It might properly be contended that all functions of living matter are physiologic, but it is customary to distinguish certain aspects of animal behavior as psychologic functions. The distinctions can never be sharp, and they probably do not represent reality; but they are convenient distinctions to make, particularly in regard to human behavior.
Usually physiologists have been concerned with the functions of particular parts of the plant or animal, and with an attempt to discover the physical and chemical bases of such functions. Psychologists, on the other hand, have more often been concerned with the functioning—the behavior—of the organism as a whole. Many of the psychologic studies record—and properly record—the behavior of an animal without being able to explain the bases of that behavior in the known physics or chemistry of living matter. When psychologists try to explain behavior in physico-chemical terms, it is difficult to say, and quite pointless to try to say, whether such studies lie in the field of psychology or physiology.
It is important to understand how nebulous the distinctions are between the psychologic and physiologic aspects of behavior, for there are some who seem to believe that there are three universes: an animal’s anatomy, its physiology, and its psychology. Such a misinterpretation formerly led biologists to think of a dualistic relationship between the physiologic capacities of an organism and its form and structure. The same sort of misinterpretation has led to the dualistic distinction of mind and body to which many persons have been inclined. But form and function are coordinate qualities of any living cell, and of any more complex assemblage of living cells.
Such specious distinctions between form and function have, unfortunately, lent encouragement to the opinion that the psychologic aspects of human sexual behavior are of a different order from, and perhaps more significant than, the anatomy or physiology of sexual response and orgasm. Such thinking easily becomes mystical, and quickly identifies any consideration of anatomic form and physiologic function as a scientific materialism which misses the “basic,” the “human,” and the “real” problems in behavior. This, however, seems an unnecessary judgment. Whatever we may learn of the anatomy and physiology and of the basic chemistry of an animal’s responses, must contribute to our understanding of the totality which we call behavior. Those aspects of behavior which we identify as psychologic can be nothing but certain aspects of that same basic anatomy and physiology.
This, however, will not prevent us from recognizing the existence of many phenomena, such as the processes of learning and conditioning, the development of preferences in the choice of sexual objects, and the development of whole patterns of behavior, which cannot yet be explained in terms of the physics and chemistry which may be involved. Indeed, some of the aspects of sexual behavior which most critically affect the lives of human animals, and which are most often involved in the relations between human females and males, are among these still unexplained phenomena.
One of the best known and distinctive qualities of living matter, although it is one which is still unexplainable in terms of physics and chemistry, is its capacity to be modified by its experience. The first time that an animal meets a given situation, its reactions may represent little more than direct responses to immediate stimuli; but in its subsequent contacts with similar stimuli, the organism may react differently from the way it did on the first occasion. In some fashion which no biologist or biochemist understands, living plant and animal cells, and groups of cells and tissues and organs in more complex animal bodies, are modified by their experience. The organism’s later behavior represents a composite of its reactions to the stimuli which are immediately present, and its reactions to the memory of its previous experience. This depends on the processes which are known, in psychologic terminology, as learning and conditioning.
Learning and conditioning are, of course, familiar parts of the everyday experience of the human animal. Other things being equal, the first experiences, the most intense experiences, and the latest experiences may have the maximum effect on an individual’s subsequent behavior. Freud and the psychiatrists, and psychologists in general, have correctly emphasized the importance of one’s early experience, but it should not be forgotten that one may continue to learn and continue to be conditioned by new types of situations at any time during one’s life. It is incorrect to minimize the importance of all except childhood experiences in the development of adult patterns of behavior.
Learning and conditioning in connection with human sexual behavior involve the same sorts of processes as learning and conditioning in other types of behavior. But man, because of his highly developed forebrain, may be more conditionable than any of the other mammals. The variations which exist in adult sexual behavior probably depend more upon conditioning than upon variations in the gross anatomy or physiology of the sexual mechanisms.
The sexual capacities which an individual inherits at birth appear to be nothing more than the necessary anatomy and the physiologic capacity to respond to a sufficient physical or psychologic stimulus. All human females and males who are not too greatly incapacitated physically appear to be born with such capacities. No one has to learn to become tumescent, to build up the neuromuscular tensions which lead to the rhythmic pelvic thrusts of coitus, or to develop any of the other responses which lead to orgasm.
But apart from these few inherent capacities, most other aspects of human sexual behavior appear to be the product of learning and conditioning. From the time it is born, and probably before it is born, the infant comes into contact with some of the elements that enter into its later sexual experience. From its first physical contacts with other objects, and particularly from its contacts with other human bodies, the child learns that there are satisfactions which may be obtained through tactile stimulation. In its early sexual experience with other individuals, the child begins to learn something of the rewards and penalties which may be attached to socio-sexual activities. From its parents, from other adults, from other children, and from the community at large, it begins to acquire its attitudes toward such things as nudity, the anatomic differences between males and females, and the reproductive functions; and these attitudes may have considerable significance in determining its subsequent acceptance or avoidance of particular types of overt sexual activity.
The type of person who first introduces an individual to particular types of socio-sexual activities may have a great deal to do with his or her subsequent attitudes, his or her interest in continuing such activity, and his or her dissatisfactions with other types of activity. Above all, experience develops a certain amount of technical facility, and an individual learns how to masturbate and learns how to utilize particular techniques in petting, in coitus, or in homosexual or other relations. As we shall subsequently see (Chapter 17 ), we may sharply distinguish the inherent sexual capacities with which an animal is born, from those aspects of its sexual behavior which are acquired by the processes of learning and conditioning.
As a result of its experience, an animal acquires certain patterns of behavior which lead it to react positively to certain sorts of stimuli, and to react negatively to other sorts of stimuli. But there are also various degrees of response, and an animal learns to react toward or against certain stimuli more intensely than it does to others. 1 When there is any possibility of choosing, the animal may show strong preferences for one rather than another type of activity.
An individual may come to prefer particular types of individuals as sexual partners; may prefer tall persons or short persons; may prefer blondes or brunettes; may prefer sexual partners who are much younger or much older, or of his or her own age 2 ; may develop an incapacity to respond to any except a single sexual partner, or a preference for variety in sexual experience; may prefer a heterosexual or a homosexual pattern of behavior; may prefer masturbation to the pursuit of socio-sexual contacts; may prefer a considerable amount of petting prior to actual coitus, or immediate coitus without preliminary play; may find satisfaction or be offended by the use of certain genital, oral, or anal techniques; may come to desire a variety of positions in coitus, or the more or less exclusive use of a single position; may choose a farm animal instead of a human partner for sexual relationships. All of these choices and reactions to particular stimuli may seem reasonable enough and more or less inevitable to the person who is involved, even though some of them may seem un-understandable, unnatural, and abnormal to the individual who has not been conditioned by the same sort of experience.
Even some of the most extremely variant types of human sexual behavior may need no more explanation than is provided by our understanding of the processes of learning and conditioning. Behavior which may appear bizarre, perverse, or unthinkably unacceptable to some persons, and even to most persons, may have significance for other individuals because of the way in which they have been conditioned. Flagellation, masochism, transvestism, and the wide variety of fetishes appear to be products of conditioning, fortified sometimes by some other aspect of an individual’s personality and by inherent or acquired anatomic and physiologic capacities. Sexual reactions to stockings, to underclothing, to other articles of clothing, to shoes, or to long hair may be no more difficult to explain than attractions to the body of a sexual partner, or to particular parts of that body, to the legs of females, to the breasts of females, to male genitalia, to buttocks, or to other portions of the human anatomy.
The male who reacts sexually and comes to erection upon seeing a streetcar, may merely reflect some early experience in which a streetcar was associated with a desirable sexual partner; and his behavior may be no more difficult to explain than the behavior of the male who reacts at the sight of his wife undressing for bed. There may be more social advantage in the one type of behavior than in the other. In rare instances some of the so-called aberrant types of behavior, meaning the less usual types of conditioned responses, may be definitely disadvantageous, but in most instances they are of no social concern. The prominence given to classifications of behavior as normal or abnormal, and the long list of special terms used for classifying such behavior, usually represent moralistic classifications rather than any scientific attempt to discover the origins of such behavior, or to determine their real social significance.
A fair amount of the conditioning which occurs in connection with human sexual behavior depends upon the fact that the human animal, with its extraordinary capacity for communication through verbal interchange, through the printed word and pictorial material, and through other modern devices, may vicariously share the sexual experience of many other persons. Learning of their satisfactions or difficulties in particular types of sexual activity may influence one’s own decision to engage or not to engage in similar types of activity.
Many persons find considerable stimulation in listening to accounts of the sexual experience of other persons, in hearing fictional tales of sexual exploits, in reading of such experience, and in seeing photographs and drawings of sexual objects and activities. Many individuals become strongly conditioned toward or against having particular types of sexual activity, before they have ever had any actual experience of the sort.
An individual’s pattern of sexual behavior usually depends to a great extent upon the longstanding and sometimes ancient social codes concerning the various types of sexual activity. The social attitudes may begin to condition the child at a very early age, and may force it to confine its attitudes, its responses, and its overt activities to sexual expressions which are acceptable to the particular culture.
An animal may become conditioned to respond not only to particular stimuli, but to objects and other phenomena which were associated with the original experience. Pavlov’s classic experiment with the dog which was so conditioned that it salivated upon hearing a dinner bell, as well as when it came in contact with the food with which the bell was originally associated, stands as the prototype of such associative conditioning. 3
Sexual behavior, among all species of mammals, may involve a great deal of conditioning by phenomena which were associated with previous experience. Male cats and dogs and many other mammals respond sexually when they approach places in which they have had previous experience 4 ; male rabbits, guinea pigs, skunks, raccoons, bulls, and horses may respond to odors left by female secretions. 5 They often respond to the odor of the urine of a female, especially if the female is in estrus. In the laboratory, male animals may respond to particular dishes, to particular boards, or to particular pieces of other furniture with which some female has had contact. They may respond more intensely to particular animals with which they have had previous sexual contact, they may respond less intensely to animals with which they have not had previous contact—although another phenomenon, psychologic fatigue, may lead to an exact reversal of this pattern of response. 6
If satisfactory relations were previously had with an individual of the opposite sex, animals are more likely to respond to other individuals of that sex. If the previous experience was with an individual of their own sex, they are, because of the association with the previous experience, more likely to respond again to individuals of their own sex. If the laboratory investigator was present when the animal was previously involved in sexual activity, it is likely to react more intensely on later occasions if the investigator is again present. A dog which has been masturbated by its owner may subsequently come to full erection whenever it sees the human agent, move toward him, and try to renew the relationship. We have the record of one dog which did not go to its owner when it saw him, but ran to the place where it had been previously masturbated and there awaited a renewal of that experience.
We have already pointed out (p. 590) that sexual stimulation by things that one sees, hears, smells, or tastes often depends upon the associations which they evoke, rather than upon the direct physical stimulation of the sense organs through which those things are perceived. While this is true of all the higher mammals, it is particularly true of the human animal. From its earliest years the child comes to associate a considerable number of particular objects and phenomena with things that make him comfortable or in some other way prove satisfying. In the course of time, an adult comes to associate sexual activities with warmth, tactile satisfactions, particular types of food, alcoholic drinks, furniture, the clothing of the sexual partner, particular odors, particular intensities of light, particular sounds, certain musical compositions, particular sorts of voices, particular words which have been used to describe particular types of sexual performance, the sort of room or outdoor setting in which satisfactory sexual relations previously occurred, the use of particular techniques in a sexual relationship, and an endless list of other particular things.
