ANALYSIS OF THE SEXUAL IMPULSE.
Definition of Instinct—The Sexual Impulse a Factor of the Sexual
Instinct—Theory of the Sexual Impulse as an Impulse of Evacuation—The
Evidence in Support of this Theory Inadequate—The Sexual Impulse to Some
Extent Independent of the Sexual Glands—The Sexual Impulse in Castrated
Animals and Men—The Sexual Impulse in Castrated Women, after the
Menopause, and in the Congenital Absence of the Sexual Glands—The
Internal Secretions—Analogy between the Sexual Relationship and that of
the Suckling Mother and her Child—The Theory of the Sexual Impulse as a
Reproductive Impulse—This Theory Untenable—Moll's Definition—The
Impulse of Detumescence—The Impulse of Contrectation—Modification of
this Theory Proposed—Its Relation to Darwin's Sexual Selection—The
Essential Element in Darwin's Conception—Summary of the History of the
Doctrine of Sexual Selection—Its Psychological Aspect—Sexual Selection a
Part of Natural Selection—The Fundamental Importance of
Tumescence—Illustrated by the Phenomena of Courtship in Animals and in
Man—The Object of Courtship is to Produce Sexual Tumescence—The
Primitive Significance of Dancing in Animals and Man—Dancing is a Potent
Agent for Producing Tumescence—The Element of Truth in the Comparison of
the Sexual Impulse with an Evacuation, Especially of the Bladder—Both
Essentially Involve Nervous Explosions—Their Intimate and Sometimes
Vicarious Relationships—Analogy between Coitus and Epilepsy—Analogy of
the Sexual Impulse to Hunger—Final Object of the Impulses of Tumescence
and Detumescence.
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. Such definitions scarcely seem
legitimate, and are certainly unfortunate. Herbert Spencer's definition of
instinct as "compound reflex action" is sufficiently clear and definite
for ordinary use.
A fairly satisfactory definition of instinct is that supplied by
Dr. and Mrs. Peckham in the course of their study On the
Instincts and Habits of Solitary Wasps. "Under the term
'instinct,'" they say, "we place all complex acts which are
performed previous to experience and in a similar manner by all
members of the same sex and race, leaving out as non-essential,
at this time, the question of whether they are or are not
accompanied by consciousness." This definition is quoted with
approval by Lloyd Morgan, who modifies and further elaborates it
(Animal Behavior, 1900, p. 21). "The distinction between
instinctive and reflex behavior," he remarks, "turns in large
degree on their relative complexity," and instinctive behavior,
he concludes, may be said to comprise "those complex groups of
co-ordinated acts which are, on their first occurrence,
independent of experience; which tend to the well-being of the
individual and the preservation of the race; which are due to the
co-operation of external and internal stimuli; which are
similarly performed by all the members of the same more or less
restricted group of animals; but which are subject to variation,
and to subsequent modification under the guidance of experience."
Such a definition clearly justifies us in speaking of a "sexual
instinct." It may be added that the various questions involved in
the definition of the sexual instinct have been fully discussed
by Moll in the early sections of his Untersuchungen über die
Libido Sexualis.
Of recent years there has been a tendency to avoid the use of the
term "instinct," or, at all events, to refrain from attaching any
serious scientific sense to it. Loeb's influence has especially
given force to this tendency. Thus, while Piéron, in an
interesting discussion of the question ("Les Problèmes Actuels de
l'Instinct," Revue Philosophique, Oct., 1908), thinks it would
still be convenient to retain the term, giving it a philosophical
meaning, Georges Bohn, who devotes a chapter to the notion of
instinct (La Naissance de l'Intelligence, 1909), is strongly in
favor of eliminating the word, as being merely a legacy of
medieval theologians and metaphysicians, serving to conceal our
ignorance or our lack of exact analysis.
It may be said that the whole of the task undertaken in these Studies is
really an attempt to analyze what is commonly called the sexual instinct.
In order to grasp it we have to break it up into its component parts.
Lloyd Morgan has pointed out that the components of an instinct may be
regarded as four: first, the internal messages giving rise to the impulse;
secondly, the external stimuli which co-operate with the impulse to affect
the nervous centers; thirdly, the active response due to the co-ordinate
outgoing discharges; and, fourthly, the message from the organs concerned
in the behavior by which the central nervous system is further
affected.[1]
In dealing with the sexual instinct the first two factors are those which
we have most fully to discuss. With the external stimuli we shall be
concerned in a future volume (IV). We may here confine ourselves mainly to
the first factor: the nature of the internal messages which prompt the
sexual act. We may, in other words, attempt to analyze the sexual
impulse.
The first definition of the sexual impulse we meet with is that which
regards it as an impulse of evacuation. The psychological element is thus
reduced to a minimum. It is true that, especially in early life, the
emotions caused by forced repression of the excretions are frequently
massive or acute in the highest degree, and the joy of relief
correspondingly great. But in adult life, on most occasions, these desires
can be largely pushed into the background of consciousness, partly by
training, partly by the fact that involuntary muscular activity is less
imperative in adult life; so that the ideal element in connection with the
ordinary excretions is almost a negligible quantity. The evacuation theory
of the sexual instinct is, however, that which has most popular vogue, and
the cynic delights to express it in crude language. It is the view that
appeals to the criminal mind, and in the slang of French criminals the
brothel is le cloaque. It was also the view implicitly accepted by
medieval ascetic writers, who regarded woman as "a temple built over a
sewer," and from a very different standpoint it was concisely set forth by
Montaigne, who has doubtless contributed greatly to support this view of
the matter: "I find," he said, "that Venus, after all, is nothing more
than the pleasure of discharging our vessels, just as nature renders
pleasurable the discharges from other parts."[2] Luther, again, always
compared the sexual to the excretory impulse, and said that marriage was
just as necessary as the emission of urine. Sir Thomas More, also, in the
second book of Utopia, referring to the pleasure of evacuation, speaks
of that felt "when we do our natural easement, or when we be doing the act
of generation." This view would, however, scarcely deserve serious
consideration if various distinguished investigators, among whom Féré may
be specially mentioned, had not accepted it as the best and most accurate
definition of the sexual impulse. "The genesic need may be considered,"
writes Féré, "as a need of evacuation; the choice is determined by the
excitations which render the evacuation more agreeable."[3] Certain facts
observed in the lower animals tend to support this view; it is, therefore,
necessary, in the first place, to set forth the main results of
observation on this matter. Spallanzani had shown how the male frog during
coitus will undergo the most horrible mutilations, even decapitation, and
yet resolutely continue the act of intercourse, which lasts from four to
ten days, sitting on the back of the female and firmly clasping her with
his forelegs. Goltz confirmed Spallanzani's observations and threw new
light on the mechanism of the sexual instinct and the sexual act in the
frog. By removing various parts of the female frog Goltz found that every
part of the female was attractive to the male at pairing time, and that he
was not imposed on when parts of a male were substituted. By removing
various of the sense-organs of the male Goltz[4] further found that it was
not by any special organ, but by the whole of his sensitive system, that
this activity was set in action. If, however, the skin of the arms and of
the breast between was removed, no embrace took place; so that the sexual
sensations seemed to be exerted through this apparatus. When the
testicles were removed the embrace still took place. It could scarcely be
said that these observations demonstrated, or in any way indicated, that
the sexual impulse is dependent on the need of evacuation. Professor
Tarchanoff, of St. Petersburg, however, made an experiment which seemed to
be crucial. He took several hundred frogs (Rana temporaria), nearly all
in the act of coitus, and in the first place repeated Goltz's experiments.
He removed the heart; but this led to no direct or indirect stoppage of
coitus, nor did removal of the lungs, parts of the liver, the spleen, the
intestines, the stomach, or the kidneys. In the same way even careful
removal of both testicles had no result. But on removing the seminal
receptacles coitus was immediately or very shortly stopped, and not
renewed. Thus, Tarchanoff concluded that in frogs, and possibly therefore
in mammals, the seminal receptacles are the starting-point of the
centripetal impulse which by reflex action sets in motion the complicated
apparatus of sexual activity.[5] A few years later the question was again
taken up by Steinach, of Prague. Granting that Tarchanoff's experiments
are reliable as regards the frog, Steinach points out that we may still
ask whether in mammals the integrity of the seminal receptacles is bound
up with the preservation of sexual excitability. This cannot be taken for
granted, nor can we assume that the seminal receptacles of the frog are
homologous with the seminal vesicles of mammals. In order to test the
question, Steinach chose the white rat, as possessing large seminal
vesicles and a very developed sexual impulse. He found that removal of the
seminal sacs led to no decrease in the intensity of the sexual impulse;
the sexual act was still repeated with the same frequency and the same
vigor. But these receptacles, Steinach proceeded to argue, do not really
contain semen, but a special secretion of their own; they are anatomically
quite unlike the seminal receptacles of the frog; so that no doubt is thus
thrown on Tarchanoff's observations. Steinach remarked, however, that
one's faith is rather shaken by the fact that in the Esculenta, which
in sexual life closely resembles Rana temporaria, there are no seminal
receptacles. He therefore repeated Tarchanoff's experiments, and found
that the seminal receptacles were empty before coitus, only becoming
gradually filled during coitus; it could not, therefore, be argued that
the sexual impulse started from the receptacles. He then extirpated the
seminal receptacles, avoiding hemorrhage as far as possible, and found
that, in the majority of cases so operated on, coitus still continued for
from five to seven days, and in the minority for a longer time. He
therefore concluded, with Goltz, that it is from the swollen testicles,
not from the seminal receptacles, that the impulse first starts. Goltz
himself pointed out that the fact that the removal of the testicles did
not stop coitus by no means proves that it did not begin it, for, when the
central nervous mechanism is once set in action, it can continue even when
the exciting stimulus is removed. By extirpating the testicles some months
before the sexual season he found that no coitus occurred. At the same
time, even in these frogs, a certain degree of sexual inclination and a
certain excitability of the embracing center still persisted, disappearing
when the sexual epoch was over.
According to most recent writers, the seminal vesicles of mammals are
receptacles for their own albuminous secretion, the function of which is
unknown. Steinach could find no spermatozoa in these "seminal" sacs, and
therefore he proposed to use Owen's name of glandulæ vesiculares. After
extirpation of these vesicular glands in the white rat typical coitus
occurred. But the capacity for procreation was diminished, and
extirpation of both glandulæ vesiculares and glandulæ prostaticæ led
to disappearance of the capacity for procreation. Steinach came to the
conclusion that this is because the secretions of these glands impart
increased vitality to the spermatozoa, and he points out that great
fertility and high development of the accessory sexual glands go together.
Steinach found that, when sexually mature white rats were castrated,
though at first they remained as potent as ever, their potency gradually
declined; sexual excitement, however, and sexual inclination always
persisted. He then proceeded to castrate rats before puberty and
discovered the highly significant fact that in these also a quite
considerable degree of sexual inclination appeared. They followed,
sniffed, and licked the females like ordinary males; and that this was not
a mere indication of curiosity was shown by the fact that they made
attempts at coitus which only differed from those of normal males by the
failure of erection and ejaculation, though, occasionally, there was
imperfect erection. This lasted for a year, and then their sexual
inclinations began to decline, and they showed signs of premature age.
These manifestations of sexual sense Steinach compares to those noted in
the human species during childhood.[6]
The genesic tendencies are thus, to a certain degree, independent of the
generative glands, although the development of these glands serves to
increase the genesic ability and to furnish the impulsion necessary to
assure procreation, as well as to insure the development of the secondary
sexual characters, probably by the influence of secretions elaborated and
thrown into the system from the primary sexual glands.[7]
Halban ("Die Entstehung der Geschlechtscharaktere," Archiv für
Gynäkologie, 1903, pp. 205-308) argues that the primary sex
glands do not necessarily produce the secondary sex characters,
nor inhibit the development of those characteristic of the
opposite sex. It is indeed the rule, but it is not the inevitable
result. Sexual differences exist from the first. Nussbaum made
experiments on frogs (Rana fusca), which go through a yearly
cycle of secondary sexual changes at the period of heat. These
changes cease on castration, but, if the testes of other frogs
are introduced beneath the skin of the castrated frogs, Nussbaum
found that they acted as if the frog had not been castrated. It
is the secretion of the testes which produces the secondary
sexual changes. But Nussbaum found that the testicular secretion
does not work if the nerves of the secondary sexual region are
cut, and that the secretion has no direct action on the organism.
Pflüger, discussing these experiments (Archiv für die Gesammte
Physiologie, 1907, vol. cxvi, parts 5 and 6), disputes this
conclusion, and argues that the secretion is not dependent on the
action of the nervous system, and that therefore the secondary
sexual characters are independent of the nervous system.
Steinach has also in later experiments ("Geschlechtstrieb und
echt Sekundäre Geschlechtsmerkmale als Folge der
innerskretorischen Funktion der Keimdrusen," Zentralblatt für
Physiologie, Bd. xxiv, Nu. 13, 1910) argued against any local
nervous influence. He found in Rana fusca and esculenta that
after castration in autumn the impulse to grasp the female
persisted in some degrees and then disappeared, reappearing in a
slight degree, however, every winter at the normal period of
sexual activity. But when the testicular substance of actively
sexual frogs was injected into the castrated frogs it exerted an
elective action on the sexual reflex, sometimes in a few hours,
but the action is, Steinach concludes, first central. The
testicular secretion of frogs that were not sexually active had
no stimulating action, but if the frogs were sexually active the
injection of their central nervous substance was as effective as
their testicular substance. In either case, Steinach concludes,
there is the removal of an inhibition which is in operation at
sexually quiescent periods.
Speaking generally, Steinach considers that there is a process of
"erotisation" (Erotisieurung) of the nervous center under the
influence of the internal testicular secretions, and that this
persists even when the primary physical stimulus has been
removed.
The experience of veterinary surgeons also shows that the sexual impulse
tends to persist in animals after castration. Thus the ox and the gelding
make frequent efforts to copulate with females in heat. In some cases, at
all events in the case of the horse, castrated animals remain potent, and
are even abnormally ardent, although impregnation cannot, of course,
result.[8]
The results obtained by scientific experiment and veterinary experience on
the lower animals are confirmed by observation of various groups of
phenomena in the human species. There can be no doubt that castrated men
may still possess sexual impulses. This has been noted by observers in
various countries in which eunuchs are made and employed.[9]
It is important to remember that there are different degrees of
castration, for in current language these are seldom
distinguished. The Romans recognized four different degrees: 1.
True castrati, from whom both the testicles and the penis had
been removed. 2. Spadones, from whom the testicles only had
been removed; this was the most common practice. 3. Thlibiæ, in
whom the testicles had not been removed, but destroyed by
crushing; this practice is referred to by Hippocrates. 4.
Thlasiæ, in whom the spermatic cord had simply been cut.
Millant, from whose Paris thesis (Castration Criminelle et
Maniaque, 1902) I take these definitions, points out that it was
recognized that spadones remained apt for coitus if the
operation was performed after puberty, a fact appreciated by many
Roman ladies, ad seouras libidinationes, as St. Jerome
remarked, while Martial (lib. iv) said of a Roman lady who sought
eunuchs: "Vult futui Gallia, non parere." (See also Millant, Les
Eunuques à Travers les Ages, 1909, and articles by Lipa Bey and
Zambaco, Sexual-Probleme, Oct. and Dec., 1911.)
In China, Matignon, formerly physician to the French legation in Pekin,
tells us that eunuchs are by no means without sexual feeling, that they
seek the company of women and, he believes, gratify their sexual desires
by such methods as are left open to them, for the sexual organs are
entirely removed. It would seem probable that, the earlier the age at
which the operation is performed, the less marked are the sexual desires,
for Matignon mentions that boys castrated before the age of 10 are
regarded by the Chinese as peculiarly virginal and pure.[10] At
Constantinople, where the eunuchs are of negro race, castration is usually
complete and performed before puberty, in order to abolish sexual potency
and desire as far as possible. Even when castration is effected in
infancy, sexual desire is not necessarily rendered impossible. Thus Marie
has recorded the case of an insane Egyptian eunuch whose penis and scrotum
were removed in infancy; yet, he had frequent and intense sexual desire
with ejaculation of mucus and believed that an invisible princess touched
him and aroused voluptuous sensations. Although the body had a feminine
appearance, the prostate was normal and the vesiculæ seminales not
atrophied.[11] It may be added that Lancaster[12] quotes the following
remark, made by a resident for many years in the land, concerning Nubian
eunuchs: "As far as I can judge, sex feeling exists unmodified by absence
of the sexual organs. The eunuch differs from the man not in the absence
of sexual passion, but only in the fact that he cannot fully gratify it.
As far as he can approach a gratification of it he does so." In this
connection it may be noted that (as quoted by Moll) Jäger attributes the
preference of some women—noted in ancient Rome and in the East—for
castrated men as due not only to the freedom from risk of impregnation in
such intercourse, but also to the longer duration of erection in the
castrated.
