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)
neuralgia and hysteria, irregular menstruation, leucorrhea,
atrophy of sexual organs. He also refers to the frequency of
myoma of the uterus among those who have not become pregnant or
who have long ceased to bear children. (Balls-Headley, art.
"Etiology of Diseases of Female Genital Organs," Allbutt and
Playfair, _System of Gynæcology_, 1896, p. 141.) It cannot,
however, be said that he brings forward substantial evidence in
favor of these beliefs. It may be added that in America, during
recent years, leading gynecologists have recorded a number of
cases in which widows on remarriage have shown marked improvement
in uterine and pelvic conditions.
The question as to whether men or women suffer most from sexual
abstinence, as well as the question whether definite morbid
conditions are produced by such abstinence, remains, however, an
obscure and debated problem. The available data do not enable us
to answer it decisively. It is one of those subtle and complex
questions which can only be investigated properly by a
gynecologist who is also a psychologist. Incidentally, however,
we have met and shall have occasion to meet with evidence bearing
on this question. It is sufficient to say here, briefly, that it
is impossible to believe, even if no evidence were forthcoming,
that the exercise or non-exercise of so vastly important a
function can make no difference to the organism generally. So
far as the evidence goes, it may be said to indicate that the
results of the abeyance of the sexual functions in healthy women
in whom the sexual emotions have never been definitely aroused
tend to be diffused and unconscious, as the sexual impulse itself
often is, but that, in women in whom the sexual emotions have
been definitely aroused and gratified, the results of sexual
abstinence tend to be acute and conscious.
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