A remarkable part of the reproductive system in many of the true
Helicidæ is the so-called _dart, Liebespfeil_, or _telum
Veneris_. It consists of a straight or curved, sometimes
slightly twisted, tubular shaft of carbonate of lime, tapering to
a fine point above, and enlarging gradually, more often somewhat
abruptly, to the base. The sides of the shaft are sometimes
furnished with two or more blades; these are apparently not for
cutting purposes, but simply to brace the stem. The dart is
contained in a dart-sac, which is attached as a sort of pocket to
the vagina, at no great distance from its orifice. In _Helix
aspersa_ the dart is about five-sixteenths of an inch in length,
and one-eighth of an inch in breadth at its base. It appears most
probable that the dart is employed as an adjunct for the sexual
act. Besides the fact of the position of the dart-sac
anatomically, we find that the darts are extended and become
imbedded in the flesh, just before or during the act of
copulation. It may be regarded, then, as an organ whose functions
induce excitement preparatory to sexual union. It only occurs in
well-grown specimens. (Rev. L.H. Cooke, "Molluscs," _Cambridge
Natural History_, vol. iii, p. 143.)
Racovitza has shown that in the octopus (_Octopus vulgaris_)
courtship is carried on with considerable delicacy, and not
brutally, as had previously been supposed. The male gently
stretches out his third arm on the right and caresses the female
with its extremity, eventually passing it into the chamber formed
by the mantle. The female contracts spasmodically, but does not
attempt to move. They remain thus about an hour or more, and
during this time the male shifts the arm from one oviduct to the
other. Finally he withdraws his arm, caresses her with it for a
few moments, and then replaces it with his other arm. (E.G.
Racovitza, in _Archives de Zoölogie Expérimentale_, quoted in
_Natural Science_, November, 1894.)
The phenomena of courtship are very well illustrated by spiders.
Peckham, who has carefully studied them, tells us of _Saitis
pulex_: "On May 24th we found a mature female, and placed her in
one of the larger boxes, and the next day we put a male in with
her. He saw her as she stood perfectly still, twelve inches away;
the glance seemed to excite him, and he at once moved toward her;
when some four inches from her he stood still, and then began the
most remarkable performances that an amorous male could offer to
an admiring female. She eyed him eagerly, changing her position
from time to time so that he might be always in view. He, raising
his whole body on one side by straightening out the legs, and
lowering it on the other by folding the first two pairs of legs
up and under, leaned so far over as to be in danger of losing his
balance, which he only maintained by sliding rapidly toward the
lowered side. The palpus, too, on this side was turned back to
correspond to the direction of the legs nearest it. He moved in a
semicircle for about two inches, and then instantly reversed the
position of the legs and circled in the opposite direction,
gradually approaching nearer and nearer to the female. Now she
dashes toward him, while he, raising his first pair of legs,
extends them upward and forward as if to hold her off, but withal
slowly retreats. Again and again he circles from side to side,
she gazing toward him in a softer mood, evidently admiring the
grace of his antics. This is repeated until we have counted one
hundred and eleven circles made by the ardent little male. Now he
approaches nearer and nearer, and when almost within reach whirls
madly around and around her, she joining and whirling with him in
a giddy maze. Again he falls back and resumes his semicircular
motions, with his body tilted over; she, all excitement, lowers
her head and raises her body so that it is almost vertical; both
draw nearer; she moves slowly under him, he crawling over her
head, and the mating is accomplished."
The same author thus describes the courtship of _Dendryphantes
elegans_: "While from three to five inches distant from her, he
begins to wave his plumy first legs in a way that reminds one of
a windmill. She eyes him fiercely, and he keeps at a proper
distance for a long time. If he comes close she dashes at him,
and he quickly retreats. Sometimes he becomes bolder, and when
within an inch, pauses, with the first legs outstretched before
him, not raised as is common in other species; the palpi also are
held stiffly out in front with the points together. Again she
drives him off, and so the play continues. Now the male grows
excited as he approaches her, and while still several inches
away, whirls completely around and around; pausing, he runs
closer and begins to make his abdomen quiver as he stands on
tiptoe in front of her. Prancing from side to side, he grows
bolder and bolder, while she seems less fierce, and yielding to
the excitement, lifts up her magnificently iridescent abdomen,
holding it at one time vertical, and at another sideways to him.
She no longer rushes at him, but retreats a little as he
approaches. At last he comes close to her, lying flat, with his
first legs stretched out and quivering. With the tips of his
front legs he gently pats her; this seems to arouse the old demon
of resistance, and she drives him back. Again and again he pats
her with a caressing movement, gradually creeping nearer and
nearer, which she now permits without resistance, until he crawls
over her head to her abdomen, far enough to reach the epigynum
with his palpus." (G.W. Peckham, "Sexual Selection of Spiders,"
_Occasional Papers of the Natural History Society of Wisconsin_,
1889, quoted in _Nature_, August 21, 1890.)
The courtship of another spider, the _Agelena labyrinthica_, has
been studied by Lécaillon ("Les Instincts et les Psychismes des
Araignées," _Revue Scientifique_, Sept. 15, 1906.) The male
enters the female's web and may be found there about the middle
of July. When courtship has begun it is not interrupted by the
closest observation, even under the magnifying glass. At first it
is the male which seeks to couple and he pursues the female over
her web till she consents. The pursuit may last some hours, the
male agitating his abdomen in a peculiar way, while the female
simply retreats a short distance without allowing herself to be
approached. At last the female holds herself completely
motionless, and then the male approaches, seizes her, places her
on her side, sometimes carrying her to a more suitable part of
the web. Then one of his copulative apparatus is applied to the
female genital opening, and copulation begins. When completed (on
an average in about two hours) the male withdraws his copulatory
palpus and turns over the female, who is still inert, on to her
other side, then brings his second copulatory apparatus to the
female opening and starts afresh. When the process is definitely
completed the male leaves the female, suddenly retiring to a
little distance. The female, who had remained completely
motionless for four hours, suddenly runs after the male. But she
only pursues him for a short distance, and the two spiders remain
together without any danger to either. Lécaillon disbelieves the
statement of Romanes (in his _Animal Intelligence_) that the
female eats the male after copulation. But this certainly seems
to occur sometimes among insects, as illustrated by the following
instance described by so careful an observer of insects as Fabre.
The _Mantis religiosa_ is described by Fabre as contemplating the
female for a long time in an attitude of ecstasy. She remains
still and seems indifferent. He is small and she is large. At
last he approaches; spreads his wings, which tremble
convulsively; leaps on her back, and fixes himself there. The
preludes are long and the coupling itself sometimes occupies five
or six hours. Then they separate. But the same day or the
following day she seizes him and eats him up in small mouthfuls.
She will permit a whole series of males to have intercourse with
her, always eating them up directly afterward. Fabre has even
seen her eating the male while still on her back, his head and
neck gone, but his body still firmly attached. (J.H. Fabre,
_Souvenirs Entomologiques_, fifth series, p. 307.) Fabre also
describes in great detail (ibid., ninth series, chs. xxi-xxii)
the sexual parades of the Languedoc scorpion (_Scorpio
occitanus_), an arachnid. These parades are in public; for their
subsequent intercourse the couple seek complete seclusion, and
the female finally eats the male.