When castration is performed without removal of the penis it is said that
potency remains for at least ten years afterward, and Disselhorst, who in
his Die accessorischen Geschlechtsdrüsen der Wirbelthiere takes the same
view as has been here adopted, mentions that, according to Pelikan (Das
Skopzentum in Rüssland), those castrated at puberty are fit for coitus
long afterward. When castration is performed for surgical reasons at a
later age it is still less likely to affect potency or to change the
sexual feelings.[13] Guinard concludes that the sexual impulse after
castration is relatively more persistent in man than in the lower animals,
and is sometimes even heightened, being probably more dependent on
external stimuli.[14]
Except in the East, castration is more often performed on women than on
men, and then the evidence as to the influence of the removal of the
ovaries on the sexual emotions shows varying results. It has been found
that after castration sexual desire and sexual pleasure in coitus may
either remain the same, be diminished or extinguished, or be increased. By
some the diminution has been attributed to autosuggestion, the woman being
convinced that she can no longer be like other women; the augmentation of
desire and pleasure has been supposed to be due to the removal of the
dread of impregnation. We have, of course, to take into account individual
peculiarities, method of life, and the state of the health.
In France Jayle ("Effets physiologiques de la Castration chez la
Femme," Revue de Gynécologie, 1897, pp. 403-57) found that,
among 33 patients in whom ovariotomy had been performed, in 18
sexual desire remained the same, in 3 it was diminished, in 8
abolished, in 3 increased; while pleasure in coitus remained the
same in 17, was diminished in 1, abolished in 4, and increased in
5, in 6 cases sexual intercourse was very painful. In two other
groups of cases—one in which both ovaries and uterus were
removed and another in which the uterus alone was removed—the
results were not notably different.
In Germany Gläveke (Archiv für Gynäkologie, Bd. xxxv, 1889)
found that desire remained in 6 cases, was diminished in 10, and
disappeared in 11, while pleasure in intercourse remained in 8,
was diminished in 10, and was lost in 8. Pfister, again (Archiv
für Gynäkologie, Bd. lvi, 1898), examined this point in 99
castrated women; he remarks that sexual desire and sexual
pleasure in intercourse were usually associated, and found the
former unchanged in 19 cases, decreased in 24, lost in 35, never
present in 21, while the latter was unchanged in 18 cases and
diminished or lost in 60. Keppler (International Medical
Congress, Berlin, 1890) found that among 46 castrated women
sexual feeling was in no case abolished. Adler also, who
discusses this question (Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung
des Weibes, 1904, p. 75 et seq.), criticises Gläveke's
statements and concludes that there is no strict relation between
the sexual organs and the sexual feelings. Kisch, who has known
several cases in which the feelings remained the same as before
the operation, brings together (The Sexual Life of Women)
varying opinions of numerous authors regarding the effects of
removal of the ovaries on the sexual appetite.
In America Bloom (as quoted in Medical Standard, 1896, p. 121)
found that in none of the cases of women investigated, in which
oöphorectomy had been performed before the age of 33, was the
sexual appetite entirely lost; in most of them it had not
materially diminished and in a few it was intensified. There
was, however, a general consensus of opinion that the normal
vaginal secretion during coitus was greatly lessened. In the
cases of women over 33, including also hysterectomies, a gradual
lessening of sexual feeling and desire was found to occur most
generally. Dr. Isabel Davenport records 2 cases (reported in
Medical Standard, 1895, p. 346) of women between 30 and 35
years of age whose erotic tendencies were extreme; the ovaries
and tubes were removed, in one case for disease, in the other
with a view of removing the sexual tendencies; in neither case
was there any change. Lapthorn Smith (Medical Record, vol.
xlviii) has reported the case of an unmarried woman of 24 whose
ovaries and tubes had been removed seven years previously for
pain and enlargement, and the periods had disappeared for six
years; she had had experience of sexual intercourse, and declared
that she had never felt such extreme sexual excitement and
pleasure as during coitus at the end of this time.
In England Lawson Tait and Bantock (British Medical Journal,
October 14, 1899, p. 975) have noted that sexual passion seems
sometimes to be increased even after the removal of ovaries,
tubes, and uterus. Lawson Tait also stated (British
Gynæcological Journal, Feb., 1887, p. 534) that after systematic
and extensive inquiry he had not found a single instance in
which, provided that sexual appetite existed before the removal
of the appendages, it was abolished by that operation. A Medical
Inquiry Committee appointed by the Liverpool Medical Institute
(ibid., p. 617) had previously reported that a considerable
number of patients stated that they had suffered a distinct loss
of sexual feeling. Lawson Tait, however, throws doubts on the
reliability of the Committee's results, which were based on the
statements of unintelligent hospital patients.
I may quote the following remarks from a communication sent to me
by an experienced physician in Australia: "No rule can be laid
down in cases in which both ovaries have been extirpated. Some
women say that, though formerly passionate, they have since
become quite indifferent, but I am of opinion that the majority
of women who have had prior sexual experience retain desire and
gratification in an equal degree to that they had before
operation. I know one case in which a young girl hardly 19 years
old, who had been accustomed to congress for some twelve months,
had trouble which necessitated the removal of the ovaries and
tubes on both sides. Far from losing all her desire or
gratification, both were very materially increased in intensity.
Menstruation has entirely ceased, without loss of femininity in
either disposition or appearance. During intercourse, I am told,
there is continuous spasmodic contraction of various parts of the
vagina and vulva."
The independence of the sexual impulse from the distention of the sexual
glands is further indicated by the great frequency with which sexual
sensations, in a faint or even strong degree, are experienced in childhood
and sometimes in infancy, and by the fact that they often persist in women
long after the sexual glands have ceased their functions.
In the study of auto-erotism in another volume of these Studies
I have brought together some of the evidence showing that even in
very young children spontaneous self-induced sexual excitement,
with orgasm, may occur. Indeed, from an early age sexual
differences pervade the whole nervous tissue. I may here quote
the remarks of an experienced gynecologist: "I venture to think,"
Braxton Hicks said many years ago, "that those who have much
attended to children will agree with me in saying that, almost
from the cradle, a difference can be seen in manner, habits of
mind, and in illness, requiring variations in their treatment.
The change is certainly hastened and intensified at the time of
puberty; but there is, even to an average observer, a clear
difference between the sexes from early infancy, gradually
becoming more marked up to puberty. That sexual feelings exist
[it would be better to say 'may exist'] from earliest infancy is
well known, and therefore this function does not depend upon
puberty, though intensified by it. Hence, may we not conclude
that the progress toward development is not so abrupt as has been
generally supposed?... The changes of puberty are all of them
dependent on the primordial force which, gradually gathering in
power, culminates in the perfection both of form and of the
sexual system, primary and secondary."
There appear to have been but few systematic observations on the
persistence of the sexual impulse in women after the menopause.
It is regarded as a fairly frequent phenomenon by Kisch, and also
by Löwenfeld (Sexualleben und Nervenleiden, p. 29). In America,
Bloom (as quoted in Medical Standard, 1896), from an
investigation of four hundred cases, found that in some cases the
sexual impulse persisted to a very advanced age, and mentions a
case of a woman of 70, twenty years past the menopause, who had
been long a widow, but had recently married, and who declared
that both desire and gratification were as great, if not greater,
than before the menopause.
Reference may finally be made to those cases in which the sexual impulse
has developed notwithstanding the absence, verified or probable, of any
sexual glands at all. In such cases sexual desire and sexual gratification
are sometimes even stronger than normal. Colman has reported a case in
which neither ovaries nor uterus could be detected, and the vagina was too
small for coitus, but pleasurable intercourse took place by the rectum and
sexual desire was at times so strong as to amount almost to nymphomania.
Clara Barrus has reported the case of a woman in whom there was congenital
absence of uterus and ovaries, as proved subsequently by autopsy, but the
sexual impulse was very strong and she had had illicit intercourse with a
lover. She suffered from recurrent mania, and then masturbated
shamelessly; when sane she was attractively feminine. Macnaughton-Jones
describes the case of a woman of 32 with normal sexual feelings and fully
developed breasts, clitoris, and labia, but no vagina or internal
genitalia could be detected even under the most thorough examination. In a
case of Bridgman's, again, the womb and ovaries were absent, and the
vagina small, but coitus was not painful, and the voluptuous sensations
were complete and sexual passion was strong. In a case of Cotterill's, the
ovaries and uterus were of minute size and functionless, and the vagina
was absent, but the sexual feelings were normal, and the clitoris
preserved its usual sensibility. Mundé had recorded two similar cases, of
which he presents photographs. In all these cases not only was the sexual
impulse present in full degree, but the subjects were feminine in
disposition and of normal womanly conformation; in most cases the external
sexual organs were properly developed.[15]
Féré (L'Instinct sexuel, p. 241) has sought to explain away
some of these phenomena, in so far as they may be brought against
the theory that the secretions and excretions of the sexual
glands are the sole source of the sexual impulse. The persistence
of sexual feelings after castration may be due, he argues, to the
presence of the nerves in the cicatrices, just as the amputated
have the illusion that the missing limb is still there. Exactly
the same explanation has since been put forward by Moll,
Medizinische Klinik, 1905, Nrs. 12 and 13. In the same way the
presence of sexual feelings after the menopause may be due to
similar irritation determined by degeneration during involution
of the glands. The precocious appearance of the sexual impulse in
childhood he would explain as due to an anomaly of development in
the sexual organs. Féré makes no attempt to explain the presence
of the sexual impulse in the congenital absence of the sexual
glands; here, however, Mundé intervenes with the suggestion that
it is possible that in most cases "an infinitesimal trace of
ovary" may exist, and preserve femininity, though insufficient to
produce ovulation or menstruation.
It is proper to mention these ingenious arguments. They are,
however, purely hypothetical, obviously invented to support a
theory. It can scarcely be said that they carry conviction. We
may rather agree with Guinard that so great is the importance of
reproduction that nature has multiplied the means by which
preparation is made for the conjunction of the sexes and the
roads by which sexual excitation may arrive. As Hirschfeld puts
it, in a discussion of this subject (Sexual-Probleme, Feb.,
1912), "Nature has several irons in the fire."
It will be seen that the conclusions we have reached indirectly
involve the assumption that the spinal nervous centers, through
which the sexual mechanism operates, are not sufficient to
account for the whole of the phenomena of the sexual impulse. The
nervous circuit tends to involve a cerebral element, which may
sometimes be of dominant importance. Various investigators, from
the time of Gall onward, have attempted to localize the sexual
instinct centrally. Such attempts, however, cannot be said to
have succeeded, although they tend to show that there is a real
connection between the brain and the generative organs. Thus
Ceni, of Modena, by experiments on chickens, claims to have
proved the influence of the cortical centers of procreation on
the faculty of generation, for he found that lesions of the
cortex led to sterility corresponding in degree to the lesion;
but as these results followed even independently of any
disturbance of the sexual instinct, their significance is not
altogether clear (Carlo Ceni, "L'Influenza dei Centri Corticali
sui Fenomeni della Generazione," Revista Sperimentale di
Freniatria, 1907, fasc. 2-3). At present, as Obici and
Marchesini have well remarked, all that we can do is to assume
the existence of cerebral as well as spinal sexual centers; a
cerebral sexual center, in the strictest sense, remains purely
hypothetical.
Although Gall's attempt to locate the sexual instinct in the
cerebellum—well supported as it was by observations—is no
longer considered to be tenable, his discussion of the sexual
instinct was of great value, far in advance of his time, and
accompanied by a mass of facts gathered from many fields. He
maintained that the sexual instinct is a function of the brain,
not of the sexual organs. He combated the view ruling in his day
that the seat of erotic mania must be sought in the sexual
organs. He fully dealt with the development of the sexual
instinct in many children before maturity of the sexual glands,
the prolongation of the instinct into old age, its existence in
the castrated and in the congenital absence of the sexual glands;
he pointed out that even with an apparently sound and normal
sexual apparatus all sorts of psychic pathological deviations may
yet occur. In fact, all the lines of argument I have briefly
indicated in the foregoing pages—although when they were first
written this fact was unknown to me—had been fully discussed by
this remarkable man nearly a century ago. (The greater part of
the third volume of Gall's Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, in the
edition of 1825, is devoted to this subject. For a good summary,
sympathetic, though critical, of Gall's views on this matter, see
Möbius, "Ueber Gall's Specielle Organologie," Schmidt's
Jahrbücher der Medicin, 1900, vol. cclxvii; also Ausgewahlte
Werke, vol. vii.)
It will be seen that the question of the nature of the sexual impulse has
been slowly transformed. It is no longer a question of the formation of
semen in the male, of the function of menstruation in the female. It has
become largely a question of physiological chemistry. The chief parts in
the drama of sex, alike on its psychic as on its physical sides, are thus
supposed to be played by two mysterious protagonists, the hormones, or
internal secretions, of the testes and of the ovary. Even the part played
by the brain is now often regarded as chemical, the brain being considered
to be a great chemical laboratory. There is a tendency, moreover, to
extend the sexual sphere so as to admit the influence of internal
secretions from other glands. The thymus, the adrenals, the thyroid, the
pituitary, even the kidneys: it is possible that internal secretions from
all these glands may combine to fill in the complete picture of sexuality
as we know it in men and women.[16] The subject is, however, so complex
and at present so little known that it would be hazardous, and for the
present purpose it is needless, to attempt to set forth any conclusions.
It is sufficiently clear that there is on the surface a striking analogy
between sexual desire and the impulse to evacuate an excretion, and that
this analogy is not only seen in the frog, but extends also to the highest
vertebrates. It is quite another matter, however, to assert that the
sexual impulse can be adequately defined as an impulse to evacuate. To
show fully the inadequate nature of this conception would require a
detailed consideration of the facts of sexual life. That is, however,
unnecessary. It is enough to point out certain considerations which alone
suffice to invalidate this view. In the first place, it must be remarked
that the trifling amount of fluid emitted in sexual intercourse is
altogether out of proportion to the emotions aroused by the act and to its
after-effect on the organism; the ancient dictum omne animal post coitum
triste may not be exact, but it is certain that the effect of coitus on
the organism is far more profound than that produced by the far more
extensive evacuation of the bladder or bowels. 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. It must also be observed that, unlike
the ordinary excretions, this discharge of the sexual glands is not
always, or in every person, necessary at all. Moreover, the theory of
evacuation at once becomes hopelessly inadequate when we apply it to
women; no one will venture to claim that an adequate psychological
explanation of the sexual impulse in a woman is to be found in the desire
to expel a little bland mucus from the minute glands of the genital tract.
We must undoubtedly reject this view of the sexual impulse. It has a
certain element of truth and it permits an instructive and helpful
analogy; but that is all. The sexual act presents many characters which
are absent in an ordinary act of evacuation, and, on the other hand, it
lacks the special characteristic of the evacuation proper, the
elimination of waste material; the seminal fluid is not a waste material,
and its retention is, to some extent perhaps, rather an advantage than a
disadvantage to the organism.
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. 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. The mother is indebted to the
child for the pleasurable relief of her distended breasts; and, while in
civilization more subtle pleasures and intelligent reflection render this
massive physical satisfaction comparatively unessential to the act of
suckling, in more primitive conditions and among animals the need of this
pleasurable physical satisfaction is a real bond between the mother and
her offspring. The analogy is indeed very close: the erectile nipple
corresponds to the erectile penis, the eager watery mouth of the infant to
the moist and throbbing vagina, the vitally albuminous milk to the vitally
albuminous semen.[17] 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, Näcke, and Löwenfeld have accepted this as, at all events, a
partial definition.[18] No one, indeed, would argue that it is a complete
definition, although a few writers appear to have asserted that it is so
sometimes as regards the sexual impulse in women. There is, however,
considerable mental confusion in the attempt to set up such a definition.
If we define an instinct as an action adapted to an end which is not
present to consciousness, then it is quite true that the sexual instinct
is an instinct of reproduction. But we do not adequately define the sexual
instinct by merely stating its ultimate object. We might as well say that
the impulse by which young animals seize food is "an instinct of
nutrition." The object of reproduction certainly constitutes no part of
the sexual impulse whatever in any animal apart from man, and it reveals a
lack of the most elementary sense of biological continuity to assert that
in man so fundamental and involuntary a process can suddenly be
revolutionized. That the sexual impulse is very often associated with a
strong desire for offspring there can be no doubt, and in women the
longing for a child—that is to say, the longing to fulfill those
functions for which their bodies are constituted—may become so urgent and
imperative that we may regard it as scarcely less imperative than the
sexual impulse. But it is not the sexual impulse, though intimately
associated with it, and though it explains it. A reproductive instinct
might be found in parthenogenetic animals, but would be meaningless,
because useless, in organisms propagating by sexual union. A woman may not
want a lover, but may yet want a child. This merely means that her
maternal instincts have been aroused, while her sexual instincts are still
latent. A desire for reproduction, as soon as that desire becomes
instinctive, necessarily takes on the form of the sexual impulse, for
there is no other instinctive mechanism by which it can possibly express
itself. A "reproductive instinct," apart from the sexual instinct and
apart from the maternal instinct, cannot be admitted; it would be an
absurdity. Even in women in whom the maternal instincts are strong, it may
generally be observed that, although before a woman is in love, and also
during the later stages of her love, the conscious desire for a child may
be strong, during the time when sexual passion is at its highest the
thought of offspring, under normally happy conditions, tends to recede
into the background. 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. 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.
