I.

The Psychological Significance of Detumescence--The Testis and the Ovary--Sperm Cell and Germ Cell--Development of the Embryo--The External Sexual Organs--Their Wide Range of Variation--Their Nervous Supply--The Penis--Its Racial Variations--The Influence of Exercise--The Scrotum and Testicles--The Mons Veneris--The Vulva--The Labia Majora and their Varieties--The Pubic Hair and Its Characters--The Clitoris and Its Functions--The Anus as an Erogenous Zone--The Nymphæ and their Function--The Vagina--The Hymen--Virginity--The Biological Significance of the Hymen.

In analyzing the sexual impulse we have seen that the process whereby the conjunction of the sexes is achieved falls naturally into two phases: the first phase, of tumescence, during which force is generated in the organism, and the second phase, of detumescence, in which that force is discharged during conjugation.[72] Hitherto we have been occupied mainly with the first phase, that of tumescence, and with its associated psychic phenomena. It was inevitable that this should be so, for it is during the slow process of tumescence that sexual selection is decided, the crystallizations of love elaborated, and, to a large extent, the individual erotic symbols determined. But we can by no means altogether pass over the final phase of detumescence. Its consideration, it is true, brings us directly into the field of anatomy and physiology; while tumescence is largely under control of the will, when the moment of detumescence arrives the reins slip from the control of the will; the more fundamental and uncontrollable impulses of the organism gallop on unchecked; the chariot of Phaëthon dashes blindly down into a sea of emotion.

Yet detumescence is the end and climax of the whole drama; it is an anatomico-physiological process, certainly, but one that inevitably touches psychology at every point.[73] It is, indeed, the very key to the process of tumescence, and unless we understand and realize very precisely what it is that happens during detumescence, our psychological analysis of the sexual impulse must remain vague and inadequate.

From the point of view we now occupy, a man and a woman are no longer two highly sensitive organisms vibrating, voluptuously it may indeed be, but vaguely and indefinitely, to all kinds of influences and with fluctuating impulses capable of being directed into any channel, even in the highest degree divergent from the proper ends of procreation. They are now two genital organisms who exist to propagate the race, and whatever else they may be, they must be adequately constituted to effect the act by which the future of the race is ensured. We have to consider what are the material conditions which ensure the most satisfactory and complete fulfillment of this act, and how those conditions may be correlated with other circumstances in the organism. In thus approaching the subject we shall find that we have not really abandoned the study of the psychic aspects of sex.

The two most primary sexual organs are the testis and the ovary; it is the object of conjugation to bring into contact the sperm from the testis with the germ from the ovary. There is no reason to suppose that the germ-cell and the sperm-cell are essentially different from each other. Sexual conjugation thus remains a process which is radically the same as the non-sexual mode of propagation which preceded it. The fusion of the nuclei of the two cells was regarded by Van Beneden, who in 1875 first accurately described it, as a process of conjugation comparable to that of the protozoa and the protophyta. Boveri, who has further extended our knowledge of the process, considers that the spermatozoon removes an inhibitory influence preventing the commencement of development in the ovum; the spermatozoon replaces a portion of the ovum which has already undergone degeneration, so that the object of conjugation is chiefly to effect the union of the properties of two cells in one, sexual fertilization achieving a division of labor with reciprocal inhibition; the two cells have renounced their original faculty of separate development in order to attain a fusion of qualities and thus render possible that production of new forms and qualities which has involved the progress of the organized world.[74]

While in fishes this conjugation of the male and female elements is usually ensured by the female casting her spawn into an artificial nest outside the body, on to which the male sheds his milt, in all animals (and, to some extent, birds, who occupy an intermediate position) there is an organic nest, or incubation chamber as Bland Sutton terms it, the womb, in the female body, wherein the fertilized egg may develop to a high degree of maturity sheltered from those manifold risks of the external world which make it necessary for the spawn of fishes to be so enormous in amount. Since, however, men and women have descended from remote ancestors who, in the manner of aquatic creatures, exercised functions of sperm-extrusion and germ-extrusion that were exactly analogous in the two sexes, without any specialized female uterine organization, the early stages of human male and female foetal development still display the comparatively undifferentiated sexual organization of those remote ancestors, and during the first months of foetal life it is practically impossible to tell by the inspection of the genital regions whether the embryo would have developed into a man or into a woman. If we examine the embryo at an early stage of development we see that the hind end is the body stalk, this stalk in later stages becoming part of the umbilical cord. The urogenital region, formed by the rapid extension of the hind end beyond its original limit, which corresponds to what is later the umbilicus, develops mainly by the gradual differentiation of structures (the Wolffian and Müllerian bodies) which originally exist identically in both sexes. This process of sexual differentiation is highly complex, so that it cannot yet be said that there is complete agreement among investigators as to its details. When some irregularity or arrest of development occurs in the process we have one or other of the numerous malformations which may affect this region. If the arrest occurs at a very early stage we may even find a condition of things which seems to approximate to that which normally exists in the adult reptilia.[75] Owing to the fact that both male and female organs develop from more primitive structures which were sexually undifferentiated, a fundamental analogy in the sexual organs of the sexes always remains; the developed organs of one sex exist as rudiments in the other sex; the testicles correspond to the ovaries; the female clitoris is the homologue of the male penis; the scrotum of one sex is the labia majora in the other sex, and so throughout, although it is not always possible at present to be quite certain in regard to these homologics.

Since the object to be attained by the sexual organs in the human species is identical with that which they subserve in their pre-human ancestors, it is not surprising to find that these structures have a clear resemblance to the corresponding structures in the apes, although on the whole there would appear to be in man a higher degree of sexual differentiation. Thus the uterus of various species of _semnopithecus_ seems to show a noteworthy correspondence with the same organ in woman.[76] The somewhat less degree of sexual differentiation is well shown in the gorilla; in the male the external organs are in the passive state covered by the wrinkled skin of the abdomen, while in the female, on the contrary, they are very apparent, and in sexual excitement the large clitoris and nymphæ become markedly prominent. The penis of the gorilla, however, more nearly resembles that of man, according to Hartmann, than does that of the other anthropoid apes, which diverge from the human type in this respect more than do the cynocephalic apes and some species of baboon.

From the psychological point of view we are less interested in the internal sexual organs, which are most fundamentally concerned with the production and reception of the sexual elements, than with the more external parts of the genital apparatus which serve as the instruments of sexual excitation, and the channels for the intromission and passage of the seminal fluid. It is these only which can play any part at all in sexual selection; they are the only part of the sexual apparatus which can enter into the formation of either normal or abnormal erotic conceptions; they are the organs most prominently concerned with detumescence; they alone enter normally into the conscious process of sex at any time. It seems desirable, therefore, to discuss them briefly at this point.

Our knowledge of the individual and racial variations of the external sexual organs is still extremely imperfect. A few monographs and collections of data on isolated points may be found in more or less inaccessible publications. As regards women, Ploss and Bartels have devoted a chapter to the sexual organs of women which extends to a hundred pages, but remains scanty and fragmentary. (_Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter VI.) The most systematic series of observations have been made in the case of the various kinds of degenerates--idiots, the insane, criminals, etc.--but it would be obviously unsafe to rely too absolutely on such investigations for our knowledge of the sexual organs of the ordinary population.

There can be no doubt, however, that the external sexual organs in normal men and women exhibit a peculiarly wide range of variation. This is indicated not only by the unsystematic results attained by experienced observers, but also by more systematic studies. Thus Herman has shown by detailed measurements that there are great normal variations in the conformation of the parts that form the floor of the female pelvis. He found that the projection of the pelvic floor varied from nothing to as much as two inches, and that in healthy women who had borne no children the distance between the coccyx and anus, the length of the perineum, the distance between the fourchette and the symphysis pubis, and the length of the vagina are subject to wide variations. (_Lancet_, October 12, 1889.) Even the female urethral opening varies very greatly, as has been shown by Bergh, who investigated it in nearly 700 women and reproduces the various shapes found; while most usually (in about a third of the cases observed), a longitudinal slit, it may be cross-shaped, star-shaped, crescentic, etc.; and while sometimes very small, in about 6 per cent. of the cases it admitted the tip of the little finger. (Bergh, _Monatsheft für Praktische Dermatologie_, 15 Sept., 1897.)

As regards both sexes, Stanley Hall states that "Dr. F.N. Seerley, who has examined over 2000 normal young men as well as many young women, tells me that in his opinion individual variations in these parts are much greater even than those of face and form, and that the range of adult and apparently normal size and proportion, as well as function, and of both the age and order of development, not only of each of the several parts themselves, but of all their immediate annexes, and in females as well as males, is far greater than has been recognized by any writer. This fact is the basis of the anxieties and fears of morphological abnormality so frequent during adolescence." (G.S. Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 414).

In accordance with the supreme importance of the part they play, and the intimately psychic nature of that part, the sexual organs, both internal and external, are very richly supplied with nerves. While the internal organs are very abundantly furnished with sympathetic nerves and ganglia, the external organs show the highest possible degree of specialization of the various peripheral nervous devices which the organism has developed for receiving, accumulating, and transmitting stimuli to the brain.[77]

"The number of conducting cords which attach the genitals to the nervous centers is simply enormous," writes Bryan Robinson; "the pudic nerve is composed of nearly all the third sacral and branches from the second and fourth sacral. As one examines this nerve he is forced to the conclusion that it is an enormous supply for a small organ. The periphery of the pudic nerve spreads itself like a fan over the genitals." The lesser sciatic nerve supplies only one muscle--the gluteus maximus--and then sends the large pudendal branch to the side of the penis, and hence the friction of coitus induces active contraction of the gluteus maximus, "the main muscle of coition." The large pudic and the pudendal constitute the main supply of the external genitals. In women the pudic nerve is equally large, but the pudendal much smaller, possibly, Bryan Robinson suggests, because women take a less active part in coitus. The nerve supply of the clitoris, however, is three or four times as large as that of the penis in proportion to size. (F.B. Robinson, "The Intimate Nervous Connection of the Genito-Urinary Organs With the Cerebro-Spinal and Sympathetic Systems," _New York Medical Journal_, March 11, 1893; id., _The Abdominal Brain_, 1899.)

Of all the sexual organs the penis is without doubt that which has most powerfully impressed the human imagination. It is the very emblem of generation, and everywhere men have contemplated it with a mixture of reverence and shuddering awe that has sometimes, even among civilized peoples, amounted to horror and disgust. Its image is worn as an amulet to ward off evil and invoked as a charm to call forth blessing. The sexual organs were once the most sacred object on which a man could place his hands to swear an inviolate oath, just as now he takes up the Testament. Even in the traditions of the great classic civilization which we inherit the penis is _fascinus_, the symbol of all fascination. In the history of human culture it has had far more than a merely human significance; it has been the symbol of all the generative force of Nature, the embodiment of creative energy in the animal and vegetable worlds alike, an image to be held aloft for worship, the sign of all unconscious ecstasy. As a symbol, the sacred phallus, it has been woven in and out of all the highest and deepest human conceptions, so intimately that it is possible to see it everywhere, that it is possible to fail to see it anywhere.

In correspondence with the importance of the penis is the large number of names which men have everywhere bestowed upon it. In French literature many hundred synonyms may be found. They were also numerous in Latin. In English the literary terms for the penis seem to be comparatively few, but a large number of non-literary synonyms exist in colloquial and perhaps merely local usage. The Latin term penis, which has established itself among us as the most correct designation, is generally considered to be associated with _pendere_ and to be connected therefore with the usually pendent position of the organ. In the middle ages the general literary term throughout Europe was _coles_ (or _colis_) from _caulis_, a stalk, and _virga_, a rod. The only serious English literary term, yard (exactly equivalent to _virga_), as used by Chaucer--almost the last great English writer whose vocabulary was adequate to the central facts of life--has now fallen out of literary and even colloquial usage.

Pierer and Chaulant, in their anatomical and physiological _Real-Lexicon_ (vol. vi, p. 134), give nearly a hundred synonyms for the penis. Hyrtl (_Topographisches Anatomie_, seventh edition, vol. ii, pp. 67-69), adds others. Schurig, in his _Spermatologia_ (1720, pp. 89-91), also presents a number of names for the penis; in Chapter III (pp. 189-192) of the same book he discusses the penis generally with more fullness than most authors. Louis de Landes, in his _Glossaire Erotique_ of the French language (pp. 239-242), enumerates several hundred literary synonyms for the penis, though many of them probably only occur once.

There is no thorough and comprehensive modern study of the penis on an anthropological basis (though I should mention a valuable and fully illustrated study of anthropological and pathological variations of the penis in a series of articles by Marandon de Montyel, "Des Anomalies des Organs Génitaux Externes Chez les Aliénées," etc., _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1895), and it would be out of place here to attempt to collect the scattered notices regarding racial and other variations. It may suffice to note some of the evidence showing that such variations seem to be numerous and important. The Arab penis (according to Kocher) is slender and long (a third longer than the average European penis) and with a club-shaped glans. It undergoes little change when it enters the erect state. The clothes leaves it quite free, and the Arab practices manual excitement at an early age to favor its development.

Among the Fuegians, also, according to Hyades and Deniker (_Cap Horn_, vol. vii, p. 153), the average length of the penis is 77 millimeters, which is longer than in Europeans.

In men of black race, also, the penis is decidedly large. Thus Sir H.H. Johnston (_British Central Africa_, p. 399) states this to be a universal rule. Among the Wankenda of Northern Nyassa, for instance, he remarks that, while the body is of medium size, the penis is generally large. He gives the usual length as about six inches, reaching nine or ten in erection. The prepuce, it is added, is often very long, and circumcision is practiced by many tribes.

