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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




II

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Up to the point to which we have so far considered it, the process of
detumescence has been mainly nervous and vascular in character; it has, in
fact, been but the more acute stage of a process which has been going on
throughout tumescence. But now we reach the point at which a new element
comes in: muscular action. With the onset of muscular action, which is
mainly involuntary, even when it affects the voluntary muscles,
detumescence proper begins to take place. Henceforward purposeful psychic
action, except by an effort, is virtually abolished. The individual, as a
separate person, tends to disappear. He has become one with another
person, as nearly one as the conditions of existence ever permit; he and
she are now merely an instrument in the hands of a higher power--by
whatever name we may choose to call that Power--which is using them for an
end not themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Associated with this vascular activity in detumescence we find a general
tendency to glandular activity. Various secretions are formed abundantly.
Perspiration is copious, and the ancient relationship between the