On the opposite side of the Baltic, in the Königsberg district,

the same observation has been made. Intercourse before marriage
is the rule in most villages of this agricultural district, among
the working classes, with or without intention of subsequent
marriage; "the girls are often the seducing parties, or at least
very willing; they seek to bind their lovers to them and compel
them to marriage." In the Köslin district of Pomerania, where
intercourse between the girls and youths is common, the girls
come to the youths' rooms even more frequently than the youths to
the girls'. In some of the Dantzig districts the girls give
themselves to the youths, and even seduce them, sometimes, but
not always, with a view of marriage. (Wittenberg, _Die
geschlechtsittlichen Verhalten der Landbewohner im Deutschen
Reiche_, 1895, Bd. i, pp. 47, 61, 83.)

Mantegazza devoted great attention to this point in several of
the works he published during fifty years, and was decidedly of
the opinion that the sexual emotions are much stronger in women
than in men, and that women have much more enjoyment in sexual
intercourse. In his _Fisiologia del Piacere_ he supports this
view, and refers to the greater complexity of the genital
apparatus in women (as well as its larger surface and more
protected position), to what he considers to be the keener
sensibility of women generally, to the passivity of women, etc.;
and he considers that sexual pleasure is rendered more seductive
to women by the mystery in which it is veiled for them by modesty
and our social habits. In a more recent work (_Fisiologia della
Donna_, cap. viii) Mantegazza returns to this subject, and
remarks that long experience, while confirming his early opinion,
has modified it to the extent that he now believes that, as
compared with men, the sexual emotions of women vary within far
wider limits. Among men few are quite insensitive to the physical
pleasures of love, while, on the other hand, few are thrown by
the violence of its emotional manifestations into a state of
syncope or convulsions. Among women, while some are absolutely
insensitive, others (as in cases with which he was acquainted)
are so violently excited by the paradise of physical love that,
after the sexual embrace, they faint or fall into a cataleptic
condition for several hours.

"Physical sex is a larger factor in the life of the woman.... If
this be true of the physical element, it is equally true of the
mental element." (Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, _The Human Element in
Sex_, fifth edition, 1894, p. 47.)

"In the female sex," remarks Clouston, "reproduction is a more
dominant function of the organism than in the male, and has far
larger, if not more intense, relationships to feeling, judgment,
and volition." (Clouston, _Neuroses of Development_, 1891.)

"It may be said," Marro states, "that in woman the visceral
system reacts, if not with greater intensity, certainly in a more
general manner, to all the impressions, having a sexual basis,
which dominate the life of woman, if not as sexual emotions
properly so called, as related emotions closely dependent on the
reproductive instinct." (A. Marro, _La Pubertà_, 1898, p. 233.)

Forel also believed (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 274) that women are
more erotic than men.

The gynecologist Kisch states his belief that "The sexual impulse
is so powerful in women that at certain periods of life its
primitive force dominates her whole nature, and there can be no
room left for reason to argue concerning reproduction; on the
contrary, union is desired even in the presence of the fear of
reproduction or when there can be no question of it." He regards
absence of sexual feeling in women as pathological. (Kisch,
_Sterilität des Weibes_, second edition, pp. 205-206.) In his
later work (_The Sexual Life of Woman_) Kisch again asserts that
sexual impulse always exists in mature women (in the absence of
organic sexual defect and cerebral disease), though it varies in
strength and may be repressed. In adolescent girls, however, it
is weaker than in youths of the same age. After she has had
sexual experiences, Kisch maintains, a woman's sexual emotions
are just as powerful as a man's, though she has more motives than
a man for controlling them.

Eulenburg is of the same opinion as Kisch, and sharply criticises
the loose assertion of some authorities who have expressed
themselves in an opposite sense. (A. Eulenburg, _Sexuale
Neuropathie_, pp. 88-90; the same author has dealt with the point
in the _Zukunft_, December 2, 1893.)

Kossmann states that the opinion as to the widespread existence
of frigidity among women is a fable. (Kossmann, _Allgemeine
Gynæcologie_, 1903, p. 362.)

Bloch concludes that "in most cases the sexual coldness of women
is in fact only apparent, either due to the concealment of
glowing sexuality beneath the veil of outward reticence
prescribed by conventional morality, or else to the husband who
has not succeeded in arousing erotic sensations which are
complicated and with difficulty awakened.... The sexual
sensibility of women is certainly different from that of men, but
in strength it is at least as great." (Iwan Bloch, _Das
Sexualleben unserer Zeit_ 1907, ch. v.)