I now turn to a very much more serious and elaborate attempt to define the
constitution of the sexual impulse, that of Moll. He finds that it is made
up of two separate components, each of which may be looked upon as an
uncontrollable impulse.[19] One of these is that by which the tension of
the sexual organs is spasmodically relieved; this he calls the impulse of
detumescence,[20] and he regards it as primary, resembling the impulse to
empty a full bladder. The other impulse is the "instinct to approach,
touch, and kiss another person, usually of the opposite sex"; this he
terms the impulse of contrectation, and he includes under this head not
only the tendency to general physical contact, but also the psychic
inclination to become generally interested in a person of the opposite
sex. Each of these primary impulses Moll regards as forming a constituent
of the sexual instinct in both men and women. It seems to me undoubtedly
true that these two impulses do correspond to the essential phenomena. The
awkward and unsatisfactory part of Moll's analysis is the relation of the
one to the other. It is true that he traces both impulses back to the
sexual glands, that of detumescence directly, that of contrectation
indirectly; but evidently he does not regard them as intimately related to
each other; he insists on the fact that they may exist apart from each
other, that they do not appear synchronously in youth: the contrectation
impulse he regards as secondary; it is, he states, an indirect result of
the sexual glands, "only to be understood by the developmental history of
these glands and the object which they subserve"; that is to say, that it
is connected with the rise of the sexual method of reproduction and the
desirability of the mingling of the two sexes in procreation, while the
impulse of detumescence arose before the sexual method of reproduction had
appeared; thus the contrectation impulse was propagated by natural
selection together with the sexual method of reproduction. The impulse of
contrectation is secondary, and Moll even regards it as a secondary sexual
character.
While, therefore, this analysis seems to include all the phenomena and to
be worthy of very careful study as a serious and elaborate attempt to
present an adequate psychological definition of the sexual impulse, it
scarcely seems to me that we can accept it in precisely the form in which
Moll presents it. I believe, however, that by analyzing the process a
little more minutely we shall find that these two constituents of the
sexual impulse are really much more intimately associated than at the
first glance appears, and that we need by no means go back to the time
when the sexual method of reproduction arose to explain the significance
of the phenomena which Moll includes under the term contrectation.
To discover the true significance of the phenomena in men it is necessary
to observe carefully the phenomena of love-making not only among men, but
among animals, in which the impulse of contrectation plays a very large
part, and involves an enormous expenditure of energy. Darwin was the first
to present a comprehensive view of, at all events a certain group of, the
phenomena of contrectation in animals; on his interpretation of those
phenomena he founded his famous theory of sexual selection. We are not
primarily concerned with that theory; but the facts on which Darwin based
his theory lie at the very roots of our subject, and we are bound to
consider their psychological significance. In the first place, since these
phenomena are specially associated with Darwin's name, it may not be out
of place to ask what Darwin himself considered to be their psychological
significance. It is a somewhat important question, even for those who are
mainly concerned with the validity of the theory which Darwin established
on those facts, but so far as I know it has not hitherto been asked. I
find that a careful perusal of the Descent of Man reveals the presence
in Darwin's mind of two quite distinct theories, neither of them fully
developed, as to the psychological meaning of the facts he was collecting.
The two following groups of extracts will serve to show this very
conclusively: "The lower animals have a sense of beauty," he declares,
"powers of discrimination and taste on the part of the female" (p.
211[21]); "the females habitually or occasionally prefer the more
beautiful males," "there is little improbability in the females of insects
appreciating beauty in form or color" (p. 329); he speaks of birds as the
most "esthetic" of all animals excepting man, and adds that they have
"nearly the same taste for the beautiful as we have" (p. 359); he remarks
that a change of any kind in the structure or color of the male bird
"appears to have been admired by the female" (p. 385). He speaks of the
female Argus pheasant as possessing "this almost human degree of taste."
Birds, again, "seem to have some taste for the beautiful both in color and
sound," and "we ought not to feel too sure that the female does not attend
to each detail of beauty" (p. 421). Novelty, he says, is "admired by birds
for its own sake" (p. 495). "Birds have fine powers of discrimination and
in some few instances it can be shown that they have a taste for the
beautiful" (p. 496). The "esthetic capacity" of female animals has been
advanced by exercise just as our own taste has improved (p. 616). On the
other hand, we find running throughout the book quite another idea. Of
cicadas he tells us that it is probable that, "like female birds, they are
excited or allured by the male with the most attractive voice" (p. 282);
and, coming to Locustidæ, he states that "all observers agree that the
sounds serve either to call or excite the mute females" (p. 283). Of birds
he says, "I am led to believe that the females prefer or are most excited
by the more brilliant males" (p. 316). Among birds also the males
"endeavor to charm or excite their mates by love-notes," etc., and "the
females are excited by certain males, and thus unconsciously prefer them"
(p. 367), while ornaments of all kinds "apparently serve to excite,
attract, or fascinate the female" (p. 394). In a supplemental note, also,
written in 1876, five years after the first publication of the Descent of
Man, and therefore a late statement of his views, Darwin remarks that "no
supporter of the principle of sexual selection believes that the females
select particular points of beauty in the males; they are merely excited
or attracted in a greater degree by one male than by another, and this
seems often to depend, especially with birds, on brilliant coloring" (p.
623). Thus, on the one hand, Darwin interprets the phenomena as involving
a real esthetic element, a taste for the beautiful; on the other hand, he
states, without apparently any clear perception that the two views are
quite distinct, that the colors and sounds and other characteristics of
the male are not an appeal to any esthetic sense of the female, but an
appeal to her sexual emotions, a stimulus to sexual excitement, an
allurement to sexual contact. According to the first theory, the female
admires beauty, consciously or unconsciously, and selects the most
beautiful partner[22]; according to the second theory, there is no
esthetic question involved, but the female is unconsciously influenced by
the most powerful or complex organic stimulus to which she is subjected.
There can be no question that it is the second, and not the first, of
these two views which we are justified in accepting. Darwin, it must be
remembered, was not a psychologist, and he lived before the methods of
comparative psychology had begun to be developed; had he written twenty
years later we may be sure he would never have used so incautiously some
of the vague and hazardous expressions I have quoted. He certainly injured
his theory of sexual selection by stating it in too anthropomorphic
language, by insisting on "choice," "preference," "esthetic sense," etc.
There is no need whatever to burden any statement of the actual facts by
such terms borrowed from human psychology. The female responds to the
stimulation of the male at the right moment just as the tree responds to
the stimulation of the warmest days in spring. We should but obscure this
fact by stating that the tree "chooses" the most beautiful days on which
to put forth its young sprouts. In explaining the correlation between
responsive females and accomplished males the supposition of esthetic
choice is equally unnecessary. It is, however, interesting to observe
that, though Darwin failed to see that the love-combats, pursuits, dances,
and parades of the males served as a method of stimulating the impulse of
contrectation—or, as it would be better to term it, tumescence—in the
male himself,[23] he to some extent realized the part thus played in
exciting the equally necessary activity of tumescence in the female.
The justification for using the term "tumescence," which I here
propose, is to be found in the fact that vascular congestion,
more especially of the parts related to generation, is an
essential preliminary to acute sexual desire. This is clearly
brought out in Heape's careful study of the "sexual season" in
mammals. Heape distinguishes between the "pro-estrum," or
preliminary period of congestion, in female animals and the
immediately following "estrus," or period of desire. The latter
period is the result of the former, and, among the lower animals
at all events, intercourse only takes place during the estrus,
not during the pro-estrum. Tumescence must thus be obtained
before desire can become acute, and courtship runs pari passu
with physiological processes. "Normal estrus," Heape states,
"occurs in conjunction with certain changes in the uterine
tissue, and this is accompanied by congestion and stimulation or
irritation of the copulatory organs.... Congestion is invariably
present and is an essential condition.... The first sign of
pro-estrum noticed in the lower mammals is a swollen and
congested vulva and a general restlessness, excitement, or
uneasiness. There are other signs familiar to breeders of various
mammals, such as the congested conjunctiva of the rabbit's eye
and the drooping ears of the pig. Many monkeys exhibit congestion
of the face and nipples, as well as of the buttocks, thighs, and
neighboring parts; sometimes they are congested to a very marked
extent, and in some species a swelling, occasionally prodigious,
of the soft tissues round the anal and generative openings, which
is also at the time brilliantly congested, indicates the progress
of the pro-estrum.... The growth of the stroma-tissue [in the
uterus of monkeys during the pro-estrum] is rapidly followed by
an increase in the number and size of the vessels of the stroma;
the whole becomes richly supplied with blood, and the surface is
flushed and highly vascular. This process goes on until the whole
of the internal stroma becomes tense and brilliantly injected
with blood.... In all essential points the menstruation or
pro-estrum of the human female is identical with that of
monkeys.... Estrus is possible only after the changes due to
pro-estrum have taken place in the uterus. A wave of disturbance,
at first evident in the external generative organs, extends to
the uterus, and after the various phases of pro-estrum have been
gone through in that organ, and the excitement there is
subsiding, it would seem as if the external organs gain renewed
stimulus, and it is then that estrus takes place.... In all
animals which have been investigated coition is not allowed by
the female until some time after the swelling and congestion of
the vulva and surrounding tissue are first demonstrated, and in
those animals which suffer from a considerable discharge of blood
the main portion of that discharge, if not the whole of it, will
be evacuated before sexual intercourse is allowed." (W. Heape,
"The 'Sexual Season' of Mammals," Quarterly Journal of
Microscopical Science, vol. xliv, Part I, 1900. Estrus has since
been fully discussed in Marshall's Physiology of Reproduction.)
This description clearly brings out the fundamentally vascular
character of the process I have termed "tumescence"; it must be
added, however, that in man the nervous elements in the process
tend to become more conspicuous, and more or less obliterate
these primitive limitations of sexual desire. (See "Sexual
Periodicity" in the first volume of these Studies.)
Moll subsequently restated his position with reference to my
somewhat different analysis of the sexual impulse, still
maintaining his original view ("Analyse des Geschlechtstriebes,"
Medizinische Klinik, Nos. 12 and 13, 1905; also Geschlecht und
Gesellschaft, vol. ii, Nos. 9 and 10). Numa Praetorius
(Jahrbuch für Sexeuelle Zwischenstufen, 1904, p. 592) accepts
contrectation, tumescence, and detumescence as all being stages
in the same process, contrectation, which he defines as the
sexual craving for a definite individual, coming first. Robert
Müller (Sexualbiologie, 1907, p. 37) criticises Moll much in
the same sense as I have done and considers that contrectation
and detumescence cannot be separated, but are two expressions of
the same impulse; so also Max Katte, "Die Präliminarien des
Geschlechtsaktes," Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, Oct.,
1908, and G. Saint-Paul, L'Homosexualité et les Types
Homosexuels, 1910, p. 390.
While I regard Moll's analysis as a valuable contribution to the
elucidation of the sexual impulse, I must repeat that I cannot
regard it as final or completely adequate. As I understand the
process, contrectation is an incident in the development of
tumescence, an extremely important incident indeed, but not an
absolutely fundamental and primitive part of it. It is equally an
incident, highly important though not primitive and fundamental,
of detumescence. Contrectation, from first to last; furnishes
the best conditions for the exercise of the sexual process, but
it is not an absolutely essential part of the process and in the
early stages of zoölogical development it had no existence at
all. Tumescence and detumescence are alike fundamental,
primitive, and essential; in resting the sexual impulse on these
necessarily connected processes we are basing ourselves on the
solid bedrock of nature.
Moreover, of the two processes, tumescence, which in time comes
first, is by far the most important, and nearly the whole of
sexual psychology is rooted in it. To assert, with Moll, that the
sexual process may be analyzed into contrectation and
detumescence alone is to omit the most essential part of the
process. It is much the same as to analyze the mechanism of a gun
into probable contact with the hand, and a more or less
independent discharge, omitting all reference to the loading of
the gun. The essential elements are the loading and the
discharging. Contrectation is a part of loading, though not a
necessary part, since the loading may be effected mechanically.
But to understand the process of firing a gun and to comprehend
the mechanism of the discharge, we must insist on the act of
loading and not merely on the contact of the hand. So it is in
analyzing the sexual impulse. Contrectation is indeed highly
important, but it is important only in so far as it aids
tumescence, and so may be subordinated to tumescence, exactly as
it may also be subordinated to detumescence. It is tumescence
which is the really essential part of the process, and we cannot
afford, with Moll, to ignore it altogether.
Wallace opposed Darwin's theory of sexual selection, but it can scarcely
be said that his attitude toward it bears critical examination. On the one
hand, as has already been noted, he saw but one side of that theory and
that the unessential side, and, on the other hand, his own view really
coincided with the more essential elements in Darwin's theory. In his
Tropical Nature he admitted that the male's "persistency and energy win
the day," and also that this "vigor and liveliness" of the male are
usually associated with intense coloration, while twenty years later (in
his Darwinism) he admitted also that it is highly probable that the
female is pleased or excited by the male's display. But all that is really
essential in Darwin's theory is involved, directly or indirectly, in these
admissions.
Espinas, in 1878, in his suggestive book, Des Sociétés Animales,
described the odors, colors and forms, sounds, games, parades, and mock
battles of animals, approaching the subject in a somewhat more
psychological spirit than either Darwin or Wallace, and he somewhat more
clearly apprehended the object of these phenomena in producing mutual
excitement and stimulating tumescence. He noted the significance of the
action of the hermaphroditic snails in inserting their darts into each
other's flesh near the vulva in order to cause preliminary excitation. He
remarks of this whole group of phenomena: "It is the preliminary of sexual
union, it constitutes the first act of it. By it the image of the male is
graven on the consciousness of the female, and in a manner impregnates it,
so as to determine there, as the effects of this representation descend to
the depths of the organism, the physiological modifications necessary to
fecundation." Beaunis, again, in an analysis of the sexual sensations, was
inclined to think that the dances and parades of the male are solely
intended to excite the female, not perceiving, however, that they at the
same time serve to further excite the male also.[24]
A better and more comprehensive statement was reached by Tillier, who, to
some extent, may be said to have anticipated Groos. Darwin, Tillier
pointed out, had not sufficiently taken into account the coexistence of
combat and courtship, nor the order of the phenomena. Courtship without
combat, Tillier argued, is rare; "there is a normal coexistence of combat
and courtship."[25] Moreover, he proceeded, force is the chief factor in
determining the possession of the female by the male, who in some species
is even prepared to exert force on her; so that the female has little
opportunity of sexual selection, though she is always present at these
combats. He then emphasized the significant fact that courtship takes
place long after pairing has ceased, and the question of selection thus
been eliminated. The object of courtship, he concluded, is not sexual
selection by the female, but the sexual excitement of both male and
female, such excitement, he asserted, not only rendering coupling easier,
but favoring fecundation. Modesty, also, Tillier further argued, again
anticipating Groos, works toward the same end; it renders the male more
ardent, and by retarding coupling may also increase the secretions of the
sexual glands and favor the chances of reproduction.[26]
In a charming volume entitled The Naturalist in La Plata (1892)
Mr. W. H. Hudson included a remarkable chapter on "Music and
Dancing in Nature." In this chapter he described many of the
dances, songs, and love-antics of birds, but regarded all such
phenomena as merely "periodical fits of gladness." While,
however, we may quite well agree with Mr. 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. It is noteworthy that, according to
H. E. Howard ("On Sexual Selection in Birds," Zoölogist, Nov.,
1903), color is most developed just before pairing, rapidly
becoming less beautiful—even within a few hours—after this, and
the most beautiful male is most successful in getting paired. The
fact that, as Mr. Hudson himself points out, it is at the season
of love that these manifestations mainly, if not exclusively,
appear, and that it is the more brilliant and highly endowed
males which play the chief part in them, only serves to confirm
such a conclusion. To argue, with Mr. Hudson, that they cannot be
sexual because they sometimes occur before the arrival of the
females, is much the same as to argue that the antics of a
kitten with a feather or a reel have no relationship whatever to
mice. The birds that began earliest to practise their
accomplishments would probably have most chance of success when
the females arrived. Darwin himself said that nothing is commoner
than for animals to take pleasure in practising whatever instinct
they follow at other times for some real good. These
manifestations are primarily for the sake of producing sexual
tumescence, and could not well have been developed to the height
they have reached unless they were connected closely with
propagation. That they may incidentally serve to express
"gladness" one need not feel called upon to question.
Another observer of birds, Mr. E. Selous, has made observations
which are of interest in this connection. He finds that all
bird-dances are not nuptial, but that some birds—the
stone-curlew (or great plover), for example—have different kinds
of dances. Among these birds he has made the observation, very
significant from our present point of view, that the nuptial
dances, taken part in by both of the pair, are immediately
followed by intercourse. In spring "all such runnings and
chasings are, at this time, but a part of the business of
pairing, and one divines at once that such attitudes are of a
sexual character.... Here we have a bird with distinct nuptial
(sexual) and social (non-sexual) forms of display or antics, and
the former as well as the latter are equally indulged in by both
sexes." (E. Selous, Bird Watching, pp. 15-20.)
The same author (ibid., pp. 79, 94) argues that in the fights
of two males for one female—with violent emotion on one side and
interested curiosity on the other—the attitude of the former
"might gradually come to be a display made entirely for the
female, and of the latter a greater or less degree of pleasurable
excitement raised by it, with a choice in accordance." On this
view the interest of the female would first have been directed,
not to the plumage, but to the frenzied actions and antics of the
male. From these antics in undecorated birds would gradually
develop the interest in waving plumes and fluttering wings. Such
a dance might come to be of a quite formal and non-courting
nature.
