[3] W. James, _Principles of Psychology_, vol. ii. p. 347.
[4] Numerous passages from the theologians bearing on this point are
brought together in _Moechialogia_, pp. 221-220.




II.

Ticklishness--Its Origin and Significance--The Psychology of
Tickling--Laughter--Laughter as a Kind of Detumescence--The Sexual
Relationships of Itching--The Pleasure of Tickling--Its Decrease with Age
and Sexual Activity.


Touch, as has already been remarked, is the least intellectual of the
senses. There is, however, one form of touch sensation--that is to say,
ticklishness--which is of so special and peculiar a nature that it has
sometimes been put aside in a class apart from all other touch sensations.
Scaliger proposed to class titillation as a sixth, or separate, sense.
Alrutz, of Upsala, regards tickling as a milder degree of itching, and
considers that the two together constitute a sensation of distinct quality
with distinct end-organs, for the mediation of that quality.[5] However we
may regard this extreme view, tickling is certainly a specialized
modification of touch and it is at the same time the most intellectual
mode of touch sensation and that with the closest connection with the
sexual sphere. To regard tickling as an intellectual manifestation may
cause surprise, more especially when it is remembered that ticklishness is
a form of sensation which reaches full development very early in life, and
it has to be admitted that, as compared even with the messages that may be
sent through smell and taste, the intellectual element in ticklishness
remains small. But its presence here has been independently recognized by
various investigators. Groos points out the psychic factor in tickling as
evidenced by the impossibility of self-tickling.[6] Louis Robinson
considers that ticklishness "appears to be one of the simplest
developments of mechanical and automatic nervous processes in the
direction of the complex functioning of the higher centres which comes
within the scope of psychology,"[7] Stanley Hall and Allin remark that
"these minimal touch excitations represent the very oldest stratum of
psychic life in the soul."[8] Hirman Stanley, in a somewhat similar
manner, pushes the intellectual element in ticklishness very far back and
associates it with "tentacular experience." "By temporary self-extension,"
he remarks, "even low amoeboid organisms have slight, but suggestive,
touch experiences that stimulate very general and violent reactions, and
in higher organisms extended touch-organs, as tentacles, antennae, hair,
etc., become permanent and very delicately sensitive organs, where minimal
contacts have very distinct and powerful reactions." Thus ticklishness
would be the survival of long passed ancestral tentacular experience,
which, originally a stimulation producing intense agitation and alarm, has
now become merely a play activity and a source of keen pleasure.[9]

We need not, however, go so far back in the zooelogical series to explain
the origin and significance of tickling in the human species. Sir J.Y.
Simpson suggested, in an elaborate study of the position of the child in
the womb, that the extreme excitomotory sensibility of the skin in various
regions, such as the sole of the foot, the knee, the sides, which already
exists before birth, has for its object the excitation and preservation of
the muscular movements necessary to keep the foetus in the most favorable
position in the womb.[10] It is, in fact, certainly the case that the
stimulation of all the ticklish regions in the body tends to produce
exactly that curled up position of extreme muscular flexion and general
ovoid shape which is the normal position of the foetus in the womb. We may
well believe that in this early developed reflex activity we have the
basis of that somewhat more complex ticklishness which appears somewhat
later.

The mental element in tickling is indicated by the fact that even a child,
in whom ticklishness is highly developed, cannot tickle himself; so that
tickling is not a simple reflex. This fact was long ago pointed out by
Erasmus Darwin, and he accounted for it by supposing that voluntary
exertion diminishes the energy of sensation.[11] This explanation is,
however, inadmissible, for, although we cannot easily tickle ourselves by
the contact of the skin with our own fingers, we can do so with the aid of
a foreign body, like a feather. We may perhaps suppose that, as
ticklishness has probably developed under the influence of natural
selection as a method of protection against attack and a warning of the
approach of foreign bodies, its end would be defeated if it involved a
simple reaction to the contact of the organism with itself. This need of
protection it is which involves the necessity of a minimal excitation
producing a maximal effect, though the mechanism whereby this takes place
has caused considerable discussion. We may, it is probable, best account
for it by invoking the summation-irradiation theory of pain-pleasure, the
summation of the stimuli in their course through the nerves, aided by
capillary congestion, leading to irradiation due to anastomoses between
the tactile corpuscles, not to speak of the much wider irradiation which
is possible by means of central nervous connections.

