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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Although the active participation of the sexual organs in woman, to the
end of directing the semen into the womb at the moment of detumescence, is
thus a very ancient belief, and harmonizes with the Greek view of the womb
as an animal in the body endowed with a considerable amount of
activity,[117] precise observation in modern times has offered but little
confirmation of the reality of this participation. Such observations as
have been made have usually been the accidental result of sexual
excitement and orgasm occurring during a gynaecological examination. As,
however, such a result is liable to occur in erotic subjects, a certain
number of precise observations have accumulated during the past century.
So far as the evidence goes, it would seem that in women, as in mares,
bitches, and other animals, the uterus becomes shorter, broader, and
softer during the orgasm, at the same time descending lower into the
pelvis, with its mouth open intermittently, so that, as one writer
remarks, spontaneously recurring to the simile which commended itself to
the Greeks, "the uterus might be likened to an animal gasping for
breath."[118] This sensitive, responsive mobility of the uterus is,
indeed, not confined to the moment of detumescence, but may occur at other
times under the influence of sexual emotion.

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

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

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

About the year 1859 Fichstedt seems to have done something to
overthrow this theory by declaring his belief that the uterus was
not, as commonly supposed, a passive organ in coitus, but was
capable of sucking in the semen during the brief period of
detumescence. Various authorities then began to bring forward
arguments and observations in the same sense. Wernich,
especially, directed attention to this point in 1872 in a paper
on the erectile properties of the lower segment of the uterus
("Die Erectionsfahigkeit des untern Uterus-Abschnitts," _Beitraege
zur Geburtshuelfe und Gynaekologie_, vol. i, p. 296). He made
precise observations and came to the conclusion that owing to
erectile properties in the neck of the uterus, this part of the
womb elongates during congress and reaches down into the pelvis
with an aspiratory movement, as if to meet the glans of the male.
A little later, in a case of partial prolapse, Beck, in ignorance
of Wernich's theory, was enabled to make a very precise
observation of the action of the uterus during excitement. In
this case the woman was sexually very excitable even under
ordinary examination, and Beck carefully noted the phenomena that
took place during the orgasm. "The os and cervix uteri," he
states, "had been about as firm as usual, moderately hard and,
generally speaking, in a natural and normal condition, with the
external os closed to such an extent as to admit of the uterine
probe with difficulty; but the instant that the height of
excitement was at hand, the os opened itself to the extent of
fully an inch, as nearly as my eye can judge, made five or six
successive gasps as if it were drawing the external os into the
cervix, each time powerfully, and, it seemed to me, with a
regular rhythmical action, at the same time losing its former
density and hardness and becoming quite soft to the touch. Upon
the cessation of the action, as related, the os suddenly closed,
the cervix again hardened itself, and the intense congestion was
dissipated." (J.R. Beck, "How do the Spermatozoa Enter the
Uterus?" _American Journal of Obstetrics_, 1874.) It would appear
that in the early part of this final process of detumescence the
action of the uterus is mainly one of contraction and ejaculation
of any mucus that may be contained; Dr. Paul Munde has described
"the gushing, almost in jets," of this mucus which he has
observed in an erotic woman under a rather long digital and
specular examination. (_American Journal of Obstetrics_, 1893.)
It is during the latter part of detumescence, it would seem, and
perhaps for a short time after the orgasm is over, that the
action of the uterus is mainly aspiratory.

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

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

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

A non-medical correspondent in Australia, W.J. Chidley, from whom
I have received many communications on this subject, is strongly
of opinion from his own observations that not only does the
uterus take an active part in coitus, but that under natural
conditions the vagina also plays an active part in the process.
He was led to suspect such an action many years ago, as well by
an experience of his own, as also by hearing from a young woman
who met her lover after a long absence that by the excitement
thus aroused a tape attached to the underclothes had been drawn
into the vagina. Since then the confidences of various friends,
together with observations of animals, have confirmed him in the
view that the general belief that coitus must be effected by
forcible entry of the male organ into a passive vagina is
incorrect. He considers that under normal circumstances coitus
should take place but rarely, and then only under the most
favorable circumstances, perhaps exclusively in spring, and, most
especially, only when the woman is ready for it. Then, when in
the arms of the man she loves, the vagina, in sympathy with the
active movements of the womb, becomes distended at the touch of
the turgescent, but not fully erect, penis, "flashes open and
draws in the male organ." "All animals," he adds, "have sexual
intercourse by the male organ being _drawn_, not forced, into the
female. I have been borne out in this by friends who have seen
horses, camels, mules and other large animals in the coupling
season. What is more absurd, for instance, than to say that an
entire _penetrates_ the mare? His penis is a sensitive, beautiful
piece of mechanism, which brings its light head here and there
till it touches the right spot, when the mare, _if ready_, takes
it in. An entire's penis could not penetrate anything; it is a
curve, a beautiful curve which would easily bend. A bull's,
again, is turned down at the end and, more palpably still, would
fold on itself if pressed with force. The womb and vagina of a
beautiful and healthy woman constitute a living, vital, moving
organ, sensitive to a look, a word, a thought, a hand on the
waist."

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

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

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

Although the specifically sexual muscular process of detumescence in
women--as distinguished from the general muscular phenomena of sexual
excitement which may be fairly obvious--is thus seen to be somewhat
complex and obscure, in women as well as in men detumescence is a
convulsion which discharges a slowly accumulated store of nervous force.
In women also, as in men, the motor discharge is directed to a specific
end--the intromission of the semen in the one sex, its reception in the
other. In both sexes the sexual orgasm and the pleasure and satisfaction
associated with it, involve, as their most essential element, the motor
activity of the sexual sphere.[121]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Bocca baciata non perde ventura."

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

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


FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[105] The drawing is reproduced by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i,
Chapter XVII; many facts bearing on the ethnography of coitus are brought
together in this chapter.

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

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

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

[109] The influence of impeded respiration in exciting more or less
perverted forms of sexual gratification has been discussed in a section of