Last, we owe to Professor Häcker what may fairly be regarded, in
all main outlines, as an almost final statement of the matter. In
his Gesang der Vögel (1900) he gives a very clear account of
the evolution of bird-song, which he regards as the most
essential element in all this group of manifestations, furnishing
the key also to the dancing and other antics. Originally the song
consists only of call-cries and recognition-notes. Under the
parallel influence of natural selection and sexual selection they
become at the pairing season reflexes of excitement and thus
develop into methods of producing excitement, in the male by the
muscular energy required, and in the female through the ear;
finally they become play, though here also it is probable that
use is not excluded. Thus, so far as the male bird is concerned,
bird-song possesses a primary prenuptial significance in
attracting the female, a secondary nuptial significance in
producing excitement (p. 48). He holds also that the
less-developed voices of the females aid in attaining the same
end (p. 51). Finally, bird-song possesses a tertiary extranuptial
significance (including exercise play, expression of gladness).
Häcker points out, at the same time, that the maintenance of some
degree of sexual excitement beyond pairing time may be of value
for the preservation of the species, in case of disturbance
during breeding and consequent necessity for commencing breeding
over again.
Such a theory as this fairly coincides with the views brought
forward in the preceding pages,—views which are believed to be
in harmony with the general trend of thought today,—since it
emphasizes the importance of tumescence and all that favors
tumescence in the sexual process. The so-called esthetic element
in sexual selection is only indirectly of importance. The male's
beauty is really a symbol of his force.
It will be seen that this attitude toward the facts of tumescence
among birds and other animals includes the recognition of dances,
songs, etc., as expressions of "gladness." As such they are
closely comparable to the art manifestations among human races.
Here, as Weismann in his Gedanken über Musik has remarked, we
may regard the artistic faculty as a by-product: "This [musical]
faculty is, as it were, the mental hand with which we play on our
own emotional nature, a hand not shaped for this purpose, not due
to the necessity for the enjoyment of music, but owing its origin
to entirely different requirements."
The psychological significance of these facts has been carefully studied
and admirably developed by Groos in his classic works on the play instinct
in animals and in men.[27] 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."
Groos further quotes a pregnant generalization of Ziegler: "In all animals
a high degree of excitement of the nervous system is necessary to
procreation, and thus we find an excited prelude to procreation widely
spread."[28] Such a stage, indeed, as Groos points out, is usually
necessary before any markedly passionate discharge of motor energy, as may
be observed in angry dogs and the Homeric heroes. While, however, in other
motor explosions the prelude may be reduced to a minimum, in courtship it
is found in a highly marked degree. The primary object of courtship, Groos
insists, is to produce sexual excitement.
It is true that Groos's main propositions were by no means novel. Thus, as
I have pointed out, he was at most points anticipated by Tillier. But
Groos developed the argument in so masterly a manner, and with so many
wide-ranging illustrations, that he has carried conviction where the mere
insight of others had passed unperceived. Since Darwin wrote the Descent
of Man the chief step in the development of the theory of sexual
selection has been taken by Groos, who has at the same time made it clear
that sexual selection is largely a special case of natural selection.[29]
The conjunction of the sexes is seen to be an end only to be obtained with
much struggle; the difficulty of achieving sexual erethism in both sexes,
the difficulty of so stimulating such erethism in the female that her
instinctive coyness is overcome, these difficulties the best and most
vigorous males,[30] those most adapted in other respects to carry on the
race, may most easily overcome. In this connection we may note what Marro
has said in another connection, when attempting to answer the question why
it is that among savages courtship becomes so often a matter in which
persuasion takes the form of force. The explanation, he remarks, is yet
very simple. Force is the foundation of virility, and its psychic
manifestation is courage. In the struggle for life violence is the first
virtue. The modesty of women—in its primordial form consisting in
physical resistance, active or passive, to the assaults of the male—aided
selection by putting to the test man's most important quality, force. Thus
it is that when choosing among rivals for her favors a woman attributes
value to violence.[31] Marro thus independently confirms the result
reached by Groos.
The debate which has for so many years been proceeding concerning the
validity of the theory of sexual selection may now be said to be brought
to an end. Those who supported Darwin and those who opposed him were, both
alike, in part right and in part wrong, and it is now possible to combine
the elements of truth on either side into a coherent whole. This is now
beginning to be widely recognized; Lloyd Morgan,[32] for instance, has
readjusted his position as regards the "pairing instinct" in the light of
Groos's contribution to the subject. "The hypothesis of sexual selection,"
he concludes, "suggests that the accepted male is the one which adequately
evokes the pairing impulse.... Courtship may thus be regarded from the
physiological point of view as a means of producing the requisite amount
of pairing hunger; of stimulating the whole system and facilitating
general and special vascular changes; of creating that state of profound
and explosive irritability which has for its psychological concomitant or
antecedent an imperious and irresistible craving.... Courtship is thus
the strong and steady bending of the bow that the arrow may find its mark
in a biological end of the highest importance in the survival of a healthy
and vigorous race."
Having thus viewed the matter broadly, we may consider in detail
a few examples of the process of tumescence among the lower
animals and man, for, as will be seen, the process in both is
identical. As regards animal courtship, the best treasury of
facts is Brehm's Thierleben, while Büchner's Liebe und
Liebes-Leben in der Thierwelt is a useful summary; the admirable
discussion of bird-dancing and other forms of courtship in
Häcker's Gesang der Vögel, chapter iv, may also be consulted.
As regards man, Wallaschek's Primitive Music, chapter vii,
brings together much scattered material, and is all the more
valuable since the author rejects any form of sexual selection;
Hirn's Origins of Art, chapter xvii, is well worth reading, and
Finck's Primitive Love and Love-stories contains a large amount
of miscellaneous information. I have preferred not to draw on any
of these easily accessible sources (except that in one or two
cases I have utilized references they supplied), but here simply
furnish illustrations met with in the course of my own reading.
Even in the hermaphroditic slugs (Limax maximus) the process of
courtship is slow and elaborate. It has been described by James
Bladon ("The Loves of the Slug [Limax cinereus]," Zoölogist,
vol. xv, 1857, p. 6272). It begins toward midnight on sultry
summer nights, one slug slowly following another, resting its
mouth on what may be called the tail of the first, and following
its every movement. Finally they stop and begin crawling around
each other, emitting large quantities of mucus. When this has
constituted a mass of sufficient size and consistence they
suspend themselves from it by a cord of mucus from nine to
fifteen inches in length, continuing to turn round each other
till their bodies form a cone. Then the organs of generation are
protruded from their orifice near the mouth and, hanging down a
short distance, touch each other. They also then begin again the
same spiral motion, twisting around each other, like a two-strand
cord, assuming various and beautiful forms, sometimes like an
inverted agaric, or a foliated murex, or a leaf of curled
parsley, the light falling on the ever-varying surface of the
generative organs sometimes producing iridescence. It is not
until after a considerable time that the organs untwist and are
withdrawn and the bodies separate, to crawl up the suspending
cord and depart.
Some snails have a special organ for creating sexual excitement.
A remarkable part of the reproductive system in many of the true
Helicidæ is the so-called dart, Liebespfeil, or telum
Veneris. It consists of a straight or curved, sometimes
slightly twisted, tubular shaft of carbonate of lime, tapering to
a fine point above, and enlarging gradually, more often somewhat
abruptly, to the base. The sides of the shaft are sometimes
furnished with two or more blades; these are apparently not for
cutting purposes, but simply to brace the stem. The dart is
contained in a dart-sac, which is attached as a sort of pocket to
the vagina, at no great distance from its orifice. In Helix
aspersa the dart is about five-sixteenths of an inch in length,
and one-eighth of an inch in breadth at its base. It appears most
probable that the dart is employed as an adjunct for the sexual
act. Besides the fact of the position of the dart-sac
anatomically, we find that the darts are extended and become
imbedded in the flesh, just before or during the act of
copulation. It may be regarded, then, as an organ whose functions
induce excitement preparatory to sexual union. It only occurs in
well-grown specimens. (Rev. L. H. Cooke, "Molluscs," Cambridge
Natural History, vol. iii, p. 143.)
Racovitza has shown that in the octopus (Octopus vulgaris)
courtship is carried on with considerable delicacy, and not
brutally, as had previously been supposed. The male gently
stretches out his third arm on the right and caresses the female
with its extremity, eventually passing it into the chamber formed
by the mantle. The female contracts spasmodically, but does not
attempt to move. They remain thus about an hour or more, and
during this time the male shifts the arm from one oviduct to the
other. Finally he withdraws his arm, caresses her with it for a
few moments, and then replaces it with his other arm. (E. G.
Racovitza, in Archives de Zoölogie Expérimentale, quoted in
Natural Science, November, 1894.)
The phenomena of courtship are very well illustrated by spiders.
Peckham, who has carefully studied them, tells us of Saitis
pulex: "On May 24th we found a mature female, and placed her in
one of the larger boxes, and the next day we put a male in with
her. He saw her as she stood perfectly still, twelve inches away;
the glance seemed to excite him, and he at once moved toward her;
when some four inches from her he stood still, and then began the
most remarkable performances that an amorous male could offer to
an admiring female. She eyed him eagerly, changing her position
from time to time so that he might be always in view. He, raising
his whole body on one side by straightening out the legs, and
lowering it on the other by folding the first two pairs of legs
up and under, leaned so far over as to be in danger of losing his
balance, which he only maintained by sliding rapidly toward the
lowered side. The palpus, too, on this side was turned back to
correspond to the direction of the legs nearest it. He moved in a
semicircle for about two inches, and then instantly reversed the
position of the legs and circled in the opposite direction,
gradually approaching nearer and nearer to the female. Now she
dashes toward him, while he, raising his first pair of legs,
extends them upward and forward as if to hold her off, but withal
slowly retreats. Again and again he circles from side to side,
she gazing toward him in a softer mood, evidently admiring the
grace of his antics. This is repeated until we have counted one
hundred and eleven circles made by the ardent little male. Now he
approaches nearer and nearer, and when almost within reach whirls
madly around and around her, she joining and whirling with him in
a giddy maze. Again he falls back and resumes his semicircular
motions, with his body tilted over; she, all excitement, lowers
her head and raises her body so that it is almost vertical; both
draw nearer; she moves slowly under him, he crawling over her
head, and the mating is accomplished."
The same author thus describes the courtship of Dendryphantes
elegans: "While from three to five inches distant from her, he
begins to wave his plumy first legs in a way that reminds one of
a windmill. She eyes him fiercely, and he keeps at a proper
distance for a long time. If he comes close she dashes at him,
and he quickly retreats. Sometimes he becomes bolder, and when
within an inch, pauses, with the first legs outstretched before
him, not raised as is common in other species; the palpi also are
held stiffly out in front with the points together. Again she
drives him off, and so the play continues. Now the male grows
excited as he approaches her, and while still several inches
away, whirls completely around and around; pausing, he runs
closer and begins to make his abdomen quiver as he stands on
tiptoe in front of her. Prancing from side to side, he grows
bolder and bolder, while she seems less fierce, and yielding to
the excitement, lifts up her magnificently iridescent abdomen,
holding it at one time vertical, and at another sideways to him.
She no longer rushes at him, but retreats a little as he
approaches. At last he comes close to her, lying flat, with his
first legs stretched out and quivering. With the tips of his
front legs he gently pats her; this seems to arouse the old demon
of resistance, and she drives him back. Again and again he pats
her with a caressing movement, gradually creeping nearer and
nearer, which she now permits without resistance, until he crawls
over her head to her abdomen, far enough to reach the epigynum
with his palpus." (G. W. Peckham, "Sexual Selection of Spiders,"
Occasional Papers of the Natural History Society of Wisconsin,
1889, quoted in Nature, August 21, 1890.)
The courtship of another spider, the Agelena labyrinthica, has
been studied by Lécaillon ("Les Instincts et les Psychismes des
Araignées," Revue Scientifique, Sept. 15, 1906.) The male
enters the female's web and may be found there about the middle
of July. When courtship has begun it is not interrupted by the
closest observation, even under the magnifying glass. At first it
is the male which seeks to couple and he pursues the female over
her web till she consents. The pursuit may last some hours, the
male agitating his abdomen in a peculiar way, while the female
simply retreats a short distance without allowing herself to be
approached. At last the female holds herself completely
motionless, and then the male approaches, seizes her, places her
on her side, sometimes carrying her to a more suitable part of
the web. Then one of his copulative apparatus is applied to the
female genital opening, and copulation begins. When completed (on
an average in about two hours) the male withdraws his copulatory
palpus and turns over the female, who is still inert, on to her
other side, then brings his second copulatory apparatus to the
female opening and starts afresh. When the process is definitely
completed the male leaves the female, suddenly retiring to a
little distance. The female, who had remained completely
motionless for four hours, suddenly runs after the male. But she
only pursues him for a short distance, and the two spiders remain
together without any danger to either. Lécaillon disbelieves the
statement of Romanes (in his Animal Intelligence) that the
female eats the male after copulation. But this certainly seems
to occur sometimes among insects, as illustrated by the following
instance described by so careful an observer of insects as Fabre.
The Mantis religiosa is described by Fabre as contemplating the
female for a long time in an attitude of ecstasy. She remains
still and seems indifferent. He is small and she is large. At
last he approaches; spreads his wings, which tremble
convulsively; leaps on her back, and fixes himself there. The
preludes are long and the coupling itself sometimes occupies five
or six hours. Then they separate. But the same day or the
following day she seizes him and eats him up in small mouthfuls.
She will permit a whole series of males to have intercourse with
her, always eating them up directly afterward. Fabre has even
seen her eating the male while still on her back, his head and
neck gone, but his body still firmly attached. (J. H. Fabre,
Souvenirs Entomologiques, fifth series, p. 307.) Fabre also
describes in great detail (ibid., ninth series, chs. xxi-xxii)
the sexual parades of the Languedoc scorpion (Scorpio
occitanus), an arachnid. These parades are in public; for their
subsequent intercourse the couple seek complete seclusion, and
the female finally eats the male.
An insect (a species of Empis) has been described which excites
the female by manipulating a large balloon. "This is of
elliptical shape, about seven millimeters long (nearly twice as
long as the fly), hollow, and composed entirely of a single layer
of minute bubbles, nearly uniform in size, arranged in regular
circles concentric with the axis of the structure. The
beautiful, glistening whiteness of the object when the sun shines
upon it makes it very conspicuous. The bubbles were slightly
viscid, and in nearly every case there was a small fly pressed
into the front end of the balloon, apparently as food for the
Empis. In all cases they were dead. The balloon appears to be
made while the insect is flying in the air. Those flying highest
had the smallest balloons. The bubbles are probably produced by
some modification of the anal organs. It is possible that the
captured fly serves as a nucleus to begin the balloon on. One
case of a captured fly but no balloon was observed. After
commencing, it is probable that the rest of the structure is made
by revolving the completed part between the hind legs and adding
more bubbles somewhat spirally. The posterior end of the balloon
is left more or less open. The purpose of this structure is to
attract the female. When numerous males were flying up and down
the road, it happened several times that a female was seen to
approach them from some choke-cherry blossoms near by. The males
immediately gathered in her path, and she with little hesitation
selected for a mate the one with the largest balloon, taking a
position upon his back. After copulation had begun, the pair
would settle down toward the ground, select a quiet spot, and the
female would alight by placing her front legs across a horizontal
grass blade, her head resting against the blade so as to brace
the body in position. Here she would continue to hold the male
beneath her for a little time, until the process was finished.
The male, meanwhile, would be rolling the balloon about in a
variety of positions, juggling with it, one might almost say.
After the male and female parted company, the male immediately
dropped the balloon upon the ground, and it was greedily seized
by ants. No illustration could properly show the beauty of the
balloon." (Aldrich and Turley, "A Balloon-making Fly," American
Naturalist, October, 1899.)
"In many species of moths the males 'assemble' around the freshly
emerged female, but no special advantage appears to attend on
early arrival. The female sits apparently motionless, while the
little crowd of suitors buzz around her for several minutes.
Suddenly, and, as far as one can see, without any sign from the
female, one of the males pairs with her and all the others
immediately disappear. In these cases the males do not fight or
struggle in any way, and as one watches the ceremony the wonder
arises as to how the moment is determined, and why the pairing
did not take place before. Proximity does not decide the point,
for long beforehand the males often alight close to the female
and brush against her with fluttering wings. I have watched the
process exactly as I have described it in a common Northern
Noctua, the antler moth (Charæax graminis), and I have seen
the same thing among beetles." (E. B. Poulton, The Colors of
Animals, 1890, p. 391.) This author mentions that among some
butterflies the females take the active part. The example here
quoted of courtship among moths illustrates how phenomena which
are with difficulty explicable by the theory of sexual selection
in its original form become at once intelligible when we realize
the importance of tumescence in courtship.
Of the Argentine cow-bird (Molothrus bonariensis) Hudson says
(Argentine Ornithology, vol. i, p. 73): "The song of the male,
particularly when making love, is accompanied with gestures and
actions somewhat like those of the domestic pigeon. He swells
himself out, beating the ground with his wings, and uttering a
series of deep internal notes, followed by others loud and clear;
and occasionally, when uttering them, he suddenly takes wing and
flies directly away from the female to a distance of fifty yards,
and performs a wide circuit about her in the air, singing all the
time. The homely object of his passion always appears utterly
indifferent to this curious and pretty performance; yet she must
be even more impressionable than most female birds, since she
continues scattering about her parasitical and often wasted eggs
during four months in every year."
