Psychology of sex vol III: analysis of the sexual impulse E-Book

Havelock Ellis

• Herausgeber: Havelock Ellis
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The present volume of Studies deals with some of the most essential problems of sexual psychology. The Analysis of the Sexual Impulse is fundamental. Unless we comprehend the exact process which is being worked out beneath the shifting and multifold phenomena presented to us we can never hope to grasp in their true relations any of the normal or abnormal manifestations of this instinct. I do not claim that the conception of the process here stated is novel or original. Indeed, even since I began to work it out some years ago, various investigators in these fields, especially in Germany, have deprived it of any novelty it might otherwise have possessed, while at the same time aiding me in reaching a more precise statement. This is to me a cause of satisfaction. On so fundamental a matter I should have been sorry to find myself tending to a peculiar and individual standpoint. It is a source of gratification to me that the positions I have reached are those toward which current intelligent and scientific opinions are tending. Any originality in my study of this problem can only lie in the bringing together of elements from somewhat diverse fields. I shall be content if it is found that I have attained a fairly balanced, general, and judicial statement of these main factors in the sexual instinct.

Leseprobe

Havelock Ellis

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX VOL III: ANALYSIS OF THE SEXUAL IMPULSE

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Table of contents

PREFACE

ANALYSIS OF THE SEXUAL IMPULSE.

LOVE AND PAIN I

LOVE AND PAIN II

LOVE AND PAIN III

LOVE AND PAIN IV

LOVE AND PAIN V

LOVE AND PAIN VI

LOVE AND PAIN VII

THE SEXUAL IMPULSE IN WOMEN.

APPENDIX A. THE SEXUAL INSTINCT IN SAVAGES.

APPENDIX B. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEXUAL INSTINCT.

PREFACE

The present volume of Studies deals with some of the most essential problems of sexual psychology. The Analysis of the Sexual Impulse is fundamental. Unless we comprehend the exact process which is being worked out beneath the shifting and multifold phenomena presented to us we can never hope to grasp in their true relations any of the normal or abnormal manifestations of this instinct. I do not claim that the conception of the process here stated is novel or original. Indeed, even since I began to work it out some years ago, various investigators in these fields, especially in Germany, have deprived it of any novelty it might otherwise have possessed, while at the same time aiding me in reaching a more precise statement. This is to me a cause of satisfaction. On so fundamental a matter I should have been sorry to find myself tending to a peculiar and individual standpoint. It is a source of gratification to me that the positions I have reached are those toward which current intelligent and scientific opinions are tending. Any originality in my study of this problem can only lie in the bringing together of elements from somewhat diverse fields. I shall be content if it is found that I have attained a fairly balanced, general, and judicial statement of these main factors in the sexual instinct.In the study of Love and Pain I have discussed the sources of those aberrations which are commonly called, not altogether happily, "sadism" and "masochism." Here we are brought before the most extreme and perhaps the most widely known group of sexual perversions. I have considered them from the medico-legal standpoint, because that has already been done by other writers whose works are accessible. I have preferred to show how these aberrations may be explained; how they may be linked on to normal and fundamental aspects of the sexual impulse; and, indeed, in their elementary forms, may themselves be regarded as normal. In some degree they are present, in every case, at some point of sexual development; their threads are subtly woven in and out of the whole psychological process of sex. I have made no attempt to reduce their complexity to a simplicity that would be fallacious. I hope that my attempt to unravel these long and tangled threads will be found to make them fairly clear.In the third study, on The Sexual Impulse in Women, we approach a practical question of applied sexual psychology, and a question of the first importance. No doubt the sex impulse in men is of great moment from the social point of view. It is, however, fairly obvious and well understood. The impulse in women is not only of at least equal moment, but it is far more obscure. The natural difficulties of the subject have been increased by the assumption of most writers who have touched it—casually and hurriedly, for the most part—that the only differences to be sought in the sexual impulse in man and in woman are quantitative differences. I have pointed out that we may more profitably seek for qualitative differences, and have endeavored to indicate such of these differences as seem to be of significance.In an Appendix will be found a selection of histories of more or less normal sexual development. Histories of gross sexual perversion have often been presented in books devoted to the sexual instinct; it has not hitherto been usual to inquire into the facts of normal sexual development. Yet it is concerning normal sexual development that our ignorance is greatest, and the innovation can scarcely need justification. I have inserted these histories not only because many of them are highly instructive in themselves, but also because they exhibit the nature of the material on which my work is mainly founded.I am indebted to many correspondents, medical and other, in various parts of the world, for much valuable assistance. When they have permitted me to do so I have usually mentioned their names in the text. This has not been possible in the case of many women friends and correspondents, to whom, however, my debt is very great. Nature has put upon women the greater part of the burden of sexual reproduction; they have consequently become the supreme authorities on all matters in which the sexual emotions come into question. Many circumstances, however, that are fairly obvious, conspire to make it difficult for women to assert publicly the wisdom and knowledge which, in matters of love, the experiences of life have brought to them. The ladies who, in all earnestness and sincerity, write books on these questions are often the last people to whom we should go as the representatives of their sex; those who know most have written least. I can therefore but express again, as in previous volumes I have expressed before, my deep gratitude to these anonymous collaborators who have aided me in throwing light on a field of human life which is of such primary social importance and is yet so dimly visible.

