An essential difference obtains between the average man’s control and the average woman’s chiefly in that the woman’s is a control by repression, virtually, of course, no control at all; while the man’s control wherever it exists is a control through expression. It accords with the nature of masculinity and femininity that the control of the woman’s erotism, if it be a control through expression, is the control exercised over it by the man. Any control she may obtain over it cannot but be the control by repression. In other words no woman has any control over her own erotism except the ability to refuse to express it, and even that she may lose if she meets the right man. And no control is exercised over her erotism except by her true mate, if she is thus developed by him. The man’s control over his own erotism is a real control only after he has succeeded in freeing his psyche from the mental autoerotism in which he has been born, and has achieved a real allerotism. No consideration need be given to the objection possibly raised here by some; namely, that the double standard of sexual morality that obtains so widely may have given the man a taste of allerotism, and may thus have given him a control through expression. But it must be clearly understood that no clandestine liaison of any sort whatever, except where there is a true love of one woman, to the social recognition of which there is some insuperable barrier, has any real value as an erotic control through expression. Finally in the differentiation between masculine and feminine erotic control it may be said that the woman needs and can, by the nature of the circumstances, have no control through expression herself. She needs no release from her own natural autoerotism. Her love problem is _toto cælo_ different from man’s. § 134 The question—Are not all healthy men prone to relax their erotic tensions more rapidly than women?—may be answered. Possibly they are, but they need not be. If a man is sick he is more likely to feel like crying, yet he does not always do so. If a man receives any great blow, he is proportionately more likely to regress to the stage of infantility. Healthy men, on the contrary, need not be short-winded in the love episode any more than in playing a baseball game, painting a picture, singing a song or writing a book. It may be that no art can be taught. Even if this is true, we shall always attempt to teach arts of all kinds. It may be that the art of love requires a certain amount of innate taste in a man, for him to make any great progress. History has shown a few great geniuses and a few great lovers. Few great lovers figure in history because the average human adult married lover has no penchant for advertising himself. The average childish married man can, however, learn to take steps in the direction of adulthood in married relations, even if he never becomes truly great as a lover.