The Sex Periods Of Our Life History

( Originally Published 1940 )

WE have studied the love-life at the different periods of our existence, and we have learnt that the sexual urge increases in strength and importance from year to year, until one reaches a certain maximum, after which it gradually diminishes, and our life-energy with it, as can be very clearly shown on a chart. This curve develops in a similar way to that which we called the massage curve (see chapter 60); like the ebb and flow of a tide, with the summit in the middle.

In this connection we have observed certain lines of demarcation between the sexual periods, which, like every kind of classification, are more or less relative, but which give a thoroughly practical insight into the question. These various sexual-periods are so decidedly influential in the fashioning of our lives, that they characterise the most important of our life periods.

We shall briefly review this division of our life into different sexual periods. The first three periods we shall not deal with here, because they all belong to the intra-uterine life. They are: firstly, the absolute sexlessness of the first few weeks of our embryonic life, secondly the development of the hermaphroditic or bisexual condition, and thirdly, the foetal differentiation of the future male and female sexual organs. These comprise the first three stages of evolution in the great evolution of species, as we explained in Chapter 40.

The really decisive alternative in sexual classification indeed lies in the question whether we are able to afford each other the mutual help in sexual intercourse necessary to ensure sexual satisfaction. This is typical of the adult age. So long, however, as this is not yet the case, we speak of childhood, and if finally this has ceased to be the case, we call it senility. And we say there is a transition period between childhood and the adult age, and between that and senility.

Sexual abstinence is found to be most beneficial at these two transitory periods. We feel ourselves mentally and psychically stronger; we are proud of it. But if we have yielded in spite of our best intentions, we feel enervated and annoyed; we are sorry that we were so weak, and are filled with remorse.

But, on the other hand, at the summit of our life, we feel a renewal of strength and are soothed when we have fulfilled our marital duty. And conversely we are sorry if we have failed in the least to reciprocate love. How greatly will many a man on his death-bed regret with tears in his eyes that he had not been kinder to his wife! And how cold and empty is the life of him who has never loved!

These personal feelings arise from physiological necessities. It is the same thing here as with all effort and exercise. We may say that at the prime of life the more exertion one makes, the more strongly will any function develop. If, however, too great efforts are made at a very early age, the function is weakened, and if we do this in old age, exhaustion results. These are the most essential points of the life-curve.

The different periods can sometimes change unnoticed into neighbouring periods: young girls, still children, who become pregnant; withered old men who attack a woman or even a child quite unexpectedly. And even apart from these abnormalities, how sudden may be the transition from child to man. And how easily it may have happened in the transition period of youth, when there was no thought of sexual intercourse, and one felt so sure of oneself, so perfectly happy with the most harmless caresses, and unexpectedly the impulse rose to blind frenzy, even if it meant death on the spot.

To shape our lives aright, we should follow the normal curve, and never confuse the different life-periods with each other. For instance, a little ignorance, naivete and timidity is not out of place in a child, and on the contrary may lend it an added charm. At a later period of life, however, this uncertainty, this ignorance would be a fault, often dishonourable and almost criminal. And it disgusts us just as much if an old man tries to deny his age and to excite himself or his hearers sexually through vulgar "double entendres." He thinks that young people will find this funny, but it is only repulsive. And those young people especially who are freest in their behaviour when in each other's society only, now feel this behaviour of the old man to be a parody and are thoroughly offended.

Circumspection is still more imperative when acts are concerned. It is certainly criminal to excite a child sexually; this is universally admitted. But it is equally wrong to preach to married couples that they should live together like brother and sister, if there is no serious reason. Thus in many cases this separation into life-periods may become normal for us.

The painter, the poet, the writer have all kept these different sexual life-periods quite distinct in their masterpieces; it is indeed this which is so charming, so delicate, so refined, in their compositions. But judges have often sinned against it, when they have pronounced too severe a verdict. And moralists have done violence to Nature far more often, have praised the morbid, and extinguished life-energy.

And we as doctors must always take these sexual life-periods into consideration, not only when prescribing a regime, but when judging of pathological and especially psycho-pathological cases. In children and young people we should always watch for signs of masturbation, in the married we should not neglect to enquire if they find complete sexual satisfaction in their conjugal relations, and in the aged if they feel depressed through impotence.

This trio : masturbation, coitus, and impotence, together form a typical whole. They even form a complete history of life, from childish naivete to senile exhaustion. It is a search, a finding of oneself, and a final state of exhaustion. Indeed these are the three normal phases in normal sexual intercourse: one always begins by caresses that are not copulation, yet are exciting; then comes coitus as the climax, and one ends in impotence. It is always the same curve of Nature with the apex in the middle. And as the mighty waves of the ocean are formed from tiny ripples, so also is our life-curve formed from the many little sexual curves.