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)
The greater predominance of the sexual system in women on the
psychic side is clearly brought out in insane conditions. It is
well known that, while satyriasis is rare, nymphomania is
comparatively common. These conditions are probably often forms
of mania, and in mania, while sexual symptoms are common in men,
they are often stated to be the rule in women (see, e.g.,
Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, tenth edition, English
translation, p. 465). Bouchereau, in noting this difference in
the prevalence of sexual manifestations during insanity, remarks
that it is partly due to the naturally greater dependence of
women on the organs of generation, and partly to the more active,
independent, and laborious lives of men; in his opinion,
satyriasis is specially apt to develop in men who lead lives
resembling those of women. (Bouchereau, art. "Satyriasis,"
_Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_.) Again,
postconnubial insanity is very much commoner in women than in
men, a fact which may indicate the more predominant part played
by the sexual sphere in women. (Savage, art. "Marriage and
Insanity," _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_.)
Insanity tends to remove the artificial inhibitory influences
that rule in ordinary life, and there is therefore significance
in such a fact as that the sexual appetite is often increased in
general paralysis and to a notable extent in women. (Pactet and
Colin, _Les Aliénés devant la Justice_, 1902, p. 122.)
Näcke, from his experiences among the insane, makes an
interesting and possibly sound distinction regarding the
character of the sexual manifestations in the two sexes. Among
men he finds these manifestations to be more of a reflex and
purely spinal nature and chiefly manifested in masturbation; in
women he finds them to be of a more cerebral character, and
chiefly manifested in erotic gestures, lascivious conversation,
etc. The sexual impulse would thus tend to involve to a greater
extent the higher psychic region in women than in men.
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