Nyström, also, after devoting a chapter to the discussion of the
causes of sexual coldness in women, concludes: "My conviction,
founded on experience, is, that only a small number of women
would be without sexual feeling if sound views and teaching
prevailed in respect to the sexual life, if due weight were given
to inner devotion and tender caresses as the preliminaries of
love in marriage, and if couples who wish to avoid pregnancy
would adopt sensible preventive methods instead of _coitus
interruptus_." (A. Nyström, _Das Geschlichtsleben und seine
Gesetze_, eighth edition, 1907, p. 177.)

We thus find two opinions widely current: one, of world-wide existence and
almost universally accepted in those ages and centers in which life is
lived most nakedly, according to which the sexual impulse is stronger in
women than in men; another, now widely prevalent in many countries,
according to which the sexual instinct is distinctly weaker in women, if,
indeed, it may not be regarded as normally absent altogether. A third view
is possible: it may be held that there is no difference at all. This
view, formerly not very widely held, is that of the French physiologist,
Beaunis, as it is of Winckel; while Rohleder, who formerly held that
sexual feeling tends to be defective in women, now believes that men and
women are equal in sexual impulse.

At an earlier period, however, Donatus (_De Medica Historia
Mirabili_, 1613, lib. iv, cap. xvii) held the same view, and
remarked that sometimes men and sometimes women are the more
salacious, varying with the individual. Roubaud (_De
l'Impuissance_, 1855, p. 38) stated that the question is so
difficult as to be insoluble.

In dealing with the characteristics of the sexual impulse in women, it
will be seen, we have to consider the prevalence in them of what is
commonly termed (in its slightest forms) frigidity or hyphedonia, and (in
more complete form) sexual anesthesia or anaphrodism, or erotic blindness,
or anhedonia.[157]

Many modern writers have referred to the prevalence of frigidity
among women. Shufeldt believes (_Pacific Medical Journal_, Nov.,
1907) that 75 per cent, of married women in New York are
afflicted with sexual frigidity, and that it is on the increase;
it is rare, however, he adds, among Jewish women. Hegar gives 50
per cent, as the proportion of sexually anesthetic women;
Fürbringer says the majority of women are so. Effertz (quoted by
Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, p. 11, apparently with
approval) regards 10 per cent, among women generally as sexually
anesthetic, but only 1 per cent, men. Moll states (Eulenburg's
_Encyclopädie_, fourth edition, art. "Geschlechtstrieb") that the
prevalence of sexual anesthesia among German women varies,
according to different authorities, from 10 to 66 per cent.
Elsewhere Moll (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1890,
p. 510) emphasizes the statement that "sexual anesthesia in women
is much more frequent than is generally supposed." He explains
that he is referring to the physical element of pleasure and
satisfaction in intercourse, and of desire for intercourse. He
adds that the psychic side of love is often more conspicuous in
women than in men. He cannot agree with Sollier that this kind of
sexual frigidity is a symptom of hysteria. Féré (_L'Instinct
Sexuel_, second edition, p. 112), in referring to the greater
frequency of sexual anesthesia in women, remarks that it is often
associated with neuropathic states, as well as with anomalies of
the genital organs, or general troubles of nutrition, and is
usually acquired. Some authors attribute great importance to
amenorrhea in this connection; one investigator has found that in
4 out of 14 cases of absolute amenorrhea sexual feeling was
absent. Löwenfeld, again (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_),
referring to the common misconception that nervous disorder is
associated with increased sexual desire, points out that
nervously degenerate women far more often display frigidity than
increased sexual desire. Elsewhere (_Ueber die Sexuelle
Konstitution_) Löwenfeld says it is only among the upper classes
that sexual anesthesia is common. Campbell Clark, also, showed
some years ago that, in young women with a tendency to chlorosis
and a predisposition to insanity, defects of pelvic and mammary
development are very prevalent. (_Journal of Mental Science_,
October, 1888.)

As regards the older medical authors, Schurig (_Spermatologia_,
1720, p. 243, and _Gynæcologia_, 1730, p. 81) brought together
from the literature and from his own knowledge cases of women who
felt no pleasure in coitus, as well as of some men who had
erections without pleasure.

