The Sexual Question Part 8

I readily admit that a man with good hereditary dispositions, who has only yielded for a short time to seductive influences, may be reformed by a true and profound love. But even in him, excesses leave traces which later on may easily lead him astray when he becomes tired of the monotony of conjugal relations with the same woman. On the other hand, we must also recognize that s.e.xual relations in themselves, even in marriage, create a habit which often urges a married man to extra-nuptial coitus, even when he had remained continent before marriage.

The tricks which are played on a man by his s.e.xual appet.i.te, especially by his polygamous instincts, must not, however, be confounded with the systematic, artificial and abnormal training of the same appet.i.te. The physical and psychic attractions of a woman are capable of completely diverting the s.e.xual desires of a man from their primary object, and of directing them on the siren who captivates his senses. The elements of the s.e.xual appet.i.te here form an inextricable mixture with those of love, and const.i.tute the inexhaustible theme of novels and most true and sensational love stories.

Hereditary pathological dispositions play a considerable role in many cases of this kind. Also, marriages of sudden and pa.s.sionate love (we are not dealing here with love marriages concluded after sufficient reflection and deep mutual acquaintances.h.i.+p) are not more stable than the so-called "_mariages de convenance_," for pa.s.sionate natures, usually more or less pathological, are apt to fall from one extreme to the other. The power exercised by s.e.xual pa.s.sion in such cases is terrible. It produces conditions that may lead to suicide or a.s.sa.s.sination. In men whose power of reason is neither strong nor independent, opinions and conceptions are frequently changed; love may change to hatred and hatred to love, the sentiment of justice may lead to injustice, the loyal man may become a liar, etc. In fact the s.e.xual appet.i.te is let loose like a hurricane in the brain and becomes the despot of the whole mind. The s.e.xual pa.s.sion has often been compared to drunkenness or to mental disease. Even in its mildest forms it often renders the husband incapable of s.e.xual connection with his wife.

For example, a man may cherish, respect and even adore his wife, and yet her presence and touch may not appeal to his senses, nor excite his appet.i.te or erection; while some low-minded woman will produce in him an irresistible sensual attraction, even when he experiences neither esteem nor love for her. In such cases s.e.xual appet.i.te is in more or less radical opposition to love. Such extreme phenomena are not rare, but hardly common. Although excited to coitus with the woman in question, the husband would not in any case have her for wife, nor even have children by her, for after the slightest reflection he despises and fears her. Here, the s.e.xual appet.i.te represents the old atavistic animal instinct, attracted by libidinous looks, exuberant charms, in a word by the sensual aspect of woman.

On the contrary, in a higher domain of the human mind, the sentiments of sympathy of true love, deeply a.s.sociated with fidelity, and with intellectual and moral intimacy, unite against the elementary power of the animal instinct. Here we see dwelling in the same breast (or, to speak more correctly, in the same central nervous system) two souls, which struggle with each other.

We are not dealing here with cases in which a new pa.s.sion arrives to turn the man from his old affection. No doubt the extreme cases of which we have spoken are not usual, but we see in most men more or less considerable mixtures of a.n.a.logous sentiments in all possible degrees, especially when the woman loved loses her physical attractions from age or other causes.

=The Procreative Instinct.=--The s.e.xual appet.i.te of man does not consist exclusively in the desire for coitus. In many cases it is combined, more or less strongly and more or less consciously, with the desire to procreate children. Unfortunately, this desire is far from being always a.s.sociated with higher sentiments and with love of children or the paternal instinct. In fact, conscious reasoning plays a smaller part than the animal instinct of self-expansion. We shall see later on that the procreative instinct often plays an important role in our present civilization.

=The s.e.xual Appet.i.te in Woman.=--In the s.e.xual act the role of the woman differs from that of the man not only by being pa.s.sive, but also by the absence of seminal e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. In spite of this the a.n.a.logies are considerable. The erection of the c.l.i.toris and its voluptuous sensations, the secretion from the glands of _Bartholin_ which resembles e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n in the male, the venereal o.r.g.a.s.m itself which often exceeds in intensity that of man, are phenomena which establish harmony in s.e.xual connection.

