Читать книгу The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization - Iwan 1872-1922 Bloch - Страница 12

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As we have learnt in the first chapter, the primitive phenomenon of sexual attraction and reproduction, the conjugation of the male and the female germinal cells, persists unaltered in man as the most important part of the act of procreation; but this process of “fusion-love” derived by inheritance from unicellular organisms, is associated in man with a number of new secondary physical and psychical phenomena of sexuality. This inevitably results from the nature of the human organism as a cell society, from the development of man as one of the order of mammalia, and finally from man’s elevation above the other mammalia as a being of enormously enhanced brain powers. The complex of these secondary physical and psychical phenomena of love, dependent upon the process of evolution, has, as we have already said, been denoted by W. Bölsche by the apt name of “distance-love,” which he thus distinguishes from the primary elemental phenomenon of “fusion-love.” These superadded elements play an extremely important part in human civilization, and, indeed, actually characterize that civilization which is in no way dependent on the primitive qualities shared by man with plants and lower animals.

This secondary sexuality of mankind is, in correspondence with the differentiation of the various organs of his body, extremely complicated, and it is by no means solely dependent upon the structure of the special reproductive or copulatory organs; it is also intimately connected with other parts of the body, and more especially with the sense organs and the nervous system. Thus it has accommodated itself to all the external influences to which the species has been subjected in the long course of its development history. We may say that the criterion, the characteristic mark of distinction between the human body and that of the lower animals, is also the distinctive differential characteristic between human sexuality and that of the lower animals. And this criterion is the brain.

The present physical and mental constitution of man is the result of an evolutionary process, of which the most marked characteristic has been a continually more rapid increase in the size and complexity of the brain. Phylogeny and ontogeny clearly demonstrate the evolution of the human body from lower states to higher, the slow but sure improvement in the direction of a continual enlargement and increasing convolution of the brain, which has by no means yet attained finality, but which may be expected to continue into the far-distant future; and associated with this physical development will undoubtedly proceed an equally extensive improvement in the quality of human consciousness.

This progressive development of the brain has resulted in a retrogression and arrest of development of other parts and organs, and among these some more or less closely associated with the sexual functions, and originally of considerable importance. Gegenbaur, in his “Anatomy,” and Wiedersheim, in his interesting work on “The Structure of Man as Bearing Witness to his Past,” recognize in the unlimited plasticity of the human brain the sole cause of the arrest of development and retrogressive metamorphosis of many organs and functions which persist in other members of the animal kingdom.

In the sexual life, also, in correspondence with this preponderating development of the brain, purely psychical elements continually play a larger part, whilst parts and functions at one time intimately related to sexuality have undergone atrophy. Thus, as we have already pointed out, the human organ of smell had unquestionably in earlier times much greater significance in relation to the vita sexualis than it has at the present day. Wiedersheim shows that in the ancestors of the human race this organ was much more extensively developed, and that it must now be regarded as in a state of atrophy. The mammary glands, the original function of which was perhaps the production of odoriferous substances, but which later became devoted solely to the secretion of milk, existed in our ancestors in a larger number than in the present human race. This is clearly shown by the fact that the human embryo normally exhibits a “hyperthelia,” an excess of breasts, of which, however, two only normally undergo development; moreover, the breasts of the male, which are now in a state of arrested development, were formerly better developed, and served, like those of the female, the purpose of nourishing the offspring. These facts are clearly explicable on the assumption that at one time the number of offspring at a single birth was considerable, and that in this way the preservation of the species was favoured (Wiedersheim).

It is a very interesting fact that the principal “organ of voluptuousness” in women, the clitoris, is notably diminished in size absolutely and relatively as compared with the clitoris of apes. It certainly no longer represents an organ so susceptible to voluptuous stimulation and excitement as it was assumed to be by the older physicians and physiologists; so that, for example, Van Swieten, the celebrated body physician of the Empress Maria Theresa, recommended titillatio clitoridis as the most certain means of curing the sexual insensibility of his royal patient.

Moreover, the common variations in the external configuration of the female genital organs, which Rudolf Bergh has very fully and minutely described in his “Symbolæ ad Cognitionem Genitalium Externorum Femineorum,” are largely dependent on such arrests of development, which, indeed, occur also in the male.