An insect (a species of _Empis_) has been described which excites
the female by manipulating a large balloon. "This is of
elliptical shape, about seven millimeters long (nearly twice as
long as the fly), hollow, and composed entirely of a single layer
of minute bubbles, nearly uniform in size, arranged in regular
circles concentric with the axis of the structure. The
beautiful, glistening whiteness of the object when the sun shines
upon it makes it very conspicuous. The bubbles were slightly
viscid, and in nearly every case there was a small fly pressed
into the front end of the balloon, apparently as food for the
_Empis_. In all cases they were dead. The balloon appears to be
made while the insect is flying in the air. Those flying highest
had the smallest balloons. The bubbles are probably produced by
some modification of the anal organs. It is possible that the
captured fly serves as a nucleus to begin the balloon on. One
case of a captured fly but no balloon was observed. After
commencing, it is probable that the rest of the structure is made
by revolving the completed part between the hind legs and adding
more bubbles somewhat spirally. The posterior end of the balloon
is left more or less open. The purpose of this structure is to
attract the female. When numerous males were flying up and down
the road, it happened several times that a female was seen to
approach them from some choke-cherry blossoms near by. The males
immediately gathered in her path, and she with little hesitation
selected for a mate the one with the largest balloon, taking a
position _upon his back_. After copulation had begun, the pair
would settle down toward the ground, select a quiet spot, and the
female would alight by placing her front legs across a horizontal
grass blade, her head resting against the blade so as to brace
the body in position. Here she would continue to hold the male
beneath her for a little time, until the process was finished.
The male, meanwhile, would be rolling the balloon about in a
variety of positions, juggling with it, one might almost say.
After the male and female parted company, the male immediately
dropped the balloon upon the ground, and it was greedily seized
by ants. No illustration could properly show the beauty of the
balloon." (Aldrich and Turley, "A Balloon-making Fly," _American
Naturalist_, October, 1899.)
"In many species of moths the males 'assemble' around the freshly
emerged female, but no special advantage appears to attend on
early arrival. The female sits apparently motionless, while the
little crowd of suitors buzz around her for several minutes.
Suddenly, and, as far as one can see, without any sign from the
female, one of the males pairs with her and all the others
immediately disappear. In these cases the males do not fight or
struggle in any way, and as one watches the ceremony the wonder
arises as to how the moment is determined, and why the pairing
did not take place before. Proximity does not decide the point,
for long beforehand the males often alight close to the female
and brush against her with fluttering wings. I have watched the
process exactly as I have described it in a common Northern
_Noctua_, the antler moth (_Charæax graminis_), and I have seen
the same thing among beetles." (E.B. Poulton, _The Colors of
Animals_, 1890, p. 391.) This author mentions that among some
butterflies the females take the active part. The example here
quoted of courtship among moths illustrates how phenomena which
are with difficulty explicable by the theory of sexual selection
in its original form become at once intelligible when we realize
the importance of tumescence in courtship.
Of the Argentine cow-bird (_Molothrus bonariensis_) Hudson says
(_Argentine Ornithology_, vol. i, p. 73): "The song of the male,
particularly when making love, is accompanied with gestures and
actions somewhat like those of the domestic pigeon. He swells
himself out, beating the ground with his wings, and uttering a
series of deep internal notes, followed by others loud and clear;
and occasionally, when uttering them, he suddenly takes wing and
flies directly away from the female to a distance of fifty yards,
and performs a wide circuit about her in the air, singing all the
time. The homely object of his passion always appears utterly
indifferent to this curious and pretty performance; yet she must
be even more impressionable than most female birds, since she
continues scattering about her parasitical and often wasted eggs
during four months in every year."
Of a tyrant-bird (_Pitangus Bolivianus_) Hudson writes
(_Argentine Ornithology_, vol. i, p. 148): "Though the male and
female are greatly attached, they do not go afield to hunt in
company, but separate to meet again at intervals during the day.
One of a couple (say, the female) returns to the trees where they
are accustomed to meet, and after a time, becoming impatient or
anxious at the delay of her consort, utters a very long, clear
call-note. He is perhaps a quarter of a mile away, watching for a
frog beside a pool, or beating over a thistle-bed, but he hears
the note and presently responds with one of equal power. Then,
perhaps, for half an hour, at intervals of half a minute, the
birds answer each other, though the powerful call of the one must
interfere with his hunting. At length he returns; then the two
birds, perched close together, with their yellow bosoms almost
touching, crests elevated, and beating the branch with their
wings, scream their loudest notes in concert--a confused jubilant
noise that rings through the whole plantation. Their joy at
meeting is patent, and their action corresponds to the warm
embrace of a loving human couple."
Of the red-breasted marsh-bird (_Leistes superciliaris_) Hudson
(_Argentine Ornithology_, vol. i, p. 100) writes: "These birds
are migratory, and appear everywhere in the eastern part of the
Argentine country early in October, arriving singly, after which
each male takes up a position in a field or open space abounding
with coarse grass and herbage, where he spends most of his time
perched on the summit of a tall stalk or weed, his glowing
crimson bosom showing at a distance like some splendid flower
above the herbage. At intervals of two or three minutes he soars
vertically up to a height of twenty or twenty-five yards to utter
his song, composed of a single long, powerful and rather musical
note, ending with an attempt at a flourish, during which the bird
flutters and turns about in the air; then, as if discouraged at
his failure, he drops down, emitting harsh, guttural chirps, to
resume his stand. Meanwhile the female is invisible, keeping
closely concealed under the long grass. But at length, attracted
perhaps by the bright bosom and aërial music of the male, she
occasionally exhibits herself for a few moments, starting up with
a wild zigzag flight, and, darting this way and that, presently
drops into the grass once more. The moment she appears above the
grass the male gives chase, and they vanish from sight together."
"Courtship with the mallard," says J.G. Millais (_Natural History
of British Ducks_, p. 6), "appears to be carried on by both
sexes, though generally three or four drakes are seen showing
themselves off to attract the attention of a single duck.
Swimming round her, in a coy and semi-self-conscious manner, they
now and again all stop quite still, nod, bow, and throw their
necks out in token of their admiration and their desire of a
favorable response. But the most interesting display is when all
the drakes simultaneously stand up in the water and rapidly pass
their bills down their breasts, uttering at the same time a low
single note somewhat like the first half of the call that teal
and pintail make when 'showing off.' At other times the
love-making of the drake seems to be rather passive than active.
While graciously allowing himself to be courted, he holds his
head high with conscious pride, and accepts as a matter of course
any attention that may be paid to him. A proud bird is he when
three or four ducks come swimming along beside and around him,
uttering a curious guttural note, and at the same time dipping
their bills in quick succession to right and left. He knows what
that means, and carries himself with even greater dignity than
before. In the end, however, he must give in. As a last appeal,
one of his lady lovers may coyly lower herself in the water till
only the top of her back, head, and neck is seen, and so
fascinating an advance as this no drake of any sensibility can
withstand."
The courting of the Argus pheasant, noted for the extreme beauty
of the male's plumage, was observed by H.O. Forbes in Sumatra. It
is the habit of this bird to make "a large circus, some ten or
twelve feet in diameter, in the forest, which it clears of every
leaf and twig and branch, till the ground is perfectly swept and
garnished. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a
projecting branch or high-arched root, at a few feet elevation
above the ground, on which the female bird takes its place, while
in the ring the male--the male birds alone possess great
decoration--shows off all its magnificence for the gratification
and pleasure of his consort and to exalt himself in her eyes."
(H.O. Forbes, _A. Naturalist's Wanderings_, 1885, p. 131.)
"All ostriches, adults as well as chicks, have a strange habit
known as 'waltzing.' After running for a few hundred yards they
will also stop, and, with raised wings, spin around rapidly for
some time after until quite giddy, when a broken leg occasionally
occurs.... Vicious cocks 'roll' when challenging to fight or when
wooing the hen. The cock will suddenly bump down on to his knees
(the ankle-joint), open his wings, and then swing them
alternately backward and forward, as if on a pivot.... While
rolling, every feather over the whole body is on end, and the
plumes are open, like a large white fan. At such a time the bird
sees very imperfectly, if at all; in fact, he seems so
preoccupied that, if pursued, one may often approach unnoticed.
