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Psychologic Factors in Sexual Response
It might properly be contended that all functions of living matter are physiologic, but it is customary to distinguish certain aspects of animal behavior as psychologic functions. The distinctions can never be sharp, and they probably do not represent reality; but they are convenient distinctions to make, particularly in regard to human behavior.

Usually physiologists have been concerned with the functions of particular parts of the plant or animal, and with an attempt to discover the physical and chemical bases of such functions. Psychologists, on the other hand, have more often been concerned with the functioning — the behavior — of the organism as a whole. Many of the psychologic studies record — and properly record — the behavior of an animal without being able to explain the bases of that behavior in the known physics or chemistry of living matter. When psychologists try to explain behavior in physico-chemical terms, it is difficult to say, and quite pointless to try to say, whether such studies lie in the field of psychology or physiology.

It is important to understand how nebulous the distinctions are between the psychologic and physiologic aspects of behavior, for there are some who seem to believe that there are three universes: an animal’s anatomy, its physiology, and its psychology. Such a misinterpretation formerly led biologists to think of a dualistic relationship between the physiologic capacities of an organism and its form and structure. The same sort of misinterpretation has led to the dualistic distinction of mind and body to which many persons have been inclined. But form and function are coordinate qualities of any living cell, and of any more complex assemblage of living cells.

Such specious distinctions between form and function have, unfortunately, lent encouragement to the opinion that the psychologic aspects of human sexual behavior are of a different order from, and perhaps more significant than, the anatomy or physiology of sexual response and orgasm. Such thinking easily becomes mystical, and quickly identifies any consideration of anatomic form and physiologic function as a scientific materialism which misses the “basic,” the “human,” and the “real” problems in behavior. This, however, seems an unnecessary judgment. Whatever we may learn of the anatomy and physiology and of the basic chemistry of an animal’s responses, must contribute to our understanding of the totality which we call behavior. Those aspects of behavior which we identify as psychologic can be nothing but certain aspects of that same basic anatomy and physiology.

This, however, will not prevent us from recognizing the existence of many phenomena, such as the processes of learning and conditioning, the development of preferences in the choice of sexual objects, and the development of whole patterns of behavior, which cannot yet be explained in terms of the physics and chemistry which may be involved. Indeed, some of the aspects of sexual behavior which most critically affect the lives of human animals, and which are most often involved in the relations between human females and males, are among these still unexplained phenomena.

Learning and Conditioning
One of the best known and distinctive qualities of living matter, although it is one which is still unexplainable in terms of physics and chemistry, is its capacity to be modified by its experience. The first time that an animal meets a given situation, its reactions may represent little more than direct responses to immediate stimuli; but in its subsequent contacts with similar stimuli, the organism may react differently from the way it did on the first occasion. In some fashion which no biologist or biochemist understands, living plant and animal cells, and groups of cells and tissues and organs in more complex animal bodies, are modified by their experience. The organismes later behavior represents a composite of its reactions to the stimuli which are immediately present, and its reactions to the memory of its previous experience. This depends on the processes which are known, in psychologic terminology, as learning and conditioning.

Learning and conditioning are, of course, familiar parts of the everyday experience of the human animal. Other things being equal, the first experiences, the most intense experiences, and the latest experiences may have the maximum effect on an individual’s subsequent behavior. Freud and the psychiatrists, and psychologists in general, have correctly emphasized the importance of one’s early experience, but it should not be forgotten that one may continue to learn and continue to be conditioned by new types of situations at any time during one’s life. It is incorrect to minimize the importance of all except childhood experiences in the development of adult patterns of behavior.

Learning and conditioning in connection with human sexual behavior involve the same sorts of processes as learning and conditioning in other types of behavior. But man, because of his highly developed forebrain, may be more conditionable than any of the other mammals. The variations which exist in adult sexual behavior probably depend more upon conditioning than upon variations in the gross anatomy or physiology of the sexual mechanisms.

The sexual capacities which an individual inherits at birth appear to be nothing more than the necessary anatomy and the physiologic capacity to respond to a sufficient physical or psychologic stimulus. All human females and males who are not too greatly incapacitated physically appear to be born with such capacities. No one has to learn to become tumescent, to build up the neuromuscular tensions which lead to the rhythmic pelvic thrusts of coitus, or to develop any of the other responses which lead to orgasm.

