How Sexual Desire Works- The Enigmatic Urge

by Frederick Toates

  Such logic provided the intellectual rationale for Luther’s actions in, for example, finding husbands for nuns. He described a regulatory model, which appears to owe much to ancient Greek thinking (p. 431):

  Therefore the physicians do not argue amiss when they say that if we forcibly curb this work of nature it must react on the flesh and the blood and become poison.

  Again using a notion of regulation, Luther spoke of ‘pollutions’, that is masturbation, in terms of the ‘needs of the body’, a discourse that encouraged hair-splitting discussion of whether, in answering needs, pleasure was permitted (Friedenthal, 1970, p. 33).

  Thomas More

  Writing in Utopia, Sir (later to become Saint) Thomas More also appeared to have been influenced by a similar regulatory notion adopted from antiquity (1516/1975, p. 96):

  Physical pleasures are subdivided into two types. First, there are those which fill the whole organism with a conscious sense of enjoyment. This may be the result of replacing physical substances which have been burnt up by the natural heat of the body, as when we eat and drink. Or else it may be caused by the discharge of some excess, as in excretion, sexual intercourse, or any relief by rubbing or scratching.

  However, despite such theorizing and his progressive and egalitarian policies concerning many aspects of life in Utopia, More was no sexual progressive and seemed not to be too fond of desire. Indeed, compulsory celibacy for life was the penalty imposed for having sex before marriage, whereas repeated adultery carried a death sentence, perhaps not everyone’s idea of utopia. His grouping of sexual intercourse with excretion has some rather obvious failings since it would be odd to devise laws to prohibit excessive excretion or set an age limit on when excretion can begin. In the tradition of Plato, More saw sex and feeding as physical pleasures with all the inherent down-sides, while mental pleasures, such as ‘contemplating truth’ and music, were superior.

  Despite permitting Utopian brides and bridegrooms to inspect each others’ naked bodies to ascertain that they were satisfied before tying the knot, marital life in Utopia took an inevitable strain. Sexual prohibitions seemed rooted in an acknowledgement that novelty plays a role in desire (Chapter 11 of the present book), again pointing to a distinction with excretion (1516/1975, p. 103):

  Then Utopians are particularly strict about that kind of thing, because they think very few people would want to get married – which means spending one’s whole life with the same person, and putting up with all the inconveniences that this involves – if they weren’t carefully prevented from having any sexual intercourse otherwise.

  Accordingly, More arranged things so that the chances of temptation arising were limited (p. 84):

  There are no wine-taverns, no ale-houses, no brothels, no opportunities for seduction, no secret meeting places. Everyone has his eye on you, so you’re practically forced to get on with your job, and make some proper use of your spare time.

  Martin Luther was described as an open incestuous lecher by More for getting married (p. 145).

  Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century green sickness

  In sixteenth- to seventeenth-century thought, both sexes were said to produce seed and its agitation underlies desire. In men, the seed is released at ejaculation and a lowering of lust follows. Similarly, the health educator, William Vaughan wrote that for women the build-up of seed is the basis of (Dawson, 2008, p. 25): ‘secret flames and unbridled affections which dispose their mindes to waiwardness and extravagant imaginations’. Thus, it would seem that any partner would suffice to release the tension. A failure to discharge the seed means that it turns malignant and harms body and mind alike. The generic notion of ‘pent-up seed’ provided the basis for a unisex model of desire, while sexual intercourse was the cure for both sexes. Opposite to some later assumptions, if there were any difference, it was female rather than male sexuality that was rooted most firmly within the lower parts of the body.