Among the American negroes Hrdlicka has found, also (_Proceedings American Association for the Advancement of Science_, vol. xlvii, p. 475), that the penis in black boys is larger than in white boys.

The passages cited above suggest the question whether the penis becomes larger by exercise of its generative functions. Most old authors assert that frequent erection makes the penis large and long (Schurig, _Spermatologia_, p. 107). Galen noted that in singers and athletes, who were chaste in order to preserve their strength, the sexual parts were small and rugrose, like those of old men, and that exercise of the organs from youth develops them; Roubaud, quoting this observation (_Traité de l'Impuissance_, p. 373), agrees with the statement. It seems probable that there is an element of truth in this ancient belief. At the same time it must be remembered that the penis is only to small extent a muscular organ, and that the increase of size produced by frequent congestion of erectile tissues cannot be either rapid or pronounced. Variations in the size of the sexual organs are probably on the whole mainly inherited, though it is impossible to speak decisively on this point until more systematic observations become customary.

The scrotum has usually, in the human imagination, been regarded merely as an appendage of the penis, of secondary importance, although it is the garment of the primary and essential organs of sex, and the fact that it is not the seat of any voluptuous sensation has doubtless helped to confirm this position. Even the name is merely a mediæval perversion of _scortum_, skin or hide. In classic times it was usually called the pouch or purse. The importance of the testicles has not, however, been altogether ignored, as the very word _testis_ itself shows, for the _testis_ is simply the _witness_ of virility.[78]

It is easy to understand why the penis should occupy this special place in man's thoughts as the supreme sexual organ. It is the one conspicuous and prominent portion of the sexual apparatus, while its aptitude for swelling and erecting itself involuntarily, under the influence of sexual emotion, gives it a peculiar and almost unique position in the body. At the same time it is the point at which, in the male body, all voluptuous sensation is concentrated, the only normal masculine center of sex.[79]

It is not easy to find any correspondingly conspicuous symbol of sex in the sexual region of women. In the normal position nothing is visible but the peculiarly human cushion of fat picturesquely termed the Mons Veneris (because, as Palfyn said, all those who enroll themselves under the banner of Venus must necessarily scale it), and even that is veiled from view in the adult by the more or less bushy plantation of hair which grows upon it. A triangle of varyingly precise definition is thus formed at the lower apex of the trunk, and this would sometimes appear to have been regarded as a feminine symbol.[80] But the more usual and typical symbol of femininity is the idealized ring (by some savages drawn as a lozenge) of the vulvar opening--the _yoni_ corresponding to the masculine _lingam_--which is normally closed from view by the larger lips arising from beneath the shadow of the _mons_. It is a symbol that, like the masculine phallus, has a double meaning among primitive peoples and is sometimes used to call down a blessing and sometimes to invoke a curse.[81]

This external opening of the feminine genital passage with its two enclosing lips is now generally called the vulva. It would appear that originally (as by Celsus and Pliny) this term included the womb, also, but when the term "uterus" came into use "vulva" was confined (as its sense of folding doors suggests that it should be) to the external entrance. The classic term _cunnus_ for the external genitals was chiefly used by the poets; it has been the etymological source of various European names for this region, such as the old French _con_, which has now, however, disappeared from literature while even in popular usage it has given place to _lapin_ and similar terms. But there is always a tendency, marked in most parts of the world, for the names of the external female parts to become indecorous. Even in classic antiquity this part was the _pudendum_, the part to be ashamed of, and among ourselves the mass of the population, still preserving the traditions of primitive times, continue to cherish the same notion.

The anatomy, anthropology, folk-lore, and terminology of the external and to some extent the internal feminine sexual region may be studied in the following publications, among others: Ploss, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter VI; Hyrtl, _Topographisches Anatomie_, vol. ii, and other publications by the same scholarly anatomist; W.J. Stewart Mackay, _History of Ancient Gynæcology_, especially pp. 244-250; R. Bergh, "Symbolæ ad Cognitionem Genitalium Externorum Foeminearum" (in Danish), _Hospitalstidende_, August, 1894; and also in _Monatshefte für Praktische Dermatologie_, 1897. D.S. Lamb, "The Female External Genital Organs," _New York Journal of Gynæcology_, August, 1894; R.L. Dickinson, "Hypertrophies of the Labia Minora and Their Significance," _American Gynecology_, September, 1902; Kryptadia (in various languages), vol. viii, pp. 3-11, 11-13, and many other passages. Several of Schurig's works (especially _Gynæcologia_, _Muliebria_, and _Parthenologia_) contain full summaries of the statements of the early writers.

The external or larger lips, like the mons veneris, are specifically human in their full development, for in the anthropoid apes they are small as is the mons, and in the lower apes absent altogether; they are, moreover, larger in the white than in the other human races. Thus in the negro, and to a less degree in the Japanese (Wernich) and the Javanese (Scherzer) they are less developed than in women of white race. The greater lips develop in the foetus later than the lesser lips, which are thus at first uncovered; this condition thus constitutes an infantile state which occasionally (in less than 2 per cent. of cases, according to Bergh) persists in the adult. Their generally accepted name, labia majora, is comparatively modern.[82]

The outer sides of the labia majora are covered with hair, and on the inner sides, which are smooth and moist, but are not true mucous membrane, there are a few sweat glands and numerous large sebaceous glands. Bergh considers that there is little or no hair on the inner sides of the labia majora, but Lamb states that careful examination shows that from one- to two-thirds of the inner surface in adult women show hairs like those of the external surface. In brunettes and women of dark races this surface is pigmented; in dark races it is usually a slate gray. From an examination of 2200 young Danish prostitutes Bergh has found that there are two main varieties in the shape of the labia majora, with transitional forms. In the first and most frequent form the labia tend to be less marked and more effaced and separated at the upper and anterior part, often being lost in the sides of the mons and presenting a fissure which is broader in its upper part and showing the inner lips more or less bare. In the second form the labia are thicker and more outstanding and the inner edges lie in contact throughout their whole length, showing the _rima pudendi_ as a long narrow fissure. Whatever the form, the labia close more tightly together in virgins and in young individuals generally than in the deflowered and the elderly. In children, as Martineau pointed out, the vulva appears to look directly forward and the clitoris and urinary meatus easily appear, while in adult women, and especially after attempts at coitus have been made, the vulva appears directed more below and behind, and the clitoris and meatus more covered by the labia majora; so that the child urinates forward, while the adult woman is usually able to urinate almost directly downwards in the erect position, though in some cases (as may occasionally be observed in the street) she can only do so when bending slightly forwards. This difference in the direction of the stream formerly furnished one of the methods of diagnosing virginity, an uncertain one, since the difference is largely due to age and individual variation. The main factor in the position and aspect of the vulva is pelvic inclination. (See Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, p. 64; Stratz, _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter XII.) In the European woman, according to Stratz, a considerable degree of pelvic inclination is essential to beauty, concealing all but the anterior third of the vulva. In negresses and other women of lower race the vulva, however, usually lies further back, being more conspicuous from behind than in European women; in this respect lower races resemble the apes. Those women of dark race, therefore, whose modesty is focused behind rather than in front thus have sound anatomical considerations on their side.

As Ploss and Bartels remark, a very common variation among European women consists in an unusually posterior position of the vulva and vaginal entrance, so that unless a cushion is placed under the buttocks it is difficult for the man to effect coitus in the usual position without giving much pain to the woman. They add that another anomaly, less easy to remedy, consists in an abnormally anterior position of the vaginal entrance close beneath the pelvic bone, so that, although intromission is easy, the spasmodic contraction of the vagina at the culmination of orgasm presses the penis against the bone and causes intolerable pain to the man.

The mons veneris and the labia majora are, after the age of puberty, always normally covered by a more or less profuse growth of hair. It is notable that the apes, notwithstanding their general tendency to hairiness, show no such special development of hair in this region. We thus see that all the external and more conspicuous portions of the sexual sphere in woman--the mons veneris, the labia majora, and the hair--represent not so much an animal inheritance, such as we commonly misrepresent them to be, but a higher and genuinely human development. As none of these structures subserve any clear practical use, it would appear that they must have developed by sexual selection to satisfy the æsthetic demands of the eye.[83]

The character and arrangement of the pubic hair, investigated by Eschricht and Voigt more than half a century ago, have been more recently studied by Bergh. As these observers have pointed out, there are various converging hair streams from above and below, the clitoris seeming to be the center towards which they are directed. The hair-covering thus formed is usually ample and, as a rule, is more so in brunettes than in blondes. It is nearly always bent, curly and more or less spirally twisted.[84] There are frequently one or two curls at the commencement of the fissure, rolled outwards, and occasionally a well marked tuft in the middle line. In abundance the pubic hair corresponds with the axillary hair; when one region is defective in hair the other is usually so also. Strong eyebrows also usually indicate a strong development of pubic hair. But the hair of the head usually varies independently, and Bergh found that of 154 women with spare pubic hair 72 had good and often profuse hair on the head. Complete or almost complete absence of pubic hair is in Bergh's experience only found in about 3 per cent. of women; these were all young and blonde.

Rothe, in his investigation of the pubic hair of 1000 Berlin women, found that no two women were really alike in this respect, but there was a tendency to two main types of arrangement, with minor subdivisions, according as the hair tended to grow chiefly in the middle line extending laterally from that line, or to grow equally over the whole extent of the pubic region; these two groups included half the cases investigated.

In men the pubic hair normally ascends anteriorly in a faint line up to the navel, with tendency to form a triangle with the apex above, and posteriorly extends backwards to the anus. In women these anterior and posterior extensions are comparatively rare, or at all events are only represented by a few stray hairs. Rothe found this variation in 4 per cent. of North German women, though a triangle of hair was only found in 2 per cent.; Lombroso found it in 5 per cent, of Italian women; Bergh found it in only 1.6 per cent. among 1000 Danish prostitutes, all sixteen of whom with three exceptions were brunettes. In Vienna, among 600 women, Coe found only 1 per cent, with this distribution of hair, and states that they were women of decidedly masculine type, though Ploss and Bartels, as well as Rothe, find, however, that heterogeny, as they term the masculine distribution, is more common in blondes. The anterior extension of hair is usually accompanied by the posterior extension around the anus, usually very slight, but occasionally as pronounce as in men. (According to Rothe, however, anterior heterogeny comparatively rare.) These masculine variations in the extension of the pubic hair appear to be not uncommonly associated with other physical and psychic anomalies; it is on this account that they have sometimes been regarded as indications of a vicious or a criminal temperament; they are, however, found in quite normal women.

The pubic hair of women is usually shorter than that of men, but thick, and the individual hairs stronger and larger in diameter than those of men, as Pfaff first showed; dark hair is usually stronger than light. In both length and size the individual variations are considerable. The usual length is about 2 inches, or 3-5 centimeters, occasionally reaching about 4 inches, or 9-10 centimeters, in the larger curls. In a series of 100 women attended during confinement in London and the north of England I have only once (in a rather blonde Lancashire woman) found the hair on labia reaching a conspicuous length of several inches and forming an obstruction to the manipulations involved in delivery. But Jahn delivered a woman whose pubic hair was longer than that of her head, reaching below her knee; Paulini also knew a woman whose pubic hair nearly reached her knees and was sold to make wigs; Bartholin mentions a soldier's wife who plaited her pubic hair behind her back; while Brantôme has several references to abnormally long hair in ladies of the French court during the sixteenth century. In 8 cases out of 2200 Bergh found the pubic hair forming a large curly wig extending to the iliac spines. The individual hairs have occasionally been found so stiff and brush-like as to render coitus difficult.

In color the pubic hair, while generally approximating to that of the head, is sometimes (according to Rothe, in Germany, in one-third cases) lighter, and sometimes somewhat darker, as is found to be the case by Coe, especially in brunettes, and also by Bergh, in Denmark. Bergh remarks that it is generally intermediate in color between the eyebrows and the axillary hair, the latter being more or less decolorized by sweat, and that, owing to the influence of the urine and vaginal discharges, the labial hair is paler than that on the mons; blondes with dark eyebrows usually have dark hair on the mons. The hair on this spot, as Aristotle observed, is usually the last to turn gray.

The key to the genital apparatus in women from the psychic point of view, and, indeed, to some extent, its anatomical center, is to be found in the clitoris. Anatomically and developmentally the clitoris is the rudimentary analogue of the masculine penis. Functionally, however, its scope is very much smaller. While the penis both receives and imparts specific voluptuous sensations, and is at the same time both the intromittent organ for the semen and the conduit for the urine, the sole function of the clitoris is to enter into erection under the stress of sexual emotion and receive and transmit the stimulatory voluptuous sensations imparted to it by friction with the masculine genital apparatus. It is so insignificant an organ that it is only within recent times that its homology with the penis has been realized. In 1844 Kobelt wrote in his important book, _Die Mannlichen und Weiblichen Wollust-Organe_, that in his attempt to show that the female organs are exactly analogous to the male the reader will probably be unable to follow him, while even Johannes Müller, the father of scientific physiology, declared at about the same period that the clitoris is essentially different from the penis. It is indeed but three centuries since the clitoris was so little known that (in 1593) Realdus Columbus actually claimed the honor of discovering it. Columbus was not its discoverer, for Fallopius speedily showed that Avicenna and Albucasis had referred to it.[85] The Arabs appear to have been very familiar with it, and, from the various names they gave it, clearly understood the important part it plays in generating voluptuous emotion.[86] But it was known in classic antiquity; the Greeks called it myrton, the myrtle-berry; Galen and Soranus called it nymphê because it is covered as a bride is veiled, while the old Latin name was _tentigo_, from its power of entering into erection, and _columella_, the little pillar, from its shape. The modern term, which is Greek and refers to the sensitiveness of the part to voluptuous titillation, is said to have originated with Suidas and Pollux.[87] It was mentioned, though not adopted, by Rufus.

