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)
Yet it is as unreasonable to take normal phenomena for granted here as in
any other region of science. A knowledge of such phenomena is as necessary
here as physiology is to pathology or anatomy to surgery. So far from the
facts of normal sex development, sex emotions, and sex needs being uniform
and constant, as is assumed by those who consider their discussion
unnecessary, the range of variation within fairly normal limits is
immense, and it is impossible to meet with two individuals whose records
are nearly identical.
There are two fundamental reasons why the endeavor should be made to
obtain a broad basis of clear information on the subject. In the first
place, the normal phenomena give the key to the abnormal phenomena, and
the majority of sexual perversions, including even those that are most
repulsive, are but exaggerations of instincts and emotions that are
germinal in normal human beings. In the second place, we cannot even know
what is normal until we are acquainted with the sexual life of a large
number of healthy individuals. And until we know the limits of normal
sexuality we are not in position to lay down any reasonable rules of
sexual hygiene.
On these grounds I have for some time sought to obtain the sexual
histories, and more especially the early histories, of men and women who,
on _prima facie_ grounds, may fairly be considered, or are at all events
by themselves and others considered, ordinarily healthy and normal.
There are many difficulties about such a task, difficulties which are
sufficiently obvious. There is, first of all, the natural reticence to
reveal facts of so intimately personal a character. There is the
prevailing ignorance and unintelligence which leads to the phenomena being
obscure to the subject himself. When the first difficulty has been
overcome, and the second is non-existent, there is still a lack of
sufficiently strong motive to undertake the record, as well as a failure
to realize the value of such records. I have, however, received a large
number of such histories, for the most part offered spontaneously with
permission to make such further inquiries as I thought desirable. Some of
these histories are extremely interesting and instructive. In the present
Appendix, and in a corresponding Appendix to the two following volumes of
these _Studies_, I bring forward a varied selection of these narratives.
In a few cases, it will be seen, the subjects are, to say the least, on
the borderland of the abnormal, but they do not come before us as patients
desiring treatment. They are playing their, usually active, sometimes even
distinguished, part in the world, which knows nothing of their intimate
histories.
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