female between his thighs when he is sitting, holding her with
his forepaws. Froriep informed Lawrence that the male sometimes
supported his feet on the female's calves. (Sir W.
Lawrence,
_Lectures on Physiology_, 1823, p. 186.) A summary of the methods
of congress practiced by the various animals below mammals will
be found in the article "Copulation" by H. de Varigny in Richet's
_Dictionnaire de Physiologie_, vol. iv.
The anterior position in coitus, with the female partner lying
supine, is so widespread throughout the world that it may fairly
be termed the most typically human attitude in sexual congress.
It is found represented in Egyptian graves at Benihassan,
belonging to the Twelfth Dynasty; it is regarded by Mohammedans
as the normal position, although other positions are permitted by
the Prophet: "Your wives are your tillage: go in unto your
tillage in what manner soever you will;" it is that adopted in
Malacca; it appears, from Peruvian antiquities, to have been the
position generally, though not exclusively, adopted in ancient
Peru; it is found in many parts of Africa, and seems also to have
been the most usual position among the American aborigines.
Various modifications of this position are, however, found. Thus,
in some parts of the world, as among the Suahelis in Zanzibar,
the male partner adopts the supine position. In Loango, according
to Pechuel-Loesche, coitus is performed lying on the side.
Sometimes, as on the west coast of Africa, the woman is supine
and the man more or less erect; or, as among the Queenslanders
(as described by Roth) the woman is supine and the man squats on
his heels with her thighs clasping his flanks, while he raises
her buttocks with his hands.
The position of coitus in which the man is supine is without
doubt a natural and frequent variation of the specifically human
obverse method of coitus. It was evidently familiar to the
Romans. Ovid mentions it (_Ars Amatoria_, III, 777-8),
recommending it to little women, and saying that Andromache was
too tall to practice it with Hector. Aristophanes refers to it,
and there are Greek epigrams in which women boast of their skill
in riding their lovers. It has sometimes been viewed with a
certain disfavor because it seems to confer a superiority on the
woman. "Cursed be he," according to a Mohammedan saying, "who
maketh woman heaven and man earth."
Of special interest is the wide prevalence of an attitude in
coitus recalling that which prevails among quadrupeds. The
frequency with which on the walls of Pompeii coitus is
represented with the woman bending forward and her partner
approaching her posteriorly has led to the belief that this
attitude was formerly very common in Southern Italy.
However that
may be, it is certainly normal at the present day among various
more or less primitive peoples in whom the vulva is often placed
somewhat posteriorly. It is thus among the Soudanese, as also, in
an altogether different part of the world, among the Eskimo
Innuit and Koniags. The New Caledonians, according to Foley,
cohabit in the quadrupedal manner, and so also the Papuans of New
Guinea (Bongu), according to Vahness. The same custom is also
found in Australia, where, however other postures are also
adopted. In Europe the quadrupedal posture would seem to prevail
among some of the South Slavs, notably the Dalmatians. (The
different methods of coitus practiced by the South Slavs are
described in Kryptadia vol. vi, pp. 220, et seq.) This method of coitus was recommended by Lucretius (lib. iv) and
also advised by Paulus Æginetus as favorable to conception. (The
opinions of various early physicians are quoted by Schurig,
_Spermatologia_, 1720, pp. 232, et seq.). It seems to be a
position that is not infrequently agreeable to women, a fact
which may be brought into connection with the remarks of Adler
already quoted (p. 131) concerning the comparative lack of
adjustment of the feminine organs to the obverse position. It is
noteworthy that in the days of witchcraft hysterical women
constantly believed that they had had intercourse with the Devil
in this manner. This circumstance, indeed, probably aided in the
very marked disfavor in which coitus _a posteriori_
fell after
the decay of classic influences. The mediæval physicians
described it as _mos diabolicus_ and mistakenly supposed that it
produced abortion (Hyrtl, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 87).
The
theologians, needless to say, were opposed to the _mos
diabolicus_, and already in the Anglo-Saxon Penitential of
Theodore, at the end of the seventh century, 40
days' penance is
prescribed for this method of coitus.
From the frequency with which they have been adopted by various
peoples as national customs, most of the postures in coitus here
referred to must be said to come within the normal range of
variation. It is a mistake to regard them as vicious perversions.
Up to the point to which we have so far considered it, the process of
detumescence has been mainly nervous and vascular in character; it has, in
fact, been but the more acute stage of a process which has been going on
throughout tumescence. But now we reach the point at which a new element
comes in: muscular action. With the onset of muscular action, which is
mainly involuntary, even when it affects the voluntary muscles,
detumescence proper begins to take place. Henceforward purposeful psychic
action, except by an effort, is virtually abolished. The individual, as a
separate person, tends to disappear. He has become one with another
person, as nearly one as the conditions of existence ever permit; he and
she are now merely an instrument in the hands of a higher power--by
whatever name we may choose to call that Power--which is using them for an
end not themselves.