"The clitoris," declared Haller, "is a part extremely sensible and wonderfully prurient." It is certainly the chief though by no means the only point through which the immediate call to detumescence is conveyed to the female organism. It is, indeed, as Bryan Robinson remarks, "a veritable electrical bell button which, being pressed or irritated, rings up the whole nervous system."

The nervous supply of this little organ is very large, and the dorsal nerve of the clitoris is relatively three or four times larger than that of the penis. Yet the sensitive point of this organ is only 5 to 7 millimeters in extent. The length of the clitoris is usually rather over 2 centimeters (or about an inch) and 3 centimeters when erect; a length of 4 centimeters or more was regarded by Martineau as within the normal range of variation. It is not usual to find the clitoris longer than this in Europe (for among some races like the negro the clitoris is generally large), but all degrees of magnitude may be found as rare exceptions. (See, e.g., Sir J.Y. Simpson, "Hermaphrodites," _Obstetric Memoirs and Contributions_, vol. ii, pp. 217-226; also Dickinson, loc. cit.) It was formerly thought that the clitoris is easily enlarged by masturbation, and Martineau believed that in this way it might be doubled in length. It is probable that slight enlargement of the clitoris may be caused by very frequent masturbation, but only to an insignificant extent, and it is impossible to diagnose masturbation from the size of the clitoris. Among the women of Lake Nyassa, as well as in the Caroline Islands, special methods are practiced for elongating the clitoris, but in Europe, at all events, it is probable that the variations in the size of the organ are mainly congenital. It may well be that a congenitally large clitoris is associated with an abnormally developed excitability of the sexual apparatus. Tilt stated (_On Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation_, p. 37) that in his experience there was a frequent though not invariable connection between a large clitoris and sexual proclivity. (Schurig referred to a case of intense and life-long sexual obsession associated with an extremely large clitoris, _Gynæcologia_, pp. 16-17.) Of recent years considerable importance has been attached by some gynecologists (e.g., R.T. Morris, "Is Evolution Trying to Do Away With the Clitoris?" _Transactions American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists_, vol. v, 1893) to preputial adhesions around the clitoris as a source of nervous disturbance and invalidism in young women.

While the clitoris is anatomically analogous to the penis, its actual mechanism under the stress of sexual excitement is somewhat different. As Liétaud long since pointed out, it cannot rise freely in erection as the penis can; it is apparently bound down by its prepuce and its frenulum. Waldeyer, in his book on the pelvis, states more precisely that, unlike the penis, when erect it retains its angle, only this becomes somewhat rounded so that the organ is to some slight extent lifted and protruded. Waldeyer considered that the clitoris was thus perfectly fitted to fulfill its part as the recipient of erotic stimulation from friction by the penis. Adler, however, has pointed out with considerable justice, that this is not altogether the case. The clitoris was developed in mammals who practiced the posterior mode of coitus; in this position the clitoris was beneath the penis, which was thus easily able in coitus to press it against the pubic bone close beneath which it is situated, and thus impart the compression and friction which the feminine organ craves. But in the human anterior mode of coitus it is not necessarily brought into close contact with the penis during the act of coitus, and thus fails to receive powerful stimulation. Its restricted position, which is an advantage in posterior coitus, is a disadvantage in anterior coitus. Adler observes that it thus comes about that the human method of coitus, while by bringing breast to breast and face to face it has added a new dignity and refinement, a fresh source of enjoyment, to the embrace of the sexes, has not been an unmixed advantage to woman, for while man has lost nothing by the change, woman has now to contend with an increased difficulty in attaining an adequate amount of pressure on that "electric button" which normally sets the whole mechanism in operation.[88]

We may well bring into connection with the changed conditions brought about by anterior coitus the interesting fact that while the clitoris remains the most exquisitely sensitive of the sexual centers in woman, voluptuous sensitivity is much more widely diffused in woman than in man. Over the whole body, indeed, it is apt to be more distinctly marked than is usually the case in man. But even if we confine ourselves to the genital region, while in man that portion of the penis which enters the vagina, and especially the glans, is normally the only portion which, even during turgescence, is sensitive to voluptuous contacts, in woman the whole of the region comprised within the larger lips, including even the anus and internally the vagina and the vaginal portion of the womb,[89] become sensitive to voluptuous contacts. Deprived of the penis the ability of a man to experience specifically sexual sensations becomes very limited indeed. But the loss of the clitoris or of any other structure involves no correspondingly serious disability on women. Ablation of the clitoris for sexual hyperæsthesia has for this reason been abandoned, except under special circumstances. The members of the Russian Skoptzy sect habitually amputate the clitoris, nymphæ, and breasts, yet many young Skoptzy women told the Russian physician, Guttceit, that they were perfectly well able to enjoy coitus.

Freud believes that in very young girls the clitoris is the exclusive seat of sexual sensation, masturbation at this age being directed to the clitoris alone, and spontaneous sexual excitement being confined to twitchings and erection of this organ, so that young girls are able, from their own experience, to recognize without instruction the signs of sexual excitement in boys. At a later age sexual excitability spreads from the clitoris to other regions--just as the easy inflammability of wood sets light to coal--though in the male the penis remains from first to last normally the almost exclusive seat of specific excitability. (S. Freud, _Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, p. 62.)

The anus would, however, seem to be sometimes an erogenous zone even at an early age. Titillation of the anus appears to be frequently pleasurable in women; and this is not surprising considering the high degree of erotic sensitivity which is easily developed at the body orifices where skin meets mucous membrane. (Thus the meatus of the urethra is a highly erogenous zone, as is sufficiently shown by the frequency with which hair-pins and other articles used in masturbation find their way into the bladder.) It is in this germinal sensitivity, undoubtedly, that we find a chief key to the practice of _pedicatio_. Freud attaches great importance to the anus as a sexually erogenous zone at a very early age, and considers that it very frequently makes its influence felt in this respect. He believes that intestinal catarrhs in very early life and hæmorrhoids later tend to develop sensibility in the anus. He finds an indication that the anus has become a sexually erogenous zone when children wish to allow the contents of the rectum to accumulate so that defecation may by its increased difficulty involve voluptuous sensations, and adds that masturbatory excitation of the anus with the fingers is by no means rare in older children. (S. Freud, _Op. cit._, pp. 40-42.) A medical correspondent in India tells me of a European lady who derived, she said, "quite as much, indeed more," pleasure from digitally titillating her rectum as from vulvo-vaginal titillation; she had several times submitted to _pedicatio_ and enjoyed it, though it was painful during penetration. The anus may retain this erogenous irritability even in old age, and Routh mentions the case of a lady of over 70, the reverse of lustful, who was so excited by the act of defecation that she was invariably compelled to masturbate, although this state of things was a source of great mental misery to her. (C.H.F. Routh, _British Gynæcological Journal_, February, 1887, p. 48.)

Bölsche has sought the explanation of the erogenous nature of the anus, and the key to _pedicatio_, in an atavistic return to the very remote amphibian days when the anus was combined with the sexual parts in a common cloaca. But it is unnecessary to invoke any vestigial inheritance from a vastly remote past when we bear in mind that the innervation of these two adjoining regions is inevitably very closely related. The presence of a body exit with its marked and special sensitivity at a point where it can scarcely fail to receive the nervous overflow from an immensely

## active center of nervous energy quite adequately accounts for the

phenomenon in question.

The inner lips, the nymphæ or labia minora, running parallel with the greater lips which enclose them, embrace the clitoris anteriorly and extend backward, enclosing the urethral exit between them as well as the vaginal entrance. They form little wings whence their old Latin name, _alæ_, and from their resemblance to the cock's comb were by Spigelius termed crista galli. The red and (especially in brunettes) dark appearance of the nymphæ suggests that they are mucous membrane and not integumentary; it is, however, now considered that even on the inner surface they are covered by skin and separated from the mucous membrane by a line.[90] In structure, as described by Waldeyer, they consist of fine connective tissue rich in elastic fibers as well as some muscular tissue, and full of large veins, so that they are capable of a considerable degree of turgescence resembling erection during sexual excitement, while Ballantyne finds that the nymphæ are supplied to a notable extent with nervous end-organs.

More than any other part of the sexual apparatus in either sex, the lesser lips, on account of their shape, their position, and their structure, are capable of acquired modifications, more especially hypertrophy and elongation. By stretching, it is stated, a labium can be doubled in its dimensions. The "Hottentot apron," or elongated nymphæ, commonly found among some peoples in South Africa, has long been a familiar phenomenon. In such cases a length or transverse diameter of 3 to 5 centimeters is commonly found. But such elongated nymphæ are by no means confined to one part of the world or to one race; they are quite common among women of European race, and reach a size equal to most of the more reliably recorded Hottentot cases. Dickinson, who has very carefully studied this question in New York, finds that in 1000 consecutive gynæcological cases the labia showed some form of hypertrophy in 36 per cent., or more than 1 in 3; while among 150 of these cases who were neurasthenic, the proportion reached 56 per cent., even when minor or doubtful enlargements were disregarded. Bergh, in about 16 per cent. cases, found very enlarged nymphæ, the height reached in about 5 per cent. of the cases of enlargement being nearly six centimeters. Ploss and Bartels, in a full discussion: of the "Hottentot apron," come to the conclusion that this condition is perhaps in most cases artificially produced. It is known that among the Basutos it is the custom for the elder girls to manipulate the nymphæ of younger children, when alone with them, almost from birth, and on account of the elastic nature of these structures such manipulation quite adequately accounts for the elongation. It is not necessary to suppose that the custom is practiced for the sake of producing sexual stimulation--though this may frequently occur--since there are numerous similar primitive customs involving deformation of the sexual organs without the production of sexual excitement. Dickinson has come to a similar conclusion as regards the corresponding elongation of the nymphæ in civilized European women. In 361 out of 1000 women of good social class he found elongation or thickening, often with a notable degree of wrinkling and pigmentation, and believes that this is always the result of frequently repeated masturbation practiced with the separation of the nymphæ; in 30 per cent. of the cases admission of masturbation was made.[91] While this conclusion is probably correct in the main, it requires some qualification. To assert that whenever in women who have not been pregnant the marked protrusion of the inner lips beyond the outer lips means that at some period manipulation has been practiced with or without the production of sexual excitement is to make too absolute a statement. It is highly probable that the nymphæ, like the clitoris, are congenitally more prominent in some of the lower human races, as they are also in the apes; among the Fuegians, for instance, according to Hyades and Deniker, the labia minora descend lower than in Europeans, although there is not the slightest reason to suppose that these women practice any manipulations. Among European women, again, the nymphæ sometimes protrude very prominently beyond the labia majora in women who are organically of somewhat infantile type; this occurs in cases in which we may be convinced that no manipulations have ever been practiced.[92]

It is difficult to speak very decisively as to the function of the labia minora. They doubtless exert some amount of protective influence over the entrance to the vagina, and in this way correspond to the lips of the mouth after which they are called. They fulfill, however, one very definite though not obviously important function which is indicated by the mythologic name they have received. There is, indeed, some obscurity in the origin of this term, nymphæ, which has not, I believe, been satisfactorily cleared up. It has been stated that the Greek name nymphê has been transferred from the clitoris to the labia minora. Any such transfer could only have taken place when the meaning of the word had been forgotten, and nymphê had become the totally different word _nymphæ_, the goddesses who presided over streams. The old anatomists were much exercised in their minds as to the meaning of the name, but on the whole were inclined to believe that it referred to the action of the labia minora in directing the urinary stream. The term nymphæ was first applied in the modern sense, according to Bergh, in 1599, by Pinæus, mainly from the influence of these structures on the urinary stream, and he dilated in his _De Virginitate_ on the suitability of the term to designate so poetic a spot.[93] In more modern times Luschka and Sir Charles Bell considered that it is one of the uses of the nymphæ to direct the stream of urine, and Lamb from his own observation thinks the same conclusion probable. In reality there cannot be the slightest doubt about the function of the nymphæ, as, in Hyrtl's phrase, "the naiads of the urinary source," and it can be demonstrated by the simplest experiment.[94]

The nymphæ form the intermediate portal of the vagina, as the canal which conducts to the womb was in anatomy first termed (according to Hyrtl) by De Graaf.[95] It is a secreting, erectile, more or less sensitive canal lined by what is usually considered mucous membrane, though some have regarded it as integument of the same character as that of the external genitals; it certainly resembles such integument more than, for instance, the mucous membrane of the rectum. In the woman who has never had sexual intercourse and has been subjected to no manipulations or accidents affecting this region, the vagina is closed by a last and final gate of delicate membrane--scarcely admitting more than a slender finger--called the hymen.

The poets called the hymen "fios virginitatis," the flower of virginity, whence the medico-legal term _defloratio_. Notwithstanding the great significance which has long been attached to the phenomena connected with it, the hymen was not accurately known until Vesalius, Fallopius, and Spigelius described and named it. It was, however, recognized by the Arab authors, Avicenna and Averroes. The early literature concerning it is summarized by Schurig, _Muliebria_, 1729, Section II, cap. V. The same author's _Parthenologia_ is devoted to the various ancient problems connected with the question of virginity.

