In so far as in what has gone before I have described the individual
processes, there appear to be no important differences between the boy
and the girl, over and above those dependent upon the different
structure of the genital organs in the respective sexes. But one notable
difference must now be indicated. Just as in adult life in the female
sex sexual anaesthesia is very frequently observed, so that in coitus the
specific voluptuous sensation is wanting, and indeed often enough the
impulse to coitus itself is actually in abeyance (whereas in men the
sexual impulse and sexual pleasure are very rarely absent), so also in
the case of children a similar difference between the sexes is
conspicuous. In female children the peripheral processes of the sexual
impulse are, comparatively speaking, far less active than in the case of
males. Thus it happens that, although in the girl the phenomena of the
contrectation impulses are hardly, if at all, less conspicuous than they
are in the boy, and appear at as early an age in the former as they do
in the latter, yet in respect of detumescence there is an important
distinction between girls and boys. A girl who has fallen in love with a
boy will be greatly interested in all his doings, and will gladly
embrace and even kiss him; but she will be far less disposed to proceed
to actions in which the genital organs play a part than would a boy with
a like affection for a girl. The same rule holds good when, in the
undifferentiated stage of the sexual impulse, homosexual sentiments and
practices ensue. In such cases, when girls are concerned, caresses of
all kinds will follow, but the genital organs will in all probability
not be involved; whereas in the case of an analogous fondness between
two boys, manipulation of the genital organs is very likely to occur.
Homosexual intimacies between girls are far more often platonic than
similar intimacies between boys.
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