Sexual sensation

“ The culmination of the act of sexual intercourse is called the orgasm. It is the moment at which the pleasurable sensation is at its highest point, the body experiences a thrill, there is a spasmodic contraction in the genital organs, and there is a secretion of fluid from the genital glands and mucous membranes. This fluid in women is not a vital fluid like the semen in man; it is merely mucus, and in some women it is very slight in amount or altogether absent. Adult women who live without sexual relations occasionally have sexual or erotic dreams ”

“ But in some cases, the sexual impulse is enormously enhanced during the climacteric period, and the patient experiences paroxysms of intense voluptuous sensation, associated with manifestations of abnormal reflex and psychical reaction, with increased frequency of the pulse and the respiration, emotional excitement, it may be loss of consciousness, and even general convulsions. ”

“ During this stimulation, which, as we have seen, is already a part of the sex-act, a certain fore-pleasure is experienced. Henceforth the individual is desirous of the repetition of this experience. Especially when the orgasm has once been tasted, the memory of the same causes the individual to look for a repetition of the highest lustful sensation in human experience. Sexual activity is henceforth chiefly desired for the positive lust-feeling connected with it. ”

“ They want a sensation other than the customary one of fatigue, and the easiest sensation to excite is a sexual one. They get it thinly disguised, in a theatre or music-hall, more thickly disguised in the form of cheap fiction, or quite undisguised elsewhere. ”

“ In normal girls, according to the same author, erotic dreams and similar occurrences are entirely wanting, and specific sexual sensations therefore remain absolutely unknown to them; hence it follows that the sexual impulse cannot, properly speaking, arise in such individuals, and in so far as they experience any desire for sexual intercourse it can only take the form of a craving for some enjoyment, the nature of which is entirely unknown. ”

“ Formerly it was very generally believed that in sexually perverse persons the sexual sensations awakened unusually early in life. There is no foundation for this view. Normal sexual sensations can be detected very early in childhood. ”

“ For the same reasons the quality of the sexual sensations and sentiments may vary in a hysterical subject according to the influences it is subjected to, and pass from the normal to the perverted state, or inversely. I have observed a case where a highly cultured hysterical subject, in her early youth, fell in love with another young girl. ”

“ It may seem a venturesome advice to render, yet I can but urge the natural use of the sexual organs when there is a strong erotic excitement, following a long period of continence, when this desire is not a morbid one; which is likely to be the case only in the depraved, after long abuses. ”

“ But pain, as we have here to understand it, largely constitutes a special case of what we shall later learn to know as erotic symbolism: that is to say, the psychic condition in which a part of the sexual process, a single idea or group of ideas, tends to assume unusual importance, or even to occupy the whole field of sexual consciousness, the part becoming a symbol that stands for the whole. ”

“ In such cases some peripheral irritation or abnormal mental stimulus trains the physical sexual orgasm to respond to an appeal which has nothing whatever to do with the fascination normally exerted by the opposite sex. ”

“ In the woman as in the man the end of the orgasm is followed by an agreeable relaxation which invites sleep.
The hereditary or instinctive nervous actions produce after coitus a profound effect of contrast. When the sexual appetite commences, the odors, especially those of the sexual organs, the contacts, the movements, and the sight of the individual of the opposite sex, all increase desire, producing a voluptuous excitation stronger than all contrary feeling. Hardly is the sexual act consummated than all vanishes like a dream. ”

“ It is well known that in many children the first experience of sexual excitement results from a whipping; indeed, a perverse mode of sexual sensibility lasting throughout the whole of life may thus originate. ”

“ I have ample evidence that in many cases the element of pain, which may almost be said to be normal in the establishment of the sexual function, is never merged, as it normally is, in pleasurable sensations on the full establishment of sexual relationships. ”

“ 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 more serious periodicals are to-day often inclined to devote a good deal of space to many sexual occurrences; they even err in transforming many non-sexual matters into sexual ones, giving them a superfluous erotic background. ”

“ With this end in view the sexual life of woman is used as the fulcrum of the lever, and is withdrawn from the twilight into the open light of day, or indeed too often into a dazzling and altogether false illumination. ”

“ At such times of sexual excitement, very slight external peripheral stimuli, in the form either of tactile stimulation of the sensory nerves of the skin and the external genital organs, or of stimulation of the imaginative and perceptive faculties of the brain, suffice to induce a powerful increase of the sexual impulse; whereas at 180other times, at which no particular sexual excitement exists, much stronger stimuli are needed to produce such an effect. ”

“ The above-mentioned abnormal proclivity is the fundamental factor in my sexual feeling. When I am dressed like a woman, I feel perfectly satisfied. A peculiar feeling of peace and comfort comes over me, which allows me to work mentally with greater ease. My libido for indulgence in sexual intercourse is extremely slight. ”

“ Besides by imagination, the cerebral centre may be excited by impressions conveyed through the senses. Sight, smell, hearing, and in some pathological states even taste are well known to convey sexual stimulation to the brain. The sense of touch has such an influence over the generative function that it is considered the inseparable companion of sexual activity. ”

“ But there is a condition in which all the powers of mind and body, exercised to control, will not impart either the power of erection or the erotic desire—only a longing for that once felt erotic desire exists. ”

