1394 



HORMONAL REGULATION OF BEHAVIOR 



panied by erection. A fifth boy reported 

 nonerotic mystery and adventure fantasies 

 accompanied by erection. 



Reviewing now the histories of the 22 

 older children with precocious hormonal 

 puberty, it is noteworthy that like their 

 erotic play, the thematic content of their 

 dreams and daydreams directly reflected 

 not the hormonal age but the social age that 

 each child had achieved (see also Rafferty 

 and Stein, 1958) . The social age agreed with 

 or was in advance or arrears of the birthday 

 age, dependent on the variety and extent of 

 life experiences the child had encountered 

 and, in turn, transacted. Premature puberty 

 made a difference not in the content and 

 imagery of erotic play, dreams and day- 

 dreams, but in the frequency of their oc- 

 currence. 



C. HYPOGONAD.\L ADULTS AND CASTRATES 



Orgasm dreams are ordinarily regarded 

 as postpubertal phenomena exclusively. 

 None of the hypogonadal patients of both 

 sexes reported in Table 22.1 reported orgasm 

 dreams before puberty was induced with 

 hormonal substitution therapy. Some of 

 them, however, gave examples of sexy day- 

 dreams and fantasies. Hormonal therapy 

 did not unconditionally guarantee the on- 

 set or the increased occurrence of erotic 

 dreams or daydreams in these hypogonadal 

 patients, although it had such an effect in 

 most instances. 



VI. Sex Hormones, Neural Tissues, 

 and Behavior 



In lower animals and presumably in man 

 gonadal hormones act on many target or- 

 gans or tissues of the body and bring to ex- 

 pression the responses characteristic of those 

 tissues: growth, secretions, motility, sensi- 

 tization for implantation, alterations in be- 

 havior, and others, depending on the tis- 

 sue. Each tissue in its way, therefore, is 

 with the hormones a coordinate of sexual 

 function. In the case of behavior, neural 

 tissues are in this category. Of these, pe- 

 ripheral receptors have been and are the 

 object of especial attention, for as noted 

 above, the possibility exists that, when sen- 

 sitized by gonadal hormones, they have a 

 role in the mediation of behavior (see also 

 chapter by Young). For the elucidation of 



this problem, the verbal reports of human 

 subjects in whom there has been deaffer- 

 entation of the genital and other erotic 

 areas of the body have provided information 

 which cannot be obtained from lower ani- 

 mals. 



In paraplegics, and following penectomy 

 and vulvectomy cognitional eroticism can 

 be studied independently of sensations gen- 

 erated in the genitopelvic area. 



A. PARAPLEGIC COGNITIONAL EROTICISM 



The complete independence of erotic cog- 

 nition and pelvic signals is demonstrated in 

 the case of paraplegia. The physiologic state 

 in such patients is variable, as is the level of 

 gonadal hormone secretion (Cooper, Ry- 

 nearson, MacCarty and Power, 1950; 

 Cooper and Hoen, 1952; Bors, Engle, Rosen- 

 cjuist and Holliger, 1950) . It was found that 

 approximately two-thirds of 500 paraplegic 

 and cjuadriplegic patients were capable of 

 achieving erection, and of these one-third 

 had successful intromission (Talbot, 1955; 

 Zeitlin, Cottrell and Lloyd, 1957), without, 

 however, the gratification obtained before 

 the injury. The dream eroticism of 34 pa- 

 tients was reported by Bors, Engle, Rosen- 

 quist and Holliger. Ten patients did not re- 

 call any sexual dreams, 14 remembered 

 dreams lacking orgasm, and 10 had com- 

 plete dry dreams, i.e., including the feelings 

 of orgasm, but without erection or ejacula- 

 tion. 



The independence of erotic cognition and 

 pelvic signals is further demonstrated by an 

 interview with a paraplegic patient (Table 

 22.1 ) . He was 19 years old and had a para- 

 plegia of 10 months duration. Spinal de- 

 struction was at C4 and C5. Loss of feeling 

 and motor function was absolute below the 

 nipples. 



In the interview, the man described with 

 exceptional clarity his feelings when his 

 girl-friend kissed him. It seemed as though 

 his penis would be getting into an erection 

 and throbbing, he said. "But when I would 

 look down, nothing was there — it was all in 

 my mind, or something". The phenomenon 

 was similar when he had sexy daydreams, 

 he said. Then he went on, again document- 

 ing the discontinuity of cognitional and 

 genitopelvic eroticism. He would think of a 

 time when he had actually had intercourse, 