Prof. C.L. Herrick adopts this explanation of the phenomena of
tickling, and rests it, in part, on Dogiel's study of the tactile
corpuscles ("Psychological Corollaries of Modern Neurological
Discoveries," _Journal of Comparative Neurology_, March, 1898).
The following remarks of Prof. A. Allin may also be quoted in
further explanation of the same theory: "So far as ticklishness
is concerned, a very important factor in the production of this
feeling is undoubtedly that of the summation of stimuli. In a
research of Stirling's, carried on under Ludwig's direction, it
was shown that reflex contractions only occur from repeated
shocks to the nerve-centres--that is, through summation of
successive stimuli. That this result is also due in some degree
to an alternating increase in the sensibility of the various
areas in question from altered supply of blood is reasonably
certain. As a consequence of this summation-process there would
result in many cases and in cases of excessive nervous discharge
the opposite of pleasure, namely: pain. A number of instances
have been recorded of death resulting from tickling, and there is
no reason to doubt the truth of the statement that Simon de
Montfort, during the persecution of the Albigenses, put some of
them to death by tickling the soles of their feet with a feather.
An additional causal factor in the production of tickling may lie
in the nature and structure of the nervous process involved in
perception in general. According to certain histological
researches of recent years we know that between the sense-organs
and the central nervous system there exist closely connected
chains of conductors or neurons, along which an impression
received by a single sensory cell on the periphery is propagated
avalanchelike through an increasing number of neurons until the
brain is reached. If on the periphery a single cell is excited
the avalanchelike process continues until finally hundreds or
thousands of nerve-cells in the cortex are aroused to
considerable activity. Golgi, Ramon y Cajal, Koelliker, Held,
Retzius, and others have demonstrated the histological basis of
this law for vision, hearing, and smell, and we may safely assume
from the phenomena of tickling that the sense of touch is not
lacking in a similar arrangement. May not a suggestion be
offered, with some plausibility, that even in ideal or
representative tickling, where tickling results, say, from
someone pointing a finger at the ticklish places, this
avalanchelike process may be incited from central centres, thus
producing, although in a modified degree, the pleasant phenomena
in question? As to the deepest causal factor, I should say that
tickling is the result of vasomotor shock." (A. Allin, "On
Laughter," _Psychological Review_, May, 1903.)

The intellectual element in tickling conies out in its connection with
laughter and the sense of the comic, of which it may be said to constitute
the physical basis. While we are not here concerned with laughter and the
comic sense,--a subject which has lately attracted considerable
attention,--it may be instructive to point out that there is more than an
analogy between laughter and the phenomena of sexual tumescence and
detumescence. The process whereby prolonged tickling, with its nervous
summation and irradiation and accompanying hyperaemia, finds sudden relief
in an explosion of laughter is a real example of tumescence--as it has
been defined in the study in another volume entitled "An Analysis of the
Sexual Impulse"--resulting finally in the orgasm of detumescence. The
reality of the connection between the sexual embrace and tickling is
indicated by the fact that in some languages, as in that of the
Fuegians,[12] the same word is applied to both. That ordinary tickling is
not sexual is due to the circumstances of the case and the regions to
which the tickling is applied. If, however, the tickling is applied within
the sexual sphere, then there is a tendency for orgasm to take place
instead of laughter. The connection which, through the phenomena of
tickling, laughter thus bears to the sexual sphere is well indicated, as
Groos has pointed out, by the fact that in sexually-minded people sexual
allusions tend to produce laughter, this being the method by which they
are diverted from the risks of more specifically sexual detumescence.[13]

Reference has been made to the view of Alrutz, according to which
tickling is a milder degree of itching. It is more convenient and
probably more correct to regard itching or pruritus, as it is
termed in its pathological forms, as a distinct sensation, for it
does not arise under precisely the same conditions as tickling
nor is it relieved in the same way. There is interest, however,
in pointing out in this connection that, like tickling, itching
has a real parallelism to the specialized sexual sensations.
Bronson, who has very ably interpreted the sensations of itching
(New York Neurological Society, October 7, 1890; _Medical News_,
February 14, 1903, and summarized in the _British Medical
Journal_, March 7, 1903; and elsewhere), regards it as a
perversion of the sense of touch, a dysaesthesia due to obstructed
nerve-excitation with imperfect conduction of the generated force
into correlated nervous energy. The scratching which relieves
itching directs the nervous energy into freer channels, sometimes
substituting for the pruritus either painful or voluptuous
sensations. Such voluptuous sensations may be regarded as a
generalized aphrodisiac sense comparable to the specialized
sexual orgasm. Bronson refers to the significant fact that
itching occurs so frequently in the sexual region, and states
that sexual neurasthenia is sometimes the only discoverable cause
of genital and anal pruritus. (Cf. discussion on pruritus,
_British Medical Journal_, November 30, 1895.) Gilman, again
(_American Journal of Psychology_, vi, p. 22), considers that
scratching, as well as sneezing, is comparable to coitus.

