s for
the happy hours she has given me; but I do not believe that any erotic
element now remains in my feeling for her. I may add that I do not love
my husband passionately, although I love him well enough. Physical
contact with the actress of whom I have spoken would not be positively
repulsive to me, but such contact would, as far as I am concerned, be
entirely devoid of sexual feeling, and the idea of sexual contact with a
person of my own sex is very unpleasant to me; whereas in sexual
intercourse with my husband I am perfectly normal." This patient does
not belong to the class of sexually anaesthetic women; she feels the
impulse towards sexual intercourse, and in intercourse she experiences
normal enjoyment.

I shall now discuss some of the general phenomena of the contrectation
impulse in the child. Sanford Bell has published cases in which as early
as the age of two years psychosexual phenomena have been observed. But
in many of Bell's cases a sexual basis for the feelings of attraction
does not appear to have been adequately proved to exist. Unquestionably,
however, sexual phenomena are more frequently observed in proportion as
the child's age increases. Although in the case of children it is very
difficult for others to arrive at certainty regarding the sexual or
non-sexual character of certain manifestations, still, in the eighth
year of life, the phenomena of the contrectation impulse become so
frequent--I am referring here to personal observations--that at this
time of life these phenomena must be regarded, not merely as not
pathological, but further, as not even abnormal. The older the child
becomes, the more are the phenomena of the contrectation impulse
complicated by those of detumescence. The processes of contrectation,
however, may continue to manifest themselves during the first years of
the period of youth in complete isolation from any apparent changes in
the genital organs. The manifestations of what is known as "calf-love"
commonly occur quite independently of any thought of sexual contact.

Very various are the objects of this early attraction. Often a boy is
attracted by a girl of about his own age; often, again, by a girl
considerably older than himself. On the other hand, as has been
previously shown, when the sexual attraction felt by the boy is
exhibited towards one of his own sex, it may sometimes happen that the
object of attraction is a boy of his own age, sometimes a man
considerably o