  The so-called ‘green sickness’, also termed the ‘disease of virgins’ and the ‘white fever’, came into prominence as a female disorder in sixteenth- to seventeenth-century Europe (something apparently identical was documented in young men and women in 1027 by the Islamic scholar Ibn Hazm). The disorder was associated with a pale complexion and weakness (Dawson, 2008). For females, it was thought to have a biological cause: an accumulation of seed, associated with a disruption of menstruation. The trapped seed could excite sexual desire and, reciprocally, desire could exacerbate the condition. Whether or not sexual desire was triggered, the most reliable cure was thought to be penetrative sex. This would open up the veins and release trapped seed, so marriage was prescribed. However, one can speculate that green sickness was sometimes used as the explicit rationale for ‘therapeutic seduction’.

  The disorder was not thought to have a psychological trigger in the form of a desired person, which marks a distinction with lovesickness, described shortly. Any possessor of an adequate penis was good enough to bring a cure. So, it might seem that emotional empathy was no more necessary than in acquiring the professional services of, say, a chimneysweep or a plumber.

  It was said that, if untreated, green sickness might turn into a still worse disorder, known as ‘uterine fury’ associated with heat in the womb or vapours released from trapped seed, which culminated in nymphomania. Women in this state were prone to loss of all reason, open expression of matters sexual and to exhibit a voracious sexual appetite. Those in an unconsummated marriage and young widows were thought to be particularly prone to this disorder.

  Sixteenth- to seventeenth-century lovesickness

  In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, building on classical accounts of amongst others the tenth-century Iranian physician Ibn Sina, medical texts described ‘lovesickness’. Dawson (2008, p. 2) observes: ‘intense unfulfilled erotic desire is classified as a species of melancholy’. And various authors (p. 2) ‘held erotic obsession to be a real and virulent illness’. The initial cause of lovesickness was understood to be the mind’s obsessive fixation on a particular desired person involving the mind’s chewing over (‘rumination’) of the image of this individual. Other thoughts, perceptions and memories were driven out. Lust and sexual desire were seen as an important ingredient of lovesickness. A modern interpretation of lovesickness would be in terms of a combination of sexual desire and unrequited romantic attachment.

  In turn, the mental fixation was believed to disturb (‘scorch’) the humours of the body. Vapours from the external object of desire were thought to lock into interaction with the bodily condition. Love is (Dawson, 2008, p. 15): ‘caught through the eyes and triggers an immediate physical reaction: the spirits grow distracted, the liver malfunctions, the blood becomes muddy, and the body deteriorates’. In both sexes, another biological consequence of the mind’s fixation was understood to be excess seed in the body. An individual who was simply lustful might have some similar disturbances to the body but was not plunged into melancholy as a result.

  Playwrights at this time depicted the lovesick as having a disturbance of fire in the liver, bowels, veins or genitals (Dawson, 2008, p. 21). To us, such descriptions sound bizarre, but in principle they capture one feature of modern understanding: sexual desire and romantic fixation involve an external–internal interaction. The prior state of the body, as an imbalance of humors, was such as to make the individual particularly vulnerable to catching lovesickness. Reflecting its roots in Iranian medicine, this period was characterized by a form of explanation that has a surprisingly modern flavour in that it involved an inseparable link between body and mind.

  Lovesickness appeared to be a real illness that involved a serious disturbance to body and mind alike. Personal diaries, accounts by doctors and playwrights converge in portraying genuine suffering, which, in the extreme, was thought to lead even to death from ‘wasting away’.

  The sickness exemplifies a culturally relative feature of sexual desire and how sending diametrically opposite bodily signals can achie
ve the same goal. People wishing to succeed in the mating game today, particularly if they have even a superficial acquaintance with evolutionary psychology, might typically try to signal their candidacy by displaying a good complexion, upright posture, polished white teeth, accompanied by smartness of dress and grooming. Thereby, they would advertise their health, affluence and vitality. By stark contrast, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a pale, dishevelled, unkempt and slouching presentation, probably signalling to modern people little more than clinical depression, could incite the attention and presumably passion of another. However, lovesickness signalled not only fervour and determination but also membership of a noble social elite, since not all classes alike were vulnerable to catching it. Furthermore, it was known to be a transient state corrected by forming the desired erotic bond.

