has known pious and intelligent persons who had
an irresistible impulse to masturbate, continues: "Must we
excuse, or condemn, these people? Neither the one nor the other.
If you condemn and repulse absolutely these persons as altogether
guilty, against their own convictions, you will perhaps throw
them into despair; if, on the contrary, you completely excuse
them, you maintain them in a disorder from which they may,
perhaps, never emerge. Adopt a wise middle course, and, perhaps,
with God's aid, you may often cure them."
Under certain circumstances some Catholic theologians have
permitted a married woman to masturbate. Thus, the Jesuit
theologian, Gury, asserts that the wife does not sin "_quæ se
ipsam tactibus excitat ad seminationem statim post copulam in quâ
vir solus seminavit_." This teaching seems to have been
misunderstood, since ethical and even medical writers have
expended a certain amount of moral indignation on the Church
whose theologians committed themselves to this statement. As a
matter of fact, this qualified permission to masturbate merely
rests on a false theory of procreation, which is clearly
expressed in the word _seminatio_. It was believed that
ejaculation in the woman is as necessary to fecundation as
ejaculation in the man. Galen, Avicenna, and Aquinas recognized,
indeed, that such feminine semination was not necessary; Sanchez,
however, was doubtful, while Suarez and Zacchia, following
Hippocrates, regarded it as necessary. As sexual intercourse
without fecundation is not approved by the Catholic Church, it
thus became logically necessary to permit women to masturbate
whenever the ejaculation of mucus had not occurred at or before
coitus.
The belief that the emission of vaginal mucus, under the
influence of sexual excitement in women, corresponded to
spermatic emission, has led to the practice of masturbation on
hygienic grounds. Garnier (_Célibat_, p. 255) mentions that
Mesué, in the eighteenth century, invented a special pessary to
take the place of the penis, and, as he stated, effect the due
expulsion of the feminine sperm.
Protestantism, no doubt, in the main accepted the general Catholic,
tradition, but the tendency of Protestantism, in reaction against the
minute inquisition of the earlier theologians, has always been to exercise
a certain degree of what it regarded as wholesome indifference toward the
less obvious manifestations of the flesh. Thus in Protestant countries
masturbation seems to have been almost ignored until Tissot, combining
with his reputation as a physician the fanaticism of a devout believer,
raised masturbation to the position of a colossal bogy which during a
hundred years has not only had an unfortunate influence on medical opinion
in these matters, but has been productive of incalculable harm to ignorant
youth and tender consciences. During the past forty years the efforts of
many distinguished physicians--a few of whose opinions I have already
quoted--have gradually dragged the bogy down from its pedestal, and now,
as I have ventured to suggest, there is a tendency for the reaction to be
excessive. There is even a tendency to-day to regard masturbation, with
various qualifications, as normal. Remy de Gourmont, for instance,
considers that masturbation is natural because it is the method by which
fishes procreate: "All things considered, it must be accepted that
masturbation is part of the doings of Nature. A different conclusion might
be agreeable, but in every ocean and under the reeds of every river,
myriads of beings would protest."[349] Tillier remarks that since
masturbation appears to be universal among the higher animals we are not
entitled to regard it as a vice; it has only been so considered because
studied exclusively by physicians under abnormal conditions.[350] Hirth,
while asserting that masturbation must be strongly repressed in the young,
regards it as a desirable method of relief for adults, and especially,
under some circumstances, for women.[351] Venturi, a well-known Italian
alienist, on the other hand, regards masturbation as strictly
physiological in youth; it is the normal and natural passage toward the
generous and healthy passion of early manhood; it only becomes abnormal
and vicious, he holds, when continued into adult life.
The appearance of masturbation at puberty, Venturi considers, "is
a moment in the course of the development of the function of that
organ which is the necessary instrument of sexuality." It finds
its motive in the satisfaction of an organic need having much
analogy with that which arises from the tickling of a very
sensitive cutaneous surface. In this masturbation of early
adolescence lies, according to Venturi, the germ of what will
later be love: a pleasure of the body and of the spirit,
following the relief of a satisfied need. "As the youth develops,
onanism becomes a sexual act comparable to coitus as a dream is
comparable to reality, imagery forming in correspondence with the
desires. In its fully developed form in adolescence," Venturi
continues, "masturbation has an almost hallucinatory character;
onanism at this period psychically approximates to the true
sexual act, and passes insensibly into it. If, however, continued
on into adult age, it becomes morbid, passing into erotic
fetichism; what in the inexperienced youth is the natural
auxiliary and stimulus to imagination, in the degenerate onanist
of adult age is a sign of arrested development. Thus, onanism,"
the author concludes, "is not always a vice such as is fiercely
combated by educators and moralists. It is the natural transition
by which we reach the warm and generous love of youth, and, in
natural succession to this, the tranquil, positive, matrimonial
love of the mature man." (Silvio Venturi, _Le Degenerazioni
Psico-sessuale_, 1892, pp. 6-9.)
It may be questioned whether this view is acceptable even for the
warm climate of the south of Europe, where the impulses of
sexuality are undoubtedly precocious. It is certainly not in
harmony with general experience and opinion in the north; this is
well expressed in the following passage by Edward Carpenter
(_International Journal of Ethics_, July, 1899): "After all,
purity (in the sense of continence) _is_ of the first importance
to boyhood. To prolong the period of continence in a boy's life
is to prolong the period of _growth_. This is a simple
physiological law, and a very obvious one; and, whatever other
things may be said in favor of purity, it remains, perhaps, the
most weighty. To introduce sensual and sexual habits--and one of
the worst of them is self-abuse--at an early age, is to arrest
growth, both physical and mental. And what is even more, it means
to arrest the capacity for affection. All experience shows that
the early outlet toward sex cheapens and weakens affectional
capacity."
I do not consider that we can decide the precise degree in which
masturbation may fairly be called normal so long as we take masturbation
by itself. We are thus, in conclusion, brought back to the point which I
sought to emphasize at the outset: masturbation belongs to a group of
auto-erotic phenomena. From one point of view it may be said that all
auto-erotic phenomena are unnatural, since the natural aim of the sexual
impulse is sexual conjunction, and all exercise of that impulse outside
such conjunction is away from the end of Nature. But we do not live in a
state of Nature which answers to such demands; all our life is
"unnatural." And as soon as we begin to restrain the free play of sexual
impulse toward sexual ends, at once auto-erotic phenomena inevitably
spring up on every side. There is no end to them; it is impossible to say
what finest elements in art, in morals, in civilization generally, may not
really be rooted in an auto-erotic impulse. "Without a certain overheating
of the sexual system," said Nietzsche, "we could not have a Raphael."
Auto-erotic phenomena are inevitable. It is our wisest course to recognize
this inevitableness of sexual and transmuted sexual manifestations under
the perpetual restraints of civilized life, and, while avoiding any
attitude of excessive indulgence or indifference,[352] to avoid also any
attitude of excessive horror, for our horror not only leads to the facts
being effectually veiled from our sight, but itself serves to manufacture
artificially a greater evil than that which we seek to combat.
The sexual impulse is not, as some have imagined, the sole root of the
most massive human emotions, the most brilliant human aptitudes,--of
sympathy, of art, of religion. In the complex human organism, where all
the parts are so many-fibred and so closely interwoven, no great
manifestation can be reduced to one single source. But it largely enters
into and molds all of these emotions and aptitudes, and that by virtue of
its two most peculiar characteristics: it is, in the first place, the
deepest and most volcanic of human impulses, and, in the second
place,--unlike the only other human impulse with which it can be compared,
the nutritive impulse,--it can, to a large extent, be transmuted into a
new force capable of the strangest and most various uses. So that in the
presence of all these manifestations we may assert that in a real sense,
though subtly mingled with very diverse elements, auto-erotism everywhere
plays its part. In the phenomena of auto-erotism, when we take a broad
view of those phenomena, we are concerned, not with a form of insanity,
not necessarily with a form of depravity, but with the inevitable
by-products of that mighty process on which the animal creation rests.
FOOTNOTES:
[289] For a bibliography of masturbation, see Rohleder, _Die
Masturbation_, pp. 11-18; also, Arthur MacDonald, _Le Criminel Type_, pp.
227 et seq.; cf. G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, pp. 432 _et seq._
[290] Oskar Berger, _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, Bd. 6, 1876.
[291] _Die Masturbation_, p. 41.
[292] Dukes, _Preservation of Health_, 1884, p. 150.
[293] G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 434.
[294] F.S. Brockman, "A Study of the Moral and Religious Life of Students
in the United States," _Pedagogical Seminary_, September, 1902. Many
pitiful narratives are reproduced.
[295] Moraglia, "Die Onanie beim normalen Weibe und bei den Prostituten,"
_Zeitschrift für Criminal-Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 489. It should be added
that Moraglia is not a very critical investigator. It is probable,
however, that on this point his results are an approximation to the truth.
[296] Ernst, "Anthropological Researches on the Population of Venezuela,"
_Memoirs of the Anthropological Society_, vol. iii, 1870, p. 277.
[297] Niceforo, _Il Gergo nei Normali_, etc., 1897, cap. V.
[298] Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, p. 64. Yet theologians and casuists,
Debreyne remarks, frequently never refer to masturbation in women.
[299] Stanley Hall, op. cit., vol. i, p. 34. Hall mentions, also, that
masturbation is specially common among the blind.
[300] Moraglia, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xvi, fasc. 4 and 5, p.
313.
[301] See his careful study, "Die Sexuellen Perversitäten in der
Irrenanstalt," _Psychiatrische Bladen_, No. 2. 1899.
[302] Venturi, _Degenerazioni Psico-sessuali_, pp. 105, 133, 148, 152.
[303] J.P. West, _Transactions of the Ohio Pediatric Society_, 1895.
_Abstract in Medical Standard_, November, 1895; cases are also recorded by
J.T. Winter, "Self-abuse in Infancy and Childhood," _American Journal
Obstetrics_, June, 1902.
[304] Freud, _Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, pp. 36 et seq.
[305] G.E. Shuttleworth, _British Medical Journal_, October 3, 1903.
[306] See for a detailed study of sexuality in childhood, Moll's valuable
book, _Das Sexualleben des Kindes_; cf. vol. vi of these _Studies_, Ch.
II.
[307] This is, no doubt, the most common opinion, and it is frequently
repeated in text-books. It is scarcely necessary, however, to point out
that only the opinions of those who have given special attention to the
matter can carry any weight. R.W. Shufeldt ("On a Case of Female
Impotency," pp. 5-7) quotes the opinions of various cautious observers as
to the difficulty of detecting masturbation in women.
[308] This latter opinion is confirmed by Näcke so far as the insane are
concerned. In a careful study of sexual perversity in a large asylum,
Näcke found that, while moderate masturbation could be more easily traced
among men than among women, excessive masturbation was more common among
women. And, while among the men masturbation was most frequent in the
lowest grades of mental development (idiocy and imbecility), and least
frequent in the highest grades (general paralysis), in the women it was
the reverse. (P. Näcke, "Die Sexuellen Perversitäten in der Irrenanstalt,"
_Psychiatrische en Neurologische Bladen_, No. 2, 1899.)
[309] Mammary masturbation sometimes occurs; see, e.g., Rohleder, _Die
Masturbation_ (pp. 32-33); it is, however, rare.
[310] Hirschsprung pointed out this, indeed, many years ago, on the ground
of his own experience. And see Rohleder, op. cit., pp. 44-47.
[311] In many cases, of course, the physical precocity is associated with
precocity in sexual habits. An instructive case is reported (_Alienist and
Neurologist_, October, 1895) of a girl of 7, a beautiful child, of healthy
family, and very intelligent, who, from the age of three, was perpetually
masturbating, when not watched. The clitoris and mons veneris were those
of a fully-grown woman, and the child was as well informed upon most
subjects as an average woman. She was cured by care and hygienic
attention, and when seen last was in excellent condition. A medical friend
tells me of a little girl of two, whose external genital organs are
greatly developed, and who is always rubbing herself.
[312] R.T. Morris, of New York, has also pointed out the influence of
traditions in this respect. "Among boys," he remarks, "there are
traditions to the effect that self-abuse is harmful. Among girls, however,
there are no such saving traditions." Dr. Kiernan writes in a private
letter: "It has been by experience, that from ignorance or otherwise,
there are young women who do not look upon sexual manipulation with the
same fear that men do." Guttceit, similarly, remarks that men have been
warned of masturbation, and fear its evil results, while girls, even if
warned, attach little importance to the warning; he adds that in healthy
women, masturbation, even in excess, has little bad results. The attitude
of many women in this matter may be illustrated by the following passage
from a letter written by a medical friend in India: "The other day one of
my English women patients gave me the following reason for having taught
the 17-year-old daughter of a retired Colonel to masturbate: 'Poor girl,
she was troubled with dreams of men, and in case she should be tempted
with one, and become pregnant, I taught her to bring the feeling on
herself--as it is safer, and, after all, nearly as nice as with a man.'"
[313] H. Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, volume ii, "Sexual
Inversion," Chapter IV.
[314] See, also, the Appendix to the third volume of these _Studies_, in
which I have brought forward sexual histories of normal persons.
[315] E.H. Smith, also, states that from 25 to 35 is the age when most
women come under the physician's eye with manifest and pronounced habits
of masturbation.
[316] It may, however, be instructive to observe that at the end of the
volume we find an advertisement of "Dr. Robinson's Treatise on the Virtues
and Efficacy of a Crust of Bread, Eat Early in the Morning Fasting."
[317] Pouillet alone enumerates and apparently accepts considerably over
one hundred different morbid conditions as signs and results of
masturbation.
[318] "Augenkrankheiten bei Masturbanten," Knapp-Schweigger's _Archiv für
Augenheitkunde_, Bd. II, 1882, p. 198.
[319] Salmo Cohn, _Uterus und Auge_, 1890, pp. 63-66.
[320] _Fonctions du Cerveau_, 1825, vol. iii, p. 337.
[321] W. Ellis, _Treatise on Insanity_, 1838, pp. 335, 340.
[322] Clara Barrus, "Insanity in Young Women," _Journal of Nervous and
Mental Disease_, June, 1896.
[323] See, for instance, H. Emminghaus, "Die Psychosen des Kindesalters,"
Gerlandt's _Handbuch der Kinder-Krankheiten_, Nachtrag II, pp. 61-63.
[324] Christian, article "Onanisme," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des
Sciences Médicales_.
[325] Näcke, _Verbrechen und Wahnsinn beim Weibe_, 1894, p. 57.
[326] J.L.A. Koch, _Die Psychopathischen Minderwertigkeiten_, 1892, p. 273
et seq.
[327] J.G. Kiernan, _American Journal of Insanity_, July, 1877.
[328] Maudsley dealt, in his vigorous, picturesque manner, with the more
extreme morbid mental conditions sometimes found associated with
masturbation, in "Illustrations of a Variety of Insanity," _Journal of
Mental Science_, July, 1868.
[329] See, e.g., Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, 2d. ed., Ch.
VIII.
[330] Marro, _La Pubertà_, Turin, 1898, p. 174.