There is, however, much uncertainty as to what precisely is meant by
sexual frigidity or anesthesia. All the old medical authors carefully
distinguish between the heat of sexual desire and the actual presence of
pleasure in coitus; many modern writers also properly separate _libido_
from _voluptas_, since it is quite possible to experience sexual desires
and not to be able to obtain their gratification during sexual
intercourse, and it is possible to hold, with Mantegazza, that women
naturally have stronger sexual impulses than men, but are more liable than
men to experience sexual anesthesia. But it is very much more difficult
than most people seem to suppose, to obtain quite precise and definite
data concerning the absence of either _voluptas_ or _libido_ in a woman.
Even if we accept the statement of the woman who asserts that she has
either or both, the statement of their absence is by no means equally
conclusive and final. As even Adler--who discusses this question fully and
has very pronounced opinions about it--admits, there are women who stoutly
deny the existence of any sexual feelings until such feelings are
actually discovered.[158] Some of the most marked characteristics of the
sexual impulse in women, moreover,--its association with modesty, its
comparatively late development, its seeming passivity, its need of
stimulation,--all combine to render difficult the final pronouncement that
a woman is sexually frigid. Most significant of all in this connection is
the complexity of the sexual apparatus in women and the corresponding
psychic difficulty--based on the fundamental principle of sexual
selection--of finding a fitting mate. The fact that a woman is cold with
one man or even with a succession of men by no means shows that she is not
apt to experience sexual emotions; it merely shows that these men have not
been able to arouse them. "I recall two very striking cases," a
distinguished gynecologist, the late Dr. Engelmann, of Boston, wrote to
me, "of very attractive young married women--one having had a child, the
other a miscarriage--who were both absolutely cold to their husbands, as
told me by both husband and wife. They could not understand desire or
passion, and would not even believe that it existed. Yet, both these women
with other men developed ardent passion, all the stronger perhaps because
it had been so long latent." In such cases it is scarcely necessary to
invoke Adler's theory of a morbid inhibition, or "foreign body in
consciousness," which has to be overcome. We are simply in the presence of
the natural fact that the female throughout nature not only requires much
loving, but is usually fastidious in the choice of a lover. In the human
species this natural fact is often disguised and perverted. Women are not
always free to choose the man whom they would prefer as a lover, nor even
free to find out whether the man they prefer sexually fits them; they are,
moreover, very often extremely ignorant of the whole question of sex, and
the victims of the prejudice and false conventions they have been taught.
On the one hand, they are driven into an unnatural primness and austerity;
on the other hand, they rebound to an equally unnatural facility or even
promiscuity. Thus it happens that the men who find that a large number of
women are not so facile as they themselves are, and as they have found a
large number of women to be, rush to the conclusion that women tend to be
"sexually anesthetic." If we wish to be accurate, it is very doubtful
whether we can assert that a woman is ever absolutely without the aptitude
for sexual satisfaction.[159] She may unquestionably be without any
conscious desire for actual coitus. But if we realize to how large an
extent woman is a sexual organism, and how diffused and even unconscious
the sexual impulses may be, it becomes very difficult to assert that she
has never shown any manifestation of the sexual impulse. All we can assert
with some degree of positiveness in some cases is that she has not
manifested sexual gratification, more particularly as shown by the
occurrence of the orgasm, but that is very far indeed from warranting us
to assert that she never will experience such gratification or still less
that she is organically incapable of experiencing it.[160] It is therefore
quite impossible to follow Adler when he asks us to accept the existence
of a condition which he solemnly terms _anæsthesia sexualis completa
idiopathica_, in which there is no mechanical difficulty in the way or
psychic inhibition, but an "absolute" lack of sexual sensibility and a
complete absence of sexual inclination.[161]

It is instructive to observe that Adler himself knows no "pure" case of
this condition. To find such a case he has to go back nearly two centuries
to Madame de Warens, to whom he devotes a whole chapter. He has,
moreover, had the courage in writing this chapter to rely entirely on
Rousseau's _Confessions_, which were written nearly half a century later
than the episodes they narrated, and are therefore full of inaccuracies,
besides being founded on an imperfect and false knowledge of Madame de
Warens's earlier life, and written by a man who was, there can be no
doubt, not able to arouse women's passions. Adler shows himself completely
ignorant of the historical investigations of De Montet, Mugnier, Ritter,
and others which, during recent years, have thrown a flood of light on the
life and character of Madame de Warens, and not even acquainted with the
highly significant fact that she was hysterical.[162] This is the basis of
"fact" on which we are asked to accept _anæsthesia sexualis completa
idiopathica!_[163]

"In dealing with the alleged absence of the sexual impulse," a
well-informed medical correspondent writes from America, "much
caution has to be used in accepting statements as to its absence,
from the fact that most women fear by the admission to place
themselves in an impure category. I am also satisfied that influx
of women into universities, etc., is often due to the sexual
impulse causing restlessness, and that this factor finds
expression in the prurient prudishness so often presenting itself
in such women, which interferes with coeducation. This is
becoming especially noticeable at the University of Chicago,
where prudishness interferes with classical, biological,
sociological, and physiological discussion in the classroom.
There have been complaints by such women that a given professor
has not left out embryological facts not in themselves in any way
implying indelicacy. I have even been informed that the opinion
is often expressed in college dormitories that embryological
facts and discussions should be left out of a course intended for
both sexes." Such prudishness, it is scarcely necessary to
remark, whether found in women or men, indicates a mind that has
become morbidly sensitive to sexual impressions. For the healthy
mind embryological and allied facts have no emotionally sexual
significance, and there is, therefore, no need to shun them.

