Studies in the psychology of sex. [Vol.5], Erotic symbolism : The mechanism of detumescence / by Havelock Ellis.

  • Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939.
Date:
[1906], ©1906
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies in the psychology of sex. [Vol.5], Erotic symbolism : The mechanism of detumescence / by Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PBEFACE. In’ this volume the terminal phenomena of the sexual pro¬ cess are discussed, before an attempt is finally made, in the con¬ cluding volume, to consider the bearings of the psychology of sex on that part of morals which may be called “social hygiene.” Under “Erotic Symbolism” I include practically all the aberrations of the sexual instinct, although some of these have seemed of sufficient importance for separate discussion in pre¬ vious volumes. It is highly probable that many readers will consider that the name scarcely suffices to cover manifestations so numerous and so varied. The term “sexual equivalents” will seem preferable to some. While, however, it may be fully admitted that these perversions are “sexual equivalents”—or at all events equivalents of the normal sexual impulse—that term is merely a descriptive label which tells us nothing of the phe¬ nomena. “Sexual Symbolism” gives us the key to the process, the key that makes all these perversions intelligible. In all of them—very clearly in some, as in shoe-fetichism; more ob¬ scurely in others, as in exhibitionism—it has come about by causes congenital, acquired, or both, that some object or class of objects, some act or group of acts, has acquired a d}mamic power over the psycho-physical mechanism of the sexual process, deflecting it from its normal adjustment to the whole of a beloved person of the opposite sex. There has been a trans¬ mutation of values, and certain objects, certain acts, have ac¬ quired an emotional value which for the normal person they do not possess. Such objects and acts are properly, it seems to me, termed symbols, and that term embodies the only justification that in most cases these manifestations can legitimately claim. “The Mechanism of Detumescence” brings us at last to the final climax for which the earlier and more prolonged stage