To say that this delicate piece of membrane is from the non-physical point of view a more important structure than any other part of the body is to convey but a feeble idea of the immense importance of the hymen in the eyes of the men of many past ages and even of our own times and among our own people.[96] For the uses of the feminine body, or for its beauty, there is no part which is more absolutely insignificant. But in human estimation it has acquired a spiritual value which has made it far more than a part of the body. It has taken the place of the soul, that whose presence gives all her worth and dignity, even her name, to the unmarried woman, her purity, her sexual desirability, her market value. Without it--though in all physical and mental respects she might remain the same person--she has sometimes been a mark for contempt, a worthless outcast.[97]

So fragile a membrane scarcely possesses the reliability which should be possessed by a structure whose presence or absence has often meant so much. Its absence by no means necessarily signifies that a woman has had intercourse with a man. Its presence by no means signifies that she has never had such intercourse.

There are many ways in which the hymen may be destroyed apart from coitus. Among the Chinese (and also, it would appear, in India and some other parts of the East) the female parts are from infancy kept so scrupulously clean by daily washing, the finger being introduced into the vagina, that the hymen rapidly disappears, and its existence is unknown even to Chinese doctors. Among some Brazilian Indians a similar practice exists among mothers as regards their young children, less, however, for the sake of cleanliness than in order to facilitate sexual intercourse in future years. (Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter VI.) The manipulations of vaginal masturbation will, of course, similarly destroy the hymen. It is also quite possible for the hymen to be ruptured by falls and other accidents. (See, e.g., a lengthy study by Nina-Rodrigues, "Des Ruptures de l'Hymen dans les Chutes," _Annales d'Hygiène Publique_, September, 1903.)

On the other hand, integrity of the hymen is no proof of virginity, apart from the obvious fact that there may be intercourse without penetration. (The case has even been recorded of a prostitute with syphilitic condylomata, a somewhat masculine type of pubic arch, and vulva rather posteriorly placed, whose hymen had never been penetrated.) The hymen may be of a yielding or folding type, so that complete penetration may take place and yet the hymen be afterwards found unruptured. It occasionally happens that the hymen is found intact at the end of pregnancy. In some, though not all, of these cases there has been conception without intromission of the penis. This has occurred even when the entrance was very minute. The possibility of such conception has long been recognized, and Schurig (_Syllepsilogia_, 1731, Section I, cap. VIII, p. 2) quotes ancient authors who have recorded cases. For some typical modern cases see Guérard (_Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 15, 1895), in one of whose cases the hymen of the pregnant woman scarcely admitted a hair; also Braun (ib., No. 23, 1895).

The hymen has played a very definite and pronounced part in the social and moral life of humanity. Until recently it has been more difficult to decide what precise biological function it has exercised to ensure its development and preservation. Sexual selection, no doubt, has worked in its favor, but that influence has been very limited and comparatively very recent. Virginity is not usually of any value among peoples who are entirely primitive. Indeed, even in the classic civilization which we inherit, it is easy to show that the virgin and the admiration for virginity are of late growth; the virgin goddesses were not originally virgins in our modern sense. Diana was the many-breasted patroness of childbirth before she became the chaste and solitary huntress, for the earliest distinction would appear to have been simply between the woman who was attached to a man and the woman who followed an earlier rule of freedom and independence; it was a later notion to suppose that the latter woman was debarred from sexual intercourse. We certainly must not seek the origin of the hymen in sexual selection; we must find it in natural selection. And here it might seem at first sight that we come upon a contradiction in Nature, for Nature is always devising contrivances to secure the maximum amount of fertilization. "Increase and multiply" is so obviously the command of Nature that the Hebrews, with their usual insight, unhesitatingly dared to place it in the mouth of Jehovah. But the hymen is a barrier to fertilization. It has, however, always to be remembered that as we rise in the zoölogical scale, and as the period of gestation lengthens and the possible number of offspring is fewer, it becomes constantly more essential that fertilization shall be effective rather than easy; the fewer the progeny the more necessary it is that they shall be vigorous enough to survive. There can be little doubt that, as one or two writers have already suggested, the hymen owes its development to the fact that its influence is on the side of effective fertilization. It is an obstacle to the impregnation of the young female by immature, aged, or feeble males. The hymen is thus an anatomical expression of that admiration of force which marks the female in her choice of a mate. So regarded, it is an interesting example of the intimate manner in which sexual selection is really based on natural selection. Sexual selection is but the translation into psychic terms of a process which has already found expression in the physical texture of the body.

It may be added that this interpretation of the biological function of the hymen is supported by the facts of its evolution. It is unknown among the lower mammals, with whom fertilization is easy, gestation short and offspring numerous. It only begins to appear among the higher mammals in whom reproduction is already beginning to take on the characters which become fully developed in man. Various authors have found traces of a rudimentary hymen, not only in apes, but in elephants, horses, donkeys, bitches, bears, pigs, hyenas, and giraffes. (Hyrtl, _Op. cit._, vol. ii, p. 189; G. Gellhoen, "Anatomy and Development of the Hymen," _American Journal Obstetrics_, August, 1904.) It is in the human species that the tendency to limitation of offspring is most marked, combined at the same time with a greater aptitude for impregnation than exists among any lower mammals. It is here, therefore, that a physical check is of most value, and accordingly we find that in woman alone, of all animals, is the hymen fully developed.

FOOTNOTES:

[72] "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," in vol. iii of these _Studies_.

[73] "The accomplishment of no other function," Hyrtl remarks, "is so intimately connected with the mind and yet so independent of it."

[74] The process is still, however, but imperfectly understood; see Art. "Fécondation," by Ed. Retterer, in Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_, vol. vi, 1905.

[75] Thus a male foetus showing reptilian characters in sexual ducts was exhibited by Shattock at the Pathological Society of London, February 19, 1895.

[76] J. Kohlbrugge, "Die Umgestaltung des Uterus der Affen nach den Geburt," _Zeitschrift für Morphologie_, bd. iv, p. 1, 1901.

[77] There are, however, no special nerve endings (Krause corpuscles), as was formerly supposed. The nerve endings in the genital region are the same as elsewhere. The difference lies in the abundance of superposed arboreal ramifications. See, e.g., Ed. Retterer, Art. "Ejaculation," Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_, vol. v.

[78] Hyrtl, _Op. cit._, vol. ii, p. 39.

[79] Sensations of pleasure without those of touch appear to be normal at the tip of the penis, as pointed out by Scripture, quoted in _Alienist and Neurologist_, January, 1898.

[80] See the previous volume of these _Studies_, "Sexual Selection in Man," p. 161.

[81] See, e.g., Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, beginning of

## chapter VI.

[82] Hyrtl states that the name _labia_ was first used by Haller in the middle of the eighteenth century in his _Elements of Physiology_, being adopted by him from the Greek poet Erotion, who gave these structures the very obvious name cheilea, lips. But this seems to be a mistake, for the seventeenth century anatomists certainly used the name "labia" for these parts.

[83] Bergh tentatively suggests, as regards the pubic hair, that its appearance may be due to the upright walk in man and the human position during coitus, the hair preventing irritation of the genitals from the sweat pouring down from the body and protecting the skin from direct friction in coitus. (In both these suggestions he was, however, long previously anticipated by Fabricius ab Aquapendente.) The fanciful suggestion of Louis Robinson that the pubic hair has developed in order to enable the human infant to cling securely to his mother is very poorly supported by facts, and has not met with acceptance. It may be mentioned that (as stated by Ploss and Bartels) the women of the Bismarck Archipelago, whose pubic hair is very abundant, use it as a kind of handkerchief on which to clean their hands.

[84] Routh and Heywood Smith have noted that the pubic hair tends to lose its curliness and become straight in women who masturbate. (_British Gynæcological Journal_, February, 1887, p. 505.)

[85] Schurig, _Muliebria_, p. 75. Plazzon in 1621 said that in Italian it had a popular name, _il besneegio_.

[86] Schurig brought together in his _Gynæcologia_ (pp. 2-4) various early opinions concerning the clitoris as the seat of voluptuous feeling.

[87] Hyrtl, _Op. cit._, vol. ii, p. 193.

[88] Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, pp. 117-119.

[89] The voluptuous sensations caused by sexual contacts producing movements of the womb are probably normal and usual. They may even occur under circumstances unconnected with sexual emotion, and Mundé (_International Journal of Surgery_, March, 1893) mentions incidentally that in one case while titillating the cervix with a sound the woman very plainly showed voluptuous manifestations.

[90] Henle stated that fine hairs are frequently visible on the nymphæ; Stieda (_Zeitschrift für Morphologie_, 1902, p. 458) remarks that he has never been able to see them with the naked eye.

[91] R.L. Dickinson, "Hypertrophies of the Labia Minora and Their Significance," _American Gynæcologist_, September, 1902. It is perhaps noteworthy that Bergh found that in 302 cases in which the nymphæ were of unequal length, in all but 24 the left was longer.

[92] It may be remarked that Bergh believes that the nymphæ, and indeed the external genitals generally, are congenitally more strongly developed in libidinous persons, and at the same time in brunettes, while in public prostitutes this is not usually the case, which confirms the belief that exalted sexual sensibility does not usually lead to prostitution. He adds that prostitution, unless carried on for many years, has little effect on the shape of the external genitals.

[93] Schurig (_Muliebria_, 1729, Section II, cap. II) gives numerous quotations on this point; thus De Graaf wrote in his book on the sexual organs of women: "Tales protuberantiæ nymphæ appellantur ea propter quod aquis e vesica prosilientibus proxime adstare reperiantur, quandoquidem inter illas, tanquam duos parietes, urina magno impetu cum sibilo sæpe et absque labiorum irrigatione erumpit, vel quod sint castitatis præsides, aut sponsam primo intromittant."

[94] Havelock Ellis, "The Bladder as a Dynamometer," _American Journal of Dermatology_, May, 1902. If a woman who has never been pregnant, standing in the erect position before commencing the act of urination presses apart the labia minora with index and middle fingers the stream will be projected forward so as to fall usually at a considerable distance in front of a vertical line from the meatus; if when the act is half completed the fingers are removed, the labia close together and the stream, though maintained at a constant pressure, at once changes its character and direction.

[95] In poetry this term was employed by Plautus, _Pseudolus_, Act IV, Sc. 7. The Greek aidoion sometimes meant vagina and sometimes the external sexual parts; kolpos was used for the vagina alone.

[96] It is curious, however, that the European physicians of the seventeenth and even eighteenth centuries were doubtful of its value as a sign of virginity and considered it often absent.

[97] For a summary of the beliefs and practices of various peoples with regard to the hymen and virginity see Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter XVI.

II

The Object of Detumescence--Erogenous Zones--The Lips--The Vascular Characters of Detumescence--Erectile Tissue--Erection in Woman--Mucous Emission in Women--Sexual Connection--The Human Mode of Intercourse--Normal Variations--The Motor Characters of Detumescence--Ejaculation--The Virile Reflex--The General Phenomena of Detumescence--The Circulatory and Respiratory Phenomena--Blood Pressure--Cardiac Disturbance--Glandular Activity--Distillatio--The Essentially Motor Character of Detumescence--Involuntary Muscular Irradiation to Bladder, etc.--Erotic Intoxication--Analogy of Sexual Detumescence and Vesical Tension--The Specifically Sexual Movements of Detumescence in Man--In Woman--The Spontaneous Movements of the Genital Canal in Woman--Their Function in Conception--Part Played by Active Movement of the Spermatozoa--The Artificial Injection of Semen--The Facial Expression During Detumescence--The Expression of Joy--The Occasional Serious Effects of Coitus.

We have seen what the object of detumescence is, and we have briefly considered the organs and structures which are chiefly concerned in the process. We have now to inquire what are the actual phenomena which take place during the act of detumescence.

Detumescence is normally linked closely to tumescence. Tumescence is the piling on of the fuel; detumescence is the leaping out of the devouring flame whence is lighted the torch of life to be handed on from generation to generation. The whole process is double and yet single; it is exactly analogous to that by which a pile is driven into the earth by the raising and then the letting go of a heavy weight which falls on to the head of the pile. In tumescence the organism is slowly wound up and force accumulated; in the act of detumescence the accumulated force is let go and by its liberation the sperm-bearing instrument is driven home. Courtship, as we commonly term the process of tumescence which takes place when a woman is first sexually approached by a man, is usually a highly prolonged process. But it is always necessary to remember that every repetition of the act of coitus, to be normally and effectively carried out on both sides, demands a similar double process; detumescence must be preceded by an abbreviated courtship.

This abbreviated courtship by which tumescence is secured or heightened in the repetition of acts of coitus which have become familiar, is mainly tactile.[98] Since the part of the man in coitus is more active and that of the woman more passive, the sexual sensitivity of the skin seems to be more pronounced in women. There are, moreover, regions of the surface of a woman's body where contact, when sympathetic, seems specially liable to arouse erotic excitement. Such erogenous zones are often specially marked in the breasts, occasionally in the palm of the hand, the nape of the neck, the lobule of the ear, the little finger; there is, indeed, perhaps no part of the surface of the body which may not, in some individuals at some time, become normally an erogenous zone. In hysteria the erotic excitability of these zones is sometimes very intense. The lips are, however, without doubt, the most persistently and poignantly sensitive region of the whole body outside the sphere of the sexual organs themselves. Hence the significance of the kiss as a preliminary of detumescence.[99]

The importance of the lips as a normal erogenous zone is shown by the experiments of Gualino. He applied a thread, folded on itself several times, to the lips, thus stimulating them in a simple mechanical manner. Of 20 women, between the ages of 18 and 35, only 8 felt this as a merely mechanical operation, 4 felt a vaguely erotic element in the proceeding, 3 experienced a desire for coitus and in 5 there was actual sexual excitement with emission of mucus. Of 25 men, between the ages of 20 and 30, in 15 all sexual feeling was absent, in 7 erotic ideas were suggested with congestion of the sexual organs without erection, and in 3 there was the beginning of erection. It should be added that both the women and the men in whom this sexual reflex was more especially marked were of somewhat nervous temperament; in such persons erotic reactions of all kinds generally occur most easily. (Gualino, "Il Rifflesso Sessuale nell' eccitamento alle labbre," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1904, p. 341.)

