Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 - Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in Women by Havelock Ellis
page 27 of 545 (04%)
page 27 of 545 (04%)
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ovaries and uterus were of minute size and functionless, and the vagina
was absent, but the sexual feelings were normal, and the clitoris preserved its usual sensibility. Mundé had recorded two similar cases, of which he presents photographs. In all these cases not only was the sexual impulse present in full degree, but the subjects were feminine in disposition and of normal womanly conformation; in most cases the external sexual organs were properly developed.[15] Féré (_L'Instinct sexuel_, p. 241) has sought to explain away some of these phenomena, in so far as they may be brought against the theory that the secretions and excretions of the sexual glands are the sole source of the sexual impulse. The persistence of sexual feelings after castration may be due, he argues, to the presence of the nerves in the cicatrices, just as the amputated have the illusion that the missing limb is still there. Exactly the same explanation has since been put forward by Moll, _Medizinische Klinik_, 1905, Nrs. 12 and 13. In the same way the presence of sexual feelings after the menopause may be due to similar irritation determined by degeneration during involution of the glands. The precocious appearance of the sexual impulse in childhood he would explain as due to an anomaly of development in the sexual organs. Féré makes no attempt to explain the presence of the sexual impulse in the congenital absence of the sexual glands; here, however, Mundé intervenes with the suggestion that it is possible that in most cases "an infinitesimal trace of ovary" may exist, and preserve femininity, though insufficient to produce ovulation or menstruation. It is proper to mention these ingenious arguments. They are, however, purely hypothetical, obviously invented to support a |
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