The sexual embrace has an intimate connection with the phenomena of
ticklishness which could not fail to be recognized. This connection is,
indeed, the basis of Spinoza's famous definition of love,--"_Amor est
titillatio quaedam concomitante idea causae externae_,"--a statement which
seems to be reflected in Chamfort's definition of love as "_l'echange de
deux fantaisies, et le contact de deux epidermes_." The sexual act, says
Gowers, is, in fact, a skin reflex.[14] "The sexual parts," Hall and Allin
state, "have a ticklishness as unique as their function and as keen as
their importance." Herrick finds the supreme illustration of the summation
and irradiation theory of tickling in the phenomena of erotic excitement,
and points out that in harmony with this the skin of the sexual region is,
as Dogiel has shown, that portion of the body in which the tactile
corpuscles are most thoroughly and elaborately provided with anastomosing
fibres. It has been pointed out[15] that, when ordinary tactile
sensibility is partially abolished,--especially in hemianaesthesia in the
insane,--some sexual disturbance is specially apt to be found in
association.

In young children, in girls even when they are no longer children, and
occasionally in men, tickling may be a source of acute pleasure, which in
very early life is not sexual, but later tends to become so under
circumstances predisposing to the production of erotic emotion, and
especially when the nervous system is keyed up to a high tone favorable
for the production of the maximum effect of tickling.

"When young," writes a lady aged 28, "I was extremely fond of
being tickled, and I am to some extent still. Between the ages of
10 and 12 it gave me exquisite pleasure, which I now regard as
sexual in character. I used to bribe my younger sister to tickle
my feet until she was tired."

Stanley Hall and Allin in their investigation of the phenomena of
tickling, largely carried out among young women teachers, found
that in 60 clearly marked cases ticklishness was more marked at
one time than another, "as when they have been 'carrying on,' or
are in a happy mood, are nervous or unwell, after a good meal,
when being washed, when in perfect health, when with people they
like, etc." (Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," _American
Journal of Psychology_, October, 1897.) It will be observed that
most of the conditions mentioned are such as would be favorable
to excitations of an emotionally sexual character.

The palms of the hands may be very ticklish during sexual
excitement, especially in women, and Moll (_Kontraere
Sexualempfindung_, p. 180) remarks that in some men titillation
of the skin of the back, of the feet, and even of the forehead
evokes erotic feelings.

It may be added that, as might be expected, titillation of the
skin often has the same significance in animals as in man. "In
some animals," remarks Louis Robinson (art. "Ticklishness,"
_Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_), "local titillation of
the skin, though in parts remote from the reproductive organs,
plainly acts indirectly upon them as a stimulus. Thus, Harvey
records that, by stroking the back of a favorite parrot (which he
had possessed for years and supposed to be a male), he not only
gave the bird gratification,--which was the sole intention of the
illustrious physiologist,--but also caused it to reveal its sex
by laying an egg."

The sexual significance of tickling is very clearly indicated by the fact
that the general ticklishness of the body, which is so marked in children
and in young girls, greatly diminishes, as a rule, after sexual
relationships have been established. Dr. Gina Lombroso, who investigated
the cutaneous reflexes, found that both the abdominal and plantar
reflexes, which are well marked in childhood and in young people between
the ages of 15 and 18, were much diminished in older persons, and to a
greater extent in women than in men, to a greater extent in the abdominal
region than on the soles of the feet;[16] her results do not directly show
the influence of sexual relationship, but they have an indirect bearing
which is worth noting.

The difference in ticklishness between the unmarried woman and the married
woman corresponds to their difference in degree of modesty. Both modesty
and ticklishness may be said to be characters which are no longer needed.
From this point of view the general ticklishness of the skin is a kind of
body modesty. It is so even apart from any sexual significance of
tickling, and Louis Robinson has pointed out that in young apes, puppies,
and other like animals the most ticklish regions correspond to the most
vulnerable spots in a fight, and that consequently in the mock fights of
early life skill in defending these spots is attained.

