Studies on the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 by Havelock Ellis. - HTML preview

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The character and arrangement of the pubic hair, investigated by

Eschricht and Voigt more than half a century ago, have been more

recently studied by Bergh. As these observers have pointed out,

there are various converging hair streams from above and below,

the clitoris seeming to be the center towards which they are

directed. The hair-covering thus formed is usually ample and, as

a rule, is more so in brunettes than in blondes. It is nearly

always bent, curly and more or less spirally twisted.[84] There

are frequently one or two curls at the commencement of the

fissure, rolled outwards, and occasionally a well marked tuft in

the middle line. In abundance the pubic hair corresponds with the

axillary hair; when one region is defective in hair the other is

usually so also. Strong eyebrows also usually indicate a strong

development of pubic hair. But the hair of the head usually

varies independently, and Bergh found that of 154

women with

spare pubic hair 72 had good and often profuse hair on the head.

Complete or almost complete absence of pubic hair is in Bergh's

experience only found in about 3 per cent. of women; these were

all young and blonde.

Rothe, in his investigation of the pubic hair of 1000

Berlin women, found

that no two women were really alike in this respect, but there was a

tendency to two main types of arrangement, with minor subdivisions,

according as the hair tended to grow chiefly in the middle line extending

laterally from that line, or to grow equally over the whole extent of the

pubic region; these two groups included half the cases investigated.

In men the pubic hair normally ascends anteriorly in a faint line

up to the navel, with tendency to form a triangle with the apex

above, and posteriorly extends backwards to the anus. In women

these anterior and posterior extensions are comparatively rare,

or at all events are only represented by a few stray hairs. Rothe

found this variation in 4 per cent. of North German women, though

a triangle of hair was only found in 2 per cent.; Lombroso found

it in 5 per cent, of Italian women; Bergh found it in only 1.6

per cent. among 1000 Danish prostitutes, all sixteen of whom with

three exceptions were brunettes. In Vienna, among 600 women, Coe

found only 1 per cent, with this distribution of hair, and states

that they were women of decidedly masculine type, though Ploss

and Bartels, as well as Rothe, find, however, that heterogeny, as

they term the masculine distribution, is more common in blondes.

The anterior extension of hair is usually accompanied by the

posterior extension around the anus, usually very slight, but

occasionally as pronounce as in men. (According to Rothe,

however, anterior heterogeny comparatively rare.) These masculine

variations in the extension of the pubic hair appear to be not

uncommonly associated with other physical and psychic anomalies;

it is on this account that they have sometimes been regarded as

indications of a vicious or a criminal temperament; they are,

however, found in quite normal women.

The pubic hair of women is usually shorter than that of men, but

thick, and the individual hairs stronger and larger in diameter

than those of men, as Pfaff first showed; dark hair is usually

stronger than light. In both length and size the individual

variations are considerable. The usual length is about 2 inches,

or 3-5 centimeters, occasionally reaching about 4

inches, or 9-10

centimeters, in the larger curls. In a series of 100

women

attended during confinement in London and the north of England I

have only once (in a rather blonde Lancashire woman) found the

hair on labia reaching a conspicuous length of several inches and

forming an obstruction to the manipulations involved in delivery.

But Jahn delivered a woman whose pubic hair was longer than that

of her head, reaching below her knee; Paulini also knew a woman

whose pubic hair nearly reached her knees and was sold to make

wigs; Bartholin mentions a soldier's wife who plaited her pubic

hair behind her back; while Brantôme has several references to

abnormally long hair in ladies of the French court during the

sixteenth century. In 8 cases out of 2200 Bergh found the pubic

hair forming a large curly wig extending to the iliac spines. The

individual hairs have occasionally been found so stiff and

brush-like as to render coitus difficult.

