recall little that now seems to be significant
in this respect. She remembers that in childhood
and for some time later she believed that children
were born through the navel. Her activities went
chiefly into humanitarian and utopian directions,
and she cherished ideas of a large, healthy, free
life, untrammeled by civilization. She regards
herself as very passionate, but her sexual emotions
appear to have developed very slowly and have been
somewhat intellectualized. After reaching
adult life she has formed several successive relationships
with men to whom she has been attracted by affinity
in temperament, in intellectual views, and in
tastes. These relationships have usually been
followed by some degree of disillusion, and so
have been dissolved. She does not believe
in legal marriage, though under fitting circumstances
she would much like to have a child.
She never masturbated until the age of 27. At that time a married friend told her that such a thing could be done. She found it gave her decided pleasure, indeed, more than coitus had ever given her except with one man. She has never practised it to excess, only at rare intervals, and is of the opinion that it is decidedly beneficial when thus moderately indulged in. She has sometimes found, for instance, that, after the mental excitement produced by delivering a lecture, sleep would be impossible if masturbation were not resorted to as a sedative to relieve the tension.
Spontaneous sexual excitement
is strongest just before the
monthly period.
Definite sexual dreams and
sexual excitement during sleep have
not occurred except possibly
on one or two occasions.
She has from girlhood experienced erotic day-dreams, imagining love-stories of which she herself was the heroine; the climax of these stories has developed with her own developing knowledge of sexual matters.
She is not inverted, and has never been in love with a woman. She finds, however, that a beautiful woman is distinctly a sexual excitation, calling out definite physical manifestations of sexual emotion. She explains this by saying that she thinks she instinctively puts herself in the place of a man and feels as it seems to her a man would feel.
She finds that music excites
the sexual emotions, as well as many
scents, whether of flowers,
the personal odor of the beloved
person, or artificial perfumes.
HISTORY X.—The subject is of German extraction on both sides. The father is of marked intellectual tastes, as also is she herself. There is no unhealthy strain in the family so far as she is aware, though they all have very strong passions. She is well developed, healthy, vigorous, and athletic, any trouble to which she is subject being mainly due to overwork.
Looking back on her childhood, she can now see various sexual manifestations occurring