“It is an altogether false idea,” Fehling declared, in his rectorial address at the University of Basel in 1891, “that a young woman has just as strong an impulse to the opposite sex as a young man....  The appearance of the sexual side in the love of a young girl is pathological.” (H.  Fehling, Die Bestimmung der Frau, 1892, p. 18.) In his Lehrbuch der Frauenkrankheiten the same gynecological authority states his belief that half of all women are not sexually excitable.

Krafft-Ebing was of opinion that women require less sexual satisfaction than men, being less sensual. (Krafft-Ebing, “Ueber Neurosen und Psychosen durch sexuelle Abstinenz,” Jahrbuecher fuer Psychiatrie, 1888, Bd. viii, ht.  I and 2.)

“In the normal woman, especially of the higher social classes,” states Windscheid, “the sexual instinct is acquired, not inborn; when it is inborn, or awakes by itself, there is abnormality.  Since women do not know this instinct before marriage, they do not miss it when they have no occasion in life to learn it.” (F.  Windscheid, “Die Beziehungen zwischen Gynaekologie und Neurologie,” Zentralblatt fuer Gynaekologie, 1896, No. 22; quoted by.  Moll, Libido Sexualis, Bd. i, p. 271.)

    “The sensuality of men,” Moll states, “is in my opinion very much
    greater than that of women.” (A.  Moll, Die Kontraere
    Sexualempfindung, third edition, 1899, p. 592.)

“Women are, in general, less sensual than men,” remarks Naecke, “notwithstanding the alleged greater nervous supply of their sexual organs.” (P.  Naecke, “Kritisches zum Kapitel der Sexualitaet,” Archiv fuer Psychiatrie, 1899, p. 341.)

Loewenfeld states that in normal young girls the specifically sexual feelings are absolutely unknown; so that desire cannot exist in them.  Putting aside the not inconsiderable proportion of women in whom this absence of desire may persist and be permanent, even after sexual relationships have begun, thus constituting absolute frigidity, in a still larger number desire remains extremely moderate, constituting a state of relative frigidity.  He adds that he cannot unconditionally support the view of Fuerbringer, who is inclined to ascribe sexual coldness to the majority of German married women. (L.  Loewenfeld, Sexualleben und Nervenleiden, 1899, second edition, p. 11.)

Adler, who discusses the question at some length, decides that the sexual needs of women are less than those of men, though in some cases the orgasm in quantity and quality greatly exceeds that of men.  He believes, not only that the sexual impulse in women is absolutely less than in men, and requires stronger stimulation to arouse it, but that also it suffers from a latency due to inhibition, which acts like a foreign body in the brain (analogous to the psychic trauma of Breuer and Freud in hysteria), and demands great skill