[331] E.C. Spitzka, "Cases of Masturbation," _Journal of Mental Science_,
July, 1888.
[332] Charles West, _Lancet_, November 17, 1866.
[333] Gowers, _Epilepsy_, 1881, p. 31. Löwenfeld believes that epileptic
attacks are certainly caused by masturbation. Féré thought that both
epilepsy and hysteria may be caused by masturbation.
[334] Ziemssen's _Handbuch_, Bd. XI.
[335] _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 441.
[336] See a discussion of these points by Rohleder, _Die Masturbation_,
pp. 168-175.
[337] The surgeons, it may be remarked, have especially stated the
harmlessness of masturbation in too absolute a manner. Thus, John Hunter
(_Treatise on the Venereal Disease_, 1786, p. 200), after pointing out
that "the books on this subject have done more harm than good," adds, "I
think I may affirm that this act does less harm to the constitution in
general than the natural." And Sir James Paget, in his lecture on "Sexual
Hypochondriasis," said: "Masturbation does neither more nor less harm than
sexual intercourse practiced with the same frequency, in the same
conditions of general health and age and circumstances."
[338] It is interesting to note that an analogous result seems to hold
with animals. Among highly-bred horses excessive masturbation is liable to
occur with injurious results. It is scarcely necessary to point out that
highly-bred horses are apt to be abnormal.
[339] With regard to the physical signs, the same conclusion is reached by
Legludic (in opposition to Martineau) on the basis of a large experience.
He has repeatedly found, in young girls who acknowledged frequent
masturbation, that the organs were perfectly healthy and normal, and his
convictions are the more noteworthy, since he speaks as a pupil of
Tardieu, who attached very grave significance to the local signs of sexual
perversity and excess. (Legludic, _Notes et Observations de Médecine
Légale_, 1896, p. 95.) Matthews Duncan (_Goulstonian Lectures on Sterility
in Women_, 1884, p. 97) was often struck by the smallness, and even
imperfect development, of the external genitals of women who masturbate.
Clara Barrus considers that there is no necessary connection between
hypertrophy of the external female genital organs and masturbation, though
in six cases of prolonged masturbation she found such a condition in three
(_American Journal of Insanity_, April, 1895, p. 479). Bachterew denies
that masturbation produces enlargement of the penis, and Hammond considers
there is no evidence to show that it enlarges the clitoris, while Guttceit
states that it does not enlarge the nymphæ; this, however, is doubtful. It
would not suffice in many cases to show that large sexual organs are
correlated with masturbation; it would still be necessary to show whether
the size of the organs stood to masturbation in the relation of effect or
of cause.
[340] Thus, Bechterew ("La Phobie du Regard," _Archives de Neurologie_,
July, 1905) considers that masturbation plays a large part in producing
the morbid fear of the eyes of others.
[341] It is especially an undesirable tendency of masturbation, that it
deadens the need for affection, and merely eludes, instead of satisfying,
the sexual impulse. "Masturbation," as Godfrey well says (_The Science of
Sex_, p. 178), "though a manifestation of sexual activity, is not a sexual
act in the higher, or even in the real fundamental sense. For sex implies
duality, a characteristic to which masturbation can plainly lay no claim.
The physical, moral, and mental reciprocity which gives stability and
beauty to a normal sexual intimacy, are as foreign to the masturbator as
to the celibate. In a sense, therefore, masturbation is as complete a
negative of the sexual life as chastity itself. It is, therefore, an
evasion of, not an answer to, the sexual problem; and it will ever remain
so, no matter how surely we may be convinced of its physical
harmlessness."
[342] "I learnt that dangerous supplement," Rousseau tells us (Part I, Bk.
III), "which deceives Nature. This vice, which bashfulness and timidity
find so convenient, has, moreover, a great attraction for lively
imaginations, for it enables them to do what they will, so to speak, with
the whole fair sex, and to enjoy at pleasure the beauty who attracts them,
without having obtained her consent."
[343] "Ich hatte sie wirklich verloren, und die Tollheit, mit der ich
meinen Fehler an mir selbst rächte, indem ich auf mancherlei unsinnige
Weise in meine physische Natur sturmte, um der sittlichen etwas zu Leide
zu thun, hat sehr viel zu den körperlichen Uebeln beigetragen, unter denen
ich einige der besten Jahre meines Lebens verlor; ja ich wäre vielleicht
an diesem Verlust vollig zu Grunde gegangen, hätte sich hier nicht das
poetische Talent mit seinen Heilkraften besonders hülfreich erwiesen."
This is scarcely conclusive, and it may be added that there were many
reasons why Goethe should have suffered physically at this time, quite
apart from masturbation. See, e.g., Bielschowsky, _Life of Goethe_, vol.
i, p. 88.
[344] _Les Obsessions_, vol. ii, p. 136.
[345] A somewhat similar classification has already been made by Max
Dessoir, who points out that we must distinguish between onanists _aus
Noth_, and onanists _aus Leidenschaft_, the latter group alone being of
really serious importance. The classification of Dallemagne is also
somewhat similar; he distinguishes _onanie par impulsion_, occurring in
mental degeneration and in persons of inferior intelligence, from _onanie
par evocation ou obsession_.
[346] W. Xavier Sudduth, "A Study in the Psycho-physics of Masturbation,"
_Chicago Medical Recorder_, March, 1898. Haig, who reaches a similar
conclusion, has sought to find its precise mechanism in the
blood-pressure. "As the sexual act produces lower and falling
blood-pressure," he remarks, "it will of necessity relieve conditions
which are due to high and rising blood-pressure, such, for instance, as
mental depression and bad temper; and, unless my observation deceives me,
we have here a connection between conditions of high blood-pressure with
mental and bodily depression and acts of masturbation, for this act will
relieve these conditions and tend to be practiced for this purpose."
(_Uric Acid_, 6th edition, p. 154.)
[347] Northcote discusses the classic attitude towards masturbation,
_Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 233.
[348] _El Ktab_, traduction de Paul de Régla, Paris, 1893.
[349] Remy de Gourmont, _Physique de l'Amour_, p. 133.
[350] Tillier, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, Paris, 1889, p. 270.
[351] G. Hirth, _Wege zur Heimat_, p. 648.
[352] Féré, in the course of his valuable work, _L'Instinct Sexuel_,
stated that my conclusion is that masturbation is normal, and that
"_l'indulgence s'impose_." I had, however, already guarded myself against
this misinterpretation.
APPENDIX A.
THE INFLUENCE OF MENSTRUATION ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN.
A question of historical psychology which, so far as I know, has never
been fully investigated is the influence of menstruation in constituting
the emotional atmosphere through which men habitually view women.[353] I
do not purpose to deal fully with this question, because it is one which
may be more properly dealt with at length by the student of culture and by
the historian, rather than from the standpoint of empirical psychology. It
is, moreover, a question full of complexities in regard to which it is
impossible to speak with certainty. But we here strike on a factor of such
importance, such neglected importance, for the proper understanding of the
sexual relations of men and women, that it cannot be wholly ignored.
Among the negroes of Surinam a woman must live in solitude during the time
of her period; it is dangerous for any man or woman to approach her, and
when she sees a person coming near she cries out anxiously: "_Mi kay! Mi
kay!_"--I am unclean! I am unclean! Throughout the world we find traces of
the custom of which this is a typical example, but we must not too hastily
assume that this custom is evidence of the inferior position occupied by
semi-civilized women. It is necessary to take a broad view, not only of
the beliefs of semi-civilized man regarding menstruation, but of his
general beliefs regarding the supernatural forces of the world.
There is no fragment of folk-lore so familiar to the European world as
that which connects woman with the serpent. It is, indeed, one of the
foundation stones of Christian theology.[354] Yet there is no fragment of
folk-lore which remains more obscure. How has it happened that in all
parts of the world the snake or his congeners, the lizard and the
crocodile, have been credited with some design, sinister or erotic, on
women?
Of the wide prevalence of the belief there can be no doubt. Among the Port
Lincoln tribe of South Australia a lizard is said to have divided man from
woman.[355] Among the Chiriguanos of Bolivia, on the appearance of
menstruation, old women ran about with sticks to hunt the snake that had
wounded the girl. Frazer, who quotes this example from the "_Lettres
édifiantes et curieuses_," also refers to a modern Greek folk-tale,
according to which a princess at puberty must not let the sun shine upon
her, or she would be turned into a lizard.[356] The lizard was a sexual
symbol among the Mexicans. In some parts of Brazil at the onset of puberty
a girl must not go into the woods for fear of the amorous attacks of
snakes, and so it is also among the Macusi Indians of British Guiana,
according to Schomburgk. Among the Basutos of South Africa the young girls
must dance around the clay image of a snake. In Polynesian mythology the
lizard is a very sacred animal, and legends represent women as often
giving birth to lizards.[357] At a widely remote spot, in Bengal, if you
dream of a snake a child will be born to you, reports Sarat Chandra
Mitra.[358] In the Berlin Museum für Volkerkunde there is a carved wooden
figure from New Guinea of a woman into whose vulva a crocodile is
inserting its snout, while the same museum contains another figure of a
snake-like crocodile crawling out of a woman's vulva, and a third figure
shows a small round snake with a small head, and closely resembling a
penis, at the mouth of the vagina. All these figures are reproduced by
Ploss and Bartels. Even in modern Europe the same ideas prevail. In
Portugal, according to Reys, it is believed that during menstruation women
are liable to be bitten by lizards, and to guard against this risk they
wear drawers during the period. In Germany, again, it was believed, up to
the eighteenth century at least, that the hair of a menstruating woman, if
buried, would turn into a snake. It may be added that in various parts of
the world virgin priestesses are dedicated to a snake-god and are married
to the god.[359] At Rome, it is interesting to note, the serpent was the
symbol of fecundation, and as such often figures at Pompeii as the _genius
patrisfamilias_, the generative power of the family.[360] In Rabbinical
tradition, also, the serpent is the symbol of sexual desire.
There can be no doubt that--as Ploss and Bartels, from whom some of these
examples have been taken, point out--in widely different parts of the
world menstruation is believed to have been originally caused by a snake,
and that this conception is frequently associated with an erotic and
mystic idea.[361] How the connection arose Ploss and Bartels are unable to
say. It can only be suggested that its shape and appearance, as well as
its venomous nature, may have contributed to the mystery everywhere
associated with the snake--a mystery itself fortified by the association
with women--to build up this world-wide belief regarding the origin of
menstruation.
This primitive theory of the origin of menstruation probably brings before
us in its earliest shape the special and intimate bond which has ever been
held to connect women, by virtue of the menstrual process, with the
natural or supernatural powers of the world. Everywhere menstruating women
are supposed to be possessed by spirits and charged with mysterious
forces. It is at this point that a serious misconception, due to ignorance
of primitive religious ideas, has constantly intruded. It is stated that
the menstruating woman is "unclean" and possessed by an evil spirit. As a
matter of fact, however, the savage rarely discriminates between bad and
good spirits. Every spirit may have either a beneficial or malignant
influence. An interesting instance of this is given in Colenso's _Maori
Lexicon_ as illustrated by the meaning of the Maori word _atua_.
The importance of recognizing the special sense in which the word
"unclean" is used in this connection was clearly pointed out by Robertson
Smith in the case of the Semites. "The Hebrew word _tame_ (unclean)," he
remarked, "is not the ordinary word for things physically foul; it is a
ritual term, and corresponds exactly to the idea of _taboo_. The ideas
'unclean' and 'holy' seem to us to stand in polar opposition to one
another, but it was not so with the Semites. Among the later Jews the Holy
Books 'defiled the hands' of the reader as contact with an impure thing
did; among Lucian's Syrians the dove was so holy that he who touched it
was unclean for a day; and the _taboo_ attaching to the swine was
explained by some, and beyond question correctly explained, in the same
way. Among the heathen Semites,[362] therefore, unclean animals, which it
was pollution to eat, were simply holy animals." Robertson Smith here
made no reference to menstruation, but he exactly described the primitive
attitude toward menstruation. Wellhausen, however, dealing with the early
Arabians, expressly mentions that in pre-Islamic days, "clean" and
"unclean" were used solely with reference to women in and out of the
menstrual state. At a later date Frazer developed this aspect of the
conception of taboo, and showed how it occurs among savage races
generally. He pointed out that the conceptions of holiness and pollution
not having yet been differentiated, women at childbirth and during
menstruation are on the same level as divine kings, chiefs, and priests,
and must observe the same rules of ceremonial purity. To seclude such
persons from the rest of the world, so that the dreaded spiritual danger
shall not spread, is the object of the taboo, which Frazer compares to "an
electrical insulator to preserve the spiritual force with which these
persons are charged from suffering or inflicting, harm by contact with the
outer world." After describing the phenomena (especially the prohibition
to touch the ground or see the sun) found among various races, Frazer
concludes: "The object of secluding women at menstruation is to neutralize
the dangerous influences which are supposed to emanate from them at such
times. The general effect of these rules is to keep the girl suspended, so
to say, between heaven and earth. Whether enveloped in her hammock and
slung up to the roof, as in South America, or elevated above the ground in
a dark and narrow cage, as in New Zealand, she may be considered to be out
of the way of doing mischief, since, being shut off both from the earth
and from the sun, she can poison neither of these great sources of life by
her deadly contagion. The precautions thus taken to isolate or insulate
the girl are dictated by regard for her own safety as well as for the
safety of others.... In short, the girl is viewed as charged with a
powerful force which, if not kept within bounds, may prove the destruction
both of the girl herself and of all with whom she comes in contact. To
repress this force within the limits necessary for the safety of all
concerned is the object of the taboos in question. The same explanation
applies to the observance of the same rules by divine kings and priests.
The uncleanliness, as it is called, of girls at puberty and the sanctity
of holy men do not, to the primitive mind, differ from each other. They
are only different manifestations of the same supernatural energy, which,
like energy in general, is in itself neither good nor bad, but becomes
beneficent or malignant according to its application."[363]
More recently this view of the matter has been further extended by the
distinguished French sociologist, Durkheim. Investigating the origins of
the prohibition of incest, and arguing that it proceeds from the custom of
exogamy (or marriage outside the clan), and that this rests on certain
ideas about blood, which, again, are traceable to totemism,--a theory
which we need not here discuss,--Durkheim is brought face to face with the
group of conceptions that now concern us. He insists on the extreme
ambiguity found in primitive culture concerning the notion of the divine,
and the close connection between aversion and veneration, and points out
that it is not only at puberty and each recurrence of the menstrual epoch
that women have aroused these emotions, but also at childbirth. "A
sentiment of religious horror," he continues, "which can reach such a
degree of intensity, which can be called forth by so many circumstances,
and reappears regularly every month to last for a week at least, cannot
fail to extend its influence beyond the periods to which it was originally
confined, and to affect the whole course of life. A being who must be
secluded or avoided for weeks, months, or years preserves something of the
characteristics to which the isolation was due, even outside those special
periods. And, in fact, in these communities, the separation of the sexes
is not merely intermittent; it has become chronic. The two elements of the
population live separately." Durkheim proceeds to argue that the origin of
the occult powers attributed to the feminine organism is to be found in
primitive ideas concerning blood. Not only menstrual blood but any kind of
blood is the object of such feelings among savage and barbarous peoples.