As tumescence, under the influence of sensory stimulation, proceeds toward the climax when it gives place to detumescence, the physical phenomena become more and more acutely localized in the sexual organs. The process which was at first predominantly nervous and psychic now becomes more prominently vascular. The ancient sexual relationship of the skin asserts itself; there is marked surface congestion showing itself in various ways. The face tends to become red, and exactly the same phenomenon is taking place in the genital organs; "an erection," it has been said, "is a blushing of the penis." The difference is that in the genital organs this heightened vascularity has a definite and specific function to accomplish--the erection of the male organ which fits it to enter the female parts--and that consequently there has been developed in the penis that special kind of vascular mechanism, consisting of veins in connective tissue with unstriped muscular fibers, termed erectile tissue.[100]

It is not only the man who is supplied with erectile tissue which in the process of tumescence becomes congested and swollen. The woman also, in the corresponding external genital region, is likewise supplied with erectile tissue now also charged with blood, and exhibits the same changes as have taken place in her partner, though less conspicuously visible. In the anthropoid apes, as the gorilla, the large clitoris and the nymphæ become prominent in sexual excitement, but the less development of the clitoris in women, together with the specifically human evolution of the mons veneris and larger lips, renders this sexual turgescence practically invisible, though it is perceptible to touch in an increased degree of spongy and elastic tension. The whole feminine genital canal, including the uterus, indeed, is richly supplied with blood-vessels, and is capable during sexual excitement of a very high degree of turgescence, a kind of erection.

The process of erection in woman is accompanied by the pouring out of fluid which copiously bathes all parts of the vulva around the entrance to the vagina. This is a bland, more or less odorless mucus which, under ordinary circumstances, slowly and imperceptibly suffuses the parts. When, however, the entrance to the vagina is exposed and extended, as during a gynæcological examination which occasionally produces sexual excitement, there may be seen a real ejaculation of the fluid which, as usually described, comes largely from the glands of Bartholin, situated at the mouth of the vagina. Under these circumstances it is sometimes described as being emitted in a jet which is thrown to a distance.[101] This mucous ejaculation was in former days regarded as analogous to the seminal ejaculation in man, and hence essential to conception. Although this belief was erroneous the fluid poured out in this manner whenever a high degree of tumescence is attained, and before the onset of detumescence, certainly performs an important function in lubricating the entrance to the genital canal and so facilitating the intromission of the male organ.[102] Menstruation has a similar influence in facilitating coitus, as Schurig long since pointed out.[103] A like process takes place during parturition when the same parts are being lubricated and stretched in preparation for the protrusion of the foetal head. The occurrence of the mucous flow in tumescence always indicates that that process is actively affecting the central sexual organs, and that voluptuous emotions are present.[104]

The secretions of the genital canal and outlet in women are somewhat numerous. We have the odoriferous glands of sebaceous origin, and with them the prepuce of the clitoris which has been described as a kind of gigantic sebaceous follicle with the clitoris occupying its interior. (Hyrtl.) There is the secretion from the glands of Bartholin. There is again the vaginal secretion, opaque and albuminous, which appears to be alkaline when secreted, but becomes acid under the decomposing influence of bacteria, which are, however, harmless and not pathogenic. (Gow, _Obstetrical Society of London_, January 3, 1894.) There is, finally, the mucous uterine secretion, which is alkaline, and, being poured out during orgasm, is believed to protect the spermatozoa from destruction by the acid vaginal secretion.

The belief that the mucus poured out in women during sexual excitement is feminine semen and therefore essential to conception had many remarkable consequences and was widespread until the seventeenth century. Thus, in the chapter "De Modo coeundi et de regimine eorum qui coeunt" of _De Secretis Mulierum_, there is insistence on the importance of the proper mixture of the male semen with the female semen and of arranging that it shall not escape from the vagina. The woman must lie quiet for several hours at least, not rising even to urinate, and when she gets up, be very temperate in eating and drinking, and not run or jump, pretending that she has a headache. It was the belief in feminine semen which led some theologians to lay down that a woman might masturbate if she had not experienced orgasm in coitus. Schurig in his _Muliebria_ (1729, pp. 159, et seq.) discusses the opinions of old authors regarding the nature, source, and uses of the female genital secretions, and quotes authorities against the old view that it was female semen. In a subsequent work (_Syllepsilogia_, 1731, pp. 3, et seq.) he returns to the same question, quotes authors who accept a feminine semen, shows that Harvey denied it any significance, and himself decides against it. It has not seriously been brought forward since.

When erection is completed in both the man and the woman the conditions necessary for conjugation have at last been fulfilled. In all animals, even those most nearly allied to man, coitus is effected by the male approaching the female posteriorly. In man the normal method of male approach is anteriorly, face to face. Leonardo da Vinci, in a well-known drawing representing a sagittal section of a man and a woman connected in this position of so-called Venus obversa; has shown how well adapted the position is to the normal position of the organs in the human species.[105]

Among monkeys, it is stated, congress is sometimes performed when the female is on all fours; at other times the male brings the female between his thighs when he is sitting, holding her with his forepaws. Froriep informed Lawrence that the male sometimes supported his feet on the female's calves. (Sir W. Lawrence, _Lectures on Physiology_, 1823, p. 186.) A summary of the methods of congress practiced by the various animals below mammals will be found in the article "Copulation" by H. de Varigny in Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_, vol. iv.

The anterior position in coitus, with the female partner lying supine, is so widespread throughout the world that it may fairly be termed the most typically human attitude in sexual congress. It is found represented in Egyptian graves at Benihassan, belonging to the Twelfth Dynasty; it is regarded by Mohammedans as the normal position, although other positions are permitted by the Prophet: "Your wives are your tillage: go in unto your tillage in what manner soever you will;" it is that adopted in Malacca; it appears, from Peruvian antiquities, to have been the position generally, though not exclusively, adopted in ancient Peru; it is found in many parts of Africa, and seems also to have been the most usual position among the American aborigines.

Various modifications of this position are, however, found. Thus, in some parts of the world, as among the Suahelis in Zanzibar, the male partner adopts the supine position. In Loango, according to Pechuel-Loesche, coitus is performed lying on the side. Sometimes, as on the west coast of Africa, the woman is supine and the man more or less erect; or, as among the Queenslanders (as described by Roth) the woman is supine and the man squats on his heels with her thighs clasping his flanks, while he raises her buttocks with his hands.

The position of coitus in which the man is supine is without doubt a natural and frequent variation of the specifically human obverse method of coitus. It was evidently familiar to the Romans. Ovid mentions it (_Ars Amatoria_, III, 777-8), recommending it to little women, and saying that Andromache was too tall to practice it with Hector. Aristophanes refers to it, and there are Greek epigrams in which women boast of their skill in riding their lovers. It has sometimes been viewed with a certain disfavor because it seems to confer a superiority on the woman. "Cursed be he," according to a Mohammedan saying, "who maketh woman heaven and man earth."

Of special interest is the wide prevalence of an attitude in coitus recalling that which prevails among quadrupeds. The frequency with which on the walls of Pompeii coitus is represented with the woman bending forward and her partner approaching her posteriorly has led to the belief that this attitude was formerly very common in Southern Italy. However that may be, it is certainly normal at the present day among various more or less primitive peoples in whom the vulva is often placed somewhat posteriorly. It is thus among the Soudanese, as also, in an altogether different part of the world, among the Eskimo Innuit and Koniags. The New Caledonians, according to Foley, cohabit in the quadrupedal manner, and so also the Papuans of New Guinea (Bongu), according to Vahness. The same custom is also found in Australia, where, however other postures are also adopted. In Europe the quadrupedal posture would seem to prevail among some of the South Slavs, notably the Dalmatians. (The different methods of coitus practiced by the South Slavs are described in Kryptadia vol. vi, pp. 220, et seq.)

This method of coitus was recommended by Lucretius (lib. iv) and also advised by Paulus Æginetus as favorable to conception. (The opinions of various early physicians are quoted by Schurig, _Spermatologia_, 1720, pp. 232, et seq.). It seems to be a position that is not infrequently agreeable to women, a fact which may be brought into connection with the remarks of Adler already quoted (p. 131) concerning the comparative lack of adjustment of the feminine organs to the obverse position. It is noteworthy that in the days of witchcraft hysterical women constantly believed that they had had intercourse with the Devil in this manner. This circumstance, indeed, probably aided in the very marked disfavor in which coitus _a posteriori_ fell after the decay of classic influences. The mediæval physicians described it as _mos diabolicus_ and mistakenly supposed that it produced abortion (Hyrtl, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 87). The theologians, needless to say, were opposed to the _mos diabolicus_, and already in the Anglo-Saxon Penitential of Theodore, at the end of the seventh century, 40 days' penance is prescribed for this method of coitus.

From the frequency with which they have been adopted by various peoples as national customs, most of the postures in coitus here referred to must be said to come within the normal range of variation. It is a mistake to regard them as vicious perversions.

Up to the point to which we have so far considered it, the process of detumescence has been mainly nervous and vascular in character; it has, in fact, been but the more acute stage of a process which has been going on throughout tumescence. But now we reach the point at which a new element comes in: muscular action. With the onset of muscular action, which is mainly involuntary, even when it affects the voluntary muscles, detumescence proper begins to take place. Henceforward purposeful psychic

## action, except by an effort, is virtually abolished. The individual, as a

separate person, tends to disappear. He has become one with another person, as nearly one as the conditions of existence ever permit; he and she are now merely an instrument in the hands of a higher power--by whatever name we may choose to call that Power--which is using them for an end not themselves.

The decisive moment in the production of the instinctive and involuntary orgasm occurs when, under the influence of the stimulus applied to the penis by friction with the vagina, the tension of the seminal fluid poured into the urethra arouses the ejaculatory center in the spinal cord and the bulbo-cavernosus muscle surrounding the urethra responsively contracts in rhythmic spasms. Then it is that ejaculation occurs.[106]

"The circulation quickens, the arteries beat strongly," wrote Roubaud in a description of the physical state during coitus which may almost be termed classic; "the venous blood, arrested by muscular contraction, increases the general heat, and this stagnation, more pronounced in the brain by the contraction of the muscles of the neck and the throwing of the head backward, causes a momentary cerebral congestion, during which intelligence is lost and the faculties abolished. The eyes, violently injected, become haggard, and the look uncertain, or, in the majority of cases, the eyes are closed spasmodically to avoid the contact of the light. The respiration is hurried, sometimes interrupted, and may be suspended by the spasmodic contraction of the larynx, and the air, for a time compressed, is at last emitted in broken and meaningless words. The congested nervous centers only communicate confused sensations and volitions; mobility and sensation show extreme disorder; the limbs are seized by convulsions and sometimes by cramps, or are thrown wildly about or become stiff like iron bars. The jaws, tightly pressed, grind the teeth, and in some persons the delirium is carried so far that they bite to bleeding the shoulders their companions have imprudently abandoned to them. This frantic state of epilepsy lasts but a short time, but it suffices to exhaust the forces of the organism, especially in man. It is, I believe, Galen, who said: 'Omne animal post coitum triste præter mulierem gallumque.'"[107] Most of the elements that make up this typical picture of the state of coitus are not absolutely essential to that state, but they all come within the normal range of variation. There can be no doubt that this range is considerable. There would appear to be not only individual, but also racial, differences; there is a remarkable passage in Vatsyayana's _Kama Sutra_ describing the varying behavior of the women of different races in India under the stress of sexual excitement--Dravidian women with difficulty attaining erethism, women of the Punjaub fond of being caressed with the tongue, women of Oude with impetuous desire and profuse flow of mucus, etc.--and it is highly probable, Ploss and Bartels remark, that these characterizations are founded on exact observations.[108]

The various phenomena included in Roubaud's description of the condition during coitus may all be directly or indirectly reduced to two groups: the first circulatory and respiratory, the second motor. It is necessary to consider both these aspects of the process of detumescence in somewhat greater detail, although while it is most convenient to discuss them separately, it must be borne in mind that they are not really separable; the circulatory phenomena are in large measure a by-product of the involuntary motor process.