Kolischer, of Chicago ("Sexual Frigidity in Women," _American
Journal of Obstetrics_, Sept., 1905), points out that it is often
the failure of the husband to produce sexual excitement in the
wife which leads to voluntary repression of sexual sensation on
her part, or an acquired sexual anesthesia. "Sexual excitement,"
he remarks, "not brought to its natural climax, the reaction
leaves the woman in a very disagreeable condition, and repeated
occurrences of this kind may even lead to general nervous
disturbances. Some of these unfortunate women learn to suppress
their sexual sensation so as to avoid all these disagreeable
sequelæ. Such a state of affairs is not only unfortunate, because
it deprives the female partner of her natural rights, but it is
also to be deplored because it practically brings down such a
married woman to the level of the prostitute."

In illustration of the prevalence of inhibitions of various
kinds, from without and from within, in suppressing or disguising
sexual feeling in women, I may quote the following observations
by an American lady concerning a series of women of her
acquaintance:--

"Mrs. A. This woman is handsome and healthy. She has never had
children, much to the grief of herself and her husband. The man
is also handsome and attractive. Mrs. A. once asked me if
love-making between me and my husband ever originated with me. I
replied it was as often so as not, and she said that in that
event she could not see how passion between husband and wife
could be regulated. When I seemed not to be ashamed of the
matter, but rather to be positive in my views that it should be
so, she at once tried to impress me with the fact that she did
not wish me to think she 'could not be aroused.' This woman
several times hinted that she had learned a great amount that was
not edifying at boarding school, and I always felt that, with
proper encouragement, she would have retailed suggestive stories.

"Mrs. B. This woman lives to please her husband, who is a spoiled
man. She gave birth to a child soon after marriage, but was left
an invalid for some years. She told me coition always hurt her,
and she said it made her sick to see her husband nude. I was
therefore surprised, years afterward, to hear her say, in reply
to a remark of another person, 'Yes; women are not only as
passionate as men, I am sure they are more so.' I therefore
questioned the lack of passion she had on former occasions
avowed, or else felt convinced her improvement in health had made
intercourse pleasant.

"Miss C. A teacher. She is emotional and easily becomes
hysterical. Her life has been one of self-sacrifice and her
rearing most Puritanical. She told me she thought women did not
crave sexual satisfaction unless it had been aroused in them. I
consider her one who physically is injured by not having it.

"Mrs. D. After being married a few years this person told me she
thought intercourse 'horrid.' Some years after this, however, she
fell in love with a man not her husband, which caused their
separation. She always fancied men in love with her, and she told
me that she and her husband tried to live without intercourse,
fearing more children, but they could not do it; she also told of
trying to refrain, for the same purpose, until safe parts of the
menstrual month, but that 'was just the time she cared least for
it.' These remarks made me doubt the sincerity of the first.

"Mrs. E. said she enjoyed intercourse as well as her husband, and
she 'didn't see why she should not say so.' This same woman,
whether using a current phrase or not, afterward said her husband
'did not bother her very often.'

"Mrs. F., the mother of several children, was married to a man
she neither loved nor respected, but she said that when a strange
man touched her it made her tremble all over.

"Mrs. G., the mother of many children, divorced on account of the
dissipation, drinking and otherwise, of her husband. She is of
the creole type, but large and almost repulsive. She is a
brilliant talker and she supports herself by writing. She has
fallen in love with a number of young men, 'wildly, madly,
passionately,' as one of them told me, and I am sure she suffers
greatly from the lack of satisfaction. She would no doubt procure
it if it were possible.

"I believe," the writer concludes, "women are as passionate as
men, but the enforced restraint of years possibly smothers it.
The fear of having children and the methods to prevent conception
are, I am sure, potent factors in the injury to the emotions of
married women. Perhaps the lack of intercourse acts less
disastrously upon a woman because of the renewed feeling which
comes after each menstrual period."

