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)
Of the 402 women, 166 were married and 236 unmarried. Schröter
divided them into four groups: (1) those below 20; (2) those
between 20 and 30; (3) those between 30 and 40; (4) those from 40
to the menopause. The patients included persons from the lowest
class of the population, and only about a quarter of them could
fairly be regarded as curable. Thus the manifestations of
sexuality were diminished, for with advance of mental disease
sexual manifestations cease to appear. Schröter only counted
those cases in which the sexual manifestations were decided and
fairly constant at the menstrual epoch; if not visibly
manifested, sexual feeling was not taken into account. Sexual
phenomena accompanied the entry of the menstrual epoch in 141
cases: i.e., in 20 (or in the proportion of 72 per cent.) of the
first group, consisting entirely of unmarried women; in 33 (or 28
per cent.) of the second group; in 55 (or 35 per cent.) of the
third group; and in 33 (or 33 per cent.) of the fourth group. It
was found that 181 patients showed no sexual phenomena at any
time, while 80 showed sexual phenomena frequently between the
menstrual epochs, but only in a slight degree, and not at all
during the period. At all ages sexual manifestations were more
prevalent among the unmarried than among the married, though this
difference became regularly and progressively less with increase
in age.
Schröter inclines to think that sexual excitement is commoner
among insane women belonging to the lower social classes than in
those belonging to the better classes. Among 184 women in a
private asylum, only 13 (6.13 per cent.) showed very marked and
constant excitement at menstrual periods. He points out, however,
that this may be due to a greater ability to restrain the
manifestations of feeling.
There is some interest in Schröter's results, though they cannot
be put on a line with inquiries made among the sane; they only
represent the prevalence of the grossest and strongest sexual
manifestations when freed from the restraints of sanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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