This
experience is confirmed by others who are in a position to ascertain the
facts among normal people; thus a lady, who has received the confidence of
many women, told me that she believes that all women who remain unmarried
masturbate, as she found so much evidence pointing in this direction.[314]
This statement certainly needs some qualification, though I believe it is
not far from the truth as regards young and healthy women who, after
having normal sexual relationships, have been compelled for some reason or
other to break them off and lead a lonely life.[315] But we have to
remember that there are some women, evidently with a considerable degree
of congenital sexual anaesthesia (no doubt, in some respect or another
below the standard of normal health), in whom the sexual instinct has
never been aroused, and who not only do not masturbate, but do not show
any desire for normal gratification; while in a large proportion of other
cases the impulse is gratified passively in ways I have already referred
to. The auto-erotic phenomena which take place in this way, spontaneously,
by yielding to revery, with little or no active interference, certainly
occur much more frequently in women than in men. On the other hand,
contrary to what one might be led to expect, the closely-related
auto-erotic phenomena during sleep seem to take place more frequently in
men, although in women, as we have found ground for concluding, they
reverberate much more widely and impressively on the waking psychical
life.
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