Although the organic phenomenon of the acc.u.mulation of s.e.m.e.n in the seminal vesicles is absent in woman, there is produced in the nerve centers, after prolonged abstinence, an acc.u.mulation of s.e.xual desire corresponding to that of man. A married woman confessed to me, when I reproached her for being unfaithful to her husband, that she desired coitus at least once a fortnight, and that when her husband was not there, she took the first comer. No doubt the sentiments of this woman were hardly feminine, but her s.e.xual appet.i.te was relatively normal.

=Frequency of the s.e.xual Appet.i.te in Woman.=--As regards pure s.e.xual appet.i.te, extremes are much more common and more considerable in woman than in man. In her this appet.i.te is developed much less often spontaneously than in him, and where it is so, it is generally later.

Voluptuous sensations are usually only awakened by coitus.

In a considerable number of women the s.e.xual appet.i.te is completely absent. For these, coitus is a disagreeable, often disgusting, or at any rate an indifferent act. What is more singular, at least for masculine comprehension, and what gives rise to the most frequent "quid pro quos," is the fact that such women, absolutely cold as regards s.e.xual sensations, are often great coquettes, over-exciting the s.e.xual appet.i.tes of man, and have often a great desire for love and caresses. This is more easy to understand if we reflect that the unsatiated desires of the normal woman are less inclined toward coitus than toward the a.s.semblage of consequences of this act, which are so important for her whole life. When the sight of a certain man awakes in a young girl sympathetic desires and transports, she aspires to procreate children with this man only, to give herself to him as a slave, to receive his caresses, to be loved by him only, that he may become both the support and master of her whole life. It is a question of general sentiments of indefinite nature, of a powerful desire to become a mother and enjoy domestic comfort, to realize a poetic and chivalrous ideal in man, to gratify a general sensual need distributed over the whole body and in no way concentrated in the s.e.xual organs or in the desire for coitus.

=Nature of the s.e.xual Appet.i.te in Woman.=--The zone of s.e.xual excitation is less specially limited to the s.e.xual organs in woman than in man. The nipples const.i.tute in her an entire zone and their friction excites voluptuousness. If we consider the importance in the life of woman, of pregnancy, suckling, and all the maternal functions, we can understand why the mixture of her sentiments and sensations is so different from that of man. Her smaller stature and strength, together with her pa.s.sive role in coitus, explain why she aspires to a strong male support. This is simply a question of natural phylogenetic adaptation. This is why a young girl sighs for a courageous, strong and enterprising man, who is superior to her, whom she is obliged to respect, and in whose arms she feels secure. Strength and skill in man are the ideal of the young savage and uncultured girl, his intellectual and moral superiority that of the young cultivated girl.

As a rule women are much more the slaves of their instincts and habits than men. In primitive peoples, hardiness and boldness in men were qualities which made for success. This explains why, even at the present day, the boldest and most audacious Don Juans excite most strongly the s.e.xual desires of women, and succeed in turning the heads of most young girls, in spite of their worst faults in other respects.

Nothing is more repugnant to the feminine instinct than timidity and awkwardness in man. In our time women become more and more enthusiastic over the intellectual superiority of man, which excites their desire. Without being indifferent to it, simple bodily beauty in man excites the appet.i.te of women to a less extent. It is astonis.h.i.+ng to see to what point women often become enamored of old, ugly or deformed men. We shall see later on that the normal woman is much more particular than man in giving her love. While the normal man is generally attracted to coitus by nearly every more-or-less young and healthy woman, this is by no means the case in the normal woman with regard to man. She is also much more constant than man from the s.e.xual point of view. It is rarely possible for her to experience s.e.xual desire for several men at once; her senses are nearly always attracted to one lover only.