But apart from these few inherent capacities, most other aspects of human sexual behavior appear to be the product of learning and conditioning. From the time it is born, and probably before it is born, the infant comes into contact with some of the elements that enter into its later sexual experience. From its first physical contacts with other objects, and particularly from its contacts with other human bodies, the child learns that there are satisfactions which may be obtained through tactile stimulation. In its early sexual experience with other individuals, the child begins to learn something of the rewards and penalties which may be attached to socio-sexual activities. From its parents, from other adults, from other children, and from the community at large, it begins to acquire its attitudes toward such things as nudity, the anatomic differences between males and females, and the reproductive functions; and these attitudes may have considerable significance in determining its subsequent acceptance or avoidance of particular types of overt sexual activity.

The type of person who first introduces an individual to particular types of socio-sexual activities may have a great deal to do with his or her subsequent attitudes, his or her interest in continuing such activity, and his or her dissatisfactions with other types of activity. Above all, experience develops a certain amount of technical facility, and an individual learns how to masturbate and learns how to utilize particular techniques in petting, in coitus, or in homosexual or other relations. We may sharply distinguish the inherent sexual capacities with which an animal is born, from those aspects of its sexual behavior which are acquired by the processes of learning and conditioning.

Development of Preferences
As a result of its experience, an animal acquires certain patterns of behavior which lead it to react positively to certain sorts of stimuli, and to react negatively to other sorts of stimuli. But there are also various degrees of response, and an animal learns to react toward or against certain stimuli more intensely than it does to others. When there is any possibility of choosing, the animal may show strong preferences for one rather than another type of activity.
Students of animal behavior have noted that if a male’s initial coital experience involves pain or fright, the male may become reluctant to mate thereafter. See, for example: Beach 1947b:265. Rice and Andrews 1951:180-181.

An individual may come to prefer particular types of individuals as sexual partners; may prefer tall persons or short persons; may prefer blondes or brunettes; may prefer sexual partners who are much younger or much older, or of his or her own age; may develop an incapacity to respond to any except a single sexual partner, or a preference for variety in sexual experience; may prefer a heterosexual or a homosexual pattern of behavior; may prefer masturbation to the pursuit of socio-sexual contacts; may prefer a considerable amount of petting prior to actual coitus, or immediate coitus without preliminary play; may find satisfaction or be offended by the use of certain genital, oral, or anal techniques; may come to desire a variety of positions in coitus, or the more or less exclusive use of a single position; may choose a farm animal instead of a human partner for sexual relationships. All of these choices and reactions to particular stimuli may seem reasonable enough and more or less inevitable to the person who is involved, even though some of them may seem un-understandable, unnatural, and abnormal to the individual who has not been conditioned by the same sort of experience.
The extreme variation which may be found among both men and women in the types of preferred sexual partners, is well illustrated in the listing in Hamilton 1929:502-505. That the males of infra-human species often develop strong preferences for particular females or types of females, is recorded in: Tinklepaugh 1928:296-300 (rhesus monkey). Yerkes and Elder 1936a:32-34, 38 (chimpanzee). Carpenter 1942:139 (monkey). Enders 1945 (fox). Hafez 1951 (ram). Ford and Beach 1951:91-93 (general discussion). Shadle (verbal communic.) records two porcupines, each of which developed strong preferences for a particular female. That estrual females of sub-primate species almost never show strong preferences, even in species in which preferences are strongly marked in the male, is noted in: Rowlands and Parkes 1935 (fox). Enders 1945.

Even some of the most extremely variant types of human sexual behavior may need no more explanation than is provided by our understanding of the processes of learning and conditioning. Behavior which may appear bizarre, perverse, or unthinkably unacceptable to some persons, and even to most persons, may have significance for other individuals because of the way in which they have been conditioned.

Flagellation, masochism, transvestism, and the wide variety of fetishes appear to be products of conditioning, fortified sometimes by some other aspect of an individual’s personality and by inherent or acquired anatomic and physiologic capacities. Sexual reactions to stockings, to underclothing, to other articles of clothing, to shoes, or to long hair may be no more difficult to explain than attractions to the body of a sexual partner, or to particular parts of that body, to the legs of females, to the breasts of females, to male genitalia, to buttocks, or to other portions of the human anatomy.

