Nymphomania will account for the occasional pitiable lapses of virtue on the part of women who have been shielded in every way and who possess all the inherent characteristics of ladyhood. Cases are numerous where these disorganized sufferers have wrongfully sworn by the most solemn oaths that they have been violated by some most estimable man, such as their doctor or minister, or some other highly reputable person.
Extreme degrees of nymphomania are more frequent than extreme degrees of satyriasis, but sexual neurasthenia with an unnatural degree of lust, short of satyriasis, is probably more common in the male. Men who suffer from sexual neurasthenia as a result of giving free rein to their passions eventually reach a condition in which their thoughts are solely directed to sexual matters, and, after natural methods cease to gratify, they not infrequently resort to the grossest perversions of sodomy, bestiality, etc.
The victim of satyriasis is an exceedingly dangerous member of the community; and such men have often been driven to rape and lust murder, to acts of hair cutting on women, to exhibition of the private parts in public, and to any or all of the gross perversions.
Nymphomania leads the sufferer to submit to any degradation, to solicit men and boys, to use indecent language, and to shamelessly expose herself; it transforms the woman into an irresponsible person who seeks not to hide, but rather to make a spectacle of her sexual fury.
It has seemed necessary to speak of this pitiable pathological condition so that there shall be no misunderstanding from a partial explanation of women's lustful passions. Normally, a virtuous woman has very much less sensual desire than a man, though stronger in her sexual feelings, as shown by her greater love for children and the home. If women were as passionate as men there could be no possibility of such a condition of society as we now enjoy brothels and widespread illegitimacy would supplant marriages and the family circle.
Sexual affairs occupy much of a woman's attention from puberty to the menopause, for once every lunar month she is "unwell" for a few days; and if she become a mother, she has a prolonged gestation, the suckling, the nursing, and the rearing of the child.
Men perform their sexual function at one time as well as at another, and the act is soon accomplished and ends without further result to them. But women are deterred from intercourse while menstruating and during the later months of pregnancy; and what seems a simple act, occupying but a few moments, may, and probably will, alter their whole course of life.
Thus the act of fornication is trivial in its direct results upon the man, all the after consequences being worked out upon the woman.
Men who frequent brothels often find that the inmates seem to have passions which are equal in intensity to their own; but it must be remembered that it is a part of the business of prostitutes to practise this deception for few men would derive the slightest satisfaction from a frigid woman.
In reality these harlots rarely enjoy the act, though they simulate all the intensity of an orgasm, or pleasurable venereal sensation, in order to please their customers and influence them to return.
Almost any deception or pretext satisfies the man whose mind is filled with lustful imaginations and desires; and these misleading devices are employed with marked and general success by women who have made their embraces matters of merchandise.