As bearing on the causes which have led to the disguise and
misinterpretation of the sexual impulse in women I may quote the
following communication from another lady:--

"I do think the coldness of women has been greatly exaggerated.
Men's theoretically ideal woman (though they don't care so much
about it in practice) is passionless, and women are afraid to
admit that they have any desire for sexual pleasure. Rousseau,
who was not very straight-laced, excuses the conduct of Madame de
Warens on the ground that it was not the result of passion: an
aggravation rather than a palliation of the offense, if society
viewed it from the point of view of any other fault. Even in the
modern novels written by the 'new woman' the longing for
maternity, always an honorable sentiment, is dragged in to veil
the so-called 'lower' desire. That some women, at any rate, have
very strong passions and that great suffering is entailed by
their repression is not, I am sure, sufficiently recognized, even
by women themselves.

"Besides the 'passionless ideal' which checks their sincerity,
there are many causes which serve to disguise a woman's feelings
to herself and make her seem to herself colder than she really
is. Briefly these are:--

"1. Unrecognized disease of the reproductive organs, especially
after the birth of children. A friend of mine lamented to me her
inability to feel pleasure, though she had done so before the
birth of her child, then 3 years old. With considerable
difficulty I persuaded her to see a doctor, who told her all the
reproductive organs were seriously congested; so that for three
years she had lived in ignorance and regret for her husband's
sake and her own.

"2. The dread of recommencing, once having suffered them, all the
pains and discomforts of child-bearing.

"3. Even when precautions are taken, much bother and anxiety is
involved, which has a very dampening effect on excitement.

"4. The fact that men will never take any trouble to find out
what specially excites a woman. A woman, as a rule, is at some
pains to find out the little things which particularly affect the
man she loves,--it may be a trick of speech, a rose in her hair,
or what not,--and she makes use of her knowledge. But do you know
one man who will take the same trouble? (It is difficult to
specify, as what pleases one person may not another. I find that
the things that affect me personally are the following: [_a_]
Admiration for a man's mental capacity will translate itself
sometimes into direct physical excitement. [_b_] Scents of white
flowers, like tuberose or syringa. [_c_] The sight of fireflies.
[_d_] The idea or the reality of suspension. [_e_] Occasionally
absolute passivity.)

"5. The fact that many women satisfy their husbands when
themselves disinclined. This is like eating jam when one does not
fancy it, and has a similar effect. It is a great mistake, in my
opinion, to do so, except very rarely. A man, though perhaps
cross at the time, prefers, I believe, to gratify himself a few
times, when the woman also enjoys it, to many times when she does
not.

"6. The masochistic tendency of women, or their desire for
subjection to the man they love. I believe no point in the whole
question is more misunderstood than this. Nearly every man
imagines that to secure a woman's love and respect he must give
her her own way in small things, and compel her obedience in
great ones. Every man who desires success with a woman should
exactly reverse that theory."

When we are faced by these various and often conflicting statements of
opinion it seems necessary to obtain, if possible, a definite basis of
objective fact. It would be fairly obvious in any case, and it becomes
unquestionable in view of the statements I have brought together, that the
best-informed and most sagacious clinical observers, when giving an
opinion on a very difficult and elusive subject which they have not
studied with any attention and method, are liable to make unguarded
assertions; sometimes, also, they become the victims of ethical or
pseudoethical prejudices, so as to be most easily influenced by that class
of cases which happens to fit in best with their prepossessions.[164] In
order to reach any conclusions on a reasonable basis it is necessary to
take a series of unselected individuals and to ascertain carefully the
condition of the sexual impulse in each.

At present, however, this is extremely difficult to do at all
satisfactorily, and quite impossible, indeed, to do in a manner likely to
yield absolutely unimpeachable results. Nevertheless, a few series of
observations have been made. Thus, Dr. Harry Campbell[165] records the
result of an investigation, carried on in his hospital practice, of 52
married women of the poorer class; they were not patients, but ordinary,
healthy working-class women, and the inquiry was not made directly, but of
the husbands, who were patients. Sexual instinct was said to be present in
12 cases before marriage, and absent in 40; in 13 of the 40 it never
appeared at all; so that it altogether appeared in 39, or in the ratio of
something over 75 per cent. Among the 12 in whom it existed before
marriage it was said to have appeared in most with puberty; in 3, however,
a few years before puberty, and in 2 a few years later. In 2 of those in
whom it appeared before puberty, menstruation began late; in the third it
rose almost to nymphomania on the day preceding the first menstruation.
In nearly all the cases desire was said to be stronger in the husband than
in the wife; when it was stronger in the wife, the husband was
exceptionally indifferent. Of the 13 in whom desire was absent after
marriage, 5 had been married for a period under two years, and Campbell
remarks that it would be wrong to conclude that it would never develop in
these cases, for in this group of cases the appearance of sexual instinct
was sometimes a matter of days, sometimes of years, after the date of
marriage. In two-thirds of the cases there was a diminution of desire,
usually gradual, at the climacteric; in the remaining third there was
either no change or exaltation of desire. The most important general
result, Campbell concludes, is that "the sexual instinct is very much less
intense in woman than in man," and to this he elsewhere adds a corollary
that "the sexual instinct in the civilized woman is, I believe, tending to
atrophy."