All sorts of precautions must be observed with regard to blood; in it
resides a divine principle, or as Romans, Jews, and Arabs believed, life
itself. The prohibition to drink wine, the blood of the grape, found among
some peoples, is traced to its resemblance to blood, and to its
sacrificial employment (as among the ancient Arabians and still in the
Christian sacrament) as a substitute for drinking blood. Throughout, blood
is generally taboo, and it taboos everything that comes in contact with
it. Now woman is chronically "the theatre of bloody manifestations," and
therefore she tends to become chronically taboo for the other members of
the community. "A more or less conscious anxiety, a certain religious
fear, cannot fail to enter into all the relations of her companions with
her, and that is why all such relations are reduced to a minimum.
Relations of a sexual character are specially excluded. In the first
place, such relations are so intimate that they are incompatible with the
sort of repulsion which the sexes must experience for each other; the
barrier between them does not permit of such a close union. In the second
place, the organs of the body here specially concerned are precisely the
source of the dreaded manifestations. Thus it is natural that the feelings
of aversion inspired by women attain their greatest intensity at this
point. Thus it is, also, that of all parts of the feminine organization it
is this region which is most severely shut out from commerce." So that,
while the primitive emotion is mainly one of veneration, and is allied to
that experienced for kings and priests, there is an element of fear in
such veneration, and what men fear is to some extent odious to them.[364]
These conceptions necessarily mingled at a very early period with men's
ideas of sexual intercourse with women and especially with menstruating
women. Contact with women, as Crawley shows by abundant illustration, is
dangerous. In any case, indeed, the same ideas being transferred to women
also, coitus produces weakness, and it prevents the acquisition of
supernatural powers. Thus, among the western tribes of Canada, Boas
states: "Only a youth who has never touched a woman, or a virgin, both
being called _te 'e 'its_, can become shamans. After having had sexual
intercourse men as well as women, become _t 'k-e 'el_, i.e., weak,
incapable of gaining supernatural powers. The faculty cannot be regained
by subsequent fasting and abstinence."[365] The mysterious effects of
sexual intercourse in general are intensified in the case of intercourse
with a menstruating woman. Thus the ancient Indian legislator declares
that "the wisdom, the energy, the strength, the sight, and the vitality of
a man who approaches a woman covered with menstrual excretions utterly
perish."[366] It will be seen that these ideas are impartially spread over
the most widely separated parts of the globe. They equally affected the
Christian Church, and the Penitentials ordained forty or fifty days
penance for sexual intercourse during menstruation.
Yet the twofold influence of the menstruating woman remains clear when we
review the whole group of influences which in this state she is supposed
to exert. She by no means acts only by paralyzing social activities and
destroying the powers of life, by causing flowers to fade, fruit to fall
from the trees, grains to lose their germinative power, and grafts to die.
She is not accurately summed up in the old lines:--
"Oh! menstruating woman, thou'rt a fiend
From whom all nature should be closely screened."
Her powers are also beneficial. A woman at this time, as Ælian expressed
it, is in regular communication with the starry bodies. Even at other
times a woman when led naked around the orchard protected it from
caterpillars, said Pliny, and this belief is acted upon (according to
Bastanzi) even in the Italy of to-day.[367] A garment stained with a
virgin's menstrual blood, it is said in Bavaria, is a certain safeguard
against cuts and stabs. It will also extinguish fire. It was valuable as a
love-philter; as a medicine its uses have been endless.[368] A sect of
Valentinians even attributed sacramental virtues to menstrual blood, and
partook of it as the blood of Christ. The Church soon, however, acquired a
horror of menstruating women; they were frequently not allowed to take the
sacrament or to enter sacred places, and it was sometimes thought best to
prohibit the presence of women altogether.[369] The Anglo-Saxon
Penitentials declared that menstruating women must not enter a church. It
appears to have been Gregory II who overturned this doctrine.
In our own time the slow disintegration of primitive animistic
conceptions, aided certainly by the degraded conception of sexual
phenomena taught by mediæval monks--for whom woman was "_templum
ædificatum super cloacam_"--has led to a disbelief in the more salutary
influences of the menstruating woman. A fairly widespread faith in her
pernicious influence alone survives. It may be traced even in practical
and commercial--one might add, medical--quarters. In the great
sugar-refineries in the North of France the regulations strictly forbid a
woman to enter the factory while the sugar is boiling or cooling, the
reason given being that, if a woman were to enter during her period, the
sugar would blacken. For the same reason--to turn to the East--no woman is
employed in the opium manufactory at Saigon, it being said that the opium
would turn and become bitter, while Annamite women say that it is very
difficult for them to prepare opium-pipes during the catamenial
period.[370] In India, again, when a native in charge of a limekiln which
had gone wrong, declared that one of the women workers must be
menstruating, all the women--Hindus, Mahometans, aboriginal Gonds,
etc.,--showed by their energetic denials that they understood this
superstition.[371]
In 1878 a member of the British Medical Association wrote to the _British
Medical Journal_, asking whether it was true that if a woman cured hams
while menstruating the hams would be spoiled. He had known this to happen
twice. Another medical man wrote that if so, what would happen to the
patients of menstruating lady doctors? A third wrote (in the _Journal_ for
April 27, 1878): "I thought the fact was so generally known to every
housewife and cook that meat would spoil if salted at the menstrual
period, that I am surprised to see so many letters on the subject in the
_Journal_. If I am not mistaken, the question was mooted many years ago in
the periodicals. It is undoubtedly the fact that meat will be tainted if
cured by women at the catamenial period. Whatever the rationale may be, I
can speak positively as to the fact."
It is probably the influence of these primitive ideas which has caused
surgeons and gynæcologists to dread operations during the catamenial
period. Such, at all events, is the opinion of a distinguished authority,
Dr. William Goodell, who wrote in 1891[372]: "I have learned to unlearn
the teaching that women must not be subjected to a surgical operation
during the monthly flux. Our forefathers, from time immemorial, have
thought and taught that the presence of a menstruating woman would pollute
solemn religious rites, would sour milk, spoil the fermentation in
wine-vats, and much other mischief in a general way. Influenced by hoary
tradition, modern physicians very generally postpone all operative
treatment until the flow has ceased. But why this delay, if time is
precious, and it enters as an important factor in the case? I have found
menstruation to be the very best time to curette away fungous vegetations
of the endometrium, for, being swollen then by the afflux of blood, they
are larger than at any other time, and can the more readily be removed.
There is, indeed, no surer way of checking or of stopping a metrorrhagia
than by curetting the womb during the very flow. While I do not select
this period for the removal of ovarian cysts, or for other abdominal work,
such as the extirpation of the ovaries, or a kidney, or breaking up
intestinal adhesions, etc., yet I have not hesitated to perform these
operations at such a time, and have never had reason to regret the course.
The only operations that I should dislike to perform during menstruation
would be those involving the womb itself."
It must be added to this that we still have to take into consideration not
merely the surviving influence of ancient primitive beliefs, but the
possible existence of actual nervous conditions during the menstrual
period, producing what may be described as an abnormal nervous tension. In
this way, we are doubtless concerned with a tissue of phenomena,
inextricably woven of folk-lore, autosuggestion, false observation, and
real mental and nervous abnormality. Laurent (loc. cit.) has brought
forward several cases which may illustrate this point. Thus, he speaks of
two young girls of about 16 and 17, slightly neuropathic, but without
definite hysterical symptoms, who, during the menstrual period, feel
themselves in a sort of electrical state, "with tingling and prickling
sensations and feelings of attraction or repulsion at the contact of
various objects." These girls believe their garments stick to their skin
during the periods; it was only with difficulty that they could remove
their slippers, though fitting easily; stockings had to be drawn off
violently by another person, and they had given up changing their chemises
during the period because the linen became so glued to the skin. An
orchestral performer on the double-bass informed Laurent that whenever he
left a tuned double-bass in his lodgings during his wife's period a
string snapped; consequently he always removed his instrument at this time
to a friend's house. He added that the same thing happened two years
earlier with a mistress, a _café-concert_ singer, who had, indeed, warned
him beforehand. A harpist also informed Laurent that she had been obliged
to give up her profession because during her periods several strings of
her harp, always the same strings, broke, especially when she was playing.
A friend of Laurent's, an official in Cochin China, also told him that the
strings of his violin often snapped during the menstrual periods of his
Annamite mistress, who informed him that Annamite women are familiar with
the phenomenon, and are careful not to play on their instruments at this
time. Two young ladies, both good violinists, also affirmed that ever
since their first menstruation they had noted a tendency for the strings
to snap at this period; one, a genuine artist, who often performed at
charity concerts, systematically refused to play at these times, and was
often embarrassed to find a pretext; the other, who admitted that she was
nervous and irritable at such times, had given up playing on account of
the trouble of changing the strings so frequently. Laurent also refers to
the frequency with which women break things during the menstrual periods,
and considers that this is not simply due to the awkwardness caused by
nervous exhaustion or hysterical tremors, but that there is spontaneous
breakage. Most usually it happens that a glass breaks when it is being
dried with a cloth; needles also break with unusual facility at this time;
clocks are stopped by merely placing the hand upon them.
I do not here attempt to estimate critically the validity of these alleged
manifestations (some of which may certainly be explained by the
unconscious muscular action which forms the basis of the phenomena of
table-turning and thought-reading); such a task may best be undertaken
through the minute study of isolated cases, and in this place I am merely
concerned with the general influence of the menstrual state in affecting
the social position of women, without reference to the analysis of the
elements that go to make up that influence.
There is only one further point to which attention may be called. I
allude to the way in which the more favorable side of the primitive
conception of the menstruating woman--as priestess, sibyl, prophetess, an
almost miraculous agent for good, an angel, the peculiar home of the
divine element--was slowly and continuously carried on side by side with
the less favorable view, through the beginnings of European civilization
until our own times. The actual physical phenomena of menstruation, with
the ideas of taboo associated with that state, sank into the background as
culture evolved; but, on the other hand, the ideas of the angelic position
and spiritual mission of women, based on the primitive conception of the
mystery associated with menstruation, still in some degree persisted.
It is evident, however, that, while, in one form or another, the more
favorable aspect of the primitive view of women's magic function has never
quite died out, the gradual decay and degradation of the primitive view
has, on the whole, involved a lower estimate of women's nature and
position. Woman has always been the witch; she was so even in ancient
Babylonia; but she has ceased to be the priestess. The early Teutons saw
"_sanctum aliquid et providum_" in women who, for the mediæval German
preacher, were only "_bestiæ bipedales_"; and Schopenhauer and even
Nietzsche have been more inclined to side with the preacher than with the
half-naked philosophers of Tacitus's day. But both views alike are but the
extremes of the same primitive conception; and the gradual evolution from
one extreme of the magical doctrine to the other was inevitable.
In an advanced civilization, as we see, these ideas having their ultimate
basis on the old story of the serpent, and on a special and mysterious
connection between the menstruating woman and the occult forces of magic,
tend to die out. The separation of the sexes they involve becomes
unnecessary. Living in greater community with men, women are seen to
possess something, it may well be, but less than before, of the
angel-devil of early theories. Menstruation is no longer a monstrific
state requiring spiritual taboo, but a normal physiological process, not
without its psychic influences on the woman herself and on those who live
with her.
FOOTNOTES:
[353] Several recent works, however, notably Frazer's _Golden Bough_ and
Crawley's _Mystic Rose_, throw light directly or indirectly on this
question.
[354] Robertson Smith points out that since snakes are the last noxious
animals which man is able to exterminate, they are the last to be
associated with demons. They were ultimately the only animals directly and
constantly associated with the Arabian _jinn_, or demon, and the serpent
of Eden was a demon, and not a temporary disguise of Satan (_Religion of
Semites_, pp. 129 and 442). Perhaps it was, in part, because the snake was
thus the last embodiment of demonic power that women were associated with
it, women being always connected with the most ancient religious beliefs.
[355] In the northern territory of the same colony menstruation is said to
be due to a bandicoot scratching the vagina and causing blood to flow
(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, p. 177, November, 1894). At
Glenelg, and near Portland, in Victoria, the head of a snake was inserted
into a virgin's vagina, when not considered large enough for intercourse
(Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, vol. ii, p. 319).
[356] Frazer, _Golden Bough_, vol. ii, p. 231. Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_,
p. 192) also brings together various cases of primitive peoples who
believe the bite of a snake to be the cause of menstruation.
[357] Meyners d'Estrez, "Etude ethnographique sur le lézard chez les
peuples malais et polynésiens," _L'Anthropologie_, 1892; see also, as
regards the lizard in Samoan folk-lore, _Globus_, vol. lxxiv, No. 16.
[358] _Journal Anthropological Society of Bombay_, 1890, p. 589.
[359] Boudin (_Etude Anthropologique: Culte du Serpent_, Paris, 1864, pp.
66-70) brings forward examples of this aspect of snake-worship.
[360] Attilio de Marchi, _Il Culto privato di Roma_, p. 74. The
association of the power of generation with a god in the form of a serpent
is, indeed, common; see, e.g. Sir W.M. Ramsay, _Cities of Phrygia_, vol.
i, p. 94.
[361] It is noteworthy that one of the names for the penis used by the
Swahili women of German East Africa, in a kind of private language of
their own, is "the snake" (Zache, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, p. 73,
1899). It may be added that Maeder ("Interprétation de Quelques Rêves,"
_Archives de Psychologie_, April, 1907) brings forward various items of
folk-lore showing the phallic significance of the serpent, as well as
evidence indicating that, in the dreams of women of to-day, the snake
sometimes has a sexual significance.
[362] W.R. Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, 1885, p. 307.
The point is elaborated in the same author's _Religion of Semites_, second
edition, Appendix on "Holiness, Uncleanness, and Taboo," pp. 446-54. See
also Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, second edition, pp.
167-77. Even to the early Arabians, Wellhausen remarks (p. 168), "clean"
meant "profane and allowed," while "unclean" meant "sacred and forbidden."
It was the same, as Jastrow remarks (_Religion of Babylonia_, p. 662),
among the Babylonian Semites.
[363] J.C. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, Chapter IV.
[364] E. Durkheim, "La Prohibition de l'Inceste et ses Origines," _L'Année
Sociologique_, Première Année, 1898, esp. pp. 44, 46-47, 48, 50-57.
Crawley (_Mystic Rose_, p. 212) opposes Durkheim's view as to the
significance of blood in relation to the attitude towards women.
[365] _British Association Report on North Western Tribes of Canada_,
1890, p. 581.
[366] _Laws of Manu_, iv, 41.
[367] Pliny, who, in Book VII, Chapter XIII, and Book XXVIII, Chapter
XXIII, of his _Natural History_, gives long lists of the various good and
evil influences attributed to menstruation, writes in the latter place:
"Hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightnings, even, will be scared
away by a woman uncovering her body while her monthly courses are upon
her. The same, too, with all other kinds of tempestuous weather; and out
at sea, a storm may be stilled by a woman uncovering her body merely, even
though not menstruating at the time. At any other time, also, if a woman
strips herself naked while she is menstruating, and walks round a field of
wheat, the caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin will fall from
off the ears of corn."