Of a tyrant-bird (Pitangus Bolivianus) Hudson writes
(Argentine Ornithology, vol. i, p. 148): "Though the male and
female are greatly attached, they do not go afield to hunt in
company, but separate to meet again at intervals during the day.
One of a couple (say, the female) returns to the trees where they
are accustomed to meet, and after a time, becoming impatient or
anxious at the delay of her consort, utters a very long, clear
call-note. He is perhaps a quarter of a mile away, watching for a
frog beside a pool, or beating over a thistle-bed, but he hears
the note and presently responds with one of equal power. Then,
perhaps, for half an hour, at intervals of half a minute, the
birds answer each other, though the powerful call of the one must
interfere with his hunting. At length he returns; then the two
birds, perched close together, with their yellow bosoms almost
touching, crests elevated, and beating the branch with their
wings, scream their loudest notes in concert—a confused jubilant
noise that rings through the whole plantation. Their joy at
meeting is patent, and their action corresponds to the warm
embrace of a loving human couple."
Of the red-breasted marsh-bird (Leistes superciliaris) Hudson
(Argentine Ornithology, vol. i, p. 100) writes: "These birds
are migratory, and appear everywhere in the eastern part of the
Argentine country early in October, arriving singly, after which
each male takes up a position in a field or open space abounding
with coarse grass and herbage, where he spends most of his time
perched on the summit of a tall stalk or weed, his glowing
crimson bosom showing at a distance like some splendid flower
above the herbage. At intervals of two or three minutes he soars
vertically up to a height of twenty or twenty-five yards to utter
his song, composed of a single long, powerful and rather musical
note, ending with an attempt at a flourish, during which the bird
flutters and turns about in the air; then, as if discouraged at
his failure, he drops down, emitting harsh, guttural chirps, to
resume his stand. Meanwhile the female is invisible, keeping
closely concealed under the long grass. But at length, attracted
perhaps by the bright bosom and aërial music of the male, she
occasionally exhibits herself for a few moments, starting up with
a wild zigzag flight, and, darting this way and that, presently
drops into the grass once more. The moment she appears above the
grass the male gives chase, and they vanish from sight together."
"Courtship with the mallard," says J. G. Millais (Natural History
of British Ducks, p. 6), "appears to be carried on by both
sexes, though generally three or four drakes are seen showing
themselves off to attract the attention of a single duck.
Swimming round her, in a coy and semi-self-conscious manner, they
now and again all stop quite still, nod, bow, and throw their
necks out in token of their admiration and their desire of a
favorable response. But the most interesting display is when all
the drakes simultaneously stand up in the water and rapidly pass
their bills down their breasts, uttering at the same time a low
single note somewhat like the first half of the call that teal
and pintail make when 'showing off.' At other times the
love-making of the drake seems to be rather passive than active.
While graciously allowing himself to be courted, he holds his
head high with conscious pride, and accepts as a matter of course
any attention that may be paid to him. A proud bird is he when
three or four ducks come swimming along beside and around him,
uttering a curious guttural note, and at the same time dipping
their bills in quick succession to right and left. He knows what
that means, and carries himself with even greater dignity than
before. In the end, however, he must give in. As a last appeal,
one of his lady lovers may coyly lower herself in the water till
only the top of her back, head, and neck is seen, and so
fascinating an advance as this no drake of any sensibility can
withstand."
The courting of the Argus pheasant, noted for the extreme beauty
of the male's plumage, was observed by H. O. Forbes in Sumatra. It
is the habit of this bird to make "a large circus, some ten or
twelve feet in diameter, in the forest, which it clears of every
leaf and twig and branch, till the ground is perfectly swept and
garnished. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a
projecting branch or high-arched root, at a few feet elevation
above the ground, on which the female bird takes its place, while
in the ring the male—the male birds alone possess great
decoration—shows off all its magnificence for the gratification
and pleasure of his consort and to exalt himself in her eyes."
(H. O. Forbes, A. Naturalist's Wanderings, 1885, p. 131.)
"All ostriches, adults as well as chicks, have a strange habit
known as 'waltzing.' After running for a few hundred yards they
will also stop, and, with raised wings, spin around rapidly for
some time after until quite giddy, when a broken leg occasionally
occurs.... Vicious cocks 'roll' when challenging to fight or when
wooing the hen. The cock will suddenly bump down on to his knees
(the ankle-joint), open his wings, and then swing them
alternately backward and forward, as if on a pivot.... While
rolling, every feather over the whole body is on end, and the
plumes are open, like a large white fan. At such a time the bird
sees very imperfectly, if at all; in fact, he seems so
preoccupied that, if pursued, one may often approach unnoticed.
Just before rolling, a cock, especially if courting the hen, will
often run slowly and daintily on the points of his toes, with
neck slightly inflated, upright, and rigid, the tail
half-drooped, and all his body-feathers fluffed up; the wings
raised and expanded, the inside edges touching the sides of the
neck for nearly the whole of its length, and the plumes showing
separately, like an open fan. In no other attitude is the
splendid beauty of his plumage displayed to such advantage."
(S. C. Cronwright Schreiner, "The Ostrich," Zoölogist, March,
1897.)
As may be seen from the foregoing fairly typical examples, the
phenomena of courtship are highly developed, and have been most
carefully studied, in animals outside the mammal series. It may
seem a long leap from birds to man; yet, as will be seen, the
phenomena among primitive human peoples, if not, indeed, among
many civilized peoples also, closely resemble those found among
birds, though, unfortunately, they have not usually been so
carefully studied.
In Australia, where dancing is carried to a high pitch of
elaboration, its association with the sexual impulse is close and
unmistakable. Thus, Mr. Samuel Gason (of whom it has been said
that "no man living has been more among blacks or knows more of
their ways") remarks concerning a dance of the Dieyerie tribe:
"This dance men and women only take part in, in regular form and
position, keeping splendid time to the rattle of the beat of two
boomerangs; some of the women keep time by clapping their hands
between their thighs; promiscuous sexual intercourse follows
after the dance; jealousy is forbidden." Again, at the Mobierrie,
or rat-harvest, "many weeks' preparation before the dance comes
off; no quarreling is allowed; promiscuous sexual intercourse
during the ceremony." The fact that jealousy is forbidden at
these festivals clearly indicates that sexual intercourse is a
recognized and probably essential element in the ceremonies. This
is further emphasized by the fact that at other festivals open
sexual intercourse is not allowed. Thus, at the Mindarie, or
dance at a peace festival (when a number of tribes comes
together), "there is great rejoicing at the coming festival,
which is generally held at the full of the moon, and kept up all
night. The men are artistically decorated with down and feathers,
with all kinds of designs. The down and feathers are stuck on
their bodies with blood freshly taken from their penis; they are
also nicely painted with various colors; tufts of boughs are tied
on their ankles to make a noise while dancing. Promiscuous sexual
intercourse is carried on secretly; many quarrels occur at this
time." (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xxiv,
November, 1894, p. 174.)
In Australian dances, sometimes men and women dance together,
sometimes the men dance alone, sometimes the women. In one dance
described by Eyre: "Women are the chief performers; their bodies
are painted with white streaks, and their hair adorned with
cockatoo feathers. They carry large sticks in their hands, and
place themselves in a row in front, while the men with their
spears stand in a row behind them. They then all commence their
movements, but without intermingling, the males and females
dancing by themselves. The women have occasionally another mode
of dancing, by joining the hands together over the head, closing
the feet, and bringing the knees into contact. The legs are then
thrown outward from the knee, while the feet and hands are kept
in their original position, and, being drawn quickly in again, a
sharp sound is produced by the collision. This is also practised
alone by young girls or by several together for their own
amusement. It is adopted also when a single woman is placed in
front of a row of male dancers to excite their passions." (E. J.
Eyre, Journals of Expeditions into Central Australia, vol. ii,
p. 235.)
A charming Australian folk-tale concerning two sisters with
wings, who disliked men, and their wooing by a man, clearly
indicates, even among the Australians (whose love-making is
commonly supposed to be somewhat brutal in character), the
consciousness that it is by his beauty, charm, and skill in
courtship that a man wins a woman. Unahanach, the lover, stole
unperceived to the river where the girls were bathing and at last
showed himself carelessly sitting on a high tree. The girls were
startled, but thought it would be safe to amuse themselves by
looking at the intruder. "Young and with the most active figure,
yet of a strength that defied the strongest emu, and even enabled
him to resist an 'old man' kangaroo, he had no equal in the
chase, and conscious power gave a dignity to his expression that
at one glance calmed the fears of the two girls. His large
brilliant eyes, shaded by a deep fringe of soft black eyelashes,
gazed down upon them admiringly, and his rich black hair hung
around his well-formed face, smooth and shining from the emu-oil
with which it was abundantly covered." At last he persuaded them
to talk and by and by induced them to call him husband. Then they
went off with him, with no thought of flight in their hearts.
("Australian Folklore Stories," collected by W. Dunlop, Journal
of the Anthropological Institute, new series, vol. i, 1898, p.
33.)
Of the people of Torres Straits Haddon states (Reports
Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, p. 222):
"It was during the secular dance, or Kap, that the girls
usually lost their hearts to the young men. A young man who was a
good dancer would find favor in the sight of the girls. This can
be readily understood by anyone who has seen the active, skilful,
and fatiguing dances of these people. A young man who could
acquit himself well in these dances must be possessed of no mean
strength and agility, qualities which everywhere appeal to the
opposite sex. Further, he was decorated, according to local
custom, with all that would render him more imposing in the eyes
of the spectators. As the former chief of Mabuiag put it, 'In
England if a man has plenty of money, women want to marry him; so
here, if a man dances well they too want him.' In olden days the
war-dance, which was performed after a successful foray, would be
the most powerful excitement to a marriageable girl, especially
if a young man had distinguished himself sufficiently to bring
home the head of someone he had killed."
Among the tribes inhabiting the mouth of the Wanigela River, New
Guinea, "when a boy admires a girl, he will not look at her,
speak to her, or go near her. He, however, shows his love by
athletic bounds, posing, and pursuit, and by the spearing of
imaginary enemies, etc., before her, to attract her attention. If
the girl reciprocates his love she will employ a small girl to
give to him an ugauga gauna, or love invitation, consisting of
an areca-nut whose skin has been marked with different designs,
significant of her wish to ugauga. After dark he is apprised of
the place where the girl awaits him; repairing thither, he seats
himself beside her as close as possible, and they mutually share
in the consumption of the betel-nut." This constitutes betrothal;
henceforth he is free to visit the girl's house and sleep there.
Marriages usually take place at the most important festival of
the year, the kapa, preparations for which are made during the
three previous months, so that there may be a bountiful and
unfailing supply of bananas. Much dancing takes place among the
unmarried girls, who, also, are tattooed at this time over the
whole of the front of the body, special attention being paid to
the lower parts, as a girl who is not properly tattooed there
possesses no attraction in the eyes of young men. Married women
and widows and divorced women are not forbidden to take part in
these dances, but it would be considered ridiculous for them to
do so. (R. E. Guise, "On the Tribes of the Wanigela River,"
Journal of the Anthropological Institute, new series, vol. i,
1899, pp. 209, 214 et seq.)
In the island of Nias in the Malay Archipelago, Modigliani
(mainly on the excellent authority of Sundermann, the missionary)
states, at a wedding "dancing and singing go on throughout the
day. The women, two or three at a time, a little apart from the
men, take part in the dancing, which is very well adapted to
emphasize the curves of the flanks and the breasts, though at the
same time the defects of their legs are exhibited in this series
of rhythmic contortions which constitute a Nias dance. The most
graceful movement they execute is a lascivious undulation of the
flanks while the face and breast are slowly wound round by the
sarong [a sort of skirt] held in the hands, and then again
revealed. These movements are executed with jerks of the wrist
and contortions of the flanks, not always graceful, but which
excite the admiration of the spectators, even of the women, who
form in groups to sing in chorus a compliment, more or less
sincere, in which they say: 'They dance with the grace of birds
when they fly. They dance as the hawk flies; it is lovely to
see.' They sing and dance both at weddings and at other
festivals." (Elio Modigliani, Un Viaggio a Nias, 1890, p. 549.)
In Sumatra Marsden states that chastity prevails more, perhaps,
than among any other people: "But little apparent courtship
precedes their marriages. Their manners do not admit of it, the
boojong and geddas (youths of each sex) being carefully kept
asunder and the latter seldom trusted from under the wings of
their mothers.... The opportunities which the young people have
of seeing and conversing with each other are at the birnbangs,
or public festivals. On these occasions the young people meet
together and dance and sing in company. The men, when determined
in their regard, generally employ an old woman as their agent, by
whom they make known their sentiments, and send presents to the
female of their choice. The parents then interfere, and the
preliminaries being settled, a birnbang takes place. The young
women proceed in a body to the upper end of the balli (hall),
where there is a part divided off for them by a curtain. They do
not always make their appearance before dinner, that time,
previous to a second or third meal, being appropriated to
cock-fighting or other diversions peculiar to men. In the evening
their other amusements take place, of which the dances are the
principal. These are performed either singly or by two women, two
men, or with both mixed. Their motions and attitudes are usually
slow, approaching often to the lascivious. They bend forward as
they dance, and usually carry a fan, which they close and strike
smartly against their elbows at particular cadences.... The
assembly seldom breaks up before daylight and these birnbangs
are often continued for several days together. The young men
frequent them in order to look out for wives, and the lasses of
course set themselves off to the best advantage. They wear their
best silken dresses, of their own weaving, as many ornaments of
filigree as they possess, silver rings upon their arms and legs,
and ear-rings of a particular construction. Their hair is
variously adorned with flowers, and perfumed with oil of
benjamin. Civet is also in repute, but more used by the men. To
render their skin fine, smooth, and soft they make use of a white
cosmetic called poopoor [a mixture of ginger, patch-leaf,
maize, sandal-wood, fairy-cotton, and mush-seed with a basis of
fine rice]." (W. Marsden, History of Sumatra, 1783, p. 230.)
The Alfurus of Seram in the Moluccas, who have not yet been
spoilt by foreign influences, are very fond of music and dancing.
Their maku dances, which take place at night, have been
described by Joest: "Great torches of dry bamboos and piles of
burning resinous leaves light up the giant trees to their very
summits and reveal in the distance the little huts which the
Alfuras have built in the virgin forests, as well as the skulls
of the slain. The women squat together by the fire, making a
deafening noise with the gongs and the drums, while the young
girls, richly adorned with pearls and fragrant flowers, await the
beginning of the dance. Then appear the men and youths without
weapons, but in full war-costume, the girdle freshly marked with
the number of slain enemies. [Among the Alfuras it is the man who
has the largest number of heads to show who has most chance of
winning the object of his love.] They hold each other's arms and
form a circle, which is not, however, completely closed. A song
is started, and with small, slow steps this ring of bodies, like
a winding snake, moves sideways, backward, closes, opens again,
the steps become heavier, the songs and drums louder, the girls
enter the circle and with closed eyes grasp the girdle of their
chosen youths, who clasp them by the hips and necks, the chain
becomes longer and longer, the dance and song more ardent, until
the dancers grow tired and disappear in the gloom of the forest."
(W. Joest, Welt-Fahrten, 1895, Bd. ii, p. 159.)
The women of the New Hebrides dance, or rather sway, to and fro
in the midst of a circle formed by the men, with whom they do not
directly mingle. They leap, show their genital parts to the men,
and imitate the movements of coitus. Meanwhile the men unfasten
the manou (penis-wrap) from their girdles with one hand, with
the other imitating the action of seizing a woman, and, excited
by the women, also go through a mock copulation. Sometimes, it is
said, the dancers masturbate. This takes place amid plaintive
songs, interrupted from time to time by loud cries and howls.
(Untrodden Fields of Anthropology, by a French army-surgeon,
1898, vol. ii, p. 341.)
Among the hill tribes of the Central Indian Hills may be traced a
desire to secure communion with the spirit of fertility embodied
in vegetation. This appears, for instance, in a tree-dance, which
is carried out on a date associated not only with the growths of
the crops or with harvest, but also with the seasonal period for
marriage and the annual Saturnalia. (W. Crooke, "The Hill
Tribes," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, new series,
vol. i, 1899, p. 243.) The association of dancing with seasonal
ritual festivals of a generative character—of which the above is
a fairly typical instance—leads us to another aspect of these
phenomena on which I have elsewhere touched in these Studies
(vol. i) when discussing the "Phenomena of Periodicity."
The Tahitians, when first discovered by Europeans, appear to have
been highly civilized on the sexual side and very licentious. Yet
even at Tahiti, when visited by Cook, the strict primitive
relationship between dancing and courtship still remained
traceable. Cook found "a dance called Timorodee, which is
performed by young girls, whenever eight or ten of them can be
collected together, consisting of motions and gestures beyond
imagination wanton, in the practice of which they are brought up
from their earliest childhood, accompanied by words which, if it
were possible, would more explicitly convey the same ideas. But
the practice which is allowed to the virgin is prohibited to the
woman from the moment that she has put these hopeful lessons in
practice and realized the symbols of the dance." He added,
however, that among the specially privileged class of the Areoi
these limitations were not observed, for he had heard that this
dance was sometimes performed by them as a preliminary to sexual
intercourse. (Hawkesworth, An Account of the Voyages, etc.,
1775, vol. ii, p. 54.)