Just before rolling, a cock, especially if courting the hen, will
often run slowly and daintily on the points of his toes, with
neck slightly inflated, upright, and rigid, the tail
half-drooped, and all his body-feathers fluffed up; the wings
raised and expanded, the inside edges touching the sides of the
neck for nearly the whole of its length, and the plumes showing
separately, like an open fan. In no other attitude is the
splendid beauty of his plumage displayed to such advantage."
(S.C. Cronwright Schreiner, "The Ostrich," _Zoölogist_, March,
1897.)
As may be seen from the foregoing fairly typical examples, the
phenomena of courtship are highly developed, and have been most
carefully studied, in animals outside the mammal series. It may
seem a long leap from birds to man; yet, as will be seen, the
phenomena among primitive human peoples, if not, indeed, among
many civilized peoples also, closely resemble those found among
birds, though, unfortunately, they have not usually been so
carefully studied.
In Australia, where dancing is carried to a high pitch of
elaboration, its association with the sexual impulse is close and
unmistakable. Thus, Mr. Samuel Gason (of whom it has been said
that "no man living has been more among blacks or knows more of
their ways") remarks concerning a dance of the Dieyerie tribe:
"This dance men and women only take part in, in regular form and
position, keeping splendid time to the rattle of the beat of two
boomerangs; some of the women keep time by clapping their hands
between their thighs; promiscuous sexual intercourse follows
after the dance; jealousy is forbidden." Again, at the Mobierrie,
or rat-harvest, "many weeks' preparation before the dance comes
off; no quarreling is allowed; promiscuous sexual intercourse
during the ceremony." The fact that jealousy is forbidden at
these festivals clearly indicates that sexual intercourse is a
recognized and probably essential element in the ceremonies. This
is further emphasized by the fact that at other festivals open
sexual intercourse is not allowed. Thus, at the Mindarie, or
dance at a peace festival (when a number of tribes comes
together), "there is great rejoicing at the coming festival,
which is generally held at the full of the moon, and kept up all
night. The men are artistically decorated with down and feathers,
with all kinds of designs. The down and feathers are stuck on
their bodies with blood freshly taken from their penis; they are
also nicely painted with various colors; tufts of boughs are tied
on their ankles to make a noise while dancing. Promiscuous sexual
intercourse is carried on _secretly_; many quarrels occur at this
time." (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol. xxiv,
November, 1894, p. 174.)
In Australian dances, sometimes men and women dance together,
sometimes the men dance alone, sometimes the women. In one dance
described by Eyre: "Women are the chief performers; their bodies
are painted with white streaks, and their hair adorned with
cockatoo feathers. They carry large sticks in their hands, and
place themselves in a row in front, while the men with their
spears stand in a row behind them. They then all commence their
movements, but without intermingling, the males and females
dancing by themselves. The women have occasionally another mode
of dancing, by joining the hands together over the head, closing
the feet, and bringing the knees into contact. The legs are then
thrown outward from the knee, while the feet and hands are kept
in their original position, and, being drawn quickly in again, a
sharp sound is produced by the collision. This is also practised
alone by young girls or by several together for their own
amusement. It is adopted also when a single woman is placed in
front of a row of male dancers to excite their passions." (E.J.
Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions into Central Australia_, vol. ii,
p. 235.)
A charming Australian folk-tale concerning two sisters with
wings, who disliked men, and their wooing by a man, clearly
indicates, even among the Australians (whose love-making is
commonly supposed to be somewhat brutal in character), the
consciousness that it is by his beauty, charm, and skill in
courtship that a man wins a woman. Unahanach, the lover, stole
unperceived to the river where the girls were bathing and at last
showed himself carelessly sitting on a high tree. The girls were
startled, but thought it would be safe to amuse themselves by
looking at the intruder. "Young and with the most active figure,
yet of a strength that defied the strongest emu, and even enabled
him to resist an 'old man' kangaroo, he had no equal in the
chase, and conscious power gave a dignity to his expression that
at one glance calmed the fears of the two girls. His large
brilliant eyes, shaded by a deep fringe of soft black eyelashes,
gazed down upon them admiringly, and his rich black hair hung
around his well-formed face, smooth and shining from the emu-oil
with which it was abundantly covered." At last he persuaded them
to talk and by and by induced them to call him husband. Then they
went off with him, with no thought of flight in their hearts.
("Australian Folklore Stories," collected by W. Dunlop, _Journal
of the Anthropological Institute_, new series, vol. i, 1898, p.
33.)
Of the people of Torres Straits Haddon states (_Reports
Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 222):
"It was during the secular dance, or _Kap_, that the girls
usually lost their hearts to the young men. A young man who was a
good dancer would find favor in the sight of the girls. This can
be readily understood by anyone who has seen the active, skilful,
and fatiguing dances of these people. A young man who could
acquit himself well in these dances must be possessed of no mean
strength and agility, qualities which everywhere appeal to the
opposite sex. Further, he was decorated, according to local
custom, with all that would render him more imposing in the eyes
of the spectators. As the former chief of Mabuiag put it, 'In
England if a man has plenty of money, women want to marry him; so
here, if a man dances well they too want him.' In olden days the
war-dance, which was performed after a successful foray, would be
the most powerful excitement to a marriageable girl, especially
if a young man had distinguished himself sufficiently to bring
home the head of someone he had killed."
Among the tribes inhabiting the mouth of the Wanigela River, New
Guinea, "when a boy admires a girl, he will not look at her,
speak to her, or go near her. He, however, shows his love by
athletic bounds, posing, and pursuit, and by the spearing of
imaginary enemies, etc., before her, to attract her attention. If
the girl reciprocates his love she will employ a small girl to
give to him an _ugauga gauna_, or love invitation, consisting of
an areca-nut whose skin has been marked with different designs,
significant of her wish to _ugauga_. After dark he is apprised of
the place where the girl awaits him; repairing thither, he seats
himself beside her as close as possible, and they mutually share
in the consumption of the betel-nut." This constitutes betrothal;
henceforth he is free to visit the girl's house and sleep there.
Marriages usually take place at the most important festival of
the year, the _kapa_, preparations for which are made during the
three previous months, so that there may be a bountiful and
unfailing supply of bananas. Much dancing takes place among the
unmarried girls, who, also, are tattooed at this time over the
whole of the front of the body, special attention being paid to
the lower parts, as a girl who is not properly tattooed there
possesses no attraction in the eyes of young men. Married women
and widows and divorced women are not forbidden to take part in
these dances, but it would be considered ridiculous for them to
do so. (R.E. Guise, "On the Tribes of the Wanigela River,"
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, new series, vol. i,
1899, pp. 209, 214 et seq.)
In the island of Nias in the Malay Archipelago, Modigliani
(mainly on the excellent authority of Sundermann, the missionary)
states, at a wedding "dancing and singing go on throughout the
day. The women, two or three at a time, a little apart from the
men, take part in the dancing, which is very well adapted to
emphasize the curves of the flanks and the breasts, though at the
same time the defects of their legs are exhibited in this series
of rhythmic contortions which constitute a Nias dance. The most
graceful movement they execute is a lascivious undulation of the
flanks while the face and breast are slowly wound round by the
_sarong_ [a sort of skirt] held in the hands, and then again
revealed. These movements are executed with jerks of the wrist
and contortions of the flanks, not always graceful, but which
excite the admiration of the spectators, even of the women, who
form in groups to sing in chorus a compliment, more or less
sincere, in which they say: 'They dance with the grace of birds
when they fly. They dance as the hawk flies; it is lovely to
see.' They sing and dance both at weddings and at other
festivals." (Elio Modigliani, _Un Viaggio a Nias_, 1890, p. 549.)