  Prior to the Renaissance, lovesickness was generally, though not exclusively, seen as a male disorder. From that time on, women increasingly come into their own as the sufferers from the disorder (Dawson, 2008).

  Treatments for lovesickness were both biological and psychological. In the former category was bloodletting, seen as a kind of catharsis, performed in the expectation of correcting the underlying disturbance to the body. In the psychological dimension, the afflicted individual was urged to stay busy, listen to music and, as a means to distract the mind, to travel. Having sex was said to help by restoring the level of seed to a more tolerable state as well as providing psychological therapy. Where union was not possible, and as a striking precursor to modern aversion and cognitive therapy, cures involved devaluing the love object (e.g. in the case of a man, by drinking the blood of the desired one or by exposing him to what purported to be one of her garments ‘tainted’ with menstrual blood) or trying to construe love itself as an infantile and humiliating affliction.

  For some people, lovesickness was a visible sign of a bodily condition, which, if not permitted to run its logical course of uniting the sufferer with the love object, could lead to insanity or even death. The suitor was not acting as a rational being but as an innocent and helpless victim. Thereby, one who was otherwise unacceptable to the parents of the intended might become tolerable. Indeed, lovesickness was occasionally used as evidence in courts of law to permit marriage in the face of parental opposition. In some cases, the disorder was used in seduction as emotional blackmail in portraying victim status, of the form ‘look at what you have done to me’.

  In modern terms, how might we understand these phenomena? A thwarting of goals can have negative psychological consequences, with possible manifestations also outside the brain, for example in hormonal levels in the blood. These disorders would seem to exemplify something like a grief reaction, which could be viewed as the ultimate thwarter of aspirations. We like to think that we live in a sexually enlightened age, and doubtless in many regards we do. However, consider what sort of reaction you might get if you were to make an appointment with your family doctor to request a treatment for sexual frustration or lovesickness.

  A nineteenth-century account

  From personal experience, the Russian writer Count Tolstoy described a body/mind distinction and seemed to imply something like sensitization of desire with subsequent battle-fatigue (A. N. Wilson, 1988, p. 431):

  All life is a struggle between the flesh and the spirit…Gradually the flesh triumphs over the spirit.

  The nineteenth-century literature contains numerous accounts that sexual deprivation is aversive. For example, in adolescence, Tolstoy experienced ‘ghastly spells of lust, which tormented him (A. N. Wilson, 1988, p. 34). Things hardly improved with age, the adult Tolstoy reporting ‘As for women, there seems to be no hope … Sensuality is tormenting me’ (A. N. Wilson, 1988, p. 114). Here the focus is upon the external trigger to desire, particularly aroused by novelty.

  Regulation with a danger of excess

  [Y]ou squander half your force with women. You’ll never really do what you should do, with a fine mind such as yours. Too much of it goes the other way.

  (D. H. Lawrence, 1928/1993, p. 36)

  Eleventh century

  Early in the eleventh century, the Islamic scholar Abu Ali Sina (Avicenna) in his classic The Canon of Medicine reasoned that sleep corrects weakness induced by, amongst other things, emotional disturbances, anger and sexual intercourse. Dryness of the skin was said to be a symptom of excessive indulgence (Avicenna, 1025/1999).

  Eighteenth century

  The eighteenth century advanced the idea that unruly sexual desire, as manifest in nymphomania, was due to ingesting rich sauces and spiced meat and thereby causing the blood to be ‘too abundant’, whatever that might mean (Orford, 2001). We normally consider the Victorian era to be that most closely associated with the horrors of masturbation, but the fears were implanted well before then and were promoted in the eighteenth century. They appear to derive from a misunderstanding of the action of Onan (Genesis 38:8–10), where he let his seed fall onto the ground (MacDonald, 1967). A reading of the Biblical text could leave little doubt that Onan’s true sin was coitus interruptus, but the idea of wasting seed in masturbation took hold. A number of publications appeared in the early eighteenth century, in which the moral sin of masturbation was associated with almost every imaginable disturbance to the healthy equilibrium of the body. The idea of bodily debilitation by loss of seminal fluids was advanced, one feature being a draining of nervous energy from the brain, hence causing damage to this organ.