Among the Marquesans at the marriage of a woman, even of high
rank, she lies with her head at the bridegroom's knees and all
the male guests come in single file, singing and dancing—those
of lower class first and the great chiefs last—and have
connection with the woman. There are often a very large number of
guests and the bride is sometimes so exhausted at the end that
she has to spend several days in bed. (Tautain, "Etude sur le
Mariage chez les Polynésiens," L'Anthropologie,
November-December, 1895, p. 642.) The interesting point for us
here is that singing and dancing are still regarded as a
preliminary to a sexual act. It has been noted that in sexual
matters the Polynesians, when first discovered by Europeans, had
largely gone beyond the primitive stage, and that this applies
also to some of their dances. Thus the hula-hula dance, while
primitive in origin, may probably be compared more to a civilized
than to a primitive dance, since it has become divorced from real
life. In the same way, while the sexual pantomime dance of the
Azimba girls of central Africa has a direct and recognized
relationship to the demands of real life, the somewhat allied
danses du ventre of the Hamitic peoples of northern Africa are
merely an amusement, a play more or less based on the sexual
instinct. At the same time it is important to bear in mind that
there is no rigid distinction between dances that are, and those
that are not, primitive. As Haddon truly points out in a book
containing valuable detailed descriptions of dances, even among
savages dances are so developed that it is difficult to trace
their origin, and at Torres Straits, he remarks, "there are
certainly play or secular dances, dances for pure amusement
without any ulterior design." (A. C. Haddon, Head Hunters, p.
233.) When we remember that dancing had probably become highly
developed long before man appeared on the earth, this difficulty
in determining the precise origin of human dancing cannot cause
surprise.
Spix and Martius described how the Muras of Brazil by moonlight
would engage all night in a Bacchantic dance in a great circle,
hand in hand, the men on one side, the women on the other,
shouting out all the time, the men "Who will marry me?" the
women, "You are a beautiful devil; all women will marry you,"
(Spix and Martius, Reise in Brasilien, 1831, vol. iii, p.
1117.) They also described in detail the dance of the Brazilian
Puris, performed in a state of complete nakedness, the men in a
row, the women in another row behind them. They danced backward
and forward, stamping and singing, at first in a slow and
melancholy style, but gradually with increasing vigor and
excitement. Then the women began to rotate the pelvis backward
and forward, and the men to thrust their bodies forward, the
dance becoming a pantomimic representation of sexual intercourse
(ibid., vol. i, 1823, pp. 373-5).
Among the Apinages of Brazil, also, the women stand in a row,
almost motionless, while the men dance and leap in front of them,
both men and women at the same time singing. (Buscalioni, "Reise
zu den Apinages," Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1899, ht. 6, p.
650.)
Among the Gilas of New Mexico, "when a young man sees a girl whom
he desires for a wife, he first endeavors to gain the good-will
of the parents; this accomplished, he proceeds to serenade his
lady-love, and will often sit for hours, day after day, near her
home, playing on his flute. Should the girl not appear, it is a
sign she rejects him; but if, on the other hand, she comes out to
meet him, he knows that his suit is accepted, and he takes her to
his home. No marriage ceremony is performed."[33] (H. H. Bancroft,
Native Races of the Pacific, vol. i, p. 549.)
"Among the Minnetarees a singular night-dance is, it is said,
sometimes held. During this amusement an opportunity is given to
the squaws to select their favorites. A squaw, as she dances,
will advance to a person with whom she is captivated, either for
his personal attractions or for his renown in arms; she taps him
on the shoulder and immediately runs out of the lodge and betakes
herself to the bushes, followed by the favorite. But if it should
happen that he has a particular preference for another from whom
he expects the same favor, or if he is restrained by a vow, or is
already satiated with indulgence, he politely declines her offer
by placing his hand in her bosom, on which they return to the
assembly and rejoin the dance." It is worthy of remark that in
the language of the Omahas the word watche applies equally to
the amusement of dancing and to sexual intercourse. (S. H. Long,
Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1823, vol. i, p. 337.)
At a Kaffir marriage "singing and dancing last until midnight.
Each party [the bride's and the bridegroom's] dances in front of
the other, but they do not mingle together. As the evening
advances, the spirits and passions of all become greatly excited;
and the power of song, the display of muscular action, and the
gesticulations of the dancers and leapers are something
extraordinary. The manner in which, at certain times, one man or
woman, more excited than the rest, bounds from the ranks, leaps
into the air, bounces forward, and darts backward beggars all
description. These violent exercises usually close about
midnight, when each party retires; generally, each man selects a
paramour, and, indulging in sexual gratification, spends the
remainder of the night." (W. C. Holden, The Kaffir Race, 1866,
p. 192.)
At the initiation of Kaffir boys into manhood, as described by
Holden, they were circumcised. "Cattle are then slaughtered by
the parents, and the boys are plentifully supplied with flesh
meat; a good deal of dancing also ensues at this stage of the
proceedings. The ukut-shila consists in attiring themselves
with the leaves of the wild date in the most fantastic manner;
thus attired they visit each of the kraals to which they belong
in rotation, for the purpose of dancing. These dances are the
most licentious which can be imagined. The women act a prominent
part in them, and endeavor to excite the passions of the novices
by performing all sorts of obscene gesticulations. As soon as the
soreness occasioned by the act of circumcision is healed the boys
are, as it were, let loose upon society, and exempted from nearly
all the restraints of law; so that should they even steal and
slaughter their neighbor's cattle they would not be punished; and
they have the special privilege of seizing by force, if force be
necessary, every unmarried woman they choose, for the purpose of
gratifying their passions." Similar festivals take place at the
initiation of girls. (W. C. Holden, The Kaffir Race, 1866, p.
185.)
The Rev. J. Macdonald has described the ceremonies and customs
attending and following the initiation-rites of a young girl on
her first menstruation among the Zulus between the Tugela and
Delagoa Bay. At this time the girl is called an intonjane. A
beast is killed as a thank-offering to the ancestral spirits,
high revel is held for several days, and dancing and music take
place every night till those engaged in it are all exhausted or
daylight arrives. "After a few days and when dancing has been
discontinued, young men and girls congregate in the outer
apartment of the hut, and begin singing, clapping their hands,
and making a grunting noise to show their joy. At nightfall most
of the young girls who were the intonjane's attendants, leave for
their own homes for the night, to return the following morning.
Thereafter the young men and girls who gathered into the hut in
the afternoon separate into pairs and sleep together in puris
naturalibus, for that is strictly ordained by custom. Sexual
intercourse is not allowed, but what is known as metsha or
ukumetsha is the sole purpose of the novel arrangement.
Ukumetsha may be defined as partial intercourse. Every man who
sleeps thus with a girl has to send to the father of the
intonjane an assegai; should he have formed an attachment for his
partner of the night and wish to pay her his addresses, he sends
two assegais." (Rev. J. Macdonald, "Manners, etc., of South
African Tribes," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol.
xx, November, 1890, p. 117.)
Goncourt reports the account given him by a French officer from
Senegal of the dances of the women, "a dance which is a gentle
oscillation of the body, with gradually increasing excitement,
from time to time a woman darting forward from the group to stand
in front of her lover, contorting herself as though in a
passionate embrace, and, on passing her hand between her thighs,
showing it covered with the moisture of amorous enjoyment."
(Journal, vol. ix, p. 79.) The dance here referred to is
probably the Bamboula dance of the Wolofs, a spring festival
which has been described by Pierre Loti in his Roman d'un
Spahi, and concerning which various details are furnished by a
French army-surgeon, acquainted with Senegal, in his Untrodden
Fields of Anthropology. The dance, as described by the latter,
takes place at night during full moon, the dancers, male and
female, beginning timidly, but, as the beat of the tam-tams and
the encouraging cries of the spectators become louder, the dance
becomes more furious. The native name of the dance is anamalis
fobil, "the dance of the treading drake." "The dancer in his
movements imitates the copulation of the great Indian duck. This
drake has a member of a corkscrew shape, and a peculiar movement
is required to introduce it into the duck. The woman tucks up her
clothes and convulsively agitates the lower part of her body; she
alternately shows her partner her vulva and hides it from him by
a regular movement, backward and forward, of the body."
(Untrodden Fields of Anthropology, Paris, 1898, vol. ii, p.
112.)
Among the Gurus of the Ivory Coast (Gulf of Guinea), Eysséric
observes, dancing is usually carried on at night and more
especially by the men, and on certain occasions women must not
appear, for if they assisted at fetichistic dances "they would
die." Under other circumstances men and women dance together with
ardor, not forming couples but often vis-à-vis: their movements
are lascivious. Even the dances following a funeral tend to
become sexual in character. At the end of the rites attending the
funeral of a chief's son the entire population began to dance
with ever-growing ardor; there was nothing ritualistic or sad in
these contortions, which took on the character of a lascivious
dance. Men and women, boys and girls, young and old, sought to
rival each other in suppleness, and the festival became joyous
and general, as if in celebration of a marriage or a victory.
(Eysséric, "La Côte d'Ivoire," Nouvelles Archives des Missions
Scientifiques, tome ix, 1890, pp. 241-49.)
Mrs. French-Sheldon has described the marriage-rites she observed
at Taveta in East Africa. "During this time the young people
dance and carouse and make themselves generally merry and
promiscuously drunk, carrying the excess of their dissipation to
such an extent that they dance until they fall down in a species
of epileptic fit." It is the privilege of the bridegroom's four
groomsmen to enjoy the bride first, and she is then handed over
to her legitimate husband. This people, both men and women, are
"great dancers and merry-makers; the young fellows will collect
in groups and dance as though in competition one with the other;
one lad will dash out from the circle of his companions, rush
into the middle of a circumscribed space, and scream out 'Wow,
wow!' Another follows him and screams; then a third does the
same. These men will dance with their knees almost rigid, jumping
into the air until their excitement becomes very great and their
energy almost spasmodic, leaving the ground frequently three feet
as they spring into the air. At some of their festivals their
dancing is carried to such an extent that I have seen a young
fellow's muscles quiver from head to foot and his jaws tremble
without any apparent ability on his part to control them, until,
foaming at the mouth and with his eyes rolling, he falls in a
paroxysm upon the ground, to be carried off by his companions."
The writer adds significantly that this dancing "would seem to
emanate from a species of voluptuousness." (Mrs. French-Sheldon,
"Customs among the Natives of East Africa," Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, vol. xxi, May, 1892, pp. 366-67.) It
may be added that among the Suaheli dances are intimately
associated with weddings; the Suaheli dances have been minutely
described by Velten (Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli, pp.
144-175). Among the Akamba of British East Africa, also,
according to H. R. Tate (Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, Jan.-June, 1904, p. 137), the dances are followed by
connection between the young men and girls, approved of by the
parents.
The dances of the Faroe Islanders have been described by Raymond
Pilet ("Rapport sur une Mission en Islande et aux lies Féroë,"
Nouvelles Archives des Missions Scientifiques, tome vii, 1897,
p. 285). These dances, which are entirely decorous, include
poetry, music, and much mimicry, especially of battle. They
sometimes last for two consecutive days and nights. "The dance is
simply a permitted and discreet method by which the young men may
court the young girls. The islander enters the circle and places
himself beside the girl to whom he desires to show his affection;
if he meets with her approval she stays and continues to dance at
his side; if not, she leaves the circle and appears later at
another spot."
Pitre (Usi, etc., del Popolo Siciliano, vol. ii, p. 24, as
quoted in Marro's Pubertà) states that in Sicily the youth who
wishes to marry seeks to give some public proof of his valor and
to show himself off. In Chiaramonte, in evidence of his virile
force, he bears in procession the standard of some confraternity,
a high and richly adorned standard which makes its staff bend to
a semicircle, of such enormous weight that the bearer must walk
in a painfully bent position, his head thrown back and his feet
forward. On reaching the house of his betrothed he makes proof of
his boldness and skill in wielding this extremely heavy standard
which at this moment seems a plaything in his hands, but may yet
prove fatal to him through injury to the loins or other parts.
This same tendency, which we find in so highly developed a degree
among animals and primitive human peoples, is also universal
among the children of even the most civilized human races,
although in a less organized and more confused way. It manifests
itself as "showing-off." Sanford Bell, in his study of the
emotion of love in children, finds that "showing-off" is an
essential element in the love of children in what he terms the
second stage (from the eighth to the twelfth year in girls and
the fourteenth in boys). "It constitutes one of the chief numbers
in the boy's repertory of love charms, and is not totally absent
from the girl's. It is a most common sight to see the boys taxing
their resources in devising means of exposing their own
excellencies, and often doing the most ridiculous and extravagant
things. Running, jumping, dancing, prancing, sparring, wrestling,
turning handsprings, somersaults, climbing, walking fences,
swinging, giving yodels and yells, whistling, imitating the
movements of animals, 'taking people off,' courting danger,
affecting courage are some of its common forms.... This
'showing-off' in the boy lover is the forerunner of the skilful,
purposive, and elaborate means of self-exhibition in the adult
male and the charming coquetry in the adult female, in their
love-relations." (Sanford Bell, "The Emotion of Love Between the
Sexes," American Journal Psychology, July, 1902; cf.
"Showing-off and Bashfulness," Pedagogical Seminary, June,
1903.)
If, in the light of the previous discussion, we examine such facts as
those here collected, we may easily trace throughout the perpetual
operations of the same instinct. It is everywhere the instinctive object
of the male, who is very rarely passive in the process of courtship, to
assure by his activity in display, his energy or skill or beauty, both his
own passion and the passion of the female. Throughout nature sexual
conjugation only takes place after much expenditure of energy.[34] 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. So far from the instinct of tumescence naturally
needing to be crushed, it needs, on the contrary, in either sex to be
submitted to the most elaborate and prolonged processes in order to bring
about those conditions which detumescence relieves. A state of tumescence
is not normally constant, and tumescence must be obtained before
detumescence is possible.[35] The whole object of courtship, of the mutual
approximation and caresses of two persons of the opposite sex, is to
create the state of sexual tumescence.
It will be seen that the most usual method of attaining tumescence—a
method found among the most various kinds of animals, from insects and
birds to man—is some form of the dance. Among the Negritos of the
Philippines dancing is described by A. B. Meyer as "jumping in a circle
around a girl and stamping with the feet"; as we have seen, such a dance
is, essentially, a form of courtship that is widespread among animals.
"The true cake-walk," again, Stanley Hall remarks, "as seen in the South
is perhaps the purest expression of this impulse to courtship antics seen
in man."[36] Muscular movement of which the dance is the highest and most
complex expression, is undoubtedly a method of auto-intoxication of the
very greatest potency. All energetic movement, indeed, tends to produce
active congestion. In its influence on the brain violent exercise may thus
result in a state of intoxication even resembling insanity. As Lagrange
remarks, the visible effects of exercise—heightened color, bright eyes,
resolute air and walk—are those of slight intoxication, and a girl who
has waltzed for a quarter of an hour is in the same condition as if she
had drunk champagne.[37] Groos regards the dance as, above all, an
intoxicating play of movement, possessing, like other methods of
intoxication,—and even apart from its relationship to combat and
love,—the charm of being able to draw us out of our everyday life and
lead us into a self-created dream-world.[38] That the dance is not only a
narcotic, but also a powerful stimulant, we may clearly realize from the
experiments which show that this effect is produced even by much less
complex kinds of muscular movement. This has been clearly determined, for
instance, by Féré, in the course of a long and elaborate series of
experiments dealing with the various influences that modify work as
measured by Mosso's ergograph. This investigator found that muscular
movement is the most efficacious of all stimulants in increasing muscular
power.[39] It is easy to trace these pleasurable effects of combined
narcotic and stimulant motion in everyday life and it is unnecessary to
enumerate its manifestations.[40]
Dancing is so powerful an agent on the organism, as Sergi truly
remarks (Les Emotions, p. 288), because its excitation is
general, because it touches every vital organ, the higher centers
no longer dominating. Primitive dancing differs very widely from
that civilized kind of dancing—finding its extreme type in the
ballet—in which energy is concentrated into the muscles below
the knee. In the finest kinds of primitive dancing all the limbs,
the whole body, take part. For instance, "the Marquisan girls,"
Herman Melville remarked in Typee, "dance all over, as it were;
not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands,
fingers,—ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads. In
good sooth, they so sway their floating forms, arch their necks,
toss aloft their naked arms, and glide, and swim, and whirl,"
etc.
If we turn to a very different people, we find this
characteristic of primitive dancing admirably illustrated by the
missionary, Holden, in the case of Kaffir dances. "So far as I
have observed," he states, "the perfection of the art or science
consists in their being able to put every part of the body into
motion at the same time. And as they are naked, the bystander
has a good opportunity of observing the whole process, which
presents a remarkably odd and grotesque appearance,—the head,
the trunk, the arms, the legs, the hands, the feet, bones,
muscles, sinews, skin, scalp, and hair, each and all in motion at
the same time, with feathers waving, tails of monkeys and wild
beasts dangling, and shields beating, accompanied with whistling,
shouting, and leaping. It would appear as though the whole frame
was hung on springing wires or cords. Dances are held in high
repute, being the natural expression of joyous emotion, or
creating it when absent. There is, perhaps, no exercise in
greater accordance with the sentiments or feelings of a barbarous
people, or more fully calculated to gratify their wild and
ungoverned passions." (W. C. Holden, The Kaffir Race, 1866, p.