In Sumatra Marsden states that chastity prevails more, perhaps,
than among any other people: "But little apparent courtship
precedes their marriages. Their manners do not admit of it, the
_boojong_ and _geddas_ (youths of each sex) being carefully kept
asunder and the latter seldom trusted from under the wings of
their mothers.... The opportunities which the young people have
of seeing and conversing with each other are at the _birnbangs_,
or public festivals. On these occasions the young people meet
together and dance and sing in company. The men, when determined
in their regard, generally employ an old woman as their agent, by
whom they make known their sentiments, and send presents to the
female of their choice. The parents then interfere, and the
preliminaries being settled, a _birnbang_ takes place. The young
women proceed in a body to the upper end of the _balli_ (hall),
where there is a part divided off for them by a curtain. They do
not always make their appearance before dinner, that time,
previous to a second or third meal, being appropriated to
cock-fighting or other diversions peculiar to men. In the evening
their other amusements take place, of which the dances are the
principal. These are performed either singly or by two women, two
men, or with both mixed. Their motions and attitudes are usually
slow, approaching often to the lascivious. They bend forward as
they dance, and usually carry a fan, which they close and strike
smartly against their elbows at particular cadences.... The
assembly seldom breaks up before daylight and these _birnbangs_
are often continued for several days together. The young men
frequent them in order to look out for wives, and the lasses of
course set themselves off to the best advantage. They wear their
best silken dresses, of their own weaving, as many ornaments of
filigree as they possess, silver rings upon their arms and legs,
and ear-rings of a particular construction. Their hair is
variously adorned with flowers, and perfumed with oil of
benjamin. Civet is also in repute, but more used by the men. To
render their skin fine, smooth, and soft they make use of a white
cosmetic called _poopoor_ [a mixture of ginger, patch-leaf,
maize, sandal-wood, fairy-cotton, and mush-seed with a basis of
fine rice]." (W. Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, 1783, p. 230.)
The Alfurus of Seram in the Moluccas, who have not yet been
spoilt by foreign influences, are very fond of music and dancing.
Their _maku_ dances, which take place at night, have been
described by Joest: "Great torches of dry bamboos and piles of
burning resinous leaves light up the giant trees to their very
summits and reveal in the distance the little huts which the
Alfuras have built in the virgin forests, as well as the skulls
of the slain. The women squat together by the fire, making a
deafening noise with the gongs and the drums, while the young
girls, richly adorned with pearls and fragrant flowers, await the
beginning of the dance. Then appear the men and youths without
weapons, but in full war-costume, the girdle freshly marked with
the number of slain enemies. [Among the Alfuras it is the man who
has the largest number of heads to show who has most chance of
winning the object of his love.] They hold each other's arms and
form a circle, which is not, however, completely closed. A song
is started, and with small, slow steps this ring of bodies, like
a winding snake, moves sideways, backward, closes, opens again,
the steps become heavier, the songs and drums louder, the girls
enter the circle and with closed eyes grasp the girdle of their
chosen youths, who clasp them by the hips and necks, the chain
becomes longer and longer, the dance and song more ardent, until
the dancers grow tired and disappear in the gloom of the forest."
(W. Joest, _Welt-Fahrten_, 1895, Bd. ii, p. 159.)
The women of the New Hebrides dance, or rather sway, to and fro
in the midst of a circle formed by the men, with whom they do not
directly mingle. They leap, show their genital parts to the men,
and imitate the movements of coitus. Meanwhile the men unfasten
the _manou_ (penis-wrap) from their girdles with one hand, with
the other imitating the action of seizing a woman, and, excited
by the women, also go through a mock copulation. Sometimes, it is
said, the dancers masturbate. This takes place amid plaintive
songs, interrupted from time to time by loud cries and howls.
(_Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_, by a French army-surgeon,
1898, vol. ii, p. 341.)
Among the hill tribes of the Central Indian Hills may be traced a
desire to secure communion with the spirit of fertility embodied
in vegetation. This appears, for instance, in a tree-dance, which
is carried out on a date associated not only with the growths of
the crops or with harvest, but also with the seasonal period for
marriage and the annual Saturnalia. (W. Crooke, "The Hill
Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, new series,
vol. i, 1899, p. 243.) The association of dancing with seasonal
ritual festivals of a generative character--of which the above is
a fairly typical instance--leads us to another aspect of these
phenomena on which I have elsewhere touched in these _Studies_
(vol. i) when discussing the "Phenomena of Periodicity."
The Tahitians, when first discovered by Europeans, appear to have
been highly civilized on the sexual side and very licentious. Yet
even at Tahiti, when visited by Cook, the strict primitive
relationship between dancing and courtship still remained
traceable. Cook found "a dance called Timorodee, which is
performed by young girls, whenever eight or ten of them can be
collected together, consisting of motions and gestures beyond
imagination wanton, in the practice of which they are brought up
from their earliest childhood, accompanied by words which, if it
were possible, would more explicitly convey the same ideas. But
the practice which is allowed to the virgin is prohibited to the
woman from the moment that she has put these hopeful lessons in
practice and realized the symbols of the dance." He added,
however, that among the specially privileged class of the Areoi
these limitations were not observed, for he had heard that this
dance was sometimes performed by them as a preliminary to sexual
intercourse. (Hawkesworth, _An Account of the Voyages_, etc.,
1775, vol. ii, p. 54.)
Among the Marquesans at the marriage of a woman, even of high
rank, she lies with her head at the bridegroom's knees and all
the male guests come in single file, singing and dancing--those
of lower class first and the great chiefs last--and have
connection with the woman. There are often a very large number of
guests and the bride is sometimes so exhausted at the end that
she has to spend several days in bed. (Tautain, "Etude sur le
Mariage chez les Polynésiens," _L'Anthropologie_,
November-December, 1895, p. 642.) The interesting point for us
here is that singing and dancing are still regarded as a
preliminary to a sexual act. It has been noted that in sexual
matters the Polynesians, when first discovered by Europeans, had
largely gone beyond the primitive stage, and that this applies
also to some of their dances. Thus the _hula-hula_ dance, while
primitive in origin, may probably be compared more to a civilized
than to a primitive dance, since it has become divorced from real
life. In the same way, while the sexual pantomime dance of the
Azimba girls of central Africa has a direct and recognized
relationship to the demands of real life, the somewhat allied
_danses du ventre_ of the Hamitic peoples of northern Africa are
merely an amusement, a play more or less based on the sexual
instinct. At the same time it is important to bear in mind that
there is no rigid distinction between dances that are, and those
that are not, primitive. As Haddon truly points out in a book
containing valuable detailed descriptions of dances, even among
savages dances are so developed that it is difficult to trace
their origin, and at Torres Straits, he remarks, "there are
certainly play or secular dances, dances for pure amusement
without any ulterior design." (A.C. Haddon, _Head Hunters_, p.
233.) When we remember that dancing had probably become highly
developed long before man appeared on the earth, this difficulty
in determining the precise origin of human dancing cannot cause
surprise.
Spix and Martius described how the Muras of Brazil by moonlight
would engage all night in a Bacchantic dance in a great circle,
hand in hand, the men on one side, the women on the other,
shouting out all the time, the men "Who will marry me?" the
women, "You are a beautiful devil; all women will marry you,"
(Spix and Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_, 1831, vol. iii, p.
1117.) They also described in detail the dance of the Brazilian
Puris, performed in a state of complete nakedness, the men in a
row, the women in another row behind them. They danced backward
and forward, stamping and singing, at first in a slow and
melancholy style, but gradually with increasing vigor and
excitement. Then the women began to rotate the pelvis backward
and forward, and the men to thrust their bodies forward, the
dance becoming a pantomimic representation of sexual intercourse
(ibid., vol. i, 1823, pp. 373-5).
