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

THE BIOLOGY OF SEXapproaching gratification of sensory desires; it is significantthat in some animals there is at this moment erectionof the ears. There is sometimes a tendency to utter brokenor meaningless words. The dilatation of the pupils producesphotophobia, and in the course of detumescencethe eyes are frequently closed from this cause. At the beginningof sexual excitement, tonicity of the eye-musclesseems to increase; the elevators of the upper lids contract,so that the eyes look larger and their mobility and brightnessare heightened; with the increase of muscular tonicitystrabismus may occur.So profound isprocessthe organic convulsion involved by theof detumescence that serious effects have sometimesfollowed coitus. Even in animals this has been noted.In the human species, especially in men probably becausewomen are protected by the greater slowness withwhich detumescence occurs in them not only death itself,but numerous disorders and accidents have beenknown to follow immediately after coitus, these resultsbeing mainly due to the vascular and muscular excitementinvolved by the process of detumescence. Fainting, vomiting,involuntary urination and defaecation, have beennoted as occurring in young men after a first coitus.Epilepsy has been not infrequently recorded. Lesions ofvarious organs, even rupture of the spleen, have sometimestaken place. In men of mature age the arteries haveat times been unable to resist the high blood-pressure, andcerebral hemorrhage with paralysis has occurred. Inelderly men the excitement of intercourse with youngwives or with prostitutes has sometimes caused death.Such results are, however, exceptional. They tend tooccur in persons who are abnormally sensitive, or whohave imprudently transgressed the obvious rules of sexualhygiene. Detumescence is so profoundly natural a process,