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

CHAPTER IVSEXUAL DEVIATION AND THE EROTICSYMBOLISMSSexual DeviationsIT was formerly taken for granted by all writers on thelife of sex that there is but one pattern for that life, andthat any straying from that one pattern was not "normal.'*This was assumed and never discussed. There seemedeven to be no need to define precisely what this singlepattern was; every one was supposed to know instinctively.As soon as we begin to inquire into the actual and intimatefacts of the sexual life, however, we see that thisancient and traditional assumption was mistaken. So farfrom there being only one pattern of sex-life, it would benearer the truth to say that there are as many patterns asthere are individuals. At the least there are a number oftypes of patterns to one or other of which the individualtends more or less, never exactly, to approximate. Thishas been visible to me ever since Ibegan to study sexualpsychology, and I have sought to make clear that here, aselsewhere in nature, we have to admit a wide limit ofvariations falling within the normal range. Today this isgradually being recognized by experienced observers. Toquote but one distinguished gynecologist, Dickinson expresses"a growing skepticism about a fixed pattern ofsex."In order to remain within the normal range, all variationsmust at some point include the procreative end for