In color the pubic hair, while generally approximating to that of

the head, is sometimes (according to Rothe, in Germany, in

one-third cases) lighter, and sometimes somewhat darker, as is

found to be the case by Coe, especially in brunettes, and also by

Bergh, in Denmark. Bergh remarks that it is generally

intermediate in color between the eyebrows and the axillary hair,

the latter being more or less decolorized by sweat, and that,

owing to the influence of the urine and vaginal discharges, the

labial hair is paler than that on the mons; blondes with dark

eyebrows usually have dark hair on the mons. The hair on this

spot, as Aristotle observed, is usually the last to turn gray.

The key to the genital apparatus in women from the psychic point of view,

and, indeed, to some extent, its anatomical center, is to be found in the

clitoris. Anatomically and developmentally the clitoris is the rudimentary

analogue of the masculine penis. Functionally, however, its scope is very

much smaller. While the penis both receives and imparts specific

voluptuous sensations, and is at the same time both the intromittent organ

for the semen and the conduit for the urine, the sole function of the

clitoris is to enter into erection under the stress of sexual emotion and

receive and transmit the stimulatory voluptuous sensations imparted to it

by friction with the masculine genital apparatus. It is so insignificant

an organ that it is only within recent times that its homology with the

penis has been realized. In 1844 Kobelt wrote in his important book, _Die

Mannlichen und Weiblichen Wollust-Organe_, that in his attempt to show

that the female organs are exactly analogous to the male the reader will

probably be unable to follow him, while even Johannes Müller, the father

of scientific physiology, declared at about the same period that the

clitoris is essentially different from the penis. It is indeed but three

centuries since the clitoris was so little known that (in 1593) Realdus

Columbus actually claimed the honor of discovering it.

Columbus was not

its discoverer, for Fallopius speedily showed that Avicenna and Albucasis

had referred to it.[85] The Arabs appear to have been very familiar with

it, and, from the various names they gave it, clearly understood the

important part it plays in generating voluptuous emotion.[86] But it was

known in classic antiquity; the Greeks called it myrton, the myrtle-berry;

Galen and Soranus called it nymphê because it is covered as a bride is

veiled, while the old Latin name was _tentigo_, from its power of entering

into erection, and _columella_, the little pillar, from its shape. The

modern term, which is Greek and refers to the sensitiveness of the part to

voluptuous titillation, is said to have originated with Suidas and

Pollux.[87] It was mentioned, though not adopted, by Rufus.

"The clitoris," declared Haller, "is a part extremely sensible and

wonderfully prurient." It is certainly the chief though by no means the

only point through which the immediate call to detumescence is conveyed to

the female organism. It is, indeed, as Bryan Robinson remarks, "a

veritable electrical bell button which, being pressed or irritated, rings

up the whole nervous system."

The nervous supply of this little organ is very large, and the

dorsal nerve of the clitoris is relatively three or four times

larger than that of the penis. Yet the sensitive point of this

organ is only 5 to 7 millimeters in extent. The length of the

clitoris is usually rather over 2 centimeters (or about an inch)

and 3 centimeters when erect; a length of 4

centimeters or more

was regarded by Martineau as within the normal range of

variation. It is not usual to find the clitoris longer than this

in Europe (for among some races like the negro the clitoris is

generally large), but all degrees of magnitude may be found as

rare exceptions. (See, e.g., Sir J.Y. Simpson,

"Hermaphrodites,"

_Obstetric Memoirs and Contributions_, vol. ii, pp.

217-226; also

Dickinson, loc. cit.) It was formerly thought that the clitoris

is easily enlarged by masturbation, and Martineau believed that

in this way it might be doubled in length. It is probable that

slight enlargement of the clitoris may be caused by very

frequent masturbation, but only to an insignificant extent, and

it is impossible to diagnose masturbation from the size of the

clitoris. Among the women of Lake Nyassa, as well as in the

Caroline Islands, special methods are practiced for elongating

the clitoris, but in Europe, at all events, it is probable that

the variations in the size of the organ are mainly congenital. It

may well be that a congenitally large clitoris is associated with

an abnormally developed excitability of the sexual apparatus.

