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

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXliberated by emotions of pleasure that intercourse is eitherpleasurable or often even easy, so that, sometimes, artificialsubstitutes, which should not be needed, are recommendedto replace the natural lubricant.All this, though often ignored in civilization, is wellunderstood among peoples in a less "advanced*' stage. Thusamong the Melanesians of British New Guinea, we aretold, there was much freedom in selecting partners (solong as the rules of totem and blood-relationship wereobserved) but no ,question of marriage arose until afterseveral months of intimacy. In some districts a customexists by which a boy may sleep with a girl for the night,holding her in his arms and caressing the upper part ofher body. Sexual connection seldom occurred; if it didmarriage usually followed. With such a system theelementary principles, at all events, of the art of love areinvolved.In the course of any preliminary courtship before intercourseit is natural and desirable that more or less contact,pressure, or friction should be exerted on the clitoris,which is from the first the chief focus of sexual sensationin women. It is sometimes said by psycho-analysts that thisisonly true for an early age, and that with adolescencesexual sensation isnormally, if not constantly, transferredfrom the clitoris to the vagina. It is difficult to account forthe origin of this notion which seems to have been devisedin the study, and might easily have been dispelled by alittle actual knowledge of women. The clitoris is a normalfocus of sexual sensation and tends so to continue, frequentlyas the chief if not the only focus. That with theinitiation of adult intercourse the vagina should also becomea focus of pleasurable sensation is natural, but itis incorrect to speak of any "transfer." As so authoritativea gynecologist as Dickinson truly states, "a large proportion[348]