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

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXlaw, and convention have combined to lay down in thesphere of sex. A wise and watchful ishygiene here for evernecessary, and is the more imperative because, when it isdefective, we are often faced by situations which it is notalways altogether within the sphere of medicine to treat.We have to regard the sexual impulse as a force, generated,we are now becoming accustomed to think, by powerfulferments, springing up from within and capable of takingon endless forms, healthy and morbid, normal and abnormalforms that are sometimes scarcely recognizable assexual at all, and which, while we can to some extent controlor guide, we can never altogether repress. Thisdynamic conception of the sexual impulse has long beenvaguely perceived; Anstie used it, half a century ago, toexplain some forms of what was later called neurasthenia;James Hinton developed it more especially in its moralaspects; it underlies the conception of auto-erotism; ithas been worked out with endless subtlety by Freud.I have referred to sexual energy as "a force generatedby powerful ferments." That is vague; if we now try todefine it more precisely than was attempted at the outset,we may perhaps say that the erotic personality rests ona triangular association between the cerebrum, the endocrinesystem, and the autonomic nervous apparatus.This lastcomponent has not come conspicuously to thefront, but itsimportance may here be indicated. It isconstituted by the digestive, circulatory, respiratory, andurinary systems, the secretory glands and their ganglionicnervous systems. This apparatus thus regulates what maybe considered the fundamental function of living. It islargely responsible for setting in action what Kempf,who has mainly insisted on the significance of the autonomicfactor for behavior, calls the acquisitive and avertivecompulsions to action in relation to the environment.[354]