Havelock Ellis - Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 Analysis of the Sexual Impulse, Love and Pain, the Sexual Impulse in Women (TREDITION CLASSICS)

Title: Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6)

Author: Havelock Ellis

Release Date: October 8, 2004 [eBook #13612]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME 3 (OF 6)***

This volume has been thoroughly revised for the present edition and considerably enlarged throughout, in order to render it more accurate and more illustrative, while bringing it fairly up to date with reference to scientific investigation. Numerous histories have also been added to the Appendix.

It has not been found necessary to modify the main doctrines set forth ten years ago. At the same time, however, it may be mentioned, as regards the first study in the volume, that our knowledge of the physiological mechanism of the sexual instinct has been revolutionized during recent years. This is due to the investigations that have been made, and the deductions that have been built up, concerning the part played by hormones, or internal secretions of the ductless glands, in the physical production of the sexual instinct and the secondary sexual characters. The conception of the psychology of the sexual impulse here set forth, while correlated to terms of a physical process of tumescence and detumescence, may be said to be independent of the ultimate physiological origins of that process. But we cannot fail to realize the bearing of physiological chemistry in this field; and the doctrine of internal secretions, since it may throw light on many complex problems presented by the sexual instinct, is full of interest for us.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

June, 1913.

The present volume of Studies deals with some of the most essential problems of sexual psychology. The Analysis of the Sexual Impulse is fundamental. Unless we comprehend the exact process which is being worked out beneath the shifting and multifold phenomena presented to us we can never hope to grasp in their true relations any of the normal or abnormal manifestations of this instinct. I do not claim that the conception of the process here stated is novel or original. Indeed, even since I began to work it out some years ago, various investigators in these fields, especially in Germany, have deprived it of any novelty it might otherwise have possessed, while at the same time aiding me in reaching a more precise statement. This is to me a cause of satisfaction. On so fundamental a matter I should have been sorry to find myself tending to a peculiar and individual standpoint. It is a source of gratification to me that the positions I have reached are those toward which current intelligent and scientific opinions are tending. Any originality in my study of this problem can only lie in the bringing together of elements from somewhat diverse fields. I shall be content if it is found that I have attained a fairly balanced, general, and judicial statement of these main factors in the sexual instinct.

In the study of Love and Pain I have discussed the sources of those aberrations which are commonly called, not altogether happily, "sadism" and "masochism." Here we are brought before the most extreme and perhaps the most widely known group of sexual perversions. I have considered them from the medico-legal standpoint, because that has already been done by other writers whose works are accessible. I have preferred to show how these aberrations may be explained; how they may be linked on to normal and fundamental aspects of the sexual impulse; and, indeed, in their elementary forms, may themselves be regarded as normal. In some degree they are present, in every case, at some point of sexual development; their threads are subtly woven in and out of the whole psychological process of sex. I have made no attempt to reduce their complexity to a simplicity that would be fallacious. I hope that my attempt to unravel these long and tangled threads will be found to make them fairly clear.

In the third study, on The Sexual Impulse in Women, we approach a practical question of applied sexual psychology, and a question of the first importance. No doubt the sex impulse in men is of great moment from the social point of view. It is, however, fairly obvious and well understood. The impulse in women is not only of at least equal moment, but it is far more obscure. The natural difficulties of the subject have been increased by the assumption of most writers who have touched itcasually and hurriedly, for the most partthat the only differences to be sought in the sexual impulse in man and in woman are quantitative differences. I have pointed out that we may more profitably seek for qualitative differences, and have endeavored to indicate such of these differences as seem to be of significance.

In an Appendix will be found a selection of histories of more or less normal sexual development. Histories of gross sexual perversion have often been presented in books devoted to the sexual instinct; it has not hitherto been usual to inquire into the facts of normal sexual development. Yet it is concerning normal sexual development that our ignorance is greatest, and the innovation can scarcely need justification. I have inserted these histories not only because many of them are highly instructive in themselves, but also because they exhibit the nature of the material on which my work is mainly founded.

I am indebted to many correspondents, medical and other, in various parts of the world, for much valuable assistance. When they have permitted me to do so I have usually mentioned their names in the text. This has not been possible in the case of many women friends and correspondents, to whom, however, my debt is very great. Nature has put upon women the greater part of the burden of sexual reproduction; they have consequently become the supreme authorities on all matters in which the sexual emotions come into question. Many circumstances, however, that are fairly obvious, conspire to make it difficult for women to assert publicly the wisdom and knowledge which, in matters of love, the experiences of life have brought to them. The ladies who, in all earnestness and sincerity, write books on these questions are often the last people to whom we should go as the representatives of their sex; those who know most have written least. I can therefore but express again, as in previous volumes I have expressed before, my deep gratitude to these anonymous collaborators who have aided me in throwing light on a field of human life which is of such primary social importance and is yet so dimly visible.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

Carbis Water,

Lelant, Cornwall, England.

Definition of InstinctThe Sexual Impulse a Factor of the Sexual InstinctTheory of the Sexual Impulse as an Impulse of EvacuationThe Evidence in Support of this Theory InadequateThe Sexual Impulse to Some Extent Independent of the Sexual GlandsThe Sexual Impulse in Castrated Animals and MenThe Sexual Impulse in Castrated Women, After the Menopause, and in the Congenital Absence of the Sexual GlandsThe Internal SecretionsAnalogy between the Sexual Relationship and that of the Suckling Mother and her ChildThe Theory of the Sexual Impulse as a Reproductive ImpulseThis Theory UntenableMoll's DefinitionThe Impulse of DetumescenceThe Impulse of ContrectationModification of this Theory ProposedIts Relation to Darwin's Sexual SelectionThe Essential Element in Darwin's ConceptionSummary of the History of the Doctrine of Sexual Selection. Its Psychological AspectSexual Selection a Part of Natural SelectionThe Fundamental Importance of TumescenceIllustrated by the Phenomena of Courtship in Animals and in ManThe Object of Courtship is to Produce Sexual TumescenceThe Primitive Significance of Dancing in Animals and ManDancing is a Potent Agent for Producing TumescenceThe Element of Truth in the Comparison of the Sexual Impulse with an Evacuation, Especially of the BladderBoth Essentially Involve Nervous ExplosionsTheir Intimate and Sometimes Vicarious RelationshipsAnalogy between Coitus and EpilepsyAnalogy of the Sexual Impulse to HungerFinal Object of the Impulses of Tumescence and Detumescence.