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DINS
D.I.N.S.
Double Income - No Sex
A serious problem in many advanced nations today.
Both working, no time for each other.
Healthy sex between a health man and a healthy woman is the essential, intimate bonding agent of a perfect relationship.
HEODOOR HENDRIK VAN DE VELDE (1873-1937), The Netherlands
At the age of 36, after 10 years of suffering through a childless, stultifying marriage, Theodoor van de Velde, a prosperous Dutch gynecologist, ran off with a patient, Martha Breitenstein-Hooglandt, a social butterfly who unfortunately was also married. It was a shocking thing for a man of Van de Velde's background to do; he had been raised in a stuffy family of burghers, the son of a respectable, upstanding military man, and he himself had achieved the directorship of the Haarlem Gynecological Clinic. In the resulting scandal, he fell into disgrace and lost his practice. He and Martha began a long exile, wandering through Europe until his wife finally granted him a divorce in 1913. Then the two lovers were free to marry. They moved to Switzerland, where they lived happily right up to Theodoor's death at the age of 64.
Ideal Marriage, his marriage manual, was dedicated to Martha. Since its publication in 1926, it has sold more than a million copies in English alone. It was written, he said, for his patients, who were abysmally ignorant about sex. Today it is considered unsensational and oversentimental, but in its time it was judged to be risque. The Catholic Church placed it on its Index of forbidden books.
HIS TEACHINGS
Ideal Marriage focuses particular attention on the groom dealing with an inexperienced bride and on the married couple trying to keep their sex life alive. It stresses the mutuality of sexual experience.
Van de Velde describes normal sexual intercourse as "that intercourse which takes place between two sexually mature individuals of opposite sexes; which excludes cruelty and the use of artificial means of producing voluptuous sensations; which aims directly or indirectly at the consummation of sexual satisfaction, and which, having achieved a certain degree of stimulation, concludes with the ejaculation--or emission--of the semen into the vagina, at the nearly simultaneous culmination of sensation--or orgasm--of both partners."
In spite of that cautious description, Van de Velde advocated a few acts daring in that time; he believed, for instance, that oral sex was an acceptable form of foreplay. In suggesting cunnilingus, he said, "the husband must exercise the greatest gentleness, the most delicate reverence"; he also cautioned that the wife should not indulge in fellatio too early in the marriage. In addition, he recognized that women have multiple orgasms and suggested that unsatisfied wives masturbate after intercourse. His Sex Efficiency: Exercises for Women gave women sets of pelvic-muscle exercises intended to increase both their sensual enjoyment and that of their husbands.
Ideal Marriage contains some erroneous information--the distinction between the vaginal and clitoral orgasm, a belief that the penis could lock inside the vagina, and the idea that the vagina could be torn by overvigorous thrusts by the male in normal intercourse.
Van de Velde's information came from what his patients told him (he asked for separate reports from husbands and wives) and his observation of the female organs as patients masturbated to orgasm.
The Development of the Sex Manual
IDEAL MARRIAGE: ITS PHYSIOLOGY AND TECHNIQUE (1926)
Instructor: Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde (1873-1937). Van de Velde was a solid Dutch citizen, director of the Haarlem Gynecological Clinic and author of 80 medical papers, when at 36 he left his wife and ran off with a 28-year-old married patient. For the next four years he wandered through Europe in professional and marital limbo. Then, in 1913, his wife granted him a divorce and he was free to marry his lover, who had also obtained a divorce. Information for his book came from his own love life, reports from his patients, and his personal observations of masturbating women (as a scientist, of course).
Overview: "The bridal honeymoon should blossom into the perfect flower of ideal marriage," says Van de Velde, whose sexual advice, daring in its day (as well as popular), now seems curiously old-fashioned. The Sleeping Beauty (unawakened bride) theme underlies a good part of the book, though he asserts that all women are born with the potential for complete sexual response and he urges women to give as well as take sexual pleasure. To Van de Velde, normal intercourse ("communion") is heterosexual, excludes sadomasochism and the use of artificial devices, has consummation as its goal--the ejaculation of semen into the vagina as both man and woman reach climax simultaneously or very close together. The physiology of the male and female are given in great detail, as are erogenous zones and methods of arousing one's partner. While Van de Velde is a strong believer in the "genital kiss," he refuses to use the terms "fellatio" and "cunnilingus" because he feels they have come to connote "pathological practices."
Though he correctly states that vaginal and clitoral orgasms are one and the same because of the interconnections of the nervous system, he is wrong on several other counts--including the possibility of penis captivus (locking of the penis in the vagina) and rupturing of the vagina through vigorous thrusting, both rare occurrences.
Advice:
1. Constantly renew your courtship.
2. During the honeymoon, a kind of apprenticeship, the man must play Don Juan to his wife, teaching her to feel "both voluptuous pleasure and actual orgasm." Beginning sex should be conventional.
3. Neglecting love play is stupid.
4. The male should practice the "genital kiss" with "the most delicate reverence."
5. While the wife can give her husband great pleasure by reciprocating with oral-genital sex, Van de Velde warns: "Is it necessary, however, to emphasize the need for aesthetic delicacy and discretion here?" Her instincts, however, will keep her from "approaching that treacherous frontier between supreme beauty and base ugliness."
6. If a woman has difficulty achieving orgasm, the man should bring her to climax manually. Orgasm for a woman is important.
7. The "Attitude of Equitation" (woman astride the man) may bring about passivity in the male if used too often, and that is "directly contrary to the natural relationship of the sexes."
8. In kneeling positions, air can get into the vagina and make "only too audible and extraordinarily repulsive noises."
9. During "afterglow" (postcoitus), refrain from genital stimulation.
10. Don't let a wife or husband get used to a pattern of sexual frequency and intensity that can't be maintained.
11. Though a husband should consider the wife's ebb and flow of desire, he should not have to restrict intercourse to the times when she wants it the most.
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