Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/142

in caressing, wooing and engaging in the gentle love-play that is the elixir of sexual happiness. And at no time is this preparatory wooing more essential than in the early marriage relations. The importance of this preliminary cannot be over-stressed; it is as vital to the function of copulation as the actual union of the organs, and is universal throughout nature, where sex is controlled by guiding instincts. In the human family, where certain instincts have been subject to inhibitions and repressions until they are no longer operative, or at least recognizable, this feature has to be learned, the same as we have to learn many things that are done instinctively and automatically in the natural world. Even savages seem to have the instinctive sense of conjugal behavior, which has to be taught in the higher civilized states.

The reason for the preparatory stage of sexual union is both physiological and psychological. In the process of physical preparation for coitus, there is a pronounced change in the sexual parts. The organs become distended and gorged with blood, the sensitive nerves react to the state of excitation, certain lubricating secretions are emitted which cover the parts—all tending to make intercourse easy, desirable and joyful. The condition, which is called tumescence (sexual preparedness—a physiological tension), is more readily achieved in the male; in fact, it often reacts spontaneously to sexually exciting stimuli. In the female, on the other hand, the condition normally is much slower in manifesting itself, for very good biological reasons (hers is the burden of pregnancy and motherhood), and the preparatory wooing acts as the ideal stimulus to awaken the slumbering ardor of Venus. There is not this great difference in the case of the very passionate woman, but ordinarily this is the rule.