274.)
Dancing, as the highest and most complex form of muscular movement, is the
most potent method of obtaining the organic excitement muscular movement
yields, and thus we understand how from the earliest zoölogical ages it
has been brought to the service of the sexual instinct as a mode of
attaining tumescence. Among savages this use of dancing works harmoniously
with the various other uses which dancing possesses in primitive times
and which cause it to occupy so large and vital a part in savage life that
it may possibly even affect the organism to such an extent as to mold the
bones; so that some authorities have associated platycnemia with dancing.
As civilization advances, the other uses of dancing fall away, but it
still remains a sexual stimulant. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy,
brings forward a number of quotations from old authors showing that
dancing is an incitement to love.[41]
The Catholic theologians (Debreyne, Mœchialogie, pp.
190-199) for the most part condemn dancing with much severity. In
Protestant Germany, also, it is held that dance meetings and
musical gatherings are frequent occasions of unchastity. Thus in
the Leipzig district when a girl is asked "How did you fall?" she
nearly always replies "At the dance." (Die
Geschlechtlich-Sittliche Verhältnisse im Deutschen Reiche, vol.
i, p. 196.) It leads quite as often, and no doubt oftener, to
marriage. Rousseau defended it on this account (Nouvelle
Heloïse, bk. iv, letter x); dancing is, he held, an admirable
preliminary to courtship, and the best way for young people to
reveal themselves to each other, in their grace and decorum,
their qualities and defects, while its publicity is its
safeguard. An International Congress of Dancing Masters was held
at Barcelona in 1907. In connection with this Congress, Giraudet,
president of the International Academy of Dancing Masters, issued
an inquiry to over 3000 teachers of dancing throughout the world
in order to ascertain the frequency with which dancing led to
marriage. Of over one million pupils of dancing, either married
or engaged to be married, it was found that in most countries
more than 50 per cent. met their conjugal partners at dances. The
smallest proportion was in Norway, with only 39 per cent., and
the highest, Germany, with 97 per cent. Intermediate are France,
83 per cent.; America, 80 per cent.; Italy, 70 per cent.; Spain,
68 per cent.; Holland, Bulgaria, and England, 65 per cent.;
Australia and Roumania, 60 per cent., etc. Of the teachers
themselves 92 per cent. met their partners at dances. (Quoted
from the Figaro in Beiblatt "Sexualreform" to Geschlecht und
Gesellschaft, 1907, p. 175.)
In civilization, however, dancing is not only an incitement to love and a
preliminary to courtship, but it is often a substitute for the normal
gratification of the sexual instinct, procuring something of the pleasure
and relief of gratified love. In occasional abnormal cases this may be
consciously realized. Thus Sadger, who regards the joy of dancing as a
manifestation of "muscular eroticism," gives the case of a married
hysterical woman of 21, with genital anesthesia, but otherwise strongly
developed skin eroticism, who was a passionate dancer: "I often felt as
though I was giving myself to my partner in dancing," she said, "and was
actually having coitus with him. I have the feeling that in me dancing
takes the place of coitus."[42] Normally something of the same feeling is
experienced by many young women, who will expend a prodigious amount of
energy in dancing, thus procuring, not fatigue, but happiness and
relief.[43] It is significant that, after sexual relations have begun,
girls generally lose much of their ardor in dancing. Even our modern
dances, it is worthy of note, are often of sexual origin; thus, the most
typical of all, the waltz, was originally (as Schaller, quoted by Groos,
states) the close of a complicated dance which "represented the romance of
love, the seeking and the fleeing, the playful sulking and shunning, and
finally the jubilation of the wedding."[44]
Not only is movement itself a source of tumescence, but even the spectacle
of movement tends to produce the same effect. The pleasure of witnessing
movement, as represented by its stimulating effect on the muscular
system,—for states of well-being are accompanied by an increase of
power,—has been found susceptible of exact measurement by Féré. He has
shown that to watch a colored disk when in motion produced stronger
muscular contractions, as measured by the dynamometer, than to watch the
same disk when motionless. Even in the absence of color a similar
influence of movement was noted, and watching a modified metronome
produced a greater increase of work with the ergograph than when working
to the rhythm of the metronome without watching it.[45] This psychological
fact has been independently discovered by advertisers, who seek to impress
the value of their wares on the public by the device of announcing them by
moving colored lights. The pleasure given by the ballet largely depends on
the same fact. Not only is dancing an excitation, but the spectacle of
dancing is itself exciting, and even among savages dances have a public
which becomes almost as passionately excited as the dancers
themselves.[46] It is in virtue of this effect of dancing and similar
movements that we so frequently find, both among the lower animals and
savage man, that to obtain tumescence in both sexes, it is sufficient for
one sex alone, usually the male, to take the active part. This point
attracted the attention of Kulischer many years ago, and he showed how the
dances of the men, among savages, excite the women, who watch them
intently though unobtrusively, and are thus influenced in choosing their
lovers. He was probably the first to insist that in man sexual selection
has taken place mainly through the agency of dances, games, and
festivals.[47]
It is now clear, therefore, why the evacuation theory of the sexual
impulse must necessarily be partial and inadequate. It leaves out of
account the whole of the phenomena connected with tumescence, and those
phenomena constitute the most prolonged, the most important, the most
significant stage of the sexual process. It is during tumescence that the
whole psychology of the sexual impulse is built up; it is as an incident
arising during tumescence and influencing its course that we must probably
regard nearly every sexual aberration. It is with the second stage of the
sexual process, when the instinct of detumescence arises, that the analogy
of evacuation can alone be called in. Even here, that analogy, though
real, is not complete, the nervous element involved in detumescence being
out of all proportion to the extent of the evacuation. The typical act of
evacuation, however, is a nervous process, and when we bear this in mind
we may see whatever truth the evacuation theory possesses. Beaunis classes
the sexual impulse with the "needs of activity," but under this head he
coordinates it with the "need of urination." That is to say, that both
alike are nervous explosions. Micturition, like detumescence, is a
convulsive act, and, like detumescence also, it is certainly connected
with cerebral processes; thus in epilepsy the passage of urine which may
occur (as in a girl described by Gowers with minor attacks during which it
was emitted consciously, but involuntarily) is really a part of the
process.[48]
There appears, indeed, to be a special and intimate connection between the
explosion of sexual detumescence and the explosive energy of the bladder;
so that they may reinforce each other and to a limited extent act
vicariously in relieving each other's tension. It is noteworthy that
nocturnal and diurnal incontinence of urine, as well as "stammering" of
the bladder, are all specially liable to begin or to cease at puberty. In
men and even infants, distention of the bladder favors tumescence by
producing venous congestion, though at the same time it acts as a physical
hindrance to sexual detumescence[49]; in women—probably not from pressure
alone, but from reflex nervous action—a full bladder increases both
sexual excitement and pleasure, and I have been informed by several women
that they have independently discovered this fact for themselves and
acted in accordance with it. Conversely, sexual excitement increases the
explosive force of the bladder, the desire to urinate is aroused, and in
women the sexual orgasm, when very acute and occurring with a full
bladder, is occasionally accompanied, alike in savage and civilized life,
by an involuntary and sometimes full and forcible expulsion of urine.[50]
The desire to urinate may possibly be, as has been said, the normal
accompaniment of sexual excitement in women (just as it is said to be in
mares; so that the Arabs judge that the mare is ready for the stallion
when she urinates immediately on hearing him neigh). The association may
even form the basis of sexual obsessions.[51] I have elsewhere shown that,
of all the influences which increase the expulsive force of the bladder,
sexual excitement is the most powerful.[52] It may also have a reverse
influence and inhibit contraction of the bladder, sometimes in association
with shyness, but also independently of shyness. There is also reason to
suppose that the nervous energy expended in an explosion of the tension
of the sexual organs may sometimes relieve the bladder; it is well
recognized that a full bladder is a factor in producing sexual emissions
during sleep, the explosive energy of the bladder being inhibited and
passing over into the sexual sphere. Conversely, it appears that explosion
of the bladder relieves sexual tension. An explosion of the nervous
centers connected with the contraction of the bladder will relieve nervous
tension generally; there are forms of epilepsy in which the act of
urination constitutes the climax, and Gowers, in dealing with minor
epilepsy, emphasizes the frequency of micturition, which "may occur with
spasmodic energy when there is only the slightest general stiffness,"
especially in women. He adds the significant remark that it "sometimes
seems to relieve the cerebral tension,"[53] and gives the case of a girl
in whom the aura consisted mainly of a desire to urinate; if she could
satisfy this the fit was arrested; if not she lost consciousness and a
severe fit followed.
If micturition may thus relieve nervous tension generally, it is not
surprising that it should relieve the tension of the centers with which it
is most intimately connected. Sérieux records the case of a girl of 12,
possessed by an impulse to masturbation which she was unable to control,
although anxious to conquer it, who only found relief in the act of
urination; this soothed her and to some extent satisfied the sexual
excitement; when the impulse to masturbate was restrained the impulse to
urinate became imperative; she would rise four or five times in the night
for this purpose, and even urinate in bed or in her clothes to obtain the
desired sexual relief.[54] I am acquainted with a lady who had a similar,
but less intense, experience during childhood. Sometimes, especially in
children, the act of urination becomes an act of gratification at the
climax of sexual pleasure, the imitative symbol of detumescence. Thus
Schultze-Malkowsky describes a little girl of 7 who would bribe her girl
companions with little presents to play the part of horses on all fours
while she would ride on their necks with naked thighs in order to obtain
the pleasurable sensation of close contact. With one special friend she
would ride facing backward, and leaning forward to embrace her body
impulsively, and at the same time pressing the neck closely between her
thighs, would urinate.[55] Féré has recorded the interesting case of a man
who, having all his life after puberty been subject to monthly attacks of
sexual excitement, after the age of 45 completely lost the liability to
these manifestations, but found himself subject, in place of them, to
monthly attacks of frequent and copious urination, accompanied by sexual
day-dreams, but by no genital excitement.[56] Such a case admirably
illustrates the compensatory relation of sexual and vesical excitation.
This mutual interaction is easily comprehensible when we recall the very
close nervous connection which exists between the mechanisms of the sexual
organs and the bladder.
Nor are such relationships found to be confined to these two centers; in a
lesser degree the more remote explosive centers are also affected; all
motor influences may spread to related muscles; the convulsion of
laughter, for instance, seems to be often in relation with the sexual
center, and Groos has suggested that the laughter which, especially in the
sexually minded, often follows allusions to the genital sphere is merely
an effort to dispel nascent sexual excitement by liberating an explosion
of nervous energy in another direction.[57] Nervous discharges tend to
spread, or to act vicariously, because the motor centers are more or less
connected.[58] Of all the physiological motor explosions, the sexual
orgasm, or detumescence, is the most massive, powerful, and overwhelming.
So volcanic is it that to the ancient Greek philosophers it seemed to be a
minor kind of epilepsy. The relief of detumescence is not merely the
relief of an evacuation; it is the discharge, by the most powerful
apparatus for nervous explosion in the body, of the energy accumulated and
stored up in the slow process of tumescence, and that discharge
reverberates through all the nervous centers in the organism.
"The sophist of Abdera said that coitus is a slight fit of
epilepsy, judging it to be an incurable disease." (Clement of
Alexandria, Pædagogus, bk. ii, chapter x.) And Cœlius
Aurelianus, one of the chief physicians of antiquity, said that
"coitus is a brief epilepsy." Féré has pointed out that both
these forms of nervous storm are sometimes accompanied by similar
phenomena, by subjective sensations of sight or smell, for
example; and that the two kinds of discharge may even be
combined. (Féré, Les Epileptiques, pp. 283-84; also "Exces
Vénériens et Epilepsie," Comptes-rendus de la Société de
Biologie, April 3, 1897, and the same author's Instinct
Sexuel, pp. 209, 221, and his "Priapisme Epileptique," La
Médecine Moderne, February 4, 1899.) The epileptic convulsion in
some cases involves the sexual mechanism, and it is noteworthy
that epilepsy tends to appear at puberty. In modern times even so
great a physician as Boerhaave said that coitus is a "true
epilepsy," and more recently Roubaud, Hammond, and Kowalevsky
have emphasized the resemblance between coitus and epilepsy,
though without identifying the two states. Some authorities have
considered that coitus is a cause of epilepsy, but this is denied
by Christian, Strümpell, and Löwenfeld. (Löwenfeld, Sexualleben
und Nervenleiden, 1899, p. 68.) Féré has recorded the case of a
youth in whom the adoption of the practice of masturbation,
several times a day, was followed by epileptic attacks which
ceased when masturbation was abandoned. (Féré, Comptes-rendus de
la Socitété de Biologie, April 3, 1897.)
It seems unprofitable at present to attempt any more fundamental analysis
of the sexual impulse. Beaunis, in the work already quoted, vaguely
suggests that we ought possibly to connect the sexual excitation which
leads the male to seek the female with chemical action, either exercised
directly on the protoplasm of the organism or indirectly by the
intermediary of the nervous system, and especially by smell in the higher
animals. Clevenger, Spitzka, Kiernan, and others have also regarded the
sexual impulse as protoplasmic hunger, tracing it back to the presexual
times when one protozoal form absorbed another. In the same way Joanny
Roux, insisting that the sexual need is a need of the whole organism, and
that "we love with the whole of our body," compares the sexual instinct to
hunger, and distinguishes between "sexual hunger" affecting the whole
system and "sexual appetite" as a more localized desire; he concludes that
the sexual need is an aspect of the nutritive need.[59] Useful as these
views are as a protest against too crude and narrow a conception of the
part played by the sexual impulse, they carry us into a speculative region
where proof is difficult.
We are now, however, at all events, in a better position to define the
contents of the sexual impulse. We see that there are certainly, as Moll
has indicated, two constituents in that impulse; but, instead of being
unrelated, or only distantly related, we see that they are really so
intimately connected as to form two distinct stages in the same process: a
first stage, in which—usually under the parallel influence of internal
and external stimuli—images, desires, and ideals grow up within the mind,
while the organism generally is charged with energy and the sexual
apparatus congested with blood; and a second stage, in which the sexual
apparatus is discharged amid profound sexual excitement, followed by deep
organic relief. By the first process is constituted the tension which the
second process relieves. It seems best to call the first impulse the
process of tumescence; the second the process of detumescence.[60] The
first, taking on usually a more active form in the male, has the double
object of bringing the male himself into the condition in which discharge
becomes imperative, and at the same time arousing in the female a similar
ardent state of emotional excitement and sexual turgescence. The second
process has the object, directly, of discharging the tension thus produced
and, indirectly, of effecting the act by which the race is propagated.
It seems to me that this is at present the most satisfactory way in which
we can attempt to define the sexual impulse.
[1]
C. Lloyd Morgan, "Instinct and Intelligence in Animals,"
Nature, February 3, 1898.
[2]
Essais, livre iii, ch. v.
[3]
Féré, "La Prédisposition dans l'étiologie des perversions
sexuelles," Revue de médecine, 1898. In his more recent work on the
evolution and dissolution of the sexual instinct Féré perhaps slightly
modified his position by stating that "the sexual appetite is, above all,
a general need of the organism based on a sensation of fullness, a sort of
need of evacuation," L'Instinct sexuel, 1899, p. 6. Löwenfeld (Ueber
die Sexuelle Konstitution, p. 30) gives a qualified acceptance to the
excretory theory, as also Rohleder (Die Zeugung beim Menschen, p. 25).
[4]
Goltz, Centralblatt für die med. Wissenschaften, 1865, No.
19, and 1866, No. 18; also Beiträge zur Lehre von den Funktionen des
Frosches, Berlin, 1869, p. 20.
[5]
J. Tarchanoff, "Zur Physiologie des Geschlechtsapparatus des
Frosches," Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie, 1887, vol. xl, p. 330.
[6]
E. Steinach, "Untersuchungen zur vergleichenden Physiologie
der männlicher Geschlechtsorgane insbesondere der accessorischen
Geschlechtsdrüsen," Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie, vol. lvi, 1894,
pp. 304-338.
[7]
See, e.g., Shattock and Seligmann, "The Acquirement of
Secondary Sexual Characters," Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol.
lxxiii, 1904, p. 49.
[8]
For facts bearing on this point, see Guinard, art.
"Castration," Richet's Dictionnaire de Physiologie. The general results
of castration are summarized by Robert Müller in ch. vii of his
Sexualbiologie; also by F. H. A. Marshall, The Physiology of
Reproduction, ch, ix; see also E. Pittard, "Les Skoptzy,"
L'Anthropologie, 1903, p. 463.
[9]
For an ancient discussion of this point, see Schurig,
Spermatologia, 1720, cap. ix.
[10]
J. J. Matignon, Superstition, Crime, et Misère en Chine,
"Les Eunuques du Palais Impérial de Pékin," 1901.