Among the Apinages of Brazil, also, the women stand in a row,
almost motionless, while the men dance and leap in front of them,
both men and women at the same time singing. (Buscalioni, "Reise
zu den Apinages," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, ht. 6, p.
650.)
Among the Gilas of New Mexico, "when a young man sees a girl whom
he desires for a wife, he first endeavors to gain the good-will
of the parents; this accomplished, he proceeds to serenade his
lady-love, and will often sit for hours, day after day, near her
home, playing on his flute. Should the girl not appear, it is a
sign she rejects him; but if, on the other hand, she comes out to
meet him, he knows that his suit is accepted, and he takes her to
his home. No marriage ceremony is performed."[33] (H.H. Bancroft,
_Native Races of the Pacific_, vol. i, p. 549.)
"Among the Minnetarees a singular night-dance is, it is said,
sometimes held. During this amusement an opportunity is given to
the squaws to select their favorites. A squaw, as she dances,
will advance to a person with whom she is captivated, either for
his personal attractions or for his renown in arms; she taps him
on the shoulder and immediately runs out of the lodge and betakes
herself to the bushes, followed by the favorite. But if it should
happen that he has a particular preference for another from whom
he expects the same favor, or if he is restrained by a vow, or is
already satiated with indulgence, he politely declines her offer
by placing his hand in her bosom, on which they return to the
assembly and rejoin the dance." It is worthy of remark that in
the language of the Omahas the word _watche_ applies equally to
the amusement of dancing and to sexual intercourse. (S.H. Long,
_Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, 1823, vol. i, p. 337.)
At a Kaffir marriage "singing and dancing last until midnight.
Each party [the bride's and the bridegroom's] dances in front of
the other, but they do not mingle together. As the evening
advances, the spirits and passions of all become greatly excited;
and the power of song, the display of muscular action, and the
gesticulations of the dancers and leapers are something
extraordinary. The manner in which, at certain times, one man or
woman, more excited than the rest, bounds from the ranks, leaps
into the air, bounces forward, and darts backward beggars all
description. These violent exercises usually close about
midnight, when each party retires; generally, each man selects a
paramour, and, indulging in sexual gratification, spends the
remainder of the night." (W.C. Holden, _The Kaffir Race_, 1866,
p. 192.)
At the initiation of Kaffir boys into manhood, as described by
Holden, they were circumcised. "Cattle are then slaughtered by
the parents, and the boys are plentifully supplied with flesh
meat; a good deal of dancing also ensues at this stage of the
proceedings. The _ukut-shila_ consists in attiring themselves
with the leaves of the wild date in the most fantastic manner;
thus attired they visit each of the kraals to which they belong
in rotation, for the purpose of dancing. These dances are the
most licentious which can be imagined. The women act a prominent
part in them, and endeavor to excite the passions of the novices
by performing all sorts of obscene gesticulations. As soon as the
soreness occasioned by the act of circumcision is healed the boys
are, as it were, let loose upon society, and exempted from nearly
all the restraints of law; so that should they even steal and
slaughter their neighbor's cattle they would not be punished; and
they have the special privilege of seizing by force, if force be
necessary, every unmarried woman they choose, for the purpose of
gratifying their passions." Similar festivals take place at the
initiation of girls. (W.C. Holden, _The Kaffir Race_, 1866, p.
185.)
The Rev. J. Macdonald has described the ceremonies and customs
attending and following the initiation-rites of a young girl on
her first menstruation among the Zulus between the Tugela and
Delagoa Bay. At this time the girl is called an _intonjane_. A
beast is killed as a thank-offering to the ancestral spirits,
high revel is held for several days, and dancing and music take
place every night till those engaged in it are all exhausted or
daylight arrives. "After a few days and when dancing has been
discontinued, young men and girls congregate in the outer
apartment of the hut, and begin singing, clapping their hands,
and making a grunting noise to show their joy. At nightfall most
of the young girls who were the intonjane's attendants, leave for
their own homes for the night, to return the following morning.
Thereafter the young men and girls who gathered into the hut in
the afternoon separate into pairs and sleep together _in puris
naturalibus_, for that is strictly ordained by custom. Sexual
intercourse is not allowed, but what is known as _metsha_ or
_ukumetsha_ is the sole purpose of the novel arrangement.
_Ukumetsha_ may be defined as partial intercourse. Every man who
sleeps thus with a girl has to send to the father of the
intonjane an assegai; should he have formed an attachment for his
partner of the night and wish to pay her his addresses, he sends
two assegais." (Rev. J. Macdonald, "Manners, etc., of South
African Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol.
xx, November, 1890, p. 117.)
Goncourt reports the account given him by a French officer from
Senegal of the dances of the women, "a dance which is a gentle
oscillation of the body, with gradually increasing excitement,
from time to time a woman darting forward from the group to stand
in front of her lover, contorting herself as though in a
passionate embrace, and, on passing her hand between her thighs,
showing it covered with the moisture of amorous enjoyment."
(_Journal_, vol. ix, p. 79.) The dance here referred to is
probably the Bamboula dance of the Wolofs, a spring festival
which has been described by Pierre Loti in his _Roman d'un
Spahi_, and concerning which various details are furnished by a
French army-surgeon, acquainted with Senegal, in his _Untrodden
Fields of Anthropology_. The dance, as described by the latter,
takes place at night during full moon, the dancers, male and
female, beginning timidly, but, as the beat of the tam-tams and
the encouraging cries of the spectators become louder, the dance
becomes more furious. The native name of the dance is _anamalis
fobil_, "the dance of the treading drake." "The dancer in his
movements imitates the copulation of the great Indian duck. This
drake has a member of a corkscrew shape, and a peculiar movement
is required to introduce it into the duck. The woman tucks up her
clothes and convulsively agitates the lower part of her body; she
alternately shows her partner her vulva and hides it from him by
a regular movement, backward and forward, of the body."
(_Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_, Paris, 1898, vol. ii, p.
112.)
Among the Gurus of the Ivory Coast (Gulf of Guinea), Eysséric
observes, dancing is usually carried on at night and more
especially by the men, and on certain occasions women must not
appear, for if they assisted at fetichistic dances "they would
die." Under other circumstances men and women dance together with
ardor, not forming couples but often _vis-à-vis_: their movements
are lascivious. Even the dances following a funeral tend to
become sexual in character. At the end of the rites attending the
funeral of a chief's son the entire population began to dance
with ever-growing ardor; there was nothing ritualistic or sad in
these contortions, which took on the character of a lascivious
dance. Men and women, boys and girls, young and old, sought to
rival each other in suppleness, and the festival became joyous
and general, as if in celebration of a marriage or a victory.
(Eysséric, "La Côte d'Ivoire," _Nouvelles Archives des Missions
Scientifiques_, tome ix, 1890, pp. 241-49.)
Mrs. French-Sheldon has described the marriage-rites she observed
at Taveta in East Africa. "During this time the young people
dance and carouse and make themselves generally merry and
promiscuously drunk, carrying the excess of their dissipation to
such an extent that they dance until they fall down in a species
of epileptic fit." It is the privilege of the bridegroom's four
groomsmen to enjoy the bride first, and she is then handed over
to her legitimate husband. This people, both men and women, are
"great dancers and merry-makers; the young fellows will collect
in groups and dance as though in competition one with the other;
one lad will dash out from the circle of his companions, rush
into the middle of a circumscribed space, and scream out 'Wow,
wow!' Another follows him and screams; then a third does the
same. These men will dance with their knees almost rigid, jumping
into the air until their excitement becomes very great and their
energy almost spasmodic, leaving the ground frequently three feet
as they spring into the air. At some of their festivals their
dancing is carried to such an extent that I have seen a young
fellow's muscles quiver from head to foot and his jaws tremble
without any apparent ability on his part to control them, until,
foaming at the mouth and with his eyes rolling, he falls in a
paroxysm upon the ground, to be carried off by his companions."