Sometimes an individual may reach a point at which he reacts to these associated phenomena as intensely or more intensely than he reacts to the physical stimulation of a sexual contact. Not a few individuals find that they are more intensely aroused by the anticipation of an opportunity to engage in sexual activity than they are when they arrive at the activity itself.
Among most species of mammals, most males and some females become erotically aroused when they observe other individuals engaging in sexual activity. Animals which have not reacted to the mere presence of the other animals may become interested if the other animals begin sexual activity. Most males are likely to respond quite immediately to such stimuli, to come to erection, and to seek the opportunity for sexual activity of their own. This is as true bf the human male as it is of the males of other species of mammals. 7
These are, technically speaking, sympathetic responses. The one animal feels or reacts (pathos ) with (sym ) the other. Of all the situations to which an animal may become conditioned, none is as likely to evoke sexual responses as sexual activity itself. The restrictions which most human societies place upon the public performance of sexual acts probably did not arise out of any innate perception of what was shameful or wrong, but from an attempt to control the sympathetic responses of the bystanders and the social consequences of group sexual activity. Among laboratory animals and animals in the wild, vigorous competition and violent conflict are the usual outcome of group sexual activity. They are as likely to be the outcome of group activity in the human species, unless the individuals control their jealousies in a conscious attempt to obtain the especial stimulation which may be found in group activity.
In a socio-sexual relationship, the sexual partners may respond to each other and to the responses made by each other. For this reason, most persons find socio-sexual relationships more satisfactory than solitary sexual activities.
When there is physical contact, all of one’s sense organs may aid in making one aware of the responses of the partner and of the movements of the partner’s body, particularly when there are such extensive contacts as completely nude bodies may provide. Tensions developing in the body of the one partner may be reflected instantaneously in the reactions of the other partner’s body. As the one partner approaches orgasm, his or her extreme reactions may stimulate the other partner into simultaneous orgasm. Such a simultaneity of response may occasionally originate in the fact that the two partners are so constituted that they respond in exactly the same period of time, but it usually depends upon some sympathetic interaction between the two.
In general, males are more often conditioned by their sexual experience, and by a greater variety of associated factors, than females. While there is great individual variation in this respect among both females and males, there is considerable evidence that the sexual responses and behavior of the average male are, on the whole, more often determined by the male’s previous experience, by his association with objects that were connected with his previous sexual experience, by his vicarious sharing of another individual’s sexual experience, and by his sympathetic reactions to the sexual responses of other individuals. The average female is less often affected by such psychologic factors. It is highly significant to find that there are evidences of such differences between the females and males of infra-human mammalian species, as well as between human females and males. 8
While we found no basic differences in the anatomy which is involved in the sexual responses of females and of males, and no differences in the physiologic phenomena which are involved when females and males respond sexually, we do find, in these responses to psychologic stimuli, an explanation of some of the differences that we have reported in the incidences and frequencies and the patterns of sexual behavior among females and males. We shall subsequently find (Chapter 18 ) that hormonal differences between the human female and male may account for certain other differences between the two sexes.
It cannot be too strongly emphasized that there is tremendous individual variation in the way in which different individuals may be affected by psychologic stimuli. We have already pointed out some of these differences. For instance, we have shown (p. 164) that there is a considerable proportion of the females who masturbate without associated fantasies, and a considerable proportion of our female sample who had never had specifically sexual dreams while they slept. In this respect, such a female differs considerably from the average male, for nearly all males do fantasy while masturbating, and nearly all of them have nocturnal sex dreams. On the other hand, we have also recorded (p. 164) that there are some females who invariably fantasy while they are masturbating, who have an abundance of sex dreams, and who have daytime fantasies which may so arouse them that they reach orgasm without any physical stimulation of any part of their bodies. It is only one male in a thousand or two who can fantasy to orgasm. In our sample, the range of variation in responses to psychologic stimuli is, therefore, much greater among females than it is among males. While we may emphasize the differences which exist between the average female and the average male, it should constantly be borne in mind that there are many individuals, and particularly many females, who widely depart from these averages.
1. Observing the Opposite Sex . A third (32 per cent) of the males in the sample reported that they were considerably and regularly aroused by observing certain females (clothed or nude), including their wives, girl friends, and other females of the sort with whom they would like to have sexual relations. Another 40 per cent recorded some response. Only half as many of the females (17 per cent) in the sample reported that they were particularly aroused upon observing males, whether they were their husbands, boy friends, or other males, and another 41 per cent recorded some response. The specific data are as follows:
Observing the opposite sex
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 17 | 32 |
| Some response | 41 | 40 |
| Never | 42 | 28 |
| Number of cases | 5772 | 4226 |
The responses of these males upon observing females were the physiologic responses characteristic of sexual arousal; they often included genital reactions, and often led the male to approach the female for physical contact. Females who had been aroused with similar intensities did occur in the sample, but most of the females who had been aroused had not responded with such marked physiologic reactions.
Responses upon observing potential sexual partners are also characteristic of the males of most of the infra-human species of mammals, but the females of most of the mammalian species less frequently show signs of erotic arousal before they have made physical contact with the sexual partner (p. 230). Psychologic arousal in the female occurs most frequently when she is in estrus. Female dogs, female chimpanzees, sometimes cows, female porcupines, and the females of some other species may become quite aroused while they are in estrus and become aggressive in making sexual approaches to the male; although among even these species the females are not aggressive as often as the males. 9
2. Observing One’s Own Sex . The recognition of erotic arousal upon observing other individuals of one’s own sex is, of course, a basically homosexual phenomenon. In our culture, with its strong condemnation of male homosexuality, most males who want to think of themselves as completely heterosexual are therefore afraid to admit that they see even esthetic merit in other males. On the other hand, females are allowed to find esthetic satisfactions in observing the nude female form, or in observing well dressed females, and our cultural traditions make it possible for a female to express her admiration of another female without being suspected of homosexual interests. Actually, the female’s interest in other females is often a matter of identification with a person she admires, and lacks any erotic element.
In view of this lesser social acceptance of male interests in males, and of the readier acceptance of female interests in females, it is particularly interesting to find that males recognize and admit their erotic responses to other males as often or even more often than females recognize and admit their erotic responses to other females. The record is as follows:
Observing one’s own sex
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 3 | 7 |
| Some response | 9 | 9 |
| Never | 88 | 84 |
| Number of cases | 5754 | 4220 |
3. Observing Portrayals of Nude Figures . Something more than half (54 per cent) of the males in our sample had been erotically aroused by seeing photographs or drawings or paintings of nude females, just as they were aroused upon observing living females. Most homosexual males are similarly aroused by seeing portrayals of nude males. Fewer (12 per cent) of the females in the sample had ever been aroused by seeing photographs or drawings or paintings of either male or female nudes. The specific record is as follows:
Observing portrayals of nude figures
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 3 | 18 |
| Some response | 9 | 36 |
| Never | 88 | 46 |
| Number of cases | 5698 | 4191 |
It is difficult for the average female to comprehend why males are aroused by seeing photographs or portrayals of nudes when they cannot possibly have overt sexual relations with them. Males on the other hand, cannot comprehend why females who have had satisfactory sexual relations should not be aroused by nude portrayals of the same person, or of the sort of person with whom they have had sexual relations. We have histories of males who have attempted to arouse their female partners by showing them nude photographs or drawings, and most of these males could not comprehend that their female partners were not in actuality being aroused by such material. When a male does realize that his wife or girl friend fails to respond to such stimuli, he may conclude that she no longer loves him and is no longer willing to allow herself to respond in his presence. He fails to comprehend that it is a characteristic of females in general, rather than the reaction of the specific female, which is involved in this lack of response.
Striking evidence of the differences in the reactions of females and males is to be found in the commercial distribution of portrayals of nude human figures. There is a tremendous business of this sort, including the sale of good nude art, of photographic prints, and of moving picture, physical culture, and nudist magazines. There are nude or near nude figures in the main pages and in the advertising sections of nearly all illustrated magazines. Much of this material is distributed without any deliberate intent to provide erotic stimulation, and much of it has artistic and other serious value; but all of it may provide erotic stimulation for many of the male consumers. 10
Photographs of female nudes and magazines exhibiting nude or near nude females are produced primarily for the consumption of males. There are, however, photographs and magazines portraying nude and near nude males—but these are also produced for the consumption of males. There are almost no male or female nudes which are produced for the consumption of females. The failure of nearly all females to find erotic arousal in such portrayals is so well known to the distributors of nude photographs and nude magazines that they have considered that it would not be financially profitable to produce such material for a primarily female audience.
4. Erotic Fine Art . There may be a diversity of erotic elements in art, but the most obvious is the portrayal of the human body or portions of the human body in a fashion which gives evidence of the artist’s erotic interest in his or her subject matter, or provides erotic stimulation for the individual observing the work. 11
An extensive study which we are making of the erotic element in art indicates that a very high proportion of the male artists who portray the human form, either female or male, do so in a fashion which indicates an erotic interest in that form. Even though there may be no portrayal of genitalia and no suggestion of sexual action, the nude body itself may be drawn or painted in a fashion which is erotic to the artist and to most males who subsequently observe the drawing or painting. Such artists as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael in his drawings, Rubens, Rodin, Renoir, and Maillol—to cite a few specific cases—rarely drew nudes which, in the judgment of the qualified artists whom we have consulted, did not show such an erotic element.
It is, of course, possible to portray the nude form, as was regularly done in Egyptian art, for instance, in a way which is not erotic; but among the males who have drawn or painted nude figures, it is rare to find any in European or American art who have done so without evident erotic interest. We have not found more than a half dozen male artists of moment who have regularly drawn nudes which have not shown an erotic content.
While the number of female artists has been much less than the number of males who have done painting or drawing, there are many hundreds of them in the history of European and American art. But in some years of searching, we have been able to find only eight instances of important female artists who have drawn the human figure in a fashion which qualified artists, female or male, judge to be erotic. 12 In conjunction with the data (p. 652) which indicate that relatively few females are aroused upon observing nude paintings or drawings, it is understandable that female artists themselves should not be erotically responsive to the nude subjects which they are drawing or painting; and this is evident in their finished work.
It is to be noted that seven out of the eight female artists whose work seems erotic had confined themselves to portraying the nude female form.
5. Observing Genitalia . Most heterosexual males are aroused by observing female breasts or legs, or some other part of the female body. They are usually aroused when they see female genitalia. A smaller percentage of the females in the sample (of 617 to whom the question was put) reported erotic arousal as a product of their observation of male genitalia, and more than half (52 per cent) reported that they had never been aroused by observing male genitalia. The record is as follows:
Observing genitalia of opposite sex
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 21 | many |
| Some response | 27 | many |
| Never | 52 | few |
| Number of cases | 617 |
Many females are surprised to learn that there is anyone who finds the observation of male genitalia erotically stimulating. Many females consider that male genitalia are ugly and repulsive in appearance, and the observation of male genitalia may actually inhibit their erotic responses. It may be true, as psychoanalysts suggest, that the negative reactions of females to male genitalia may originate in unpleasant sexual experiences with males; but there seems no doubt that these reactions largely depend upon the fact that most females are not psychologically stimulated, as males are, by objects which are associated with sex.