With the approach of detumescence the respiration becomes shallow, rapid, and to some extent arrested. This characteristic of the breathing during sexual excitement is well recognized; so that in, for instance, the _Arabian Nights_, it is commonly noted of women when gazing at beautiful youths whose love they desired, that they ceased breathing.[109] It may be added that exactly the same tendency to superficial and arrested respiration takes place whenever there is any intense mental concentration, as in severe intellectual work.[110]

The arrest of respiration tends to render the blood venous, and thus aids in stimulating the vasomotor centers, raising the blood-pressure in the body generally, and especially in the erectile tissues. High blood-pressure is one of the most marked features of the state of detumescence. The heart beats are stronger and quicker, the surface arteries are more visible, the conjunctivæ become red. The precise degree of blood-pressure attained during coitus has been most accurately ascertained in the dog. In Bechterew's laboratory in St. Petersburg a manometer was introduced into the central end of the carotid artery of a bitch; a male dog was then introduced, and during coitus observations were made on the blood-pressure at the peripheral and central ends of the artery. It was found that there was a great general elevation of blood-pressure, intense hyperæmia of the brain, rapid alternations, during the act, of vasoconstriction and vasodilatation of the brain, with increase and diminution of the general arterial tension in relation with the various phases of the act, the greatest cerebral vasodilatation and hyperæmia coinciding with the moment following the intromission of the penis; the end of the act is followed by a considerable fall in the blood-pressure.[111] I am not acquainted with any precise observations on the blood-pressure in human subjects during detumescence, and there are obvious difficulties in the way of such observations. It is probable, however, that the conditions found would be substantially the same. This is indicated, so far as the very marked increase of blood-pressure is concerned, by some observations made by Vaschide and Vurpas with the sphygmanometer on a lady under the influence of sexual excitement. In this case there was a relationship of sympathy and friendly tenderness between the experimenter and the subject, Madame X, aged 25. Experimenter and subject talked sympathetically, and finally, we are told, while the latter still had her hands in the sphygmanometer, the former almost made a declaration of love. Madame X was greatly impressed, and afterward admitted that her emotions had been genuine and strong. The blood-pressure, which was in this subject habitually 65 millimeters, rose to 150 and even 160, indicating a very high pressure, which rarely occurs; at the same time Madame X looked very emotional and troubled.[112]

Some authorities are of opinion that irregularities in the accomplishment of the sexual act are specially liable to cause disturbances in the circulation. Thus Kisch, of Prague, refers to the case of a couple practising coitus interruptus--the husband withdrawing before ejaculation--in which the wife, a vigorous woman, became liable after some years to attacks termed by Kisch _neurasthenia cordis vasomotoria_, in which there was at daily or longer intervals palpitation, with feelings of anxiety, headache, dizziness, muscular weakness and tendency to faint. He regards coitus as a cause of various heart troubles in women: (1) Attacks of tachycardia in very excitable and sexually inclined women; (2) attacks of tachycardia with dyspnoea in young women, with vaginismus; (3) cardiac symptoms with lowered vascular tone in women who for a long time have practised coitus interruptus without complete sexual gratification (Kisch, "Herzbeschwerden der Frauen verursacht durch den Cohabitationsact," _Münchener Medizinisches Wochenschrift_, 1897, p. 617). In this connection, also, reference may probably be made to those attacks of anxiety which Freud associates with psychic sexual lesions of an emotional character.

Associated with this vascular activity in detumescence we find a general tendency to glandular activity. Various secretions are formed abundantly. Perspiration is copious, and the ancient relationship between the cutaneous and sexual systems seems to evoke a general activity of the skin and its odoriferous secretions. Salivation, which also occurs, is very conspicuous in many lower animals, as for instance in the donkey, notably the female, who just before coitus stands with mouth open, jaws moving, and saliva dribbling. In men, corresponding to the more copious secretion in women, there is, during the latter stages of tumescence, a slight secretion of mucus--Fürbringer's _urethrorrhoea ex libidine_--which appears in drops at the urethral orifice. It comes from the small glands of Littré and Cowper which open into the urethra. This phenomenon was well known to the old theologians, who called it _distillatio_, and realized its significance as at once distinct from semen and an indication that the mind was dwelling on voluptuous images; it was also known in classic times[113]; more recently it has often been confused with semen and has thus sometimes caused needless anxiety to nervous persons. There is also an increased secretion of urine, and it is probable that if the viscera were more accessible to observation we might be able to demonstrate that the glands throughout the body share in this increased activity.

The phenomena of detumescence culminate, however, and have their most obvious manifestation in motor activity. The genital act, as Vaschide and Vurpas remark, consists essentially in "a more and more marked tension of the motor state which, reaching its maximum, presents a short tonic phase, followed by a clonic phase, and terminates in a period of adynamia and repose." This motor activity is of the essence of the impulse of detumescence, because without it the sperm cells could not be brought into the neighborhood of the germ cell and be propelled into the organic nest which is assigned for their conjunction and incubation.

The motor activity is general as well as specifically sexual. There is a general tendency to more or less involuntary movement, without any increase of voluntary muscular power, which is, indeed, decreased, and Vaschide and Vurpas state that dynamometric results are somewhat lower than normal during sexual excitement, and the variations greater.[114] The tendency to diffused activity of involuntary muscle is well illustrated by the contraction of the bladder associated with detumescence. While this occurs in both sexes, in men erection produces a mechanical impediment to any evacuation of the bladder. In women there is not only a desire to urinate but, occasionally, actual urination. Many quite healthy and normal women have, as a rare accident supervening on the coincidence of an unusually full bladder with an unusual degree of sexual excitement, experienced a powerful and quite involuntary evacuation of the bladder at the moment of orgasm. In women with less normal nervous systems this has, more rarely, been almost habitual. Brantôme has perhaps recorded the earliest case of this kind in referring to a lady he knew who "quand on lui faisait cela elle se compissait à bon escient."[115] The tendency to trembling, constriction of throat, sneezing, emission of internal gas, and the other similar phenomena occasionally associated with detumescence, are likewise due to diffusion of the motor disturbance. Even in infancy the motor signs of sexual excitement are the most obvious indications of orgasm; thus West, describing masturbation in a child of six or nine months who practiced thigh-rubbing, states that when sitting in her high chair she would grasp the handles, stiffen herself, and stare, rubbing her thighs quickly together several times, and then come to herself with a sigh, tired, relaxed, and sweating, these seizures, which lasted one or two minutes, being mistaken by the relations for epileptic fits.[116]

The essentially motor character of detumescence is well shown by the extreme forms of erotic intoxication which sometimes appear as the result of sexual excitement. Féré, who has especially called attention to the various manifestations of this condition, presents an instructive case of a man of neurotic heredity and antecedents, in whom it occasionally happened that sexual excitement, instead of culminating in the normal orgasm, attained its climax in a fit of uncontrollable muscular excitement. He would then sing, dance, gesticulate, roughly treat his partner, break the objects around him, and finally sink down exhausted and stupefied. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, Chapter X.) In such a case a diffused and general detumescence has taken the place of the normal detumescence which has its main focus in the sexual sphere.

The same relationship is shown in a case of impotence accompanied by cramps in the calves and elsewhere, which has been recorded by Brügelmann ("Zur Lehre vom Perversen Sexualismus," _Zeitschrift für Hypnotismus_, 1900, Heft I). These muscular conditions ceased for several days whenever coitus was effected.

An instructive analogy to the motor irradiations preceding the moment of sexual detumescence may be found in the somewhat similar motor irradiations which follow the delayed expulsion of a highly distended bladder. These sometimes become very marked in a child or young woman unable to control the motor system absolutely. The legs are crossed, the foot swung, the thighs tightly pressed together, the toes curled. The fingers are flexed in rhythmic succession. The whole body slowly twists as though the seat had become uncomfortable. It is difficult to concentrate the mind; the same remark may be automatically repeated; the eyes search restlessly, and there is a tendency to count surrounding objects or patterns. When the extreme degree of tension is reached it is only by executing a kind of dance that the explosive contraction of the bladder is restrained.

The picture of muscular irradiation presented under these circumstances differs but slightly from that of the onset of detumescence. In one case the explosion is sought, in the other case it is dreaded; but in both cases there is a retarded muscular tension,--in the one case involuntary, in the other case voluntary--maintained at a point of acute intensity, and in both cases the muscular irradiations of this tension spread over the whole body.

The increased motor irritability of the state of detumescence somewhat resembles the conditions produced by a weak anæsthetic and there is some interest in noting the sexual excitement liable to occur in anæsthesia. I am indebted to Dr. J.F.W. Silk for some remarks on this point:--

"I. Sexual emotions may apparently be aroused during the stage of excitement preceding or following the administration of any anæsthetic; these emotions may take the form of mere delirious utterances, or may be associated with what is apparently a sexual orgasm. Or reflex phenomena connected with the sexual organs may occasionally be observed under special circumstances; or, to put it in another way, such reflex possibilities are not always abolished by the condition of narcosis or anæsthesia.

"II. Of the particular anæsthetics employed I am inclined to think that the possibility of such conditions arising is inversely proportionate to their strength, e.g., they are more frequently observed with a weak anæsthetic like nitrous oxide than with chloroform.

"III. Sexual emotions I believe to be rarely observable in men, and this is remarkable, or, I should say, particularly noticeable, for the presence of nurses, female students, etc., might almost have led one to expect that the contrary would have been the case. On the other hand, it is among men that I have frequently observed a reflex phenomenon which has usually taken the shape of an erection of the penis when the structures in the neighborhood of the spermatic cord have been handled.

"IV. Among females the emotional sexual phenomena most frequently obtrude themselves, and I believe that if it were possible to induce people to relate their dreams they would very often be found to be of a sexual character."

Much more important than the general motor phenomena, more purposive though involuntary, are the specifically sexual muscular movements. From the very beginning of detumescence, indeed, muscular activity makes itself felt, and the peripheral muscles of sex act, according to Kobelt's expression, as a peripheral sexual heart. In the male these movements are fairly obvious and fairly simple. It is required that the semen should be expressed from the vesiculæ seminales, propelled along the urethra, in combination with the prostatic fluid which is equally essential, and finally ejected with a certain amount of force from the urethral orifice. Under the influence of the stimulation furnished by the contact and friction of the vagina, this process is effectively carried out, mainly by the rhythmic contractions of the bulbo-cavernosus muscle, and the semen is emitted in a jet which may be ejaculated to a distance varying from a few centimeters to a meter or more.

With regard to the details of the psychic sides of this process a correspondent, a psychologist, writes as follows:--

"I have never noticed in my reading any attempt to analyze the sensations which accompany the orgasm, and, as I have made a good many attempts to make such an analysis myself, I will append the results on the chance that they may be of some value. I have checked my results so far as possible by comparing them with the experience of such of my friends as had coitus frequently and were willing to tell me as much as they could of the psychology of the process.

"The first fact that I hit upon was the importance of pressure. As one of my informants picturesquely phrases it--'the tighter the fit the greater the pleasure.' This agrees, too, with their unanimous testimony that the pleasurable sensations were much greater when the orgasm occurred simultaneously in the man and woman. Their analysis seldom went further than this, but a few remarked that the distinctive sensations accompanying the orgasm seem to begin near the root of the penis or in the testes, and that they are qualitatively different from the tickling sensations which precede them.

"These tickling sensations are caused, I think, by the friction of the glands against the vaginal walls, and are supplemented by other sensations from the urethra, whose nerves are stimulated by pressure of the vaginal walls and sphincter. The specific sensation of the orgasm begins, I believe, with a strong contraction of the muscles of the urethral walls along the entire length of the canal, and is felt as a peculiar ache starting from the base of the penis and quickly becoming diffused through the whole organ. This sensation reaches its climax with the expulsion of the semen into the urethra and the consequent feeling of distention, which is instantly followed by the rhythmic peristaltic contractions of the urethral muscles which mark the climax of the orgasm.

"The most careful introspection possible under the circumstances seems to show that these sensations arise almost wholly from the urethra and in a far less degree from the corona. During periods of great sexual excitement the nerves of the urethra and corona seem to possess a peculiar sensitivity and are powerfully stimulated by the violent peristaltic contractions of the muscles in the urethral walls during ejaculation. It seems possible that the intensity and volume of sensation felt at the glans may be due in part to the greater area of sensitive surface presented in the fossa as well as to the sensitivity of the corona, and in part to the fact that during the orgasm the glans is more highly congested than at any other time, and the nerve endings thus subjected to additional pressure.

"If the foregoing statements are true, it is easy to see why the pleasure of the man is much increased when the orgasm occurs at the same time in his partner and himself, for the contractions of the vagina upon the penis would increase the stimulation of all the nerve endings in that organ for which a mechanical stimulus is adequate, and the prominence of the corpus spongiosum and corona would ensure them the greatest stimulation. It seems not improbable that the specific sensation of orgasm rises from the stimulation of the peculiar form of nerve end-bulbs which Krause found in the corpus spongiosum and in the glans.

"The characteristic massiveness of the experience is probably due largely to the great number of sensations of strain and pressure caused by the powerful reflex contraction of so many of the voluntary muscles.

"Of course, the foregoing analysis is purely tentative, and I offer it only on the chance that it may suggest some line of inquiry which may lead to results of value to the student of sexual psychology."

In man the whole process of detumescence, when it has once really begun, only occupies a few moments. It is so likewise in many animals; in the genera Bos, Ovis, etc., it is very short, almost instantaneous, and rather short also in the Equidæ (in a vigorous stallion, according to Colin, ten to twelve seconds). As Disselhorst has pointed out, this is dependent on the fact that these animals, like man, possess a vas deferens which broadens into an ampulla serving as a receptacle which holds the semen ready for instant emission when required. On the other hand, in the dog, cat, boar, and the Canidæ, Felidæ, and Suidæ generally, there is no receptacle of this kind, and coitus is slow, since a longer time is required for the peristaltic action of the vas to bring the semen to the urogenital sinus. (R. Disselhorst, _Die Accessorischen Geschlechtsdrusen der Wirbelthiere_, 1897, p. 212.)