Tilt stated (_On Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation_, p. 37) that

in his experience there was a frequent though not invariable

connection between a large clitoris and sexual proclivity.

(Schurig referred to a case of intense and life-long sexual

obsession associated with an extremely large clitoris,

_Gynæcologia_, pp. 16-17.) Of recent years considerable

importance has been attached by some gynecologists (e.g., R.T.

Morris, "Is Evolution Trying to Do Away With the Clitoris?"

_Transactions American Association of Obstetricians and

Gynecologists_, vol. v, 1893) to preputial adhesions around the

clitoris as a source of nervous disturbance and invalidism in

young women.

While the clitoris is anatomically analogous to the penis, its actual

mechanism under the stress of sexual excitement is somewhat different. As

Liétaud long since pointed out, it cannot rise freely in erection as the

penis can; it is apparently bound down by its prepuce and its frenulum.

Waldeyer, in his book on the pelvis, states more precisely that, unlike

the penis, when erect it retains its angle, only this becomes somewhat

rounded so that the organ is to some slight extent lifted and protruded.

Waldeyer considered that the clitoris was thus perfectly fitted to fulfill

its part as the recipient of erotic stimulation from friction by the

penis. Adler, however, has pointed out with considerable justice, that

this is not altogether the case. The clitoris was developed in mammals who

practiced the posterior mode of coitus; in this position the clitoris was

beneath the penis, which was thus easily able in coitus to press it

against the pubic bone close beneath which it is situated, and thus impart

the compression and friction which the feminine organ craves. But in the

human anterior mode of coitus it is not necessarily brought into close

contact with the penis during the act of coitus, and thus fails to receive

powerful stimulation. Its restricted position, which is an advantage in

posterior coitus, is a disadvantage in anterior coitus.

Adler observes

that it thus comes about that the human method of coitus, while by

bringing breast to breast and face to face it has added a new dignity and

refinement, a fresh source of enjoyment, to the embrace of the sexes, has

not been an unmixed advantage to woman, for while man has lost nothing by

the change, woman has now to contend with an increased difficulty in

attaining an adequate amount of pressure on that

"electric button" which

normally sets the whole mechanism in operation.[88]

We may well bring into connection with the changed conditions brought

about by anterior coitus the interesting fact that while the clitoris

remains the most exquisitely sensitive of the sexual centers in woman,

voluptuous sensitivity is much more widely diffused in woman than in man.

Over the whole body, indeed, it is apt to be more distinctly marked than

is usually the case in man. But even if we confine ourselves to the

genital region, while in man that portion of the penis which enters the

vagina, and especially the glans, is normally the only portion which, even

during turgescence, is sensitive to voluptuous contacts, in woman the

whole of the region comprised within the larger lips, including even the

anus and internally the vagina and the vaginal portion of the womb,[89]

become sensitive to voluptuous contacts. Deprived of the penis the ability

of a man to experience specifically sexual sensations becomes very limited

indeed. But the loss of the clitoris or of any other structure involves no

correspondingly serious disability on women. Ablation of the clitoris for

sexual hyperæsthesia has for this reason been abandoned, except under

special circumstances. The members of the Russian Skoptzy sect habitually

amputate the clitoris, nymphæ, and breasts, yet many young Skoptzy women

told the Russian physician, Guttceit, that they were perfectly well able

to enjoy coitus.

Freud believes that in very young girls the clitoris is the

exclusive seat of sexual sensation, masturbation at this age

being directed to the clitoris alone, and spontaneous sexual

excitement being confined to twitchings and erection of this

organ, so that young girls are able, from their own experience,

to recognize without instruction the signs of sexual excitement

in boys. At a later age sexual excitability spreads from the

clitoris to other regions--just as the easy inflammability of

wood sets light to coal--though in the male the penis remains

from first to last normally the almost exclusive seat of specific

excitability. (S. Freud, _Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_,

p. 62.)