The writer adds significantly that this dancing "would seem to
emanate from a species of voluptuousness." (Mrs. French-Sheldon,
"Customs among the Natives of East Africa," _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, vol. xxi, May, 1892, pp. 366-67.) It
may be added that among the Suaheli dances are intimately
associated with weddings; the Suaheli dances have been minutely
described by Velten (_Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli_, pp.
144-175). Among the Akamba of British East Africa, also,
according to H.R. Tate (_Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, Jan.-June, 1904, p. 137), the dances are followed by
connection between the young men and girls, approved of by the
parents.
The dances of the Faroe Islanders have been described by Raymond
Pilet ("Rapport sur une Mission en Islande et aux lies Féroë,"
_Nouvelles Archives des Missions Scientifiques_, tome vii, 1897,
p. 285). These dances, which are entirely decorous, include
poetry, music, and much mimicry, especially of battle. They
sometimes last for two consecutive days and nights. "The dance is
simply a permitted and discreet method by which the young men may
court the young girls. The islander enters the circle and places
himself beside the girl to whom he desires to show his affection;
if he meets with her approval she stays and continues to dance at
his side; if not, she leaves the circle and appears later at
another spot."
Pitre (_Usi, etc., del Popolo Siciliano_, vol. ii, p. 24, as
quoted in Marro's _Pubertà_) states that in Sicily the youth who
wishes to marry seeks to give some public proof of his valor and
to show himself off. In Chiaramonte, in evidence of his virile
force, he bears in procession the standard of some confraternity,
a high and richly adorned standard which makes its staff bend to
a semicircle, of such enormous weight that the bearer must walk
in a painfully bent position, his head thrown back and his feet
forward. On reaching the house of his betrothed he makes proof of
his boldness and skill in wielding this extremely heavy standard
which at this moment seems a plaything in his hands, but may yet
prove fatal to him through injury to the loins or other parts.
This same tendency, which we find in so highly developed a degree
among animals and primitive human peoples, is also universal
among the children of even the most civilized human races,
although in a less organized and more confused way. It manifests
itself as "showing-off." Sanford Bell, in his study of the
emotion of love in children, finds that "showing-off" is an
essential element in the love of children in what he terms the
second stage (from the eighth to the twelfth year in girls and
the fourteenth in boys). "It constitutes one of the chief numbers
in the boy's repertory of love charms, and is not totally absent
from the girl's. It is a most common sight to see the boys taxing
their resources in devising means of exposing their own
excellencies, and often doing the most ridiculous and extravagant
things. Running, jumping, dancing, prancing, sparring, wrestling,
turning handsprings, somersaults, climbing, walking fences,
swinging, giving yodels and yells, whistling, imitating the
movements of animals, 'taking people off,' courting danger,
affecting courage are some of its common forms.... This
'showing-off' in the boy lover is the forerunner of the skilful,
purposive, and elaborate means of self-exhibition in the adult
male and the charming coquetry in the adult female, in their
love-relations." (Sanford Bell, "The Emotion of Love Between the
Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July, 1902; cf.
"Showing-off and Bashfulness," _Pedagogical Seminary_, June,
1903.)
If, in the light of the previous discussion, we examine such facts as
those here collected, we may easily trace throughout the perpetual
operations of the same instinct. It is everywhere the instinctive object
of the male, who is very rarely passive in the process of courtship, to
assure by his activity in display, his energy or skill or beauty, both his
own passion and the passion of the female. Throughout nature sexual
conjugation only takes place after much expenditure of energy.[34] We are
deceived by what we see among highly fed domesticated animals, and among
the lazy classes of human society, whose sexual instincts are at once both
unnaturally stimulated and unnaturally repressed, when we imagine that the
instinct of detumescence is normally ever craving to be satisfied, and
that throughout nature it can always be set off at a touch whenever the
stimulus is applied. So far from the instinct of tumescence naturally
needing to be crushed, it needs, on the contrary, in either sex to be
submitted to the most elaborate and prolonged processes in order to bring
about those conditions which detumescence relieves. A state of tumescence
is not normally constant, and tumescence must be obtained before
detumescence is possible.[35] The whole object of courtship, of the mutual
approximation and caresses of two persons of the opposite sex, is to
create the state of sexual tumescence.
It will be seen that the most usual method of attaining tumescence--a
method found among the most various kinds of animals, from insects and
birds to man--is some form of the dance. Among the Negritos of the
Philippines dancing is described by A.B. Meyer as "jumping in a circle
around a girl and stamping with the feet"; as we have seen, such a dance
is, essentially, a form of courtship that is widespread among animals.
"The true cake-walk," again, Stanley Hall remarks, "as seen in the South
is perhaps the purest expression of this impulse to courtship antics seen
in man."[36] Muscular movement of which the dance is the highest and most
complex expression, is undoubtedly a method of auto-intoxication of the
very greatest potency. All energetic movement, indeed, tends to produce
active congestion. In its influence on the brain violent exercise may thus
result in a state of intoxication even resembling insanity. As Lagrange
remarks, the visible effects of exercise--heightened color, bright eyes,
resolute air and walk--are those of slight intoxication, and a girl who
has waltzed for a quarter of an hour is in the same condition as if she
had drunk champagne.[37] Groos regards the dance as, above all, an
intoxicating play of movement, possessing, like other methods of
intoxication,--and even apart from its relationship to combat and
love,--the charm of being able to draw us out of our everyday life and
lead us into a self-created dream-world.[38] That the dance is not only a
narcotic, but also a powerful stimulant, we may clearly realize from the
experiments which show that this effect is produced even by much less
complex kinds of muscular movement. This has been clearly determined, for
instance, by Féré, in the course of a long and elaborate series of
experiments dealing with the various influences that modify work as
measured by Mosso's ergograph. This investigator found that muscular
movement is the most efficacious of all stimulants in increasing muscular
power.[39] It is easy to trace these pleasurable effects of combined
narcotic and stimulant motion in everyday life and it is unnecessary to
enumerate its manifestations.[40]
Dancing is so powerful an agent on the organism, as Sergi truly
remarks (_Les Emotions_, p. 288), because its excitation is
general, because it touches every vital organ, the higher centers
no longer dominating. Primitive dancing differs very widely from
that civilized kind of dancing--finding its extreme type in the
ballet--in which energy is concentrated into the muscles below
the knee. In the finest kinds of primitive dancing all the limbs,
the whole body, take part. For instance, "the Marquisan girls,"
Herman Melville remarked in _Typee_, "dance all over, as it were;
not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands,
fingers,--ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads. In
good sooth, they so sway their floating forms, arch their necks,
toss aloft their naked arms, and glide, and swim, and whirl,"
etc.
If we turn to a very different people, we find this
characteristic of primitive dancing admirably illustrated by the
missionary, Holden, in the case of Kaffir dances. "So far as I
have observed," he states, "the perfection of the art or science
consists in their _being able to put every part of the body into
motion at the same time_. And as they are naked, the bystander
has a good opportunity of observing the whole process, which
presents a remarkably odd and grotesque appearance,--the head,
the trunk, the arms, the legs, the hands, the feet, bones,
muscles, sinews, skin, scalp, and hair, each and all in motion at
the same time, with feathers waving, tails of monkeys and wild
beasts dangling, and shields beating, accompanied with whistling,
shouting, and leaping. It would appear as though the whole frame
was hung on springing wires or cords. Dances are held in high
repute, being the natural expression of joyous emotion, or
creating it when absent. There is, perhaps, no exercise in
greater accordance with the sentiments or feelings of a barbarous
people, or more fully calculated to gratify their wild and
ungoverned passions." (W.C. Holden, _The Kaffir Race_, 1866, p.
