Sexual gratification

“ It is here to be observed that the premature development of sexual desire is nothing but the consequence of our bad education hitherto, and that the young man has no sexual needs to satisfy previous to his marriage. Thus he is, on entering marriage, not yet addicted to licentiousness, his first sexual gratification coincides with his first love, and thus he is led back to the plane of morality on which that portion of the feminine sex which has not fallen a prey to prostitution has remained. The gratification of the sexual instinct ts thus wholly placed within the marriage relation. ”

“ Such rights and such duties are chimerical for this reason if for no other, because two persons are necessary in the case of sexual gratification, and sometimes—though not as often as might be wished—Hans fails to find his Grete, without any consequent loss to society at large. ”

“ But if the libido seems to be abnormally strong and the demands for sexual gratification are too frequent, then the woman should be treated and sexual gratification should not be indulged in, because in such cases, as a rule, sexual gratification only adds fuel to the fire, and the woman's demands may become more and more frequent, more and more insistent. In exceptional cases it may even reach the intensity of nymphomania. In such cases the aid of a tactful physician is indispensable. ”

“ But, 250why love of men should be something immoral, I cannot understand; purposeless activity of the sexual instinct (if the immoral is to be seen in all that is useless and unnatural) is also found in intercourse with prostitutes, and even in marriage where means to prevent conception are used; and it seems to me that the sexual intercourse of men must be placed on the same level with all sexual congress that has not procreation as an end. But that only sexual gratification that has this purpose is moral, seems to me to be questionable. ”

“ The first theory assumes that unlimited sexual gratification is essential to the comfort and well-being of the male, and that, whether married or unmarried, he is to seek its gratification, whether lawfully or unlawfully, wherever and whenever he can find an opportunity. It is scarcely necessary to say that this theory is not worthy of the consideration of fair-minded and decent people. It is contrary to the laws of nature, to the laws of God, and to the laws of all civilized nations. The theory is conceived and born of lust. ”

“ Owing to the fact that to the cultivated woman sexual gratification is possible only in the married state, whilst social conditions render marriage impossible to many women greatly in need of such gratification; in consequence, also, of the modern and ever more widely diffused practice by husbands of coitus interruptus altogether regardless of the woman’s need for complete sexual gratification—there arise in women numerous 282local disorders and nervous disturbances, hysteria and even insanity being results by no means infrequent. ”

“ In olden times, if a woman met head-hunters, she could redeem her life by sexual surrender. Later, a maiden consecrated to the gods as a sacrifice might elect to redeem her life by dedicating her body for life to the sacred sex service of the temple; in this way she could earn her redemption money. The ancients regarded it as highly elevating to have sex relations with a woman thus engaged in ransoming her life. It was a religious ceremony to consort with these sacred maidens, and in addition, this whole ritual afforded an acceptable excuse for commonplace sexual gratification. ”

“ It is not possible to lay down a general rule with regard to the frequency of sexual intercourse, notwithstanding the earnestness with which religious zealots, physicians, and moral teachers have in all ages endeavored to determine how often it was proper for a man to cohabit with his wife. The rules that have been prescribed by the various authorities had in view, for the most part, the protection of the wife from excessive demands on the part of her husband; sometimes, however, by the establishment of a minimum period, a certain amount of sexual gratification was secured to the wife ”

“ Just as harmful, however, are the anaphrodisiacs sometimes employed to diminish the intensity of sexual desire when this cannot be gratified. When affected with intense sexual excitement, a woman is much more unfavorably situated than a man, since man claims the right to indulge in sexual intercourse whenever he feels disposed, 271and has, moreover, ample opportunity for sexual gratification. A woman, however, properly endowed with self-respect, will understand how to bridle her senses. ”

“ All sensation and all activity in such unhappy beings ultimately concentrates itself in the act of copulation, or in some other form of sexual gratification, the greatest perversities of sexual practice frequently arising, masturbation, tribadism, and, for the most part, prostitution, even in the case of married women.
The nymphomaniacal woman, says von Krafft-Ebing, endeavors to allure men by means of exposure of the genital organs or indecent gestures; the sight of man produces intense sexual excitement, which is gratified by masturbation or by stimulatory movements of the pelvis. ”

“ We have found that, if the clitoridal woman wishes to achieve a more mature form of sexual satisfaction she may be aided in reaching her goal if she can give up the form of gratification she now employs. This form of gratification still symbolizes an attachment to the earlier form of sexuality. For that reason, of course, it is a defense against the type of sexuality that stands for psychic maturity. The simple decision to abandon the less mature form of gratification often 226 signifies a deep decision within a woman: the decision to take the final step toward womanhood. ”

“ The reasons for her fear are hidden from her, are locked in her unconscious mind. Consciously she may wish, above all things, to achieve real closeness with her husband, to give and receive the greatest of all mutual joys between man and woman, sexual gratification. ”

“ The inability to regulate satisfactorily the number of offspring is also a potent factor. This, coupled with the superstition against copulation during pregnancy and lactation, drives married men out of the home to seek sexual gratification. ”

“ We have now surveyed the complex fact of prostitution in some of its most various and typical aspects, seeking to realise, intelligently and sympathetically, the fundamental part it plays as an elementary constituent of our marriage system. Finally we have to consider the grounds on which prostitution now appears to a large and growing number of persons not only an unsatisfactory method of sexual gratification but a radically bad method. ”

