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)
Zacchia, mainly on _a priori_ grounds, concludes that women have
more pleasure in coitus than men. (Zacchia, _Quæstiones
Medico-legales_, 1630, lib. iii, quest, vii.)
Sinibaldus, discussing whether men or women have more salacity,
decides in favor of women. (J.B. Sinibaldus, _Geneanthropeia_,
1642, lib. ii, tract. ii, cap. v.)
Hornius believed that women have greater sexual pleasure than
men, though he mainly supported his opinion by the authority of
classical poets. (Hornius, _Historic Naturalis_, 1670, lib. iii,
cap. i.)
Nenter describes what we may now call women's affectability, and
considers that it makes them more prone than men to the sexual
emotions, as is shown by the fact that, notwithstanding their
modesty, they sometimes make sexual advances. This greater
proneness of women to the sexual impulse is, he remarks, entirely
natural and right, for the work of generation is mainly carried
on by women, and love is its basis: "generationis fundamentum est
amor." (G.P. Nenter, _Theoria Hominis Sani_, 1714, cap. v, memb.
ii.)
The above opinions of seventeenth-century physicians are quoted
from the original sources. Schurig, in his _Gynæcologia_, (pp.
46-50 and 71-81), quotes a number of passages on this subject
from medical authorities of the same period, on which I have not
drawn.
Sénancour, in his fine and suggestive book on love, first
published in 1806, asks: "Has sexual pleasure the same power on
the sex which less loudly demands it? It has more, at all events
in some respects. The very vigor and laboriousness of men may
lead them to neglect love, but the constant cares of maternity
make women feel how important it must ever be to them. We must
remember also that in men the special emotions of love only have
a single focus, while in women the organs of lactation are united
to those of conception. Our feelings are all determined by these
material causes." (Sénancour, _De l'Amour_, fourth edition, 1834,
vol. i, p. 68.) A later psychologist of love, this time a woman,
Ellen Key, states that woman's erotic demands, though more
silent than man's, are stronger. (Ellen Key, _Ueber Liebe und
Ehe_, p. 138.)
Michael Ryan considered that sexual enjoyment "is more delicious
and protracted" in women, and ascribed this to a more sensitive
nervous system, a finer and more delicate skin, more acute
feelings, and the fact that in women the mammæ are the seat of a
vivid sensibility in sympathy with the uterus. (M. Ryan,
_Philosophy of Marriage_, 1837, p. 153.)
Busch was inclined to think women have greater sexual pleasure
than men. (D.W.H. Busch, _Das Geschlechtsleben des Weibes_, 1839,
vol. i, p. 69.) Kobelt held that the anatomical conformation of
the sexual organs in women led to the conclusion that this must
be the case.
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