Sex efficiency through exercises : special physical culture for women / by Th. H. van de Velde ; [photos, by E. Steinemann].
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joy in coitus, even by the most biologically normal, i.e., " natural " means ; and equally of attempts to keep women apt for desire and pleasure after their confinements and even after certain age limits. So much for religious considerations. Then there are individuals whose congenital tendencies—mental and physical—make them value self-denial and self-control more than self-fulfilment in all circumstances. And there is the much more numerous group of sham ascetics, as well as the genuine kind. Some of these sham ascetics are consciously acting a part; others, again, are diverting profound primitive urges in themselves, which they dare not follow out, logically and directly. But both varieties of this difficult type behave as though the joys of sex were contemptible, and—logically and consistently—are sharply opposed to any effort to vindicate and cultivate such pleasures. There must of necessity be other opponents of a book that aims at making women active partners in sexual communion. For there are men whose instinctive masculine urge is to " take," and to conquer the women they desire, and there are women whose instinctive complementary urge is to be passive and possessed; and both are alike so one-sided and extreme that they find any activity on the woman's part in coitus repugnant and even " unnatural." They feel that woman should be the object of desire, and women sometimes feel this as acutely as men. It is well for both partners, if this aggressively masculine type can meet and gratify its passively feminine ideal! Finally, there is a category of men who think their wives " too good and pure " for an active share in the pleasures they afford ; who consider it " more decent " and reverent to their wives if they reserve any complete mutual stimula- tion and gratification for hired embraces with women they despise. They seek satisfaction in this market—but do not find it! For supreme sexual satisfaction implies the inter- action of emotional love and physical sensation. And the effect of this blind masculine misunderstanding and " respect" and restraint on the mental and bodily health and happiness of the wives they neglect is something