The anus would, however, seem to be sometimes an erogenous zone

even at an early age. Titillation of the anus appears to be

frequently pleasurable in women; and this is not surprising

considering the high degree of erotic sensitivity which is easily

developed at the body orifices where skin meets mucous membrane.

(Thus the meatus of the urethra is a highly erogenous zone, as is

sufficiently shown by the frequency with which hair-pins and

other articles used in masturbation find their way into the

bladder.) It is in this germinal sensitivity, undoubtedly, that

we find a chief key to the practice of _pedicatio_.

Freud

attaches great importance to the anus as a sexually erogenous

zone at a very early age, and considers that it very frequently

makes its influence felt in this respect. He believes that

intestinal catarrhs in very early life and hæmorrhoids later tend

to develop sensibility in the anus. He finds an indication that

the anus has become a sexually erogenous zone when children wish

to allow the contents of the rectum to accumulate so that

defecation may by its increased difficulty involve voluptuous

sensations, and adds that masturbatory excitation of the anus

with the fingers is by no means rare in older children. (S.

Freud, _Op. cit._, pp. 40-42.) A medical correspondent in India

tells me of a European lady who derived, she said,

"quite as

much, indeed more," pleasure from digitally titillating her

rectum as from vulvo-vaginal titillation; she had several times

submitted to _pedicatio_ and enjoyed it, though it was painful

during penetration. The anus may retain this erogenous

irritability even in old age, and Routh mentions the case of a

lady of over 70, the reverse of lustful, who was so excited by

the act of defecation that she was invariably compelled to

masturbate, although this state of things was a source of great

mental misery to her. (C.H.F. Routh, _British Gynæcological

Journal_, February, 1887, p. 48.)

Bölsche has sought the explanation of the erogenous nature of the

anus, and the key to _pedicatio_, in an atavistic return to the

very remote amphibian days when the anus was combined with the

sexual parts in a common cloaca. But it is unnecessary to invoke

any vestigial inheritance from a vastly remote past when we bear

in mind that the innervation of these two adjoining regions is

inevitably very closely related. The presence of a body exit with

its marked and special sensitivity at a point where it can

scarcely fail to receive the nervous overflow from an immensely

active center of nervous energy quite adequately accounts for the

phenomenon in question.

The inner lips, the nymphæ or labia minora, running parallel with the

greater lips which enclose them, embrace the clitoris anteriorly and

extend backward, enclosing the urethral exit between them as well as the

vaginal entrance. They form little wings whence their old Latin name,

_alæ_, and from their resemblance to the cock's comb were by Spigelius

termed crista galli. The red and (especially in brunettes) dark appearance

of the nymphæ suggests that they are mucous membrane and not

integumentary; it is, however, now considered that even on the inner

surface they are covered by skin and separated from the mucous membrane by

a line.[90] In structure, as described by Waldeyer, they consist of fine

connective tissue rich in elastic fibers as well as some muscular tissue,

and full of large veins, so that they are capable of a considerable degree

of turgescence resembling erection during sexual excitement, while

Ballantyne finds that the nymphæ are supplied to a notable extent with

nervous end-organs.

More than any other part of the sexual apparatus in either sex, the lesser

lips, on account of their shape, their position, and their structure, are

capable of acquired modifications, more especially hypertrophy and

elongation. By stretching, it is stated, a labium can be doubled in its

dimensions. The "Hottentot apron," or elongated nymphæ, commonly found

among some peoples in South Africa, has long been a familiar phenomenon.