A very remarkable phenomenon in the course of human evolution has been the diminution in the hairy covering of the body. As compared with the other mammalia, especially those most nearly allied to man—the anthropoid apes—man is relatively bald. This baldness has been gradually acquired, and seems likely to progress further in the future. Numerous hypotheses have been propounded regarding the purpose and true cause of this progressive atrophy of the hairy covering which originally extended over the entire surface of the body. The effect of tropical climate will not suffice to account for the change, for in the tropics the hairy covering is useful for a covering against the rays of the sun—witness the thick hairy coat of the tropical apes. More apt is the idea of sexual selection, advanced by Darwin in explanation of the loss of hair. According to this theory, the comparatively balder women were preferred by the men to those with a thicker covering of hair. Helbig raises the objection that primitive man in sexual intercourse would observe only the genital organs and the parts in their immediate neighbourhood. Yet in this region the sexually mature woman has retained a portion of the hairy covering of the body. We must therefore, in order to rescue the idea of sexual selection as an explanation of the increasing baldness of the human race, assume that primitive man had cultivated æsthetic tastes, and was not an extremely sensual person, and that in his choice of a partner he would be guided by the appearance of the woman’s entire body. This, however, is a very questionable assumption. Very doubtful also is the suggested connexion between largely developed dentition and the baldness of the skin (Helbig). More apposite is W. Bölsche’s view that the atrophy of the human hairy covering is related to the adoption of an artificial covering. Since that time the thick hairy covering of the skin was felt to be burdensome, since it hindered perspiration beneath the clothing, and also favoured the harbouring of parasites, fleas, lice, etc., which play so large a part in the annoyance of all hair-covered mammals. In these circumstances bareness of skin became an ideal to primitive man. By rubbing away the hair beneath the clothes, by cutting it short, and by pulling it out by the roots, an artificial baldness was produced; this then became an ideal of beauty. Thus it happened in the choice of a partner that those individuals less hairy than others were preferred, and thus gradually by this process of sexual selection the race became continually less hairy, until ultimately the relative baldness of the present day was attained.

In certain parts of the body, especially in the armpits and in the neighbourhood of the external genital organs, the thick hairy covering has been retained. This may, perhaps, be dependent upon the fact that from the axillary and pubic hair certain erotic stimuli proceed, more especially certain odours. In fact, it is possible that the hair of those regions in which strong-smelling secretions were produced have played the part of scent-sprinklers, analogous to the “perfume brushes” of butterflies.

In a similar way, the preservation of an exceptionally rich development of the hair of a woman’s head may be explained by the fact that therefrom erotically stimulating odours unquestionably proceed. This circumstance has influenced sexual selection in the direction of the preservation and continual increase in the length of the hair of a woman’s head; while, in the opposite direction, and equally by the process of sexual selection, the female body has been much more fully deprived of hair than that of the male.

It seems, however, that this process of loss of hair is not yet completed. The male beard has already ceased to play the part of a sexual lure, which it formerly undoubtedly possessed. Schopenhauer’s opinion, that with the advance of civilization the beard will disappear, probably represents the truth; he regarded shaving as a sign of the higher civilization. It is certainly a logical postulate of the natural course of development.[4]

Havelock Ellis, in “Man and Woman,” comes to the conclusion that the bodily development of our race is a progress in the direction of a youthful type. This is merely another way of expressing the fact that in the case of many organs and systems, and more especially in the case of the hairy covering of the skin, an arrest of development has occurred, and it is a recognition of the fact that the retrogressive metamorphosis of these organs is a compensation for the dominating and enormous development of the brain.

Parallel with this development of the brain there has occurred a progressive development of sexuality from the lowest animal instinct to the highest human “love.” The way of the spirit in love becomes predominant pari passu with the development of mankind in civilization. There is a profound meaning in the saying of Schopenhauer that the transformation of the sexual impulse into passionate love represents the victory of the intelligence over the will. And when another writer of genius has described the history of civilization as the history of the progress of mankind from nearer to more remote, more spiritual stimuli of pleasure, this is above all true of human love.