Among the infra-human species of mammals there seem to be something of the same differences between the reactions of females and males to the genitalia of the opposite sex. For instance, a female monkey or ape grooming the body of a male who may become aroused erotically, may pay no attention to the male’s erect genitalia. On the other hand, when male apes and monkeys groom females, they usually show considerable interest in the female genitalia, and explore around and within the genital cavity. Male rats, guinea pigs, dogs, raccoons, skunks, porcupines, and many other male animals may similarly explore at considerable length about the genitalia of the female, but the females of these species less often explore about the genitalia of the male. 13 Any interpretation of the human female’s lack of interest in male genitalia must take into account the similar situation among these infra-human species.
Most human males with homosexual interests are aroused, and in most instances strongly aroused, by seeing male genitalia. Genital exposures and genital exhibitions are frequently employed to interest other males in homosexual contacts. In the course of a homosexual relationship among males, considerable attention may be given to the genital anatomy and genital reactions. Moreover, many males who are not conscious of homosexual reactions are interested in their own genitalia and in the genitalia of other males. But only a small percentage of the homosexual females is ever aroused erotically by seeing the genitalia of other females.
6. Observing Own Genitalia . A great many of the males in the sample (56 per cent) had been aroused by observing their own genitalia as they masturbated, or by viewing their genitalia in a mirror. Few (9 per cent) of the females in the sample had found any erotic stimulation in looking at their own genitalia. The specific data are as follows:
Observing own genitalia
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 1 | 25 |
| Some response | 8 | 31 |
| Never | 91 | 44 |
| Number of cases | 5725 | 3332 |
There were more males (56 per cent) who were aroused by observing their own genitalia than there were females (48 per cent) who were aroused by observing male genitalia. The male’s arousal may have a homosexual element in it, but many of the males who have never consciously recognized any other homosexual interests and have never had homosexual contacts may be aroused at seeing their own genitalia or the genitalia of other males.
7. Exhibitionism . Because of their interest in their own genitalia and their arousal upon seeing the genitalia of other persons, males quite generally believe that other persons would be aroused by seeing their genitalia. This seems to be the prime factor which leads many males to exhibit their genitalia to their wives, to other female partners, and to male partners in homosexual relationships. 14
It is difficult for most males to comprehend that females are not aroused by seeing male genitalia. Some males never come to comprehend this. Many a male is greatly disappointed when his wife fails to react to such a display, and concludes that she is no longer in love with him. On the contrary, many females feel that their husbands are vulgar, or perverted; or mentally disturbed, because they want to display their genitalia. We have seen difficulties develop in marital histories because of this failure of females to understand male psychology, and of males to understand female psychology. Divorces had grown out of some of these misunderstandings.
The male who exposes himself in a public place similarly secures erotic satisfaction primarily because he believes that the females who observe him are going to be aroused as he would be at seeing a genital exhibition. Sometimes the exhibitionist is aroused by the evident fright or confusion or other emotional reactions of the females who see him and, responding sympathetically, he may be stimulated by such an emotional display. But a considerable portion of the erotic arousal which the exhibitionist finds is a product of his anticipation that the female will be aroused, and this is evidenced by the fact that he is usually in erection before any passerby sees him. His reactions, therefore, may not depend entirely or even primarily upon the responses of the passing female (p. 655).
There are some females who will show their genitalia to the male partner because they intellectually realize that this may mean something to him. But only an occasional female among those who exhibit receives any erotic arousal from this anticipation of the male’s responses. There are no cases in our sample, and practically none in the literature, of females publicly exhibiting their genitalia because they derived erotic satisfaction from such an exhibition. 15
Stage, night club, burlesque and other commercial exhibitions of female nudity almost never, as far as our sample indicates, provide erotic stimulation for the exhibiting females. Our specific data provide no physiologic evidence (Chapter 15 ) of arousal among the females staging such exhibitions, although some of them may acquire considerable facility in making body movements which are taken by many of the males in the audience to indicate that the exhibiting females are tremendously aroused. Most of the females in our histories who had been involved in such stage exhibitions, were highly distainful of males who could so easily be misled into believing that there was any real eroticism in such a performance.
8. Interest in Genital Techniques . While the genitalia may be the chief focus of a considerable amount of sexual activity, this does not depend wholly on the fact that these organs are well supplied with end organs of touch. There are many other parts of the body which are similarly supplied with end organs, and the importance attached to the genitalia in a sexual relationship must partly depend upon the fact that most males and some females are psychologically conditioned to consider the genitalia as the structures which are primarily associated with sexual response.
This interpretation is favored by the fact that males attach much more importance to the genitalia than females do in a sexual relationship. But there is no reason for believing that the genitalia of the male are more richly supplied with end organs than the genitalia of the female. While genital erection may draw the male’s attention to his own genitalia, this does not suffice to interest most females in his genitalia.
Most males, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are inclined to initiate a sexual relationship through some genital exposure or genital manipulation. Most females prefer to be stimulated tactilely in various other parts of the body before the activity is concentrated on the genitalia. It is the constant complaint of married females that their husbands are interested in “nothing but the intercourse,” and by that they mean that he is primarily concerned with genital stimulation and an immediate genital union. On the other hand, it is the constant complaint of the married male that his wife “will do nothing to him,” which means, in most instances, that she does not tactilely stimulate his genitalia.
These same differences in the significance of genital activities are to be found in the homosexual activities of females and males. A high proportion of the homosexual contacts among males is initiated through some genital exposure or some sort of genital manipulation (groping). During the actual relationships most homosexual males are likely to prefer more genital than non-genital stimulation. But in female homosexual relationships, the stimulation of all parts of the body may proceed for some period of time before there is any concentration of attention on the genitalia. We have histories of exclusively homosexual females who had had overt relationships for ten or fifteen years before they attempted any sort of genital stimulation.
Homosexual females frequently criticize homosexual males because they are interested in nothing but genitalia; homosexual males, in turn, may criticize homosexual females because “they do nothing” in a homosexual relationship. The idea that homosexuality is a sexual inversion is dispelled when one hears homosexual females criticizing homosexual males for exactly the same reasons which lead many wives to criticize their husbands, and when one hears homosexual males criticize homosexual females for exactly the things which husbands criticize in their wives. In fact, homosexual males, in their intensified interest in male genitalia and genital activity, often exhibit the most extreme examples of a typically male type of conditioning.
9. Observing Commercial Moving Pictures . Portrayals of more or less erotic situations are so common in present-day commercial moving pictures that their significance as sources of erotic arousal, for either females or males, is probably less than it was in an earlier day and certainly much less than most official and unofficial censors would believe. It is not impossible that many males would more often respond erotically to love scenes, to close-ups of petting and kissing, and to exhibitionistic displays of semi-nude bodies if they were to observe such pictures in the privacy of their homes or in conjunction with some sexual partner. In the average public theatre, however, the openly expressed reactions of the audience suggest that they are more amused than aroused by the sort of eroticism which is usually presented. However, their vocal responses, cat calls, and whistling may indicate that they are reacting emotionally and trying to deny it by way of a contrary response.
The males and females in our sample recorded their reactions to commercial moving pictures as follows:
Observing moving pictures
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 9 | 6 |
| Some response | 39 | 30 |
| Never | 52 | 64 |
| Number of cases | 5411 | 3231 |
This means that the females found the moving pictures erotically stimulating somewhat more often than the males. This is one of the few sources of psychologic stimulation which seem to have been more significant for the females in the sample.
Some of the stimulation provided by a moving picture may depend on the romantic action which it portrays, and some of it may depend on the portrayal of some particular person. In a larger number of instances, the erotic stimulation may depend on the emotional atmosphere created by the picture as a whole, just as viewing a landscape, reading a book, or sitting with another person before an open fire may lead to emotional responses which then become erotic. Sometimes the erotic element in the picture may have no obvious sexual meaning except to the individual who has been conditioned by the particular element. Sometimes the erotic arousal may depend upon the presence of the companion with whom one is attending the performance.
10. Observing Burlesque and Floor Shows . Burlesque shows more or less openly attempt to provide erotic stimulation for the attending audience, and a considerable proportion of those who go to such shows do so with the anticipation that they are going to be aroused erotically. More skilled versions of the burlesque routines are the chief elements of the average night club’s floor show.
Most males are aroused by the advertisements at the entrance to a burlesque show, and considerably aroused by anticipating what they are going to see. Most of the males (62 per cent) in our sample had been aroused by the show itself upon their first visit or two, but most of them had not found the shows particularly stimulating after that. Since some of these males had continued to attend such shows, it may be that they did receive some generalized erotic satisfaction from them even though it was not as specific as on the first occasion. Some of them may have gone because they were attracted by the humorous elements in such performances; but in many instances they continued to go because they hoped that they would again be stimulated as they had been on their first few visits.
The erotic reactions of those females and males in our sample who had ever seen a burlesque or night club floor show were reported as follows:
Observing burlesque and floor shows
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 4 | 28 |
| Some response | 10 | 34 |
| Never | 86 | 38 |
| Number of cases | 2550 | 3377 |
A decade or two ago the burlesque audiences were almost exclusively male; today the audiences may include a more equal number of females and males. It is difficult, however, to explain this attendance by females in view of the fact that so few of them (14 per cent in our sample) are aroused erotically by such shows. Apparently most females attend burlesque shows because they are social functions about which they are curious, and which they may share with their male companions. They may find some pleasure in the humorous elements in such a show. Only a very few of them are seeking homosexual stimulation from observing the females in the show.
11. Observing Sexual Action . A considerable proportion of those males in our sample who had had the opportunity to observe other persons in sexual activity had responded sympathetically during their observation. The females in the sample who had had the opportunity to observe sexual activity rarely reported such sympathetic responses. Most of them had been indifferent in their responses, if they had not been offended by the social impropriety of such an exhibition.
It is, therefore, no accident, and not merely the product of the cultural tradition, that commercialized exhibitions of sexual activity, since the days of ancient Rome, have been provided for male but almost never for female audiences. There are many males who would not accept an opportunity to attend such exhibitions because they consider them morally objectionable, but even they usually recognize that they would be aroused if they were to observe them.
There is an inclination to explain these differences in the responses of females and of males as products of the cultural tradition, and there is a widespread opinion that females are more inclined to accept the social proprieties because they are basically more moral than males. On the other hand, the same sorts of differences between the sympathetic responses of females and of males may be observed in other species of mammals. The males of practically all infra-human species may become aroused when they observe other animals in sexual activity. 16 Of this fact farmers, animal breeders, scientists experimenting with laboratory animals, and many persons who have kept household pets are abundantly aware. The females of the infra-human species less often show such sympathetic responses when they observe other animals in sexual activity. These data suggest that human females are more often inclined to accept the social proprieties because they are stimulated psychologically and respond sympathetically less often than most males do.
12. Observing Portrayals of Sexual Action . In spite of state and federal laws, and in spite of the considerable effort which law enforcement officers periodically make to prevent the distribution of photographs, drawings, moving pictures, and other portrayals of sexual action, such materials exist in considerable abundance in this country and probably in greater abundance in most other countries. Graphic portrayals of sexual action have existed in most cultures, throughout history. This is a measure of the considerable significance which such materials may have for the consuming public which, however, is largely male.