[368] See Bourke, _Scatologic Rites of all Nations_, 1891, pp. 217-219,
250 and 254; Ploss and Max Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i; H.L. Strack, _Der
Blutaberglaube in der Menschheit_, fourth edition, 1892, pp. 14-18. The
last mentioned refers to the efficacy frequently attributed to menstrual
blood in the Middle Ages in curing leprosy, and gives instances, occurring
even in Germany to-day, of girls who have administered drops of menstrual
blood in coffee to their sweethearts, to make sure of retaining their
affections.
[369] See, e.g., Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. iii, p. 115.
[370] Dr. L. Laurent gives these instances, "De Quelques Phenomènes
Mécaniques produits au moment de la Menstruation," _Annales des Sciences
Psychiques_, September and October, 1897.
[371] _Journal Anthropological Society of Bombay_, 1890, p. 403. Even the
glance of a menstruating woman is widely believed to have serious results.
See Tuchmann, "La Fascination," _Mélasine_, 1888, pp. 347 _et seq._
[372] As quoted in the _Provincial Medical Journal_, April, 1891.
APPENDIX B.
SEXUAL PERIODICITY IN MEN.
BY F.H. PERRY-COSTE, B. Sc. (LOND.).
In a recent _brochure_ on the "Rhythm of the Pulse"[373] I showed _inter
alia_ that the readings of the pulse, in both man and woman, if arranged
in lunar monthly periods, and averaged over several years, displayed a
clear, and sometimes very strongly marked and symmetrical, rhythm.[374]
After pointing out that, in at any rate some cases, the male and female
pulse-curves, both monthly and annual, seemed to be converse to one
another, I added: "It is difficult to ignore the suggestion that in this
tracing of the monthly rhythm of the pulse we have a history of the
monthly function in women; and that, if so, the tracing of the male pulse
may eventually afford us some help in discovering a corresponding monthly
period in men: the existence of which has been suggested by Mr. Havelock
Ellis and Professor Stanley Hall, among other writers. Certainly the mere
fact that we can trace a clear monthly rhythm in man's pulse seems to
point strongly to the existence of a monthly physiological period in him
also."
Obviously, however, it is only indirectly and by inference that we can
argue from a monthly rhythm of the pulse in men to a male sexual
periodicity; but I am now able to adduce more direct evidence that will
fairly demonstrate the existence of a sexual periodicity in men.
We will start from the fact that celibacy is profoundly unnatural,
and is, therefore, a physical--as well as an emotional and
intellectual--abnormality. This being so, it is entirety in accord with
all that we know of physiology that, when relief to the sexual secretory
system by Nature's means is denied, and when, in consequence, a certain
degree of tension or pressure has been attained, the system should relieve
itself by a spontaneous discharge--such discharge being, of course, in the
strict sense of the term, pathological, since it would never occur in any
animal that followed the strict law of its physical being without any
regard to other and higher laws of concern for its fellows.
Notoriously, that which we should have anticipated _a priori_ actually
occurs; for any unmarried man, who lives in strict chastity, periodically
experiences, while sleeping, a loss of seminal fluid--such phenomena being
popularly referred to as _wet dreams_.[375]
During some eight or ten years I have carefully recorded the occurrence of
such discharges as I have experienced myself, and I have now accumulated
sufficient data to justify an attempt to formulate some provisional
conclusions.[376]
In order to render these observations as serviceable as may be to students
of periodicity, I here repeat (at the request of Mr. Havelock Ellis) the
statement which was subjoined, for the same reasons, to my "Rhythm of the
Pulse." These observations upon myself were made between the ages of 20
and 33. I am about 5 feet, 9 inches tall, broad-shouldered, and weigh
about 10 stone 3 lbs. _net_--this weight being, I believe, about 7 lbs.
below the normal for my height. Also I have green-brown eyes, very
dark-brown hair, and a complexion that leads strangers frequently to
mistake me for a foreigner--this complexion being, perhaps, attributable
to some Huguenot blood, although on the maternal side I am, so far as all
information goes, pure English. I can stand a good deal of heat, enjoy
relaxing climates, am at once upset by "bracing" sea-air, hate the cold,
and sweat profusely after exercise. To this it will suffice to add that my
temperament is of a decidedly nervous and emotional type.
Before proceeding to remark upon the various rhythms that I have
discovered, I will tabulate the data on which my conclusions are founded.
The numbers of discharges recorded in the years in question are as
follows:--
In 1886, 30. (Records commenced in April.)
In 1887, 40.
In 1888, 37.
In 1889, 18. (Pretty certainly not fully recorded.)
In 1890, 0 (No records kept this year.[377])
In 1891, 19. (Records recommenced in June.)
In 1892, 35.
In 1893, 40.
In 1894, 38.
In 1895, 36.
In 1896, 36.
In 1897, 35.
Average, 37. (Omitting 1886, 1889, and 1891.)
Thus I have complete records for eight years, and incomplete records for
three more; and the remarkable concord between the respective annual
numbers of observations in these eight years not only affords us intrinsic
evidence of the accuracy of my records, but, also, at once proves that
there is an undeniable regularity in the occurrence of these sexual
discharges, and, therefore, gives us reason for expecting to find this
regularity rhythmical. Moreover, since it seemed reasonable to expect
that there might be more than one rhythm, I have examined my data with a
view to discovering (1) an annual, (2) a lunar-monthly, and (3) a weekly
rhythm, and I now proceed to show that all three such rhythms exist.
THE ANNUAL RHYTHM.
It is obvious that, in searching for an annual rhythm, we must ignore the
records of the three incomplete years; but those of the remaining eight
are graphically depicted upon Chart 8. The curves speak so plainly for
themselves that any comment were almost superfluous, and the concord
between the various curves, although, of course, not perfect, is far
greater than the scantiness of the data would have justified us in
expecting. The curves all agree in pointing to the existence of three
well-defined maxima,--viz., in March, June, and September,--these being,
therefore, the months in which the sexual instinct is most active; and the
later curves show that there is also often a fourth maximum in January. In
the earlier years the March and June maxima are more strikingly marked
than the September one; but the uppermost curve shows that on the average
of all eight years the September maximum is the highest, the June and
January maxima occupying the second place, and the March maximum being the
least strongly marked of all.
Now, remembering that, in calculating the curves of the annual rhythm of
the pulse, I had found it necessary to average two months' records
together, in order to bring out the full significance of the rhythm, I
thought it well to try the effect upon these curves also of similarly
averaging two months together. At first my results were fairly
satisfactory; but, as my data increased year by year, I found that these
curves were contradicting one another, and therefore concluded that I had
selected unnatural periods for my averaging. My first attempted remedy was
to arrange the months in the pairs December-January, February-March, etc.,
instead of in January-February, March-April, etc.; but with these pairs I
fared no better than with the former. I then arranged the months in the
triplets, January-February-March, etc.; and the results are graphically
recorded on Chart 7. Here, again, comment would be quite futile, but I
need only point out that, _on the whole_, the sexual activity rises
steadily during the first nine months in the year to its maximum in
September, and then sinks rapidly and abruptly during the next three to
its minimum in December.
The study of these curves suggests two interesting questions, to neither
of which, however, do the data afford us an answer.
In the first place, are the alterations, in my case, of the maximum of the
discharges from March and June in the earlier years to September in the
later, and the interpolation of a new secondary maximum in January,
correlated with the increase in age; or is the discrepancy due simply to a
temporary irregularity that would have been equally averaged out had I
recorded the discharges of 1881-89 instead of those from 1887 to 1897?
The second question is one of very great importance--socially, ethically,
and physically. How often, in this climate, should a man have sexual
connection with his wife in order to maintain himself in perfect
physiological equilibrium? My results enable us to state definitely the
minimum limits, and to reply that 37 embraces annually would be too few;
but, unfortunately, they give us no clue to the maximum limit. It is
obvious that the necessary frequency should be greater than 37 times
annually,--possibly very considerably in excess thereof,--seeing that the
spontaneous discharges, with which we are dealing, are due to
over-pressure, and occur only when the system, being denied natural
relief, can no longer retain its secretions; and, therefore, it seems very
reasonable to suggest that the frequency of natural relief should be some
multiple of 37. I do not perceive, however, that the data in hand afford
us any clue to this multiple, or enable us to suggest either 2, 3, 4, or 5
as the required multiple of 37. It is true that other observations upon
myself have afforded me what I believe to be a fairly satisfactory and
reliable answer so far as concerns myself; but these observations are of
such a nature that they cannot be discussed here, and I have no
inclination to offer as a counsel to others an opinion which I am unable
to justify by the citation of facts and statistics. Moreover, I am quite
unable to opine whether, given 37 as the annual frequency of spontaneous
discharges in a number of men, the multiple required for the frequency of
natural relief should be the same in every case. For aught I know to the
contrary, the physiological idiosyncrasies of men may be so varied that,
given two men with an annual frequency of 37 spontaneous discharges, the
desired multiple may be in one case X and in the other 2X.[378] Our data,
however, do clearly denote that the frequency in the six or eight summer
months should bear to the frequency of the six or four winter months the
proportion of three or four to two.[379] It should never be forgotten,
however, that, under all conditions, both man and wife should exercise
prudence, both _selfward_ and _otherward_, and that each should utterly
refuse to gratify self by accepting a sacrifice, however willingly
offered, that may be gravely prejudicial to the health of the other; for
only experience can show whether, in any union, the receptivity of the
woman be greater or less than, or equal to, the _physical_ desire of the
man. To those, of course, who regard marriage from the old-fashioned and
grossly immoral standpoint of Melancthon and other theologians, and who
consider a wife as the divinely ordained vehicle for the chartered
intemperance of her husband, it will seem grotesque in the highest degree
that a physiological inquirer should attempt to advise them how often to
seek the embraces of their wives; but those who regard woman from the
standpoint of a higher ethics, who abhor the notion that she should be
only the vehicle for her husband's passions, and who demand that she shall
be mistress of her own body, will not be ungrateful for any guidance that
physiology can afford them. It will be seen presently, moreover, that the
study of the weekly rhythm does afford us some less inexact clue to the
desired solution.
One curious fact may be mentioned before we quit this interesting
question. It is stated that "Solon required [of the husband] three
_payments_ per month. By the Misna a daily debt was imposed upon an idle
vigorous young husband; _twice a week_ on a citizen; once in thirty days
on a camel-driver; once in six months on a seaman."[380] Now it is
certainly striking that Solon's "three payments per month" exactly
correspond with my records of 37 discharges annually. Had Solon similarly
recorded a series of observations upon himself?
THE LUNAR-MONTHLY RHYTHM.
We now come to that division of the inquiry which is of the greatest
physiological interest, although of little social import. Is there a
monthly period in man as well as in woman? My records indicate clearly
that there is.
In searching for this monthly rhythm I have utilized not only the data of
the eight completely-recorded years, but also those of the three years of
1886, 1889, and 1891, for, although it would obviously have been
inaccurate to utilize these incomplete records when calculating the
yearly rhythm, there seems no objection to making use of them in the
present section of the inquiry. It is hardly necessary to remark that the
terms "first day of the month," "second day," "third day," etc., are to be
understood as denoting "new-moon day," "day after new moon," "third lunar
day," and so on; but it should be explained that, since these discharges
occur at night, I have adopted the astronomical, instead of the civil,
day; so that a new moon occurring between noon yesterday and noon to-day
is reckoned as occurring yesterday, and yesterday is regarded as the first
lunar day: thus, a discharge occurring in the night between December 31st
and January 1st is tabulated as occurring on December 31st, and, in the
present discussion, is assigned to the lunar day comprised between noon of
December 31st and noon of January 1st.
Since it is obvious that the number of discharges in any one
year--averaging, as they do, only 1.25 per day--are far too few to yield a
curve of any value, I have combined my data in two series. The dotted
curve on Chart 9 is obtained by combining the results of the years
1886-92: two of these years are incompletely recorded, and there are no
records for 1890; the total number of observations was 179. The broken
curve is obtained by combining those of the years 1893-97, the total
number of observations being 185. Even so, the data are far too scanty to
yield a really characteristic curve; but the _continuous_ curve, which
sums up the results of the eleven years, is more reliable, and obviously
more satisfactory.
If the two former curves be compared, it will be seen that, on the whole,
they display a general concordance, such differences as exist being
attributable chiefly to two facts: (1) that the second curve is more even
throughout, neither maximum nor minimum being so strongly marked as in the
first; and (2) that the main maximum occurs in the middle of the month
instead of on the second lunar day, and the absence of the marked initial
maximum alters the character of the first week or so of this curve. It is,
however, scarcely fair to lay any great stress on the characters of curves
obtained from such scanty data, and we will, therefore, pass to the
continuous curve, the study of which will prove more valuable.[381]
Now, even a cursory examination of this continuous curve will yield the
following results:--
1. The discharges occur most frequently on the second lunar day.
2. The days of the next most frequent discharges are the 22d; the 13th;
the 7th, 20th, and 26th; the 11th and 16th; so that, if we regard only the
first six of these, we find that the discharges occur most frequently on
the 2d, 7th, 13th, 20th, 22d, and 26th lunar days--i.e., the discharges
occur most frequently on days separated, on the average, by four-day
intervals; but actually the period between the 20th and 22d days is that
characterized by the most frequent discharges.
3. The days of minimum of discharge are the 1st, 5th, 15th, 18th, and
21st.
4. The curve is characterized by a continual see-sawing; so that every
notable maximum is immediately followed by a notable minimum. Thus, the
curve is of an entirely different character from that representing the
monthly rhythm of the pulse,[382] and this is only what one might have
expected; for, whereas the _mean_ pulsations vary only very slightly from
day to day,--thus giving rise to a gradually rising or sinking curve,--a
discharge from the sexual system relieves the tension by exhausting the
stored-up secretion, and is necessarily followed by some days of rest and
inactivity. In the very nature of the case, therefore, a curve of this
kind could not possibly be otherwise than most irregular if the discharges
tended to occur most frequently upon definite days of the month; and thus
the very irregularity of the curve affords us proof that there is a
regular male periodicity, such that on certain days of the month there is
greater probability of a spontaneous discharge than on any other days.
5. Gratifying, however, though this irregularity of the curve may be, yet
it entails a corresponding disadvantage, for we are precluded thereby from
readily perceiving the characteristics of the monthly rhythm as a whole. I
thought that perhaps this aspect of the rhythm might be rendered plainer
if I calculated the data into two-day averages; and the result, as shown
in Chart 10, is extremely satisfactory. Here we can at once perceive the
wonderful and almost geometric symmetry of the monthly rhythm; indeed, if
the third maximum were one unit higher, if the first minimum were one unit
lower, and if the lines joining the second minimum and third maximum, and
the fourth maximum and fourth minimum, were straight instead of being
slightly broken, then the curve would, in its chief features, be
geometrically symmetrical; and this symmetry appears to me to afford a
convincing proof of the representative accuracy of the curve. We see that
the month is divided into five periods; that the maxima occur on the
following pairs of days: the 19th-20th, 13th-14th, 25th-26th, 1st-2d,
7th-8th; and that the minima occur at the beginning, end, and exact middle
of the month. There have been many idle superstitions as to the influence
of the moon upon the earth and its inhabitants, and some beliefs
that--once deemed equally idle--have now been re-instated in the regard of
science; but it would certainly seem to be a very fascinating and very
curious fact if the influence of the moon upon men should be such as to
regulate the spontaneous discharges of their sexual system. Certainly the
lovers of all ages would then have "builded better than they knew," when
they reared altars of devotional verse to that chaste goddess Artemis.