In lower states of human love these spiritual elements are undoubtedly wanting. Amongst primitive men the manifestations of sexuality can have differed in no wise from those of the animals most nearly related to them. Their love was still a pure animal instinct. The Asiatic myth which divided the earliest periods of human history in this way, asserting that the inhabitants of paradise loved for thousands of years merely by means of glances, later by a kiss, by simple physical contact, until ultimately they underwent a “fall” through adopting the debased methods of common animal sexual indulgence—this infantile mythology would be accurate enough if one inverted the series of stages in the evolution of love.

This view is confirmed by the fact that, according to the most recent investigation into the history of primitive man, it is extremely probable that to palæolithic man of the earlier diluvial period the idea of the spiritual was still completely unknown—that palæolithic man was, in fact, purely a creature of impulse—an opinion already maintained by Darwin in his work on the “Descent of Man.” In the sexual instinct, above all, every dualistic division into physical and spiritual was entirely foreign to primitive man. The more primitive the state of civilization, the less is the idea “love” known, a fact first established by Lubbock. Even at the present day, in regard to this matter, there is a notable difference between the upper and the lower classes in a European civilized community. For example, Elard Hugo Meyer, in his excellent “Deutsche Volkskunde” (“German Folk-lore,” p. 152; Strasburg, 1898), states that from Eastern Friesland to the Alps amongst the common people the word “love,” to us so indispensable and so exalted, is entirely unknown; in its place words expressing rather the sensual side of the impulse are employed.

Rousseau suggested that primitive man embraced primitive woman only in the fugitive moments of domination by his instinctive impulse. It is no doubt very probable that primæval man shared with other animals the periodicity of the sexual impulse; this periodicity disappeared only in the subsequent course of human development, and traces of it yet remain. It is probable that this periodicity of the sexual impulse was associated with variations in the supply of nutriment, and was thus, as Darwin assumes, a kind of natural obstacle to too rapid an increase in the population. Later, in consequence of an increase in individual security, and of a more enduring supply of abundant nutriment, such periodic rutting ceased to occur, or was preserved only in the form of menstruation (ovulation) in women, in whom at this period there is a perceptible increase in sexual excitability. Among savage races this periodicity of the sexual impulse, its increase at definite seasons of the year, is still clearly manifested even in the male. Heape and Havelock Ellis have carefully studied this primitive phenomenon, and have adduced numerous proofs of its truth.[5]

Only the human female experiences true “menstruation”; that is to say, only in women is the maturation of the ovum accompanied by a monthly discharge of blood from the genital passage. The so-called menstruation of female apes is limited to a periodic swelling of the external genital organs, with a mucous discharge therefrom. According to Metchnikoff, the menstruation of apes constitutes the intermediate stage between the rutting of the lower animals and the menstruation of the human female. This latter is a new acquisition, the purpose of which is perhaps the limitation of fertility and the prevention of the excessively early marriage of girls.

With the advanced development of the brain, the old periodic rutting, of which rudiments still persist, became more and more subordinate to the conscious will, was transformed more and more into enduring love. Charles Letourneau writes:

“If we go to the root of the matter, we find that human love is in its essence merely the rutting season in a reasoning being; it increases all the vital forces of the human being, just as rutting increases those of the lower animals. If love apparently differs enormously from rutting, this is merely due to the fact that the reproductive impulse, the most primitive of all impulses, becomes in developed nerve centres more diffuse in its sphere of operations, and thus in man awakens and excites a whole province of psychical life which is entirely unknown to the lower animals.”

Philosophers and scientific observers have defined the distinction between human and animal love as consisting in the fact that man can love at all times, the animal periodically only; but this distinction certainly does not apply to the beginnings of human development; it originates beyond question with the first appearance of the spiritual element in love. This alone makes man capable of enduring love, this alone frees him from dependence upon periodic rutting seasons. The prolongation of love by the introduction of the spiritual element was already pointed out by Kant, whose writings (especially the lesser ones) are rich in valuable observations of a similar kind. In his treatise published in 1786, “The Probable Beginning of Human History,” he says regarding the sexual instinct:

“Reason, as soon as it had become active, did not delay to exert its influence also in the sexual sphere. Man soon discovered that the stimulus of sex, which in animals depended merely on a transient and for the most part periodic impulse, was in his own case capable of prolongation, and indeed of increase, by the force of imagination. This influence works more moderately, it is true, but with more persistence and more evenness the more the affair is withdrawn from the dominion of the senses, so that the satiety produced by the gratification of a purely animal passion is avoided.”

