Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/65



Comparison of the Male and Female. Throughout nature, with few exceptions as in the case of certain insects, the male is more aggressive and dynamic in the erotic domain than the female. In making this statement, I do not wish to imply that the female naturally is lacking in sexual feeling or sexual interest. On the contrary, these factors play as large a part in the life of woman as they do in man, but they assert themselves in a different manner.

Woman is relatively passive, but in the normal functioning of that passivity there are involved amazing potentialities within the scope of her love-life.

Woman's sexual nature, because of her biological rôle, is normally less dominated by a powerful urge that seeks specific expression, less centered upon the immediate goal of concrete sexual experience. It is more diversified and expresses itself in more general affectional channels.

Because woman's sexual feelings are less centrally condi-