“ Added to which the professional prostitute frequently pretends to be controlled, while the average wife does not.
It happens that this unimaginative paucity of merely twofold division of women unfortunately involves almost without exception the unconscious assumption that his sexual gratification is the function of the prostitute and is both absent from and not supplied by the woman of the angel type, from which stratum of society he naturally selects his wife. No wonder then that many men consider their wives “oversexed” if they show any great passion. ”

“ To many the mere sight of the child appears to afford sufficient sexual gratification; and to others the simple contact of their hands with the child suffices, and nothing more is attempted. But, in other cases, handling the child's genital organs plays the chief part, frequently because the offender can himself obtain sexual gratification only through inducing sexual excitement in the child and watching this excitement. Sometimes, however, the offender has no interest in the child's genital organs ”

“ Under a system of morality by which a man is left free to accept the responsibility for his sexual acts while a woman is not equally free to do the like, a premium is placed on sexual acts which have no end in procreation, and a penalty is placed on the acts which lead to procreation. The reason is that it is the former class of acts in which men find chief gratification; it is the latter class in which women find chief gratification. ”

“ Such impulses are only slightly abnormal, whatever may be said of them from the point of view of good taste. They are not very far removed from the legitimate curiosity of the young woman who, believing herself unobserved, turns her glass on to a group of young men bathing naked. They only become truly perverse when the gratification thus derived is sought in preference to natural sexual gratification. They are also not normal when they involve, for instance, a man desiring to witness his wife in the act of coitus with another man. ”

“ An analogous process also effected by members of the female sex, whether children or adults, is irrumare, id est, penem in os arrigere; fellare, id est, vel labiis vel lingua perfricandi atque exsugendi officium penis præstare. 3. In introduction of the membrum virile into the rectum, either of children or of adults, pæderasty.” That this form of sexual gratification is not infrequently practiced upon women has been pointed out especially by Parent-Duchatelet, and is asserted by von Maschka from personal knowledge of cases in which it has occurred. ”

“ Unconsciously, of course, he does not want her to have the same ecstatic pleasure as he has himself. Not only because, in his squinting regard, this puts her in the prostitute class, but also because he fears her becoming too passionate for one man and therefore requiring two or more. This is based on an undercurrent of opinion among men that a woman’s sexuality is fundamentally [208] stronger than a man’s; and that her comparative leisure in view of his own, will tend to foster in her the desire for sexual gratification. ”

“ In the present day many women derive intense sexual pleasure from being birched by their lovers on bared portions of their bodies. In Paris and other large towns there are special places of resort for those who pursue this form of perverse sexual gratification. Sometimes such women are only the active fouetteuses for worn-out, perversely-feeling men.
199Among the Greeks, a woman who had remained barren during the early years of marriage would visit the temple of Juno, in order to receive from a priest of Pan the gift of fertility. ”

“ The operation of sexual desire on the female sex is a mooted question among English writers on prostitution. Whether it is latent, and never powerful enough to provoke evil courses until it is itself stimulated and roused into energy by external circumstances, or whether it be an active principle impelling the ill-regulated female mind to sacrifice self-respect and reputation in the gratification of dominant impulses, has been frequently discussed. ”

“ On the other hand, many women experience the abandonment of clitoral gratification as a keen deprivation and deeply resent it. In such cases the resentment signifies that they have not sufficiently “felt through” their childhood defenses against femininity.
Obviously there are only two possible steps to take: one can continue the practice of masturbation or one can examine the resentment that is caused by giving it up. If a woman decides on the first step, progress toward the goal of vaginal orgasm may be slowed down or halted completely. ”

“ The second is the fact that motherhood calls for tremendous psychological and sometimes physical sacrifices; it means that a woman has to reverse the natural law of self-preservation and put her children’s welfare ahead of her own. 105 This is deeply frightening to some women and, unless they are properly educated, can cause them to fear their feminine sexual impulses to the point where they are unable to enjoy love-making.
The third reason is that women have, in effect, two organs of gratification, the clitoris and the vagina. ”

“ There is the widespread misunderstanding among young men that sexual hunger is as insistent in virtuous young women as in themselves and that therefore illicit gratification is a mutual gain and responsibility. Some young men may be guided by the information that there is much reliable evidence indicating that, while an innate tendency towards general emotions of affection is strong in the average young woman, there is general absence of the localized passions that naturally and automatically develop in young men. ”

“ Harmoniously organised woman has given herself to a merely sexual man who sought in her only the satisfaction of his senses. This also is the cause of the horror with which the normal woman regards the prostitute, for the latter has made of herself a means for the gratification of male sexuality, losing thereby her inherent harmony and individuality. ”

“ The single impulses subordinate themselves to the overlordship of the genital zone, so that the whole sexual life is taken over into the service of procreation, and their gratification is now significant only so far as they help to prepare and promote the true sexual act. ”

“ Prostitution is condoned as a protective concession to the postulated sexual needs of men; the prostitute has been justified, and even praised in a back-handed way, as “the most efficient guardian of virtue”; [21] that is to say, of the arbitrary restraints on women which pass for virtue in a society where woman is the repository of morality. Illegitimacy, on the other hand, or at least that large share of it which implies a fall from conventional virtue, is an embarrassing suggestion of sexual need in woman. ”

“ Prostitution is a sin wholly of their own making. All the misery, all the lust, as well as all the blighting consequences, are chargeable wholly to the uncontrolled sexual passion of the male. To reform sinful women, reform the men. ”