Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

THE SEXUAL IMPULSE IN YOUTHliar to the individual, by whom itis cherished with fondness,and regarded as an especially sacred mental possession,to be shared only, if at all, with very sympathizingfriends. It is commoner among girls and young womenthan among boys and young men: among 352 persons ofboth sexes, 47 per cent, among the women and only 14per cent, among the men, had any continued story. Thestarting-point is an incident from a book, or, more usually,some actual experience, which the subject develops: thesubject is nearly always the hero or the heroine of thestory. The growth of the story is favored by solitude, andlying in bed before going to sleep is the time speciallysacred for its cultivation. G. E. Partridge well describedthe physical accompaniments of day-dreaming, especiallyin Normal School girls between sixteen and twenty-two.Pick recorded more or less morbid cases of day-dreaming,usually with an erotic basis, in apparently hysterical men.(more than two-thirdsAmong nearly 1,500 young peoplegirls and women) studied by Theodate Smith, continuedstories were found to be rare only one per cent. Healthyboys, before fifteen, had day-dreams in which sports, athletics,and adventure had a large part; girls put themselvesin the place of their favorite heroines in novels. Alterseventeen, and earlier in the case of girls, day-dreams oflove and marriage were found to be frequent. Thoughby no means easy to detect, these elaborate and more orless erotic day-dreams are everywhere not uncommon inyoung men and especially in young women. Each individualhas his own particular dream, which is alwaysvarying and developing, but, except in very imaginativepersons, to no great extent. Such a day-dream is oftenfounded on a basis of pleasurable personal experience,and develops on that basis.involve an element ofIt mayperversity, even though that element finds no expression[109]