STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME IV
Sexual Selection In Man
I. Touch. Ii. Smell. Iii. Hearing. Iv. Vision.
by
HAVELOCK ELLIS
1927
PREFACE.
As in many other of these _Studies_, and perhaps more than in most, the
task attempted in the present volume is mainly of a tentative and
preliminary character. There is here little scope yet for the presentation
of definite scientific results. However it may be in the physical
universe, in the cosmos of science our knowledge must be nebulous before
it constellates into definitely measurable shapes, and nothing is gained
by attempting to anticipate the evolutionary process. Thus it is that
here, for the most part, we have to content ourselves at present with the
task of mapping out the field in broad and general outlines, bringing
together the facts and considerations which indicate the direction in
which more extended and precise results will in the future be probably
found.
In his famous _Descent of Man_, wherein he first set forth the doctrine of
sexual selection, Darwin injured an essentially sound principle by
introducing into it a psychological confusion whereby the physiological
sensory stimuli through which sexual selection operates were regarded as
equivalent to æsthetic preferences. This confusion misled many, and it is
only within recent years (as has been set forth in the "Analysis of the
Sexual Impulse" in the previous volume of these _Studies_) that the
investigations and criticisms of numerous workers have placed the doctrine
of sexual selection on a firm basis by eliminating its hazardous æsthetic
element. Love springs up as a response to a number of stimuli to
tumescence, the object that most adequately arouses tumescence being that
which evokes love; the question of æsthetic beauty, although it develops
on this basis, is not itself fundamental and need not even be consciously
present at all. When we look at these phenomena in their broadest
biological aspects, love is only to a limited extent a response to beauty;
to a greater extent beauty is simply a name for the complexus of stimuli
which most adequately arouses love. If we analyze these stimuli to
tumescence as they proceed from a person of the opposite sex we find that
they are all appeals which must come through the channels of four senses:
touch, smell, hearing, and, above all, vision. When a man or a woman
experiences sexual love for one particular person from among the multitude
by which he or she is surrounded, this is due to the influences of a group
of stimuli coming through the channels of one or more of these senses.
There has been a sexual selection conditioned by sensory stimuli. This is
true even of the finer and more spiritual influences that proceed from one
person to another, although, in order to grasp the phenomena adequately,
it is best to insist on the more fundamental and less complex forms which
they assume. In this sense sexual selection is no longer a hypothesis
concerning the truth of which it is possible to dispute; it is a
self-evident fact. The difficulty is not as to its existence, but as to
the methods by which it may be most precisely measured. It is
fundamentally a psychological process, and should be approached from the
psychological side. This is the reason for dealing with it here. Obscure
as the psychological aspects of sexual selection still remain, they are
full of fascination, for they reveal to us the more intimate sides of
human evolution, of the process whereby man is molded into the shapes we
know.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
Carbis Water,
Lelant, Cornwall, England.
CONTENTS.
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN.
The External Sensory Stimuli Affecting Selection in Man. The Four Senses
Involved.
TOUCH.
I.
The Primitive Character of the Skin. Its Qualities. Touch the Earliest
Source of Sensory Pleasure. The Characteristics of Touch. As the Alpha and
Omega of Affection. The Sexual Organs a Special Adaptation of Touch.
Sexual Attraction as Originated by Touch. Sexual Hyperæsthesia to Touch.
The Sexual Associations of Acne.
II.
Ticklishness. Its Origin and Significance. The Psychology of Tickling.
Laughter. Laughter as a Kind of Detumescence. The Sexual Relationships of
Itching. The Pleasure of Tickling. Its Decrease with Age and Sexual
Activity.
III.
The Secondary Sexual Skin Centres. Orificial Contacts. Cunnilingus and
Fellatio. The Kiss. The Nipples. The Sympathy of the Breasts with the
Primary Sexual Centres. This Connection Operative both through the Nerves
and through the Blood. The Influence of Lactation on the Sexual Centres.
Suckling and Sexual Emotion. The Significance of the Association between
Suckling and Sexual Emotion. The Association as a Cause of Sexual
Perversity.
