The Psychology of Sex (Vol. 1-6). Havelock Ellis
desire. It is at this period (and sometimes during the menstrual flow) that masturbation may take place in women who at other times have no strong auto-erotic impulse. The only women who do not show this heightening of sexual emotion seem to be those in whom sexual feelings have not yet been definitely called into consciousness, or the small minority, usually suffering from some disorder of sexual or general health, in whom there is a high degree of sexual anæsthesia.[116]
The majority of authorities admit a heightening of sexual emotion before or after the menstrual crisis. See e.g., Krafft-Ebing, who places it at the post-menstrual period (Psychopathia Sexualis, Eng. translation of tenth edition, p. 27). Adler states that sexual feeling is increased before, during and after menstruation (Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, 1904, p. 88). Kossmann (Senator and Kaminer, Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage, I, 249), advises intercourse just after menstruation, or even during the latter days of the flow, as the period when it is most needed. Guyot says that the eight days after menstruation are the period of sexual desire in women (Bréviaire de l'Amour Expérimentale, p. 144). Harry Campbell investigated the periodicity of sexual desire in healthy women of the working classes, in a series of cases, by inquiries made of their husbands who were patients at a London hospital. People of this class are not always skilful in observation, and the method adopted would permit many facts to pass unrecorded; it is, therefore, noteworthy that only in one-third of the cases had no connection between menstruation and sexual feeling been observed; in the other two-thirds, sexual feeling was increased, either before, after, or during the flow, or at all of these times; the proportion of cases in which sexual feeling was increased before the flow, to those in which it was increased after, was as three to two. (H. Campbell, Nervous Organization of Men and Women, p. 203.)
Even this elementary fact of the sexual life has, however, been denied, and, strange to say, by two women doctors. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, of New York, who furnished valuable contributions to the physiology of menstruation, wrote some years ago, in a paper on "The Theory of Menstruation," in reference to the question of the connection between œstrus and menstruation: "Neither can any such rhythmical alternation of sexual instinct be demonstrated in women as would lead to the inference that the menstrual crisis was an expression of this," i.e., of œstrus. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, again, in her book on The Human Element in Sex, asserts that the menstrual flow itself affords complete relief for the sexual feelings in women (like sexual emissions during sleep in men), and thus practically denies the prevalence of sexual desire in the immediately post-menstrual period, when, on such a theory, sexual feeling should be at its minimum. It is fair to add that Dr. Blackwell's opinion is merely the survival of a view which was widely held a century ago, when various writers (Bordeu, Roussel, Duffieux, J. Arnould, etc.), as Icard has pointed out, regarded menstruation as a device of Providence for safeguarding the virginity of women.
[75] Thaddeus L. Bolton, "Rhythm," American Journal of Psychology, January, 1894.
[76] It is scarcely necessary to warn the reader that this statement does not prejudge the question of the inheritance of acquired characters, although it fits in with Semon's Mnemic theory. We can, however, very well suppose that the organism became adjusted to the rhythms of its environment by a series of congenital variations. Or it might be held, on the basis of Weismann's doctrine, that the germ-plasm has been directly modified by the environment.
[77] Thus, the Papuans, in some districts, believe that the first menstruation is due to an actual connection, during sleep, with the moon in the shape of a man, the girl dreaming that a real man is embracing her. (Reports Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, p. 206.)
[78] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 164.
[79] While in the majority of women the menstrual cycle is regular for the individual, and corresponds to the lunar month of 28 days, it must be added that in a considerable minority it is rather longer, or, more usually, shorter than this, and in many individuals is not constant. Osterloh found a regular type of menstruation in 68 per cent, healthy women, four weeks being the most usual length of the cycle; in 21 per cent, the cycle was always irregular. See Näcke, "Die Menstruation und ihr Einfluss bei chronischen Psychosen," Archiv für Psychiatrie, 1896, Bd, 28, Heft 1.
[80] Among the Duala and allied negro peoples of Bantu stock dances of markedly erotic character take place at full moon. Gason describes the dances and sexual festivals of the South Australian blacks, generally followed by promiscuous intercourse, as taking place at full moon. (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, November, 1894, p. 174.) In all parts of the world, indeed, including Christendom, festivals are frequently regulated by the phases of the moon.
[81] It has often been held that the course of insanity is influenced by the moon. Of comparatively recent years, this thesis has been maintained by Koster (Ueber die Gesetze des periodischen Irreseins und verwandter Nervenzustände, Bonn, 1882), who argues in detail that periodic insanity tends to fall into periods of seven days or multiples of seven.
[82] Ed. Hahn, Demeter und Baubo, p. 23.
[83] E. Seler, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1907, Heft I, p. 39. And as regards the primitive importance of the moon, see also Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Ch. VIII.
[84] Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia, 1898, pp. 68, 75–79, 461.
[85] Even in England, Barnes has known women of feeble sexual constitution who menstruated only in summer (R. Barnes, Diseases of Women, 1878, p. 192).
[86] A. B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes among American Indians," American Journal of Obstetrics, No. 6, 1892.
[87] In the male, the phenomenon is termed rut, and is most familiar in the stag. I quote from Marshall and Jolly some remarks on the infrequency of rut: "'The male wild Cat,' Mr. Cocks informs us, (like the stag), 'has a rutting season, calls loudly, almost day and night, making far more noise than the female.' This information is of interest, inasmuch as the males of most carnivores, although they undoubtedly show signs of increased sexual activity at some times more than at others, are not known to have anything of the nature of a regularly recurrent rutting season. Nothing of the kind is known in the Dog, nor, so far as we are aware, in the males of the domestic Cat, or the Ferret, all of which seem to be capable of copulation at any time of the year. On the other hand, the males of Seals appear to have a rutting season at the same time as the sexual season of the female." (Marshall and Jolly, "Contributions to the Physiology of Mammalian Reproduction," Philosophical Transactions, 1905, B. 198.)
[88] A. Wiltshire, British Medical Journal, March, 1883. The best account of heat known to me is contained in Ellenberger's Vergleichende Physiologie der Haussaügethiere, 1892, Band 4, Theil 2, pp. 276–284.