In Iceland, according to Margarethe Filhes (as quoted by Max
Bartels, _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1900, ht. 2-3, p. 57), it
may be known whether a youth is pure or a maid is intact by their
susceptibility to tickling. It is considered a bad sign if that
is lost.

I am indebted to a medical correspondent for the following
communication: "Married women have told me that they find that
after marriage they are not ticklish under the arms or on the
breasts, though before marriage any tickling or touching in these
regions, especially by a man, would make them jump or get
hysterical or 'queer,' as they call it. Before coitus the sexual
energy seems to be dissipated along all the nerve-channels and
especially along the secondary sexual routes,--the breasts, nape
of neck, eyebrows, lips, cheeks, armpits, and hair thereon,
etc.,--but after marriage the surplus energy is diverted from
these secondary channels, and response to tickling is diminished.
I have often noted in insane cases, especially mania in
adolescent girls, that they are excessively ticklish. Again, in
ordinary routine practice I have observed that, though married
women show no ticklishness during auscultation and percussion of
the chest, this is by no means always so in young girls. Perhaps
ticklishness in virgins is Nature's self-protection against rape
and sexual advances, and the young girl instinctively wishing to
hide the armpits, breasts, and other ticklish regions, tucks
herself up to prevent these parts being touched. The married
woman, being in love with a man, does not shut up these parts, as
she reciprocates the advances that he makes; she no longer
requires ticklishness as a protection against sexual aggression."


FOOTNOTES:

[5] Alrutz's views are summarized in _Psychological Review_, Sept., 1901.

[6] _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 206.

[7] L. Robinson, art. "Ticklishness," Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological
Medicine_.

[8] Stanley Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," _American Journal of
Psychology_, October, 1897.

[9] H.M. Stanley, "Remarks on Tickling and Laughter," _American Journal of
Psychology_, vol. ix, January, 1898.

[10] Simpson, "On the Attitude of the Foetus in Utero," _Obstetric
Memoirs_, 1856, vol. ii.

[11] Erasmus Darwin, _Zooenomia_, Sect. XVII, 4.

[12] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii. p.
296.

[13] Such an interpretation is supported by the arguments of W. McDougall
("The Theory of Laughter," _Nature_, February 5, 1903), who contends,
without any reference to the sexual field, that one of the objects of
laughter is automatically to "disperse our attention."

[14] Even the structure of the vaginal mucous membrane, it may be noted,
is analogous to that of the skin. D. Berry Hart, "Note on the Development
of the Clitoris, Vagina, and Hymen," _Transactions of the Edinburgh
Obstetrical Society_, vol. xxi, 1896.

[15] W.H.B. Stoddart, "Anaesthesia in the Insane," _Journal of Mental
Science_, October, 1899.

[16] Gina Lombroso, "Sur les Reflexes Cutanes," International Congress of
Criminal Anthropology, Amsterdam, _Comptes Rendus_, p. 295.




III.

The Secondary Sexual Skin Centres--Orificial Contacts--Cunnilingus and
Fellatio--The Kiss--The Nipples--The Sympathy of the Breasts with the
Primary Sexual Centres--This Connection Operative both through the Nerves
and through the Blood--The Influence of Lactation on the Sexual
Centres--Suckling and Sexual Emotion--The Significance of the Association
between Suckling and Sexual Emotion--This Association as a Cause of Sexual
Perversity.


We have seen that the skin generally has a high degree of sensibility,
which frequently tends to be in more or less definite association with the
sexual centres. We have seen also that the central and specific sexual
sensation, the sexual embrace itself, is, in large measure, a specialized
kind of skin reflex. Between the generalized skin sensations and the great
primary sexual centre of sensation there are certain secondary sexual
centres which, on account of their importance, may here be briefly
considered.

These secondary centres have in common the fact that they always involve
the entrances and the exits of the body--the regions, that is, where skin
merges into mucous membrane, and where, in the course of evolution,
tactile sensibility has become highly refined. It may, indeed, be said
generally of these frontier regions of the body that their contact with
the same or a similar frontier region in another person of opposite sex,
under conditions otherwise favorable to tumescence, will tend to produce a
minimum and even sometimes a maximum degree of sexual excitation. Contact
of these regions with each other or with the sexual region itself so
closely simulates the central sexual reflex that channels are set up for
the same nervous energy and secondary sexual centres are constituted.