THE WEEKLY RHYTHM.
We now come to the third branch of our inquiry, and have to ask whether
there be any weekly rhythm of the sexual activity. _A priori_ it might be
answered that to expect any such weekly rhythm were absurd, seeing that
our week--unlike the lunar month of the year--is a purely artificial and
conventional period; while, on the other hand, it might be retorted that
the existence of an _induced_ weekly periodicity is quite conceivable,
such periodicity being induced by the habitual difference between our
occupation, or mode of life, on one or two days of the week and that on
the remaining days. In such an inquiry, however, _a priori_ argument is
futile, as the question can be answered only by an induction from
observations, and the curves on Chart 11 (_A_ and _B_) prove conclusively
that there is a notable weekly rhythm. The existence of this weekly rhythm
being granted, it would naturally be assumed that either the maximum or
the minimum would regularly occur on Saturday or Sunday; but an
examination of the curves discloses the unexpected result that the day of
maximum discharge varies from year to year. Thus it is[383]
Sunday in 1888, 1892, 1896.
Tuesday in 1894.
Thursday in 1886, 1897.
Friday in 1887.
Saturday in 1893 and 1895.
Since, in Chart 11, the curves are drawn from Sunday to Sunday, it is
obvious that the real symmetry of the curve is brought out in those years
only which are characterized by a Sunday maximum; and, accordingly, in
Chart 12 I have depicted the curves in a more suitable form.
Chart 12 _A_ is obtained by combining the data of 1888, 1892, and 1896:
the years of a Sunday maximum. Curve 12 _B_ represents the results of
1894, the year of a Tuesday maximum--multiplied throughout by three in
order to render the curve strictly comparable with the former. Curve 12
_C_ represents 1886 and 1897--the years of a Thursday maximum--similarly
multiplied by 1.5. In Curve 12 _D_ we have the results of 1887--the year
of a Friday maximum--again multiplied by three; and in Curve 12 _E_ those
of 1893 and 1895--the years of a Saturday maximum--multiplied by 1.5.
Finally, Curve 12 _F_ represents the combined results of all nine years
plus (the latter half of) 1891; and this curve shows that, on the whole
period, there is a very strongly marked Sunday maximum.
I hardly think that these curves call for much comment. In their general
character they display a notable concord among themselves; and it is
significant that the most regular of the five curves are _A_ and _E_,
representing the combinations of three years and of two years,
respectively, while the least regular is _B_, which is based upon the
records of one year only. In every case we find that the maximum which
opens the week is rapidly succeeded by a minimum, which is itself
succeeded by a secondary maximum,--usually very secondary, although in
1894 it nearly equals the primary maximum,--followed again by a second
minimum--usually nearly identical with the first minimum,--after which
there is a rapid rise to the original maximum. The study of these curves
fortunately amplifies the conclusion drawn from our study of the annual
rhythm, and suggests that, in at least part of the year, the physiological
condition of man requires sexual union at least twice a week.
As to Curve 12_F_, its remarkable symmetry speaks for itself. The
existence of two secondary maxima, however, has not the same significance
as had that of our secondary maximum in the preceding curves; for one of
these secondary maxima is due to the influence of the 1894 curve with its
primary Tuesday maximum, and the other to the similar influence of Curve
_C_ with its primary Thursday maximum. Similarly, the veiled third
secondary maximum is due to the influence of Curve _E_. Probably, any
student of curves will concede that, on a still larger average, the two
secondary maxima of Curve _F_ would be replaced by a single one on
Wednesday or Thursday.
One more question remains for consideration in connection with this weekly
rhythm. Is it possible to trace any connection between the weekly and
yearly rhythms of such a character that the weekly day of maximum
discharge should vary from month to month in the year; in other words,
does the greater frequency of a Sunday discharge characterize one part of
the year, that of a Tuesday another, and so on? In order to answer this
question I have re-calculated all my data, with results that are
graphically represented in Chart 13. These curves prove that the Sunday
maxima discharges occur in March and September, and the minima in June;
that the Monday maxima discharges occur in September, Friday in July, and
so on. Thus, there is a regular rhythm, according to which the days of
maximum discharge vary from one month of the year to another; and the
existence of this final rhythm appears to me very remarkable. I would
especially direct attention to the almost geometric symmetry of the Sunday
curve, and to the only less complete symmetry of the Thursday and Friday
curves. Certainly in these rhythms we have an ample field for farther
study and speculation.
I have now concluded my study of this fascinating inquiry; a study that is
necessarily incomplete, since it is based upon records furnished by one
individual only. The fact, however, that, even with so few observations,
and notwithstanding the consequently exaggerated disturbing influence of
minor irregularities, such remarkable and unexpected symmetry is evidenced
by these curves, only increases one's desire to have the opportunity of
handling a series of observations sufficiently numerous to render the
generalizations induced from them absolutely conclusive. I would again
appeal[384] to heads of colleges to assist this inquiry by enlisting in
its aid a band of students. If only one hundred students, living under
similar conditions, could be induced to keep such records with scrupulous
regularity for only twelve months, the results induced from such a series
of observations would be more than ten times as valuable as those which
have only been reached after ten years' observations on my part; and, if
other centuries of students in foreign and colonial colleges--e.g., in
Italy, India, Australia, and America--could be similarly enlisted in this
work, we should quickly obtain a series of results exhibiting the sexual
needs and sexual peculiarities of the male human animal in various
climates. Obviously, however, the records of any such students would be
worse than useless unless their care and accuracy, on the one hand, and
their habitual chastity, on the other, could be implicitly guaranteed.
FOOTNOTES:
[373] First published in the _University Magazine and Free Review_ of
February, 1898, and since reprinted as a pamphlet. A preliminary
communication appeared in _Nature_, May 14, 1891.
[374] [Later study (1906) has convinced me that my attempt to find a
lunar-monthly period in the female pulse was vitiated by a hopeless error:
for any monthly rhythm in a woman must be sought by arranging her records
according to her own menstrual month; and this menstrual month may vary in
different women, from considerably less than a lunar month to thirty days
or more.]
[375] I may add, however, that in my own case these discharges are--so far
as I can trust my waking consciousness--frequently, if not usually,
dreamless; and that strictly sexual dreams are extremely rare,
notwithstanding the possession of a strongly emotional temperament.
[376] If I can trust my memory, I first experienced this discharge when a
few months under fifteen years of age, and, if so, within a few weeks of
the time when I was, in an instant, suddenly struck with the thought that
possibly the religion in which I had been educated might be false. It is
curiously interesting that the advent of puberty should have been heralded
by this intellectual crisis.
[377] This unfortunate breach in the records was due to the fact that,
failing to discover any regularity in, or law of, the occurrences of the
discharges, I became discouraged and abandoned my records. In June, 1891,
a re-examination of my pulse-records having led to my discovery of a
lunar-monthly rhythm of the pulse, my interest in other physiological
periodicities was reawakened, and I recommenced my records of these
discharges.
[378] As a matter of fact, I take it that we may safely assert that no man
who is content to be guided by his own instinctive cravings, and who
neither suppresses these, on the one hand, nor endeavors to force himself,
on the other hand, will be in any danger of erring by either excess or the
contrary.
[379] [It is obvious that the opportunity of continuing such an inquiry as
that described in this Appendix, ceases with marriage; but I may add
(1906) that certain notes that I have kept with scrupulous exactness
during eight years of married life, lend almost no support to the
suggestion made in the text--i.e., that sexual desire is greater at one
season of the year than at another. The nature of these notes I cannot
discuss; but, they clearly indicate that, although there is a slight
degree more of sexual desire in the second and third quarters of the year,
than in the first and fourth, yet, this difference is so slight as to be
almost negligible. Even if the months be rearranged in the
triplets--November-December-January, etc.,--so as to bring the maximum
months of May, June, and July together, the difference between the highest
quarter and the lowest amounts to an increase of only ten per cent, upon
the latter--after allowing, of course, for the abnormal shortness of
February; and, neglecting February, the increase in the maximum months
(June and July) over the minimum (November) is equal to an increase of
under 14 per cent, upon the latter. These differences are so vastly less
than those shown on Chart 7 that they possess almost no significance: but,
lest too much stress be laid upon the apparently _equalizing_ influence of
married life, it must be added that the records discussed in the text were
obtained during residence in London, whereas, since my marriage, I have
lived in South Cornwall, where the climate is both milder and more
equable.]
[380] Selden's _Uxor Hebraica_ as quoted in Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_,
vol. v, p. 52, of Bonn's edition.
[381] I may add that the curve yielded by 1896-97 is remarkably parallel
with that yielded by the preceding nine years, but I have not thought it
worth while to chart these two additional curves.
[382] See "Rhythm of the Pulse," Chart 4.
[383] As will be observed, I have omitted the results of the incompletely
recorded years of 1889 and 1891. The apparent explanation of this curious
oscillation will be given directly.
[384] See "Rhythm of the Pulse," p. 21.
APPENDIX C.
THE AUTO-EROTIC FACTOR IN RELIGION.
The intimate association between the emotions of love and religion is well
known to all those who are habitually brought into close contact with the
phenomena of the religious life. Love and religion are the two most
volcanic emotions to which the human organism is liable, and it is not
surprising that, when there is a disturbance in one of these spheres, the
vibrations should readily extend to the other. Nor is it surprising that
the two emotions should have a dynamic relation to each other, and that
the auto-erotic impulse, being the more primitive and fundamental of the
two impulses, should be able to pass its unexpended energy over to the
religious emotion, there to find the expansion hitherto denied it, the
love of the human becoming the love of the divine.
"I was not good enough for man,
And so am given to God."
Even when there is absolute physical suppression on the sexual side, it
seems probable that thereby a greater intensity of spiritual fervor is
caused. Many eminent thinkers seem to have been without sexual desire.
It is a noteworthy and significant fact that the age of love is also the
age of conversion. Starbuck, for instance, in his very elaborate study of
the psychology of conversion shows that the majority of conversions take
place during the period of adolescence; that is, from the age of puberty
to about 24 or 25.[385]
It would be easy to bring forward a long series of observations, from the
most various points of view, to show the wide recognition of this close
affinity between the sexual and the religious emotions. It is probable, as
Hahn points out, that the connection between sexual suppression and
religious rites, which we may trace at the very beginning of culture, was
due to an instinctive impulse to heighten rather than abolish the sexual
element. Early religious rites were largely sexual and orgiastic because
they were largely an appeal to the generative forces of Nature to exhibit
a beneficial productiveness. Among happily married people, as Hahn
remarks, the sexual emotions rapidly give place to the cares and anxieties
involved in supporting children; but when the exercise of the sexual
function is prevented by celibacy, or even by castration, the most
complete form of celibacy, the sexual emotions may pass into the psychical
sphere to take on a more pronounced shape.[386] The early Christians
adopted the traditional Eastern association between religion and celibacy,
and, as the writings of the Fathers amply show, they expended on sexual
matters a concentrated fervor of thought rarely known to the Greek and
Roman writers of the best period.[387] As Christian theology developed,
the minute inquisition into sexual things sometimes became almost an
obsession. So far as I am aware, however (I cannot profess to have made
any special investigation), it was not until the late Middle Ages that
there is any clear recognition of the fact that, between the religious
emotions and the sexual emotions, there is not only a superficial
antagonism, but an underlying relationship. At this time so great a
theologian and philosopher as Aquinas said that it is especially on the
days when a man is seeking to make himself pleasing to God that the Devil
troubles him by polluting him with seminal emissions. With somewhat more
psychological insight, the wise old Knight of the Tower, Landry, in the
fourteenth century, tells his daughters that "no young woman, in love,
can ever serve her God with that unfeignedness which she did aforetime.
For I have heard it argued by many who, in their young days, had been in
love that, when they were in the church, the condition and the pleasing
melancholy in which they found themselves would infallibly set them
brooding over all their tender love-sick longings and all their amorous
passages, when they should have been attending to the service which was
going on at the time. And such is the property of this mystery of love
that it is ever at the moment when the priest is holding our Saviour upon
the altar that the most enticing emotions come." After narrating the
history of two queens beyond the seas who indulged in amours even on Holy
Thursday and Good Friday, at midnight in their oratories, when the lights
were put out, he concludes: "Every woman in love is more liable to fall in
church or at her devotion than at any other time."
The connection between religious emotion and sexual emotion was very
clearly set forth by Swift about the end of the seventeenth century, in a
passage which it may be worth while to quote from his "Discourse
Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit." After mentioning that
he was informed by a very eminent physician that when the Quakers first
appeared he was seldom without female Quaker patients affected with
nymphomania, Swift continues: "Persons of a visionary devotion, either men
or women, are, in their complexion, of all others the most amorous. For
zeal is frequently kindled from the same spark with other fires, and from
inflaming brotherly love will proceed to raise that of a gallant. If we
inspect into the usual process of modern courtship, we shall find it to
consist in a devout turn of the eyes, called _ogling_; an artificial form
of canting and whining, by rote, every interval, for want of other matter,
made up with a shrug, or a hum; a sigh or a groan; the style compact of
insignificant words, incoherences, and repetitions. These I take to be the
most accomplished rules of address to a mistress; and where are these
performed with more dexterity than by the _saints_? Nay, to bring this
argument yet closer, I have been informed by certain sanguine brethren of
the first class, that in the height and _orgasmus_ of their spiritual
exercise, it has been frequent with them[388]; ... immediately after
which, they found the _spirit_ to relax and flag of a sudden with the
nerves, and they were forced to hasten to a conclusion. This may be
farther strengthened by observing with wonder how unaccountably all
females are attracted by visionary or enthusiastic preachers, though never
so contemptible in their _outward mien_; which is usually supposed to be
done upon considerations purely spiritual, without any carnal regards at
all. But I have reason to think, the sex hath certain characteristics, by
which they form a truer judgment of human abilities and performings than
we ourselves can possibly do of each other. Let that be as it will, thus
much is certain, that however spiritual intrigues begin, they generally
conclude like all others; they may branch upwards toward heaven, but the
root is in the earth. Too intense a contemplation is not the business of
flesh and blood; it must, by the necessary course of things, in a little
time let go its hold, and fall into _matter_. Lovers for the sake of
celestial converse, are but another sort of Platonics, who pretend to see
stars and heaven in ladies' eyes, and to look or think no lower; but the
same _pit_ is provided for both."
