Page:The Way of a Virgin.djvu/136

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EXCURSUS.

if in one-tenth of the instance of intercourse they [women] experience the slightest pleasurable sensation from first to last.' (Hammond, Sexual Impotence).

"Lombroso and Ferrero consider that sexual sensibility is… less pronunced in women… Woman is naturally and organically frigid……' (Lombroso and Ferrero, La Donna Delinquente, la Prostituta, e la Donna Normale, 1893). Krafft-Ebing was of opinion that women requires less sexual satisfaction than men, being less sensual……'The sensuality of men,' Moll state, 'is in my opinion very much greater than that of women.'

"Adler, who discusses the question at some length, decides that the sexual needs of women are less than those of men, though in some cases the orgasm in quantity and quality greatly exceeds that of men. He believes, not only that the sexual impulse in women is absolutely less than in men, and requires stronger stimulation to arouse it, but that also it suffers from a latency due to inhibition, which acts like a foreign body in the brain…… and demands great skill in the man who is to awaken the woman to love."

Here we have one side of the question—a side strangely at variance with ancient thought, romance and history. The supposed frigidity of women is characterised by Havelock Ellis as 'an opinion of very recent growth……confined, on the whole, to a few countries.' (Studies, vol. 3, page 196). He goes on to quote Brierre de Boismont, who wrote: 'Turn to history, and on every page you will be able to recognise the predominance of erotic ideas in women.' It is the same to-day, he adds, and he attributes it to the fact that men are more

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