It is important to remember that the phenomena we are here concerned with
are essentially normal. Many of them are commonly spoken of as
perversions. In so far, however, as they are aids to tumescence they must
be regarded as coming within the range of normal variation. They may be
considered unaesthetic, but that is another matter. It has, moreover, to be
remembered that aesthetic values are changed under the influence of sexual
emotion; from the lover's point of view many things are beautiful which
are unbeautiful from the point of view of him who is not a lover, and the
greater the degree to which the lover is swayed by his passion the greater
the extent to which his normal aesthetic standard is liable to be modified.
A broad consideration of the phenomena among civilized and uncivilized
peoples amply suffices to show the fallacy of the tendency, so common
among unscientific writers on these subjects, to introduce normal aesthetic
standards into the sexual sphere. From the normal standpoint of ordinary
daily life, indeed, the whole process of sex is unaesthetic, except the
earlier stages of tumescence.[17]

So long as they constitute a part of the phase of tumescence, the
utilization of the sexual excitations obtainable through these channels
must be considered within the normal range of variation, as we may
observe, indeed, among many animals. When, however, such contacts of the
orifices of the body, other than those of the male and female sexual
organs proper, are used to procure not merely tumescence, but
detumescence, they become, in the strict and technical sense, perversions.
They are perversions in exactly the same sense as are the methods of
intercourse which involve the use of checks to prevent fecundation. The
aesthetic question, however, remains the same as if we were dealing with
tumescence. It is necessary that this should be pointed out clearly, even
at the risk of misapprehension, as confusions are here very common.

The essentially sexual character of the sensitivity of the
orificial contacts is shown by the fact that it may sometimes be
accidentally developed even in early childhood. This is well
illustrated in a case recorded by Fere. A little girl of 4, of
nervous temperament and liable to fits of anger in which she
would roll on the ground and tear her clothes, once ran out into
the garden in such a fit of temper and threw herself on the lawn
in a half-naked condition. As she lay there two dogs with whom
she was accustomed to play came up and began to lick the
uncovered parts of the body. It so happened that as one dog
licked her mouth the other licked her sexual parts. She
experienced a shock of intense sensation which she could never
forget and never describe, accompanied by a delicious tension of
the sexual organs. She rose and ran away with a feeling of shame,
though she could not comprehend what had happened. The impression
thus made was so profound that it persisted throughout life and
served as the point of departure of sexual perversions, while the
contact of a dog's tongue with her mouth alone afterward sufficed
to evoke sexual pleasure. (Fere, _Archives de Neurologie_, 1903,
No. 90.)

I do not purpose to discuss here either _cunnilingus_ (the
apposition of the mouth to the female pudendum) or _fellatio_
(the apposition of the mouth to the male organ), the agent in the
former case being, in normal heterosexual relationships, a man,
in the latter a woman; they are not purely tactile phenomena, but
involve various other physical and psychic elements.
_Cunnilingus_ was a very familiar manifestation in classic times,
as shown by frequent and mostly very contemptuous references in
Aristophanes, Juvenal, and many other Greek and Roman writers;
the Greeks regarded it as a Phoenician practice, just as it is
now commonly considered French; it tends to be especially
prevalent at all periods of high civilization. _Fellatio_ has
also been equally well known, in both ancient and modern times,
especially as practiced by inverted men. It may be accepted that
both _cunnilingus_ and _fellatio_, as practiced by either sex,
are liable to occur among healthy or morbid persons, in
heterosexual or homosexual relationships. They have little
psychological significance, except to the extent that when
practiced to the exclusion of normal sexual relationships they
become perversions, and as such tend to be associated with
various degenerative conditions, although such associations are
not invariable.

The essentially normal character of _cunnilingus_ and _fellatio_,
when occurring as incidents in the process of tumescence, is
shown by the fact that they are practiced by many animals. This
is the case, for instance, among dogs. Moll points out that not
infrequently the bitch, while under the dog, but before
intromission, will change her position to lick the dog's
penis--apparently from an instinctive impulse to heighten her own
and his excitement--and then return to the normal position, while
_cunnilingus_ is of constant occurrence among animals, and on
account of its frequency among dogs was called by the Greeks
skylax (Rosenbaum, _Geschichte der Lustseuche im Altertume_,
fifth edition, pp. 260-278; also notes in Moll, _Untersuchungen
ueber pie Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, pp. 134, 369; and Bloch,
_Beitraege zur AEtiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp.
216 et seq.)

