1466 



HORMONAL REGULATION OF BEHAVIOR 



Great stress may be laid on the maintenance 

 of intromission without ejaculation for a 

 very long period, with an attendant empha- 

 sis on erotic pleasure for the female rather 

 than on climax, as in highly sophisticated 

 Indian practice. All of the existing evidence 

 suggests that female orgasm is not biologi- 

 cally given, but that it may occur under 

 certain conditions, the most essential of 

 which is the belief that orgasm is possible 

 and desirable. There is a certain amount of 

 evidence suggesting very great variability 

 in the female sex in regard to this capacity, 

 so it may be that societies will disallow 

 the possibility of orgasmic response for all 

 women, stylize vigorous response as appro- 

 priate for the prostitute but not for the re- 

 spectable woman, or insist upon response 

 from all women as a sign of affection or as- 

 sent to male sex activity ( Elkan, 1948, 1950. 

 See also Kinsey, Pomeroy, INIartin and Geb- 

 hard, 1953, Ch. 14). 



Human cultures vary tremendously in the 

 type of situation through which sex activity 

 is initiated (Ford and Beach, 1951). Fore- 

 play may be completely absent, opportunity 

 being sufficient stimulus; the sight of the 

 woman's bare genitals may be all the stimu- 

 his needed, or there may be quite elabo- 

 rate rituals to arouse the male. Initiation of 

 sex activity may come from either sex, as 

 among the latmul and Tchambuli, where the 

 male is reared to respond very quickly to 

 female taunts of lack of virility. On the 

 other hand, complete passivity in the female 

 may be demanded, and a passive, nonvir- 

 ginal female may be so stimulating that if 

 she wanders from her chaperones she may be 

 punished by group rape if a group of men 

 happens to encounter her (Mead, 1932). 

 Preoccupation may center on arousing the 

 female, in cultures where female sex en- 

 joyment is valued. Or the prelude to sex 

 activity may be symmetrical: "He holds 

 her breasts, she holds his cheeks" (Arapesh, 

 Mead, 1935). Similarly, the display ele- 

 ments in courtship and foreplay may all be 

 masculine (headdresses, tattooing, scarifi- 

 cation, and elaborate clothing being worn 

 by the male) or all feminine; young people 

 oif courtship age of both sexes may adorn 

 themselves, or all display of any sort may 

 be forbidden. Bodily preoccupation seems 

 to be more common at iniberty than at any 



other age, and possibly there may be a spe- 

 cifically sexual basis for this greater interest 

 at this stage ; however, it may be due to the 

 greater self-consciousness engendered by 

 bodily changes as much as to a desire to at- 

 tract the opposite sex. At any rate, the im- 

 pulses toward display are very heavily over- 

 laid with cultural learning. 



The phenomena of puberty are recognized 

 in all cultures, but their significance is vari- 

 ously interpreted. Although menstruation 

 may be interpreted as the result of inter- 

 course, it may be seen as a form of excretion 

 of "bad blood" (Arapesh, Mead, 1935; Wo- 

 geo, Hogbin, 1935). In some cases, this in- 

 terpretation will be extended to male be- 

 havior, and males, having no "natural" way 

 of getting rid of bad blood, will ritually cut 

 their penises to let the bad blood out (Bet- 

 telheim, 1954) . Menstrual pain may be rec- 

 ognized or may be assimilated to the dis- 

 comforts of segregation in a badly built hut, 

 etc. In my Samoan sample of 30 girls 

 (Mead, 1928, Table 1) 6 of 30 reported 

 menstruating semimonthly, which is prob- 

 ably a very rare cultural recognition of 

 staining at ovulation and mittelschmerz. 

 There were no respondents reporting that 

 tliey menstruated semimonthly among those 

 who reported no dysmenorrhea. ]\Iale pu- 

 berty signs may be institutionalized as sig- 

 nals for putting on clothes or for initiation, 

 or they may be ignored in favor of social 

 status defined by age grading. The phenom- 

 enon of wet dreams is one on which there is 

 very little information in the literature, 

 possibly because of the widespread practice 

 of masturbation and frequency of premari- 

 tal sexuality. (In a society like the Manus, 

 where premarital intercourse was forbidden 

 except with prostitutes captured from an- 

 other people, prudery prevents good infor- 

 mation on such matters.) The change in the 

 form of a girl's breasts is frequently, but 

 not necessarily, ascribed to the beginning 

 of copulation. 



Conception may be regarded as occurring 

 entirely independently of the male, except 

 as he "opens the road," so that the actual 

 children are "spirits" who enter the mother 

 (Australia, Montagu, 1938; Trobriand, Ma- 

 linowski, 1929), or less commonly the 

 mother may be regarded as merely giving 

 the egg laid by the father shelter during 



