Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 — Appendix B: The Development of the Sexual Instinct

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEXUAL INSTINCT.

It is a very remarkable fact that, although for many years past serious attempts have been made to elucidate the psychology of sexual perversions, little or no endeavor has been made to study the development of the normal sexual emotions.

Nearly every writer seems either to take for granted that he and his readers are so familiar with all the facts of normal sex psychology that any detailed statement is altogether uncalled for, or else he is content to write a few fragmentary remarks, mostly made up of miscellaneous extracts from anatomical, philosophical, and historical works.

Yet it is as unreasonable to take normal phenomena for granted here as in any other region of science.

A knowledge of such phenomena is as necessary here as physiology is to pathology or anatomy to surgery.

So far from the facts of normal sex development, sex emotions, and sex needs being uniform and constant, as is assumed by those who consider their discussion unnecessary, the range of variation within fairly normal limits is immense, and it is impossible to meet with two individuals whose records are nearly identical.

There are two fundamental reasons why the endeavor should be made to obtain a broad basis of clear information on the subject.

In the first place, the normal phenomena give the key to the abnormal phenomena, and the majority of sexual perversions, including even those that are most repulsive, are but exaggerations of instincts and emotions that are germinal in normal human beings.

In the second place, we cannot even know what is normal until we are acquainted with the sexual life of a large number of healthy individuals.

And until we know the limits of normal sexuality we are not in position to lay down any reasonable rules of sexual hygiene.

On these grounds I have for some time sought to obtain the sexual histories, and more especially the early histories, of men and women who, on _prima facie_ grounds, may fairly be considered, or are at all events by themselves and others considered, ordinarily healthy and normal.

There are many difficulties about such a task, difficulties which are sufficiently obvious.

There is, first of all, the natural reticence to reveal facts of so intimately personal a character.

There is the prevailing ignorance and unintelligence which leads to the phenomena being obscure to the subject himself.

When the first difficulty has been overcome, and the second is non-existent, there is still a lack of sufficiently strong motive to undertake the record, as well as a failure to realize the value of such records.

I have, however, received a large number of such histories, for the most part offered spontaneously with permission to make such further inquiries as I thought desirable.

Some of these histories are extremely interesting and instructive.

In the present Appendix, and in a corresponding Appendix to the two following volumes of these _Studies_, I bring forward a varied selection of these narratives.

In a few cases, it will be seen, the subjects are, to say the least, on the borderland of the abnormal, but they do not come before us as patients desiring treatment.

They are playing their, usually active, sometimes even distinguished, part in the world, which knows nothing of their intimate histories.

HISTORY I.

--E.

T.

(I reproduce this history, written in the third person, as it reached my hands.

) T.'

s earliest recollections of ideas of a sexual character are vaguely associated with thoughts upon whipping inflicted on companions by their parents, and sometimes upon his own person.

About the age of 7 T. occasionally depicted to himself the appearance of the bare nates and genitalia of boys during flagellation.

Reflection upon whipping gave rise to slight curious sensations at the base of the abdomen and in the nerves of the sexual system.

The sight of a boy being whipped upon the bare nates caused erection before the age of 9. He cannot account for these excitations, as at the time he had not learned the most rudimentary facts of sex.

The spectacle of the boy's nudity had no attraction for him, while the beating aroused his indignation against the person who administered it.

T.

knew a boy and girl of about his own age whose imaginations dwelt somewhat morbidly upon whipping.

The three used to talk together about such chastisement, and the little girl liked to read "stories that had whippings in them."

None of these children delighted in cruelty; the fascination in the theme of castigation seemed to be in imagining the spectacle of the exposed nates, though actual witnessing of the whipping made them angry at the time.

Accustomed to watch a young sister being bathed, T. had no distinct curiosity concerning the differences in sex until the age of 9. About this time he asked his father where babies came from, and was told to be quiet.

When he persisted in the inquiry his father threatened to box his ears.

His mother told him subsequently that doctors brought babies to mothers.