The instinct of procreation is much stronger in woman than in man, and is combined with the desire to give herself pa.s.sively, to play the part of one who devotes herself, who is conquered, mastered and subjugated. These negative aspirations form part of the normal s.e.xual appet.i.te of woman.

A peculiarity of the s.e.xual sentiments of woman is an ill-defined pathological phenomenon with normal sensations, a phenomenon which in man, on the contrary, forms a very marked contrast with the latter; I refer to the _h.o.m.os.e.xual_ appet.i.te, in which the object is an individual of the same s.e.x. Normally, the adult man produces on another man an absolutely repulsive effect from the s.e.xual point of view; it is only pathological subjects, or those excited by s.e.xual privation who are affected with sensual desires for other men. But in woman a certain sensual desire for caresses, connected more or less with unconscious and ill-defined s.e.xual sensations, is not limited to the male s.e.x but extends to other women, to children, and even to animals, apart from pathologically inverted s.e.xual appet.i.tes. Young normal girls often like to sleep together in the same bed, to caress and kiss each other, which is not the case with normal young men. In the male s.e.x such sensual caresses are nearly always accompanied and provoked by s.e.xual appet.i.te, which is not the case in women. As we have already seen, man may separate true love from the s.e.xual appet.i.te to such an extent that two minds, each feeling in a different way, may inhabit the same brain. A man may be a loving and devoted husband and at the same time satisfy his animal appet.i.tes with prost.i.tutes. In woman, such s.e.xual dualism is much more rare and always unnatural, the normal woman being much less capable than man of separating love from s.e.xual appet.i.te.

These facts explain the singular caprices of the s.e.xual appet.i.te and o.r.g.a.s.m in the normal woman, in whom these phenomena are not easily produced without love.

The same woman who loves one man and not another is susceptible to s.e.xual appet.i.te and voluptuous sensations when she cohabits with the first, while she is often absolutely cold and insensible to the most pa.s.sionate embraces of the second. This fact explains the possibility of prost.i.tution as it exists among women. The worst prost.i.tutes, who have connection with innumerable paying clients without feeling the least pleasure, generally have a "protector" with whom they are enamored and to whom they devote all their love and sincere o.r.g.a.s.ms, all the time allowing themselves to be plundered and exploited by him.

What the normal woman requires from man is love, tenderness, a firm support for life, a certain chivalrous nature, and children. She can renounce the voluptuous sensations of coitus infinitely more easily than the exigencies I have just indicated, which are for her the princ.i.p.al things. Nothing makes a woman more indignant than the indifference of her husband, when, for instance, he treats her simply as a housekeeper. Some have maintained that the average woman is more sensual than man, others that she is less so. Both these statements are false: she is sensual _in another manner_.

All the peculiarities of the s.e.xual appet.i.te in woman are thus the combined product of: (1) the profound influence of the s.e.xual functions on her whole existence; (2) her pa.s.sive s.e.xual role; (3) her special mental faculties. By these, and more especially by her pa.s.sive s.e.xual role, are explained her instinctive coquettishness, her love of fiery and personal adornment, in a word her desire to please men by her external appearance, by her looks, movements and grace. These phenomena betray the instinctive s.e.xual desires of the young girl, which as we have just seen, do not normally correspond to a direct desire for coitus.

While a virgin experiences in her youth the sensations we have just described, things change after marriage, and as a general rule after repeated s.e.xual connections. If these do not provoke voluptuous sensations in some women, they do in the majority, and this is no doubt the normal state of affairs. Habit, then, produces an increasing desire for coitus and its sensations, and it is not rare, in the course of a long life in common, for the roles to be reversed and the woman become more libidinous than the man. This partly explains why so many widows are anxious to remarry. They easily attain their object, as men quickly succ.u.mb to the s.e.xual desire of woman when it is expressed in an unequivocal manner.