The male who reacts sexually and comes to erection upon seeing a streetcar, may merely reflect some early experience in which a streetcar was associated with a desirable sexual partner; and his behavior may be no more difficult to explain than the behavior of the male who reacts at the sight of his wife undressing for bed. There may be more social advantage in the one type of behavior than in the other. In rare instances some of the so-called aberrant types of behavior, meaning the less usual types of conditioned responses, may be definitely disadvantageous, but in most instances they are of no social concern. The prominence given to classifications of behavior as normal or abnormal, and the long list of special terms used for classifying such behavior, usually represent moralistic classifications rather than any scientific attempt to discover the origins of such behavior, or to determine their real social significance.

Vicarious Sharing of Experience
A fair amount of the conditioning which occurs in connection with human sexual behavior depends upon the fact that the human animal, with its extraordinary capacity for communication through verbal interchange, through the printed word and pictorial material, and through other modern devices, may vicariously share the sexual experience of many other persons. Learning of their satisfactions or difficulties in particular types of sexual activity may influence one’s own decision to engage or not to engage in similar types of activity.

Many persons find considerable stimulation in listening to accounts of the sexual experience of other persons, in hearing fictional tales of sexual exploits, in reading of such experience, and in seeing photographs and drawings of sexual objects and activities. Many individuals become strongly conditioned toward or against having particular types of sexual activity, before they have ever had any actual experience of the sort.

An individual’s pattern of sexual behavior usually depends to a great extent upon the longstanding and sometimes ancient social codes concerning the various types of sexual activity. The social attitudes may begin to condition the child at a very early age, and may force it to confine its attitudes, its responses, and its overt activities to sexual expressions which are acceptable to the particular culture.

Reactions to Associated Objects

An animal may become conditioned to respond not only to particular stimuli, but to objects and other phenomena which were associated with the original experience. Pavlov’s classic experiment with the dog which was so conditioned that it salivated upon hearing a dinner bell, as well as when it came in contact with the food with which the bell was originally associated, stands as the prototype of such associative conditioning.
For descriptions of Pavlov's experiments with dogs, see: Woodworth and Marquis 1947:525-530. Andrews 1948:44. Freeman 1948:180.

Sexual behavior, among all species of mammals, may involve a great deal of conditioning by phenomena which were associated with previous experience. Male cats and dogs and many other mammals respond sexually when they approach places in which they have had previous experience.
Male animals which showed sexual arousal on returning to a place where they had previously had coitus are described by: McKenzie and Berliner 1937:18 (ram). Zitrin and Beach in Hartman 1945:42-44 (cat). That a strange environment may prevent or handicap a male in having coitus although the female may not be thus affected, is recorded in: Marshall and Hammond 1944:12. Beach 1947b:264. Root and Bard 1947:81.

Male rabbits, guinea pigs, skunks, raccoons, bulls, and horses may respond to odors left by female secretions. They often respond to the odor of the urine of a female, especially if the female is in estrus.
One of the best illustrations of a male's interest in odors left by females is recorded for the porcupine by: Shadle, Smelzer, and Metz 1946:118, 120. Shadle 1946:159-160. See also: Beach and Gilmore 1949:391-392.

In the laboratory, male animals may respond to particular dishes, to particular boards, or to particular pieces of other furniture with which some female has had contact. They may respond more intensely to particular animals with which they have had previous sexual contact, they may respond less intensely to animals with which they have not had previous contact — although another phenomenon, psychologic fatigue, may lead to an exact reversal of this pattern of response.
That some male animals will copulate only with familiar females and ignore strange females is recorded in: Hartman 1945:39 (monkey). Shadle 1946:160-161 (porcupine). Beach 1947b:264-265 (general statement). That estrual females, on the contrary, will usually accept any male, familiar or strange, is recorded by: Bean, director of Brookfield Zoo (verbal communie.). Beach 1947b :264. Psychologic fatigue, the lessening of sexual response through prolonged living together, has been noted in animals by: Hamilton 1914:301-302. Miller 1931:397-398, 406.

If satisfactory relations were previously had with an individual of the opposite sex, animals are more likely to respond to other individuals of that sex. If the previous experience was with an individual of their own sex, they are, because of the association with the previous experience, more likely to respond again to individuals of their own sex. If the laboratory investigator was present when the animal was previously involved in sexual activity, it is likely to react more intensely on later occasions if the investigator is again present. A dog which has been masturbated by its owner may subsequently come to full erection whenever it sees the human agent, move toward him, and try to renew the relationship. We have the record of one dog which did not go to its owner when it saw him, but ran to the place where it had been previously masturbated and there awaited a renewal of that experience.