He credited the story so far as to carefully watch the doctor who came when his mother "was going to have a new baby," in the hope of seeing a bundle in his arm.

T.

was 9 when he interrogated a servant-girl of 16 about babies and their origin.

She laughed and said that one day she would tell him how children came.

One Sunday this servant took T. for a country walk and initiated him in sexual intercourse, telling him he was too young to be a father, but that was the way babies were made.

The girl took him into a field, saying she would show him how to do something which would make him "feel as though he was in heaven," informing him that she had often done this with young men.

She then succeeded in causing erection and instructed him how to act.

His feeling at the time was one of disgust; the appearance and odor of the female genitalia repelled him.

Afterward, however, he wished to repeat the experience with girls of his own age.

Finding the boy unresponsive, the girl took the masculine position and embraced him with great passion.

T.

can recall the expression of the girl's face, the perspiration on her forehead, and the whispered query whether it pleased him.

The embrace lasted for about ten minutes, when the girl said it had "done her good."

Later the same day they met a girl cousin of this servant about 10 or 12 years old.

The three went to a lonely part of the seashore.

The servant there suggested that T. should repeat the act with the little girl.

T.

was too shy, though the girl seemed quite willing and experienced.

The older girl told the younger to keep watch a few yards away, while she again brought about intercourse in the same way.

The servant told T. not to tell anyone.

Intercourse with the servant was never repeated after that day; from shame he kept the promise for many years.

After this episode T. began to speculate about sexual matters and to observe the coupling of dogs with newly acquired interest.

At 10 years he often lay awake, listening to a woman of 25 singing to a piano accompaniment.

The woman's voice seemed very beautiful, and so strongly impressed him that he fell in love with her and longed to embrace her sexually.

This secret attachment was much more romantic than sensual, though the idea of embracing the woman seemed to T. a natural part of the romance.

He was beginning to invest the sex with angelic qualities.

The thought of his adventure with the servant no longer caused repulsion, but rather pleasure.

He reflected that if he could meet the girl now he could be very fond of her and understand things better.

At this time he had not masturbated, nor even heard of the practice.

One day, while playing with a girl of his own age, he succeeded in overcoming her shyness and induced her to expose herself, at the same time uncovering his own sexual parts.

On this occasion and once afterward he succeeded in penetrating the vulva.

Both he and the girl experienced imperfect enjoyment.

At boarding-school, where he was sent at 10, T. learned the vulgar phrases for sexual organs and sexual acts, and acquired the habit of moderate masturbation.

Coarse talk and indecent jests about the opposite sex were common amusements of the playroom and dormitories.

At first the obscene conversation was very distasteful; later he became more used to it, but thought it strange that sex intimacy should be a subject for ridicule and jest.

He began to read love-stories and think much about girls.

At the same time he learned the nature of "the sin of fornication," and wondered why it should be considered so heinous.

Parts of the Bible condemning intercourse between the unmarried alarmed him.

Being of a serious as well as emotional and amorous nature, he became converted to evangelic belief.

His mother warned him to beware of unclean companions at school.

He tried to act as a Christian and think only pure thoughts about women.

The talk, however, was always of girls and of being in love.

His mind was often engrossed with amatory ideas of a poetic, sensuous nature, his sexual experiences having a firm hold on his imagination, while they gave him gratifying assurance of actual knowledge concerning things merely imagined by most of his companions.

His health was vigorous and he keenly enjoyed all outdoor games and excelled in daring and schoolboy mischief.

At 12 he fell deeply in love with a girl of corresponding age.

He never felt any powerful sexual desire for his sweetheart, and never attempted anything but kissing and decorous caresses.

He liked to walk and sit with the girl, to hold her hand, and stroke her soft hair.

He felt real grief when separated from her.

His thoughts of her were seldom sensual.

A year or so afterward he had a temporary passion for a woman of 30, who used to flirt with him and allow kissing.

T.

thought her queen-like and very lovely, and wished to be her knight.