Practically all of the males in the sample had had the opportunity to observe portrayals of sexual action, and had taken the opportunity to observe them. Most of the males (77 per cent) who had seen such material indicated that they had been aroused erotically by seeing it. A smaller proportion of the females in the sample had had the opportunity to see, or had taken the opportunity to see such portrayals of sexual action. 17 Only a third of them (32 per cent) had found any erotic arousal in observing such material. The specific record is as follows:
Observing portrayals of sexual action
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 14 | 42 |
| Some response | 18 | 35 |
| Never | 68 | 23 |
| Number of cases | 2242 | 3868 |
Many females, of course, report that they are offended by portrayals of sexual action, and denounce them on moral, social, and aesthetic grounds. This is ordinarily taken as evidence of the female’s greater sense of propriety; but in the light of our other data on the relative significance of psychologic stimulation for females and for males, it seems more likely that most females are indifferent or antagonistic to the existence of such material because it means nothing to them erotically.
Most males find it difficult to comprehend why females are not aroused by such graphic representations of sexual action, and not infrequently males essay to show such materials to their wives or other female partners, thinking thereby to arouse them prior to their sexual contacts. 18 The wives, on the other hand, are often at a loss to understand why a male who is having satisfactory sexual relations at home should seek additional stimulation in portrayals of sexual action. They are hurt to find that their husbands desire any stimulation in addition to what they, the wives, can provide, and not a few of the wives think of it as a kind of infidelity which offends them. We have seen considerable disturbance in some of the married histories because of such disagreements over the husband’s use of erotic objects, and there are cases of wives who instituted divorce proceedings because they had discovered that their husbands possessed photographs or drawings of sexual action.
Local drives against so-called obscene materials, and state, federal, and international moves against the distribution of such materials, are not infrequently instituted by females who not only find the material morally and socially objectionable, but probably fail to comprehend the significance that it may have for most males and for some females.
13. Observing Animals in Coitus . Many human males and some females respond sympathetically upon observing animals of other species in coitus. The specific data show that 32 per cent of the males in our sample had so responded. Watching dogs or cattle in coitus had been the inspiration for the involvement of some of the farm boys in sexual relationships with the animals themselves. There were some females but fewer (16 per cent) who were aroused by observing the sexual activities of other animals. The data are as follows:
Observing animals in coitus
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 5 | 11 |
| Some response | 11 | 21 |
| Never | 84 | 68 |
| Number of cases | 5250 | 4082 |
14. Peeping and Voyeurism . There are probably very few heterosexual males who would not take advantage of the opportunity to observe a nude female, or to observe heterosexual activity, particularly if it were possible to do so surreptitiously so they would not suffer the social disgrace that the discovery of their behavior might bring. To many males, the observation of a female who is undressing may be erotically more stimulating than observing her when she is fully nude, for the undressing suggests, in fantasy, what they may ultimately be able to observe. Consequently, we have the peeper who gets into difficulty with the law, the peep show which was formerly common in this country and which is still available in many other countries, and the more surreptitious and unpublicized peeping in which most males engage, at some time in their lives, from the windows of their homes, from hotel windows, and from wherever they find the opportunity to observe. Our data are insufficient for determining what percentage of the male population is ever involved, but Hamilton found some 65 per cent of the males in his study admitting that they had done some peeping. 19 The percentages for the population as a whole are probably higher.
The erotic significance of what the peeper observes obviously depends on his capacity to be stimulated psychologically. But there are few instances in our own study, or in other studies, or in the medical and psychiatric literature, of females as peepers. Out of curiosity some females are undoubtedly sometimes involved, and a few of them may find erotic stimulation in such peeping; but such behavior is certainly rare among females.
15. Preferences for Light or Dark . We have previously (1948:581–582) pointed out that many (40 per cent) of the males in our sample preferred to have their coitus or other sexual activities where there was at least some light. Fewer (19 per cent) of the females in the sample preferred sexual relations in the light. This, again, is ordinarily taken to represent the greater modesty of the female, but it seems to depend upon the fact that the male is stimulated by seeing the sexual partner, by seeing the genitalia or other parts of the body of the sexual partner, by getting some chance to observe, as a voyeur, something of his own sexual action, and by the opportunity to observe various objects with which he comes to associate sexual action. Females, as we have already shown, are much less often attracted by observing the male partner, his genitalia, or other objects associated with the sexual performance. The specific data are as follows:
Anthropologic data indicate that there are different customs in regard to having coitus in the light or dark in various cultural groups, 20 and the cultural tradition may be a factor in determining the practice in our own culture; but this does not explain why, within our own single culture, males are more likely than females to prefer some light during their sexual activities. The differences provide another illustration of the greater capacity of the male to be conditioned by experience.
16. Fantasies Concerning Opposite Sex . Practically all males who are not exclusively homosexual may be erotically aroused by thinking of certain females, or of females in general. Fewer males of the lower educational levels are aroused by such fantasies, and older males sometimes lose their capacity to be stimulated by fantasies, and males who are exclusively homosexual may not fantasy concerning females. But most of the males in our sample (84 per cent) indicated that they were at least sometimes, and in most instances often aroused by thinking of sexual relations with females—by thinking of the sexual relations that they had previously had, or by thinking of the sexual relations that they anticipated they might have or would like to have. Such erotic stimulation probably occurs more often than any other single type of psychologic stimulation among males.
A smaller percentage (69 per cent) of the females in the sample reported that they had ever had erotic fantasies about males, and nearly a third (31 per cent) insisted that they had never been aroused by thinking about males or of sexual relations with them. They had not even been aroused by thinking of their husbands or of their boy friends. Most of the females who were not aroused by the contemplation of males were heterosexual, and most of them had had sexual relations with males in which they had regularly responded to the point of orgasm; but even some of the females who were most responsive in physical relationships had never been aroused by fantasies about males.
The specific data showing these differences between the females and males in the sample are as follows:
Fantasies concerning opposite sex
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 22 | 37 |
| Some response | 47 | 47 |
| Never | 31 | 16 |
| Number of cases | 5772 | 4214 |
These differences between females and males have a great deal to do with the fact that more males search for overt sexual experience, and fewer females search for such experience. These differences provide one explanation of the fact that males are usually aroused and often intensely aroused before the beginning of a sexual relationship and before they have made any physical contact with the female partner. These differences account for the male’s desire for frequent sexual contact, his difficulty in getting along without regular sexual contact, and his disturbance when he fails to secure the contact which he has sought. The differences often account for the female’s inability to comprehend why her husband finds it difficult to get along with less frequent sexual contacts, or to abandon his plans for coitus when household duties or social activities interfere.
Too many husbands, on the other hand, fail to comprehend that their wives are not aroused as they are in the anticipation of a sexual relationship, and fail to comprehend that their wives may need general physical stimulation before they are sufficiently aroused to want a genital union or completed coitus. Too often the male considers the wife’s lesser interest at the beginning of a sexual relationship as evidence that she has lost her affection for him. Sexual adjustments between husbands and wives could be worked out more often if males more often understood that the reactions of their particular wives represent characteristics which are typical of females in general, and if females more often understood that the sexual interests shown by their particular husbands represent qualities which are typical of most males.
17. Fantasies Concerning Own Sex . Sexual arousal from fantasies about other males, or of sexual relations with other males, is as frequent among homosexual males as heterosexual fantasies are among heterosexual males. Such erotic fantasies are less frequent among homosexual females, but they do occur in as high or a higher percentage of the homosexual females (7 4 per cent) as heterosexual fantasies occur among heterosexual females. The specific data are as follows:
Fantasies concerning own sex
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES |
|---|---|
| % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 28 |
| Some response | 46 |
| Never | 26 |
| Cases with homosexual history | 194 |
18. Fantasies During Masturbation . Some 89 per cent of the males in our sample had utilized erotic fantasies as one of their sources of stimulation during masturbation. Some 72 per cent had more or less always fantasied while masturbating. Such fantasies usually tum around memories of previous sexual experience, around sexual experience that the male hopes to have in the future, or around sexual experience which he may never allow himself to have but which he anticipates might bring erotic satisfaction if the law and the social custom made it possible for him to engage in such activity. In not a few instances males develop rather elaborate fictional situations which they regularly review as they masturbate. Quite a few males, particularly among the better educated groups, may, at least on occasion, utilize erotic photographs or drawings, or make their own erotic drawings, or read erotic literature, or write their own erotic stories which they use as sources of stimulation during masturbation. Some 56 per cent of the males in the sample indicated that they observed their own genitalia at least on occasion during masturbation, and while this is more likely to be true of males with homosexual histories, it is also true of many others who give no other evidence of homosexual interests. But in any event, these males find the observation of their own genitalia an additional source of erotic stimulation. So dependent are many males on psychologic stimuli in connection with masturbation that it is probable that many of them, especially middle-aged and older males, would have difficulty in reaching orgasm if they did not fantasy while masturbating.
Fantasies during masturbation
| FANTASIES PRESENT | AMONG FEMALES | AMONG MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Almost always | 50 | 72 |
| Sometimes | 14 | 17 |
| Never | 36 | 11 |
| Number of cases | 2475 | 2815 |
The record shows (p. 164) that only 64 per cent of the females in our sample who had ever masturbated, had fantasied while masturbating. 21 Only 50 per cent of the females who had masturbated, had regularly fantasied for any period of their lives. We have nearly no cases of females utilizing erotic books or pictures as sources of stimulation during masturbation.
19. Nocturnal Sex Dreams . Nearly all males have nocturnal sex dreams which are erotically stimulating to them. Ultimately some 75 per cent of the females (p. 196) may have such nocturnal dreams.
To judge from our sample, approximately 83 per cent of the males (the accumulative incidence figure) ultimately have sex dreams which are erotically stimulating enough to bring them to orgasm during sleep. The corresponding figure for the females in the sample was 37 per cent (p. 196). 22
The frequencies of sex dreams show similar differences between males and females. Among those males in the sample who were having any sex dreams (the active sample), the median frequencies averaged about 10 times per year in the younger age groups, and about 5 times per year in the older age groups. The median female in the sample had had sex dreams which were sufficiently erotic to bring her to orgasm with frequencies of 3 to 4 per year (p. 197). For perhaps 25 per cent of the females who had had any dreams which had resulted in orgasm, the experience had not occurred more often than 1 to 6 times in their lives. These differences depend, again, on differences in the significance of psychologic stimulation for the average female and the average male.
20. Diversion During Coitus . We have already pointed out (p. 384) that effective female responses during coitus may depend, in many cases, upon the continuity of physical stimulation. If that stimulation is interrupted, orgasm is delayed, primarily because the female may return to normal physiologic levels in such periods of inactivity. This appears to be due to the fact that she is not sufficiently aroused by psychologic stimuli to maintain her arousal when there is no physical stimulation. We have pointed out that the male, on the contrary, may go through a period in which physical activity is interrupted without losing erection or the other evidences of his erotic arousal, primarily because he continues to be stimulated psychologically during those periods.
Similarly, because the male is more strongly stimulated by psychologic factors during sexual activities, he cannot be distracted from his performance as easily as the female. Many females are easily diverted, and may turn from coitus when a baby cries, when children enter the house, when the doorbell rings, when they recall household duties which they intended to take care of before they retired for the night, and when music, conversation, food, a desire to smoke, or other nonsexual activities present themselves. The male himself is sometimes responsible for the introduction of the conversation, cigarettes, music, and other diversions, and he, unwittingly, may be responsible for the female’s distraction because he does not understand that the sources of her responses may be different from his.