Sexual stimulation by things that one sees, hears, smells, or tastes often depends upon the associations which they evoke, rather than upon the direct physical stimulation of the sense organs through which those things are perceived. While this is true of all the higher mammals, it is particularly true of the human animal. From its earliest years the child comes to associate a considerable number of particular objects and phenomena with things that make him comfortable or in some other way prove satisfying. In the course of time, an adult comes to associate sexual activities with warmth, tactile satisfactions, particular types of food, alcoholic drinks, furniture, the clothing of the sexual partner, particular odors, particular intensities of light, particular sounds, certain musical compositions, particular sorts of voices, particular words which have been used to describe particular types of sexual performance, the sort of room or outdoor setting in which satisfactory sexual relations previously occurred, the use of particular techniques in a sexual relationship, and an endless list of other particular things.

Sometimes an individual may reach a point at which he reacts to these associated phenomena as intensely or more intensely than he reacts to the physical stimulation of a sexual contact. Not a few individuals find that they are more intensely aroused by the anticipation of an opportunity to engage in sexual activity than they are when they arrive at the activity itself.

Sympathetic Responses
Among most species of mammals, most males and some females become erotically aroused when they observe other individuals engaging in sexual activity. Animals which have not reacted to the mere presence of the other animals may become interested if the other animals begin sexual activity. Most males are likely to respond quite immediately to such stimuli, to come to erection, and to seek the opportunity for sexual activity of their own. This is as true of the human male as it is of the males of other species of mammals.
Sympathetic responses in mammals are also noted in Ford and Beach 1951:71. Such responses are, of course, not invariable; for example, a herd of grazing ruminants may ignore a copulating couple in their midst, acc. Bean, director of Brookfield Zoo (verbal communic.). It should be noted that the sight of coitus is without effect upon inexperienced chimpanzees, but is sexually arousing to experienced animals of both sexes, acc. Nissen (verbal communic.).

These are, technically speaking, sympathetic responses. The one animal feels or reacts (pathos) with (sym) the other. Of all the situations to which an animal may become conditioned, none is as likely to evoke sexual responses as sexual activity itself. The restrictions which most human societies place upon the public performance of sexual acts probably did not arise out of any innate perception of what was shameful or wrong, but from an attempt to control the sympathetic responses of the bystanders and the social consequences of group sexual activity. Among laboratory animals and animals in the wild, vigorous competition and violent conflict are the usual outcome of group sexual activity. They are as likely to be the outcome of group activity in the human species, unless the individuals control their jealousies in a conscious attempt to obtain the especial stimulation which may be found in group activity.

In a socio-sexual relationship, the sexual partners may respond to each other and to the responses made by each other. For this reason, most persons find socio-sexual relationships more satisfactory than solitary sexual activities.

When there is physical contact, all of one’s sense organs may aid in making one aware of the responses of the partner and of the movements of the partner’s body, particularly when there are such extensive contacts as completely nude bodies may provide. Tensions developing in the body of the one partner may be reflected instantaneously in the reactions of the other partner’s body. As the one partner approaches orgasm, his or her extreme reactions may stimulate the other partner into simultaneous orgasm. Such a simultaneity of response may occasionally originate in the fact that the two partners are so constituted that they respond in exactly the same period of time, but it usually depends upon some sympathetic interaction between the two.

Significance of Conditioning in Females and in Males
In general, males are more often conditioned by their sexual experience, and by a greater variety of associated factors, than females. While there is great individual variation in this respect among both females and males, there is considerable evidence that the sexual responses and behavior of the average male are, on the whole, more often determined by the male’s previous experience, by his association with objects that were connected with his previous sexual experience, by his vicarious sharing of another individual’s sexual experience, and by his sympathetic reactions to the sexual responses of other individuals. The average female is less often affected by such psychologic factors. It is highly significant to find that there are evidences of such differences between the females and males of infra-human mammalian species, as well as between human females and males.
In summing up the situation among infra-human mammals, Ford and Beach 1951:241 state: “We are strongly impressed with the evidence for sexual learning and conditioning in the male and the relative absence of such processes in the female.”

While we found no basic differences in the anatomy which is involved in the sexual responses of females and of males, and no differences in the physiologic phenomena which are involved when females and males respond sexually, we do find, in these responses to psychologic stimuli, an explanation of some of the differences that we have reported in the incidences and frequencies and the patterns of sexual behavior among females and males. Hormonal differences between the human female and male may account for certain other differences between the two sexes.