To come down to recent times, in the last century the head-master of
Clifton College, when discussing the sexual vices of boyhood, remarked
that the boys whose temperament exposes them to these faults are usually
far from destitute of religious feelings; that there is, and always has
been, an undoubted co-existence of religion and animalism; that emotional
appeals and revivals are far from rooting out carnal sin; and that in some
places, as is well known, they seem actually to stimulate, even at the
present day, to increased licentiousness.[389]
It is not difficult to see how, even in technique, the method of the
revivalist is a quasi-sexual method, and resembles the attempt of the male
to overcome the sexual shyness of the female. "In each case," as W. Thomas
remarks, "the will has to be set aside, and strong suggestive means are
used; and in both cases the appeal is not of the conflict type, but of an
intimate, sympathetic and pleading kind. In the effort to make a moral
adjustment it consequently turns out that a technique is used which
was derived originally from sexual life, and the use, so to speak,
of the sexual machinery for a moral adjustment involves, in some
cases, the carrying over into the general process of some sexual
manifestations."[390]
The relationship of the sexual and the religious emotions--like so many
other of the essential characters of human nature--is seen in its nakedest
shape by the alienist. Esquirol referred to this relationship, and, many
years ago, J.B. Friedreich, a German alienist of wide outlook and
considerable insight, emphasized the connection between the sexual and the
religious emotions, and brought forward illustrative cases.[391] Schroeder
van der Kolk also remarked: "I venture to express my conviction that we
should rarely err if, in a case of religious melancholy, we assumed the
sexual apparatus to be implicated."[392] Régis, in France, lays it down
that "there exists a close connection between mystic ideas and erotic
ideas, and most often these two orders of conception are associated in
insanity."[393] Berthier considered that erotic forms of insanity are
those most frequently found in convents. Bevan-Lewis points out how
frequently religious exaltation occurs at puberty in women, and religious
depression at the climacteric, the period of sexual decline.[394]
"Religion is very closely allied to love," remarks Savage, "and the love
of woman and the worship of God are constantly sources of trouble in
unstable youth; it is very interesting to note the frequency with which
these two deep feelings are associated."[395] "Closely connected with
salacity, particularly in women," remarks Conolly Norman, when discussing
mania (Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_), "is religious
excitement.... Ecstasy, as we see in cases of acute mental disease, is
probably always connected with sexual excitement, if not with sexual
depravity. The same association is constantly seen in less extreme cases,
and one of the commonest features in the conversation of an acutely
maniacal woman is the intermingling of erotic and religious ideas."
"Patients who believe," remarks Clara Barrus, "that they are the Virgin
Mary, the bride of Christ, the Church, 'God's wife,' and 'Raphael's
consort,' are sure, sooner or later, to disclose symptoms which show that
they are some way or other sexually depraved."[396] Forel, who devotes a
chapter of his book _Die Sexuelle Frage_, to the subject, argues that the
strongest feelings of religious emotion are often unconsciously rooted in
erotic emotion or represent a transformation of such emotion; and, in an
interesting discussion (Ch. VI) of this question in his _Sexualleben
unserer Zeit_, Bloch states that "in a certain sense we may describe the
history of religions as the history of a special manifestation of the
human sexual instinct." Ball, Brouardel, Morselli, Vallon and Marie,[397]
C.H. Hughes,[398] to mention but a few names among many, have emphasized
the same point.[399] Krafft-Ebing deals briefly with the connection
between holiness and the sexual emotion, and the special liability of the
saints to sexual temptations; he thus states his own conclusions:
"Religious and sexual emotional states at the height of their development
exhibit a harmony in quantity and quality of excitement, and can thus in
certain circumstances act vicariously. Both," he adds, "can be converted
into cruelty under pathological conditions."[400]
After quoting these opinions it is, perhaps, not unnecessary to point out
that, while sexual emotion constitutes the main reservoir of energy on
which religion can draw, it is far from constituting either the whole
content of religion or its root. Murisier, in an able study of the
psychology of religious ecstasy, justly protests against too crude an
explanation of its nature, though at the same time he admits that "the
passion of the religious ecstatic lacks nothing of what goes to make up
sexual love, not even jealousy."[401]
Sérieux, in his little work, _Recherches Cliniques sur les Anomalies de
l'Instinct Sexuel_, valuable on account of its instructive cases, records
in detail a case which so admirably illustrates this phase of auto-erotism
on the borderland between ordinary erotic day-dreaming and religious
mysticism, the phenomena for a time reaching an insane degree of
intensity, that I summarize it. "Thérèse M., aged 24, shows physical
stigmata of degeneration. The heredity is also bad; the father is a man of
reckless and irregular conduct; the mother was at one time in a lunatic
asylum. The patient was brought up in an orphanage, and was a troublesome,
volatile child; she treated household occupations with contempt, but was
fond of study. Even at an early age her lively imagination attracted
attention, and the pleasure which she took in building castles in the air.
From the age of seven to ten she masturbated. At her first communion she
felt that Jesus would for ever be the one master of her heart. At
thirteen, after the death of her mother, she seemed to see her, and to
hear her say that she was watching over her child. Shortly afterward she
was overwhelmed by a new grief, the death of a teacher for whom she
cherished great affection on account of her pure character. On the
following day she seemed to see and hear this teacher, and would not leave
the house where the body lay. Tendencies to melancholy appeared. Saddened
by the funeral ceremonies, exhorted by nuns, fed on mystic revery, she
passed from the orphanage to a convent. She devoted herself solely to the
worship of Jesus; to be like Jesus, to be near Jesus, became her constant
pre-occupations. The Virgin's name was rarely seen in her writings, God's
name never. 'I wanted', she said, 'to love Jesus more than any of the nuns
I saw, and I even thought that he had a partiality for me.' She was also
haunted by the idea of preserving her purity. She avoided frivolous
conversation, and left the room when marriage was discussed, such a union
being incompatible with a pure life; 'it was my fixed idea for two years
to make my soul ever more pure in order to be agreeable to Him; the
Beloved is well pleased among the lilies.'
"Already, however, in a rudimentary form appeared contrary tendencies
[strictly speaking they were not contrary, but related, tendencies].
Beneath the mystic passion which concealed it sexual desire was sometimes
felt. At sixteen she experienced emotions which she could not master, when
thinking of a priest who, she said, loved her. In spite of all remorse she
would have been willing to have relations with him. Notwithstanding these
passing weaknesses, the idea of purity always possessed her. The nuns,
however, were concerned about her exaltation. She was sent away from the
convent, became discouraged, and took a place as a servant, but her fervor
continued. Her confessor inspired her with great affection; she sends him
tender letters. She would be willing to have relations with him, even
though she considers the desire a temptation of the devil. The ground was
now prepared for the manifestation of hallucinations. 'One evening in
May', she writes, 'after being absorbed in thoughts of my confessor, and
feeling discouraged, as I thought that Jesus, whom I loved so much, would
have nothing to do with me, "Mother," I cried out, "what must I do to win
your son?" My eyes were fixed on the sky, and I remained in a state of
mad expectation. It was absurd. I to become the mother of the World! My
heart went on repeating: "Yes, he is coming; Jesus is coming!"' The
psychic erethism, reverberating on the sensorial and sensory centres, led
to genital, auditory, and visual hallucinations, which produced the
sensation of sexual connection. 'For the first time I went to bed and was
not alone. As soon as I felt that touch, I heard the words: "Fear not, it
is I." I was lost in Him whom I loved. For many days I was cradled in a
world of pleasure; I saw Him everywhere, overwhelming me with His chaste
caresses.' On the following day at mass she seemed to see Calvary before
her. 'Jesus was naked and surrounded by a thousand voluptuous
imaginations; His arms were loosened from the cross, and he said to me:
"Come!" I longed to fly to Him with my body, but could not make up my mind
to show myself naked. However, I was carried away by a force I could not
control, I threw myself on my Saviour's neck, and felt that all was over
between the world and me.' From that day, 'by sheer reasoning,' she has
understood everything. Previously she thought that the religious life was
a renunciation of the joys of marriage and enjoyment generally; now she
understands its object. Jesus Christ desires that she should have
relations with a priest; he is himself incarnated in priests; just as St.
Joseph was the guardian of the Virgin, so are priests the guardians of
nuns. She has been impregnated by Jesus, and this imaginary pregnancy
pre-occupies her in the highest degree. From this time she masturbated
daily. She cannot even go to communion without experiencing voluptuous
sensations. Her delusions having thus become systematized, nothing shakes
her tenacity in seeking to carry them out; she attempts at all costs to
have relations with her confessor, embraces him, throws herself at his
knees, pursues him, and so becomes a cause of scandal. When brought to the
asylum, there is intense sexual excitement, and she masturbates a dozen
times a day, even when talking to the doctor. The sexual organs are
normal, the vulva moist and red, the vagina is painful to touch; the
contact of the finger causes erectile turgescence. She has had no rest,
she says, since she has learned to love her Jesus. He desires her to have
sexual relations with someone, and she cannot succeed; 'all my soul's
strength is arrested by this constant endeavor.' Her new surroundings
modify her behavior, and now it is the doctor whom she pursues with her
obsessions. 'I expected everything from the charity of the priests I have
known; I have not deserved what I wanted from them. But is not a doctor
free to do everything for the good of the patients intrusted to him by
Providence? Cannot a doctor thus devote himself? Since I have tasted the
tree of life I am tormented by the desire to share it with a loving
friend.' Then she falls in love with an employee, and makes the crudest
advances to him, believing that she is thus executing the will of Jesus.
'Necessity makes laws,' she exclaims to him, 'the moments are pressing, I
have been waiting too long.' She still speaks of her religious vocation
which might be compromised by so long a delay. 'I do not want to get
married.' Gradually a transformation took place; the love of God was
effaced and earthly love became more intense than ever. 'Quitting the
heights in which I wished to soar, I am coming so near to earth that I
shall soon fix my desires there.' In a last letter Thérèse recognizes with
terror the insanity to which the exaltation of her imagination had led
her. 'Now I only believe in God and in suffering; I feel that it is
necessary for me to get married.'"
Mariani[402] has very fully described a case of erotico-religious insanity
(climacteric paranoia on an hysterical basis) in a married woman of 44.
During the early stages of her disorder she inflicted all sorts of
penances upon herself (fasting, constant prayer, drinking her own urine,
cleaning dirty plates with her tongue, etc.). Finally she felt that by her
penances she had obtained forgiveness of her sins, and then began a stage
of joy and satisfaction during which she believed that she had entered
into a state of the most intimate personal relationship with Jesus. She
finally recovered. Mariani shows how closely this history corresponds with
the histories of the saints, and that all the acts and emotions of this
woman can be exactly paralleled in the lives of famous saints.[403]
The justice of these comparisons becomes manifest when we turn to the
records that have been left by holy persons. A most instructive record
from this point of view is the autobiography of Soeur Jeanne des Anges,
superior of the Ursulines of Loudun in the seventeenth century.[404] She
was clever, beautiful, ambitious, fond of pleasure, still more of power.
With this, as sometimes happens, she was highly hysterical, and in the
early years of her religious life was possessed by various demons of
unchastity and blasphemy with whom for many years she was in constant
struggle. She fell in love with a priest of Loudun, Grandier, a man whom
she had never even seen, only knowing of him as a powerful and fascinating
personality at whose feet all women fell, and she imagined that she and
the other nuns of her convent were possessed through his influence. She
was thus the cause of the trial and execution of Grandier, a famous case
in the annals of witchcraft. In her autobiography Soeur Jeanne describes
in detail how the demons assailed her at night, appearing in lascivious
attitudes, making indecent proposals, raising the bed-clothes, touching
all parts of her body, imploring her to yield to them, and she tells how
strong her temptation was to yield. On one night, for instance, she
writes: "I seemed to feel someone's breath, and I heard a voice saying:
'The time for resistance has gone by, you must no longer rebel; by putting
off your consent to what has been proposed you will be injured; you cannot
persist in this resistance; God has subjected you to the demands of a
nature which you must satisfy on occasions so urgent.' Then I felt impure
impressions in my imagination and disordered movements in my body. I
persisted in saying at the bottom of my heart that I would do nothing. I
turned to God and asked Him for strength in this extraordinary struggle.
Then there was a loud noise in my room, and I felt as if someone had
approached me and put his hand into my bed and touched me; and having
perceived this I rose, in a state of restlessness, which lasted for a long
time afterward. Some days later, at midnight, I began to tremble all over
my body as I lay in bed, and to experience much mental anxiety without
knowing the cause. After this had lasted for some time I heard noises in
various parts of my room; the sheet was twice pulled without entirely
uncovering me; the oratory close to my bed was upset. I heard a voice on
the left side, toward which I was lying. I was asked if I had thought over
the advantageous offer that had been made to me. It was added: 'I have
come to know your reply; I will keep my promise if you will give your
consent; if, on the contrary, you refuse, you will be the most miserable
girl in the world, and all sorts of mischances will happen to you.' I
replied: 'If there were no God I would fear those threats; I am
consecrated to Him.' It was replied to me: 'You will not get much help
from God; He will abandon you.' I replied: 'God is my father; He will take
care of me; I have resolved to be faithful to Him.' He said: 'I will give
you three days to think over it.' I rose and went to the Holy Sacrament
with an anxious mind. Having returned to my room, and being seated on a
chair, it was drawn from under me so that I fell on the floor. Then the
same things happened again. I heard a man's voice saying lascivious and
pleasant things to seduce me; he pressed me to give him room in my bed; he
tried to touch me in an indecent way; I resisted and prevented him,
calling the nuns who were near my room; the window had been open, it was
closed; I felt strong movements of love for a certain person, and improper
desire for dishonorable things."
She writes again, at a later period: "These impurities and the fire of
concupiscence which the evil spirit caused me to feel, beyond all that I
can say, forced me to throw myself on to braziers of hot coal, where I
would remain for half an hour at a time, in order to extinguish that other
fire, so that half my body was quite burnt. At other times, in the depth
of winter, I have sometimes passed part of the night entirely naked in the
snow, or in tubs of icy water. I have besides often gone among thorns so
that I have been torn by them; at other times I have rolled in nettles,
and I have passed whole nights defying my enemies to attack me, and
assuring them that I was resolved to defend myself with the grace of God."
With her confessor's permission, she also had an iron girdle made, with
spikes, and wore this day and night for nearly six months until the spikes
so entered her flesh that the girdle could only be removed with
difficulty. By means of these austerities she succeeded in almost
exorcising the demons of unchastity, and a little later, after a severe
illness, of which she believed that she was miraculously cured by St.
Joseph, she appeared before the world almost as a saint, herself
possessing a miraculous power of healing; she traveled through France,
bringing healing wherever she went; the king, the queen, and Cardinal
Richelieu were at her feet, and so great became the fame of her holiness
that her tomb was a shrine for pilgrims for more than a century after her
death. It was not until late in life, and after her autobiography
terminates, that sexual desire in Soeur Jeanne (though its sting seems
never to have quite disappeared) became transformed into passionate love
of Jesus, and it is only in her later letters that we catch glimpses of
the complete transmutation. Thus, in one of her later letters we read: "I
cried with ardor, 'Lord! join me to Thyself, transform Thyself into me!'
