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generalized aphrodisiac sense comparable to the specialized
sexual orgasm. Bronson refers to the significant fact that
itching occurs so frequently in the sexual region, and states
that sexual neurasthenia is sometimes the only discoverable cause
of genital and anal pruritus. (Cf. discussion on pruritus,
_British Medical Journal_, November 30, 1895.) Gilman, again
(_American Journal of Psychology_, vi, p. 22), considers that
scratching, as well as sneezing, is comparable to coitus.
The sexual embrace has an intimate connection with the phenomena of
ticklishness which could not fail to be recognized. This connection is,
indeed, the basis of Spinoza's famous definition of love,--"_Amor est
titillatio quædam concomitante idea causæ externæ_,"--a statement which
seems to be reflected in Chamfort's definition of love as "_l'échange de
deux fantaisies, et le contact de deux epidermes_." The sexual act, says
Gowers, is, in fact, a skin reflex.[14] "The sexual parts," Hall and Allin
state, "have a ticklishness as unique as their function and as keen as
their importance." Herrick finds the supreme illustration of the summation
and irradiation theory of tickling in the phenomena of erotic excitement,
and points out that in harmony with this the skin of the sexual region is,
as Dogiel has shown, that portion of the body in which the tactile
corpuscles are most thoroughly and elaborately provided with anastomosing
fibres. It has been pointed out[15] that, when ordinary tactile
sensibility is partially abolished,--especially in hemianæsthesia in the
insane,--some sexual disturbance is specially apt to be found in
association.
In young children, in girls even when they are no longer children, and
occasionally in men, tickling may be a source of acute pleasure, which in
very early life is not sexual, but later tends to become so under
circumstances predisposing to the production of erotic emotion, and
especially when the nervous system is keyed up to a high tone favorable
for the production of the maximum effect of tickling.
"When young," writes a lady aged 28, "I was extremely fond of
being tickled, and I am to some extent still.
Between the ages of
10 and 12 it gave me exquisite pleasure, which I now regard as
sexual in character. I used to bribe my younger sister to tickle
my feet until she was tired."
Stanley Hall and Allin in their investigation of the phenomena of
tickling, largely carried out among young women teachers, found
that in 60 clearly marked cases ticklishness was more marked at
one time than another, "as when they have been
'carrying on,' or
are in a happy mood, are nervous or unwell, after a good meal,
when being washed, when in perfect health, when with people they
like, etc." (Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," _American
Journal of Psychology_, October, 1897.) It will be observed that
most of the conditions mentioned are such as would be favorable
to excitations of an emotionally sexual character.
The palms of the hands may be very ticklish during sexual
excitement, especially in women, and Moll (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, p. 180) remarks that in some men titillation
of the skin of the back, of the feet, and even of the forehead
evokes erotic feelings.
It may be added that, as might be expected, titillation of the
skin often has the same significance in animals as in man. "In
some animals," remarks Louis Robinson (art.
"Ticklishness,"
_Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_), "local titillation of
the skin, though in parts remote from the reproductive organs,
plainly acts indirectly upon them as a stimulus.
Thus, Harvey
records that, by stroking the back of a favorite parrot (which he
had possessed for years and supposed to be a male), he not only
gave the bird gratification,--which was the sole intention of the
illustrious physiologist,--but also caused it to reveal its sex
by laying an egg."
The sexual significance of tickling is very clearly indicated by the fact
that the general ticklishness of the body, which is so marked in children
and in young girls, greatly diminishes, as a rule, after sexual
relationships have been established. Dr. Gina Lombroso, who investigated
the cutaneous reflexes, found that both the abdominal and plantar
reflexes, which are well marked in childhood and in young people between
the ages of 15 and 18, were much diminished in older persons, and to a
greater extent in women than in men, to a greater extent in the abdominal
region than on the soles of the feet;[16] her results do not directly show
the influence of sexual relationship, but they have an indirect bearing
which is worth noting.
The difference in ticklishness between the unmarried woman and the married
woman corresponds to their difference in degree of modesty. Both modesty
and ticklishness may be said to be characters which are no longer needed.
From this point of view the general ticklishness of the skin is a kind of
body modesty. It is so even apart from any sexual significance of
tickling, and Louis Robinson has pointed out that in young apes, puppies,
and other like animals the most ticklish regions correspond to the most
vulnerable spots in a fight, and that consequently in the mock fights of
early life skill in defending these spots is attained.
In Iceland, according to Margarethe Filhés (as quoted by Max
Bartels, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, ht. 2-3, p. 57), it
may be known whether a youth is pure or a maid is intact by their
susceptibility to tickling. It is considered a bad sign if that
is lost.