IV.
The Bath. Antagonism of Primitive Christianity to the Cult of the Skin.
Its Cult of Personal Filth. The Reasons which Justified this Attitude. The
World-wide Tendency to Association between Extreme Cleanliness and Sexual
Licentiousness. The Immorality Associated with Public Baths in Europe down
to Modern Times.
V.
Summary. Fundamental Importance of Touch. The Skin the Mother of All the
Other Senses.
SMELL.
I.
The Primitiveness of Smell. The Anatomical Seat of the Olfactory Centres.
Predominance of Smell among the Lower Mammals. Its Diminished Importance
in Man. The Attention Paid to Odors by Savages.
II.
Rise of the Study of Olfaction. Cloquet. Zwaardemaker. The Theory of
Smell. The Classification of Odors. The Special Characteristics of
Olfactory Sensation in Man. Smell as the Sense of Imagination. Odors as
Nervous Stimulants. Vasomotor and Muscular Effects. Odorous Substances as
Drugs.
III.
The Specific Body Odors of Various Peoples. The Negro, etc. The European.
The Ability to Distinguish Individuals by Smell. The Odor of Sanctity. The
Odor of Death. The Odors of Different Parts of the Body. The Appearance of
Specific Odors at Puberty. The Odors of Sexual Excitement. The Odors of
Menstruation. Body Odors as a Secondary Sexual Character. The Custom of
Salutation by Smell. The Kiss. Sexual Selection by Smell. The Alleged
Association between Size of Nose and Sexual Vigor. The Probably Intimate
Relationship between the Olfactory and Genital Spheres. Reflex Influences
from the Nose. Reflex Influences from the Genital Sphere. Olfactory
Hallucinations in Insanity as Related to Sexual States. The Olfactive
Type. The Sense of Smell in Neurasthenic and Allied States. In Certain
Poets and Novelists. Olfactory Fetichism. The Part Played by Olfaction in
Normal Sexual Attraction. In the East, etc. In Modern Europe. The Odor of
the Armpit and its Variations. As a Sexual and General Stimulant. Body
Odors in Civilization Tend to Cause Sexual Antipathy unless some Degree
of Tumescence is Already Present. The Question whether Men or Women are
more Liable to Feel Olfactory Influences. Women Usually more Attentive to
Odors. The Special Interest in Odors Felt by Sexual Inverts.
IV.
The Influence of Perfumes. Their Aboriginal Relationship to Sexual Body
Odors. This True even of the Fragrance of Flowers. The Synthetic
Manufacture of Perfumes. The Sexual Effects of Perfumes. Perfumes perhaps
Originally Used to Heighten the Body Odors. The Special Significance of
the Musk Odor. Its Wide Natural Diffusion in Plants and Animals and Man.
Musk a Powerful Stimulant. Its Widespread Use as a Perfume. Peau
d'Espagne. The Smell of Leather and its Occasional Sexual Effects. The
Sexual Influence of the Odors of Flowers. The Identity of many Plant Odors
with Certain Normal and Abnormal Body Odors. The Smell of Semen in this
Connection.
V.
The Evil Effects of Excessive Olfactory Stimulation. The Symptoms of
Vanillism. The Occasional Dangerous Results of the Odors of Flowers.
Effects of Flowers on the Voice.
VI.
The Place of Smell in Human Sexual Selections. It has given Place to the
Predominance of Vision largely because in Civilized Man it Fails to Act at
a Distance. It still Plays a Part by Contributing to the Sympathies or the
Antipathies of Intimate Contact.
HEARING
I.
The Physiological Basis of Rhythm. Rhythm as a Physiological Stimulus. The
Intimate Relation of Rhythm to Movement. The Physiological Influence of
Music on Muscular Action, Circulation, Respiration, etc. The Place of
Music in Sexual Selection among the Lower Animals. Its Comparatively Small
Place in Courtship among Mammals. The Larynx and Voice in Man. The
Significance of the Pubertal Changes. Ancient Beliefs Concerning the
Influence of Music in Morals, Education and Medicine. Its Therapeutic
Uses. Significance of the Romantic Interest in Music at Puberty. Men
Comparatively Insusceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music.