It is a standard complaint of males that their female partners in coitus “do not put their minds to it.” This is an incorrect appraisal of the situation, for what is involved is the female’s lack of stimulation by the sorts of psychologic stimuli which are of importance to the male. Such differences between females and males have been known for centuries, and are pointed out in the classic and Oriental literature. From the most ancient to the most modern erotic art, the female has been portrayed on occasion as reading a book, eating, or engaging in other activities while she is in coitus; but no artist seems to have portrayed males engaged in such extraneous activities while in coitus.
Various interpretations may be offered of these differences between females and males. Many persons would, again, be inclined to look for cultural influences which might be responsible. But some sort of basic biologic factor must be involved, for at least some of the infra-human species of mammals show these same differences. Cheese crumbs spread in front of a copulating pair of rats may distract the female, but not the male. A mouse running in front of a copulating pair of cats may distract the female, but not the male. When cattle are interrupted during coitus, it is the cow that is more likely to be disturbed while the bull may try to continue with coitus. 23 It explains nothing to suggest that this is due to differences in levels of “sex drive” in the two sexes. There are probably more basic neurologic explanations of these differences between females and males (p. 712).
21. Stimulation by Literary Materials . Erotic responses while reading novels, essays, poetry, or other literary materials may depend upon the general emotional content of the work, upon specifically romantic material in it, upon its sexual vocabulary (particularly if it is a vernacular vocabulary), or upon its more specific descriptions of sexual activity. The reader may thus, vicariously, share the experience of the characters portrayed in the book, and reactions to such literary material are some measure of the reader’s capacity to be aroused psychologically.
The reactions of the females and males in our sample were as follows:
Reading literary materials
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 16 | 21 |
| Some response | 44 | 38 |
| Never | 40 | 41 |
| Number of cases | 5699 | 3952 |
It will be noted that the females and males in the sample had responded erotically in nearly the same numbers while reading literary materials. 24 Twice as many of the females in the sample had responded to literary materials as had ever responded to the observation of portrayals of sexual action (p. 662), and five times as many as had responded to photographs or other portrayals of nude human figures (p. 652). At this point we do not clearly understand why this should be so. There are possible psychoanalytic interpretations, but in view of all the evidence that there may be basic neurophysiologic differences between females and males, we hesitate to offer any explanation of the present data.
22. Stimulation by Erotic Stories . Practically all of the males in the sample, even including the youngest adolescent boys, had heard stories that were deliberately intended to be erotically stimulating, usually through their descriptions of sexual action. Nearly half (47 per cent) of the males in the sample reported that they had been aroused, at least on occasion, by such stories. There had been differences in the responses among males of the various educational levels. Most of the better educated males had responded, while fewer of the males of the lower educational levels were aroused by such stimuli. Some 53 per cent of the males in the total sample said that they had never been aroused by such stories.
Some 95 per cent of the females in the sample had heard or read stories that were deliberately intended to bring erotic response, but only 14 per cent recalled that they had ever been aroused by such stories. The specific record is as follows:
Stimulation by erotic stories
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 2 | 16 |
| Some response | 12 | 31 |
| Never | 86 | 53 |
| Number of cases | 5523 | 4202 |
Note that some 86 per cent of the females who had heard obscene stories had never received any erotic arousal from them. Some of the females had been offended by the stories, and it is not impossible that their failure to be aroused represented a perverse attitude which they had developed in consequence of the general opinion that such stories are indecent and immoral. On the other hand, a surprising proportion of the females in the sample indicated that they enjoyed such stories, usually because of their intrinsic humor. Sometimes their interest in the stories represented a defiance of the social convention. There is some indication, although we do not have the data to establish it, that there is an increasing acceptance of such stories among females in this country today. The older tradition which restricted the telling of such stories in the presence of a female has largely broken down within the last decade or two, and since there is this freer acceptance of such stories by many females, it is all the more surprising to find how few ever find erotic stimulation in them.
23. Erotic Writing and Drawing . What is commonly identified as pornography is literature or drawing which has the erotic arousal of the reader or observer as its deliberate and primary or sole objective. Erotic elements may be involved in the production of other literary material and in the fine arts; but in the opinion of most students, and in various court decisions, such literary and fine art materials are distinguished by the fact that they have literary or artistic merit as their prime objective, and depend only secondarily on erotic elements to accomplish those ends. 25
In every modern language, the amount of deliberately pornographic material that has been produced is beyond ready calculation. Some thousands of such documents have been printed in European languages alone, and the literature of the Orient and other parts of the world is replete with such material. Similarly, there is an unlimited amount of pornographic drawing and painting which has been produced by artists of some ability in every part of the world, and there is no end to the amateur portrayals of sexual action.
But in all this quantity of pornographic production, it is exceedingly difficult to find any material that has been produced by females. In the published material, there are probably not more than two or three documents that were actually written by females. It is true that there is a considerable portion of the pornographic material which pretends to be written by females who are recounting their personal experience, but in many instances it is known that the authors were male, and in nearly every instance the internal content of the material indicates a male author. A great deal of the pornographic literature turns around detailed descriptions of genital activity, and descriptions of male genital performance. These are elements in which females, according to our data, are not ordinarily interested. The females in such literature extol the male’s genital and copulatory capacity, and there is considerable emphasis on the intensity of the female’s response and the insatiability of her sexual desires. All of these represent the kind of female which most males wish all females to be. They represent typically masculine misinterpretations of the average female’s capacity to respond to psychologic stimuli. Such elements are introduced because they are of erotic significance to the male writers, and because they are of erotic significance to the consuming public, which is almost exclusively male.
Among the hundreds and probably thousands of unpublished, amateur documents which we have seen during the past fifteen years, we have been able to find only three manuscripts written by females which contain erotic elements of the sort ordinarily found in documents written by males. Similarly, out of the thousands of erotic drawings which we have seen, some of them by artists of note and some of them by lesser artists and amateurs, we have been able to find less than a half dozen series done by females.
Females produce another, more extensive literature which is called erotic, and do drawings which are called erotic; but most of these deal with more general emotional situations, affectional relationships, and love. These things do not bring specifically erotic responses from males, and we cannot discover that they bring more than minimal responses from females.
24. Wall Inscriptions . Making inscriptions (graffiti—literally, writings ) of various sorts on walls of buildings, walls lining country lanes, walls in public toilets, and walls in still other public places, is a custom of long and ancient standing. Among the inscriptions made by males, an exceedingly high proportion is sexual and obviously intended to provide erotic stimulation for the inscribers as well as for the persons who may subsequently observe them.
Relatively few females, on the contrary, ever make wall inscriptions. 26 When they do, fewer of the inscriptions are sexual, and only a small proportion of the sexual material seems to be intended to provide erotic stimulation for the inscribers or for the persons who observe the inscriptions.
With the collaboration of a number of other persons, we have accumulated some hundreds of wall inscriptions from public toilets, making sure that the record in each case covered all of the inscriptions, sexual or non-sexual, heterosexual or homosexual, which were on the walls in the place (p. 87). The record is as follows:
Incidences of sexual inscriptions
| FEMALE | MALE | |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Places with any sexual inscription | 50 | 58 |
| % of inscriptions which were erotic | 25 | 86 |
| Number of places surveyed | 94 | 259 |
| Number of sexual inscriptions | 331 | 1048 |
A high proportion (86 per cent) of the inscriptions on the walls of the male toilets were sexual. The sexual materials were drawings, lone words, phrases, and sometimes more extended writing. There were three chief subjects in these inscriptions: genitalia (either female or male), genital, oral, or anal action (either heterosexual or homosexual), and vernacular vocabularies which, by association, are erotically significant for most males.
On the contrary, not more than 25 per cent of the toilet wall inscriptions made by the females dealt with any of these matters. Most of the female inscriptions referred to love, or associated names (“John and Mary,” “Helen and Don”), or were lipstick impressions, or drawings of hearts; but very few of them were genital or dealt with genital action or sexual vernaculars. A brief summary of the material which we have accumulated shows the following:
Content of sexual inscriptions
| SUBJECT OF INSCRIPTIONS | MADE BY FEMALES | MADE BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
|
Heterosexual |
17 | 21 |
|
Genitalia of opposite sex |
5 | 3 |
|
Coital contacts |
7 | 8 |
|
Oral contacts |
2 | 11 |
|
Anal contacts |
1 | — |
|
Other erotic items |
2 | 3 |
|
References to dating |
0 | 5 |
|
Homosexual |
11 | 75 |
|
Genitalia of own sex |
7 | 15 |
|
Oral contacts |
1 | 30 |
|
Anal contacts |
0 | 18 |
|
Other erotic items |
2 | 8 |
|
References to dating |
1 | 21 |
|
Erotic, not classifiable as heterosexual or homosexual |
5 | 6 |
|
Non-erotic references to love |
||
|
With own sex |
12 | 3 |
|
With opposite sex |
35 | 3 |
|
Sex not specified |
9 | 0 |
|
Hearts |
6 | 0 |
|
Lips |
69 | 0 |
|
Number of inscriptions |
331 | 1048 |
Again it will be suggested that females are less inclined to make wall inscriptions of any sort, and less inclined to make erotic wall inscriptions, because of their greater regard for the moral codes and the social conventions. In view of our data showing that most females are not erotically aroused by the psychologic stimuli that are of significance to the male, and in view of the data showing that most females are not erotically aroused by observing sexual action, by portrayals of sexual action, or by fantasies about sexual action, there seems little doubt that the average female’s lack of interest in making wall inscriptions must depend primarily upon the fact that they mean little or nothing to her erotically. The male usually derives erotic satisfaction from making them, and he may derive even greater satisfaction in anticipating that the inscriptions he makes will arouse other males, amounting sometimes to hundreds and thousands of other males who may subsequently see them.
It is notable that the wall inscriptions in male toilets are concerned with male genitalia and male functions more often than they are concerned with female genitalia or functions. This, at first glance, makes them appear homosexual, but we are not yet ready to accept this interpretation. It is possible that homosexual males are actually more inclined, while heterosexual males are less inclined to make wall inscriptions. It is possible that homosexual males are more inclined because they may be more aroused in making such inscriptions, and because they anticipate how other males will react upon seeing them. The heterosexual male has no such incentive, since he knows that no females will see his writing. But we are inclined to believe that many of the inscriptions that deal with male anatomy and male function are made by males who are not conscious of homosexual reactions and who may not have had overt homosexual experience, but who, nevertheless, may be interested in male anatomy and male functions as elements which enter into heterosexual activities.
But whatever the conscious intent of the inscriber, the wall inscriptions provide information on the extent and the nature of the suppressed sexual desires of females and males. The inscriptions most frequently deal with activities which occur less frequently in the actual histories. This means that the males who make the inscriptions, and the males who read them, are exposing their unsatisfied desires. The inscriptions portray what they would like to experience in real life. Usually the inscriptions are anonymous. They are usually located in restricted, hidden, or remote places. Most of the males who make them would not so openly express their erotic interests in places where they could be identified.
Comparisons of the female and male inscriptions epitomize, therefore, some of the most basic sexual differences between females and males.
25. Discussions of Sex . Males are much more inclined, and females are less inclined to discuss sexual matters with other persons. Striking evidence of this has already been presented in discussing the sources of information which start females masturbating. The data are as follows:
First information on masturbation
| SOURCES | FEMALE * | MALE * |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Self-discovery | 57 | 28 |
| Verbal and printed sources | 43 | 75 |
| Petting experience | 12 | Very few |
| Observation | 11 | 40 |
| Homosexual experience | 3 | 9 |
| Number of cases | 2675 | 3999 |
* The totals amount to more than one hundred per cent because some individuals were simultaneously affected by two or more sources of information.