An eminent gynecologist, the late Dr. Matthews Duncan, has (in his work on
_Sterility in Women_) presented a table which, although foreign to this
subject, has a certain bearing on the matter. Matthews Duncan, believing
that the absence of sexual desire and of sexual pleasure in coitus are
powerful influences working for sterility, noted their presence or absence
in a number of cases, and found that, among 191 sterile women between the
ages of 15 and 45, 152, or 79 per cent., acknowledged the presence of
sexual desire; and among 196 sterile women (mostly the same cases), 134,
or 68 per cent., acknowledged the presence of sexual pleasure in coitus.
Omitting the cases over 35 years of age, which were comparatively few, the
largest proportion of affirmative answers, both as regards sexual pleasure
and sexual desire, was from between 30 and 34 years of age. Matthews
Duncan assumes that the absence of sexual desire and sexual pleasure in
women is thoroughly abnormal.[166]

An English non-medical author, in the course of a thoughtful discussion of
sexual phenomena, revealing considerable knowledge and observation,[167]
has devoted a chapter to this subject in another of its aspects. Without
attempting to ascertain the normal strength of the sexual instinct in
women, he briefly describes 11 cases of "sexual anesthesia" in Women (in 2
or 3 of which there appears, however, to be an element of latent
homosexuality) from among the circle of his own friends. This author
concludes that sexual coldness is very common among English women, and
that it involves questions of great social and ethical importance.

I have not met with any series of observations made among
seemingly healthy and normal women in other countries; there are,
however, various series of somewhat abnormal cases in which the
point was noted, and the results are not uninstructive. Thus, in
Vienna at Krafft-Ebing's psychiatric clinic, Gattel (_Ueber die
sexuellen Ursachen der Neurasthenie und Angstneurose_, 1898)
carefully investigated the cases of 42 women, mostly at the
height of sexual life,--i.e., between 20 and 35,--who were
suffering from slight nervous disorders, especially neurasthenia
and mild hysteria, but none of them from grave nervous or other
disease. Of these 42, at least 17 had masturbated, at one time or
another, either before or after marriage, in order to obtain
relief of sexual feelings. In the case of 4 it is stated that
they do not obtain sexual satisfaction in marriage, but in these
cases only _coitus interruptus_ is practised, and the fact that
the absence of sexual satisfaction was complained of seems to
indicate an aptitude for experiencing it. These 4 cases can
therefore scarcely be regarded as exceptions. In all the other
cases sexual desire, sexual excitement, or sexual satisfaction is
always clearly indicated, and in a considerable proportion of
cases it is noted that the sexual impulse is very strongly
developed. This series is valuable, since the facts of the sexual
life are, as far as possible, recorded with much precision. The
significance of the facts varies, however, according to the view
taken as to the causation of neurasthenia and allied conditions
of slight nervous disorder. Gattel argues that sexual
irregularities are a peculiarly fruitful, if not invariable,
source of such disorders; according to the more commonly accepted
view this is not so. If we accept the more usual view, these
women fairly correspond to average women of lower class; if,
however, we accept Gattel's view, they may possess the sexual
instinct in a more marked degree than average women.

In a series of 116 German women in whom the operation of removing
the ovaries was performed, Pfister usually noted briefly in what
way the sexual impulse was affected by the operation ("Die
Wirkung der Castration auf den Weiblichen Organismus," _Archiv
für Gynäkologie_, 1898, p. 583). In 13 cases (all but 3
unmarried) the presence of sexual desire at any time was denied,
and 2 of these expressed disgust of sexual matters. In 12 cases
the point is left doubtful. In all the other cases sexual desire
had once been present, and in 2 or 3 cases it was acknowledged to
be so strong as to approach nymphomania. In about 30 of these
(not including any in which it was previously very strong) it was
extinguished by castration, in a few others it was diminished,
and in the rest unaffected. Thus, when we exclude the 12 cases in
which the point was not apparently investigated, and the 10
unmarried women, in whom it may have been latent or unavowed, we
find that, of 94 married women, 91 women acknowledged the
existence of sexual desire and only 3 denied it.

