Secondary sexual characteristic

“ Even when puberty is reached, with its enormous development of sexual and reproductive activity modifying those parts of the organism with which it is concerned, and producing certain secondary sexual characteristics, there yet remains the major extent of the human body and of physical function little, or not at all, affected by sex modification. The eye, the ear, the sense of touch, the general organs of nutrition and respiration and volition are in the main identical, and often differ far more in persons of the same sex than in those of opposite sexes ”

“ It is only in cases in which the female genital organs are wanting, wholly or to a considerable extent, or in which there are important cerebral disturbances or states of mental degeneration, that the sexual impulse is wanting. ”

“ The pleasure derived from hugging and kissing, etc., in children who have the emotion in this first stage of its development, is not specifically sexual except in some cases which I am inclined to consider as precocious. Normally, there appears to be no erethism of the sexual organs during the process of love-making. But erethism, as we shall see in another chapter upon the analysis of the sex impulse, is not confined to the sexual organs, but is distributed throughout the entire body, especially through the vascular and nervous systems. ”

“ While sex expression becomes more specialized in the higher animals, and more refined in human beings, unless debased in the latter by lustful degeneracy, its latent influence is nevertheless always in evidence. For instance, the child through the whole period of life is being prepared gradually by nature for the florescence which takes place at the adolescent stage and which normally culminates in the full sexual development of adulthood. ”

“ There is something else in the sexual impulse which is the essential and constant. [13]
2. DEVIATION IN REFERENCE TO THE SEXUAL AIM
The union of the genitals in the characteristic act of copulation is taken as the normal sexual aim. It serves to loosen the sexual tension and temporarily to quench the sexual desire (gratification analogous to satisfaction of hunger) . Yet even in the most normal sexual process those additions are distinguishable, the development of which leads to the aberrations described as perversions. ”

“ This indicates that there is no cause-and-effect relation between the feminine secondary sexual characters and the love for the male sex, but that they are twin effects of a common cause, namely, the presence in the male body of the particular kind of governing corpuscles or germs ordinarily found only in the protoplasm of females. ”

“ In the case of woman, the expression is less unsuitable, since in woman special organs exist for the maintenance of the ovum after fertilization, and these organs may perhaps lead to the production of this peculiar form of mental activity.
According to Darwin, a comparatively less intensity of sexual desire is common to the females of all species of the animal kingdom. The female demands a prolonged courtship, and often endeavors for a considerable time to elude the male. ”

“ When a sexually mature individual is brought into more or less intimate relations with a sexually mature individual of the opposite sex under conditions where the secondary sexual qualities may have free and unrestricted play, there can be no reasonable doubt that [58] both individuals experience a sub-conscious sexual stimulation which will influence them both physically and psychically through sub-conscious response of their sexual apparatus. ”

“ The contrectation impulse does not consist solely in this, that the boy experiences a purely spiritual love for the girl; it may rather happen that certain definite sexual bodily peculiarities in a woman attract him. When such a boy one day unexpectedly sees a girl's breasts, this may exercise on him a powerful stimulus. Similarly, I have known instances in which, in the absence of any evidence of definite seduction, a woman's genital organs have excited a very young boy, without arousing any idea in his mind of contact between his own genitals and those of the woman. ”

“ But that the physical processes taking place in the genital organs are only co-operative, and not the exclusive factors in the process of development of the psycho-sexual character, is shown by the fact that, notwithstanding a normal anatomical and physiological state of these organs, a sexual instinct may be developed which is the exact opposite of that characteristic of the sex to which the individual belongs. ”

“ If the girl’s development is normal and she puts the normally high value on herself that is characteristic of this period, she will not have sexual intercourse until she actually falls in love seriously. Also, nature gives her an almost unerring instinct for the “right” man, one who will cherish her and their children.
It is important to know that it is the man who ultimately wakens the sleeping beauty sexually. Until she is ready for intercourse and all that it implies in the way of a relationship, she is conscious of no particularly urgent vaginal sensations of a sexual nature. ”

“ The most extreme deviation of sexual type approaching the opposite sex, such as hypertrophy of the clitoris and full facial hair growth in the female, or hypospadia penis-scrotalis and gynecomasty in the male are found linked with heterosexuality more often than with homosexuality. ”

“ The neuroses that appear as the sequelae of injuries are especially common in the male sex, because the occupations of men expose them more than women to injuries of all kinds. Of such cases, of course, we do not speak here. But there are some unquestionably hereditary morbid tendencies which manifest themselves by preference in one sex or the other, and such sexual predisposition shows itself even in childhood. ”

“ It has already been noted as a general rule throughout nature that the male seeks the female [pg 29] and physicians generally believe that men are sexually more active than women,58 though woman's need of reproduction is greater,59 and celibacy unquestionably impresses the character of women more deeply than that of man. Additional evidence of the greater sexual activity of man is furnished by the overwhelmingly large proportion of the various forms of sexual perversion reported by psychiatrists in the male sex. ”

“ On the other hand, during the undifferentiated stage a boy may exhibit an inclination towards someone of the opposite sex, the governess or the girl-friend of his sister, for instance; conversely, the girl may be attracted by a boy or a young man. This inclination, whether homosexual or heterosexual, often leads to bodily acts, to contact with the beloved person, embraces, and kisses, without the necessary occurrence of any manifestations on the part of the external genital organs, although such manifestations may at times ensue. ”