It cannot be too strongly emphasized that there is tremendous individual variation in the way in which different individuals may be affected by psychologic stimuli. For instance, there is a considerable proportion of the females who masturbate without associated fantasies, and a considerable proportion of our female sample who had never had specifically sexual dreams while they slept. In this respect, such a female differs considerably from the average male, for nearly all males do fantasy while masturbating, and nearly all of them have nocturnal sex dreams. On the other hand, there are some females who invariably fantasy while they are masturbating, who have an abundance of sex dreams, and who have daytime fantasies which may so arouse them that they reach orgasm without any physical stimulation of any part of their bodies. It is only one male in a thousand or two who can fantasy to orgasm. In our sample, the range of variation in responses to psychologic stimuli is, therefore, much greater among females than it is among males. While we may emphasize the differences which exist between the average female and the average male, it should constantly be borne in mind that there are many individuals, and particularly many females, who widely depart from these averages.

Social Factors Affecting Sexual Patterns
For males, social factors are of considerable significance in determining patterns of sexual behavior. Among females, social factors are of more minor significance in determining the patterns of sexual behavior .

For instance, we found that the educational level which the male ultimately attained showed a marked correlation with his patterns of sexual behavior (Table 175).

Table 175f. Correlations Between Social Factors and Patterns of Sexual Behavior

Sexual activity		 Education Decade of
birth		 Age at onset
of adol.		 Religion
F MF M FM F M
Masturbation
Accum. incid. (orgasm) 3 12 1 02 3 
Act. incid. (orgasm) 2 30 2 03 3 2
Freq., act. med. (orgasm) 0 30  0 2 13
Percent total outlet 2 31  0 0 20
Nocturnal dreams
Accum. incid. (orgasm) 0 31  0 0 2 
Act. incid. (orgasm) 0 30 0 00 2 1
Freq., act. med. (orgasm) 0 20 0 00 0 0
Percent total outlet 0 20  0 0 02
Petting
Accum. incid. (exper.) 0 03 2 00 1 
Accum. incid. (orgasm) 0 33 2 00 3 
Act. incid. (orgasm) 0 33 2 10 2 2
Freq., act. med. (orgasm) 0 10  0 0 00
Percent total outlet 0 32  0 0 0 
Pre-marital coitus
Accum. incid. (exper.) 0 33 1 13 3 
Accum. incid. (orgasm)  3 3 11 3 3 
Act. incid. (exper.) 2 33 1 12 3 3
Act. incid. (orgasm) 2 33 1 12 3 3
Freq., act. med. (exper.) 0 30  0 0 23
Freq., act. med. (orgasm) 0 3   0 02 3
Percent total outlet 2 33  1 1 23
Marital coitus
Act. incid. (orgasm) 2 03 0 00 0 0
Freq., act. med. (exper.) 0 03    20 3
Freq., act. med. (orgasm)  0 2   2 0 3
Percent total outlet 1 22  0  2 1
Extra-marital coitus
Act. incid. (exper.) 2 23  0  3 3
Freq., act. med. (exper.) 0 30  0  0 3
Percent total outlet 2 21  0  1 3
Homosexual
Accum. incid. (orgasm) 2 10 0 03 3 2
Act. incid. (orgasm) 3 30 1 02 3 3
Freq., act. med. (orgasm) 2 1    0  1
Percent total outlet 2 20  0 2 11
Total outlet
Accum. incid. 2 02 0 00 3 0
Active incid.  0 2 01 0 31
Freq., act. med. 1  1  0 33 3

3 = marked correlation. 2 = some correlation. 1 = little correlation. 0 = no correlation.
Blanks = no data available. F = female. M = male.

Thus, the males who had ultimately gone on into college depended primarily on masturbation and much less frequently on coitus for their pre-marital outlet. On the other hand, the males who had not gone beyond grade school or early high school had drawn only half as much of their pre-marital outlet from masturbation, but they had drawn five times as much of their premarital outlet as the upper level males had from coitus. Similarly, kissing habits, breast manipulations, genital manipulations, mouth-genital contacts, positions in coitus, nudity during coitus, the acceptance of nudity or near-nudity during non-sexual activities, and many of the other items in the sexual behavior of a male, are usually in line with the pattern of behavior found among most of the other males in his social group. We have emphasized that such differences do not depend upon anything that is learned in school, for both lower level and upper level males may be together in the same grade school and high school, and the patterns are, for the most part, set soon after the mid-teens and before the average male ever goes on into college. We have emphasized that these differences in patterns of sexual behavior depend upon differences in the sexual attitudes of the different social levels in which the male is raised or into which he may move. This means that he is psychologically conditioned by the attitudes of the social group in which he is raised or toward which his educational attainments will lead him.