Schröter, again in Germany, has investigated the manifestations
of the sexual impulse among 402 insane women in the asylum at
Eichberg in Rheingau. ("Wird bei jungen Unverheiratheten zur Zeit
der Menstruation stärkere sexuelle Erregheit beobaehtet?"
_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, vol. lvi, 1899, pp.
321-333.) There is no reason to suppose that the insane represent
a class of the community specially liable to sexual emotion,
although its manifestations may become unrestrained and
conspicuous under the influence of insanity; and at the same
time, while the appearance of such manifestations is evidence of
the aptitude for sexual emotions, their absence may be only due
to disease, seclusion, or to an intact power of self-control.

Of the 402 women, 166 were married and 236 unmarried. Schröter
divided them into four groups: (1) those below 20; (2) those
between 20 and 30; (3) those between 30 and 40; (4) those from 40
to the menopause. The patients included persons from the lowest
class of the population, and only about a quarter of them could
fairly be regarded as curable. Thus the manifestations of
sexuality were diminished, for with advance of mental disease
sexual manifestations cease to appear. Schröter only counted
those cases in which the sexual manifestations were decided and
fairly constant at the menstrual epoch; if not visibly
manifested, sexual feeling was not taken into account. Sexual
phenomena accompanied the entry of the menstrual epoch in 141
cases: i.e., in 20 (or in the proportion of 72 per cent.) of the
first group, consisting entirely of unmarried women; in 33 (or 28
per cent.) of the second group; in 55 (or 35 per cent.) of the
third group; and in 33 (or 33 per cent.) of the fourth group. It
was found that 181 patients showed no sexual phenomena at any
time, while 80 showed sexual phenomena frequently between the
menstrual epochs, but only in a slight degree, and not at all
during the period. At all ages sexual manifestations were more
prevalent among the unmarried than among the married, though this
difference became regularly and progressively less with increase
in age.

Schröter inclines to think that sexual excitement is commoner
among insane women belonging to the lower social classes than in
those belonging to the better classes. Among 184 women in a
private asylum, only 13 (6.13 per cent.) showed very marked and
constant excitement at menstrual periods. He points out, however,
that this may be due to a greater ability to restrain the
manifestations of feeling.

There is some interest in Schröter's results, though they cannot
be put on a line with inquiries made among the sane; they only
represent the prevalence of the grossest and strongest sexual
manifestations when freed from the restraints of sanity.

As a slight contribution toward the question, I have selected a series of
12 cases of women of whose sexual development I possess precise
information, with the following results: In 2 cases distinct sexual
feeling was experienced spontaneously at the age of 7 and 8, but the
complete orgasm only occurred some years after puberty; in 5 cases sexual
feeling appeared spontaneously for a few months to a year after the
appearance of menstruation, which began between 12 and 14 years of age,
usually at 13; in another case sexual feeling first appeared shortly after
menstruation began, but not spontaneously, being called out by a lover's
advances; in the remaining 4 cases sexual emotion never became definite
and conscious until adult life (the ages being 26, 27, 34, 35), in 2 cases
through being made love to, and in 2 cases through self-manipulation out
of accident or curiosity. It is noteworthy that the sexual feelings first
developed in adult life were usually as strong as those arising at
puberty. It may be added that, of these 12 women, 9 had at some time or
another masturbated (4 shortly after puberty, 5 in adult life), but,
except in 1 case, rarely and at intervals. All belong to the middle class,
2 or 3 leading easy, though not idle, lives, while all the others are
engaged in professional or other avocations often involving severe labor.
They differ widely in character and mental ability; but, while 2 or 3
might be regarded as slightly abnormal, they are all fairly healthy.

I am inclined to believe that the experiences of the foregoing group are
fairly typical of the social class to which they belong. I may, however,
bring forward another series of 35 women, varying in age from 18 to 40
(with 2 exceptions all over 25), and in every respect comparable with the
smaller group, but concerning whom my knowledge, though reliable, is
usually less precise and detailed. In this group 5 state that they have
never experienced sexual emotion, these being all unmarried and leading
strictly chaste lives; in 18 cases the sexual impulse may be described as
strong, or is so considered by the subject herself; in 9 cases it is only
moderate; in 3 it is very slight when evoked, and with difficulty evoked,
in 1 of these only appearing two years after marriage, in another the
exhaustion and worry of household cares being assigned for its comparative
absence. It is noteworthy that all the more highly intelligent, energetic
women in the series appear in the group of those with strong sexual
emotions, and also that severe mental and physical labor, even when
cultivated for this purpose, has usually had little or no influence in
relieving sexual emotion.