  Nineteenth century

  Throughout the nineteenth century numerous eccentric ideas on the basis of sexuality entered public discourse, one being that excessive sexual desire corresponded to inflammation of a part of the brain, the cerebellum (Orford, 2001). A major influence on nineteenth-century thinking about male sexuality was the English doctor William Acton. Apparently, female sexuality hardly existed and desire posed little problem for the vast majority of women. Acton wrote (Marcus, 1966, p. 31): ‘As a general rule, a modest woman seldom desires any sexual gratification for herself. She submits to her husband, but only to please him.’ In the rare cases where female desire got out of control, the result was insanity. According to Acton, there was a very narrow window of opportunity for healthy sexual expression; deviate to either side and the consequences were dire. This involved both regulatory and non-regulatory features. As clear non-regulation, he helped to secure broad acceptance of the view that masturbation in males seriously depleted the body of vital forces, even equating an ounce of semen to the loss of forty ounces of blood. Sexual excess in marital intercourse could lead to heart failure, loss of memory and disturbed vision. However, triggering desire without sexual outlet could lead to impotence, a softening of the brain and mental derangement. Thus, in summary Acton wrote (Marcus, 1966, p. 28): ‘excitement of the sexual feelings when not followed by the result which it should produce, is … an unmitigated evil’. Clearly, to the Victorian mind, the only way to attain any semblance of physical and mental health was to exert strong control over lustful feelings.

  The Victorians popularized the notion of ‘spending resources’ in sex, particularly orgasm, though the roots of the idea go back centuries (Cohn-Sherbok et al., 2013). This notion appears in the autobiography My Secret Life (Walter, 1995, p. 44):

  Every half-holiday, he made me spend with him in walking, and riding; he insisted on my boating, cricketing, and keeping at athletic games when not at my studies. The old doctor I expect guessed my temperament, and thought, by thoroughly occupying and fatiguing me, to prevent erotic thoughts.

  Walter proposed a unisex model of desire and spoke of women ‘spending’ fluids, in some cases needing to do so, in much the same way as for men (Kronhausen and Kronhausen, 1967, p. 231).

  The Victorian British were noted for their sexual eccentricity but this was by no means peculiar to them. For example, regulation was expressed by Tolstoy:

  every day each of us eats perhaps two pounds of meat, game and all kinds of stimulating food and drink. Where does it
all go? On sensual excesses. If we really do use it up in that way, the safety valve is opened and everything is all right.

  (Tolstoy, 1889/2007, p. 34)

  In nineteenth-century medical discourse, as a result of the work of a number of researchers, most famously Freud, the experience of love took something of a back seat to sexual desire (Tallis, 2005). Love came to be seen as a variation on the theme of sex, something subordinate to sexual desire. The later decades of the century saw a shift of locus of sexual desire towards the lower regions of the body (Orford, 2001). Tragically, various targets, such as the ovaries, labia and the clitoris, were surgically removed in order to try to cure excessive female sexual desire.

  Freud, psychoanalysis and regulation

  According to rabbinic theology, the evil inclination (yetzer ha-ra), which in part was understood as the sexual drive, was viewed as the source of energy for properly sublimated activities.

  (Cohn-Sherbok et al., 2013, p. 4)4

  Basic notions of desire

  Freud suggested that motivation is based upon regulation and a human tendency to try to correct disturbances from equilibrium. All behaviour was thought to be based upon this basic principle, with instigating factors inside the body (Person, 1990). Freud’s philosophical foundations derived from, amongst other sources, ancient Greece, pleasure being felt in the “restoration of harmony or return to equilibrium” (Glick and Bone, 1990, p. 2).