Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/76

 within the sexual organs, or of a psychic nature, the secretion may be considerably accelerated.

This is a recognition of the interrelationship of mental and physical influences within the organism. Indulgence in erotic thoughts and in erotic conversation tends to increase the seminal secretion, which may be released either by night emission, coitus, or masturbation.

The acknowledgment of the mental factor in influencing the erotic life by no means denies the illogic of trying to suppress the normal sexual nature by the effort of mind.

Physiological and material factors also work toward the stimulation of the secreting activities of the sex glands, which will cause the mind to focus on erotic subjects. The eating of rich, highly seasoned foods and an excess of meats and other proteins, especially by people of sedentary habits, will so react upon the metabolism and physiological processes that the activity of the sex glands is stimulated.

While the relationship of the glands to the rest of the organism is clearly reciprocal—one influencing the other—the fact must not be overlooked that the glands are in one respect dominant. By this, I mean that all the characteristics, physical and mental, of the individual are predetermined by the particular glandular make-up which the individual has inherited.

This phase of glandular influence refers to the whole system of the endocrine, or ductless glands, and not merely to the sexual glands, which are but one link in the chain. The endocrine glands as a whole determine the specific type of each one's personality, the shape and growth of the skeleton, the character of the teeth, the distribution of the flesh, the color of the eyes, hair and complexion, and numerous other phases of our physiological being.

This includes, of course, our sexual type, and determines