It seemed to me that that lovable Spouse was reposing in my heart as on
His throne. What makes me almost swoon with love and admiration is a
certain pleasure which it seems to me that He takes when all my being
flows into His, restoring to Him with respect and love all that He has
given to me. Sometimes I have permission to speak to our Lord with more
familiarity, calling Him my Love, interesting Him in all that I ask of
Him, as well for myself as for others."
The lives of all the great saints and mystics bear witness to operations
similar to those so vividly described by Soeur Jeanne des Anges, though it
is very rarely that any saint has so frankly presented the dynamic
mechanism of the auto-erotic process. The indications they give us,
however, are sufficiently clear. It is enough to refer to the special
affection which the mystics have ever borne toward the Song of
Songs,[405] and to note how the most earthly expressions of love in that
poem enter as a perpetual refrain into their writings.[406]
The courage of the early Christian martyrs, it is abundantly evident, was
in part supported by an exaltation which they frankly drew from the sexual
impulse. Felicula, we are told in the acts of Achilles and Nereus,[407]
preferred imprisonment, torture, and death to marriage or pagan
sacrifices. When on the rack she was bidden to deny Christianity, she
exclaimed: "_Ego non nego amatorem meum!_"--I will not deny my lover who
for my sake has eaten gall and drunk vinegar, crowned with thorns, and
fastened to the cross.
Christian mysticism and its sexual coloring was absorbed by the Islamic
world at a very early period and intensified. In the thirteenth century it
was reintroduced into Christendom in this intensified form by the genius
of Raymond Lull who had himself been born on the confines of Islam, and
his "Book of the Lover and the Friend" is a typical manifestation of
sexual mysticism which inspired the great Spanish school of mystics a few
centuries later. The "delicious agony" the "sweet martyrdom," the strongly
combined pleasure and pain experienced by St. Theresa were certainly
associated with physical sexual sensations.[408]
The case of Marguerite-Marie Alacoque is typical. Jesus, as her
autobiography shows, was always her lover, her husband, her dear master;
she is betrothed to Him, He is the most passionate of lovers, nothing can
be sweeter than His caresses, they are so excessive she is beside herself
with the delight of them. The central imagination of the mystic consists
essentially, as Ribot remarks, in a love romance.[409]
If we turn to the most popular devotional work that was ever written, _The
Imitation of Christ_, we shall find that the "love" there expressed is
precisely and exactly the love that finds its motive power in the emotions
aroused by a person of the other sex. (A very intellectual woman once
remarked to me that the book seemed to her "a sort of religious
aphrodisiac.") If we read, for instance, Book III, Chapter V, of this work
("De Mirabili affectu Divini amoris"), we shall find in the eloquence of
this solitary monk in the Low Countries neither more nor less than the
emotions of every human lover at their highest limit of exaltation.
"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing
broader, nothing pleasanter, nothing fuller nor better in heaven or in
earth. He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and cannot be
held. He gives all in exchange for all, and possesses all in all. He looks
not at gifts, but turns to the giver above all good things. Love knows no
measure, but is fervent beyond all measure. Love feels no burden, thinks
nothing of labor, strives beyond its force, reckons not of impossibility,
for it judges that all things are possible. Therefore it attempts all
things, and therefore it effects much when he who is not a lover fails and
falls.... My Love! thou all mine, and I all thine."
There is a certain natural disinclination in many quarters to recognize
any special connection between the sexual emotions and the religious
emotions. But this attitude is not reasonable. A man who is swayed by
religious emotions cannot be held responsible for the indirect emotional
results of his condition; he can be held responsible for their control.
Nothing is gained by refusing to face the possibility that such control
may be necessary, and much is lost. There is certainly, as I have tried to
indicate, good reason to think that the action and interaction between
the spheres of sexual and religious emotion are very intimate. The obscure
promptings of the organism at puberty frequently assume on the psychic
side a wholly religious character; the activity of the religious emotions
sometimes tends to pass over into the sexual region; the suppression of
the sexual emotions often furnishes a powerful reservoir of energy to the
religious emotions; occasionally the suppressed sexual emotions break
through all obstacles.
FOOTNOTES:
[385] Starbuck, _The Psychology of Religion_, 1899. Also, A.H. Daniels,
"The New Life," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vi, 1893. Cf.
William James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_.
[386] Ed. Hahn, _Demeter und Baubo_, 1896, pp. 50-51. Hahn is arguing for
the religious origin of the plough, as a generative implement, drawn by a
sacred and castrated animal, the ox. G. Herman, in his _Genesis_, develops
the idea that modern religious rites have arisen out of sexual feasts and
mysteries.
[387] Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Bd. I, p.
98) points out the great interest taken by the saints and ascetics in sex
matters.
[388] This omission was made by the original publisher of the "Discourse;"
several of the most important passages throughout have been similarly cut
out.
[389] Rev. J.M. Wilson, _Journal of Education_, 1881. At about the same
period (1882) Spurgeon pointed out in one of his sermons that by a
strange, yet natural law, excess of spirituality is next door to
sensuality. Theodore Schroeder has recently brought together a number of
opinions of religious teachers, from Henry More the Platonist to Baring
Gould, concerning the close relationship between sexual passion and
religious passion, _American Journal of Religious Psychology_, 1908.
[390] W. Thomas, "The Sexual Element in Sensibility," _Psychological
Review_, Jan., 1904.
[391] _System der gerichtlichen Psychologie_, second edition, 1842, pp.
266-68; and more at length in his _Allgemeine Diagnostik der psychischen
Krankheiten_, second edition, 1832, pp. 247-51.
[392] _Handboek van de Pathologie en Therapie der Krankzinnigheid_, 1863,
p. 139 of English edition.
[393] _Manuel pratique de Médecine mentale_, 1892, p. 31.
[394] _Text-book of Mental Diseases_, p. 393.
[395] G.H. Savage, _Insanity_, 1886.
[396] _American Journal of Insanity_, April, 1895.
[397] "Des Psychoses Religieuses," _Archives de Neurologie_, 1897.
[398] "Erotopathia," _Alienist and Neurologist_, October, 1893.
[399] Reference may be specially made to the interesting chapter on
"Délire Religieux" in Icard's _La Femme pendant la Période Menstruelle_,
pp. 211-234.
[400] _Psychopathia Sexualis_, eighth edition, pp. 8 and 11. Gannouchkine
("La Volupté, la Cruanté et la Religion," _Annales Medico-Psychologique_,
1901, No. 3) has further emphasized this convertibility.
[401] E. Murisier, "Le Sentiment Religieux dans l'Extase," _Revue
Philosophique_, November, 1898. Starbuck, again (_Psychology of Religion_,
Chapter XXX), in a brief discussion of this point, concludes that "the
sexual life, although it has left its impress on fully developed religion,
seems to have originally given the psychic impulse which called out the
latent possibilities of developments, rather than to have furnished the
raw material out of which religion was constructed."
[402] "Una Santa," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xix, pp. 438-47, 1898.
[403] With regard to the sexual element in the worship of the Virgin, see
"Ueber den Mariencultus," L. Feuerbach's _Sammtliche Werke_, Bd. I, 1846.
[404] Published for the first time (with a Preface by Charcot) in a volume
of the _Bibliothèque Diabolique_, 1886.
[405] The Hebrews, themselves, used the same word for the love of woman
and for the Divine love (Northcote, _Christianity and Sex Problems_, p.
140).
[406] Thus, in St. Theresa's _Conceptos del Amor de Dios_, the words
"_Beseme con el beso de su boca_,"--Let him kiss me with the kisses of his
mouth--constantly recur.
[407] _Acta Sanctorum_, May 12th.
[408] Leuba and Montmorand, in their valuable and detailed studies of
Christian mysticism, though differing from each other in some points, are
agreed on this; H. Leuba, "Les Tendances Religieuses chez les Mystiques
Chrétiens," _Revue Philosophique_, July and Nov., 1902; B. de Montmorand,
"L'Erotomanie des Mystiques Chrétiens," id., Oct., 1903. Montmorand points
out that physical sexual manifestations were sometimes recognized and
frankly accepted by mystics. He quotes from Molinos, a passage in which
the famous Spanish quietist states that there is no reason to be
disquieted even at the occurrence of pollutions or masturbation, _et etiam
pejora_.
[409] Ribot, _La Logique des Sentiments_, p. 174.
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
Abricosoff, G.
Addinsell
Adler
Ælian
Æschines
Aëtius
Alacoque, M.
Albrecht
Allin
Anagnos
Angelucci
Anges, Soeur Jeanne des
Angus, H.C.
Anstie
Apuleius
Aquinas, St. Thomas
Archemholtz
Aretæus
Aretino
Aristophanes
Aristotle
Arnold, G.J.
Aschaffenburg
Ashe, T.
Ashwell
Athenæus
Augustine, St.
Avicenna
Axenfeld
Azara
Babinsky
Bachaumont
Baelz
Baker, Smith
Baldwin, J.M.
Ball
Ballantyne
Ballion
Balls-Headley
Bancroft, H.H.
Baraduc
Bargagli
Barnes, K.
Barrus, Clara
Bartels, Max
Bastanzi
Bastian
Batut
Bauer, Max
Baumann
Bazalgette
Beard
Beard, J.
Bechterew
Bee, J.
Bekkers
Bell, Blair
Bell, Sanford
Berger
Bellamy
Berkhan
Berthier
Beukemann
Beuttner
Bevan-Lewis
Biernacki
Billuart
Binet
Binswanger
Bishop, Mrs.
Blackwell, Elizabeth
Blandford
Bloch, Iwan
Block
Blumenbach
Boas, F.
Boethius
Bohnius
Bolton, T.L.
Bonavia
Bond, C.H.
Bonnier
Bossi
Boudin
Bourke, J.G.
Brachet
Brantôme
Breuer
Briquet
Brockman
Brouardel
Brown, J.D.
Brown-Séquard
Brunton, Sir Lauder
Bryce, T.
Buchan, A.P.
Büchler
Büchner
Buffon
Bunge
Burchard
Burdach
Burk, F.
Burnet
Burns, J.
Burr
Burton, Robert
Buxton, D.W.
Caiger
Callari
Calmeil
Camerer
Cameron
Campbell, H.
Caramuel
Carmichael
Carpenter, E.
Carrara
Casanova
Chamberlain, A.F.
Chapman, J.
Charcot
Charrin
Chaucer
Christian
Chrysostom
Cicero
Clark, Campbell
Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Rome
Clipson
Clouston
Coe, H.C.
Cohn, Hermann
Cohn, Salmo
Cohnstein
Colenso, W.
Cook, Capt.
Cook, Dr. F.
Corre
Coryat
Crawley, A.E.
Crichton-Browne, Sir J.
Crooke, W.
Croom, Sir J. Halliday
Cullen
Cullingworth
Curr
Curschmann
Cuvier
Cyprian
Dallemagne
Dalton, E.T.
Dalziel
Dana
Dandinus
Daniels
Dartigues
Darwin, C.
Darwin, Erasmus
Davidsohn
Debreyne
Deniker
Dennis
Denucé
Depaul
D'Epinay, Mme.
Dercum
Deslandes
Dessoir, Max
Dexter
Diday
Diderot
Distant, W.L.
Donkin
Down, Langdon
Dudley
Dufour, P.
Dugas
Dühren, _see_ Bloch, Iwan.
Dukes, C.
Dulaure
Du Maurier
Duncan, Matthews
Durr
Duval, A.
Duveyrier
Dyer, L.
Ellenberger
Ellis, Sir A.B.
Ellis, Havelock
Ellis, Sir W.
Ellis, W.G.
Emin, Pasha
Emminghaus
Epicharmus
Eram
Erb
Ernst
Esquirol
Eulenburg
Evans, M.M.
Ezekiel
Fahne
Fasbender
Fehling
Felkin
Féré
Fernel
Ferrero
Ferriani
Fewkes, J.W.
Findley
Fleischmann
Fliess
Forel
Forestus
Forster, J.R.
Fortini
Fothergill, J.M.
Fournier
Foville
Franklin, A.
Frazer, J.G.
Freeman, R.A.
French-Sheldon, Mrs.
Freud
Friedreich, J.B.
Fritsch, G.
Fuchs
Fürbringer
Gaedeken
Galen
Gall
Gant
Gardiner, J.S.
Garland, Hamlin
Gamier
Gason
Gattel
Gehrung
Gennep, A. von
Gérard-Varet
Gerland
Gibbon
Giessler
Giles, A.E.
Gillen
Gilles de la Tourette
Gioffredi
Girandeau
Godfrey
Goepel
Goethe
Goncourt
Goodell, W.
Goodman
Gould
Gourmont, Remy de
Gowers, Sir W.R.
Grashoff
Greenlees
Griesinger
Grimaldi
Grimm, J.
Groos
Grosse
Gruner
Grünfeld
Gualino
Gubernatis
Guéniot
Guerry
Guibout
Guise, R.E.
Gury
Guttceit
Guyau
Guyot
Haddon, A.C.
Hahn, E.
Haig
Hall, Fielding
Hall, G. Stanley
Haller
Hammond, W.
Harris, D.F.
Hartmann
Hawkesworth, J.
Haycraft
Heape, W.
Hegar
Helbigius, O.
Heifer, J.W.
Henle
Herman
Herodotus
Herondas
Herrick
Hersman
Herter
Hesiod
Hick, P.
Hill, S.A.
Hinton, James
Hippocrates
Hirschsprung
Hirth, G.
Hoche
Hohenemser
Holder, A.B.
Holm
Homer
Hopkins, H.R.
Houssay
Howe, J.W.
Huchard
Hufeland
Hughes, C.H.
Hummel
Hunter, John
Hutchinson, Sir J.
Hyades
Hyrtl
Icard
Imbert-Goubeyre
Jacobi, M.P.
Jacobs
Jaeger
James
James, W.
Janet, Pierre
Jastrow, Morris
Jenjko
Jerome, St.
Jessett
Joal
Joest
Johnston, Sir H.H.
Johnstone, A.W.
Jolly
Jones, Lloyd
Jortin
Juvenal
Kaan
Kahlbaum
Keill
Keith
Keller
Kellogg
Kemble, Fanny
Kemsoes
Kiernan, J.G.
Kind, A.
King, A.F.A.
Kleinpaul
Klemm, K.
Kline, L.W.
Koch, J.L.A.
Koster
Kossmann
Kowalewsky, M.
Kraepelin
Krafft-Ebing
Krauss, F.S.
Krauss, W.C.
Krieger
Kreichmar
Kroner
Kulischer
Lacassagne
Lactantius
Lallemand
Landouzy
Landry
Lane
Laschi
Laupts
Laurent, L.
Laycock
Learoyd, Mabel
Lecky
Legludic
Lentz
Lepois, C.
Letamendi
Letourneau
Leuba
Leyden
Liguori
Lippert
Lipps
Lobsien
Loiman
Loliée
Lombroso, C.
Lombroso, P.
Lorion
Löwenfeld
Lucretius
Lull, Raymond
Luther
Luzet
Lydston
MacDonald, A.
MacGillicuddy
Mackenzie, J.N.
MacLean
MacMurchy
Maeder
Malins
Malling-Hansen
Man, E.H.
