THE MECHANISM OF DETUMESCENCE.

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 Nymphae 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 Phaethon 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 Muellerian 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 nymphae 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 fuer 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 Genitaux Externes Chez les
Alienees," 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 (_Traite 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 mediaeval 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 Gynaecology_,
especially pp. 244-250; R. Bergh, "Symbolae ad Cognitionem
Genitalium Externorum Foeminearum" (in Danish),
_Hospitalstidende_, August, 1894; and also in _Monatshefte fuer
Praktische Dermatologie_, 1897. D.S. Lamb, "The Female External
Genital Organs," _New York Journal of Gynaecology_, 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
_Gynaecologia_, _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
Schoenheit des Weiblichen Koerpers_, 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 aesthetic
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 Brantome 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 Mueller, 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 nymphe 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,
_Gynaecologia_, 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
Lietaud 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 hyperaesthesia has for this reason been abandoned, except under
special circumstances. The members of the Russian Skoptzy sect habitually
amputate the clitoris, nymphae, 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 haemorrhoids 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 Gynaecological
Journal_, February, 1887, p. 48.)

Boelsche 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 nymphae 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,
_alae_, 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 nymphae 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 nymphae 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