Note that 57 per cent of the females in the sample had first masturbated as a result of their own discovery that such a process was possible, and that relatively few had started because they had heard of masturbation through verbal sources. Even some of the females who had not started until they were in their thirties or forties had not known that masturbation was possible for a female until they discovered it through their own exploration. On the contrary, most of the males had heard about masturbation, or observed other persons masturbating, before they themselves ever began; and only 28 per cent had learned how to masturbate from their own self-discovery. This is a measure of the extent to which sex is discussed among pre-adolescent and early adolescent males. Such discussions of sex also occur among older males, from adolescence into old age.
For most males, discussions of sex often provide some sort of erotic stimulation. They do not provide anything like the same sort of stimulation for the average female, and in consequence she does not have the same inspiration for engaging in such conversations. Moreover, many of the females in the sample who had overheard discussions of reproductive and sexual functions when they were children, or even when they were adults, had not tried to understand what was being discussed, primarily, as they asserted, because they were “not interested” in sex. We have already recorded (p. 140) that there is frequently a lapse of some years between the time that the female first hears of masturbation, and the time that she attempts to masturbate herself.
On the contrary, from an early age the average male is interested in all that he can learn about sex and searches for sexual information, in part because it may mean something to him erotically. Practically all males who have reached adolescence attempt masturbation almost immediately upon hearing of it. This is further evidence of the importance of psychologic stimulation for the male.
26. Arousal From Sado-Masochistic Stories . Some persons are aroused sexually when they think of situations that involve cruelty, whipping, flagellation, torture, or other means deliberately adopted for the infliction of pain. More individuals are emotionally disturbed when they contemplate such sado-masochistic situations, and they may not recognize such a disturbance as sexual; but at this stage in our knowledge, it is difficult to say how much of the emotional disturbance, or even the more specifically sado-masochistic reactions, may involve sexual elements (p. 88).
A distinctly higher percentage of the males in the sample had responded to sado-masochistic situations in a way which they recognized as sexual. 27 The specific data are as follows:
Arousal from sado-masochistic stories
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 3 | 10 |
| Some response | 9 | 12 |
| Never | 88 | 78 |
| Number of cases | 2880 | 1016 |
That fewer of the females and more of the males had responded, appears again to have depended on the fact that reactions to sadomasochistic stories rely on fantasy. As many females as males seem to react erotically when they are bitten (see below) or when they engage in more specifically sado-masochistic contacts, and this further emphasizes the differences in the psychologic reactions of the two sexes.
It is quite probable that many more males and some more females would respond to such sado-masochistic stimuli if they were to find themselves in sexual situations which were associated with sadism. The development of sado-masochistic responses in a number of our histories had begun in that way.
27. Responses to Being Bitten . It is difficult to know how much of the response of an individual who is being hurt is the product of the physical stimulation, and how much is the product of the stimulation provided by psychologic conditioning, the association of sexual and sado-masochistic phenomena, and the psychologic satisfactions which are to be found in submitting to a sexual partner. It is also very difficult to determine how many of the physical and emotional responses which are manifest in a sado-masochistic situation are sexual and how many are more properly identified as some other sort of emotional response.
During heterosexual petting and coitus, and in homosexual relations, the most frequent manifestation of sado-masochistic responses is to be found in the nibbling and biting which many persons inflict on various parts of the body of a sexual partner. Such behavior is wide-spread among all of the mammals, and much more widespread in human sexual patterns than most persons comprehend. 28 Definitely sexual responses consequent on such biting were recognized by about equal numbers of the males and females in our sample. The specific data are as follows:
Responses to being bitten
| EROTIC RESPONSE | BY FEMALES | BY MALES |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Definite and/or frequent | 26 | 26 |
| Some response | 29 | 24 |
| Never | 45 | 50 |
| Number of cases | 2200 | 567 |
Twice as many males had responded erotically to being bitten as had responded to sado-masochistic stories. There were more than four times as many females who had responded erotically when they were bitten as had ever responded to sado-masochistic stories. This provides one more body of data to show that males may be aroused by both physical and psychologic stimuli, while a larger number of the females, although not all of them, may be aroused only by physical stimuli.
28. Fetishism . Practically all heterosexual males, as we have already noted, are aroused erotically when they observe the female body or particular parts of it. When the part of the partner’s body which brings the erotic response is farther removed from the genital area, as the hair of the head, the feet, and the fingers are, such responses have commonly been identified as fetishes. But the definitions are obviously nebulous, for all of these reactions depend on nothing more than associative conditioning, and it is difficult to draw the line between the sexual responses of the average male when he sees the genitalia or the breasts or some other portion of the partner’s body, and his responses to objects which are more remote but still associated with his previous sexual experience.
When an individual responds to objects which are entirely removed from the partner’s body, as clothing (especially underclothing), stockings, garters, shoes, furniture, particular types of drapery, or objects which are still more remote from the particular female with whom the sexual relations were originally had, the fetishistic nature of the response seems more pronounced. But in any event, it still depends upon the sort of psychologic conditioning which is involved in most erotic responses.
Persons who respond only or primarily to objects which are remote from the sexual partner, or remote from the overt sexual activities with a partner, are not rare in the population. This is particularly true of individuals who are erotically aroused by high heels, by boots, by corsets, by tight clothing, by long gloves, by whips, or by other objects which suggest sado-masochistic relationships, and which may have been associated with the individual’s previous sexual activity.
It has been known for some time, and our own data confirm it, that fetishism is an almost exclusively male phenomenon. 29 We have seen only two or three cases of females who were regularly and distinctly aroused by objects that were not directly connected with sexual activity. Our data on the limited number of females who respond to seeing male genitalia or any other portion of the nude or clothed male body, would lead one to expect that females would not be aroused by objects which are still more remote from the sexual partner himself. There seems no question that the differences in the incidences of fetishes among males and females depend upon the fact that the male is more easily conditioned by his sexual experience and by objects that were associated with those experiences.
29. Transvestism . An individual who prefers to wear the clothing of the opposite sex, and who desires to be accepted in the social organization as an individual of the opposite sex, is a transvestite (from trans , a transference, and vesta , the clothing). But it should be emphasized that transvestism involves not only a change of clothing. The occasional adoption at a masked ball, or in a stage production, of clothing characteristic of the opposite sex is not transvestism in any strict sense, for true transvestism also involves a desire to assume the role of the opposite sex in the social organization.
True transvestism is a phenomenon which involves many different situations and has many different origins. 30 There are persons who are permanent transvestites, who try to identify with the opposite sex in their work as well as in their homes, at all times of the day and through all of the days of the year. There are persons who are partial transvestites, who adopt their changed roles only on occasion, as at home in the evening, or occasionally on week ends, or on other special occasions.
Psychologically the phenomenon sometimes depends upon an individual’s erotic attraction for the opposite sex. A male, for instance, may be so attracted to females that he wishes to be permanently identified with them. He wants to have sexual relationships with them, and he wishes to live permanently with them, as another female might live with them. The neighbors may believe it to be two females who are living together, although it is sexually a heterosexual relationship which is involved.
Sometimes transvestism depends upon an individual’s violent reactions against his or her own sex. In such a case, he may or may not be erotically attracted to the opposite sex. If he is attracted, he may have heterosexual relationships. But he may so idealize females that he is offended by the idea of having sexual relationships with them, and then he may be left without any opportunity for socio-sexual contacts, because his dislike for individuals of his own sex will prevent him from having sexual relationships with them.
There are some psychiatrists who consider all transvestism homosexual, but this is incorrect. 31 Transvestism and homosexuality are totally independent phenomena, and it is only a small portion of the transvestites who are homosexual in their physical relationships. A misinterpretation on this point may generate tragedy when psychiatrists insist, as we have known them to do in several cases, that all transvestites, including those who are basically opposed to everything connected with their own sex, must frankly accept their “homosexuality” and accept overt homosexual relationships if they wish to resolve their psychologic conflicts.
On the other hand, some males are transvestites and wish to be identified with the opposite sex because they are homosexual and because they hope to attract the type of male who would hesitate to engage in homosexual_ relationships if the other individual were not identifiable, to at least some degree, with femininity.
In not a few instances transvestism develops out of a fetishistic interest in the clothing or some part of the clothing of the opposite sex. The adoption of the clothing of the opposite sex may not modify the original sexual history of the individual, whether it was heterosexual or homosexual.
There are many cases of transvestism which are associated with sado-masochism. Then the masochistic male wishes to be identified as a female in order to be subjugated as males might, conceivably, subjugate a female.
It is clear that transvestism depends very largely upon the individual’s capacity to be conditioned psychologically. There are few phenomena which more strikingly illustrate the force of psychologic conditioning. It is, therefore, highly significant to find that an exceedingly large proportion of the transvestites are anatomically males who wish to assume the role of the female in the social organization. At this point we cannot give percentages, although we are attempting to secure a sample which will ultimately allow us to estimate the number of transvestites in the United States; but it is our present understanding that there may be a hundred anatomic males who wish to be identified as females, for every two or three or half dozen anatomic females who wish to be identified as males. 32 This last is particularly interesting because females often assume some of the clothing of males in working around their homes, on farms, in factories, and elsewhere; but we find no evidence that such females are interested in being identified socially with the opposite sex, and such an adoption of male attire has little or nothing to do with transvestism. Males, of course, do not usually wear any part of the female costume unless they are true transvestites.
Transvestism provides one of the striking illustrations of the fact that males are more liable to be conditioned by psychologic stimuli, and females less liable to be so conditioned. The males who wish to be identified as females are in reality very masculine in their psychologic capacities to be conditioned.
30. Discontinuity in Sexual Activity . We have already pointed out that the sexual activities of females are often very discontinuous. Between periods of activity there may be weeks or months and sometimes years in which there is no activity of any sort. This is true of masturbation in the female (p. 148), of nocturnal dreams to the point of orgasm (p. 197), of pre-marital petting (p. 236), of pre-marital coitus (p. 289), of extra-marital coitus (p. 419), and of homosexual experience (p. 456). It is most strikingly true of the female’s total sexual outlet. Some females who at times have high rates of outlet, may go for weeks or months or even years with very little outlet, or none at all. But then after such a period of inactivity the high rates of outlet may develop again. Discontinuities in total outlet are practically unknown in the histories of males.
These differences in the continuity of sexual activities may depend upon a variety of factors. They certainly depend in part upon the differences in the way in which females and males respond to psychologic stimuli. Because males are so readily stimulated by thinking of past sexual experiences, by anticipating the opportunity to renew that experience, and by the abundant associations that they make between everyday objects and their sexual experience, the average younger male is constantly being aroused. The average female is not so often aroused. In some instances the male’s arousal may be mild, but in many instances the arousal may involve genital erection and considerable physiologic reaction. Nearly all (but not all) younger males are aroused to the point of erection many times per week, and many of them may respond to the point of erection several times per day. Many females may go for days and weeks and months without ever being stimulated unless they have actual physical contact with a sexual partner. Because of this constant arousal, most males, particularly younger males, may be nervously disturbed unless they can regularly carry their responses through to the point of orgasm. Most females are not seriously disturbed if they do not have a regular sexual outlet, although some of them may be as disturbed as most males are without a regular outlet. The failure to recognize these differences in the needs of the two sexes for a regular sexual outlet may be the source of a considerable amount of difficulty in marriage. It is the source of many social disturbances over questions of sex. In establishing sex laws, in considering the sexual needs of females and males in penal and other institutions, in considering the need among females and among males for non-marital sources of sexual outlet, and in various other social problems, we cannot reach final solutions unless we comprehend these considerable differences between the sexual needs of the average female and the average male.
