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

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXof the higher apes) , in whom the impulse is closely connectedwith the procreativelife and is mostlythose times when it would be useless.absent atIf in childhood it isprobable that sexual feeling, exceptin its pre-genital forms, is usually absent, and, even whenlatent, not easily aroused, yet manifestations of sexualimpulse, as we know, both on the physical and the psychicside, are in ordinary healthy children by no means sorare that we can regard them as abnormal. At the otherend of life there are likewise no definite frontiers to thepsychic sexual life. In women, the ismenopause notalways, or even usually, accompanied by the disappearanceof the sexual impulse, and in men sexual desire, andeven sexual potency, are often found at an advanced age.There is the same kind of variation in the strength ofthe sexual impulse.If we seek to measure it in continentyoung men by the frequency of involuntary seminal emissionsduring sleep, it is found that while, in some, suchemissions occur two or three times a week, without producingany seriously exhausting effect, in others they onlyoccur once or twice a month, and in some individualsnever occur at all. If, again, we seek to measure it by thefrequency of coitus in those living in sexual relationship,it is found that while in some cases coitus takes placehabitually every night during a long period of years withoutany obvious injury, in other cases even once a monthis felt as the limit beyond which excess lies. Individualvariations, even within what may fairly be considered astate of tolerable general health, are wide, and no generalrules can be laid down.Complete sexual anaesthesia (or anhedonia, as Ziehentermed it)in men is, however, extremely rare. Hypoaesthesia,or hyphedonia, that is a relative frigidityand indifferenceto sexual excitation is, however, common in[302]