II. The Various Kinds, Causes, and Examples of Impotence

70. - Various kinds. Impotence is:

1. Perpetual, which cannot be cured at all, or only through extraordinary means, such as a grave operation joined with danger to life. If, however, an extraordinary means has been employed, the person, once the impediment has been removed, is now capable of contracting nuptials; or temporary, which can cease of itself or with the aid of an ordinary means.

2. Absolute, which excludes copulation with every person; or relative, which excludes copulation only with a certain person or certain persons.

3. Antecedent or consequent, according as it existed before or after matrimony.

71. - II. Various causes. Causes:

Can be physical or psychological, according as they have their root in the body itself and its vegetative life, or in sensitive or rational life.

Physical causes in turn are called some organic, others functional. Organic causes are manifested by a visible defect of the apparatus and are manifested; functional causes, without a manifest lesion, disturb sexual function in a more general or more particular manner.

Functional causes often cohere with diseases. Thus tabes dorsalis, several diseases of the brain, diabetes, malaria, syphilis, several forms of tuberculous phthisis, alcoholism, and morphinomania can render someone impotent.

Sexual neurasthenia can also be ascribed to functional causes of this kind.

From functional defects it happens that only a weaker erection remains, or that paralysis impedes erection and the effusion of semen, or that an erection is produced without the effusion of semen (aspermatism), or an effusion of semen without erection (spermatorrhea) ¹.

¹ Dr. Antonelli, vol. 2, nos. 320-324, warns that a physician must take measures against those passive emissions which often occur during the day without pleasure, and which sometimes accompany urination or defecation, lest a grave danger to health and life arise.

Psychological causes consist in various anomalies of the sexual appetite, and also in affections and persuasions.

Thus there are those who can be excited only by persons of a certain form, a certain complexion, or a certain quality, or who have need of certain things, for example garments of this or that kind or color, etc. The very apprehension or persuasion of impotence can take away the capacity for excitation. Various fears produce the same effect: lest the woman become pregnant, lest love be, as it were, profaned by the carnal act. An excessive incursion of diverse anxieties, or even a certain disappointment of sight in a body which a phantastical image had fashioned as more beautiful than it truly is, can take away the faculty of excitation. Aversion of the mind from a definite person produces the same effect. Indeed, conversely, it can happen that someone is affected by so great a force of love for a certain person that he can be sexually excited only through that person. This occurs especially in noble and chaste love, whether before or after marriage; and this is certainly a certain desirable perfection of conjugal chastity.

Organic causes are more easily shown than others to be perpetual or temporary; and almost they alone must be attended to in a woman, since her act is not required for copulation. I say almost. For vaginismus must be mentioned, that is, a painful contraction of the vaginal passage from any contact whatsoever. Vaginismus itself has nervous or psychological causes which can be rendered worse by bodily lesions, even those which are slight.

72. - I. A man is impotent who, because of excessive heat, is excited too quickly and loses his semen before copulation, or who, conversely, is impeded from copulation by frigidity.

He also must be held impotent who cannot deposit semen except at the opening of the vagina, for he is incapable of copulation. Compare Wernz, no. 347, where he rightly opposes Scherer, vol. 2, p. 273 ff., and C. d'Annibale, vol. 3, no. 431, note 10, who deny this impotence because such apposition can be fecund.

He is impotent whose passage opens not at the end of the penis but in its middle or lower part, or, to use other words, who labors under such hypospadias or epispadias and cannot pour semen into the vessel ².

² We employ these words deliberately, because, as the Reverend De Smet observes, De sponsalibus, etc., no. 551, note 3, "impotence from hypospadias is sometimes cured merely by a change of position in coitus."

He is impotent who has lacked testicles from birth. He whose testicles were afterwards removed is already bound by the impediment of impotence, although he becomes incapable of copulation only gradually.

He is relatively impotent whose penis is thicker than can be accommodated by a vagina of small capacity.

73. Most recent authors ³ assimilate a man who has undergone a double vasectomy to a castrated man, except that, according to the ease or difficulty of repairing the canal, they will pronounce the impotence temporary or perpetual ⁴. And thus, indeed, it seems that one must respond according to the common rationale by which the decree of Sixtus V concerning the impotence of eunuchs is explained.

³ Compare the authors cited by the Reverend De Smet, op. cit., no. 550, note, where he names as defenders of sterility alone Donovan (hesitantly), Labouré, the Reverend Father Gemelli, and O'Malley. Compare also Ferreres, S.J., De vasectomia duplici, etc., where he discusses the question learnedly, although passing too lightly over the force of the preserved internal secretion.

⁴ And, the difficulty of repair having been considered, the Reverend Dr. De Smet, op. cit., no. 276, p. 371, note 1, reckons vasectomy as a cause of perpetual impotence. But compare no. 84.

Looking solely at the natural law, the matter is not so certain to us; indeed, we think it must be decided a little differently. If, because the internal secretion is preserved, the regular venereal appetite seems likely to remain together with the faculty of copulation, we would call this man, with the physicians, sterile rather than impotent ⁵. But if it should happen that the testicles are thereby weakened after some time and rendered incapable of both internal and external secretion, then indeed, but only then, shall we equate the effect of an irreparable vasectomy with the effect of castration.

⁵ Moreover, a man who, with his testicles intact, pours forth an aspermatic emission because his vasa deferentia are obstructed is held sterile by many today. How does he differ from one who has undergone a vasectomy?

74. What must be said of a man who, because of sexual paresthesia, has need of unusual means in order that he may be excited?

If those means are honorable in themselves, the man is not impotent. This seems evident of itself and, moreover, is confirmed by an allegation from Sanchez ⁶, in which he hands down as most certain that the greatest difficulty in copulation is not sufficient for impotence. Before such a marriage has been consummated, this will sometimes be a cause why a dispensation from a ratified but non-consummated marriage is sought.

⁶ De matrimonio, book 7, disp. 92, no. 6.

75. - II. A woman is impotent who lacks a vagina, or who has one that is impenetrable, whether because of the absence or narrowness of the opening, or because of the hardness of the hymen; the latter defect is cured fairly easily.

She also will be impotent who, because of vaginismus, cannot suffer penetration.