31. Promiscuity . Among all peoples, everywhere in the world, it is understood that the male is more likely than the female to desire sexual relations with a variety of partners. It is pointed out that the female has a greater capacity for being faithful to a single partner, that she is more likely to consider that she has a greater responsibility than the male has in maintaining a home and in caring for the offspring of any sexual relationship, and that she is generally more inclined to consider the moral implications of her sexual behavior. But it seems probable that these characteristics depend upon the fact that the female is less often aroused, as the average male is aroused, by the idea of promiscuity.
An attempt to analyze the reason for the greater promiscuity of the male suggests that it depends upon a variety of psychologic capacities which are not so often found in the female. Several of these we have already discussed. The male is aroused at observing his potential sexual partner, as most females are not. The male is aroused because he has been conditioned by his previous experience, as most females have not. The male is aroused by anticipating new types of experience, new types of sexual partners, new levels of satisfaction that may be attained in the new relationships, new opportunities to experiment with new techniques, new opportunities to secure higher levels of satisfaction than he has ever before attained. In both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, promiscuity may depend, in many instances, upon the male’s anticipation of variation in the genital anatomy of the partner, in the techniques which may be used during the contacts, and in the physical responses of the new partner. None of these factors have such significance for the average female.
Male promiscuity often depends upon the satisfactions that may be secured from the pursuit and successful attainment of a new partner. There are some heterosexual males, and a larger proportion of the homosexual males, who may limit themselves to a single contact with any single partner. Once having demonstrated their capacities to effect sexual relations with the particular individual, they prefer to turn to the pursuit of the next partner.
The male’s greater inclination to be promiscuous shows up in the record of his petting experience, his experience in pre-marital coitus, in extra-marital coitus, and in homosexual relations. In all of these types of relationships, few females have anywhere near the number of partners that many a promiscuous male may have. The specific data are as follows:
Number of Partners
It has sometimes been suggested that the male’s capacity to be erotically aroused by any female, and even by a physically, mentally, and aesthetically unattractive, lower level prostitute, is a demonstration of the fact that he is not as dependent as females are upon psychologic factors for the achievement of satisfactory sexual relationships. On the contrary, the capacity of many males to respond to any type of female is actually a demonstration of the fact that psychologic conditioning, rather than the physical or the psychologic stimuli that are immediately present, is a chief source of his erotic response. As far as his psychologic responses are concerned, the male in many instances may not be having coitus with the immediate sexual partner, but with all of the other girls with whom he has ever had coitus, and with the entire genus Female with which he would like to have coitus.
32. Significance of Sexual Element in Marriage . Our data indicate that the average female marries to establish a home, to establish a long-time affectional relationship with a single spouse, and to have children whose welfare may become the prime business of her life. Most males would admit that all of these are desirable aspects of a marriage, but it is probable that few males would marry if they did not anticipate that they would have an opportunity to have coitus regularly with their wives. This is the one aspect of marriage which few males would forego, although they might be willing to accept a marriage that did not include some of the goals which the average female considers paramount.
Conversely, when a marriage fails to satisfy his sexual need, the male is more inclined to consider that it is unsatisfactory, and he is more ready than the female to dissolve the relationship. We have no statistical tabulation to substantiate these generalizations, but we have discussed the reasons for their marriages, and the reasons for maintaining their marriages, with some thousands of the females and males who have contributed to the present study.
It is too simple to dismiss these differences in female and male attitudes toward marriage as the product of innate moral differences between the sexes. Neither does it suffice to consider that these differences are a product of the female’s greater importance in childbearing and in the preservation of the species. Whatever truth there may be in either of these assertions, it seems certain that these differences between female and male approaches to marriage depend primarily upon the fact that the average male is so conditionable that he has a greater need than most females have for a regular and frequent sexual outlet.
33. Social Factors Affecting Sexual Patterns . For males, we found (1948) that social factors were of considerable significance in determining patterns of sexual behavior. In the present volume we have found that social factors are of more minor significance in determining the patterns of sexual behavior among females.
For instance, we found that the educational level which the male ultimately attained showed a marked correlation with his patterns of sexual behavior (Table 175 ). Thus, the males who had ultimately gone on into college depended primarily on masturbation and much less frequently on coitus for their pre-marital outlet. On the other hand, the males who had not gone beyond grade school or early high school had drawn only half as much of their pre-marital outlet from masturbation, but they had drawn five times as much of their premarital outlet as the upper level males had from coitus. Similarly, kissing habits, breast manipulations, genital manipulations, mouth-genital contacts, positions in coitus, nudity during coitus, the acceptance of nudity or near-nudity during non-sexual activities, and many of the other items in the sexual behavior of a male, are usually in line with the pattern of behavior found among most of the other males in his social group. We have emphasized that such differences do not depend upon anything that is learned in school, for both lower level and upper level males may be together in the same grade school and high school, and the patterns are, for the most part, set soon after the mid-teens and before the average male ever goes on into college. We have emphasized that these differences in patterns of sexual behavior depend upon differences in the sexual attitudes of the different social levels in which the male is raised or into which he may move. This means that he is psychologically conditioned by the attitudes of the social group in which he is raised or toward which his educational attainments will lead him.
Table 175. Correlations Between Social Factors and Patterns of Sexual Behavior
In contrast, in connection with most types of sexual activity we have found that patterns of sexual behavior among females show little or no correlation with the educational levels which the females ultimately attain (Table 175 ). In her pre-marital petting, pre-marital coitus, and extra-marital coitus, and in her total sexual outlet, there are some differences in the incidences and/ or frequencies which appear to be correlated with the educational levels of the females, but the apparent differences prove to depend on the fact that marriage occurs at different ages in the different educational groups; and when the premarital activities are compared for the females who marry at about the same age, the average incidences and frequencies of these various types of sexual activity prove to be essentially the same in the several educational levels. This appears to mean, again, that females are not conditioned to the extent that males are conditioned by the attitudes of the social groups in which they live.
We have also shown that the age at onset of adolescence and the rural or urban backgrounds do not show as marked a correlation with the patterns of behavior among females as they do among males.
For both the females and males in our sample, degrees of religious devotion did correlate with the incidences of the various types of sexual activity, and devoutly religious backgrounds had prevented some of the females and males from ever engaging in certain types of sexual activity. The incidences of nearly all types of sexual activity except marital coitus were, in consequence, lower among the religiously more devout females and males, and higher among the religiously less devout (Table 175 ).
The degree of religious devotion, however, had continued to affect those males who finally did become involved in the morally disapproved types of activity, and the median frequencies of such activities were lower among the more devout males and higher among the less devout males (Table 175 ); but among those devout females who had become involved in morally disapproved types of activity, the average rates of activity were, on the whole, the same as those of the less devout females. This was true, for instance, of masturbation, of nocturnal dreams to orgasm, of pre-marital petting, of pre-marital coitus, and of homosexual contacts among females (Table 175 ). While religious restraints had prevented many of the females as well as the males from ever engaging in certain types of sexual activity, or had delayed the time at which they became involved, the religious backgrounds had had a minimum effect upon the females after they had once begun such activities.
We have, then, thirty-three bodies of data which agree in showing that the male is conditioned by sexual experience more frequently than the female. The male more often shares, vicariously, the sexual experiences of other persons, he more frequently responds sympathetically when he observes other individuals engaged in sexual activities, he may develop stronger preferences for particular types of sexual activity, and he may react to a great variety of objects which have been associated with his sexual activities. The data indicate that in all of these respects, fewer of the females have their sexual behavior affected by such psychologic factors.
It was in regard to only three of these items (moving pictures, reading romantic literature, and being bitten) that as many females as males, or more females than males, seem to have been affected. Fewer females than males were affected in regard to twenty-nine of the thirty-three items. There are instances in which the percentages of females who were affected were only slightly below the percentages of males who were affected; but in regard to twelve of these items, the number of females who were erotically aroused was less than half the number of males who were aroused.
There is tremendous individual variation in this regard, and there may be a third of the females in the population who are as frequently affected by psychologic stimuli as the average of the males. At the extreme of individual variation, there were, however, 2 to 3 per cent of the females who were psychologically stimulated by a greater variety of factors, and more intensely stimulated than any of the males in the sample. Their responses had been more immediate, they had responded more frequently, and they had responded to the point of orgasm with frequencies that had far exceeded those known for any male. A few of the females were regularly being stimulated by psychologic factors to the point of orgasm, and this almost never happens among any of the males.
Many of these differences between the sexual responses of females and males have been recognized for many centuries, and there have been various attempts to explain them. It has been suggested that they depend upon differences in the abundance or distribution of the sensory structures in the female and male body. It has been suggested that they depend upon differences in the roles which females and males take in coitus. It has been suggested that they are in some way associated with the different roles that females and males play in connection with reproduction. It has been suggested that there are differences in the levels of “sex drive” or “libido” or innate moral capacities of the two sexes. It has been suggested that the differences depend upon basic differences in the physiology of orgasm in females and males.
But we have already observed that the anatomy and physiology of sexual response and orgasm (Chapters 14 and 15 ) do not show differences between the sexes that might account for the differences in their sexual responses. Females appear to be as capable as males of being aroused by tactile stimuli; they appear as capable as males of responding to the point of orgasm. Their responses are not slower than those of the average male if there is any sufficiently continuous tactile stimulation. We find no reason for believing that the physiologic nature of orgasm in the female or the physical or physiologic or psychologic satisfactions derived from orgasm by the average female are different from those of the average male. But in their capacities to respond to psychosexual stimuli, the average female and the average male do differ.
The possibility of reconciling the different sexual interests and capacities of females and males, the possibility of working out sexual adjustments in marriage, and the possibility of adjusting social concepts to allow for these differences between females and males, will depend upon our willingness to accept the realities which the available data seem to indicate.
What physicochemical bases there may be for the similarities and differences between the psychosexual capacities of females and males is a matter that we shall undertake to explore in the chapters that follow (Chapters 17 and 18 ).
1 Students of animal behavior have noted that if a male’s initial coital experience involves pain or fright, the male may become reluctant to mate thereafter. See, for example: Beach 1947b:265. Rice and Andrews 1951:180–181.
2 The extreme variation which may be found among both men and women in the types of preferred sexual partners, is well illustrated in the listing in Hamilton 1929:502–505. That the males of infra-human species often develop strong preferences for particular females or types of females, is recorded in: Tinklepaugh 1928:296–300 (rhesus monkey). Yerkes and Elder 1936a:32–34, 38 (chimpanzee). Carpenter 1942:139 (monkey). Enders 1945 (fox). Hafez 1951 (ram). Ford and Beach 1951:91–93 (general discussion). Shadle (verbal communic.) records two porcupines, each of which developed strong preferences for a particular female. That estrual females of sub-primate species almost never show strong preferences, even in species in which preferences are strongly marked in the male, is noted in: Rowlands and Parkes 1935 (fox). Enders 1945.
3 For descriptions of Pavlov’s experiments with dogs, see: Woodworth and Marquis 1947:525–530. Andrews 1948:44. Freeman 1948:180.
