Sexual instinct

“ In itself, no doubt, the natural and moderate satisfaction of the sexual instincts is a matter quite indifferent to morality. It is only in relation to something else that the satisfaction of a natural instinct can be said to be good or bad. ”

“ We are deceived by what we see among highly fed domesticated animals, and among the lazy classes of human society, whose sexual instincts are at once both unnaturally stimulated and unnaturally repressed, when we imagine that the instinct of detumescence is normally ever craving to be satisfied, and that throughout nature it can always be set off at a touch whenever the stimulus is applied. ”

“ Reproduction is the natural end and object of the sexual instinct, but the statement that it is part of the contents of the sexual impulse, or can in any way be used to define that impulse, must be dismissed as altogether inacceptable. ”

“ The term "sexual instinct" may be said to cover the whole of the neuropsychic phenomena of reproduction which man shares with the lower animals. It is true that much discussion has taken place concerning the proper use of the term "instinct," and some definitions of instinctive action would appear to exclude the essential mechanism of the process whereby sexual reproduction is assured. ”

“ But we cannot fail to realize the bearing of physiological chemistry in this field; and the doctrine of internal secretions, since it may throw light on many complex problems presented by the sexual instinct, is full of interest for us. ”

“ Yet if the term "sexual instinct" is held to comprise the whole series of complex relationships which are manifest to us in numerous and specialised modes of behaviour, which ultimately lead to reproduction, and which have gradually become interwoven in the tissue of the race, there can be little doubt that the assumption is a reasonable one. ”

“ Instinctively both women and men would do so if their sexual instincts were accessible. Those men and women to whom their instincts are accessible do gain their greatest comfort if not their greatest happiness through the uninhibited expression of the sex instinct. ”

“ It is not here asserted, as I would carefully point out, that an inverted sexual instinct, or organ for such instinct, is developed in early embryonic life; such a notion is rightly rejected as absurd. What we may reasonably regard as formed at an early stage of development is strictly a predisposition; that is to say, such a modification of the organism that it becomes more adapted than the normal or average organism to experience sexual attraction to the same sex. ”

“ In men it manifests an organic variation of intensity in consonance with the collection and expenditure of semen; in women the increase of sexual desire coincides with the process of ovulation, and in such a way that libido sexualis is greater after the menstrual period.
Sexual instinct—as emotion, idea, and impulse—is a function of the cerebral cortex. Thus far no definite region of the cortex has been proved to be exclusively the seat of sexual sensations and impulses. ”

“ Alike in the sports of puppydom and the non-sexual activities of adult age; alike in the possession of the initial sexual instinct which draws the sex to the sex, the moment active sexual reproduction is concerned, there is opened to the female a certain world of sensations and experiences, from which her male companion is for ever excluded. ”

“ So far as they may do so they subordinate these instinctive emotions entirely to the sexual instinct so that these latter simply make use of them. When the psycho-neuroses are completely studied we will find the same repression of the various instinctive dispositions and impulses to which I have referred in the one case as in the other, and of ideas organized with these disposition. We find the same conflicts and resulting disturbances. The sexual instinct has no hegemony. To my mind each occupies precisely the same position and may play the same part in personality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Eduard von Hartmann long since remarked that the satisfaction of what we call the sexual instinct through an act carried out with a person of the opposite sex is a very wonderful phenomenon. It cannot be said, however, that the conception of the sexual act as a simple process of evacuation does anything to explain the wonder. ”

“ Indeed, although the term "reproductive instinct" is frequently used, it is seldom used in a sense that we need take seriously; it is vaguely employed as a euphemism by those who wish to veil the facts of the sexual life; it is more precisely employed mainly by those who are unconsciously dominated by a superstitious repugnance to sex. ”

“ The complete mutual satisfaction, physical and psychic, of mother and child, in the transfer from one to the other of a precious organized fluid, is the one true physiological analogy to the relationship of a man and a woman at the climax of the sexual act. Even this close analogy, however, fails to cover all the facts of the sexual life.
A very different view is presented to us in the definition of the sexual instinct as a reproductive impulse, a desire for offspring. Hegar, Eulenburg, Naecke, and Loewenfeld have accepted this as, at all events, a partial definition. ”

“ In an Appendix will be found a selection of histories of more or less normal sexual development. Histories of gross sexual perversion have often been presented in books devoted to the sexual instinct; it has not hitherto been usual to inquire into the facts of normal sexual development. Yet it is concerning normal sexual development that our ignorance is greatest, and the innovation can scarcely need justification. ”

“ THE genesic instinct presents itself in the human being previous to the development of sexual maturity, and in a healthy organism finds expression in an impulse towards persons of the opposite sex, an impulse which soon changes into a voluntary desire for the accomplishment of the sexual act which, as it becomes more developed, may attain to the degree of a continual sexual want. ”

“ While the terminal forms of sexual aberrations end in asylums for the insane, the doubtful cases, in which incompleteness of development or apparent viciousness render correct diagnosis difficult, make up the majority. But a thorough knowledge of the aberrations of the sexual instinct is absolutely indispensable to the jurist. ”

“ The subject of the sexual instinct and its aberrations has long been before the scientific world and the names of many effective toilers in this vast field are known to every student. When one passes beyond the strict domains of science and considers what is reported of the sexual life in folkways and art-lore and the history of primitive culture and in romance, the sources of information are immense. ”