This important question regarding the origin of the love of human beings as contrasted with the periodic instinct of the lower animals and primitive man has hitherto, strangely enough, hardly received any attention, notwithstanding the fact that it is one of the most important evolutionary problems in the history of human civilization, and represents to a certain extent the only problem in the primitive history of love.

The principal cause of the perennial nature of human love, as contrasted with the periodic character of the sexual impulse of the lower animals, must, as Kant says, be sought in the appearance of these psychical relations between the sexes. Hypotheses such as that put forward by Dr. W. Rheinhard in his book, “Man considered as an Animal Species, and his Impulses,” according to which the prolonged separation of the sexes, consequent on the increased difficulty in the provision of sufficient nutriment (more especially in the Ice Age), led to an incomplete satisfaction of the sexual impulse during the rutting season, and thus gave rise to an enduring sexual excitement, cannot be treated seriously. The same author suggests that the excessive consumption of meat of the Ice Age, owing to the absence of vegetable food, was responsible for the stronger stimulation of the sexual impulse, and for its prolongation beyond the rutting season.

Unquestionably Kant’s explanation is the only true one; it is the one which Schiller had in his mind when in his essay on the connexion between the animal and the spiritual nature of man, he spoke of the happiness of the animals as of such a kind that

“it is dependent merely upon the periods of the organism, and these are subject to chance, to blind hazard, because this happiness rests solely on sensation.”

The sexual love of primitive man was, like this, purely instinctive and impulsive.

For him, beginning, course, and end, of every love-process was “directly linear, with no to-and-fro oscillations into the indefinite province of the transcendental.” The need for love and the satisfaction of that need were in primitive man entirely limited to the physical process of sexual activity (L. Jacobowski, “The Beginnings of Poetry,” p. 84).

It was the interpenetration of the whole of sexuality with spiritual elements which first interrupted this single line of sensation, making in a sense two lines: hence arose the frequently unhappy dualism between body and mind in our experience of love; and yet at the same time it was the cause of the elevation of human love to purely individual feelings, which, extending far beyond the purposes of reproduction, subserved the spiritual demands of the loving individual himself.[6]

Natural science, and especially the doctrine of descent, have shown that in the higher animal world, to which we have proved primitive man belongs, a complication of the sexual impulse exists as compared to this condition in lower forms; this complication consists mainly in the intimate association of sensory stimuli with the sexual impulse. In a speech to monks, reported in the Pali Canon, Buddha has well described the sexual part played by the various senses:

“I do not know, young men, any other form which fetters the heart of man like a woman’s form.

“A woman’s form, young men, fetters the heart of man.

“I do not know, young men, any other voice which fetters the heart of man like the voice of woman.

“The voice of woman, young men, fetters the heart of man.

“I do not know, young men, any other odour which fetters the heart of man like the odour of woman.

“The odour of woman, young men, fetters the heart of man.

“I do not know, young men, any other taste which fetters the heart of man like the taste of woman.

“The taste of woman, young men, fetters the heart of man.

“I do not know, young men, any touch which fetters the heart of man like the touch of woman.

“The touch of woman, young men, fetters the heart of man.”

Then there follows, in the same rhythmical form, an enumeration of the sexual stimuli emanating from woman through eye, ear, smell, taste, and touch.

Associated with the progress towards “love” of this sexual impulse enriched by sensory stimuli was a preponderance, a prevalence, of certain particular sensory stimuli. Herein are certainly to be found the beginnings of a spiritualization of purely animal instincts and impulses.

The most important part in the amatory life of man is played, even at the present day, by the sense of touch, and by the two higher senses, sight and hearing, these two latter containing so many spiritual elements.