ANALYSIS OF THE SEXUAL IMPULSE.

The term "sexual instinct" may be said to cover the whole of the neuropsychic phenomena of reproduction which man shares with the lower animals. It is true that much discussion has taken place concerning the proper use of the term "instinct," and some definitions of instinctive action would appear to exclude the essential mechanism of the process whereby sexual reproduction is assured. Such definitions scarcely seem legitimate, and are certainly unfortunate. Herbert Spencer's definition of instinct as "compound reflex action" is sufficiently clear and definite for ordinary use.A fairly satisfactory definition of instinct is that supplied by Dr. and Mrs. Peckham in the course of their study On the Instincts and Habits of Solitary Wasps. "Under the term 'instinct,'" they say, "we place all complex acts which are performed previous to experience and in a similar manner by all members of the same sex and race, leaving out as non-essential, at this time, the question of whether they are or are not accompanied by consciousness." This definition is quoted with approval by Lloyd Morgan, who modifies and further elaborates it (Animal Behavior, 1900, p. 21). "The distinction between instinctive and reflex behavior," he remarks, "turns in large degree on their relative complexity," and instinctive behavior, he concludes, may be said to comprise "those complex groups of co-ordinated acts which are, on their first occurrence, independent of experience; which tend to the well-being of the individual and the preservation of the race; which are due to the co-operation of external and internal stimuli; which are similarly performed by all the members of the same more or less restricted group of animals; but which are subject to variation, and to subsequent modification under the guidance of experience." Such a definition clearly justifies us in speaking of a "sexual instinct." It may be added that the various questions involved in the definition of the sexual instinct have been fully discussed by Moll in the early sections of his Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis.Of recent years there has been a tendency to avoid the use of the term "instinct," or, at all events, to refrain from attaching any serious scientific sense to it. Loeb's influence has especially given force to this tendency. Thus, while Piéron, in an interesting discussion of the question ("Les Problèmes Actuels de l'Instinct," Revue Philosophique, Oct., 1908), thinks it would still be convenient to retain the term, giving it a philosophical meaning, Georges Bohn, who devotes a chapter to the notion of instinct (La Naissance de l'Intelligence, 1909), is strongly in favor of eliminating the word, as being merely a legacy of medieval theologians and metaphysicians, serving to conceal our ignorance or our lack of exact analysis.It may be said that the whole of the task undertaken in these Studies is really an attempt to analyze what is commonly called the sexual instinct. In order to grasp it we have to break it up into its component parts. Lloyd Morgan has pointed out that the components of an instinct may be regarded as four: first, the internal messages giving rise to the impulse; secondly, the external stimuli which co-operate with the impulse to affect the nervous centers; thirdly, the active response due to the co-ordinate outgoing discharges; and, fourthly, the message from the organs concerned in the behavior by which the central nervous system is further affected.[1]In dealing with the sexual instinct the first two factors are those which we have most fully to discuss. With the external stimuli we shall be concerned in a future volume (IV). We may here confine ourselves mainly to the first factor: the nature of the internal messages which prompt the sexual act. We may, in other words, attempt to analyze the sexual impulse.