SEX HORMONES IN HUMAN EROTICISM 



1393 



stimuli that trigger off the derivative sexual 

 imagery and ideas. Erotic thoughts, im- 

 agery, and fantasy are not necessarily fol- 

 lowed by sexual acts. The rehearsal in 

 thought or in dream may be an entity unto 

 itself, carried no further. Moreover, the re- 

 hearsal may also be far removed in time 

 from the day when it will be put into per- 

 formance. 



Erotic rehearsals in dreams and day- 

 dreams appear to be spontaneously initiated 

 in many instances. The stimulus may con- 

 ceivably be a proprioceptive, somesthetic 

 one from the pelvic reproductive system. A 

 memory stimulus may also be the activator 

 of erotic dreams and daydreams, its arousal 

 not manifestly dependent on perceptual sig- 

 nals from the pelvis or elsewhere. The de- 

 gree of dependence of these rehearsals on 

 gonadal secretions will be considered here. 



B. CHILDHOOD REHEARSALS 



It is a matter of everyday knowledge that 

 young children, hormonally immature, have 

 thoughts and fantasies, often disclosed in 

 play, that are cognitional rehearsals of 

 eroticism in its broadest sense. Kindergarten 

 children play their way through romantic 

 flirtations, love affairs, and promises to 

 marry when they grow up. Some of these 

 affairs are developed in elaborate make- 

 believe detail and are viable for months. 

 Explicit genital and copulatory imagery is 

 not a necessary or regular part of these 

 romantic rehearsals. Genital play, however, 

 including copulatory play, is not alien to 

 the play repertory of young children. The 

 frequency of its occurrence seems to depend 

 largely on local cultural and social sanc- 

 tions. The field studies of cultural anthro- 

 pologists among ethnic groups geographi- 

 cally as far apart as Africa, Oceana, and 

 the American continents have shown that 

 genital play of all types including copula- 

 tory play may be regarded and permitted 

 or encouraged as an expected part of the be- 

 havior of normal childhood (Chapter by 

 ]\Iead; Ford and Beach, 1951). 



Here is a brief report on the cognitional 

 rehearsals in the 14 of the 25 children in 

 Table 22.1 (12 girls and 2 boys) who had 

 sexually matured physically at or before the 



age of 8, who were available for psychologic 

 study between the ages of 5 and 12, and who 

 were not too young to be coherent inform- 

 ants. 



Among the 14, the occurrence and re- 

 porting of sexual dreams and daydreams 

 was variable. Five of the 12 girls said that 

 they had daydreams of boy-friends and 

 romance, and recounted examples — all very 

 stereotyped, Prince-Charming adventures — 

 that excluded genital sex. Romantic sleep- 

 dreams were characterized by the same 

 stereotypy in the 2 girls reporting them. 

 None of the girls gave any evidence of or- 

 gasm dreams. In fact, there was no evidence 

 that any of them had experienced orgasm, 

 asleep or awake. 



Of the 2 older boys, 1 could not recall 

 dreams or daydreams, although he had seen 

 ejaculation stains on his pajamas. He was 

 seen only once, at the age of 7. The other 

 boy (Money and Hampson, 1955) was seen 

 annually between the ages of 5 and 11. He 

 had florid sexy dreams and daydreams of 

 seeing and kissing naked women that were 

 more freely reported before he was 6 and 

 again after he was 9 years old than during 

 the intervening period. He could not pro- 

 duce a specimen of ejaculate at the age of 7. 

 He was 10 before he gave unequivocal ac- 

 counts of ejaculation. At that time, the 

 erotic imagery of wet dreams and masturba- 

 tion fantasies was primarily pictorial and 

 represented couples in various copulatory 

 poses and actions. 



The data of these too few male cases can 

 be augmented by adding 8 cases (Table 

 22.1) of precocity in boys that began as 

 hyperadrenocortical and then became tes- 

 ticular precocity after adrenal overactivity 

 was corrected. It is usual for maturational 

 precocity to continue, as in these cases, once 

 a certain level of somatic maturity has been 

 achieved, even after the original stimulus to 

 precocity has been removed. 



The 8 boys were all well advanced into 

 puberty by the age of 8. Two of them re- 

 ported emissions. These 2 had erotic day- 

 dreams and, at night, wet dreams, with 

 imagery of erotic play with girls; the older 

 of tlie 2, aged 8, also had imagery of inter- 

 course. Two other boys told of daydreams 

 of kissing and petting with girls, accom- 