274.)
Dancing, as the highest and most complex form of muscular movement, is the
most potent method of obtaining the organic excitement muscular movement
yields, and thus we understand how from the earliest zoölogical ages it
has been brought to the service of the sexual instinct as a mode of
attaining tumescence. Among savages this use of dancing works harmoniously
with the various other uses which dancing possesses in primitive times
and which cause it to occupy so large and vital a part in savage life that
it may possibly even affect the organism to such an extent as to mold the
bones; so that some authorities have associated platycnemia with dancing.
As civilization advances, the other uses of dancing fall away, but it
still remains a sexual stimulant. Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_,
brings forward a number of quotations from old authors showing that
dancing is an incitement to love.[41]
The Catholic theologians (Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, pp. 190-199)
for the most part condemn dancing with much severity. In
Protestant Germany, also, it is held that dance meetings and
musical gatherings are frequent occasions of unchastity. Thus in
the Leipzig district when a girl is asked "How did you fall?" she
nearly always replies "At the dance." (_Die
Geschlechtlich-Sittliche Verhältnisse im Deutschen Reiche_, vol.
i, p. 196.) It leads quite as often, and no doubt oftener, to
marriage. Rousseau defended it on this account (_Nouvelle
Heloïse_, bk. iv, letter x); dancing is, he held, an admirable
preliminary to courtship, and the best way for young people to
reveal themselves to each other, in their grace and decorum,
their qualities and defects, while its publicity is its
safeguard. An International Congress of Dancing Masters was held
at Barcelona in 1907. In connection with this Congress, Giraudet,
president of the International Academy of Dancing Masters, issued
an inquiry to over 3000 teachers of dancing throughout the world
in order to ascertain the frequency with which dancing led to
marriage. Of over one million pupils of dancing, either married
or engaged to be married, it was found that in most countries
more than 50 per cent. met their conjugal partners at dances. The
smallest proportion was in Norway, with only 39 per cent., and
the highest, Germany, with 97 per cent. Intermediate are France,
83 per cent.; America, 80 per cent.; Italy, 70 per cent.; Spain,
68 per cent.; Holland, Bulgaria, and England, 65 per cent.;
Australia and Roumania, 60 per cent., etc. Of the teachers
themselves 92 per cent. met their partners at dances. (Quoted
from the _Figaro_ in Beiblatt "Sexualreform" to _Geschlecht und
Gesellschaft_, 1907, p. 175.)
In civilization, however, dancing is not only an incitement to love and a
preliminary to courtship, but it is often a substitute for the normal
gratification of the sexual instinct, procuring something of the pleasure
and relief of gratified love. In occasional abnormal cases this may be
consciously realized. Thus Sadger, who regards the joy of dancing as a
manifestation of "muscular eroticism," gives the case of a married
hysterical woman of 21, with genital anesthesia, but otherwise strongly
developed skin eroticism, who was a passionate dancer: "I often felt as
though I was giving myself to my partner in dancing," she said, "and was
actually having coitus with him. I have the feeling that in me dancing
takes the place of coitus."[42] Normally something of the same feeling is
experienced by many young women, who will expend a prodigious amount of
energy in dancing, thus procuring, not fatigue, but happiness and
relief.[43] It is significant that, after sexual relations have begun,
girls generally lose much of their ardor in dancing. Even our modern
dances, it is worthy of note, are often of sexual origin; thus, the most
typical of all, the waltz, was originally (as Schaller, quoted by Groos,
states) the close of a complicated dance which "represented the romance of
love, the seeking and the fleeing, the playful sulking and shunning, and
finally the jubilation of the wedding."[44]
Not only is movement itself a source of tumescence, but even the spectacle
of movement tends to produce the same effect. The pleasure of witnessing
movement, as represented by its stimulating effect on the muscular
system,--for states of well-being are accompanied by an increase of
power,--has been found susceptible of exact measurement by Féré. He has
shown that to watch a colored disk when in motion produced stronger
muscular contractions, as measured by the dynamometer, than to watch the
same disk when motionless. Even in the absence of color a similar
influence of movement was noted, and watching a modified metronome
produced a greater increase of work with the ergograph than when working
to the rhythm of the metronome without watching it.[45] This psychological
fact has been independently discovered by advertisers, who seek to impress
the value of their wares on the public by the device of announcing them by
moving colored lights. The pleasure given by the ballet largely depends on
the same fact. Not only is dancing an excitation, but the spectacle of
dancing is itself exciting, and even among savages dances have a public
which becomes almost as passionately excited as the dancers
themselves.[46] It is in virtue of this effect of dancing and similar
movements that we so frequently find, both among the lower animals and
savage man, that to obtain tumescence in both sexes, it is sufficient for
one sex alone, usually the male, to take the active part. This point
attracted the attention of Kulischer many years ago, and he showed how the
dances of the men, among savages, excite the women, who watch them
intently though unobtrusively, and are thus influenced in choosing their
lovers. He was probably the first to insist that in man sexual selection
has taken place mainly through the agency of dances, games, and
festivals.[47]
It is now clear, therefore, why the evacuation theory of the sexual
impulse must necessarily be partial and inadequate. It leaves out of
account the whole of the phenomena connected with tumescence, and those
phenomena constitute the most prolonged, the most important, the most
significant stage of the sexual process. It is during tumescence that the
whole psychology of the sexual impulse is built up; it is as an incident
arising during tumescence and influencing its course that we must probably
regard nearly every sexual aberration. It is with the second stage of the
sexual process, when the instinct of detumescence arises, that the analogy
of evacuation can alone be called in. Even here, that analogy, though
real, is not complete, the nervous element involved in detumescence being
out of all proportion to the extent of the evacuation. The typical act of
evacuation, however, is a nervous process, and when we bear this in mind
we may see whatever truth the evacuation theory possesses. Beaunis classes
the sexual impulse with the "needs of activity," but under this head he
coordinates it with the "need of urination." That is to say, that both
alike are nervous explosions. Micturition, like detumescence, is a
convulsive act, and, like detumescence also, it is certainly connected
with cerebral processes; thus in epilepsy the passage of urine which may
occur (as in a girl described by Gowers with minor attacks during which it
was emitted consciously, but involuntarily) is really a part of the
process.[48]
There appears, indeed, to be a special and intimate connection between the
explosion of sexual detumescence and the explosive energy of the bladder;
so that they may reinforce each other and to a limited extent act
vicariously in relieving each other's tension. It is noteworthy that
nocturnal and diurnal incontinence of urine, as well as "stammering" of
the bladder, are all specially liable to begin or to cease at puberty. In
men and even infants, distention of the bladder favors tumescence by
producing venous congestion, though at the same time it acts as a physical
hindrance to sexual detumescence[49]; in women--probably not from pressure
alone, but from reflex nervous action--a full bladder increases both
sexual excitement and pleasure, and I have been informed by several women
that they have independently discovered this fact for themselves and
acted in accordance with it. Conversely, sexual excitement increases the
explosive force of the bladder, the desire to urinate is aroused, and in
women the sexual orgasm, when very acute and occurring with a full
bladder, is occasionally accompanied, alike in savage and civilized life,
by an involuntary and sometimes full and forcible expulsion of urine.[50]
The desire to urinate may possibly be, as has been said, the normal
accompaniment of sexual excitement in women (just as it is said to be in
mares; so that the Arabs judge that the mare is ready for the stallion
when she urinates immediately on hearing him neigh). The association may
even form the basis of sexual obsessions.[51] I have elsewhere shown that,
of all the influences which increase the expulsive force of the bladder,
sexual excitement is the most powerful.[52] It may also have a reverse
influence and inhibit contraction of the bladder, sometimes in association
with shyness, but also independently of shyness. There is also reason to
suppose that the nervous energy expended in an explosion of the tension
of the sexual organs may sometimes relieve the bladder; it is well
recognized that a full bladder is a factor in producing sexual emissions
during sleep, the explosive energy of the bladder being inhibited and
passing over into the sexual sphere. Conversely, it appears that explosion
of the bladder relieves sexual tension. An explosion of the nervous
centers connected with the contraction of the bladder will relieve nervous
tension generally; there are forms of epilepsy in which the act of
urination constitutes the climax, and Gowers, in dealing with minor
epilepsy, emphasizes the frequency of micturition, which "may occur with
spasmodic energy when there is only the slightest general stiffness,"
especially in women. He adds the significant remark that it "sometimes
seems to relieve the cerebral tension,"[53] and gives the case of a girl
in whom the aura consisted mainly of a desire to urinate; if she could
satisfy this the fit was arrested; if not she lost consciousness and a
severe fit followed.