The occurrence of _cunnilingus_ as a sexual episode of tumescence
among lower human races is well illustrated by a practice of the
natives of the Caroline Islands (as recorded by Kubary in his
ethnographic study of this people and quoted by Ploss and
Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i). It is here customary for a man to
place a piece of fish between the labia, while he stimulates the
latter by his tongue and teeth until under stress of sexual
excitement the woman urinates; this is regarded as an indication
that the proper moment for intercourse has arrived. Such a
practice rests on physiologically sound facts whatever may be
thought of it from an aesthetic standpoint.

The contrast between the normal aesthetic standpoint in this
matter and the lover's is well illustrated by the following
quotations: Dr. A.B. Holder, in the course of his description of
the American Indian _bote_, remarks, concerning _fellatio_: "Of
all the many varieties of sexual perversion, this, it seems to
me, is the most debased that could be conceived of." On the other
hand, in a communication from a writer and scholar of high
intellectual distinction occurs the statement: "I affirm that, of
all sexual acts, _fellatio_ is most an affair of imagination and
sympathy." It must be pointed out that there is no contradiction
in these two statements, and that each is justified, according as
we take the point of view of the ordinary onlooker or of the
impassioned lover eager to give a final proof of his or her
devotion. It must be added that from a scientific point of view
we are not entitled to take either side.

Of the whole of this group of phenomena, the most typical and the most
widespread example is certainly the kiss. We have in the lips a highly
sensitive frontier region between skin and mucous membrane, in many
respects analogous to the vulvo-vaginal orifice, and reinforcible,
moreover, by the active movements of the still more highly sensitive
tongue. Close and prolonged contact of these regions, therefore, under
conditions favorable to tumescence sets up a powerful current of nervous
stimulation. After those contacts in which the sexual regions themselves
take a direct part, there is certainly no such channel for directing
nervous force into the sexual sphere as the kiss. This is nowhere so well
recognized as in France, where a young girl's lips are religiously kept
for her lover, to such an extent, indeed, that young girls sometimes come
to believe that the whole physical side of love is comprehended in a kiss
on the mouth; so highly intelligent a woman as Madam Adam has described
the agony she felt as a girl when kissed on the lips by a man, owing to
the conviction that she had thereby lost her virtue. Although the lips
occupy this highly important position as a secondary sexual focus
in the sphere of touch, the kiss is--unlike _cunnilingus_ and
_fellatio_--confined to man and, indeed, to a large extent, to civilized
man. It is the outcome of a compound evolution which had its beginning
outside the sphere of touch, and it would therefore be out of place to
deal with the interesting question of its development in this place. It
will be discussed elsewhere.[18]

There is yet another orificial frontier region which is a highly important
tactile sexual focus: the nipple. The breasts raise, indeed, several
interesting questions in their intimate connection with the sexual sphere
and it may be worth while to consider them at this point.

The breasts have from the present point of view this special significance
among the sexual centres that they primarily exist, not for the contact of
the lover, but the contact of the child. This is doubtless, indeed, the
fundamental fact on which all the touch contacts we are here concerned
with have grown up. The sexual sensitivity of the lover's lips to
orificial contacts has been developed from the sensitivity of the infant's
lips to contact with his mother's nipple. It is on the ground of that
evolution that we are bound to consider here the precise position of the
breasts as a sexual centre.

As the great secreting organs of milk, the function of the breasts must
begin immediately the child is cut off from the nutrition derived from
direct contact with his mother's blood. It is therefore essential that the
connection between the sexual organs proper, more especially the womb, and
the breasts should be exceedingly intimate, so that the breasts may be in
a condition to respond adequately to the demand of the child's sucking
lips at the earliest moment after birth. As a matter of fact, this
connection is very intimate, so intimate that it takes place in two
totally distinct ways--by the nervous system and by the blood.

The breasts of young girls sometimes become tender at puberty in
sympathy with the evolution of the sexual organs, although the
swelling of the breasts at this period is not normally a
glandular process. At the recurring periods of menstruation,
again, sensations in the breasts are not uncommon.

It is not, however, until impregnation occurs that really
decisive changes take place in the breasts. "As soon as the ovum
is impregnated, that is to say within a few days," as W.D.A.
Griffith states it ("The Diagnosis of Pregnancy," _British
Medical Journal_, April 11, 1903), "the changes begin to occur in
the breast, changes which are just as well worked out as are the
changes in the uterus and the vagina, which, from the
commencement of pregnancy, prepare for the labor which ought to
follow nine months afterward. These are changes in the direction
of marked activity of function. An organ which was previously
quite passive, without activity of circulation and the effects of
active circulation, begins to grow and continues to grow in
activity and size as pregnancy progresses."

