Nymphomania

Nymphomania

Ink on coldpress watercolor paper,9x12in

Nymphs are personifications of the creative and fostering activities of nature, most often identified with the life-giving outflow of springs.

The Greek word νύμφη has "bride" and "veiled" among its meanings: hence a marriageable young woman. Other readers refer the word (and also Latin nubere and German Knospe) to a root expressing the idea of "swelling" (according to Hesychius, one of the meanings of νύμφη is "rose-bud")

Due to the depiction of the mythological nymphs as females who mate with men or women at their own volition and are completely outside male control, the term is often used for women who are perceived as behaving similarly. (For example, the title of the Perry Mason detective novel "The Case of the Negligent Nymph" (1956), by Erle Stanley Gardner, is derived from this meaning of the word).

The term "Nymphomania" was created by modern psychology as referring to a "desire to engage in human sexual behavior at a level high enough to be considered clinically significant", "Nymphomaniac" being the person suffering from such a disorder. Due to widespread use of the term among lay persons (often shortened to "nympho") and stereotypes attached, professionals nowadays prefer the term "Hypersexuality" which can refer to males and females alike.

The word "nymphet" is used to identify a sexually precocious girl. The term was made famous in the novel "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov. The main character, Humbert Humbert, uses the term countless times and usually in reference to the title character.

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