The Sexual Impulse in Women

The Sexual Impulse in Women

From Studies in the Psychology of Sex - Volume 3

By Havelock Ellis

An Early 20th Century StudyThe Primitive View of WomenAs a Supernatural Element in LifeAs Peculiarly Embodying the Sexual InstinctThe Modern Tendency to Underestimate the Sexual Impulse in WomenThis Tendency Confined to Recent TimesSexual AnaesthesiaIts PrevalenceDifficulties in Investigating the SubjectSome Attempts to Investigate itSexual Anesthesia must be Regarded as Abnormal

From very early times it seems possible to trace two streams of opinion regarding women: on the one hand, a tendency to regard women as a supernatural element in life, more or less superior to men, and, on the other hand, a tendency to regard women as especially embodying the sexual instinct and as peculiarly prone to exhibit its manifestations.

In the most primitive societies, indeed, the two views seem to be to some extent amalgamated; or, it should rather be said, they have not yet been differentiated; and, as in such societies it is usual to venerate the generative principle of nature and its embodiments in the human body and in human functions, such a co-ordination of ideas is entirely rational. But with the development of culture the tendency is for this homogeneous conception to be split up into two inharmonious tendencies. Even apart from Christianity and before its advent this may be noted. It was, however, to Christianity and the Christian ascetic spirit that we owe the complete differentiation and extreme development which these opposing views have reached. The condemnation of sexuality involved the glorification of the virgin; and indifference, even contempt, was felt for the woman who exercised sexual functions. It remained open to anyone, according to his own temperament, to identify the typical average woman with the one or with the other type; all the fund of latent sexual emotion which no ascetic rule can crush out of the human heart assured the picturesque idealization alike of the angelic and the diabolic types of woman. We may trace the same influence subtly lurking even in the most would-be scientific statements of anthropologists and physicians today.