One day he saw, for a moment, in a friend's house, a dark, earnest-looking girl of 13, who made a very deep impression upon him, and, though he did not exchange a word with her, he often thought about her afterward.

Five years later he met the dark girl again, and the pair were mutually drawn to one another.

He proposed marriage and avowed a most desperate passion.

A refusal on the plea of youth caused him the deepest misery.

About eight years thereafter T. married the girl, and the marriage proved a very happy one for both.

When he was 15 T. made the acquaintance of a pretty blonde of the same age.

She was a high-spirited hoiden.

They were soon close friends and later lovers.

They wrote a number of letters to each other and exchanged locks of hair and presents.

Their talk about love was unreserved.

One day she told T. that she had been sexually embraced by a former lover, a boy of 16, hinting very plainly that she would like T. to embrace her.

This amour lasted for about six months.

The lovers had many opportunities for clandestine intercourse.

They used to consummate their passion in a part of a wood they called "the bower."

Now and then one or the other would experience a pricking of conscience, but they were too passionately attached to each other to sever the intimacy.

At length the girl began to dread the risk of conception and the intercourse ceased.

Looking back upon this episode T. avers that the attachment and its physical expression seemed quite natural, poetic, and beautiful, though at times his religious principles condemned his conduct.

He now thinks that the experience is by no means to be regretted either by the girl or himself.

It was a wholesome youthful passion, as innocent as the mating of birds, and the insight which it gave to both of the hidden emotions of human nature was morally advantageous in after-life.

T.

believes that his amative precocity was due to the early awakening of sex feeling by the servant-girl.

But he also believes that the love passion would have asserted itself early in any case, since he inherits a warm temperament, had erectile power long before puberty, and has considerable seminal capacity.

Having closely watched the effects of suppressed normal emotions and desires in youth at the time of pubescence, he maintains that such suppression is disastrous, causing unhealthy thoughts and leading to the formation of a habit of masturbation which may persist throughout life.

He believes that temporary sexual intimacies between boys and girls under 20 from the period of puberty would be far less harmful than separation of the sexes until marriage, with its resultants: masturbation, hysteria, repressed and disordered functions in young women, seduction, prostitution, venereal affections, and many other evils.

HISTORY II.

--The following narrative was written by a married lady: "My mother (herself a very passionate and attractive woman) recognized the difficulty for English girls of getting satisfactorily married, and determined, if possible, to shield us from disappointment by turning our thoughts in a different direction.

Theoretically the idea was perhaps good, but in practice it proved useless.

The natural desires were there.

Disappointment and disillusion followed their repression none the less surely for having altered their natural shape.

I think the love I had for my mother was almost sexual, as to be with her was a keen pleasure, and to be long away from her an almost unendurable pain.

She used to talk to us a good deal on all sorts of subjects, but she never troubled about education in the ordinary sense.

When 9 years old I had been taught nothing except to read and write.

She never forbade us to read anything, but if by accident we got hold of a book of which she did not approve she used to say: 'I think that is rather a silly story, don't you?'

We were so eager to come up to her standard of taste that we at once imagined we thought it silly, too.

In the same way she discouraged ideas about love or marriage, not by suggesting there was anything wrong or improper about them, but by implying great contempt for girls who thought about lovers, etc. Up to the age of about 20 I had a vague general impression that love was very well for ordinary women, but far beneath the dignity of a somewhat superior person like myself.

To show how little it entered my thoughts I may add that, up to 17, I fancied a woman got a child by being kissed on the lips by a man.

Hence all the fuss in novels about the kiss on the mouth.

"When I was 9 years old I began to feel a great craving for scientific knowledge.

_A Child's Guide to Science_, which I discovered at a second-hand book-stall (and which, by the way, informed me that heat is due to a substance called caloric), became a constant companion.

In order to learn about light and gravitation, I saved up my money and ordered (of all books) Newton's _Principia_, shedding bitter tears when I found I could not understand a word of it.

At the same time I was horribly ashamed of this desire for knowledge.

I got such books as I could surreptitiously and hid them in odd corners.

Why, I cannot imagine, as no one would have objected, but, on the contrary, I should have been helped to suitable books.

"My sisters and I were all violently argumentative, but our quarrels were all on abstract subjects.

We saw little of other children and made no friendships, preferring each other's society to that of outsiders.

When I was about 10 a girl of the same age came to stay with us for a few days.

When we went to bed the first night she asked me if I ever played with myself, whereupon I took a great dislike to her.

No sexual ideas or feelings were excited.

When still quite a child, however, I had feelings of excitement which I now recognize as sexual.

Such feelings always came to me in bed (at least I cannot remember them at any other time) and were generally accompanied by a gradually increasing desire to make water.

For a long time I would not dare to get out of bed for fear of being scolded for staying awake, and only did so at last when actually compelled.

In the mean time the sexual excitement increased also, and I believe I thought the latter was the result of the former, or, perhaps, rather, that both were the same thing.

(This was when I was about 7 or 8 years old.

) So far as I can recollect, the excitement did not recur when the desire to make water had been gratified.

I seemed to remember wondering why thinking of certain things (I can't remember what these were) should make one want to urinate.

(In later life I have found that, if the bladder is not emptied before coitus, pleasure is often more intense.

) There were also feelings, which I now recognize as sexual, in connection with ideas of whipping.

"As a child and girl I had very strong religious feelings (I should have now if I could believe in the reality of religion), which were absent in my sisters.

These feelings were much the same as I experienced later sexually; I felt toward God what I imagined I should like to feel to my husband if I married.

This, I fancy, is what usually occurs.

At 14 I went to a boarding-school where there were seventy girls between 7 and 19. I think it goes to show that there is but very little sexual precocity among English girls that during the three years I stayed there I never heard a word the strictest mother would have objected to.

One or two of the older girls were occasionally a little sentimental, but on no occasion did I hear the physical side of things touched upon.

I think this is partly due to the amount of exercise we took.

When picturing my childhood I always see myself racing about, jumping walls, climbing trees.

In France and Italy I have been struck by the greater sedateness of Continental children.

Our idea of naughtiness consisted chiefly in having suppers in our bedrooms and sliding down the banisters after being sent to bed.

The first gratified our natural appetite, while the second supplied the necessary thrill in the fear of being caught.

"I made no violent friendships with the other girls, but I became much attached to the French governess.

She was 30, and a born teacher, very strict with all of us, and doubly so with me for fear of showing favoritism.

But she was never unjust, and I was rather proud of her severity and took a certain pleasure in being punished by her, the punishment always taking the form of learning by heart, which I rather liked doing.

So I had my thrill, excitement, I don't quite know what to call it, without any very great inconvenience to myself.

Just before we left school the sexual instinct began to show itself in enthusiasm for art with a capital A, Ouida's novels being mainly responsible.

My sister and I agreed that we would spend our lives traveling about France, Italy, and the Continent, generally _à la Tricotrin_, with a violin in one pocket and an Atravante Dante in the other.

To do this satisfactorily to ourselves we must be artists, and I resolved to go in for music and become a second Liszt.

When my father offered to take us to Italy, the artist's Mecca, for a couple of years, we were wild with delight.

We went, and disillusionment began.

It may perhaps seem absurd, but we suffered acutely that first summer.

Our villa was quite on the beach, the lowest of its flight of steps being washed by the Mediterranean.

At the back were grounds which seemed a paradise.

Long alleys covered over with vines and carpeted with long grass and poppies, grassy slopes dotted with olives and ilex, roses everywhere, and almost every flower in profusion, with, at night, the fireflies and the heavy scents of syringa and orange blossoms.

In the midst of every possible excitement to the senses there was one thing wanting, and we did not know what that was.

"We attributed our restlessness and dissatisfaction to the slow progress in our artistic education, and consoled ourselves by thinking when once we had mastered the technical difficulties we should feel all right.

And of course we did derive a very real pleasure from all the beauties of art and nature with which Italy abounds.

"It seems to me, however, that the art craze is one of the modern phases of woman's sexual life.

When we were in Italy the great centers of the country were simply overrun with girls studying art, most of whom had very little talent, but who had mistaken the restlessness due to the first awakening of the sexual instinct for the divine flame of genius.

In our case it did not matter, as we were not dependent upon our own exertions.

But it must have been terribly hard for girls who had burned their boats and chosen art as a career, to have added to the repression of their natural desires the bitterness of knowing that in their chosen walk of life they were failures.

The results as far as work goes might not be so bad if the passions, as in men, were occasionally gratified.

It is the constant drudgery combined with the disappointment and finding that art alone does not satisfy which is so paralyzing.

Besides, sexual gratification is always followed by exaltation of the mental faculties, with, in my experience, no depressing reaction such as follows pleasure excited by mental causes alone.

"At one time when living at the villa I met a man about 45, who took rather a fancy to me.

I mention this because it woke me up;

no emotion was excited, but I realized for the first time (I must have been nearly 20) that I was no longer a child, and that a man could think of me in connection with love.

It was only after this, and not immediately after, either, that men's society began to have an interest for me, and that I began to think a man's love would be a pleasant thing to possess, after all.

"The sexual instinct, at any rate as regards consciousness, thus developed slowly and in what I believe to be a very usual sequence: religion, admiration for an older woman, and art.

I am not sure that I have made quite enough of the first, yet I do not know that there is any more to say.

There were very strong physical feelings connected with all these which were identical with those now connected with passion, but they were completely satisfied by the mental idea which excited them.

"The first time I can remember feeling keen physical pleasure was when I was between 7 and 8 years old.

I can't recollect the cause, but I remember lying quite still in my little cot clasping the iron rails at the top.

It may be said that this is hardly slow development, but I mean slow as regards (1) any connection of the idea with a man or (2) any physical means of excitation.

"I have laid stress on my desire for knowledge, as I think my sexual feelings were affected by it.

A great part of my feeling for my mother was due to the stores of information she appeared to possess.

The omniscience of God was to me his most striking attribute.

My French teacher's capacity was her chief attraction.

When, as a girl, I thought of marriage, I desired a man who 'could explain things to me.'

One learns later to live one's mental and sexual life separately to a great extent.

But at 20 I could not have done so; given the opportunity, I should have made the mistake of Dorothea in _Middlemarch_.

"I have spoken of the depressing after-effects of pleasure brought about by a purely mental cause, but I do not think this is the case in childhood and early youth.

(Perhaps some women feel no such depression afterward, and this may account for their coldness in regard to men.

) This may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that it occurs much more rarely, and also it is perhaps a natural process before the sexual organs fully develop, and so not harmful.

"I always find it difficult in expressing the different degrees of physical excitement even to myself, though I know exactly what I felt.

As a child, from the time of the early experience already mentioned (about the age of 7 or 8), and as a young girl, the second stage (secretion of mucus) was always reached.

The amount of secretion has always been excessive, but at first secretion only lasted a short time; later it began to last for several hours, or even sometimes the whole night, if the natural gratification has been withheld for a long time (say, three months).

I do not remember ever feeling the third stage (complete orgasm) until I saw the first man I fancied I cared for.

I do not think that mental causes alone have ever produced more than the first two stages (general diffuse excitement and secretion).

I

have sometimes wondered whether I could produce the third mechanically, but I have a curious unreasonable repugnance to trying the experiment; it would seem to materialize it too much.

As a child and a girl I was contented to arrive at the second stage, possibly because I did not realize that there was any other, and perhaps this is why I have experienced no evil results.

"In dreams the third stage seems to come suddenly without any leading up to it, either mental or physical, of which I am conscious.

I do not, however, remember having any such dreams before I was engaged.

They came at a later period; even then, when great pleasure was experienced, it came, as a rule, suddenly and sharply, with no dreams leading up to it.

The dreams generally take a sad form (an Evangeline and Gabriel business), where one vainly seeks the person who eludes one.

I have, however, sometimes had pleasurable dreams of men who were quite indifferent to me and of whom I never thought when awake.

The impression on waking is so strong one could almost fancy one's self really in love with them.

I can quite understand falling in love with a person by dreaming of him in this way.

"The first time I remember experiencing the third stage in waking moments was at a picnic, when the man, to whom I have before referred as the first that I fancied I cared for, leaned against me accidentally in passing a plate or dish; but I was already in a violent state of excitement at being with him.

There was no possibility of anything between us, as he was married.

If he guessed my feelings, they were never admitted, as I did my best to hide them.

I never experienced this, except at the touch of some one I loved.

(I think the saying about the woman 'desiring the desire of the man' is just about as true as most epigrams.

It is the man's personality alone which affects me.

His feelings toward me are of--I was going to say--indifference, but at any rate quite secondary importance, and the gratification of my own vanity counts as nothing in such relations.

) "As a rule, to reach even the second stage the exciting ideas must be associated with some particular person, except in the case of a story, where one identifies one's self with one of the characters.

In childhood and early youth it was, in the case of religion, the idea of God and the presence and the personality of God which aroused my feelings and always seemed very vivid to me.

In the case of my governess, my feelings were aroused in exactly the same way as later they would be by one's lover.

In the art craze I am rather vague as to how it came about, but I think, as a rule, there was rather a craving for pleasure than pleasure itself.

I do not remember ever thinking much about the physical feeling.

It seemed as natural that a pleasant emotion should produce pleasant physical effects as that a painful one should cause tears.

As a child, one takes so much for granted, and later on my mind was so much occupied with worrying about the truth of religion that I hardly thought enough about anything else to analyze it carefully.

"I may summarize my own feelings thus: First, exciting ideas alone produce, as a rule, merely the first stage of sexual excitement.

Second, the same ideas connected with a particular person will produce the second stage.

Third, the same may be said of the presence of the beloved person.

Fourth, actual contact appears necessary for the third stage.

If the first stage only be reached, the sensation is not pleasurable in reality, or would not be but for its association.

If produced, as I have sometimes found it to be, by a sense of mental incapacity, it is distinctly disagreeable, especially if one feels that the energy which might have been used in coping with the difficulty is being thus dissipated.

If it be produced, as it may be, as the result of physical or mental restraint, it is also unpleasant unless the restraint were put upon one by a person one loves.

Then, however, the second stage would probably be reached, but this would depend a good deal on one's mood.

If the first stage only were reached, I think it would be disagreeable; it would mean a conflict between one's will and sexual feeling.

Perhaps women who feel actual repugnance to the sexual act with a man they love have never gone beyond the first stage, when their dislike to it would be quite intelligible to me.

"Some time after the life in Italy had come to an end I became engaged.

There was considerable difficulty in the way of marriage, but we saw a good deal of each other.

My _fiancé_ often dined with us, and we met every day.

The result of seeing him so frequently was that I was kept in a constant state of strong, but suppressed, sexual excitement.

This was particularly the case when we met in the evening and wandered about the moonlit garden together.

When this had gone on about three months I began to experience a sense of discomfort after each of his visits.

The abdomen seemed to swell with a feeling of fullness and congestion; but, though these sensations were closely connected with the physical excitement, they were not sufficiently painful to cause me any alarm or make me endeavor to avoid their pleasurable cause.

The symptoms got worse, however, and no longer passed off quickly as at first.

The swelling increased;

considerable pain and a dragged-down sensation resulted the moment I tried to walk even a short distance.

I was troubled with constant indigestion, weight in the chest, pain in the head and eyes, and continual slight diarrhea.

This went on for about nine months, and then my _fiancé_ was called away from the neighborhood.

After his departure I got a trifle better, but the symptoms remained, though in less acute form.