“ The recognition of the necessity of admitting greater latitude in this respect to men than to women is based clearly on physiology and common-sense. With men sexual instinct manifests itself locally, and at intervals its satisfaction is an urgent and pressing need. ”

“ Furthermore, we must take into consideration that the impulses of the sex instinct are extraordinarily plastic, if I may use that term in this connection. One thing may take the place of the other; one may assume the other's intensity; if reality refuses the one gratification, the satisfaction of another may offer full compensation. The sexual impulses are like a network of communicating channels filled with fluids; they are this in spite of their subjugation to the primacy of the genitals, though I realize it is difficult to unite these two ideas in one conception. ”

“ In individuals affected with contrary sexual instinct, with endurance of pain and disgust, as a return to men for the bestowal of sexual favors.
2. In urnings who feel toward men like women, out of desire and lust. In such female-men there is horror feminæ and absolute incapability for sexual intercourse with women. Character and inclinations are feminine. ”

“ In a state of pure nature, where man would have his sexual instincts under full and natural restraint, there would be little, if any, licentiousness, and children would be the result of natural desire, and not the accidents of lust. ”

“ With the increase in size and vigor of the generative organs, the bodings of sexual desires and the cravings of the natural instinct take possession of the individual’s thoughts and fancy and awaken in him erotic ideas and lustful feelings and the strong impulse for the organs to function. ”

“ And now, taking a still further step, we may say that it has a spiritual value in relation to our whole conception of the sexual impulse. Our attitude towards the naked human body is the test of our attitude towards the instinct of sex. If our own and our fellows' bodies seem to us intrinsically shameful or disgusting, nothing will ever really ennoble or purify our conceptions of sexual love. Love craves the flesh, and if the flesh is shameful the lover must be shameful. ”

“ It seems of high psychological interest to trace the developmental phases through which, in the course of the evolution of human culture to the morality and civilization of to-day, the sexual life has passed. [7] On primitive ground the satisfaction of the sexual appetite of man seems like that of the animal. Openness in the sexual act is not shunned; man and woman are not ashamed to go naked. ”

“ This association seems to be frequent clinically. Sexual acts are then confidently to be expected. The perverse direction of sexual activity may be toward sexual satisfaction with the opposite or the same sex. ”

“ The sexual instincts, with which alone these pages are concerned, are primarily stimulated and sustained by internal forces, generated, as we have already seen, by the juices of certain glands whose relation to the reproductive system has only recently been discovered. Though not commonly realized, and though denied by some, the sexual instincts are the dominant factors in the animal world. Even Man himself, the lord of Creation, knowing good and evil, cannot escape their overmastering rule. ”

“ The development of the libido in children has made us acquainted with the first but also the best example of sexual instincts which are inhibited in their aims. All the feelings which a child has towards its parents and those who look after it pass by an easy transition into the wishes which give expression to the child's sexual tendencies. The child claims from these objects of its love all the signs of affection which it knows of ”

“ Finally, they frequently show an overdevelopment of the sexual instincts and various deviations from normal sexual development. Many of them seem to lack totally in the power of reason, but act entirely upon impulse, upon the mere feeling that this or that proposition is true. ”

“ However strong may be the hereditary sexual instincts which an individual has inherited by phylogeny from his ancestors, and however violent their internal outbreaks in his ontogeny, it is necessary to recognize that an organism so complicated as that of man is capable of adapting itself to its environment to a remarkable and varied degree, and that consequently external influences react strongly on the sexual appetite. ”

“ Among the instinctive forces thus utilized, the sexual impulses play a significant role. They are thereby sublimated, i.e., they are diverted from their sexual goals and directed to ends socially higher and no longer sexual. But this result is unstable. The sexual instincts are poorly tamed. Each individual who wishes to ally himself with the achievements of civilization is exposed to the danger of having his sexual instincts rebel against this sublimation. ”

“ Whether they are sufficiently potent to generate permanent inversion alone may be doubtful, but, if it is true that in early life the sexual instincts are less definitely determined than when adolescence is complete, it is conceivable, though unproved, that a very strong impression, acting even on a normal organism, may cause arrest of sexual development on the psychic side. ”

“ Again, this definition leaves unexplained all those elaborate preliminaries which, both in man and the lower animals, precede the sexual act, preliminaries which in civilized human beings sometimes themselves constitute a partial satisfaction to the sexual impulse. ”

“ Going beyond Wallace, Groos denies conscious sexual selection, but, as he points out, this by no means involves the denial of unconscious selection in the sense that "the female is most easily won by the male who most strongly excites her sexual instincts." ”

“ Not only the predisposition to sexual desire is congenital, but the enfeebled nervous system that can endure only a limited amount of sexual indulgence. They learn to indulge the sexual appetite at a very early period, and the males grow up effeminate, or half-sexed. The tendency of civilization is toward brain and mental culture. ”

“ Among animals, it may be said, and even sometimes in man, the sexual impulse, when once aroused, makes but a short and swift circuit through the brain to reach its consummation. But as the brain and its faculties develop, powerfully aided indeed by the very difficulties of the sexual life, the impulse for sexual union has to traverse ever longer, slower, more painful paths, before it reaches—and sometimes it never reaches—its ultimate object. ”