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

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXforms of the impulse, and its various auto-erotic manifestations.Rohleder, an experienced physicianin thisfield, believed some years ago that, when we thus widelylook at the matter, there is no such thing as sexual abstinence,the genuine cases in which sexual phenomenafail to appear being simply cases of sexual anaesthesia.The seeming variations which we find would thus mainlybe due to national differences in tradition which in somecountries favor, in effect, resort to prostitution, and, inothers, resort to masturbation. There are, indeed, twoschools of physiciansin this matter, one of which sternlyreprobates any indulgence in the unmanly habit of masturbation,but iscomparatively lenient to prostitution;while the other severely condemns any resort to the dangerousand immoral practice of prostitution, but is comparativelylenient to masturbation. Such considerations asthese may profitably be borne in mind when we attemptto treat, or to palliate, the manifestations of unsatisfiedsexual activity, such as local congestion, insomnia, irritability,depression, headache, vague hystericaland nervoussymptoms. When the resulting troubles definitely approachthe borderland of the psychoses it isusually found thatother co-operativecauses must be taken into account, andhere psycho-analysts have sought out many devious pathsin the Unconscious. Below the age of 24, as Lowenfeldfinds, men seldom suffer from abstinence, and even laterrarely to a degree requiring medical aid. It is a bad constitutionwhich makes abstinence a cause of nervous trouble,and this, as Freud, Lowenfeld and others found,usually in both sexes takes the form of anxiety neurosis.For the most part, however, as so often in the sexualfield, treatment has usually resolved itself largely intohygiene, which, to be effective, must begin earlier thanthe conditions it is meant to combat: a simple life, plain[262]