An American physician in the State of Connecticut sends me the
following notes concerning a series of 13 married women, taken,
as they occurred, in obstetric practice. They are in every way
respectable and moral women:--

"Mrs. A. says that her husband does not give her sufficient
sexual attention, as he fears they will have more children than
he can properly care for. Mrs. B. always enjoys intercourse; so
does Mrs. C. Mrs. D. is easily excited and very fond of sexual
attention. Mrs. E. likes intercourse if her husband is careful
not to hurt her. Mrs. F. never had any sexual desire until after
second marriage, but it is now very urgent at times. Mrs. G. is
not easily excited, but has never objected to her husband's
attention. Mrs. H. would prefer to have her husband exhibit more
attention. Mrs. I. never refused her husband, but he does not
trouble her much. Mrs. J. thinks that three or four times a week
is satisfactory, but would not object to nightly intercourse.
Mrs. K. does not think that her husband could give her more than
she would like. Mrs. L. would prefer to live with a woman if it
were not for sexual intercourse. Mrs. M., aged 40, says that her
husband, aged 65, insists upon intercourse three times every
night, and that he keeps her tired and disgusted. She each time
has at least one orgasm, and would not object to reasonable
attention."

It may be remarked that, while these results in English women of the
middle class are in fair agreement with the German and Austrian
observations I have quoted, they differ from Campbell's results among
women of the working class in London. This discrepancy is, perhaps, not
difficult to explain. While the conditions of upper-class life may
possibly be peculiarly favorable to the development of the sexual
emotions, among the working classes in London, where the stress of the
struggle for existence under bad hygienic conditions is so severe, they
may be peculiarly unfavorable. It is thus possible that there really are a
smaller number of women experiencing sexual emotion among the class dealt
with by Campbell than among the class to which my series belong.[168]

A more serious consideration is the method of investigation. A working
man, who is perhaps unintelligent outside his own work, and in many cases
married to a woman who is superior in refinement, may possibly be able to
arouse his wife's sexual emotions, and also able to ascertain what those
emotions are, and be willing to answer questions truthfully on this point,
to the best of his ability, but he is by no means a witness whose evidence
is final. While, however, Campbell's facts may not be quite
unquestionable, I am inclined to agree with his conclusion, and
Mantegazza's, that there is a very great range of variation in this
matter, and that there is no age at which the sexual impulse in women may
not appear. A lady who has received the confidence of very many women
tells me that she has never found a woman who was without sexual feeling.
I should myself be inclined to say that it is extremely difficult to find
a woman who is without the aptitude for sexual emotion, although a great
variety of circumstances may hinder, temporarily or permanently, the
development of this latent aptitude. In other words, while the latent
sexual aptitude may always be present, the sexual impulse is liable to be
defective and the aptitude to remain latent, with consequent deficiency of
sexual emotion, and absence of sexual satisfaction.

This is not only indicated by the considerable proportion of my
cases in which there is only moderate or slight sexual feeling. I
have ample evidence that in many cases the element of pain, which
may almost be said to be normal in the establishment of the
sexual function, is never merged, as it normally is, in
pleasurable sensations on the full establishment of sexual
relationships. Sometimes, no doubt, this may be due to
dyspareunia. Sometimes there may be an absolute sexual
anesthesia, whether of congenital or hysterical origin. I have
been told of the case of a married lady who has never been able
to obtain sexual pleasure, although she has had relations with
several men, partly to try if she could obtain the experience,
and partly to please them; the very fact that the motives for
sexual relationships arose from no stronger impulse itself
indicates a congenital defect on the psychic as well as on the
physical side. But, as a rule, the sexual anesthesia involved is
not absolute, but lies in a disinclination to the sexual act due
to various causes, in a defect of strong sexual impulse, and an
inaptitude for the sexual orgasm.

I am indebted to a lady who has written largely on the woman
question, and is herself the mother of a numerous family, for
several letters in regard to the prevalence among women of sexual
coldness, a condition which she regards as by no means to be
regretted. She considers that in all her own children the sexual
impulse is very slightly developed, the boys being indifferent to
women, the girls cold toward men and with no desire to marry,
though all are intelligent and affectionate, the girls showing a
very delicate and refined kind of beauty. (A large selection of
photographs accompanied this communication.) Something of the
same tendency is said to mark the stocks from which this family
springs, and they are said to be notable for their longevity,
healthiness, and disinclination for excesses of all kinds. It is
scarcely necessary to remark that a mother, however highly
intelligent, is by no means an infallible judge as to the
presence or absence in her children of so shy, subtle, and