Rarity of Sexual Perversions on the Basis of the Sense of Hearing. The
Part of Music in Primitive Human Courtship. Women Notably Susceptible to
the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music and the Voice.
II.
Summary. Why the Influence of Music in Human Sexual Selection is
Comparatively Small.
VISION.
I.
Primacy of Vision in Man. Beauty as a Sexual Allurement. The Objective
Element in Beauty. Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Various Parts of the
World. Savage Women sometimes Beautiful from European Point of View.
Savages often Admire European Beauty. The Appeal of Beauty to some Extent
Common even to Animals and Man.
II.
Beauty to Some Extent Consists Primitively in an Exaggeration of the
Sexual Characters. The Sexual Organs. Mutilations, Adornments, and
Garments. Sexual Allurement the Original Object of Such Devices. The
Religious Element. Unæsthetic Character of the Sexual Organs. Importance
of the Secondary Sexual Characters. The Pelvis and Hips. Steatopygia.
Obesity. Gait. The Pregnant Woman as a Mediæval Type of Beauty. The Ideals
of the Renaissance. The Breasts. The Corset. Its Object. Its History.
Hair. The Beard. The Element of National or Racial Type in Beauty. The
Relative Beauty of Blondes and Brunettes. The General European Admiration
for Blondes. The Individual Factors in the Constitution of the Idea of
Beauty. The Love of the Exotic.
III.
Beauty Not the Sole Element in the Sexual Appeal of Vision. Movement. The
Mirror. Narcissism. Pygmalionism. Mixoscopy. The Indifference of Women to
Male Beauty. The Significance of Woman's Admiration of Strength. The
Spectacle of Strength is a Tactile Quality made Visible.
IV.
The Alleged Charm of Disparity in Sexual Attraction. The Admiration for
High Stature. The Admiration for Dark Pigmentation. The Charm of Parity.
Conjugal Mating. The Statistical Results of Observation as Regards General
Appearance, Stature, and Pigmentation of Married Couples. Preferential
Mating and Assortative Mating. The Nature of the Advantage Attained by the
Fair in Sexual Selection. The Abhorrence of Incest and the Theories of its
Cause. The Explanation in Reality Simple. The Abhorrence of Incest in
Relation to Sexual Selection. The Limits to the Charm of Parity in
Conjugal Mating. The Charm of Disparity in Secondary Sexual Characters.
V.
Summary of the Conclusions at Present Attainable in Regard to the Nature
of Beauty and its Relation to Sexual Selection.
APPENDIX A.
The Origins of the Kiss.
APPENDIX B.
Histories of Sexual Development.
SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN.
The External Sensory Stimuli Affecting Selection in Man--The Four Senses
Involved.
Tumescence--the process by which the organism is brought into the physical
and psychic state necessary to insure conjugation and detumescence--to
some extent comes about through the spontaneous action of internal forces.
To that extent it is analogous to the physical and psychic changes which
accompany the gradual filling of the bladder and precede its evacuation.
But even among animals who are by no means high in the zoölogical scale
the process is more complicated than this. External stimuli act at every
stage, arousing or heightening the process of tumescence, and in normal
human beings it may be said that the process is never completed without
the aid of such stimuli, for even in the auto-erotic sphere external
stimuli are still active, either actually or in imagination.