In widows, two strong sentiments struggle against each other, with variable results in different individuals; on the one hand, feminine constancy in love, and the memory of the deceased; on the other hand, the acquired habit of s.e.xual connection and its voluptuous sensations, which leaves a void and appeals for compensation. The s.e.xual appet.i.te being equal, the first sentiment prevails generally in religious women or those of a deeply moral or sentimental character, while the second prevails in women of more material or less-refined nature, or in those simply guided by their reason. In these internal struggles, the more delicate sentiments and the stronger will of the woman result from the fact that when she wishes she can overcome her appet.i.tes much better than man. But, in spite of this, the power of the s.e.xual appet.i.te plays an important part in the inward struggle we have just mentioned.

When this appet.i.te is absent there is no struggle, and the widow's conduct is dictated either by her own convenience, or by the instinct which naturally leads a woman to yield to the amorous advances of a man.

At the critical age, that is the time when menstruation ceases, neither the s.e.xual appet.i.te nor voluptuous sensations disappear, although desire diminishes normally as age advances. In this respect it is curious to note that old women possess no s.e.xual attraction for men, while they often feel libidinous desires almost as strongly as young women. This is a kind of natural anomaly.

As we have already stated, individual differences in the s.e.xual appet.i.te are much greater in woman than in man. Some women are extremely excitable, and from their first youth experience violent s.e.xual desire, causing them to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e or to throw themselves onto men. Such women are usually polyandrous by nature, although the s.e.xual appet.i.te in woman is normally much more monogamous than that of man.

Such excesses in woman take on a more pathological character than in man, and go under the name of _nymphomania_. The insatiability of these females, who may be met with in all cla.s.ses of society, may become fabulous. Night and day, with short interruptions for sleeping and eating, they are, in extreme cases, anxious for coitus. They become less exhausted than men, because their o.r.g.a.s.m is not accompanied by loss of s.e.m.e.n.

Although in the normal state woman is naturally full of delicacy and sentiments of modesty, nothing is easier than to make these disappear completely by training her systematically to s.e.xual immodesty or to prost.i.tution. Here we observe the effects of the routine and suggestible character of feminine psychology, of the tendency of woman to become the slave of habit and custom, as well as of her perseverance when her determined will pursues a definite end.

Prost.i.tution gives us sad proofs of this fact.

The psychology of prost.i.tutes is very peculiar. Attempts to restore them to a moral life nearly always fail hopelessly; it is rare to see them permanently successful. Most of these women have a heredity of bad quality and are of weak character, idle and libidinous. They find it much easier to gain their living by prost.i.tution, and forget their work, if they have ever learned any. The poverty, drunkenness and shame which follow seduction and illegitimate birth have no doubt driven more than one prost.i.tute to her sad trade, but the naturally evil dispositions of these women const.i.tute without any doubt the princ.i.p.al cause. Alcohol, venereal diseases and bad habits, combined with continually repeated s.e.xual degradation, afterwards determine progressive decadence.

Some of these women, however, of better quality, only surrender themselves to prost.i.tution by compulsion; they suffer from this existence and strive to escape from it. The grisettes and lorettes[2]

form a group intermediate between prost.i.tution and natural love; they are women who hire themselves for a time to one man in particular, and are maintained and paid by him in return for satisfying his s.e.xual appet.i.tes. Here again, s.e.xual desire only exceptionally plays the chief role. The conduct of these women results from their loose character and pecuniary interest.

If, therefore, we admit on the one hand that the s.e.xual excesses of the female s.e.x are especially grafted on hereditary disposition of character, or are primarily due to strong appet.i.tes, we are obliged on the other hand to recognize that the great role played by s.e.xuality in the brain of woman renders it more difficult for her than for man to return to better ways when she has once prost.i.tuted herself, or when she has surrendered in any way to s.e.xual licentiousness, even when her original quality was not bad.

In man the s.e.xual appet.i.te is much more easily separated than in woman from other instincts, sentiments and intellectual life in general, and possesses in him, however powerful it may be, a much more transient character, which prevents it dominating the whole mental life.