[11]
P. Marie, "Eunuchisme et Erotisme," Nouvelle Iconographie
de la Salpêtrière, 1906, No. 5, and Progrès médical, Jan. 26, 1907.
[12]
Pedagogical Seminary, July, 1897, p. 121.
[13]
See, for instance, the case reported in another volume of
these Studies ("Sexual Inversion"), in which castration was performed on
a sexual invert without effecting any change.
[14]
Guinard, art. "Castration," Dictionnaire de Physiologie.
[15]
M. A. Colman, Medical Standard, August, 1895; Clara Barrus,
American Journal of Insanity, April, 1895; Macnaughton-Jones, British
Gynæcological Journal, August, 1902; W. G. Bridgman, Medical Standard,
1896; J. M. Cotterill, British Medical Journal, April 7, 1900 (also
private communication); Paul F. Mundé, American Journal of Obstetrics,
March, 1899.
[16]
See Swale Vincent, Internal Secretion and the Ductless
Glands, 1912; F. H. A. Marshall, The Physiology of Reproduction, 1910,
ch. ix; Munzer, Berliner klinische Wochenschrift, Nov., 1910; C. Sajous,
The Internal Secretions, vol. i, 1911. The adrenal glands have been
fully and interestingly studied by Glynn, Quarterly Journal of Medicine,
Jan., 1912; the thyroid, by Ewan Waller, Practitioner, Aug., 1912; the
internal secretion of the ovary, by A. Louise McIlroy, Proceedings Royal
Society Medicine, July, 1912. For a discussion at the Neurology Section
of the British Medical Association Meeting, 1912, see British Medical
Journal, Nov. 16, 1912.
[17]
Since this was written I have come across a passage in
Hampa (p. 228), by Rafael Salillas, the Spanish sociologist, which shows
that the analogy has been detected by the popular mind and been embodied
in popular language: "A significant anatomico-physiological concordance
supposes a resemblance between the mouth and the sexual organs of a woman,
between coitus and the ingestion of food, and between foods which do not
require mastication and the spermatic ejaculation; these representations
find expression in the popular name papo given to women's genital
organs. 'Papo' is the crop of birds, and is derived from 'papar' (Latin,
papare), to eat soft food such as we call pap. With this representation
of infantile food is connected the term leche [milk] as applied to the
ejaculated genital fluid." Cleland, it may be added, in the most
remarkable of English erotic novels, The Memoirs of Fanny Hill, refers
to "the compressive exsuction with which the sensitive mechanism of that
part [the vagina] thirstily draws and drains the nipple of Love," and
proceeds to compare it to the action of the child at the breast. It
appears that, in some parts of the animal world at least, there is a real
analogy of formation between the oral and vaginal ends of the trunk. This
is notably the case in some insects, and the point has been elaborately
discussed by Walter Wesché, "The Genitalia of Both the Sexes in Diptera,
and their Relation to the Armature of the Mouth," Transactions of the
Linnean Society, second series, vol. ix, Zoölogy, 1906.
[18]
Näcke now expresses himself very dubiously on the point;
see, e.g., Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie, 1905, p. 186.
[19]
Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, Berlin, 1897-98.
[20]
Moll adopts the term "impulse of detumescence"
(Detumescenztrieb) instead of "impulse of ejaculation," because in women
there is either no ejaculation or it cannot be regarded as essential.
[21]
I quote from the second edition, as issued in 1881.
[22]
This is the theory which by many has alone been seen in
Darwin's Descent of Man. Thus even his friend Wallace states
unconditionally (Tropical Nature, p. 193) that Darwin accepted a
"voluntary or conscious sexual selection," and seems to repeat the same
statement in Darwinism (1889), p. 283. Lloyd Morgan, in his discussion
of the pairing instinct in Habit and Instinct (1896), seems also only to
see this side of Darwin's statement.
[23]
In his Variation of Animals and Plants under
Domestication, Darwin was puzzled by the fact that, in captivity, animals
often copulate without conceiving and failed to connect that fact with the
processes behind his own theory of sexual selection.
[24]
Beaunis, Sensations Internes, ch. v, "Besoins Sexuels,"
1889. It may be noted that many years earlier Burdach (in his Physiologie
als Erfahrungswissenschaft, 1826) had recognized that the activity of the
male favored procreation, and that mental and physical excitement seemed
to have the same effect in the female also.
[25]
It is scarcely necessary to point out that this is too
extreme a position. As J. G. Millais remarks of ducks (Natural History of
British Ducks, p. 45), in courtship "success in winning the admiration of
the female is rather a matter of persistent and active attention than
physical force," though the males occasionally fight over the female. The
ruff (Machetes pugnax) is a pugnacious bird, as his name indicates. Yet,
the reeve, the female of this species, is, as E. Selous shows ("Sexual
Selection in Birds," Zoölogist, Feb. and May, 1907), completely mistress
of the situation. "She seems the plain and unconcerned little mistress of
a numerous and handsome seraglio, each member of which, however he flounce
and bounce, can only wait to be chosen." Any fighting among the males is
only incidental and is not a factor in selection. Moreover, as R. Müller
points out (loc. cit., p. 290), fighting would not usually attain the
end desired, for if the males expend their time and strength in a serious
combat they merely afford a third less pugnacious male a better
opportunity of running off with the prize.
[26]
L. Tillier, L'Instinct Sexuel, 1889, pp. 74, 118, 119, 124
et seq., 289.
[27]
K. Groos, Die Spiele der Thiere, 1896; Die Spiele der
Menschen, 1899; both are translated into English.
[28]
Prof. H. E. Ziegler, in a private letter to Professor Groos,
Spiele der Thiere, p. 202.
[29]
Die Spiele der Thiere, p. 244. This had been briefly
pointed out by earlier writers. Thus, Haeckel (Gen. Morph., ii, p. 244)
remarked that fighting for females is a special or modified kind of
struggle for existence, and that it acts on both sexes.
[30]
It may be added that in the human species, as Bray remarks
("Le Beau dans la Nature," Revue Philosophique, October, 1901, p. 403),
"the hymen would seem to tend to the same end, as if nature had wished to
reinforce by a natural obstacle the moral restraint of modesty, so that
only the vigorous male could insure his reproduction." There can be no
doubt that among many animals pairing is delayed so far as possible until
maturity is reached. "It is a strict rule amongst birds," remarks J. G.
Millais (op. cit., p. 46), "that they do not breed until both sexes have
attained the perfect adult plumage." Until that happens, it seems
probable, the conditions for sexual excitation are not fully established.
We know little, says Howard (Zoölogist, 1903, p. 407), of the age at
which birds begin to breed, but it is known that "there are yearly great
numbers of individuals who do not breed, and the evidence seems to show
that such individuals are immature."
[31]
A. Marro, La Puberté, 1901, p. 464.
[32]
Lloyd Morgan, Animal Behavior, 1900, pp. 264-5. It may be
added that, on the esthetic side, Hirn, in his study (The Origins of
Art, 1900), reaches conclusions which likewise, in the main, concord with
those of Groos.
[33]
It may be noted that the marriage ceremony itself is often
of the nature of a courtship, a symbolic courtship, embodying a method of
attaining tumescence. As Crawley, who has brought out this point, puts it,
"Marriage-rites of union are essentially identical with love charms," and
he refers in illustration to the custom of the Australian Arunta, among
whom the man or woman by making music on the bull-roarer compels a person
of the opposite sex to court him or her, the marriage being thus
completed. (E. Crawley, The Mystic Rose, p. 318.)
[34]
The more carefully animals are observed, the more often this
is found to be the case, even with respect to species which possess no
obvious and elaborate process for obtaining tumescence. See, for instance,
the detailed and very instructive account—too long to quote here—given
by E. Selous of the preliminaries to intercourse practised by a pair of
great crested grebes, while nest-building. Intercourse only took place
with much difficulty, after many fruitless invitations, more usually given
by the female. ("Observational Diary of the Habits of the Great Crested
Grebe," Zöologist, September, 1901.) It is exactly the same with
savages. The observation of Foley (Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie
de Paris, November 6, 1879) that in savages "sexual erethism is very
difficult" is of great significance and certainly in accordance with the
facts. This difficulty of erethism is the real cause of many savage
practices which to the civilized person often seem perverse; the women of
the Caroline Islands, for instance, as described by Finsch, require the
tongue or even the teeth to be applied to the clitoris, or a great ant to
be applied to bite the parts, in order to stimulate orgasm. Westermarck,
after quoting a remark of Mariner's concerning the women of Tonga,—"it
must not be supposed that these women are always easily won; the greatest
attentions and the most fervent solicitations are sometimes requisite,
even though there be no other lover in the way,"—adds that these words
"hold true for a great many, not to say all, savage and barbarous races
now existing." (Human Marriage, p. 163.) The old notions, however, as to
the sexual licentiousness of peoples living in natural conditions have
scarcely yet disappeared. See Appendix A; "The Sexual Instinct in
Savages."
[35]
In men a certain degree of tumescence is essential before
coitus can be effected at all; in women, though tumescence is not
essential to coitus, it is essential to orgasm and the accompanying
physical and psychic relief. The preference which women often experience
for prolonged coitus is not, as might possibly be imagined, due to
sensuality, but has a profound physiological basis.
[36]
Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. i, p. 223.
[37]
See Lagrange's Physiology of Bodily Exercise, especially
chapter ii. It is a significant fact that, as Sergi remarks (Les
Emotions, p. 330), the physiological results of dancing are identical
with the physiological results of pleasure.
[38]
Groos, Spiele der Menschen, p. 112. Zmigrodzki (Die
Mutter bei den Volkern des Arischen Stammes, p. 414 et seq.) has an
interesting passage describing the dance—especially the Russian dance—in
its orgiastic aspects.
[39]
Féré, "L'Influence sur le Travail Volontaire d'un muscle de
l'activité d'autres muscles," Nouvelles Iconographie de la Salpêtrière,
1901.
[40]
"The sensation of motion," Kline remarks ("The Migratory
Impulse," American Journal of Psychology, October, 1898, p. 62), "as yet
but little studied from a pleasure-pain standpoint, is undoubtedly a
pleasure-giving sensation. For Aristippus the end of life is pleasure,
which he defines as gentle motion. Motherhood long ago discovered its
virtue as furnished by the cradle. Galloping to town on the parental knee
is a pleasing pastime in every nursery. The several varieties of swings,
the hammock, see-saw, flying-jenny, merry-go-round, shooting the chutes,
sailing, coasting, rowing, and skating, together with the fondness of
children for rotating rapidly in one spot until dizzy and for jumping from
high places, are all devices and sports for stimulating the sense of
motion. In most of these modes of motion the body is passive or
semipassive, save in such motions as skating and rotating on the feet. The
passiveness of the body precludes any important contribution of stimuli
from kinesthetic sources. The stimuli are probably furnished, as Dr. Hall
and others have suggested, by a redistribution of fluid pressure (due to
the unusual motions and positions of the body) to the inner walls of the
several vascular systems of the body."
[41]
Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii., sect. ii, mem. ii, subs.
iv.
[42]
Sadger, "Haut-, Schleimhaut-, und Muskel-erotik," Jahrbuch
für psychoanalytische Forschungen, Bd. iii, 1912, p. 556.
[43]
Marro (Pubertà, p. 367 et seq.) has some observations on
this point. It was an insight into this action of dancing which led the
Spanish clergy of the eighteenth century to encourage the national
enthusiasm for dancing (as Baretti informs us) in the interests of
morality.
[44]
It is scarcely necessary to remark that a primitive dance,
even when associated with courtship, is not necessarily a sexual
pantomime; as Wallaschek, in his comprehensive survey of primitive dances,
observes, it is more usually an animal pantomime, but nonetheless
connected with the sexual instinct, separation of the sexes, also, being
no proof to the contrary. (Wallaschek, Primitive Music, pp. 211-13.)
Grosse (Anfänge der Kunst, English translation, p. 228) has pointed out
that the best dancer would be the best fighter and hunter, and that sexual
selection and natural selection would thus work in harmony.
[45]
Féré, "Le plaisir de la vue du Mouvement," Comptes-rendus
de la Société de Biologie, November 2, 1901; also Travail et Plaisir,
ch. xxix.
[46]
Groos repeatedly emphasizes the significance of this fact
(Spiele der Menschen, pp. 81-9, 460 et seq.); Grosse (Anfänge der
Kunst, p. 215) had previously made some remarks on this point.
[47]
M. Kulischer, "Die Geschlechtliche Zuchtwahl bei den
Menschen in der Urzeit," Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1876, p. 140 et
seq.
[48]
Sir W. R. Gowers, Epilepsy, 2d ed., 1901, pp. 61, 138.
[49]
Guyon, Leçons Cliniques sur les Maladies des Voies
Urinaires, 3d ed., 1896, vol. ii, p. 397.
[50]
See, e.g., Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel, pp. 222-23: Brantôme
was probably the first writer in modern times who referred to this
phenomenon. MacGillicuddy (Functional Disorders of the Nervous System in
Women, p. 110) refers to the case of a lady who always had sudden and
uncontrollable expulsion of urine whenever her husband even began to
perform the marital act, on which account he finally ceased intercourse
with her. Kubary states that in Ponape (Western Carolines) the men are
accustomed to titillate the vulva of their women with the tongue until the
excitement is so intense that involuntary emission of urine takes place;
this is regarded as the proper moment for intercourse.
[51]
Thus Pitres and Régis (Transactions of the International
Medical Congress, Moscow, vol. iv, p. 19) record the case of a young girl
whose life was for some years tormented by a groundless fear of
experiencing an irresistible desire to urinate. This obsession arose from
once seeing at a theater a man whom she liked, and being overcome by
sexual feeling accompanied by so strong a desire to urinate that she had
to leave the theater. An exactly similar case in a young woman of erotic
temperament, but prudish, has been recorded by Freud (Zur Neurosenlehre,
Bd. i, p. 54). Morbid obsessions of modesty involving the urinary sphere
and appearing at puberty are evidently based on transformed sexual
emotion. Such a case has been recorded by Marandon de Montyel (Archives
de Neurologie, vol. xii, 1901, p. 36); this lady, who was of somewhat
neuropathic temperament, from puberty onward, in order to be able to
urinate found it necessary not only to be absolutely alone, but to feel
assured that no one even knew what was taking place.
[52]
H. Ellis, "The Bladder as a Dynamometer," American Journal
of Dermatology, May, 1902.
[53]
Sir W. Gowers, "Minor Epilepsy," British Medical Journal,
January 6, 1900; ib., Epilepsy, 2d ed., 1901, p. 106; see also H.
Ellis, art. "Urinary Bladder, Influence of the Mind on the," in Tuke's
Dictionary of Psychological Medicine.
[54]
Sérieux, Recherches Cliniques sur les Anomalies de
l'Instinct Sexuel, p. 22.
[55]
Emil Schultze-Malkowsky, "Der Sexuelle Trieb in
Kindesalter," Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, vol. ii, part 8, p. 372.
[56]
Féré, "Note sur un Cas de Periodicité Sexuelle chez
l'Homme," Comptes-rendus Société de Biologie, July 23, 1904.
[57]
It is a familiar fact that, in women, occasionally, a
violent explosion of laughter may be propagated to the bladder-center and
produce urination. "She laughed till she nearly wetted the floor," I have
heard a young woman in the country say, evidently using without thought a
familiar locution. Professor Bechterew has recorded the case of a young
married lady who, from childhood, wherever she might be—in friends'
houses, in the street, in her own drawing-room—had always experienced an
involuntary and forcible emission of urine, which could not be stopped or
controlled, whenever she laughed; the bladder was quite sound and no
muscular effort produced the same result. (W. Bechterew, Neurologisches
Centralblatt, 1899.) In women these relationships are most easily
observed, partly because in them the explosive centers are more easily
discharged, and partly, it is probable, so far as the bladder is
concerned, because, although after death the resistance to the emission of
urine is notably less in women, during life about the same amount of force
is necessary in both sexes; so that a greater amount of energy flows to
the bladder in women, and any nervous storm or disturbance is thus
specially apt to affect the bladder.
[58]
"Every pain," remarks Marie de Manacéine, "produces a number
of movements which are apparently useless: we cry out, we groan, we move
our limbs, we throw ourselves from one side to the other, and at bottom
all these movements are logical because by interrupting and breaking our
attention they render us less sensitive to the pain. In the days before
chloroform, skillful surgeons requested their patients to cry out during
the operation, as we are told by Gratiolet, who could not explain so
strange a fact, for in his time the antagonism of movements and attention
was not recognized." (Marie de Manacéine, Archives Italiennes de
Biologie, 1894, p. 250.) This antagonism of attention by movement is but
another way of expressing the vicarious relationship of motor discharges.
[59]
Joanny Roux, Psychologie de l'Instinct Sexuel, 1899, pp.
22-23. It is disputed whether hunger is located in the whole organism, and
powerful arguments have been brought against the view. (W. Cannon, "The
Nature of Hunger," Popular Science Monthly, Sept., 1912.) Thirst is
usually regarded as organic (A. Mayer, La Soif, 1901).
[60]
If there is any objection to these terms it is chiefly
because they have reference to vascular congestion rather than to the
underlying nervous charging and discharging, which is equally fundamental,
and in man more prominent than the vascular phenomena. |
