Love: A Treatise on the Science of Sex-attraction: for the use of Physicians and Students of Medical JurisprudenceTalmey, Bernard Simon
Science
Love: A Treatise on the Science of Sex-attraction: for the use of Physicians and Students of Medical Jurisprudence
Talmey, Bernard Simon
Sex
If total abstainers from every kind of sexual erethism should
sometimes become neurasthenic, this fact would not prove yet that the
nervous trouble was caused by total abstinence from the gross sexual
gratification. Even the man about town may become neurasthenic for
lack of the gratification of the impulse of permanent mating. The
apologists of promiscuous intercourse forget or are ignorant of the
fact that the impulse of permanent mating in normal men and women
cannot be satisfied by promiscuity. The craving for a permanent mate,
home and family unconsciously demands gratification even from him who
leads a promiscuous sexual life. If this impulse is not gratified,
as in cranky old bachelors or hysterical old maids, it may lead to
severe attacks of neurasthenia. Such cases will not be cured by the
association with venal women or by promiscuous sensuality, but they may
be cured by a permanent mate, home, and family life. Hence the cure of
the total abstainer from his nervousness by marriage is again no proof
against total abstinence. The cause of the trouble may have been the
unsatisfied impulse of permanent mating which has been now satisfied by
marriage. Promiscuous relations would not have cured the neurasthenia,
but marriage with its accompanying emotional tones.
There is, therefore, no valid proof of the harmfulness of total
abstinence in a healthy individual without a hereditary taint. If total
abstinence ever harmed anybody, the patient was either a congenial
weakling or has acquired his lack of resistance through indulgence
in early eroticism. A perfectly healthy man is never injured by
abstinence. At least there is no sufficient proof that it ever did.
But there are unmistakable proofs that total abstinence does not harm
the individual. The best proof is furnished by many chaste and healthy
women. Few women seem to suffer from total abstinence. The rejoinder
that woman’s sexual desires are very feeble, that the female sex has
no sexual needs, that it is more or less frigid, are mere masculine
assertions without objective proofs. Women writers, who ought to
know best the feelings of their own sex, claim just the opposite.
Johanna Elberskirchen (in Sexualempfindung bei Weib und Mann) has
well satirized the masculine impertinence which tries to teach woman
what her emotions are or are not. The fact that many a young woman
runs the risk, in the present state of sex-morality, of ruining her
entire future by the indulgence in extra-marital sexuality, under
conditions where pecuniary or other considerations are entirely out
of the question, would tend to show that the sexual impulse is by no
means so weak in women, as many would lead us to believe. It is simply
incomprehensible that the female sexual needs should be less urgent
than those of the male sex. Woman has by far the greater part of labor
in the sex-performance. With the ejaculation the man’s biological
part is at an end. He may leave now the scene of his activity, while
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account