The decisive moment in the production of the instinctive and involuntary
orgasm occurs when, under the influence of the stimulus applied to the
penis by friction with the vagina, the tension of the seminal fluid poured
into the urethra arouses the ejaculatory center in the spinal cord and the
bulbo-cavernosus muscle surrounding the urethra responsively contracts in
rhythmic spasms. Then it is that ejaculation occurs.[106]
"The circulation quickens, the arteries beat strongly,"
wrote Roubaud in a
description of the physical state during coitus which may almost be termed
classic; "the venous blood, arrested by muscular contraction, increases
the general heat, and this stagnation, more pronounced in the brain by the
contraction of the muscles of the neck and the throwing of the head
backward, causes a momentary cerebral congestion, during which
intelligence is lost and the faculties abolished. The eyes, violently
injected, become haggard, and the look uncertain, or, in the majority of
cases, the eyes are closed spasmodically to avoid the contact of the
light. The respiration is hurried, sometimes interrupted, and may be
suspended by the spasmodic contraction of the larynx, and the air, for a
time compressed, is at last emitted in broken and meaningless words. The
congested nervous centers only communicate confused sensations and
volitions; mobility and sensation show extreme disorder; the limbs are
seized by convulsions and sometimes by cramps, or are thrown wildly about
or become stiff like iron bars. The jaws, tightly pressed, grind the
teeth, and in some persons the delirium is carried so far that they bite
to bleeding the shoulders their companions have imprudently abandoned to
them. This frantic state of epilepsy lasts but a short time, but it
suffices to exhaust the forces of the organism, especially in man. It is,
I believe, Galen, who said: 'Omne animal post coitum triste præter
mulierem gallumque.'"[107] Most of the elements that make up this typical
picture of the state of coitus are not absolutely essential to that state,
but they all come within the normal range of variation.
There can be no
doubt that this range is considerable. There would appear to be not only
individual, but also racial, differences; there is a remarkable passage in
Vatsyayana's _Kama Sutra_ describing the varying behavior of the women of
different races in India under the stress of sexual excitement--Dravidian
women with difficulty attaining erethism, women of the Punjaub fond of
being caressed with the tongue, women of Oude with impetuous desire and
profuse flow of mucus, etc.--and it is highly probable, Ploss and Bartels
remark, that these characterizations are founded on exact
observations.[108]
The various phenomena included in Roubaud's description of the condition
during coitus may all be directly or indirectly reduced to two groups: the
first circulatory and respiratory, the second motor. It is necessary to
consider both these aspects of the process of detumescence in somewhat
greater detail, although while it is most convenient to discuss them
separately, it must be borne in mind that they are not really separable;
the circulatory phenomena are in large measure a by-product of the
involuntary motor process.
With the approach of detumescence the respiration becomes shallow, rapid,
and to some extent arrested. This characteristic of the breathing during
sexual excitement is well recognized; so that in, for instance, the
_Arabian Nights_, it is commonly noted of women when gazing at beautiful
youths whose love they desired, that they ceased breathing.[109] It may be
added that exactly the same tendency to superficial and arrested
respiration takes place whenever there is any intense mental
concentration, as in severe intellectual work.[110]
The arrest of respiration tends to render the blood venous, and thus aids
in stimulating the vasomotor centers, raising the blood-pressure in the
body generally, and especially in the erectile tissues.
High
blood-pressure is one of the most marked features of the state of
detumescence. The heart beats are stronger and quicker, the surface
arteries are more visible, the conjunctivæ become red.
The precise degree
of blood-pressure attained during coitus has been most accurately
ascertained in the dog. In Bechterew's laboratory in St.
Petersburg a
manometer was introduced into the central end of the carotid artery of a
bitch; a male dog was then introduced, and during coitus observations were
made on the blood-pressure at the peripheral and central ends of the
artery. It was found that there was a great general elevation of
blood-pressure, intense hyperæmia of the brain, rapid alternations, during
the act, of vasoconstriction and vasodilatation of the brain, with
increase and diminution of the general arterial tension in relation with
the various phases of the act, the greatest cerebral vasodilatation and
hyperæmia coinciding with the moment following the intromission of the
penis; the end of the act is followed by a considerable fall in the
blood-pressure.[111] I am not acquainted with any precise observations on
the blood-pressure in human subjects during detumescence, and there are
obvious difficulties in the way of such observations. It is probable,
however, that the conditions found would be substantially the same. This
is indicated, so far as the very marked increase of blood-pressure is
concerned, by some observations made by Vaschide and Vurpas with the
sphygmanometer on a lady under the influence of sexual excitement. In this
case there was a relationship of sympathy and friendly tenderness between
the experimenter and the subject, Madame X, aged 25.
