cribed
"the gushing, almost in jets," of this mucus which he has
observed in an erotic woman under a rather long digital and
specular examination. (_American Journal of Obstetrics_, 1893.)
It is during the latter part of detumescence, it would seem, and
perhaps for a short time after the orgasm is over, that the
action of the uterus is mainly aspiratory.

While the active part played by the womb in detumescence can no longer be
questioned, it need not too hastily be assumed that the belief in the
active movements of the spermatozoa must therefore be denied. The vigorous
motility of the tadpole-like organisms is obvious to anyone who has ever
seen fresh semen under the microscope; and if it is correct, as Clifton
Edgar states, that the spermatozoa may retain their full activity in the
female organs for at least seventeen days, they have ample time to exert
their energies. The fact that impregnation sometimes occurs without
rupture of the hymen is not decisive evidence that there has been no
penetration, as the hymen may dilate without rupturing; but there seems no
reason to doubt that conception has sometimes taken place when ejaculation
has occurred without penetration; this is indicated in a fairly objective
manner when, as has been occasionally observed, conception has occurred in
women whose vaginas were so narrow as scarcely to admit the entrance of a
goose-quill; such was the condition in the case of a pregnant woman
brought forward by Roubaud. The stories, repeated in various books, of
women who have conceived after homosexual relations with partners who had
just left their husbands' beds are not therefore inherently
impossible.[119] Janke quotes numerous cases in which there has been
impregnation in virgins who have merely allowed the penis to be placed in
contact with the vulva, the hymen remaining unruptured until
delivery.[120]

It must be added, however, that even if the semen is effused merely at the
mouth of the vagina, without actual penetration, the spermatozoa are still
not entirely without any resource save their own motility in the task of
reaching the ovum. As we have seen, it is not only the uterus which takes
an active part in detumescence; the vagina also is in active movement, and
it seems highly probable that, at all events in some women and under some
circumstances, such movement favoring aspiration toward the womb may be
communicated to the external mouth of the vagina.