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

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXwith their own instincts, and the attempt to put them intothe background of consciousness. In many hysterical andpsychically abnormal women, auto-erotic phenomena, andsexual phenomena generally, may be highly pleasurable,though such persons are often quite innocent of anyknowledge of the erotic character of the experience.BIBLIOGRAPHYHAVELOCK ELLIS, "Auto-erotism** and "The Phenomenaof Sexual Periodicity" in Studies in the Psychology ofSex, Vol. I, and "The Synthesis of Dreams" in Vol. VII;also The World of Dreams.STANLEY HALL, Adolescence.S. FREUD, The Interpretation of Dreams.MasturbationMasturbation, which has already been discussed in dealingwith the sexual phenomena of childhood, means, inthe strict sense, the use of the hand to procure sexualexcitement on the subject himself. In a wider sense, it isapplied to all forms of self-excitation adopted for thisend, and it is even possible to speak illogically of "psychicmasturbation" in which the excitation isbrought about bythought unaided by any physical act. The term "onanism"is sometimes applied in the same sense, but without justificationsince the device of Onan was not in any sensean act of masturbation but simply coitus interruptus.Hirschfeld has devised die term "ipsation," distinguishingit from "auto-erotism," as being gratification on theindividual's own body as a physical object, and not as apsychic object.Masturbation, in the wider sense, is an almost universalphenomenon among animals and man in all parts[120]of the