Mandeville
Mannhardt
Mantegazza
Marchi, Attilio de
Marcuse, J.
Mariani
Marie, A.
Marie, P.
Marro
Marsh
Marshall, F.
Marston
Martial
Martineau
Mason, Otis
Matignon
Maudsley
Mayr, G.
Melinaud
Menjago
Mercier
Metchnikoff
Meteyard
Meyners, d'Estrez
Michelet
Miklucho-Macleay
Minovici
Mirabeau
Mitchell, H.W.
Mitford
Modigliani
Molière
Moll
Mondière
Mongeri
Montague, Lady M.W.
Montaigne
Montmorand
Moraglia
Morris, R.T.
Morselli
Mortimer, G.
Moryson, Fynes
Moses, Julius
Müller, R.
Murisier
Näcke
Nansen
Négrier
Nelson, J.
Neugebauer
Niceforo
Nicolas of Cusa
Niebuhr, C.
Nietzsche
Nipho
Norman, Conolly
Northcote, H.
Oettinger
Ogle
Oldfield
Oliver
Omer, Haleby
Oribasius
Osier
Ossendovsky
Osterloh
Ostwald, Hans
Ott, von
Overbury, Sir T.
Ovid
Paget, Sir J.
Paget, John
Paré, A.
Parent-Duchâtelet
Parke, T.H.
Partridge
Passek
Paulus, Ægineta
Pausanias
Pearson, K.
Pechuel-Loesche
Peckham
Penta
Pepys, S.
Perez
Perry-Coste
Peschel
Peyer, A.
Peyer, J.
Pick
Pierracini
Pilcz
Pitcairn
Pitres
Plant
Plato
Plazzon
Pliny the Elder
Ploss
Plutarch
Pouchet
Pouillet
Poulet
Power
Prat
Priestley, Sir W.
Procopius
Pyle
Quetelet
Quirós, Bernaldo de
Rabelais
Raciborski
Raffalovich
Ramsay, Sir W.M.
Rasmussen
Ratzel
Rauber
Raymond
Régis
Reinach, S.
Reinl
Rengger
Renooz, Mine. Céline
Renouvier
Restif de la Bretonne
Reuss
Reverdin
Reys
Rhys, Sir J.
Ribbing
Ribot
Richelet
Richer
Richet
Riedel
Ries
Riolan
Ritter
Rochholz
Rohé
Rohleder
Roland, Mme.
Rolfincius
Römer, L.S.A.M. von
Roos, J. de
Rosenbach
Rosenstadt
Rosenthal
Rosner
Rosse, Irving
Roth, H. Ling
Roth, W.
Roubaud
Rousseau
Routh, A.
Rudeck
Rush
Sade, De
St. André
St. Hilaire, J.G.
St. Paul, Dr.
Salerni
Sanchez, T.
Sanctis, Sante de
Sanctorius
Savage
Savill
Schemer
Schmid-Monnard
Schrenck-Notzing
Schroeder, T.
Schroeder, van der Kolk
Schüle
Schultz, Alwyn
Schulz
Schurig
Schurtz
Schuyten
Schwartz
Schweinfurth
Scott, Colin
Seerley
Selden
Seler
Selous, E.
Semon
Semper
Sénancour
Sérieux
Sergi
Shakespeare
Shaw, Capel
Shufeldt, R.W.
Shuttleworth
Siebert
Sieroshevski
Skeat, W.W.
Skene
Smith, E.
Smith, E.H.
Smith, F.
Smith, Robertson
Smith, Theodate
Smyth, Brough
Sollier
Solon
Somerville
Sonnini
Sorel
Sormani
Soutzo
Spencer, Baldwin
Spencer, Herbert
Spitta
Spitzka, E.C.
Spurgeon
Starbuck
Stein, G.
Steinen, Karl von den
Stendhal
Stephenson
Stern, B.
Sterne
Stevens, H.V.
Stieda
Stirling
Stockman
Stokes
Storer
Strack
Stratz
Stubbs
Sudduth
Sumner, W.G.
Susruta
Sutton, Bland
Swift
Sydenham
Tacitus
Tait, Lawson
Tallemont des Réaux
Tardieu
Taylor, R.W.
Teacher, J.
Tertullian
Theresa, St.
Thomas, W.
Thucydides
Thurn, Sir E. im
Tille
Tillier
Tilt
Tissot
Toulouse
Tout, Hill
Townsend, C.W.
Treutler
Trousseau
Tuchmann
Turner
Uffelmann
Vahness
Valera
Valleix
Vallon
Vedeler
Velde, van de
Velpeau
Venette
Venturi
Viazzi
Villagomez
Villermay
Villermé
Virchow
Vogel
Volkelt
Voltaire
Voornveld, van
Wade, Sir W.F.
Wahl
Waitz
Walker, A.
Wappäus
Ward, H.
Wargentin
Warman
Wasserschleben
Wedge wood
Weismann
Weisser
Wellhausen
Wenck
West, C.
West, J.P.
Westcott, Wynn
Westermarck
Wey, H.D.
Wichmann
Wiel, Van der
Willis
Wilson, J.M.
Wiltshire, A.
Winckel
Winkler, G.
Winter, J.T.
Witkowski
Wollstonecraft, M.
Wood, H.C.
Wraxall, Sir N.
Yellowlees
Zacchia
Zache
Zeller
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Africa,
modesty in
sexual periodicity in
Ainu,
modesty of
American Indians,
menstruation in
modesty of
Anæmia and hysteria
Andamanese modesty
Animals,
breeding season of
hysteria in
masturbation in
modesty in
their dislike of dirt
Annual sexual rhythm
Anus as a centre of modesty
Apes,
masturbation in
menstruation in
Arabian festivals
Arabs,
modesty in
their ancient conception of uncleanness
Art and auto-erotism
Asafoetida in hysteria
_Attitudes passionnelles_
Australia,
modesty in
sexual festivals in
Autumn festivals
Baboon,
menstruation in
Babylonian festivals
Bashfulness
Bathing,
promiscuous
Beltane fires
Bengal,
modesty in
sexual periodicity in
Birds,
dreams of
Birthrate,
periodicity of
Bladder,
as a source of dreams
foreign bodies in
periodicity in expulsive force of
Blindness in relation to modesty
Blood,
primitive ideas about
supposed virtues of menstrual
Blood-pressure
Blushing,
the significance of
Bonfire festivals
Borneo,
modesty in
Bosom in relation to modesty
Brazil,
modesty in
Bread,
periodicity in consumption of
Breeding season
_Brumalia_
Camargo
Catholic theologians,
on _delectatio morosa_
on erotic dreams
on masturbation
Celibacy and religion
Ceremonial element in religion
Chastity in Polynesia
Chemical rays and sexual periodicity
Childbirth,
modesty in
Children,
masturbation in
periodicity of growth in
spring fever in
their lack of modesty
Chimpanzee, menstruation in
Chinese modesty
Chivalry and modesty
Chlorosis and hysteria
Christianity,
in relation to modesty
its attitude towards masturbation
Christmas festivals
Clothing and modesty
Cod-piece
Coitus,
and ceremonial ritual
as a sedative
in relation to masturbation
in relation to menstruation
in relation to modesty
often painful in hysteria
Conception rate
Conduct,
periodicity in
Continence,
importance of
Convents,
hysteria in
Coquetry,
function of
Courtship,
the essential element in
Crime,
periodicity of
Criminals,
masturbation among
sexual outbursts in
Crow,
breeding habits of
Cycling in relation to sexual excitement
Dancing,
auto-erotic aspects of
Dancing and modesty
Darkness in relation to blushing
Day-dreaming
Deer,
breeding habits of
_Delectatio morosa_
Denmark,
modesty in
Diogenes
Dionysian festivals
Disgust as a factor of modesty
_Distillatio_
Dog,
breeding season of
Drawers,
origin of feminine
Dreams,
and sexual periodicity
day
erotic
Freud on
inverted
vesical
Easter festivals
Eating,
modesty in
Ecbolic curve
Economic factor of modesty
Elephants,
masturbation in
Enuresis,
nocturnal
Epilepsy,
anciently confused with hysteria
in relation to masturbation
Erotic dreams
festivals
hallucinations
Eskimo,
menstruation in
modesty of
sexual habits of
Etruscans,
modesty among
Evil eye and modesty
Excretory customs and modesty
Eye disorders and masturbation
Face as a centre of modesty
Fear,
modesty based on
Ferrets,
masturbation in
Festivals,
erotic
Fools,
Feast of
Foot and modesty
Frigidity caused by masturbation
Fuegians,
modesty of
General paralysis,
annual curve of
_Globus hystericus_
Goethe
Gogol
Greeks,
festivals of
modesty among
their attitude towards masturbation
Growth, periodicity in
Hair-pin used in masturbation
Hallucinations,
erotic
Head,
covering the
Heart disease,
monthly rhythm in
"Heat" in animals
its relation to menstruation
Hemicrania,
periodicity in
Horse exercise and sexual excitement
Horses,
masturbation in
Hottentots,
masturbation among
Hymen in relation to modesty
Hysteria,
alleged seasonal prevalence of
and chlorosis
and masturbation
Breuer and Freud on
Charcot and
coitus often painful in
in relation to sexual emotion
nocturnal hallucinations of
physiological
the theory of
Iceland,
modesty in
Illegitimate births,
periodicity of
Incubus
India,
conception rate in
masturbation in
modesty in
Infants,
masturbation in
Insane,
masturbation in the
modesty in the
Insanity and masturbation
periodicity of
Inversion,
dreams in
Ireland,
modesty in
Ishtar
Italy,
modesty in
Japanese,
masturbation among
modesty of
Jealousy in relation to modesty
Kadishtu
Kierkegaard
Lapps,
menstruation among
modesty of
Lizard and women in folk-lore
Love largely based on modesty
Macaque,
menstruation in
Malay festivals
Maori,
modesty
Marriage caused by masturbation,
aversion to
Marriage and the hysterical
Masturbation among animals
among lower human races
among higher human races
as a sedative
combined with religious emotions
in men of genius
interrupted
in the insane
methods of
periodicity of
prevalence of
symptoms and results of
May-day festivals
Mediæval modesty
Medicean Venus,
attitude of
Menstrual blood,
supposed virtues of
Menstrual cycle in men
Menstruation,
among primitive peoples
and hysteria
and modesty
and pregnancy
and social position of women
as a continuous process
as a process of purification
cause doubtful
euphemisms for
in animals
occasional absence in health
origin of
precocity in
primitive theory of
relation to "heat"
relation to ovulation
relation to sexual desire
Mental energy, periodicity of
Metabolism,
seasonal influences on
_Mittelschmerz_
Mohammedans,
attitude towards menstruation
modesty of
mysticism among
Midsummer festivals
Monkeys,
breeding season of
masturbation in
menstruation in
Moon and masturbation
Moral element in modesty
Moritz, K.P.
Muscular force,
periodicity of
Mysticism and sexual emotion
Nakedness,
chaste in its effects
in relation to modesty
Narcissism
Nates as a centre of modesty
Negroes,
modesty of
Nervous diseases and masturbation
Neurasthenia and masturbation
New England,
modesty in
New Georgians,
modesty among
New Guinea,
folk-lore of menstruation in
modesty in
New Hebrides,
modesty in
New Zealand,
modesty in
Nicobarese modesty
Night-inspiration
Novel-reading,
alleged sexual periodicity in
Obscenity,
Roman horror of
Oestrus
"Onanism,"
the term
Orang-utan,
menstruation in
Orgasm,
spontaneous
Ornament as a sexual lure
Ovaries with hysteria,
alleged association of
Ovulation and menstruation
Papuans,
modesty of
sexual periodicity among
_Penis suecedaneus_
_Pollutio_
_Pollutio interruptus_
Polynesian modesty
Precocity,
sexual
Pregnancy,
menstrual cycle during
Prostitutes,
hysteria among
masturbation in
modesty of
Prudery
Prurience based on modesty
Psychic coitus
Psychic traumatism
Pulse,
periodicity of the
Railway travelling as cause of sexual excitement
Rapes,
periodicity of
Religion and sexual emotions
Revery
Rhythm
Riding as a cause of sexual excitement
Ritual factor of modesty
Roland, Mme.
Romans,
modesty of
Rosalia
Rousseau
Russia,
conception rate in
modesty in
Rest
Sacro-pubic region as a centre of modesty
St. John's Eve,
festival of
Samoa
Samoyeds,
menstruation among
Saturnalia
Scarlet fever,
periodicity of
Schools,
auto-erotic phenomena in
Seasonal periodicity of sexual impulse
Seduction and menstruation
Seminal emissions during sleep
Serpent in folk-lore
Sewing-machine as a cause of sexual excitement
Sexual anæsthesia induced by masturbation
Sexual factor of modesty
Sexual desire,
in relation to blushing
in relation to hysteria
in relation to menstruation
in relation to modesty
in relation to season
in women
Sexual periodicity in men
what we owe to irradiations of
Sexual organs viewed differently by savage and civilized peoples
Shame,
definition and nature of
Short sight and modesty
Shyness
Slang,
private
Sleep in relation to sexual activity
Snake and women in folk-lore
Somnambulism of bladder
Speech,
modesty in
Spring,
as season of sexual excitement
festivals of
Swinging,
auto-erotic aspects of
Succubus
Suicide,
periodicity of
Taboo and menstruation
and modesty
Tahiti
Tammuz festival
Theologians,
opinions of
Theresa, St.
Thigh-friction
Thumb-sucking
Timidity
Tight-lacing as a cause of sexual excitement
Torres Straits,
modesty at
Turkish modesty
Uncleanness,
primitive conception of
Uric acid,
excretion, periodicity of
Urine,
incontinence of
Urtication,
as a form of auto-erotism
Valentine's Day
Veil,
origin of the
Vesical dreams
Vocabularies,
private
_Walpurgisnacht_
Weekly sexual rhythm
Witches,
erotic hallucinations of
Womb anciently thought source of hysteria
Women,
as property in relation to modesty
masturbation among
menstruation in
sexual impulse in
their auto-erotic manifestations in sleep
their night-inspiration
whether more modest than men
Year,
primitive divisions of
Zeus,
auto-erotic manifestations in
DIAGRAMS
I.--The Monthly Ecbolic Curve.
II.--The Annual Curve of the Conception-rate in Europe.
III.--The Annual Ecbolic Curve.
IV.--Curve of the Annual Incidence of Insanity in London.
V.--Curve of the Annual Incidence of General Paralysis in Paris
(Garnier).
VI.--The Suicide-rate in London.
VII.
VIII.
IX.--Lunar-monthly Rhythm of Male Sexual Period.
X.--Curves of Lunar-monthly Rhythm as Smoothed by taking Pairs of
Days.
XIa.--Weekly Rhythm of Male Sexual Period.
XIb.--Weekly Rhythm of Male Sexual Period.
XII.--Weekly Rhythm of Male Sexual Period.
XIII.--Joint Weekly Rhythm of Male Sexual Period, years 1886, 1887,
1888, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897 combined.
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX,
VOLUME 1 (OF 6)***
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