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)
HISTORY IX.--The subject belongs to a large family having some
neurotic members; she spent her early life on a large farm. She
is vigorous and energetic, has intellectual tastes, and is
accustomed to think for herself, from unconventional standpoints,
on many subjects. Her parents were very religious, and not, she
thinks, of sensual temperament. Her own early life was free from
associations of a sexual character, and she can recall little
that now seems to be significant in this respect. She remembers
that in childhood and for some time later she believed that
children were born through the navel. Her activities went chiefly
into humanitarian and utopian directions, and she cherished ideas
of a large, healthy, free life, untrammeled by civilization. She
regards herself as very passionate, but her sexual emotions
appear to have developed very slowly and have been somewhat
intellectualized. After reaching adult life she has formed
several successive relationships with men to whom she has been
attracted by affinity in temperament, in intellectual views, and
in tastes. These relationships have usually been followed by some
degree of disillusion, and so have been dissolved. She does not
believe in legal marriage, though under fitting circumstances she
would much like to have a child.
She never masturbated until the age of 27. At that time a married
friend told her that such a thing could be done. She found it
gave her decided pleasure, indeed, more than coitus had ever
given her except with one man. She has never practised it to
excess, only at rare intervals, and is of the opinion that it is
decidedly beneficial when thus moderately indulged in. She has
sometimes found, for instance, that, after the mental excitement
produced by delivering a lecture, sleep would be impossible if
masturbation were not resorted to as a sedative to relieve the
tension.
Spontaneous sexual excitement is strongest just before the
monthly period.
Definite sexual dreams and sexual excitement during sleep have
not occurred except possibly on one or two occasions.
She has from girlhood experienced erotic day-dreams, imagining
love-stories of which she herself was the heroine; the climax of
these stories has developed with her own developing knowledge of
sexual matters.
She is not inverted, and has never been in love with a woman. She
finds, however, that a beautiful woman is distinctly a sexual
excitation, calling out definite physical manifestations of
sexual emotion. She explains this by saying that she thinks she
instinctively puts herself in the place of a man and feels as it
seems to her a man would feel.
She finds that music excites the sexual emotions, as well as many
scents, whether of flowers, the personal odor of the beloved
person, or artificial perfumes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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