The chief stimuli which influence tumescence and thus direct sexual choice
come chiefly--indeed, exclusively--through the four senses of touch,
smell, hearing, and sight. All the phenomena of sexual selection, so far
as they are based externally, act through these four senses.[1] The
reality of the influence thus exerted may be demonstrated statistically
even in civilized man, and it has been shown that, as regards, for
instance, eye-color, conjugal partners differ sensibly from the unmarried
persons by whom they are surrounded. When, therefore, we are exploring the
nature of the influence which stimuli, acting through the sensory
channels, exert on the strength and direction of the sexual impulse, we
are intimately concerned with the process by which the actual form and
color, not alone of living things generally, but of our own species, have
been shaped and are still being shaped. At the same time, it is probable,
we are exploring the mystery which underlies all the subtle appreciations,
all the emotional undertones, which are woven in the web of the whole
world as it appeals to us through those sensory passages by which alone it
can reach us. We are here approaching, therefore, a fundamental subject of
unsurpassable importance, a subject which has not yet been accurately
explored save at a few isolated points and one which it is therefore
impossible to deal with fully and adequately. Yet it cannot be passed
over, for it enters into the whole psychology of the sexual instinct.
Of the four senses--touch, smell, hearing, and sight--with which we are
here concerned, touch is the most primitive, and it may be said to be the
most important, though it is usually the last to make its appeal felt.
Smell, which occupies the chief place among many animals, is of
comparatively less importance, though of considerable interest, in man; it
is only less intimate and final than touch. Sight occupies an intermediate
position, and on this account, and also on account of the very great part
played by vision in life generally as well as in art, it is the most
important of all the senses from the human sexual point of view. Hearing,
from the same point of view, is the most remote of all the senses in its
appeal to the sexual impulse, and on that account it is, when it
intervenes, among the first to make its influence felt.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Taste must, I believe, be excluded, for if we abstract the parts of
touch and smell, even in those abnormal sexual acts in which it may seem
to be affected, taste could scarcely have any influence. Most of our
"tasting," as Waller puts it, is done by the nose, which, in man, is in
specially close relationship, posteriorly, with the mouth. There are at
most four taste sensations--sweet, bitter, salt, and sour--if even all of
these are simple tastes. What commonly pass for taste sensations, as shown
by some experiments of G.T.W. Patrick (_Psychological Review_, 1898, p.
160), are the composite results of the mingling of sensations of smell,
touch, temperature, sight, and taste.
TOUCH.
I.
The Primitive Character of the Skin--Its Qualities--Touch the Earliest
Source of Sensory Pleasure--The Characteristics of Touch--As the Alpha and
Omega of Affection--The Sexual Organs a Special Adaptation of
Touch--Sexual Attraction as Originated by Touch--Sexual Hyperæsthesia to
Touch--The Sexual Associations of Acne.
We are accustomed to regard the skin as mainly owing its existence to the
need for the protection of the delicate vessels, nerves, viscera, and
muscles underneath. Undoubtedly it performs, and by its tough and elastic
texture is well fitted to perform, this extremely important service. But
the skin is not merely a method of protection against the external world;
it is also a method of bringing us into sensitive contact with the
external world. It is thus, as the organ of touch, the seat of the most
widely diffused sense we possess, and, moreover, the sense which is the
most ancient and fundamental of all--the mother of the other senses.
It is scarcely necessary to insist that the primitive nature of the
sensory function of the skin with the derivative nature of the other
senses, is a well ascertained and demonstrable fact. The lower we descend
in the animal scale, the more varied we find the functions of the skin to
be, and if in the higher animals much of the complexity has disappeared,
that is only because the specialization of the various skin regions into
distinct organs has rendered this complexity unnecessary. Even yet,
however, in man himself the skin still retains, in a more or less latent
condition, much of its varied and primary power, and the analysis of
pathological and even normal phenomena serves to bring these old powers
into clear light.
Woods Hutchinson (_Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology_,
1901, Chapters VII and VIII) has admirably set forth the immense
importance of the skin, as in the first place "a tissue which is
silk to the touch, the most exquisitely beautiful surface in the
universe to the eye, and yet a wall of adamant against hostile
attack. Impervious alike, by virtue of its wonderful responsive
vitality, to moisture and drought, cold and heat, electrical
changes, hostile bacteria, the most virulent of poisons and the
deadliest of gases, it is one of the real Wonders of the World.