The sense of touch is more widely extended in space than the other senses, and for this reason touch is quantitatively the most excitable of the senses. The stimulation of the sensory nerves of the skin, the enormous number of which suffices to explain the richness of sensation through the skin, experienced as touch, tickling, or slight pain, transmits very similar sensations to the voluptuous sensorium. The relationship between these various modes of sensation is confirmed by the fact that the terminals of the sensory nerves of the skin, the so-called corpuscles of Vater or Pacini, closely resemble in structure the corpuscles of Krause found on the glans penis and glans clitoridis, on the prepuce of the clitoris, the labia majora, and on the papillæ of the red margin of the lip. From this point of view, the entire skin may be regarded as a huge organ of voluptuous sensation, of which the skin of the external organs of conjugation is most strongly susceptible to stimulation.

Mantegazza therefore describes sexual love as a higher form of tactile sensation. In human beings of a baser disposition love is no more than a touch. Between the chaste stroking of the hair and the violent storm of the sexual orgasm there is a quantitative, but not a qualitative difference. The sense of touch is a profoundly sexual sense, which at the present day plays much the same part as was in primitive times played by the sense of smell.

“The skin,” says Wilhelm Bölsche, “became the great procurer, the dominant intermediary of love, for the multicellular animals, in which complete conjugation of the cell bodies had become impossible, so that their sexual gratification had to be obtained by distance-love, by contact-love. Thus the skin was the primitive area of voluptuous sensation, the arena of the supreme bodily triumph of this distance-love.”

It has been well said that the first intentional touching of a part of the skin of the loved one is already a half-sexual union; and this view is confirmed by the fact that such intimate bodily contacts, even when they occur between parts far distant from sexual organs, very speedily lead to states of marked excitement of these organs. Quite rightly, therefore, the pleasurable sensations aroused by means of cutaneous sensibility are regarded by Magnus Hirschfeld as the stages of transition along which the power of self-command and the capacity for resisting the impulses arising out of the transformation of sensory perceptions into movements and actions most commonly break down. He who avoids these first contacts, best protects himself against the danger of being overpowered by his sexual impulse, and of blindly following where that impulse leads—if, for example, he wishes to avoid intercourse with a person whom he suspects to be suffering from some venereal disease.

Areas of skin more especially susceptible to sexual stimulation, the so-called erogenic areas, are those parts of the body where skin and mucous membrane meet—above all therefore the lips, but also the region of the anus, the female genital organs, and the nipples of the female breast. That in certain circumstances even the eye may be an erogenic zone is shown by the remarkable observation of Dr. Emil Bock, that in many female patients a gentle inunction of Pagenstecher’s ointment into the eye gives rise to changes of countenance showing that a sexual orgasm is occurring.

The contact of the lips in the kiss is one of the most powerful stimuli of love.[7] An Arabian author of the sixteenth century (Sheikh Nefzawi) in his work, “The Perfumed Garden,” an Arabian ars amandi, alludes to this fact. He quotes the verses of an Arabian poet:

“When the heart burns with love,

It finds, alas, nowhere a cure;

No witch’s magic art

Will give the heart that for which it thirsts;

The working of no charm

Will perform the desired miracle;

And the most intimate embrace

Leaves the heart cold and unsatisfied—

If the rapture of the kiss is wanting.”

The physiologist Burdach, influenced by the then dominant natural philosophy of Schelling, defined the kiss as “the symbol of the union of souls,” analogous to “the galvanic contact between a positively and a negatively electrified body; it increases sexual polarity, permeates the entire body, and if impure transfers sin from one individual to the other.” Goethe has very perspicuously described sexual union in a kiss:

“Eagerly she sucks the flames of his mouth:

Each is conscious only of the other.”

And Byron writes:

“A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth and love,

And beauty, all concentrating like rays

Into one focus kindled from above;

Such kisses as belong to early days,

Where heart and soul and sense in concert move,

And the blood’s lava, and the pulse a blaze,

Each kiss a heart-quake—for a kiss’s strength,

I think it must be reckoned by its length.”

