with him eight times in two hours, orgasm occurring each time in both parties.  Guttceit (Dreissig Jahre Praxis, vol. ii. p. 311), in Russia, knew many cases in which young men of twenty-two to twenty-eight had intercourse more than ten times in one night, though after the fourth time there is seldom any semen.  He had known some men who had masturbated in early boyhood, and began to consort with women at fifteen, yet remained sexually vigorous in old age, while he knew others who began intercourse late and were losing force at forty.  Mantegazza, who knew a man who had intercourse fourteen times in one day, remarks that the stories of the old Italian novelists show that twelve times was regarded as a rare exception.  Burchard, Alexander VI’s secretary, states that the Florentine Ambassador’s son, in Rome in 1489, “knew a girl seven times in one hour” (J.  Burchard, Diarium, ed.  Thuasne, vol. i, p. 329).  Olivier, Charlemagne’s knight, boasted, according to legend, that he could show his virile power one hundred times in one night, if allowed to sleep with the Emperor of Constantinople’s daughter; he was allowed to try, it is said, and succeeded thirty times (Schultz, Das Hoefische Leben, vol. i, p. 581).

It will be seen that whenever the sexual act is repeated frequently within a short time it is very rarely indeed that the husband can keep pace with the wife.  It is true that the woman’s sexual energy is aroused more slowly and with more difficulty than the man’s, but as it becomes aroused its momentum increases.  The man, whose energy is easily aroused, is easily exhausted; the woman has often scarcely attained her energy until after the first orgasm is over.  It is sometimes a surprise to a young husband, happily married, to find that the act of sexual intercourse which completely satisfies him has only served to arouse his wife’s ardor.  Very many women feel that the repetition of the act several times in succession is needed to, as they may express it, “clear the system,” and, far from producing sleepiness and fatigue, it renders them bright and lively.

The young and vigorous woman, who has lived a chaste life, sometimes feels when she commences sexual relationships as though she really required several husbands, and needed intercourse at least once a day, though later when she becomes adjusted to married life she reaches the conclusion that her desires are not abnormally excessive.  The husband has to adjust himself to his wife’s needs, through his sexual force when he possesses it, and, if not, through his skill and consideration.  The rare men who possess a genital potency which they can exert to the gratification of women without injury to themselves have been, by Professor Benedikt, termed “sexual athletes,” and he remarks that such men easily dominate women.  He rightly regards Casanova as the type of the sexual athlete (Archives d’Anthropologie Criminelle,