I have dwelt so much on this point because it is essential to know the differences which exist between man and woman in this respect, and to take them into account if we wish to give a just and healthy judgment on the s.e.xual question from the social point of view. The more it is our duty to give the same rights to both s.e.xes, the more absurd it is to disregard the profoundness of their differences and to imagine that these can ever be effaced.

=Flirtation.=--If we look in an English dictionary for the meaning of the word _flirt_, we find it equivalent to coquetry. But this English term has become fixed and modernized in another sense which has become international, to express the old idea of a series of well-known phenomena which must be clearly distinguished from coquetry.

Coquetry, an especially feminine attribute, is not in itself dependent on the s.e.xual appet.i.te; it is an indirect irradiation, purely psychical, and we shall speak of it later on. Flirtation, as we now understand the term, is directly connected with the s.e.xual appet.i.te, and const.i.tutes its external impression in all the wealth of its forms, as much in man as in woman. In a word, flirtation is a polymorphous language which clearly expresses the s.e.xual desires of an individual to the one who awakens these desires, actual coitus alone excepted.

Flirtation may be practiced in a more or less unconscious manner. It is by itself neither a psychic attribute nor s.e.xual appet.i.te, for a human being may so hide and overcome his appet.i.tes that no one remarks them; and on the contrary, he may simulate s.e.xual appet.i.te without feeling it, or at any rate behave in such a way as to excite it in his partner. Flirtation thus consists in an activity calculated to disclose the eroticism of the subject as well as to excite that of others. It is needless to say that the nature of coquetry disposes to flirtation.

Flirtation comprises all the sport of love, kisses, caresses and all kinds of s.e.xual excitation even to o.r.g.a.s.m, without reaching the consummation of coitus. All degrees may be noted; and, according to temperament, flirtation may be limited to slight excitation of the s.e.xual appet.i.te or may extend to violent and rapidly increasing emissions. The considerable individual differences which exist in s.e.xual sensibility result in the same perception or the same act having little effect on one individual, while it excites another to a high degree. In the latter case, especially in man, flirtation may even lead to venereal o.r.g.a.s.m without coitus, and even without any manipulations which resemble it. A woman of exuberant form, a.s.suming sensual and voluptuous att.i.tudes, may thus provoke an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n by the slight and repeated friction of her dress against the p.e.n.i.s of an excitable dancer.

The same thing often occurs when a pa.s.sionate couple caress and embrace each other without the genital organs being touched or even exposed. In this respect the woman is better protected than the man, but when she is very excitable an o.r.g.a.s.m may be produced in her during the caresses of a pa.s.sionate flirtation by the pressure or friction of her legs against each other (a variety of masturbation in woman).

As a rule, however, things do not go so far as this in flirtation. The sight and touch are used alternately. The eyes play an important part, for they may express much and consequently act powerfully. A pressure of the hands, an apparently chance movement, touching the dress and the skin, etc., are the usual means of flirtation. In situations where people are close together or pressed against each other, as in railway carriages, or at table, the legs play a well-known part, by pressure of the knees and feet.

This dumb conversation of the s.e.xual appet.i.te begins at first in a prudent and apparently innocent manner, so that the acting party does not risk being taxed with impropriety; but as soon as he who began the flirtation perceives that his slight invitations are welcome he grows bolder, a tacit mutual agreement is established, and the game continues without a single word betraying the reciprocal sensations.

Many who practice flirtation, both men and women, avoid betraying themselves by words, and they take pleasure in this mutual excitation of their genital sensibility, however incomplete it may be.

Flirtation may a.s.sume very different forms according to education and temperament. The action of alcohol on the brain develops the coa.r.s.est forms of flirtation. Every one knows the clumsy embraces of semi-intoxicated persons which can often be seen at night or on Sundays and holidays, in the street or in railway carriages, etc. I designate these by the term "alcoholic flirtation." Even in the best and most refined society flirtation loses its delicacy even under the effect of the slightest degree of alcoholic intoxication.

