[177] It is scarcely necessary to add that prostitutes can furnish little evidence one way or the other.  Not only may prostitutes refuse to participate in the sexual orgasm, but the evils of a prostitute’s life are obviously connected with causes quite other than mere excess of sexual gratification.

[178] This is, for instance, indicated by the experiments of Gualino concerning the sexual sensitiveness of the lips (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1904, fasc. 3).  He found that mechanical irritation applied to the lips produced more or less sexual feeling in 12 out of 20 women, but in only 10 out of 25 men, i.e., in three-fifths of the women and two-fifths of the men.

[179] “Adolescence is for women primarily a period of storm and stress, while for men it is in the highest sense a period of doubt,” (Starbuck, Psychology of Religion, p. 241.) It is interesting to note that in the religious sphere, also, the emotions of women are more diffused than those of men; Starbuck confirms the conclusion of Professor Coe that, while women have at least as much religious emotion as men, in them it is more all pervasive, and they experience fewer struggles and acute crises.  (Ibid., p. 80.)

[180] Marro, La Puberta, p. 233.  This table covers all those cases, nearly 3000, of patients entering the Turin asylum, from 1886 to 1895, in which the age of the first appearance of insanity was known.

III.

Summary of Conclusions.

In conclusion it may be worth while to sum up the main points brought out in this brief discussion of a very large question.  We have seen that there are two streams of opinion regarding the relative strength of the sexual impulse in men and women:  one tending to regard it as greater in men, the other as greater in women.  We have concluded that, since a large body of facts may be brought forward to support either view, we may fairly hold that, roughly speaking, the distribution of the sexual impulse between the two sexes is fairly balanced.

We have, however, further seen that the phenomena are in reality too complex to be settled by the usual crude method of attempting to discover quantitative differences in the sexual impulse.  We more nearly get to the bottom of the question by a more analytic method, breaking up our mass of facts into groups.  In this way we find that there are certain well-marked characteristics by which the sexual impulse in women differs from the same impulse in men:  1.  It shows greater apparent passivity. 2.  It is more complex, less apt to appear spontaneously, and more often needing to be aroused, while the sexual orgasm develops more slowly than in men. 3.  It tends to become stronger after sexual relationships are established. 4.  The threshold of excess is less easily reached than in men. 5.  The sexual sphere is larger and more diffused. 6.  There is a more marked tendency to periodicity in the spontaneous manifestations of sexual desire. 7.  Largely as a result of these characteristics, the sexual impulse shows a greater range of variation in women than in men, both as between woman and woman and in the same woman at different periods.