The Play-Function of Sex

Read before the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology Sexual psychologist expounds briefly on the importance of 'play' during sex. Excerpt: WHEN we hear the sexual functions spo-ken of we commonly understand the per-formance of an act which normally tends to the propagation of the race. When we see the question of sexual abstinence discussed, when the desirability of sexual gratification is asserted or denied, when the idea arises of the erotic rights and needs of women, it is always the same act with its physical results that is chiefly in mind. Such a conception is quite adequate for practical working pur-poses in the social world. It enables us to deal with all our established human institutions in the sphere of sex, just as the arbi-trary assumptions of Euclid enable us to traverse the field of geometry. But beyond these useful purposes it is inadequate and even inexact. The functions of sex on the psychic and erotic side are of far greater ex-tension than any act of procreation, they may even exclude it altogether, and when we are concerned with the welfare of the in-dividual human being we must enlarge our outlook and deepen our insight.