“ Heape has recently called a “sex-antagonism” is beyond dispute, for the instincts of the male and female are fundamentally different. The male is dominated by the desire to gratify the sexual appetite; in the female this is counteracted by the stimulation of other instincts concerned with the cares of offspring. ”

“ Thus in the male, intercourse is always pleasurable, while in the female, pleasure is experienced only when certain conditions are fulfilled.
Contact with the male genital organs stimulates in the female the sensory nerves of the vulva, the vestibule, and the vagina; the nervous stimulus is transmitted to the cerebral cortex, where it gives rise to the sensation of sexual pleasure, and causes, through the intermediation of the genito-spinal centre, a number of reflex actions. ”

“ Thus we are moved to study the development of sex-life in the child also, and we discover the following from a number of sources: In the first place, it is a mistake to deny that the child has a sexual life, and to take it for granted that sexuality commences with the ripening of the genitals at the time of puberty. ”

“ The best equipped males will thus crowd out the less well-equipped in the matter of reproduction, and thus the relevant characters will be increased and perfected through sexual selection. It is, of course, a necessary assumption that these secondary sexual characters may be transmitted to the female, although perhaps in rudimentary form. ”

“ As the most eager would be the most successful in propagating, they would leave the greatest number of offspring to inherit their characters—namely, in males, passion and pugnacity correlated with the physical qualities acquired through Sexual Selection.
On the subject of the acquirement of secondary sexual characters, Mr. Darwin says: “The great eagerness of the males has thus indirectly led to their much more frequently developing secondary sexual characters.” ”

“ He described the sexuality of the infantile period as being purely autoerotic in character, the sexual interests of the child being centered in its own body. From this stage the object of interest is gradually transferred to other individuals of the same sex, the normal attraction to the opposite sex being a final development of later years. ”

“ I have already pointed out that in girls the secondary sexual characters begin to make their appearance at an earlier age than in boys. In the onset of sexual differentiation, the boy thus plays a more passive part than the girl, inasmuch as he retains longer the childish type. None the less, in the boy also certain secondary sexual characters begin to develop comparatively early. Thus, in the second period of childhood, the boy's shoulders often become wider, his muscles stronger, than those of the girl. ”

“ Compared with the sacrifices made by woman, the temporary continence which is all that is demanded from man will be admitted to be a small matter! It is fortunate that as a rule the young woman who has never come into intimate contact with the male, appears to be endowed by nature with a relatively weak sexual impulse! This unequal and unjust distribution of the male and female rôles on the part of nature may be regretted, but it cannot be altered. ”

“ We are, at most, in the same position as regards the stilling of normal sexual desire as we should be as regards the emptying of the bladder, supposing it were very difficult for either sex to effect this satisfactorily without the aid of a portion of the body of a person of the other sex acting as a catheter. In such a case our thoughts and ideals would center around persons of opposite sex, and we should court their attention and help precisely as we do now in the case of our sexual needs. Some such relationship does actually exist in the case of the suckling mother and her infant. ”

“ Hudson that conscious sexual gratification on the part of the female is not the cause of music and dancing performances in birds, nor of the brighter colors and ornaments that distinguish the male, such an opinion by no means excludes the conclusion that these phenomena are primarily sexual and intimately connected with the process of tumescence in both sexes. ”

“ In the playing of these two different parts is attained in both male and female that charging of nervous energy, that degree of vascular tumescence, necessary for adequate discharge and detumescence in an explosion by which sperm-cells and germ-cells are brought together for the propagation of the race. We are now concerned with the necessary interplay of the differing male and female rôles in courtship, and with their accidental emotional by-products. Both male and female are instinctively seeking the same end of sexual union at the moment of highest excitement. ”

“ Infantile sexuality is quite devoid of centralization and specific organization. It is widely diffused over all parts of the body. As the child approaches puberty, however, the erogenous zones tend to concentrate to the region of the reproductive organs. Nor are the psychic and social expressions of sexual feeling absent in the prepubescent period. Choice in the matter of affections, jealousy, a leaning toward one of the sexes, and a preference for the parent, or other near relative, of the opposite sex—as so often observed—are widely manifested by very young children. ”

“ The modest and coy reluctance characteristic alike of the maiden and of the wife, promote an increase of sexual excitement in the opposite sex, and this not only in a man of purely sensual character, whose vanity is stimulated by his being the chosen one among many—a circumstance which, in view of the great dependence of the sexual act upon psychical processes and imaginative influences, is by no means devoid of importance. ”

“ Thus, when marriage, so often unduly postponed in consequence of the condition of modern society, does at length take place, it is apt to find the woman not only fully enlightened as regards sexual matters, but often in a state of nervous weakness from sexual stimulation, one of the type whose characteristics have been happily summed up by the French writer Prévost in the expression demi-vierge. ”

“ But it is necessary here to repeat my previous warning against over-ready generalisation; for we find that there is quite a number of boys and girls who exhibit during childhood such contrary sexual qualities and inclinations, and yet subsequently undergo a perfectly normal, or at any rate a non-homosexual, development of the sexual life. During the period of the puberal development, the normal heterosexual characteristics come to predominate. ”

“ At the menacme, the beauty and energy of women attain their fullest evolution, her sexual characteristics their strongest development. It is this period of life, however, that entails the greatest dangers to beauty and health in connection with the functions of the genital organs. Copulation, the first act of sexual intercourse with the male, often produces in the female injuries from which she never completely recovers. ”