More beautiful than velvet, softer and more pliable than silk,
more impervious than rubber, and more durable under exposure than
steel, well-nigh as resistant to electric currents as glass, it
is one of the toughest and most dangerproof substances in the
three kingdoms of nature" (although, as this author adds, we
"hardly dare permit it to see the sunlight or breathe the open
air"). But it is more than this. It is, as Woods Hutchinson
expresses it, the creator of the entire body; its embryonic
infoldings form the alimentary canal, the brain, the spinal cord,
while every sense is but a specialization of its general organic
activity. It is furthermore a kind of "skin-heart," promoting the
circulation by its own energy; it is the great heat-regulating
organ of the body; it is an excretory organ only second to the
kidneys, which descend from it, and finally it still remains the
seat of touch.
It may be added that the extreme beauty of the skin as a surface
is very clearly brought out by the inadequacy of the comparisons
commonly used in order to express its beauty. Snow, marble,
alabaster, ivory, milk, cream, silk, velvet, and all the other
conventional similes furnish surfaces which from any point of
view are incomparably inferior to the skin itself. (Cf. Stratz,
_Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter XII.)
With reference to the extraordinary vitality of the skin,
emphasized by Woods Hutchinson, it may be added that, when
experimenting on the skin with the electric current, Waller found
that healthy skin showed signs of life ten days or more after
excision. It has been found also that fragments of skin which
have been preserved in sterile fluid for even as long as nine
months may still be successfully transplanted on to the body.
(_British Medical Journal_, July 19, 1902.)
Everything indicates, remark Stanley Hall and Donaldson ("Motor
Sensations in the Skin," _Mind_, 1885), that the skin is "not
only the primeval and most reliable source of our knowledge of
the external world or the archæological field of psychology," but
a field in which work may shed light on some of the most
fundamental problems of psychic action. Groos (_Spiele der
Menschen_, pp. 8-16) also deals with the primitive character of
touch sensations.
Touch sensations are without doubt the first of all the sensory
impressions to prove pleasurable. We should, indeed, expect this
from the fact that the skin reflexes have already appeared before
birth, while a pleasurable sensitiveness of the lips is doubtless
a factor in the child's response to the contact of the maternal
nipple. Very early memories of sensory pleasure seem to be
frequently, perhaps most frequently, tactile in character, though
this fact is often disguised in recollection, owing to tactile
impression being vague and diffused; there is thus in Elizabeth
Potwin's "Study of Early Memories" (_Psychological Review_,
November, 1901) no separate group of tactile memories, and the
more elaborate investigation by Colegrove ("Individual Memories,"
_American Journal of Psychology_, January, 1899) yields no
decisive results under this head. See, however, Stanley Hall's
valuable study, "Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self,"
_American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898. Külpe has a
discussion of the psychology of cutaneous sensations (_Outlines
of Psychology_ [English translation], pp. 87 et seq.)
Harriet Martineau, at the beginning of her _Autobiography_,
referring to the vivid character of tactile sensations in early
childhood, remarks, concerning an early memory of touching a
velvet button, that "the rapture of the sensation was really
monstrous." And a lady tells me that one of her earliest memories
at the age of 3 is of the exquisite sensation of the casual
contact of a cool stone with the vulva in the act of urinating.
Such sensations, of course, cannot be termed specifically sexual,
though they help to furnish the tactile basis on which the
specifically sexual sensations develop.
The elementary sensitiveness of the skin is shown by the fact
that moderate excitation suffices to raise the temperature, while
Heidenhain and others have shown that in animals cutaneous
stimuli modify the sensibility of the brain cortex, slight
stimulus increasing excitability and strong stimulus diminishing
it. Féré has shown that the slight stimulus to the skin furnished
by placing a piece of metal on the arm or elsewhere suffices to
increase the output of work with the ergograph. (Féré, _Comptes
Rendus Société de Biologie_, July 12, 1902; id., _Pathologic des
Emotions_, pp. 40 et seq.)