In man there can be little doubt that detumescence is more rapidly accomplished in the European than in the East, in India, among the yellow races, or in Polynesia. This is probably in part due to a deliberate attempt to prolong the act in the East, and in part to a greater nervous erethism among Westerns.

In the woman the specifically sexual muscular process is less visible, more obscure, more complex, and uncertain. Before detumescence actually begins there are at intervals involuntary rhythmic contractions of the walls of the vagina, seeming to have the object of at once stimulating and harmonizing with those that are about to begin in the male organ. It would appear that these rhythmic contractions are the exaggeration of a phenomenon which is normal, just as slight contraction is normal and constant in the bladder. Jastreboff has shown, in the rabbit, that the vagina is in constant spontaneous rhythmic contraction from above downward, not peristaltic, but in segments, the intensity of the contractions increasing with age and especially with sexual development. This vaginal contraction which in women only becomes well marked just before detumescence, and is due mainly to the action of the sphincter cunni (analogous to the bulbo-cavernosus in the male), is only a part of the localized muscular process. At first there would appear to be a reflex peristaltic movement of the Fallopian tubes and uterus. Dembo observed that in animals stimulation of the upper anterior wall of the vagina caused gradual contraction of the uterus, which is erected by powerful contraction of its muscular fiber and round ligaments while at the same time it descends toward the vagina, its cavity becoming more and more diminished and mucus being forced out. In relaxing, Aristotle long ago remarked, it aspirates the seminal fluid.

Although the active participation of the sexual organs in woman, to the end of directing the semen into the womb at the moment of detumescence, is thus a very ancient belief, and harmonizes with the Greek view of the womb as an animal in the body endowed with a considerable amount of

## activity,[117] precise observation in modern times has offered but little

confirmation of the reality of this participation. Such observations as have been made have usually been the accidental result of sexual excitement and orgasm occurring during a gynæcological examination. As, however, such a result is liable to occur in erotic subjects, a certain number of precise observations have accumulated during the past century. So far as the evidence goes, it would seem that in women, as in mares, bitches, and other animals, the uterus becomes shorter, broader, and softer during the orgasm, at the same time descending lower into the pelvis, with its mouth open intermittently, so that, as one writer remarks, spontaneously recurring to the simile which commended itself to the Greeks, "the uterus might be likened to an animal gasping for breath."[118] This sensitive, responsive mobility of the uterus is, indeed, not confined to the moment of detumescence, but may occur at other times under the influence of sexual emotion.

It would seem probable that in this erection, contraction, and descent of the uterus, and its simultaneous expulsion of mucus, we have the decisive moment in the completion of detumescence in woman, and it is probable that the thick mucus, unlike the earlier more limpid secretion, which women are sometimes aware of after orgasm, is emitted from the womb at this time. This is, however, not absolutely certain. Some authorities regard detumescence in women as accomplished in the pouring out of secretions, others in the rhythmic genital contractions; the sexual parts may, however, be copiously bathed in mucus for an indefinitely long period before the final stage of detumescence is achieved, and the rhythmic contractions are also taking place at a somewhat early period; in neither respect is there any obvious increase at the final moment of orgasm. In women this would seem to be more conspicuously a nervous manifestation than in men. On the subjective side it is very pronounced, with its feeling of relieved tension and agreeable repose--a moment when, as one woman expresses it, together with intense pleasure, there is, as it were, a floating up into a higher sphere, like the beginning of chloroform narcosis--but on the objective side this culminating moment is less easy to define.

Various observations and remarks made during the past two or three centuries by Bond, Valisneri, Dionis, Haller, Günther, and Bischoff, tending to show a sucking action of the uterus in both women and other female animals, have been brought together by Litzmann in R. Wagner's _Handwörterbuch der Physiologie_ (1846, vol. iii, p. 53). Litzmann added an experience of his own: "I had an opportunity lately, while examining a young and very erethic woman, to observe how suddenly the uterus assumed a more erect position, and descended deeper in the pelvis; the lips of the womb became equal in length, the cervix rounded, softer, and more easily reached by the finger, and at the same time a high state of sexual excitement was revealed by the respiration and voice."

The general belief still remained, however, that the woman's part in conjugation is passive, and that it is entirely by the energy of the male organ and of the male sexual elements, the spermatozoa, that conjunction with the germ cell is attained. According to this theory, it was believed that the spermatozoa were, as Wilkinson expresses it, in a history of opinion on this question, "endowed with some sort of intuition or instinct; that they would turn in the direction of the os uteri, wading through the acid mucus of the vagina; travel patiently upward and around the vaginal portion of the uterus; enter the uterus and proceed onward in search of the waiting ovum." (A.D. Wilkinson, "Sterility in the Female," _Transactions of the Lincoln Medical Society_, Nebraska, 1896.)

About the year 1859 Fichstedt seems to have done something to overthrow this theory by declaring his belief that the uterus was not, as commonly supposed, a passive organ in coitus, but was capable of sucking in the semen during the brief period of detumescence. Various authorities then began to bring forward arguments and observations in the same sense. Wernich, especially, directed attention to this point in 1872 in a paper on the erectile properties of the lower segment of the uterus ("Die Erectionsfahigkeit des untern Uterus-Abschnitts," _Beiträge zur Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie_, vol. i, p. 296). He made precise observations and came to the conclusion that owing to erectile properties in the neck of the uterus, this part of the womb elongates during congress and reaches down into the pelvis with an aspiratory movement, as if to meet the glans of the male. A little later, in a case of partial prolapse, Beck, in ignorance of Wernich's theory, was enabled to make a very precise observation of the action of the uterus during excitement. In this case the woman was sexually very excitable even under ordinary examination, and Beck carefully noted the phenomena that took place during the orgasm. "The os and cervix uteri," he states, "had been about as firm as usual, moderately hard and, generally speaking, in a natural and normal condition, with the external os closed to such an extent as to admit of the uterine probe with difficulty; but the instant that the height of excitement was at hand, the os opened itself to the extent of fully an inch, as nearly as my eye can judge, made five or six successive gasps as if it were drawing the external os into the cervix, each time powerfully, and, it seemed to me, with a regular rhythmical action, at the same time losing its former density and hardness and becoming quite soft to the touch. Upon the cessation of the action, as related, the os suddenly closed, the cervix again hardened itself, and the intense congestion was dissipated." (J.R. Beck, "How do the Spermatozoa Enter the Uterus?" _American Journal of Obstetrics_, 1874.) It would appear that in the early part of this final process of detumescence the

## action of the uterus is mainly one of contraction and ejaculation

of any mucus that may be contained; Dr. Paul Mundé has described "the gushing, almost in jets," of this mucus which he has observed in an erotic woman under a rather long digital and specular examination. (_American Journal of Obstetrics_, 1893.) It is during the latter part of detumescence, it would seem, and perhaps for a short time after the orgasm is over, that the

## action of the uterus is mainly aspiratory.

While the active part played by the womb in detumescence can no longer be questioned, it need not too hastily be assumed that the belief in the

## active movements of the spermatozoa must therefore be denied. The vigorous

motility of the tadpole-like organisms is obvious to anyone who has ever seen fresh semen under the microscope; and if it is correct, as Clifton Edgar states, that the spermatozoa may retain their full activity in the female organs for at least seventeen days, they have ample time to exert their energies. The fact that impregnation sometimes occurs without rupture of the hymen is not decisive evidence that there has been no penetration, as the hymen may dilate without rupturing; but there seems no reason to doubt that conception has sometimes taken place when ejaculation has occurred without penetration; this is indicated in a fairly objective manner when, as has been occasionally observed, conception has occurred in women whose vaginas were so narrow as scarcely to admit the entrance of a goose-quill; such was the condition in the case of a pregnant woman brought forward by Roubaud. The stories, repeated in various books, of women who have conceived after homosexual relations with partners who had just left their husbands' beds are not therefore inherently impossible.[119] Janke quotes numerous cases in which there has been impregnation in virgins who have merely allowed the penis to be placed in contact with the vulva, the hymen remaining unruptured until delivery.[120]

It must be added, however, that even if the semen is effused merely at the mouth of the vagina, without actual penetration, the spermatozoa are still not entirely without any resource save their own motility in the task of reaching the ovum. As we have seen, it is not only the uterus which takes an active part in detumescence; the vagina also is in active movement, and it seems highly probable that, at all events in some women and under some circumstances, such movement favoring aspiration toward the womb may be communicated to the external mouth of the vagina.

Riolan (_Anthropographia_, 1626, p. 294) referred to the constriction and dilation of the vulva under the influence of sexual excitement. It is said that in Abyssinia women can, when adopting the straddling posture of coitus, by the movements of their own vaginal muscles alone, grasp the male organ and cause ejaculation, although the man remains passive. According to Lorion the Annamites, adopting the normal posture of coitus, introduce the penis when flaccid or only half erect, the contraction of the vaginal walls completing the process; the penis is very small in this people. It is recognized by gynæcologists that the condition of vaginismus, in which there is spasmodic contraction of the vagina, making intercourse painful or impossible, is but a morbid exaggeration of the normal contraction which occurs in sexual excitement. Even in the absence of sexual excitement there is a vague affection, occurring in both married and unmarried women, and not, it would seem, necessarily hysterical, characterized by quivering or twitching of the vulva; I am told that this is popularly termed "flackering of the shape" in Yorkshire and "taittering of the lips" in Ireland. It may be added that quivering of the gluteal muscles also takes place during detumescence, and that in Indian medicine this is likewise regarded as a sign of sexual desire in women, apart from coitus.

A non-medical correspondent in Australia, W.J. Chidley, from whom I have received many communications on this subject, is strongly of opinion from his own observations that not only does the uterus take an active part in coitus, but that under natural conditions the vagina also plays an active part in the process. He was led to suspect such an action many years ago, as well by an experience of his own, as also by hearing from a young woman who met her lover after a long absence that by the excitement thus aroused a tape attached to the underclothes had been drawn into the vagina. Since then the confidences of various friends, together with observations of animals, have confirmed him in the view that the general belief that coitus must be effected by forcible entry of the male organ into a passive vagina is incorrect. He considers that under normal circumstances coitus should take place but rarely, and then only under the most favorable circumstances, perhaps exclusively in spring, and, most especially, only when the woman is ready for it. Then, when in the arms of the man she loves, the vagina, in sympathy with the

## active movements of the womb, becomes distended at the touch of

the turgescent, but not fully erect, penis, "flashes open and draws in the male organ." "All animals," he adds, "have sexual intercourse by the male organ being _drawn_, not forced, into the female. I have been borne out in this by friends who have seen horses, camels, mules and other large animals in the coupling season. What is more absurd, for instance, than to say that an entire _penetrates_ the mare? His penis is a sensitive, beautiful piece of mechanism, which brings its light head here and there till it touches the right spot, when the mare, _if ready_, takes it in. An entire's penis could not penetrate anything; it is a curve, a beautiful curve which would easily bend. A bull's, again, is turned down at the end and, more palpably still, would fold on itself if pressed with force. The womb and vagina of a beautiful and healthy woman constitute a living, vital, moving organ, sensitive to a look, a word, a thought, a hand on the waist."

A well-known American author thus writes in confirmation of the foregoing view: "In nature the woman wooes. When impassioned her vagina becomes erect and dilated, and so lubricated with abundant mucus to the lips that entrance is easy. This dilatation and erectile expansion of vagina withdraws the hymen so close to the walls that penetration need not tear it or cause pain. The more muscular, primitive and healthy the woman the tougher and less sensitive the hymen, and the less likely to break or bleed. I think one great function of the foreskin also is to moisten the glans, so that it can be lubricated for entrance, and then to retract, moist side out, to make entrance still easier. I think that in nature the glans penetrates within the labia, is withstood a moment, vibrating, and then all resistance is withdrawn by a sudden 'flashing open' of the gates, permitting easy entrance, and that the sudden giving up of resistance, and substitution of welcome, with its instantaneous deep entrance, causes an almost immediate male orgasm (the thrill being irresistibly exciting). Certainly this is the process as observed in horses, cattle, goats, etc., and it seems likely something analogous is natural in man."

While it is easily possible to carry to excess a view which would make the woman rather than the man the active agent in coitus (and it may be recalled that in the Cebidæ the penis, as also the clitoris, is furnished with a bone), there is probably an element of truth in the belief that the vagina shares in the active part which, there can now be little doubt, is played by the uterus in detumescence. Such a view certainly enables us to understand how it is that semen effused on the exterior sexual organs can be conveyed to the uterus.

It was indeed the failure to understand the vital activity of the semen and the feminine genital canal, co-operating together towards the junction of sperm cell and germ cell, which for so long stood in the way of the proper understanding of conception. Even the genius of Harvey, which had grappled successfully with the problem of the circulation, failed in the attempt to comprehend the problem of generation. Mainly on account of this difficulty, he was unable to see how the male element could possibly enter the uterus, although he devoted much observation and study to the question. Writing of the uterus of the doe after copulation, he says: "I began to doubt, to ask myself whether the semen of the male could by any possibility make its way by attraction or injection to the seat of conception, and repeated examination led me to the conclusion that none of the semen reached this seat." (_De-Generatione Animalium_, Exercise lxvii.) "The woman," he finally concluded, "after contact with the spermatic fluid _in coitu_, seems to receive an influence and become fecundated without the co-operation of any sensible corporeal agent, in the same way as iron touched by the magnet is endowed with its powers."

