THERE is already an extensive literature dealing with the mental and physiological causes of premature ejaculation and describing the nervous conditions that accompany it. On the other hand there is little or nothing about its consequences for the nervous and mental life of the female sex. A thorough investigation on Freudian lines of the marital or sexual life of women suffering from anxiety hysteria will, however, lead to the conviction that states of anxiety, oppression, and restlessness are almost invariably to be traced back to lack of, or to incomplete, sexual satisfaction; and that the most frequent cause of this is premature ejaculation in the male. But, apart from the definitely pathological cases of premature ejaculation (which normally appear accompanied by several other signs of sexual neurasthenia), and apart from the fact that on the whole the male sex suffers from relative premature ejaculation in comparison with the female, even in favourable cases, where the friction has lasted long enough for the man, orgasm does not occur in the woman; the woman either remains completely anaesthetic or feels only a certain amount of libidinous excitation, but before she could reach the stage necessary for orgasm, the man finishes the act, and she is left unsatisfied.
Only the selfishness of the male, and of physicians who are generally males, has made it possible to overlook the fact that such a state of affairs, if it becomes stabilized, must lead at least to functional disturbances. We have for a long time been accustomed to grant the right to sexual libido and orgasms to the male alone. We have formed a feminine ideal, which we have allowed women themselves to accept, according to which they cannot admit or manifest sexual desire, but at most are allowed passively to tolerate it, with the result that, when libidinous tendencies manifest themselves in women, they are stamped as morbid or sinful.
The female sex, which has subjected itself to the male viewpoint in morals as in other matters, has so completely adopted this ideal of femininity that it holds the opposite attitude to be impossible for itself, even in thought. Often enough a woman suffering from severe anxiety, which questioning shows to be the result of nothing but unconsummated excitations, defends herself with vigour and righteous indignation against the insinuation that she is ‘that kind of woman’, to whom ‘that sort of thing’ is a matter of concern. Not only has she no desire for it, she generally maintains, but she regards ‘the whole thing’ as something indecent and distasteful, which she would gladly forego if only her husband did not demand it.
However, awakened and unsatisfied instincts cannot be disposed of by moral rules alone, and sexual desire which is consistently thwarted of satisfaction proceeds to live itself out in unpleasant female character traits and, in women suitably predisposed, results in anxiety neurosis, hysteria, or obsessional illness.1
If men gave up their selfish way of thinking and imagined what life would be like if they always had to cut the act short before their libidinous tension was relieved, they would gain some idea of the sexual martyrdom of the female sex, which is faced with the appalling dilemma of choosing between complete satisfaction and self-respect. They would then understand more easily why so large a proportion of women take flight from this dilemma into illness.
Looking at the matter from the teleological point of view, it is hard to believe that in the ‘best of all possible worlds’ it can be natural that there should be such a difference between the two sexes in the time required for the attainment of satisfaction in such an elementary organic function; and, indeed, closer investigation shows that it is not so much the organic difference between the sexes which explains this ‘dyschronism’ in the sexuality of man and woman as the difference in the circumstances in which they live, in the amount of social pressure which rests on their shoulders.
Most men marry after a greater or lesser (generally greater) amount of sexual activity, and experience shows that in this field habit leads, not to an increase in the threshold of tolerance, but, on the contrary, to premature ejaculation. This acceleration of ejaculation is not inconsiderably accentuated in the majority of men by juvenile masturbation. That is how it comes about that men generally marry with a kind of restricted potency.
The female sex provides a great contrast to this. All sexual excitement is methodically kept away from girls, not only in reality, but also in fantasy; domestic education sees to it that the girl regards everything connected with sexuality as disgusting and contemptible. The consequence is that in comparison with the bridegroom the bride is, if not sexually anaesthetic, at any rate relatively hypaesthetic. Moreover, female masturbation has the opposite kind of disturbing effect on orgasm, i.e. tends to delay it.
I do not feel qualified to draw the sociological consequences from these facts and to decide whether the advocates of male chastity before marriage or the advocates of female sexual emancipation are in the right.1 The mental hygienist would be more inclined to have sympathy with a course from which a diminution of female hysteria could be expected than with an alternative which would tend to extend it to the male sex as well.
I do not believe, however, that the only choice is between these two extremes. There must be a way of doing more justice to women’s sexual interests than has been done in the past without destroying the social order founded on the family.
The first hesitant step in this direction is the early sexual enlightenment of women. Though many naive non-understanding proposals have been made in this respect, they all contribute to a gradual break with the brutal practice which still prevails to-day of simply delivering over to her husband on her wedding day a terrified, unprepared woman entirely inexperienced in sexual matters.
So long as this state of affairs prevails we should not be surprised that the husband’s relatively too quick ejaculation and the wife’s relative anaesthesia leads to such conflict, and that as a consequence of the prevailing ‘sexual pattern’ happy marriages are so rare.
1 First published in Hungarian (under the title: On the Significance of Premature Ejaculation): Budapesti Orvosi Ujság (1908), in German: Bausteine II (1926). First English translation.
1 Women’s instinct that complete abstinence is less harmful to the nerves than unconsummated excitation is perfectly correct.
1 I think women are wrong in regarding the political vote as the cure for all their ills. It would be more natural for them to demand a sexual vote.