Flirtation a.s.sumes a more delicate and more complicated character, rendering it gracious and full of charm, in persons of higher education, especially when they are highly intellectual or artistic.

We must also mention the intellectual variety of flirtation which is not expressed by sight or touch, but only by language. Delicate allusions to s.e.xual matters and somewhat lascivious conversation excite eroticism as much as looks and touch. According to the education of the persons concerned, this talk may be coa.r.s.e and vulgar, or on the contrary refined and full of wit, managed with more or less skill, or clumsily. Here the natural finesse of woman plays a considerable part. Men wanting in tact are clumsy and offensive in their attempts at flirtation, and thus extinguish instead of exciting the woman's eroticism. The manner in which alcoholic flirtation manifests itself in cynical, dull, obtrusive and stupid conversation, corresponds to its other forms of expression. Woman desires flirtation; but does not wish it to a.s.sume an unbecoming form.

One can say anything to a woman; all depends on the way in which it is said. I have seen lady doctors with whom one could discuss the most ticklish subjects, profoundly shocked by the misplaced pleasantries of a tactless professor. In themselves these pleasantries were quite innocent for medical ears, as my lady colleagues were finally obliged to admit, when I pointed out to them the specially feminine character of their psychic reaction, proving to them that they listened without a frown to things ten times worse, when the lecturer gave them a moral tone.

Men also generally feel disgusted with the dull, cynical or clumsy form of female eroticism, although they are not usually over-refined themselves in this respect.

This last phenomenon leads us to distinguish between flirtation in man and in woman. For woman it const.i.tutes the only permissible way of expressing erotic sentiments, and even then much restraint is imposed on her. Circ.u.mstances develop in her the art of flirtation and give it remarkable finesse. Unless she exposes herself to great danger, woman can only leave her sensuality to be guessed. Every audacious and tactless provocation fails in its object; it drives away the men and destroys a young girl's reputation. Even when possessed by the most violent erotic desire woman cannot ostensibly depart from her pa.s.sive role without compromising herself. Nevertheless, she succeeds on the whole very easily in exciting the pa.s.sions of man, by the aid of a few artifices. No doubt she does not entirely dominate him by this means.

She must be very delicate and adroit, at any rate at first, in the provocative art of flirtation. These frivolities are greatly facilitated by her whole nature and by the character of her habitual eroticism. Man, on the other hand, may be more audacious in the expression of his pa.s.sion. This brings us back to what has been said concerning the s.e.xual differences.

A whole volume could be written on the forms of flirtation, which is the indispensable expression of all s.e.xual desire. Among engaged couples it a.s.sumes a legal character and even a conventional form. The way in which barmaids flirt with their customers is also somewhat conventional, although in quite a different way. In society, flirtation is generally seasoned with more Attic salt, whether it is not allowed to exceed certain limits, or whether it leads to free liaisons after the manner of the Greek hetaira. In the country, among peasant girls and boys it takes a grosser form, if not more sensual, than among the cultivated cla.s.ses; in the latter, language takes the princ.i.p.al part. Among rich idlers in watering places, large hotels, and even in some sanatoriums, flirtation takes a dominant place and const.i.tutes, in all its degrees, the chief occupation of a great number of the visitors. It grows like a weed wherever man has a monotonous occupation or suffers from the ennui of idleness.

In certain individuals, flirtation takes the place of coitus from the sensual, and love from the sentimental point of view. There are modern crazy natures who spend their existence in all kinds of artificial excitation of the senses, creatures of both s.e.xes incapable of a useful action.

As a momentary and transient expression of all the necessities of love, flirtation has a right to existence; but, when cultivated on its own account and always remaining as flirtation, it becomes a symptom of degeneration or s.e.xual depravity, among idle, crazy and vicious persons of all kinds.

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