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

MARRIAGEthoughts out of sexual channels, and ensure the practiceof a sound hygiene. Drugs are not here considered, andthey are of secondary value though much advertised.Some have been found useful in some cases, but it remainsdoubtful whether they have any considerable real somaticinfluence on the condition; while a drug like nux vomica,notwithstanding its strong excitingeffect on the sexualsystem, and the spinal cord generally, and its value as atonic, is worse than useless when over-excitability alreadyexists. The patient should be forbidden to attempt coitusand should especially be discouraged from making suchattempts with prostitutes. Prolonged suspense and expectationis the worst prelude to coitus, especially in thesecases, and all acute mental activity and emotional worryare unfavorable. A sensible and tactful wife is the physician'sbest assistant. The famous case of Rousseau is inthis matter instructive. He was a man of extremely sensitiveand erethic temperament, psychic and physical;emotions responded to a touch, and his sexual impulsereflected this high nervous irritability. With a prostitute,or with a woman for whom he felt ardent passion, he wasan ineffective lover. But with Thrse, with whom helived in calm and constant companionship, he was seeminglypotent, and, if his own honest belief is correct, hewas the father of numerous children. In these erethiccases everything that allays genital excitability is favorable;thus it is that after prolonged sexual abstinence thefirst ejaculation may be premature, but the second attainthe normal result; the interval, of course, varies with theindividual sexual constitution, and while itmay be lessthan half an hour in one person,it may be several daysin another. It may also be recommended not to attemptintercourse on retiring to bed, but only after a period ofrest and sleep, or in the early morning, a time which some[307]his