Fausto-Sterling - Sexing the Body

352 Notes
58. In1947 he wrote: ‘‘Importance of the holistic approach: Physiological
experiments designed to identify the nervous pathways involved in a particular
genital reflex, or to measure the importance of secretions from a single
gland to the occurrence of copulatory reactions, have contributed a great deal
to our understanding of sexual behavior. It should be obvious, however, that
the full significance of such findings becomes apparent only when they are
viewed against the broader background of the total sexual pattern as it appears
in the normal animal’’ (Beach 1947,p.240).
59. ‘‘Individual differences in the ease with which various inexperienced
males become sexually aroused constitute an important factor which must be
taken into consideration in any attempt to define the adequate stimulus for
mating behavior. A stimulus situation eliciting copulation in one male may fail
to call forth the mating reactions of a less excitable individual of the same
species’’ (Beach 1942c, p. 174).
60. ‘‘The appearance of the overt copulatory pattern depends jointly
upon the male’s sexual excitability, and the intensity of the stimulation
afforded by the incentive animal. A highly excitable male may attempt copulation
with an incentive animal of relatively low stimulus value. ...Aless excitable
male fails to show mating reactions in response to all incentive animals
other than the receptive female with which he will copulate. A male of low
excitability may not be aroused to the point of copulation even when offered
the receptive female’’ (Beach 1942e, p. 246). Beach and other researchers
commented on the fact that there were always males and females in a colony
that seemed to have no interest in mating. Eventually, it became common
practice to eliminate such animals from tests of mating activity.
61. Beach 1942c.
62. Apparently animals could still mate, even with their cortex removed.
See Beach 1942b,c, pp. 179–181; and Beach 1943.
63. Beach 1941.
64. Beach 1942a. Normal females did not require outside testosterone to
show a male mating pattern. Beach and Priscilla Rasquin raised females in
sexually segregated quarters and then tested them daily through four mating
cycles. During the test, they allowed the female to adapt to the test cage,
placed her with a receptive female for five minutes, and then with a sexually
active male. They divided the female’s masculine mating behaviors into three
types: (1) mounting and embracing the mounted animal with her forepaws;
(2) mounting, touching the mounted animal with her forepaws, and pelvic
thrusting; and (3) mounting, touching, and ‘‘giving a final forceful thrust and
dismounting with a pronounced backward lunge.’’ Of 20 females, 18 exhibited
the sexual clasp, 18 showed mounting, touching, and pelvic thrusting,
and 5 engaged in the complete ‘‘male’’ copulation pattern. The masculine
behaviors occurred whether or not the females were in heat.
Beach and Rasquin drew some startling conclusions: First, they noted that