Experimenter and
subject talked sympathetically, and finally, we are told, while the latter
still had her hands in the sphygmanometer, the former almost made a
declaration of love. Madame X was greatly impressed, and afterward
admitted that her emotions had been genuine and strong.
The
blood-pressure, which was in this subject habitually 65
millimeters, rose
to 150 and even 160, indicating a very high pressure, which rarely occurs;
at the same time Madame X looked very emotional and troubled.[112]
Some authorities are of opinion that irregularities in the
accomplishment of the sexual act are specially liable to cause
disturbances in the circulation. Thus Kisch, of Prague, refers to
the case of a couple practising coitus interruptus--
the husband
withdrawing before ejaculation--in which the wife, a vigorous
woman, became liable after some years to attacks termed by Kisch
_neurasthenia cordis vasomotoria_, in which there was at daily or
longer intervals palpitation, with feelings of anxiety, headache,
dizziness, muscular weakness and tendency to faint.
He regards
coitus as a cause of various heart troubles in women: (1) Attacks
of tachycardia in very excitable and sexually inclined women; (2)
attacks of tachycardia with dyspnoea in young women, with
vaginismus; (3) cardiac symptoms with lowered vascular tone in
women who for a long time have practised coitus interruptus
without complete sexual gratification (Kisch,
"Herzbeschwerden
der Frauen verursacht durch den Cohabitationsact,"
_Münchener
Medizinisches Wochenschrift_, 1897, p. 617). In this connection,
also, reference may probably be made to those attacks of anxiety
which Freud associates with psychic sexual lesions of an
emotional character.
Associated with this vascular activity in detumescence we find a general
tendency to glandular activity. Various secretions are formed abundantly.
Perspiration is copious, and the ancient relationship between the
cutaneous and sexual systems seems to evoke a general activity of the skin
and its odoriferous secretions. Salivation, which also occurs, is very
conspicuous in many lower animals, as for instance in the donkey, notably
the female, who just before coitus stands with mouth open, jaws moving,
and saliva dribbling. In men, corresponding to the more copious secretion
in women, there is, during the latter stages of tumescence, a slight
secretion of mucus--Fürbringer's _urethrorrhoea ex libidine_--which
appears in drops at the urethral orifice. It comes from the small glands
of Littré and Cowper which open into the urethra. This phenomenon was well
known to the old theologians, who called it _distillatio_, and realized
its significance as at once distinct from semen and an indication that the
mind was dwelling on voluptuous images; it was also known in classic
times[113]; more recently it has often been confused with semen and has
thus sometimes caused needless anxiety to nervous persons. There is also
an increased secretion of urine, and it is probable that if the viscera
were more accessible to observation we might be able to demonstrate that
the glands throughout the body share in this increased activity.
The phenomena of detumescence culminate, however, and have their most
obvious manifestation in motor activity. The genital act, as Vaschide and
Vurpas remark, consists essentially in "a more and more marked tension of
the motor state which, reaching its maximum, presents a short tonic phase,
followed by a clonic phase, and terminates in a period of adynamia and
repose." This motor activity is of the essence of the impulse of
detumescence, because without it the sperm cells could not be brought into
the neighborhood of the germ cell and be propelled into the organic nest
which is assigned for their conjunction and incubation.
The motor activity is general as well as specifically sexual. There is a
general tendency to more or less involuntary movement, without any
increase of voluntary muscular power, which is, indeed, decreased, and
Vaschide and Vurpas state that dynamometric results are somewhat lower
than normal during sexual excitement, and the variations greater.[114] The
tendency to diffused activity of involuntary muscle is well illustrated by
the contraction of the bladder associated with detumescence. While this
occurs in both sexes, in men erection produces a mechanical impediment to
any evacuation of the bladder. In women there is not only a desire to
urinate but, occasionally, actual urination. Many quite healthy and normal
women have, as a rare accident supervening on the coincidence of an
unusually full bladder with an unusual degree of sexual excitement,
experienced a powerful and quite involuntary evacuation of the bladder at
the moment of orgasm. In women with less normal nervous systems this has,
more rarely, been almost habitual. Brantôme has perhaps recorded the
earliest case of this kind in referring to a lady he knew who "quand on
lui faisait cela elle se compissait à bon escient."[115]
The tendency to
trembling, constriction of throat, sneezing, emission of internal gas, and
the other similar phenomena occasionally associated with detumescence, are
likewise due to diffusion of the motor disturbance. Even in infancy the
motor signs of sexual excitement are the most obvious indications of
orgasm; thus West, describing masturbation in a child of six or nine
months who practiced thigh-rubbing, states that when sitting in her high
chair she would grasp the handles, stiffen herself, and stare, rubbing her
thighs quickly together several times, and then come to herself with a
sigh, tired, relaxed, and sweating, these seizures, which lasted one or
two minutes, being mistaken by the relations for epileptic fits.[116]
The essentially motor character of detumescence is well shown by
the extreme forms of erotic intoxication which sometimes appear
as the result of sexual excitement. Féré, who has especially
called attention to the various manifestations of this condition,
presents an instructive case of a man of neurotic heredity and
antecedents, in whom it occasionally happened that sexual
excitement, instead of culminating in the normal orgasm, attained
its climax in a fit of uncontrollable muscular excitement. He
would then sing, dance, gesticulate, roughly treat his partner,
break the objects around him, and finally sink down exhausted and
stupefied. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, Chapter X.) In such a case
a diffused and general detumescence has taken the place of the
normal detumescence which has its main focus in the sexual
sphere.