It is therefore a true saying, that a woman who permits a man to kiss her will ultimately grant him complete possession.[8] Moreover, by the majority of finely sensitive women the kiss is valued just as highly as the last favour.[9]

The problem of the origin of the kiss, which Scheffel, in his book (“Trompeter von Säckingen”), has treated in humorous verse, has recently been investigated by the methods of natural science. The lip kiss is peculiar to man and in him the impulse to kiss is not innate, but has been gradually developed, and the kiss has only acquired by degrees a relation to the sexual sphere.

Havelock Ellis has recently made an interesting investigation regarding the origin of the kiss, and has proved that the love kiss has developed from the primitive maternal kiss and from the sucking of the infant at the maternal breast,[10] which are customary in regions where the sexual kiss is unknown. Both the sense of touch and the sense of smell play a part in this primitive kiss, and to simple contact primitive man superadded both licking and biting. This primitive physiological sadism of the biting kiss was probably inherited from the lower animals, which when copulating often bite one another (Kleist in “Penthesilea” writes “Küsse”—kissing—rhymes with “Bisse”—biting). Earlier authors—as, for example, Mohnike, in his admirable essay on the sexual instinct—have inferred from the existence of these passionate accompaniments of the kiss that the latter has an intimate connexion with the nutritive impulse. We have indeed the familiar expression, “I could eat you for love.” Indeed, according to Mohnike, the frenzy of the wild kisses of passionate love may actually lead to anthropophagy, as in a case reported by Metzger, in which a young man on his wedding night actually bit and began to devour his wife. Although in this case we doubtless have to do with an insane individual, such sadistic feelings in a lesser degree are so often observed in association with kissing that they may be regarded as physiological.[11]

In the novel “Hunger,” by Knut Hamsun, the author describes a peculiar relationship between hunger and the libido sexualis. Georg Lomer also, in the beginning of his thoughtful work, “Love and Psychosis” (Wiesbaden, 1907), expresses the opinion that hunger and love are not opposites, but that one is rather the completion, the larval state, or the sublimation, of the other. In certain species of spiders the male runs the danger, when performing his share in sexual congress, of being actually devoured by the stronger female.

The kiss by contact between the lips or neighbouring parts of the skin is of European origin, and even here is a comparatively recent practice, for the ancients very rarely allude to it. Its erotic significance was early pointed out by Indian, Oriental, and Roman poets. Amongst the Mongol races the so-called olfactory kiss (“smell-kiss”) is in much more common use. In this the nose is apposed to the cheek of the beloved person, and the expired air and the odour arising from the cheek are inhaled.

With the diffusion of European civilization, the European kiss of contact has also been diffused. It is no longer possible to determine whether the peculiar connexion between the lips and the genital organs, as manifested for example by the growth of hair on the upper lip at puberty in the male sex, and also by the well-known thick “sensual” lips often seen in individuals with exceptionally powerful sexual impulses, is originally primary, or merely a secondary result of the employment of the lips in a sexual caress.[12]

To our consideration of the kiss we may naturally append a few remarks on the rôle of the sense of taste in human love. Inasmuch as taste is almost invariably closely connected with smell, we are rarely able to prove in an individual case whether an impression of taste or an impression of smell more powerfully affects the vita sexualis. In kissing, an unconscious tasting of the beloved person seems often to play a part; and as regards the kissing of other parts of the body, especially the genital organs, at the acme of sexual excitement this undoubtedly often occurs. In Norwegian folk-tales, and in a South Hungarian song published by Friedrich S. Krauss, this tasting of the woman is very realistically described. The taste for sweets has also been largely associated with sexuality. Children who are fond of sweets, who have, as it is called, a sweet tooth, are also sensually disposed, sexually more excitable, and more inclined to the practice of onanism, than other children. The sensory impulses have therefore been classified as the hunger impulse and the sexual impulse respectively. A certain amount of truth appears to lie in these observations.

Much greater influence than these lower senses possess is exerted in the sexual sphere on modern civilized man by the higher, truly intellectual senses, sight and hearing. With the adoption of the upright posture they gained an advantage over the sense of smell and taste.

In his work “Ideas Concerning the Philosophy of Human History” Herder writes: