Studies in the Psychology of Sex III.pdf

STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME III

Analysis of the Sexual Impulse

Love and Pain

The Sexual Impulse in Women

HAVELOCK ELLIS

1927

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

This volume has been thoroughly revised for the present edition and

considerably enlarged throughout, in order to render it more accurate and

more illustrative, while bringing it fairly up to date with reference to

scientific investigation. Numerous histories have also been added to the

Appendix.

It has not been found necessary to modify the main doctrines set forth ten

years ago. At the same time, however, it may be mentioned, as regards the

first study in the volume, that our knowledge of the physiological

mechanism of the sexual instinct has been revolutionized during recent

years. This is due to the investigations that have been made, and the

deductions that have been built up, concerning the part played by

hormones, or internal secretions of the ductless glands, in the physical

production of the sexual instinct and the secondary sexual characters. The

conception of the psychology of the sexual impulse here set forth, while

correlated to terms of a physical process of tumescence and detumescence,

may be said to be independent of the ultimate physiological origins of

that process. But we cannot fail to realize the bearing of physiological

chemistry in this field; and the doctrine of internal secretions, since it

may throw light on many complex problems presented by the sexual instinct,

is full of interest for us.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

June, 1913.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

The present volume of _Studies_ deals with some of the most essential

problems of sexual psychology. The _Analysis of the Sexual Impulse_ is

fundamental. Unless we comprehend the exact process which is being worked

out beneath the shifting and multifold phenomena presented to us we can

never hope to grasp in their true relations any of the normal or abnormal

manifestations of this instinct. I do not claim that the conception of the

process here stated is novel or original. Indeed, even since I began to

work it out some years ago, various investigators in these fields,

especially in Germany, have deprived it of any novelty it might otherwise

have possessed, while at the same time aiding me in reaching a more

precise statement. This is to me a cause of satisfaction. On so

fundamental a matter I should have been sorry to find myself tending to a

peculiar and individual standpoint. It is a source of gratification to me

that the positions I have reached are those toward which current

intelligent and scientific opinions are tending. Any originality in my

study of this problem can only lie in the bringing together of elements

from somewhat diverse fields. I shall be content if it is found that I

have attained a fairly balanced, general, and judicial statement of these

main factors in the sexual instinct.

In the study of _Love and Pain_ I have discussed the sources of those

aberrations which are commonly called, not altogether happily, "sadism"

and "masochism." Here we are brought before the most extreme and perhaps

the most widely known group of sexual perversions. I have considered them

from the medico-legal standpoint, because that has already been done by

other writers whose works are accessible. I have preferred to show how

these aberrations may be explained; how they may be linked on to normal

and fundamental aspects of the sexual impulse; and, indeed, in their

elementary forms, may themselves be regarded as normal. In some degree

they are present, in every case, at some point of sexual development;

their threads are subtly woven in and out of the whole psychological

process of sex. I have made no attempt to reduce their complexity to a

simplicity that would be fallacious. I hope that my attempt to unravel

these long and tangled threads will be found to make them fairly clear.

In the third study, on _The Sexual Impulse in Women_, we approach a

practical question of applied sexual psychology, and a question of the

first importance. No doubt the sex impulse in men is of great moment from

the social point of view. It is, however, fairly obvious and well

understood. The impulse in women is not only of at least equal moment, but

it is far more obscure. The natural difficulties of the subject have been

increased by the assumption of most writers who have touched it--casually

and hurriedly, for the most part--that the only differences to be sought

in the sexual impulse in man and in woman are quantitative differences. I

have pointed out that we may more profitably seek for qualitative

differences, and have endeavored to indicate such of these differences as

seem to be of significance.

In an Appendix will be found a selection of histories of more or less

normal sexual development. Histories of gross sexual perversion have often

been presented in books devoted to the sexual instinct; it has not

hitherto been usual to inquire into the facts of normal sexual

development. Yet it is concerning normal sexual development that our

ignorance is greatest, and the innovation can scarcely need justification.

I have inserted these histories not only because many of them are highly

instructive in themselves, but also because they exhibit the nature of the

material on which my work is mainly founded.

I am indebted to many correspondents, medical and other, in various parts

of the world, for much valuable assistance. When they have permitted me

to do so I have usually mentioned their names in the text. This has not

been possible in the case of many women friends and correspondents, to

whom, however, my debt is very great. Nature has put upon women the

greater part of the burden of sexual reproduction; they have consequently

become the supreme authorities on all matters in which the sexual emotions

come into question. Many circumstances, however, that are fairly obvious,

conspire to make it difficult for women to assert publicly the wisdom and

knowledge which, in matters of love, the experiences of life have brought

to them. The ladies who, in all earnestness and sincerity, write books on

these questions are often the last people to whom we should go as the

representatives of their sex; those who know most have written least. I

can therefore but express again, as in previous volumes I have expressed

before, my deep gratitude to these anonymous collaborators who have aided

me in throwing light on a field of human life which is of such primary

social importance and is yet so dimly visible.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

Carbis Water,

Lelant, Cornwall, England.

CONTENTS.

ANALYSIS OF THE SEXUAL IMPULSE.

Definition of Instinct--The Sexual Impulse a Factor of the Sexual

Instinct--Theory of the Sexual Impulse as an Impulse of Evacuation--The

Evidence in Support of this Theory Inadequate--The Sexual Impulse to Some

Extent Independent of the Sexual Glands--The Sexual Impulse in Castrated

Animals and Men--The Sexual Impulse in Castrated Women, After the

Menopause, and in the Congenital Absence of the Sexual Glands--The

Internal Secretions--Analogy between the Sexual Relationship and that of

the Suckling Mother and her Child--The Theory of the Sexual Impulse as a

Reproductive Impulse--This Theory Untenable--Moll's Definition--The

Impulse of Detumescence--The Impulse of Contrectation--Modification of

this Theory Proposed--Its Relation to Darwin's Sexual Selection--The

Essential Element in Darwin's Conception--Summary of the History of the

Doctrine of Sexual Selection. Its Psychological Aspect--Sexual Selection a

Part of Natural Selection--The Fundamental Importance of

Tumescence--Illustrated by the Phenomena of Courtship in Animals and in

Man--The Object of Courtship is to Produce Sexual Tumescence--The

Primitive Significance of Dancing in Animals and Man--Dancing is a Potent

Agent for Producing Tumescence--The Element of Truth in the Comparison of

the Sexual Impulse with an Evacuation, Especially of the Bladder--Both

Essentially Involve Nervous Explosions--Their Intimate and Sometimes

Vicarious Relationships--Analogy between Coitus and Epilepsy--Analogy of

the Sexual Impulse to Hunger--Final Object of the Impulses of Tumescence

and Detumescence.

LOVE AND PAIN.

The Chief Key to the Relationship between Love and Pain to be Found in

Animal Courtship--Courtship a Source of Combativity and of Cruelty--Human

Play in the Light of Animal Courtship--The Frequency of Crimes Against the

Person in Adolescence--Marriage by Capture and its Psychological

Basis--Man's Pleasure in Exerting Force and Woman's Pleasure in

Experiencing it--Resemblance of Love to Pain even in Outward

Expression--The Love-bite--In What Sense Pain May be Pleasurable--The

Natural Contradiction in the Emotional Attitude of Women Toward

Men--Relative Insensibility to Pain of the Organic Sexual Sphere in

Women--The Significance of the Use of the Ampallang and Similar Appliances

in Coitus--The Sexual Subjection of Women to Men in Part Explainable as

the Necessary Condition for Sexual Pleasure.

II.

The Definition of Sadism--De Sade--Masochism to some Extent

Normal--Sacher-Masoch--No Real Line of Demarcation between Sadism and

Masochism--Algolagnia Includes Both Groups of Manifestations--The

Love-bite as a Bridge from Normal Phenomena to Algolagnia--The Fascination

of Blood--The Most Extreme Perversions are Linked on to Normal Phenomena.

III.

Flagellation as a Typical Illustration of Algolagnia--Causes of Connection

between Sexual Emotion and Whipping--Physical Causes--Psychic Causes

Probably More Important--The Varied Emotional Associations of

Whipping--Its Wide Prevalence.

IV.

The Impulse to Strangle the Object of Sexual Desire--The Wish to be

Strangled. Respiratory Disturbance the Essential Element in this Group of

Phenomena--The Part Played by Respiratory Excitement in the Process of

Courtship--Swinging and Suspension--The Attraction Exerted by the Idea of

being Chained and Fettered.

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