The same relationship is shown in a case of impotence accompanied
by cramps in the calves and elsewhere, which has been recorded by
Brügelmann ("Zur Lehre vom Perversen Sexualismus,"
_Zeitschrift
für Hypnotismus_, 1900, Heft I). These muscular conditions ceased
for several days whenever coitus was effected.
An instructive analogy to the motor irradiations preceding the
moment of sexual detumescence may be found in the somewhat
similar motor irradiations which follow the delayed expulsion of
a highly distended bladder. These sometimes become very marked in
a child or young woman unable to control the motor system
absolutely. The legs are crossed, the foot swung, the thighs
tightly pressed together, the toes curled. The fingers are flexed
in rhythmic succession. The whole body slowly twists as though
the seat had become uncomfortable. It is difficult to concentrate
the mind; the same remark may be automatically repeated; the eyes
search restlessly, and there is a tendency to count surrounding
objects or patterns. When the extreme degree of tension is
reached it is only by executing a kind of dance that the
explosive contraction of the bladder is restrained.
The picture of muscular irradiation presented under these
circumstances differs but slightly from that of the onset of
detumescence. In one case the explosion is sought, in the other
case it is dreaded; but in both cases there is a retarded
muscular tension,--in the one case involuntary, in the other case
voluntary--maintained at a point of acute intensity, and in both
cases the muscular irradiations of this tension spread over the
whole body.
The increased motor irritability of the state of detumescence
somewhat resembles the conditions produced by a weak anæsthetic
and there is some interest in noting the sexual excitement liable
to occur in anæsthesia. I am indebted to Dr. J.F.W.
Silk for some
remarks on this point:--
"I. Sexual emotions may apparently be aroused during the stage of
excitement preceding or following the administration of any
anæsthetic; these emotions may take the form of mere delirious
utterances, or may be associated with what is apparently a sexual
orgasm. Or reflex phenomena connected with the sexual organs may
occasionally be observed under special circumstances; or, to put
it in another way, such reflex possibilities are not always
abolished by the condition of narcosis or anæsthesia.
"II. Of the particular anæsthetics employed I am inclined to
think that the possibility of such conditions arising is
inversely proportionate to their strength, e.g., they are more
frequently observed with a weak anæsthetic like nitrous oxide
than with chloroform.
"III. Sexual emotions I believe to be rarely observable in men,
and this is remarkable, or, I should say, particularly
noticeable, for the presence of nurses, female students, etc.,
might almost have led one to expect that the contrary would have
been the case. On the other hand, it is among men that I have
frequently observed a reflex phenomenon which has usually taken
the shape of an erection of the penis when the structures in the
neighborhood of the spermatic cord have been handled.
"IV. Among females the emotional sexual phenomena most frequently
obtrude themselves, and I believe that if it were possible to
induce people to relate their dreams they would very often be
found to be of a sexual character."
Much more important than the general motor phenomena, more purposive
though involuntary, are the specifically sexual muscular movements. From
the very beginning of detumescence, indeed, muscular activity makes itself
felt, and the peripheral muscles of sex act, according to Kobelt's
expression, as a peripheral sexual heart. In the male these movements are
fairly obvious and fairly simple. It is required that the semen should be
expressed from the vesiculæ seminales, propelled along the urethra, in
combination with the prostatic fluid which is equally essential, and
finally ejected with a certain amount of force from the urethral orifice.
Under the influence of the stimulation furnished by the contact and
friction of the vagina, this process is effectively carried out, mainly by
the rhythmic contractions of the bulbo-cavernosus muscle, and the semen is
emitted in a jet which may be ejaculated to a distance varying from a few
centimeters to a meter or more.
With regard to the details of the psychic sides of this process a
correspondent, a psychologist, writes as follows:--
"I have never noticed in my reading any attempt to analyze the
sensations which accompany the orgasm, and, as I have made a good
many attempts to make such an analysis myself, I will append the