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

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXin men and women who never heardarises spontaneouslyof such practices) are perhaps the chief of these contacts.It isextremely common, I find, for nervous or scrupulouspersons to inquire whether this, that, or the other unusualmethod of sexual gratification iswrong or injurious. Ashock is often thus caused, for we seem to be in thepresence of something which is "unassthetic." It seems tobe forgotten that not even the most recognized methodsof sexual intercourse can well be described as "aesthetic."It is not understood that here, amid the most intimatemysteries of love, we are in a region where the cold andabstract viewpoints either of science or of aesthetics areout of place unless qualified by more specially humanemotions. To the rigid formalist in these matters, wellintentioned but ignorant, we may gently recallthe endlesslywise words of Shakespeare: "Love talks with betterknowledge and knowledge with dearer love."It may be added that of the 100 married women investigatedby Hamilton presumably normal and healthywomen and of good social position he found that thirteenhad had experience of fellatio, cunnilinctus, or both, butin no case could any ill effects be discovered. "No sexplay is psychologically taboo," Hamilton reasonably concludes,while making certain reservations, of which themost important are that no injury to physical structureis involved and that there are no serious guilt reactions.That isimportant. Hamilton states that he has elsewheremet with a series of cases of naive persons who had innocentlypractised some such "perversion," without knowinghow formidable and objectionable it appeared tomany, whereupon "the shock of suddenly acquiring abelief that they had been engaged in a loathsome and pervertedpractice appeared to precipitate serious paranoidsymptoms." Nothing could better show how urgent it[350]is