If micturition may thus relieve nervous tension generally, it is not
surprising that it should relieve the tension of the centers with which it
is most intimately connected. Sérieux records the case of a girl of 12,
possessed by an impulse to masturbation which she was unable to control,
although anxious to conquer it, who only found relief in the act of
urination; this soothed her and to some extent satisfied the sexual
excitement; when the impulse to masturbate was restrained the impulse to
urinate became imperative; she would rise four or five times in the night
for this purpose, and even urinate in bed or in her clothes to obtain the
desired sexual relief.[54] I am acquainted with a lady who had a similar,
but less intense, experience during childhood. Sometimes, especially in
children, the act of urination becomes an act of gratification at the
climax of sexual pleasure, the imitative symbol of detumescence. Thus
Schultze-Malkowsky describes a little girl of 7 who would bribe her girl
companions with little presents to play the part of horses on all fours
while she would ride on their necks with naked thighs in order to obtain
the pleasurable sensation of close contact. With one special friend she
would ride facing backward, and leaning forward to embrace her body
impulsively, and at the same time pressing the neck closely between her
thighs, would urinate.[55] Féré has recorded the interesting case of a man
who, having all his life after puberty been subject to monthly attacks of
sexual excitement, after the age of 45 completely lost the liability to
these manifestations, but found himself subject, in place of them, to
monthly attacks of frequent and copious urination, accompanied by sexual
day-dreams, but by no genital excitement.[56] Such a case admirably
illustrates the compensatory relation of sexual and vesical excitation.
This mutual interaction is easily comprehensible when we recall the very
close nervous connection which exists between the mechanisms of the sexual
organs and the bladder.
Nor are such relationships found to be confined to these two centers; in a
lesser degree the more remote explosive centers are also affected; all
motor influences may spread to related muscles; the convulsion of
laughter, for instance, seems to be often in relation with the sexual
center, and Groos has suggested that the laughter which, especially in the
sexually minded, often follows allusions to the genital sphere is merely
an effort to dispel nascent sexual excitement by liberating an explosion
of nervous energy in another direction.[57] Nervous discharges tend to
spread, or to act vicariously, because the motor centers are more or less
connected.[58] Of all the physiological motor explosions, the sexual
orgasm, or detumescence, is the most massive, powerful, and overwhelming.
So volcanic is it that to the ancient Greek philosophers it seemed to be a
minor kind of epilepsy. The relief of detumescence is not merely the
relief of an evacuation; it is the discharge, by the most powerful
apparatus for nervous explosion in the body, of the energy accumulated and
stored up in the slow process of tumescence, and that discharge
reverberates through all the nervous centers in the organism.
"The sophist of Abdera said that coitus is a slight fit of
epilepsy, judging it to be an incurable disease." (Clement of
Alexandria, _Pædagogus_, bk. ii, chapter x.) And Coelius
Aurelianus, one of the chief physicians of antiquity, said that
"coitus is a brief epilepsy." Féré has pointed out that both
these forms of nervous storm are sometimes accompanied by similar
phenomena, by subjective sensations of sight or smell, for
example; and that the two kinds of discharge may even be
combined. (Féré, _Les Epileptiques_, pp. 283-84; also "Exces
Vénériens et Epilepsie," _Comptes-rendus de la Société de
Biologie_, April 3, 1897, and the same author's _Instinct
Sexuel_, pp. 209, 221, and his "Priapisme Epileptique," _La
Médecine Moderne_, February 4, 1899.) The epileptic convulsion in
some cases involves the sexual mechanism, and it is noteworthy
that epilepsy tends to appear at puberty. In modern times even so
great a physician as Boerhaave said that coitus is a "true
epilepsy," and more recently Roubaud, Hammond, and Kowalevsky
have emphasized the resemblance between coitus and epilepsy,
though without identifying the two states. Some authorities have
considered that coitus is a cause of epilepsy, but this is denied
by Christian, Strümpell, and Löwenfeld. (Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben
und Nervenleiden_, 1899, p. 68.) Féré has recorded the case of a
youth in whom the adoption of the practice of masturbation,
several times a day, was followed by epileptic attacks which
ceased when masturbation was abandoned. (Féré, _Comptes-rendus de
la Socitété de Biologie_, April 3, 1897.)
It seems unprofitable at present to attempt any more fundamental analysis
of the sexual impulse. Beaunis, in the work already quoted, vaguely
suggests that we ought possibly to connect the sexual excitation which
leads the male to seek the female with chemical action, either exercised
directly on the protoplasm of the organism or indirectly by the
intermediary of the nervous system, and especially by smell in the higher
animals. Clevenger, Spitzka, Kiernan, and others have also regarded the
sexual impulse as protoplasmic hunger, tracing it back to the presexual
times when one protozoal form absorbed another. In the same way Joanny
Roux, insisting that the sexual need is a need of the whole organism, and
that "we love with the whole of our body," compares the sexual instinct to
hunger, and distinguishes between "sexual hunger" affecting the whole
system and "sexual appetite" as a more localized desire; he concludes that
the sexual need is an aspect of the nutritive need.[59] Useful as these
views are as a protest against too crude and narrow a conception of the
part played by the sexual impulse, they carry us into a speculative region
where proof is difficult.
We are now, however, at all events, in a better position to define the
contents of the sexual impulse. We see that there are certainly, as Moll
has indicated, two constituents in that impulse; but, instead of being
unrelated, or only distantly related, we see that they are really so
intimately connected as to form two distinct stages in the same process: a
first stage, in which--usually under the parallel influence of internal
and external stimuli--images, desires, and ideals grow up within the mind,
while the organism generally is charged with energy and the sexual
apparatus congested with blood; and a second stage, in which the sexual
apparatus is discharged amid profound sexual excitement, followed by deep
organic relief. By the first process is constituted the tension which the
second process relieves. It seems best to call the first impulse the
_process of tumescence_; the second the _process of detumescence_.[60] The
first, taking on usually a more active form in the male, has the double
object of bringing the male himself into the condition in which discharge
becomes imperative, and at the same time arousing in the female a similar
ardent state of emotional excitement and sexual turgescence. The second
process has the object, directly, of discharging the tension thus produced
and, indirectly, of effecting the act by which the race is propagated.
It seems to me that this is at present the most satisfactory way in which
we can attempt to define the sexual impulse.