I am indebted to a medical correspondent for the following
communication: "Married women have told me that they find that
after marriage they are not ticklish under the arms or on the
breasts, though before marriage any tickling or touching in these
regions, especially by a man, would make them jump or get
hysterical or 'queer,' as they call it. Before coitus the sexual
energy seems to be dissipated along all the nerve-channels and
especially along the secondary sexual routes,--the breasts, nape
of neck, eyebrows, lips, cheeks, armpits, and hair thereon,
etc.,--but after marriage the surplus energy is diverted from
these secondary channels, and response to tickling is diminished.
I have often noted in insane cases, especially mania in
adolescent girls, that they are excessively ticklish. Again, in
ordinary routine practice I have observed that, though married
women show no ticklishness during auscultation and percussion of
the chest, this is by no means always so in young girls. Perhaps
ticklishness in virgins is Nature's self-protection against rape
and sexual advances, and the young girl instinctively wishing to
hide the armpits, breasts, and other ticklish regions, tucks
herself up to prevent these parts being touched. The married
woman, being in love with a man, does not shut up these parts, as
she reciprocates the advances that he makes; she no longer
requires ticklishness as a protection against sexual aggression."
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Alrutz's views are summarized in _Psychological Review_, Sept., 1901.
[6] _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 206.
[7] L. Robinson, art. "Ticklishness," Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological
Medicine_.
[8] Stanley Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter,"
_American Journal of
Psychology_, October, 1897.
[9] H.M. Stanley, "Remarks on Tickling and Laughter,"
_American Journal of
Psychology_, vol. ix, January, 1898.
[10] Simpson, "On the Attitude of the Foetus in Utero,"
_Obstetric
Memoirs_, 1856, vol. ii.
[11] Erasmus Darwin, _Zoönomia_, Sect. XVII, 4.
[12] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii. p.
296.
[13] Such an interpretation is supported by the arguments of W. McDougall
("The Theory of Laughter," _Nature_, February 5, 1903), who contends,
without any reference to the sexual field, that one of the objects of
laughter is automatically to "disperse our attention."
[14] Even the structure of the vaginal mucous membrane, it may be noted,
is analogous to that of the skin. D. Berry Hart, "Note on the Development
of the Clitoris, Vagina, and Hymen," _Transactions of the Edinburgh
Obstetrical Society_, vol. xxi, 1896.
[15] W.H.B. Stoddart, "Anæsthesia in the Insane,"
_Journal of Mental
Science_, October, 1899.
[16] Gina Lombroso, "Sur les Réflexes Cutanés,"
International Congress of
Criminal Anthropology, Amsterdam, _Comptes Rendus_, p.
295.
III.
The Secondary Sexual Skin Centres--Orificial Contacts--
Cunnilingus and
Fellatio--The Kiss--The Nipples--The Sympathy of the Breasts with the
Primary Sexual Centres--This Connection Operative both through the Nerves
and through the Blood--The Influence of Lactation on the Sexual
Centres--Suckling and Sexual Emotion--The Significance of the Association
between Suckling and Sexual Emotion--This Association as a Cause of Sexual
Perversity.
We have seen that the skin generally has a high degree of sensibility,
which frequently tends to be in more or less definite association with the
sexual centres. We have seen also that the central and specific sexual
sensation, the sexual embrace itself, is, in large measure, a specialized
kind of skin reflex. Between the generalized skin sensations and the great
primary sexual centre of sensation there are certain secondary sexual
centres which, on account of their importance, may here be briefly
considered.
These secondary centres have in common the fact that they always involve
the entrances and the exits of the body--the regions, that is, where skin
merges into mucous membrane, and where, in the course of evolution,
tactile sensibility has become highly refined. It may, indeed, be said
generally of these frontier regions of the body that their contact with
the same or a similar frontier region in another person of opposite sex,
under conditions otherwise favorable to tumescence, will tend to produce a
minimum and even sometimes a maximum degree of sexual excitation. Contact
of these regions with each other or with the sexual region itself so
closely simulates the central sexual reflex that channels are set up for
the same nervous energy and secondary sexual centres are constituted.
It is important to remember that the phenomena we are here concerned with
are essentially normal. Many of them are commonly spoken of as
perversions. In so far, however, as they are aids to tumescence they must
be regarded as coming within the range of normal variation. They may be
considered unæsthetic, but that is another matter. It has, moreover, to be
remembered that æsthetic values are changed under the influence of sexual
emotion; from the lover's point of view many things are beautiful which
are unbeautiful from the point of view of him who is not a lover, and the
greater the degree to which the lover is swayed by his passion the greater
the extent to which his normal æsthetic standard is liable to be modified.