Although the specifically sexual muscular process of detumescence in women--as distinguished from the general muscular phenomena of sexual excitement which may be fairly obvious--is thus seen to be somewhat complex and obscure, in women as well as in men detumescence is a convulsion which discharges a slowly accumulated store of nervous force. In women also, as in men, the motor discharge is directed to a specific end--the intromission of the semen in the one sex, its reception in the other. In both sexes the sexual orgasm and the pleasure and satisfaction associated with it, involve, as their most essential element, the motor

## activity of the sexual sphere.[121]

The active co-operation of the female organs in detumescence is probably indicated by the difficulty which is experienced in achieving conception by the artificial injection of semen. Marion Sims stated in 1866, in _Clinical Notes on Uterine Surgery_, that in 55 injections in six women he had only once been successful; he believed that that was the only case at that time on record. Jacobi had, however, practiced artificial fecundation in animals (in 1700) and John Hunter in man. See Gould and Pyle, _Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine_, p. 43; also Janke (_Die Willkürliche Hervorbringen des Geschlechts_, pp. 230 et seq.) who discusses the question of artificial fecundation and brings together a mass of data.

The facial expression when tumescence is completed is marked by a high degree of energy in men and of loveliness in women. At this moment, when the culminating act of life is about to be accomplished, the individual thus reaches his supreme state of radiant beauty. The color is heightened, the eyes are larger and brighter, the facial muscles are more tense, so that in mature individuals any wrinkles disappear and youthfulness returns.

At the beginning of detumescence the features are frequently more discomposed. There is a general expression of eager receptivity to sensory impressions. The dilatation of the pupils, the expansion of the nostrils, the tendency to salivation and to movements of the tongue, all go to make up a picture which indicates an approaching gratification of sensory desires; it is significant that in some animals there is at this moment erection of the ears.[122] There is sometimes a tendency to utter broken and meaningless words, and it is noted that sometimes women have called out on their mothers.[123] The dilatation of the pupils produces photophobia, and in the course of detumescence the eyes are frequently closed from this cause. At the beginning of sexual excitement, Vaschide and Vurpas have observed, tonicity of the eye-muscles seems to increase; the elevators of the upper lids contract, so that the eyes look larger and their mobility and brightness are heightened; with the increase of muscular tonicity strabismus occurs, owing to the greater strength of the muscles that carry the eyes inward.[124]

The facial expression which marks the culmination of tumescence, and the approach of detumescence is that which is generally expressive of joy. In an interesting psycho-physical study of the emotion of joy, Dearborn thus summarizes its characteristics: "The eyes are brighter and the upper eyelid elevated, as also are the brows, the skin over the glabella, the upper lip and the corners of the mouth, while the skin at the outer canthi of the eye is puckered. The nostrils are moderately dilated, the tongue slightly extended and the cheeks somewhat expanded, while in persons with largely developed pinnal muscles the ears tend somewhat to incline forwards. The whole arterial system is dilated, with consequent blushing from this effect on the dermal capillaries of the face, neck, scalp and hands, and sometimes more extensively even; from the same cause the eyes slightly bulge. The whole glandular system likewise is stimulated, causing the secretions,--gastric, salivary, lachrymal, sudoral, mammary, genital, etc.--to be increased, with the resulting rise of temperature and increase in the katobolism generally. Volubility is almost regularly increased, and is, indeed, one of the most sensitive and constant of the correlations in emotional delight.... Pleasantness is correlated in living organisms by vascular, muscular and glandular extension or expansion, both literal and figurative." (G. Dearborn, "The Emotion of Joy," _Psychological Review Monograph Supplements_, vol. ii, No. 5, p. 62.) All these signs of joy appear to occur at some stage of the process of sexual excitement.

In some monkeys it would seem that the muscular movement which in man has become the smile is the characteristic facial expression of sexual tumescence or courtship. Discussing the facial expression of pleasure in children, S.S. Buckman has the following remarks: "There is one point in such expression which has not received due consideration, namely, the raising of lumps of flesh each side of the nose as an indication of pleasure. Accompanying this may be seen small furrows, both in children and adults, running from the eyes somewhat obliquely towards the nose. What these characters indicate may be learned from the male mandril, whose face, particularly in the breeding season, shows colored fleshy prominences each side of the nose, with conspicuous furrows and ridges. In the male mandril these characters have been developed because, being an unmistakable sign of sexual ardor, they gave the female particular evidence of sexual feelings. Thus such characters would come to be recognized as habitually symptomatic of pleasurable feelings. Finding similar features in human beings, and particularly in children, though not developed in the same degree, we may assume that in our monkey-like ancestors facial characters similar to those of the mandril were developed, though to a less extent, and that they were symptomatic of pleasure, because connected with the period of courtship. Then they became conventionalized as pleasurable symptoms." (S.S. Buckmann, "Human Babies: What They Teach," _Nature_, July 5, 1900.) If this view is accepted, it may be said that the smile, having in man become a generalized sign of amiability, has no longer any special sexual significance. It is true that a faint and involuntary smile is often associated with the later stages of tumescence, but this is usually lost during detumescence, and may even give place to an expression of ferocity.

When we have realized how profound is the organic convulsion involved by the process of detumescence, and how great the general motor excitement involved, we can understand how it is that very serious effects may follow coitus. Even in animals this is sometimes the case. Young bulls and stallions have fallen in a faint after the first congress; boars may be seriously affected in a similar way; mares have been known even to fall dead.[125] In the human species, and especially in men--probably, as Bryan Robinson remarks, because women are protected by the greater slowness with which detumescence occurs in them--not only death itself, but innumerable disorders and accidents have been known to follow immediately after coitus, these results being mainly due to the vascular and muscular excitement involved by the processes of detumescence. Fainting, vomiting, urination, defæcation have been noted as occurring in young men after a first coitus. Epilepsy has been not infrequently recorded. Lesions of various organs, even rupture of the spleen, have sometimes taken place. In men of mature age the arteries have at times been unable to resist the high blood-pressure, and cerebral hæmorrhage with paralysis has occurred. In elderly men the excitement of intercourse with strange women has sometimes caused death, and various cases are known of eminent persons who have thus died in the arms of young wives or of prostitutes.[126]

These morbid results, are, however, very exceptional. They usually occur in persons who are abnormally sensitive, or who have imprudently transgressed the obvious rules of sexual hygiene. Detumescence is so profoundly natural a process; it is so deeply and intimately a function of the organism, that it is frequently harmless even when the bodily condition is far from absolutely sound. Its usual results, under favorable circumstances, are entirely beneficial. In men there normally supervenes, together with the relief from the prolonged tension of tumescence, with the muscular repose and falling blood-pressure,[127] a sense of profound satisfaction, a glow of diffused well-being,[128] perhaps an agreeable lassitude, occasionally also a sense of mental liberation from an overmastering obsession. Under reasonably happy circumstances there is no pain, or exhaustion, or sadness, or emotional revulsion. The happy lover's attitude toward his partner is not expressed by the well-known Sonnet (CXXIX) of Shakespeare:--

"Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated."

He feels rather with Boccaccio that the kissed mouth loses not its charm,

"Bocca baciata non perde ventura."

In women the results of detumescence are the same, except that the tendency to lassitude is not marked unless the act has been several times repeated; there is a sensation of repose and self-assurance, and often an accession of free and joyous energy. After completely satisfactory detumescence she may experience a feeling as of intoxication, lasting for several hours, an intoxication that is followed by no evil reaction.

Such, so far as our present vague and imperfect knowledge extends, are the main features in the process of detumescence. In the future, without doubt, we shall learn to know more precisely a process which has been so supremely important in the life of man and of his ancestors.

FOOTNOTES:

[98] The elements furnished by the sense of touch in sexual selection have been discussed in the first section of the previous volume of these _Studies_.

[99] See Appendix A. "The Origins of the Kiss," in the previous volume.

[100] See, e.g., Art. "Erection," by Retterer, in Richet's _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_, vol. v.

[101] Guibaut, _Traité Clinique des Maladies des Femmes_, p. 242. Adler discusses the sexual secretions in women and their significance, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, pp. 19-26.

[102] In some parts of the world this is further aided by artificial means. Thus it is stated by Riedel (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels) that in the Gorong Archipelago the bridegroom, before the first coitus, anoints the bride's pudenda with an ointment containing opium, musk, etc. I have been told of an English bride who was instructed by her mother to use a candle for the same purpose.

[103] _Parthenologia_, pp. 302, et seq.

[104] The connection of this mucous flow with sexual emotion was discussed early in the eighteenth century by Schurig in his _Gynæcologia_, pp. 8-11; it is frequently passed over by more modern writers.

[105] The drawing is reproduced by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i,

## Chapter XVII; many facts bearing on the ethnography of coitus are brought

together in this chapter.

[106] Onanoff (Paris Société de Biologie, May 3, 1890) proposed the name of bulbo-cavernous reflex for the smart contraction of the ischio-and bulbo-cavernosus muscles (erector penis and accelerator urinæ) produced by mechanical excitation of the glans. This reflex is clinically elicited by placing the index-finger of the left hand on the region of the bulb while the right hand rapidly rubs the dorsal surface of the glands with the edge of a piece of paper or lightly pinches the mucous membrane; a twitching of the region of the bulb is then perceived. This reflex is always present in healthy adult subjects and indicates the integrity of the physical mechanism of detumescence. It has been described by Hughes. (C.H. Hughes, "The Virile or Bulbo-cavernous Reflex," _Alienist and Neurologist_, January, 1898.)

[107] Roubaud, _Traité de l'Impuissance_, 1855, p. 39.

[108] _Das Weib_, seventh edition, vol. i, p. 510.

[109] The influence of impeded respiration in exciting more or less perverted forms of sexual gratification has been discussed in a section of "Love and Pain" in the third volume of these _Studies_.

[110] See, e.g., the experiments of Obici on this point, _Revista Sperimentale di Freniatria_, 1903, pp. 689, et seq.

[111] Summarized in _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, March, 1903, p. 188. The tendency to closure of the eyes noted by Roubaud, to avoid contact of the light, indicates dilatation of the pupils, for which we need not seek other explanation than the general tendency of all peripheral stimulation, according to Schiff's law, to produce such dilatation.

[112] Vaschide and Vurpas, "Du Coefficient Sexuel de l'Impulsion Musicale," _Archives de Neurologie_, May, 1904.

[113] In the _Priapeia_ is an inscription which has thus been translated:--

"You see this organ, after which I'm called And which is my certificate, is humid; This moisture is not dew nor drops of rain, It is the outcome of sweet memory, Recalling thoughts of a complacent maid."

The translator supposes that semen is referred to, but without doubt the allusion is to the theologians' _distillatio_.

[114] A woman of 30, normal and intelligent, after conversing on love and passion, and then listening to the music of Grieg and Schumann, felt real and strong sexual excitement, increased by memories recalled by the presence of a sympathetic person. When then tested by the dynamometer the average of ten efforts with the right hand was found to be 28.2 (her normal average being 31.1) and with the left hand 28.0 (the normal being 30.0). There was, however, great variability in the individual pressures which sometimes equaled and even exceeded the subject's normal efforts. The voluntary muscles are thus in harmony with the approaching general sexual avalanche. (Vaschide and Vurpas, "Quelques Données Expérimentales sur l'Influence de l'Excitation Sexuelle," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1903, fasc. v-vi.)

[115] Cf. MacGillicuddy, _Functional Disorders of the Nervous System in Women_, p. 110; Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 238; id., "Note sur une Anomalie de l'instinct Sexuel," _Belgique Médicale_, 1905; also "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," in an earlier volume of these _Studies_.

[116] J.P. West, "Masturbation in Early Childhood," _Medical Standard_, November, 1895.

[117] Cf. the discussion of hysteria in "Auto-Erotism," vol. i of these _Studies_.

[118] Hirst, _Text-Book of Obstetrics_, 1899, p. 67.

[119] The earliest story of the kind with which I am acquainted, that of a widow who was thus impregnated by a married friend, is quoted in Schurig's _Spermatologia_ (p. 224) from Amatus Lusitanus, _Curationum Centuriæ Septum_, 1629.

[120] Janke, _Die Willkürliche Hervorbringen des Geschlechts_, p. 238.

[121] Cf. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, pp. 29-38.

[122] Féré, _Pathologie des Emotions_, p. 51.

[123] This is an instinctive impulse under all strong emotion in primitive persons. "The Australian Dieri," says A.W. Howitt (_Journal Anthropological Institute_, August, 1890), "when in pain or grief cry out for their father or mother."

[124] Vaschide and Vurpas, _Archives de Neurologie_, May, 1904.

[125] F.B. Robinson, _New York Medical Journal_, March 11, 1893.

[126] Féré deals fully with the various morbid results which may follow coitus, _L' Instinct Sexuel_, Chapter X; id., _Pathologie des Emotions_, p. 99.

[127] With regard to the relationship of detumescence to the blood-pressure Haig remarks: "I think that as the sexual act produces low and falling blood-pressure, it will of necessity relieve conditions which are due to high and rising blood-pressure, such, for instance, as mental depression and bad temper; and, unless my observation deceives me, we have here a connection between conditions of high blood-pressure, with mental and bodily depression, and the act of masturbation, for this act will relieve those conditions, and will tend to be practiced for this purpose." (A. Haig, _Uric Acid_, sixth edition, p. 154.)

[128] A medical correspondent speaks of subjective feelings of temperature coming over the body from 20 to 24 hours after congress, and marked by sensations of cooling of body and glow of cheeks. In another case, though lassitude appears on the second day after congress, the first day after is marked by a notable increase in mental and physical activity.