The association between breasts and womb is so obvious that it
has not escaped many savage peoples, who are often, indeed,
excellent observers. Among one primitive people at least the
activity of the breast at impregnation seems to be clearly
recognized. The Sinangolo of British New Guinea, says Seligmann
(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, July-December, 1902,
p. 298) believe that conception takes place in the breasts; on
this account they hold that coitus should never take place before
the child is weaned or he might imbibe semen with the milk.

It is natural to assume that this connection between the activity
of the womb and the glandular activity of the breasts is a
nervous connection, by means of the spinal cord, and such a
connection certainly exists and plays a very important part in
the stimulating action of the breasts on the sexual organs. But
that there is a more direct channel of communication even than
the nervous system is shown by the fact that the secretion of
milk will take place at parturition, even when the nervous
connection has been destroyed. Mironoff found that, when the
mammary gland is completely separated from the central nervous
system, secretion, though slightly diminished, still continued.
In two goats he cut the nerves shortly before parturition and
after birth the breasts still swelled and functioned normally
(_Archives des Sciences Biologiques_, St. Petersburg, 1895,
summarized in _L'Annee Biologique_; 1895, p. 329). Ribbert,
again, cut out the mammary gland of a young rabbit and
transplanted it into the ear; five months after the rabbit bore
young and the gland secreted milk freely. The case has been
reported of a woman whose spinal cord was destroyed by an
accident at the level of the fifth and sixth dorsal vertebrae,
yet lactation was perfectly normal (_British Medical Journal_,
August 5, 1899, p. 374). We are driven to suppose that there is
some chemical change in the blood, some internal secretion from
the uterus or the ovaries, which acts as a direct stimulant to
the breasts. (See a comprehensive discussion of the phenomena of
the connection between the breasts and sexual organs, though the
conclusions are not unassailable, by Temesvary, _Journal of
Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Empire_, June, 1903).
That this hypothetical secretion starts from the womb rather than
the ovaries seems to be indicated by the fact that removal of
both ovaries during pregnancy will not suffice to prevent
lactation. In favor of the ovaries, see Beatson, _Lancet_, July,
1896; in favor of the uterus, Armand Routh, "On the Interaction
between the Ovaries and the Mammary Glands," _British Medical
Journal_, September 30, 1899.

While, however, the communications from the sexual organs to the breast
are of a complex and at present ill understood character, the
communication from the breasts to the sexual organs is without doubt
mainly and chiefly nervous. When the child is put to the breast after
birth the suction of the nipple causes a reflex contraction of the womb,
and it is held by many, though not all, authorities that in a woman who
does not suckle her child there is some risk that the womb will not return
to its normal involuted size. It has also been asserted that to put a
child to the breast during the early months of pregnancy causes so great a
degree of uterine contraction that abortion may result.

Freund found in Germany that stimulation of the nipples by an
electrical cupping apparatus brought about contraction of the
pregnant uterus. At an earlier period it was recommended to
irritate the nipple in order to excite the uterus to parturient
action. Simpson, while pointing out that this was scarcely
adequate to produce the effect desired, thought that placing a
child to the breast after labor had begun might increase uterine
action. (J.Y. Simpson, _Obstetric Memoirs_, vol. i, p. 836; also
Fere, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 132).

The influence of lactation over the womb in preventing the return
of menstruation during its continuance is well known. According
to Remfry's investigation of 900 cases in England, in 57 per
cent. of cases there is no menstruation during lactation. (L.
Remfry, in paper read before Obstetrical Society of London,
summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, January 11, 1896, p.
86). Bendix, in Germany, found among 140 cases that in about 40
per cent. there was no menstruation during lactation (paper read
before Duesseldorf meeting of the Society of German Naturalists
and Physicians, 1899). When the child is not suckled menstruation
tends to reappear about six months after parturition.

It is possible that the divergent opinions of authorities
concerning the necessarily favorable influence of lactation in
promoting the return of the womb to its normal size may be due to
a confusion of two distinct influences: the reflex action of the
nipple on the womb and the effects of prolonged glandular
secretion of the breasts in debilitated persons. The act of
suckling undoubtedly tends to promote uterine contraction, and in
healthy women during lactation the womb may even (according to
Vineberg) be temporarily reduced to a smaller size than before
impregnation, thus producing what is known as "lactation
atrophy." In debilitated women, however, the strain of
milk-production may lead to general lack of muscular tone, and
involution of the womb thus be hindered rather than aided by
lactation.

On the objective side, then, the nipple is to be regarded as an erectile
organ, richly supplied with nerves and vessels, which, under the
stimulation of the infant's lips--or any similar compression, and even
under the influence of emotion or cold,--becomes firm and projects, mainly
as a result of muscular contraction; for, unlike the penis and the
clitoris, the nipple contains no true erectile tissue and little capacity
for vascular engorgement.[19] We must then suppose that an impetus tends
to be transmitted through the spinal cord to the sexual organs, setting up
a greater or less degree of nervous and muscular excitement with uterine
contraction. These being the objective manifestations, what manifestations
are to be noted on the subjective side?

It is a remarkable proof of the general indifference with which in Europe
even the fairly constant and prominent characteristics of the psychology
of women have been treated until recent times that, so far as I am
aware,--though I have made no special research to this end,--no one before
the end of the eighteenth century had recorded the fact that the act of
suckling tends to produce in women voluptuous sexual emotions. Cabanis in
1802, in the memoir on "Influence des Sexes" in his _Rapports du Physique
et du Moral de l'Homme_, wrote that several suckling women had told him
that the child in sucking the breast made them experience a vivid
sensation of pleasure, shared in some degree by the sexual organs. There
can be no doubt that in healthy suckling women this phenomenon is
exceedingly common, though in the absence of any methodical and precise
investigation it cannot be affirmed that it is experienced by every woman
in some degree, and it is highly probable that this is not the case. One
lady, perfectly normal, states that she has had stronger sexual feelings
in suckling her children than she has ever experienced with her husband,
but that so far as possible she has tried to repress them, as she regards
them as brutish under these circumstances. Many other women state
generally that suckling is the most delicious physical feeling they have
ever experienced. In most cases, however, it does not appear to lead to a
desire for intercourse, and some of those who make this statement have no
desire for coitus during lactation, though they may have strong sexual
needs at other times. It is probable that this corresponds to the normal
condition, and that the voluptuous sensations aroused by suckling are
adequately gratified by the child. It may be added that there are probably
many women who could say, with a lady quoted by Fere,[20] that the only
real pleasures of sex they have ever known are those derived from their
suckling infants.

It is not difficult to see why this normal association of sexual emotion
with suckling should have come about. It is essential for the preservation
of the lives of young mammals that the mothers should have an adequate
motive in pleasurable sensation for enduring the trouble of suckling. The
most obvious method for obtaining the necessary degree of pleasurable
sensation lay in utilizing the reservoir of sexual emotion, with which
channels of communication might already be said to be open through the
action of the sexual organs on the breasts during pregnancy. The
voluptuous element in suckling may thus be called a merciful provision of
Nature for securing the maintenance of the child.

Cabanis seems to have realized the significance of this
connection as the basis of the sympathy between mother and child,
and more recently Lombroso and Ferrero have remarked (_La Donna
Delinquente_, p. 438) on the fact that maternal love has a sexual
basis in the element of venereal pleasure, though usually
inconsiderable, experienced during suckling. Houzeau has referred
to the fact that in the majority of animals the relation between
mother and offspring is only close during the period of
lactation, and this is certainly connected with the fact that it
is only during lactation that the female animal can derive
physical gratification from her offspring. When living on a farm
I have ascertained that cows sometimes, though not frequently,
exhibit slight signs of sexual excitement, with secretion of
mucus, while being milked; so that, as the dairymaid herself
observed, it is as if they were being "bulled." The sow, like
some other mammals, often eats her own young after birth,
mistaking them, it is thought, for the placenta, which is
normally eaten by most mammals; it is said that the sow never
eats her young when they have once taken the teat.

It occasionally happens that this normal tendency for suckling to
produce voluptuous sexual emotions is present in an extreme
degree, and may lead to sexual perversions. It does not appear
that the sexual sensations aroused by suckling usually culminate
in the orgasm; this however, was noted in a case recorded by
Fere, of a slightly neurotic woman in whom intense sexual
excitement occurred during suckling, especially if prolonged; so
far as possible, she shortened the periods of suckling in order
to prevent, not always successfully, the occurrence of the orgasm