For instance, a girl may be sexually attracted towards a
boy without the genital organs playing any conscious part in the
attraction. But the converse may also occur. Moreover, the strength of
the sexual feeling is subject to extensive individual variations. In
some children the sexual impulse is so powerful that scandalous
misconduct can hardly be avoided; on the other hand, we see cases in
which the sexual impulse manifests itself at the normal age, but is so
weak that it can scarcely be said to play any important part in the
consciousness of the child. This is true of both components of the
sexual impulse, of the phenomena of contrectation, no less than of those
of detumescence. Formerly it was very generally believed that in
sexually perverse persons the sexual sensations awakened unusually early
in life. There is no foundation for this view. Normal sexual sensations
can be detected very early in childhood. The existence of these was
ignored, simply because the study of the normal was neglected for the
study of the perverse. Moreover, the strength of the sexual sensations
has no necessary association with the existence of perversions; these
latter sometimes occur without being particularly strong. On the other
hand, qualitatively normal sexual sensations may be associated with
sexual hyperaesthesia, and they may attain a notable strength even during
childhood.

In the third chapter I showed that in childhood the sexes are
differentiated both physically and mentally, altogether apart from the
genital organs and the sexual impulse; and I pointed out that games in
particular afforded indications of mental sexual differentiation. Many
games, indeed, may even be regarded as direct manifestations of the
sexual impulse, and I must therefore now return to the consideration of
this topic; but I shall confine myself to certain phenomena observable
in the animal world, since the games of animals are, in this connexion,
so much simpler than those of children. Play constitutes a major part of
the activities of young animals; think, for instance, of a kitten
playing with a hanging tassel or with a ball, of puppies chasing one
another, and of young birds playing with fluttering wings. The games of
young animals often exhibit the character of love-games, and are in that
case sexually differentiated. Various authors, and especially Brehm,
have recorded numerous examples of this; I give here a few instances,
quoted from Groos.[45] T