4 Male animals which showed sexual arousal on returning to a place where they had previously had coitus are described by: McKenzie and Berliner 1937:18 (ram). Zitrin and Beach in Hartman 1945:42–44 (cat). That a strange environment may prevent or handicap a male in having coitus although the female may not be thus affected, is recorded in: Marshall and Hammond 1944:12. Beach 1947b:264. Root and Bard 1947:81.
5 One of the best illustrations of a male’s interest in odors left by females is recorded for the porcupine by: Shadle, Smelzer, and Metz 1946:118, 120. Shadle 1946:159–160. See also: Beach and Gilmore 1949:391–392.
6 That some male animals will copulate only with familiar females and ignore strange females is recorded in: Hartman 1945: 39 (monkey). Shadle 1946:160–161 (porcupine). Beach 1947b:264–265 (general statement). That estrual females, on the contrary, will usually accept any male, familiar or strange, is recorded by: Bean, director of Brookfield Zoo (verbal communic.). Beach 1947b:264. Psychologic fatigue, the lessening of sexual response through prolonged living together, has been noted in animals by: Hamilton 1914:301–302. Miller 1931:397–398, 406.
7 Sympathetic responses in mammals are also noted in Ford and Beach 1951: 71. Such responses are, of course, not invariable; for example, a herd of grazing ruminants may ignore a copulating couple in their midst, ace. Bean, director of Brookfield Zoo (verbal communic.). It should be noted that the sight of coitus is without effect upon inexperienced chimpanzees, but is sexually arousing to experienced animals of both sexes, ace. Nissen (verbal communic.).
8 In summing up the situation among infra-human mammals, Ford and Beach 1951:241 state: “We are strongly impressed with the evidence for sexual learning and conditioning in the male and the relative absence of such processes in the female.”
9 That aggressive sexual behavior is common among estrual females of infra-human mammalian species, is recorded by: Elliott ace. Miller 1931:382, 405 (fur seal; the male is so busy guarding his harem that the female must take the initiative). Zuckerman 1932:227–229, 243 (baboon). Carpenter 1942:131, 136, 154 (monkey; the female may repeatedly approach the male despite having been driven off and wounded). Yerkes and Elder 1936a:25–26 (chimpanzee; female almost always goes to the male, not the male to the female). Roark and Herman 1950:7 (cows sometimes pursue the bull). McKenzie (verbal communic., says between 10 and 30 per cent of mares may pursue stallions). Carpenter 1942:129 (in gibbon, both sexes are about equally aggressive in pugnacity and reproductive behavior). We have also observed such female aggressiveness in the dog and porcupine.
10 A survey and discussion of the popularity of near nudity in magazines and in advertising is in: A. Ellis 1951:104–107. He recognizes that females are not aroused by portrayals of male nudity, but explains it on the basis of the lack of taboo. For other recognition of the lack of female arousal from erotic pictures, see: Brettschneider in Wulffen et al. 1931:106. Wallace 1948:22. Friedeburg 1950:24 (47 per cent males, 11 per cent females erotically aroused by photographs or pictures in German survey).
11 Freud 1922:78–79 in his study of Leonardo da Vind recognized this in the following words: “A kindly nature has bestowed upon the artist the capadty to express in artistic productions his most secret psychic feelings hidden even to himself, which powerfully affect outsiders who are strangers to the artist….”
12 For encyclopedic lists of artists, the standard works are: Thieme and Becker 1907–1947, 35 v. Mallett 1935; 1940. Bénézit 1948–1952, 5 v. For a convenient anthology, see: Sparrow 1905, Women painters of the world. Bulliet in McDermott and Taft 1932:233–252 lists 40 artists, all of whom are male, known for their female nudes. Havelock Ellis 1929:376–378 (cites Ferrero who explains the small part played by women in art as due to their less keen sexual emotions. Ellis, however, interprets male power of creation in fine arts as compensation for the male’s lesser role in producing and moulding the race). Wallace 1948:21 recognizes that female painters and sculptors do not use nude subjects as frequently as male artists.
13 We base this statement on our own observations and on discussions with several who have been on the staff of the Yerkes Laboratories at Orange Park, Florida. Dr. Nissen of that staff sums up their data by observing that in the chimpanzee the head, back, limbs, and anus of the male receive the most grooming attention by the grooming partner (whether female or male) , and that the ventral body surface and genitalia receive the least. When the male grooms the female he concentrates considerable attention upon the sexual skin and anal area, and may make anal or vaginal insertions occasionally. Shadle (verbal communic.) is the source of the data on the skunk and porcupine.
14 The male chimpanzee frequently solicits the female by coming to erection, spontaneously or by masturbation, and exhibiting the erection to the female, according to: Yerkes and Elder 1936a:9. Nissen, verbal communic. Our observation.
15 That exhibitionism is infrequent among females in comparison to males, has also been recognized by: [Jacolliot] Jacobus X 1900:347. Hirschfeld 1920(3):319; 1948:504. Kronfeld in Marcuse 1923:121. Bilder-Lexikon 1930(1):241. Brown 1940:383. Guyon 1948:319. Allen 1949:108. Exhibitionism is considered non-existent among females by: Walker and Strauss 1939:177–178. Fenichel 1945:346. Rickles 1950:49 (considers it due to the fact that women “have nothing to expose”). In a few pre-literate cultures, women may solicit men by deliberately exposing their own genitalia; see: Ford and Beach 1951:93.
16 The sight of coitus between animals of the same species arouses such diverse animals as the bull (our observation, and McKenzie, verbal communic.), and chimpanzee (Nissen, verbal communic.). Zitrin and Beach in Hartman 1945:43–44 report that male cats become aroused by seeing female cats reacting to being masturbated by a human experimenter.
17 Clark and Treichler 1950 report an increase in acid phosphatase (an enzyme found in the urine) in four males aroused by erotic pictures, a decrease in a male who was repelled by them, and no change in two females who saw the pictures.
18 This masculine misconception is not new. Brantome (16th century, “Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies,” First Discourse, ch. 5 (1901:55), tells of a prince who served wine to women in a cup covered with copulatory figures. He would then ask, “Now feel ye not a something that doth prick you in the mid part of the body, ladies, at the sight?” and the women would reply, “Nay!, never a one of all these droll images hath had power enow to stir me!”
19 Hamilton 1929:456 found 16 per cent of females and 83 per cent of males had had desire to peep as adults; 20 per cent of females and 65 per cent of males had done actual peeping.
20 For varying practices in various cultures in regard to day or night preferences for coitus, see Ford and Beach 1951:73.
21 Hamilton 1929:429 reports 36 per cent of females, 69 per cent of males record fantasies during masturbation.
22 Hamilton 1929:318–319 reports 66 per cent of females, 42 per cent of males without nocturnal sex dreams.
23 As examples of the fact that the female is more easily distracted, see: Beach 1947b:264 (bitches will eat during coitus, most male dogs refuse food in this situation; female cats may investigate mouse holes during coitus). Robert Bean, director of Brookfield Zoo, reports (verbal communic.) females of various species eating during coitus.
24 That the erotic stimulation which females derive from reading romantic stories or seeing moving pictures equals or exceeds that which is derived from those sources by males, is also recognized by: Friedeburg 1950:24. See also Dickinson and Beam 1934:111, 427.
25 For examples of court decisions holding that despite certain obscene or indecent passages the books themselves were not obscene; see: In re Worthington Co. 1894:30 N.Y. Supp. 361. Halsey v. N.Y.Soc. for the Suppression of Vice 1922:136 N.E.(N.Y.) 219 (“It contains many paragraphs, however, which taken by themselves are undoubtedly vulgar and indecent….Printed by themselves they might, as a matter of law, come within the prohibition of the statute. So might a similar selection from Aristophanes or Chaucer or Boccaccio or even from the Bible. The book, however, must be considered broadly as a whole”). U.S. v. One Book Entitled Ulysses 1934:72F(2d)705. Com. v. Gordon 1949:66 D. and C. (Pa.) 101 (Judge Bok’s scholarly discussion of the changing concepts of obscenity, citing our male volume on 116). But cf. Com. v. Isenstadt 1945:62 N.E.2d (Mass.)840. Detailed discussions are found in: Alpert 1938, and Jenkins 1944.
26 That other collections of graffiti clearly reflect this scarcity of female authors of such material, can be seen by surveying the articles on graffiti in Anthropophyteia 1907(4):316–328; 1908(5):265–275; 1909(6):432–439; 1910(7): 399–406; 1912(9):493–500.
27 That sado-masochism is less frequent among women is also noted by: [Jacolliot] Jacobus X 1900:347–348. Talmey 1910:136. Forel 1922:236. Krafft-Ebing 1922:129. Kronfeld in Marcuse 1923:314. Bilder-Lexikon 1930(2):538. Negri 1949:206. That sadism is more typical of males and masochism of females is asserted by: Wexberg 1931:182–183. Rosanoff 1938:156. Brown 1940:383. T. Reik 1941:216. Scheinfeld 1944:243. Thorpe and Katz 1948:326–327. Hamilton 1929:458, 461 (an equal number, 28–29 per cent, of males and females reported pleasure from pain being inflicted on them, but one-third of the females as against one-half of the males reported pleasant thrills at some time from inflicting pain on a person or animal).
28 We have records of biting (usually by the male) as a part of sexual activity in a number of mammalian species, including the baboon, various monkeys, mink, marten, sable, ferret, skunk, horse, zebra, pig, sheep, rat, dog, guinea pig, chimpanzee, lion, cat, tiger, leopard, rabbit, raccoon, sea lion, shrew, opossum, and bat. Such biting is particularly violent, and even savage, among the Mustelidae (ferret, mink, sable, skunk).
29 The infrequent occurrence of fetishism among females has also been recognized by: Talmey 1910:136. Hirschfeld 1920(3):1–79 (many case histories, including a few female cases). Krafft-Ebing 1922:24. Forel1922:240. Hamilton 1929:463 (13 per cent of females, 33 per cent of males). Stekel1930(2):341. Walker and Strauss 1939:175. Brown 1940:381. Scheinfeld 1944:243. Fenichel 1945:344.
It is notable that fetish magazines currently found on the newsstands are all slanted toward male purchasers.
30 Transvestism in various pre-literate societies is recorded, for example, for the Navajo, Kwakiutl, Crow, Eskimo (North America); Tanala, Lango, Mbundu (Africa); Uripev, Dyak (Oceania); Chukchee, Yakut, Yukaghir (Siberia); Lushais (India). In many instances the transvestites are respected and thought to possess magical powers; in other instances they are merely tolerated. The great majority of transvestites are anatomic males. Ford 1945:32 points out that “Cases of women adopting the dress and habits of men are much more rare.” For further anthropologic data, see: Parsons 1916:521–528 (Zuni). Hill 1935:273–279 (Navajo). Devereux 1937:498–527 (Mohave). Dragoo 1950 ms. (in more than twenty societies in North America). Ford and Beach 1951:130–131 (general, brief discussion).
31 The assumption that transvestism is always associated with or an expression of homosexuality may be noted, for example, in: Krafft-Ebing 1922:398. Forel 1922:251. Thorpe and Katz 1948:314. Allen 1949:146–147.
32 An example of the sort of unwarranted statement that gets into and is perpetuated in the professional literature, although it is unsubstantiated by any specific data, is the estimate in Allen 1949:145 that transvestism is as common among females as among males.