A few months later the engagement was broken off, and for some weeks I was severely ill with influenza and was on my back for several weeks.

When I could get about a little, though very weak, all the swelling was gone, but pain returned whenever I tried to walk or stand for long.

The indigestion and diarrhea were also very troublesome.

I

was treated for both by a physician, but without success.

Next year I became engaged to my husband and was shortly after married.

The indigestion and diarrhea disappeared soon after.

The pain and dragging feeling in the abdomen bothered me much in walking or any kind of exercise.

One day I came across a medical work, _The Elements of Social Science_, in which I found descriptions of symptoms like those I suffered from ascribed to uterine disease.

I again applied to a doctor, telling him I thought there was displacement and possibly congestion.

He confirmed my opinion and told me to wear a pessary.

He ascribed the displacement to the relaxing climate, and said he did not think I should ever get quite right again.

After the pessary had been placed in position every trace of pain, etc. , left me.

A

year later I thought I would try and do without the pessary, and to my great satisfaction none of the old trials came back after its removal, in spite of much trouble, anxiety, sick nursing, and fatigue.

I attribute the disorder entirely to violent sexual excitement which was not permitted its natural gratification and relief.

"I have reason to believe that suppression acts very injuriously on a woman's mental capacity.

When excitement is naturally relieved the mind turns of its own accord to another subject, but when suppressed it is unable to do this.

Personally, in the latter event, I find the greatest difficulty in concentrating my thoughts, and mental effort becomes painful.

Other women have complained to me of the same difficulty.

I have tried mechanical mental work, such as solving arithmetical or algebraic problems, but it does no good; in fact, it seems only to increase the excitement.

(I may remark here that my feelings are always very strong not only before and after the monthly period, but also during the time itself; very unfortunately, as, of course, they cannot then be gratified.

This only applies to desire from within, as I am strongly susceptible to influences from without at any time.

) There seems nothing to be done but to bow to the storm till it passes over.

Anything I do during the time it lasts, even household work, is badly done.

The brain seems to become addled for the time being, while after gratification of desire it seems to attain an additional quickness and cleverness.

Perhaps this cause contributes to the small amount of intellectual and artistic work done by women, admitting their natural inferiority to men in artistic impulse.

A woman whose passions are satisfied generally has her strength sapped by maternity, while her attention is drawn from abstract ideas to her children."

HISTORY III.

--B.

states that his first sexual thoughts and acts were curiously connected with whipping.

At 12 he and another boy used to beat each other with a cricket bat upon the bare nates, and afterward indulge in mutual masturbation.

He cannot remember the beginning of his sexual speculation as a child, nor how he learned masturbation.

When he was 13 he used to discuss erotic matters with a schoolfellow who was in the habit of engaging in vulvar intercourse with a girl of his own age.

The intercourse was practised on the way home from school, and in a standing posture.

B.

embraced the girl in the same way.

He is not interested in the psychological aspects of the sexual emotion.

Although his sex passion was early kindled, he never had commerce with prostitutes.

He thinks that his youthful experiences had no ill effect upon him morally, mentally, or physically.

He practised masturbation in moderation till he married, at the age of 31. HISTORY IV.

--"I can remember" (writes the subject) "trotting away as a youngster about 5 with another boy to 'see a girl's legs';

the idea emanated from the other boy, but I was vaguely interested.

How or where we were going to see the object in question I do not remember nor anything further than the intention.

When 6 or 7 I remember being put to bed with the nurse girl and feeling her bare arm with undoubted sexual excitement; I remember, too, gradually feeling along the arm very cautiously, fearing the girl would wake and being bitterly disappointed to find it was merely the arm.

I am almost certain I had then no idea of sex, but the disappointment was actual.

"These are the only early experiences of the sort I can remember.

When about 9 I had others.

On the coast of the north of England, which had then very few visitors and seemed to me very remote, I lived in a farm-house and used to assist the girls of the farm in looking after young cattle.