GLOSSARY
Aaron’s Disease: Put in here merely because it might confuse the reader if we started right off with Admiral Schley.
Admiral Schley: American naval hero in whose splendid achievements men took an interest when their absorption in love died down, circa 1900.
Amatory Instincts: Interest in sex.
Apathy: Almost total loss of interest in sex.
Atrophy: Total loss of interest in sex.
Attack: Man’s method of showing interest in women, so called because of his brusque desire to get at the matter in hand and have done with it.
Begonia-ism: Tendency of the male to raise small potted plants, and not go out.
Benign Stupor: Alarming condition in a husband or lover which causes him to sit around in his bathrobe and slippers, brooding, instead of working or anything.
Biologico-cultural: A feminine type; one who expresses her erotic nature verbally.
Bother: Annoyance; frequently confused with “pother,” which means uncalled-for interest in something, usually sex.
Boxed-in: Caught, or trapped, as a husband by a wife, or the delusion of being caught or trapped.
Butcher’s Twine: A kind of stout cord of no particular interest to anybody.
Causation: The factors back of a male’s doubt or suspicion.
Charades: (1) Parlor game devised by women to fend off men (1900–1909); (2) acting up in a skittish manner about the facts of life, instead of getting right down to them; twitching, nervous twitching.
Complex: Mental crack-up caused by an emotional, or physical, inability to get away from, or wind things up with, a person of the opposite sex.
Complex, Nuclear: Shock caused by discovery of a person of the opposite sex in his or her true colors; beginning of a general breakdown.
Defense: Feminine excuses, tricks, devices, etc.
Delay Mechanism: Pother.
Deterioration (Benign): Going quietly to pieces as the result of marriage or a love affair.
Deterioration (Malignant): Going loudly to pieces under the same circumstances; fidgeting, bawling, berating, etc.
Diversion Subterfuge: Trick employed by women to keep men’s minds on ethereal, rather than physical, matters.
Empiric: National viewpoint of sex.
Erotic: Of or pertaining to sex, usually in a pretty far-fetched manner.
Exhibitionism: Going too far, but not really meaning it.
Exotic: Of an alarming nature, particularly to parents.
Fixation: Too great dependence on one woman.
Fragmentation of Personality: Inception of general decline on the part of the male.
Frigidity (in men): Suspicion, ignorance, or fatigue, mostly suspicion.
Fudge-making: Feminine trick or device.
Fuller’s Retort: A remark made by a Paterson, N. J., girl one night in Paterson, N. J.
George Smith: A despondent Indianapolis real-estate man. Pulling a George Smith: attempting to find something more important than, and just as interesting as, women.
Julia Marlowe: Actress.
Libido: “Pleasure-principle.”
Looseness of Systematization: The going to pieces of a husband.
Love: The pleasant confusion which we know exists.
Loving: Being confused by, or confusing some one.
Masculine Protest: Male disdain for things which he does not understand.
Narcissism: Attempt to be self-sufficient, with overtones.
Neuro-vegetative Reflexes: A male’s, particularly a husband’s, quick, unpremeditated reactions to stewed vegetables, especially spinach, and to certain salads.
Neurosis: The beginning of the end, unless the husband can go away somewhere.
Neurotic: Wanting something, but she doesn’t know what; desirous of something she hasn’t got and probably can’t, or shouldn’t, have.
1907, Panic of: Result of woman’s inhumanity to man (1900–1907).
No Better Than She Ought to Be (woman’s definitions): (1) indiscreet; (2) charming; (3) pretty and vivacious; (4) oversexed; (5) living in sin.
Norm: All Quiet.
Numerical Protection: Other people in the room.
Osculatory Justification: Reasons for kissing, growing out of the early American credo that kissing for kissing’s sake would send one straight to hell.
Paranoia: The last stages of what was once a bridegroom.
Passion: Expression of the sex principle without so much fuss.
Pedestalism: The American male’s reverence for the female or, better yet, her insistence on being revered, which amounts to the same thing.
Physico-Psychic: State in which the physical gets tangled up with the spiritual, after the manner of a setter pup throwing a huntsman by getting between his feet.
Pleasure-principle: See Libido.
Possessive Complex: Innocent desire to kiss and fondle, sometimes to maul or wool.
Pother: Uncalled-for interest in something—almost always sex.
Protective Reaction: Putting a man in his place.
Psyche: Wings for the feet of clay.
Psycho-neurosis: Same as neurosis, only worse.
Psychosis: State of being beside oneself to such an extent that it is doubtful if one can pull oneself together.
Pulled-away: Refers to the knee of a man who is suspicious or tired.
Recessive Knee: The outstanding phenomenon of masculine frigidity; man’s refusal to answer the pressure.
Schmalhausen, Samuel D.: Student of misbehavior.
Schmalhausen Trouble: Illness commonly found in young ladies who read in cramped quarters.
Smith, George: Same as George Smith.
Swastika: Symbol which distracted American suitors used to scrawl on desk pads, margins of books, and so on.
Trouble, Schmalhausen: See Schmalhausen trouble.
Übertragung: Period of transition during which the male strives to transmute his ardor for women into the semblance of ardor for games.
Voyeurism: Sex Kibitzing.