“ The good effects of sexual intercourse depend upon its adequacy to the feelings, upon the absence of any exhausting imaginative activity, and upon the absence also of artificial bodily stimulation. But artificial stimuli and exhausting imaginative activity are often associated with coitus also, in cases in which the stimulus evoked by the personality of the sexual partner is inadequate. ”

“ But if we ascribe the tension of the sexual excitation to the feelings of displeasure we encounter the fact that it is undoubtedly pleasurably perceived. The tension produced by sexual excitation is everywhere accompanied by pleasure; even in the preparatory changes of the genitals there is a distinct feeling of satisfaction. ”

“ In undertaking the sexual enlightenment of the child, those phenomena of the sexual life should not be forgotten which are shown by experience to arouse in the ripening child, now curiosity, and now anxiety—and the chief among these are involuntary sexual orgasm and menstruation. ”

“ The manifestations of sexual impulses can be recognized from the beginning but at first they are not yet directed to any outer object. Each individual component of the sexual impulse works for a gain in pleasure and finds its gratification in its own body. ”

“ The maiden at puberty is affected by the knowledge of sexuality; the sexually mature woman, by the desire for sexual satisfaction, and by the yearning for motherhood; the wife, by the processes of pregnancy, parturition, and suckling, or, on the other hand by the distressing consciousness of sterility; the woman at the climacteric period, by the knowledge of the disappearance of her sexual potency. The mind is further sympathetically influenced by the stimulation of the terminals of the sensory nerves in the genital organs. ”

“ Let us now pass to the consideration of the sexual impulse. We learn from personal observation that two entirely distinct processes participate in this impulse. In the first place, we have the physical processes that take place in the genital organs; these are in part unperceived, but in part they affect consciousness in the form of common sensations, or as ordinary tactile and other similar sensations. In the second place, we have those higher psychical processes by means of which man is attracted to woman, and woman to man. ”

“ Among other reasons for the greater liability of women to neurosis, one of great importance is the transference, in the course of sexual development, of the chief seat of erotic sensibility from the clitoris to the vagina. ”

“ The touch of any part of the male body by a soft female hand will cause sensual excitement. The touch of the nipple in woman often causes intense libido, a fact which plays an important part in the nursing of the young throughout all the types of mammals. The sexual sphere may also be excited by a stimulation of the gluteal region. ”

“ Whatever the real benefits, and there is no occasion for questioning them, of the sexual order thus established, it becomes clear that in certain important respects it had an unnatural and repressive influence on the erotic aspect of woman’s sexual life. ”

“ Here, too, we are certainly dealing with the incomprehensible and rejected sexual feelings, which, if noted, would probably show a temporal periodicity, for an enhancement of the sexual libido may just as well be produced accidentally through emotional impressions as through the spontaneous and gradual processes of development. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In many hysterical and psychically abnormal women, auto-erotic phenomena, and sexual phenomena generally, are highly pleasurable, though such persons may be quite innocent of any knowledge of the erotic character of the experience. ”

“ The sexual side of life seems, in fact, be they sane or insane, to have undergone complete atrophy. They suffer from simple melancholia with stupor, or their insanity takes a religious turn, but very rarely indeed has it an erotic character. ”

“ One of the chief things to which a woman responds is a cumulative tenderness expressed in words or in acts.
Whatever the stimulus, however, the brain receives the signal and, through the nervous system, sends out preparatory reactions throughout the body. The response of men to stimuli perceived by the brain as sexual is amazingly fast; some men arrive at full sexual preparedness for intercourse within three seconds—that is, their penis becomes fully erect and ready to enter the vagina within that time. ”

“ Once it has yielded and has permitted the sexual subconscious impulse into the field of consciousness and attention, the mind becomes less resistent, more sensitive and susceptible to all sexual stimulation, the imagination runs riot, and every sensual impression is not only not resisted, but eagerly sought for. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In spite of this, when their intensity increases, the appetites overcoming the central nervous resistances, reach the cerebral hemispheres, and consequently our introspection or higher consciousness, under a synthetic or unified appearance, and influence in a high degree the cerebral activities, which are reflected in association with all the elements of what we call our mind in the proper sense of the term, that is to say, our intellect, sentiments and will. It is from this point of view that sexual appetite must be considered in order to make it comprehensible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A true natural and healthy act of sexual intercourse demands the excitement of brain, spinal cord, and every nerve in the body simultaneously, and resembles the lightning flash which restores the equilibrium of electric force disturbed during a thunderstorm. ”

“ A quarrelsome temper, coldness and repulsion on the part of a woman cool the desires of the man, while an ardent sexual desire on the part of the woman, her love and tenderness, tend to increase and maintain them. We are dealing here with purely animal sexual instinct, and we may state that the sexual appetite of woman generally excites strongly that of man, and considerably increases his pleasure during coitus. ”

“ More particularly in such circumstances are evil effects on the nervous system likely to ensue, since we have a combination of excessively prolonged and frequent sexual intercourse, and of interference with complete sexual gratification. ”

“ At another point, also, it may be remarked, the repulsion between the sexes and the restraints on intercourse may be associated with weak sexual impulse. It is not improbable that a certain horror of the sexual organs may be a natural feeling which is extinguished in the intoxication of desire, yet still has a physiological basis which renders the sexual organs—disguised and minimized by convention and by artistic representation—more or less disgusting in the absence of erotic emotion. ”