Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3: Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in WomenEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3: Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in Women
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
In the most primitive societies, indeed, the two views seem to be to some
extent amalgamated; or, it should rather be said, they have not yet been
differentiated; and, as in such societies it is usual to venerate the
generative principle of nature and its embodiments in the human body and
in human functions, such a co-ordination of ideas is entirely rational.
But with the development of culture the tendency is for this homogeneous
conception to be split up into two inharmonious tendencies. Even apart
from Christianity and before its advent this may be noted. It was,
however, to Christianity and the Christian ascetic spirit that we owe the
complete differentiation and extreme development which these opposing
views have reached. The condemnation of sexuality involved the
glorification of the virgin; and indifference, even contempt, was felt for
the woman who exercised sexual functions. It remained open to anyone,
according to his own temperament, to identify the typical average woman
with the one or with the other type; all the fund of latent sexual emotion
which no ascetic rule can crush out of the human heart assured the
picturesque idealization alike of the angelic and the diabolic types of
woman. We may trace the same influence subtly lurking even in the most
would-be scientific statements of anthropologists and physicians
today.[156]
It may not be out of place to recall at this point, once more,
the fact, fairly obvious indeed, that the judgments of men
concerning women are very rarely matters of cold scientific
observation, but are colored both by their own sexual emotions
and by their own moral attitude toward the sexual impulse. The
ascetic who is unsuccessfully warring with his own carnal
impulses may (like the voluptuary) see nothing in women but
incarnations of sexual impulse; the ascetic who has subdued his
own carnal impulses may see no elements of sex in women at all.
Thus the opinions regarding this matter are not only tinged by
elements of primitive culture, but by elements of individual
disposition. Statements about the sexual impulses of women often
tell us less about women than about the persons who make them.
The curious manner in which for men women become incarnations of
the sexual impulse is shown by the tendency of both general and
personal names for women to become applicable to prostitutes
only. This is the case with the words "garce" and "fille" in
French, "Mädchen" and "Dirne" in German, as well as with the
French "catin" (Catherine) and the German "Metze" (Mathilde).
(See, e.g., R. Kleinpaul, _Die Räthsel der Sprache_, 1890, pp.
197-198.)
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