In contrast, in connection with most types of sexual activity we have found that patterns of sexual behavior among females show little or no correlation with the educational levels which the females ultimately attain (Table 175). In her pre-marital petting, pre-marital coitus, and extra-marital coitus, and in her total sexual outlet, there are some differences in the incidences and/or frequencies which appear to be correlated with the educational levels of the females, but the apparent differences prove to depend on the fact that marriage occurs at different ages in the different educational groups; and when the premarital activities are compared for the females who marry at about the same age, the average incidences and frequencies of these various types of sexual activity prove to be essentially the same in the several educational levels. This appears to mean, again, that females are not conditioned to the extent that males are conditioned by the attitudes of the social groups in which they live.

We have also shown that the age at onset of adolescence and the rural or urban backgrounds do not show as marked a correlation with the patterns of behavior among females as they do among males.

For both the females and males in our sample, degrees of religious devotion did correlate with the incidences of the various types of sexual activity, and devoutly religious backgrounds had prevented some of the females and males from ever engaging in certain types of sexual activity. The incidences of nearly all types of sexual activity except marital coitus were, in consequence, lower among the religiously more devout females and males, and higher among the religiously less devout (Table 175).

The degree of religious devotion, however, had continued to affect those males who finally did become involved in the morally disapproved types of activity, and the median frequencies of such activities were lower among the more devout males and higher among the less devout males (Table 175); but among those devout females who had become involved in morally disapproved types of activity, the average rates of activity were, on the whole, the same as those of the less devout females. This was true, for instance, of masturbation, of nocturnal dreams to orgasm, of pre-marital petting, of pre-marital coitus, and of homosexual contacts among females (Table 175). While religious restraints had prevented many of the females as well as the males from ever engaging in certain types of sexual activity, or had delayed the time at which they became involved, the religious backgrounds had had a minimum effect upon the females after they had once begun such activities.

Summary and Comparisons of Female and Male
Male is conditioned by sexual experience more frequently than the female. The male more often shares, vicariously, the sexual experiences of other persons, he more frequently responds sympathetically when he observes other individuals engaged in sexual activities, he may develop stronger preferences for particular types of sexual activity, and he may react to a great variety of objects which have been associated with his sexual activities. The data indicate that in all of these respects, fewer of the females have their sexual behavior affected by such psychologic factors. The number of females who were erotically aroused was less than half the number of males who were aroused.

There is tremendous individual variation in this regard, and there may be a third of the females in the population who are as frequently affected by psychologic stimuli as the average of the males. At the extreme of individual variation, there were, however, 2 to 3 per cent of the females who were psychologically stimulated by a greater variety of factors, and more intensely stimulated than any of the males in the sample. Their responses had been more immediate, they had responded more frequently, and they had responded to the point of orgasm with frequencies that had far exceeded those known for any male. A few of the females were regularly being stimulated by psychologic factors to the point of orgasm, and this almost never happens among any of the males.

Many of these differences between the sexual responses of females and males have been recognized for many centuries, and there have been various attempts to explain them. It has been suggested that they depend upon differences in the abundance or distribution of the sensory structures in the female and male body. It has been suggested that they depend upon differences in the roles which females and males take in coitus. It has been suggested that they are in some way associated with the different roles that females and males play in connection with reproduction. It has been suggested that there are differences in the levels of “sex drive” or ‘libido” or innate moral capacities of the two sexes. It has been suggested that the differences depend upon basic differences in the physiology of orgasm in females and males.

But the anatomy and physiology of sexual response and orgasm do not show differences between the sexes that might account for the differences in their sexual responses. Females appear to be as capable as males of being aroused by tactile stimuli; they appear as capable as males of responding to the point of orgasm. Their responses are not slower than those of the average male if there is any sufficiently continuous tactile stimulation. We find no reason for believing that the physiologic nature of orgasm, in the female or the physical or physiologic or psychologic satisfactions derived from orgasm by the average female are different from those of the average male. But in their capacities to respond to psychosexual stimuli, the average female and the average male do differ.

The possibility of reconciling the different sexual interests and capacities of females and males, the possibility of working out sexual adjustments in marriage, and the possibility of adjusting social concepts to allow for these differences between females and males, will depend upon our willingness to accept the realities which the available data seem to indicate.

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