A broad consideration of the phenomena among civilized and uncivilized
peoples amply suffices to show the fallacy of the tendency, so common
among unscientific writers on these subjects, to introduce normal æsthetic
standards into the sexual sphere. From the normal standpoint of ordinary
daily life, indeed, the whole process of sex is unæsthetic, except the
earlier stages of tumescence.[17]
So long as they constitute a part of the phase of tumescence, the
utilization of the sexual excitations obtainable through these channels
must be considered within the normal range of variation, as we may
observe, indeed, among many animals. When, however, such contacts of the
orifices of the body, other than those of the male and female sexual
organs proper, are used to procure not merely tumescence, but
detumescence, they become, in the strict and technical sense, perversions.
They are perversions in exactly the same sense as are the methods of
intercourse which involve the use of checks to prevent fecundation. The
æsthetic question, however, remains the same as if we were dealing with
tumescence. It is necessary that this should be pointed out clearly, even
at the risk of misapprehension, as confusions are here very common.
The essentially sexual character of the sensitivity of the
orificial contacts is shown by the fact that it may sometimes be
accidentally developed even in early childhood. This is well
illustrated in a case recorded by Féré. A little girl of 4, of
nervous temperament and liable to fits of anger in which she
would roll on the ground and tear her clothes, once ran out into
the garden in such a fit of temper and threw herself on the lawn
in a half-naked condition. As she lay there two dogs with whom
she was accustomed to play came up and began to lick the
uncovered parts of the body. It so happened that as one dog
licked her mouth the other licked her sexual parts.
She
experienced a shock of intense sensation which she could never
forget and never describe, accompanied by a delicious tension of
the sexual organs. She rose and ran away with a feeling of shame,
though she could not comprehend what had happened.
The impression
thus made was so profound that it persisted throughout life and
served as the point of departure of sexual perversions, while the
contact of a dog's tongue with her mouth alone afterward sufficed
to evoke sexual pleasure. (Féré, _Archives de Neurologie_, 1903,
No. 90.)
I do not purpose to discuss here either _cunnilingus_ (the
apposition of the mouth to the female pudendum) or _fellatio_
(the apposition of the mouth to the male organ), the agent in the
former case being, in normal heterosexual relationships, a man,
in the latter a woman; they are not purely tactile phenomena, but
involve various other physical and psychic elements.
_Cunnilingus_ was a very familiar manifestation in classic times,
as shown by frequent and mostly very contemptuous references in
Aristophanes, Juvenal, and many other Greek and Roman writers;
the Greeks regarded it as a Phoenician practice, just as it is
now commonly considered French; it tends to be especially
prevalent at all periods of high civilization.
_Fellatio_ has
also been equally well known, in both ancient and modern times,
especially as practiced by inverted men. It may be accepted that
both _cunnilingus_ and _fellatio_, as practiced by either sex,
are liable to occur among healthy or morbid persons, in
heterosexual or homosexual relationships. They have little
psychological significance, except to the extent that when
practiced to the exclusion of normal sexual relationships they
become perversions, and as such tend to be associated with
various degenerative conditions, although such associations are
not invariable.
The essentially normal character of _cunnilingus_
and _fellatio_,
when occurring as incidents in the process of tumescence, is
shown by the fact that they are practiced by many animals. This
is the case, for instance, among dogs. Moll points out that not
infrequently the bitch, while under the dog, but before
intromission, will change her position to lick the dog's
penis--apparently from an instinctive impulse to heighten her own
and his excitement--and then return to the normal position, while
_cunnilingus_ is of constant occurrence among animals, and on
account of its frequency among dogs was called by the Greeks
skylax (Rosenbaum, _Geschichte der Lustseuche im Altertume_,
fifth edition, pp. 260-278; also notes in Moll, _Untersuchungen
über pie Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, pp. 134, 369; and Bloch,
_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp.
216 et seq.)
The occurrence of _cunnilingus_ as a sexual episode of tumescence
among lower human races is well illustrated by a practice of the
natives of the Caroline Islands (as recorded by Kubary in his
ethnographic study of this people and quoted by Ploss and
Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i). It is here customary for a man to
place a piece of fish between the labia, while he stimulates the
latter by his tongue and teeth until under stress of sexual
excitement the woman urinates; this is regarded as an indication
that the proper moment for intercourse has arrived.
Such a
practice rests on physiologically sound facts whatever may be
thought of it from an æsthetic standpoint.