In such cases a length or transverse diameter of 3 to 5

centimeters is

commonly found. But such elongated nymphæ are by no means confined to one

part of the world or to one race; they are quite common among women of

European race, and reach a size equal to most of the more reliably

recorded Hottentot cases. Dickinson, who has very carefully studied this

question in New York, finds that in 1000 consecutive gynæcological cases

the labia showed some form of hypertrophy in 36 per cent., or more than 1

in 3; while among 150 of these cases who were neurasthenic, the proportion

reached 56 per cent., even when minor or doubtful enlargements were

disregarded. Bergh, in about 16 per cent. cases, found very enlarged

nymphæ, the height reached in about 5 per cent. of the cases of

enlargement being nearly six centimeters. Ploss and Bartels, in a full

discussion: of the "Hottentot apron," come to the conclusion that this

condition is perhaps in most cases artificially produced. It is known that

among the Basutos it is the custom for the elder girls to manipulate the

nymphæ of younger children, when alone with them, almost from birth, and

on account of the elastic nature of these structures such manipulation

quite adequately accounts for the elongation. It is not necessary to

suppose that the custom is practiced for the sake of producing sexual

stimulation--though this may frequently occur--since there are numerous

similar primitive customs involving deformation of the sexual organs

without the production of sexual excitement. Dickinson has come to a

similar conclusion as regards the corresponding elongation of the nymphæ

in civilized European women. In 361 out of 1000 women of good social class

he found elongation or thickening, often with a notable degree of

wrinkling and pigmentation, and believes that this is always the result of

frequently repeated masturbation practiced with the separation of the

nymphæ; in 30 per cent. of the cases admission of masturbation was

made.[91] While this conclusion is probably correct in the main, it

requires some qualification. To assert that whenever in women who have

not been pregnant the marked protrusion of the inner lips beyond the outer

lips means that at some period manipulation has been practiced with or

without the production of sexual excitement is to make too absolute a

statement. It is highly probable that the nymphæ, like the clitoris, are

congenitally more prominent in some of the lower human races, as they are

also in the apes; among the Fuegians, for instance, according to Hyades

and Deniker, the labia minora descend lower than in Europeans, although

there is not the slightest reason to suppose that these women practice any

manipulations. Among European women, again, the nymphæ sometimes protrude

very prominently beyond the labia majora in women who are organically of

somewhat infantile type; this occurs in cases in which we may be convinced

that no manipulations have ever been practiced.[92]

It is difficult to speak very decisively as to the function of the labia

minora. They doubtless exert some amount of protective influence over the

entrance to the vagina, and in this way correspond to the lips of the

mouth after which they are called. They fulfill, however, one very

definite though not obviously important function which is indicated by the

mythologic name they have received. There is, indeed, some obscurity in

the origin of this term, nymphæ, which has not, I believe, been

satisfactorily cleared up. It has been stated that the Greek name nymphê

has been transferred from the clitoris to the labia minora. Any such

transfer could only have taken place when the meaning of the word had been

forgotten, and nymphê had become the totally different word _nymphæ_, the

goddesses who presided over streams. The old anatomists were much

exercised in their minds as to the meaning of the name, but on the whole

were inclined to believe that it referred to the action of the labia

minora in directing the urinary stream. The term nymphæ was first applied

in the modern sense, according to Bergh, in 1599, by Pinæus, mainly from

the influence of these structures on the urinary stream, and he dilated in

his _De Virginitate_ on the suitability of the term to designate so poetic

a spot.[93] In more modern times Luschka and Sir Charles Bell considered

that it is one of the uses of the nymphæ to direct the stream of urine,

and Lamb from his own observation thinks the same conclusion probable. In

reality there cannot be the slightest doubt about the function of the

nymphæ, as, in Hyrtl's phrase, "the naiads of the urinary source," and it

can be demonstrated by the simplest experiment.[94]

The nymphæ form the intermediate portal of the vagina, as the canal which

conducts to the womb was in anatomy first termed (according to Hyrtl) by

De Graaf.[95] It is a secreting, erectile, more or less sensitive canal

lined by what is usually considered mucous membrane, though some have

regarded it as integument of the same character as that of the external

genitals; it certainly resembles such integument more than, for instance,

the mucous membrane of the rectum. In the woman who has never had sexual

intercourse and has been subjected to no manipulations or accidents

affecting this region, the vagina is closed by a last and final gat