Those complications are to be borne in mind too by the psychoanalyst
who must not mistake symptoms of physical deterioration due to
unsatisfied love cravings with gastric or intestinal derangement due
to toxic agents, and who must bend all his energies to separate what
is "purely" sexual, from all the parasitic cravings of an egotistical
nature which make the patient's sufferings more acute.
CHAPTER VII
THE SENSES IN LOVE
Friedlander has wisely remarked that there is more sensuality than
sexuality in love. Which after all means that sex is only a small part
of love. It is only after the various senses have reported to the
central nervous system the presence of numerous fetishes symbolising
peace and safety, that the sex union is not only possible, but
extremely attractive and creates a durable bond between two human
beings.
=Sight= is naturally the most important of the senses. Like hearing, it
is a long distance sense, which does not require close proximity like
smell, nor close contact like taste and touch.
Thru association of memories, sight becomes the perfect, all embracing,
descriptive sense, able to substitute for all the other senses.
A glance reveals not only the color, size and shape of an object, but
its consistency, firmness or softness, its state of preservation or
deterioration, its probable odor and taste, etc.
Sight perceives the exposed and obvious fetishes and, thru memory
associations, imagines those which are neither exposed nor obvious.
Visual sensations are the most powerful experienced by the organism;
a slight injury to the optic nerve produces a greater shock than
major injuries to any other nerve of the body. The popularity of
the movies is based upon that characteristic. To the unimaginative,
primitive people who relish that childish form of entertainment, visual
sensations replace and suggest almost every other form of sensory
gratification.
I have shown in Chapter III that the large majority of fetishes are
visual, being impressions of color and size, which were produced on the
child's visual nerves thru close proximity with the mother's body.
=Auditory Sensations= which enhance erotic states also hark back very
obviously to infancy. The caressing tone of the lovers' voices, the
well modulated words of praise which they speak to each other in a low
monotonous sing-song during their embraces, the baby talk in which so
many lovers indulge, remind one unavoidably of the crooned lullabies
with which the loving mother created a state of peace and safety that
would enable the nursling to doze off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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