The contrast between the normal æsthetic standpoint in this
matter and the lover's is well illustrated by the following
quotations: Dr. A.B. Holder, in the course of his description of
the American Indian _boté_, remarks, concerning _fellatio_: "Of
all the many varieties of sexual perversion, this, it seems to
me, is the most debased that could be conceived of."
On the other
hand, in a communication from a writer and scholar of high
intellectual distinction occurs the statement: "I affirm that, of
all sexual acts, _fellatio_ is most an affair of imagination and
sympathy." It must be pointed out that there is no contradiction
in these two statements, and that each is justified, according as
we take the point of view of the ordinary onlooker or of the
impassioned lover eager to give a final proof of his or her
devotion. It must be added that from a scientific point of view
we are not entitled to take either side.
Of the whole of this group of phenomena, the most typical and the most
widespread example is certainly the kiss. We have in the lips a highly
sensitive frontier region between skin and mucous membrane, in many
respects analogous to the vulvo-vaginal orifice, and reinforcible,
moreover, by the active movements of the still more highly sensitive
tongue. Close and prolonged contact of these regions, therefore, under
conditions favorable to tumescence sets up a powerful current of nervous
stimulation. After those contacts in which the sexual regions themselves
take a direct part, there is certainly no such channel for directing
nervous force into the sexual sphere as the kiss. This is nowhere so well
recognized as in France, where a young girl's lips are religiously kept
for her lover, to such an extent, indeed, that young girls sometimes come
to believe that the whole physical side of love is comprehended in a kiss
on the mouth; so highly intelligent a woman as Madam Adam has described
the agony she felt as a girl when kissed on the lips by a man, owing to
the conviction that she had thereby lost her virtue.
Although the lips
occupy this highly important position as a secondary sexual focus
in the sphere of touch, the kiss is--unlike _cunnilingus_ and
_fellatio_--confined to man and, indeed, to a large extent, to civilized
man. It is the outcome of a compound evolution which had its beginning
outside the sphere of touch, and it would therefore be out of place to
deal with the interesting question of its development in this place. It
will be discussed elsewhere.[18]
There is yet another orificial frontier region which is a highly important
tactile sexual focus: the nipple. The breasts raise, indeed, several
interesting questions in their intimate connection with the sexual sphere
and it may be worth while to consider them at this point.
The breasts have from the present point of view this special significance
among the sexual centres that they primarily exist, not for the contact of
the lover, but the contact of the child. This is doubtless, indeed, the
fundamental fact on which all the touch contacts we are here concerned
with have grown up. The sexual sensitivity of the lover's lips to
orificial contacts has been developed from the sensitivity of the infant's
lips to contact with his mother's nipple. It is on the ground of that
evolution that we are bound to consider here the precise position of the
breasts as a sexual centre.
As the great secreting organs of milk, the function of the breasts must
begin immediately the child is cut off from the nutrition derived from
direct contact with his mother's blood. It is therefore essential that the
connection between the sexual organs proper, more especially the womb, and
the breasts should be exceedingly intimate, so that the breasts may be in
a condition to respond adequately to the demand of the child's sucking
lips at the earliest moment after birth. As a matter of fact, this
connection is very intimate, so intimate that it takes place in two
totally distinct ways--by the nervous system and by the blood.
The breasts of young girls sometimes become tender at puberty in
sympathy with the evolution of the sexual organs, although the
swelling of the breasts at this period is not normally a
glandular process. At the recurring periods of menstruation,
again, sensations in the breasts are not uncommon.
It is not, however, until impregnation occurs that really
decisive changes take place in the breasts. "As soon as the ovum
is impregnated, that is to say within a few days,"
as W.D.A.
Griffith states it ("The Diagnosis of Pregnancy,"
_British
Medical Journal_, April 11, 1903), "the changes begin to occur in
the breast, changes which are just as well worked out as are the
changes in the uterus and the vagina, which, from the
commencement of pregnancy, prepare for the labor which ought to
follow nine months afterward. These are changes in the direction
of marked activity of function. An organ which was previously
quite passive, without activity of circulation and the effects of
active circulation, begins to grow and continues to grow in
activity and size as pregnancy progresses."
The association between breasts and womb is so obvious that it
has not escaped many savage peoples, who are often, indeed,
excellent observers. Among one primitive people at least the
activity of the breast at impregnation seems to be clearly
recognized. The Sinangolo of British New Guinea, says Seligmann
(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, July-December, 1902,
p. 298) believe that conception takes place in the breasts; on
this account they hold that coitus should never take place before
the child is weaned or he might imbibe semen with the milk.
It is natural to assume that this connection between the activity
of the womb and the glandular activity of the breasts is a
nervous connection, by means of the spinal cord, and such a
connection certainly exists and plays a very important part in