Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1: The Evolution of Modesty; The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity; Auto-ErotismEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1: The Evolution of Modesty; The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity; Auto-Erotism
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
As regards lunar periodicity, E.M., has summated his results in a
curve, after the same manner as Mr. Perry-Coste, beginning with
the new moon. The periods covered include 54 lunar months, and
the total number of discharges is 176; the average frequency is
about 3 per month of twenty-eight days. The curve, for the most
part, zigzags between a frequency of 4 and 9, but on the
twenty-fourth day it falls to 1, and then rises uninterruptedly
to a height of 11 on the twenty-seventh day, falling to 2 on the
next day. Whether a really menstrual rhythm is thus indicated I
do not undertake to decide, but I am inclined to agree with E.M.
himself that there is no definite evidence of it. "It looks to
me," he writes, "as if the only real rhythm (putting aside the
annual cycle) will be found to be the average period between the
ecboles, varying in different persons, but in my case, about nine
and one-eighth days. May not the ecbolic period in men be
compared to the menstrual period in women, and be an example of
the greater katabolic activity of men? There is the period of
tumescence, and the ecbole constituting the detumescence. The
week-end holiday would hasten the detumescence, but about every
third week-end there would tend to be delay to enable the system
to get back into its regulation nine or ten days' stride. This
might possibly be the explanation of the curves. The recent
emissions were nearly all involuntary during sleep. Age may have
something to do with the change in character."
E.M.'s curves frequently show the influence of weekly
periodicity, in the tendency to ecbole on Sunday, or sometimes on
Saturday or Monday. In recent years there has been some tendency
for this climax to be thrown towards the middle of the week, but,
on the whole, Wednesday is the point of lowest frequency.
In another case, the subject, A.N., who has spent nearly all his
life in the State of Indiana, has kept a record of sexual
manifestations between the ages of 30 and 34. The data, which
cover four years, have not been sent to me in a form which
enables the possibility of a monthly curve to be estimated, but
A.N., who has himself arranged the data on a lunar monthly basis,
considers that a monthly curve is thus revealed. "My memoranda,"
he writes, "show that discharges occur most frequently on the
first, second, and third days after new moon. There is also
another period on the fourteenth and fifteenth, which might
indicate a semi-lunar rhythm. The days of minimum discharge are
the seventh, eighth, twenty-second, and twenty-third." It may be
added that the yearly average of ecbolic manifestations, varying
between 50 and 55, comes out as 52, or exactly one per week.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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