Féré found that the application of a mustard plaster to the skin,
or an icebag, or a hot-water bottle, or even a light touch with a
painter's brush, all exerted a powerful effect in increasing
muscular work with the ergograph. "The tonic effect of cutaneous
excitation," he remarks, "throws light on the psychology of the
caress. It is always the most sensitive parts of the body which
seek to give or to receive caresses. Many animals rub or lick
each other. The mucous surfaces share in this irritability of the
skin. The kiss is not only an expression of feeling; it is a
means of provoking it. Cataglottism is by no means confined to
pigeons. The tonic value of cutaneous stimulation is indeed a
commonly accepted idea. Wrestlers rub their hands or limbs, and
the hand-shake also is not without its physiological basis.
"Cutaneous excitations may cause painful sensations to cease. Many
massage practices which favor work act chiefly as sensorial
stimulants; on this account many nervous persons cannot abandon
them, and the Greeks and Romans found in massage not only health,
but pleasure. Lauder Brunton regards many common manoeuvres, like
scratching the head and pulling the mustache, as methods of
dilating the bloodvessels of the brain by stimulating the facial
nerve. The motor reactions of cutaneous excitations favor this
hypothesis." (Féré, _Travail et Plaisir_, Chapter XV, "Influence
des Excitations du Toucher sur le Travail.")
The main characteristics of the primitive sense of touch are its wide
diffusion over the whole body and the massive vagueness and imprecision of
the messages it sends to the brain. This is the reason, why it is, of all
the senses, the least intellectual and the least æsthetic; it is also the
reason why it is, of all the senses, the most-profoundly emotional.
"Touch," wrote Bain in his _Emotions and Will_, "is both the alpha and the
omega of affection," and he insisted on the special significance in this
connection of "tenderness"--a characteristic emotional quality of
affection which is directly founded on sensations of touch. If tenderness
is the alpha of affection, even between the sexes, its omega is to be
found in the sexual embrace, which may be said to be a method of
obtaining, through a specialized organization of the skin, the most
exquisite and intense sensations of touch.
"We believe nothing is so exciting to the instinct or mere
passions as the presence of the hand or those tactile caresses
which mark affection," states the anonymous author of an article
on "Woman in her Psychological Relations," in the _Journal of
Psychological Medicine_, 1851. "They are the most general stimuli
in lower animals. The first recourse in difficulty or danger, and
the primary solace in anguish, for woman is the bosom of her
husband or her lover. She seeks solace and protection and repose
on that part of the body where she herself places the objects of
her own affection. Woman appears to have the same instinctive
impulse in this respect all over the world."
It is because the sexual orgasm is founded on a special adaptation and
intensification of touch sensations that the sense of touch generally is
to be regarded as occupying the very first place in reference to the
sexual emotions. Féré, Mantegazza, Penta, and most other writers on this
question are here agreed. Touch sensations constitute a vast gamut for the
expression of affection, with at one end the note of minimum personal
affection in the brief and limited touch involved by the conventional
hand-shake and the conventional kiss, and at the other end the final and
intimate contact in which passion finds the supreme satisfaction of its
most profound desire. The intermediate region has its great significance
for us because it offers a field in which affection has its full scope,
but in which every road may possibly lead to the goal of sexual love. It
is the intimacy of touch contacts, their inevitable approach to the
threshold of sexual emotion, which leads to a jealous and instinctive
parsimony in the contact of skin and skin and to the tendency with the
increased sensitiveness of the nervous system involved by civilization to
restrain even the conventional touch manifestation of ordinary affection
and esteem. In China fathers leave off kissing their daughters while they
are still young children. In England the kiss as an ordinary greeting
between men and women--a custom inherited from classic and early Christian
antiquity--still persisted to the beginning of the eighteenth century. In
France the same custom existed in the seventeenth century, but in the
middle of that century was beginning to be regarded as dangerous,[2] while
at the present time the conventional kiss on the cheek is strictly
differentiated from the kiss on the mouth, which is reserved for lovers.
Touch contacts between person and person, other than those limited and
defined by custom, tend to become either unpleasant--as an undesired
intrusion into an intimate sphere--or else, when occurring between man and
woman at some peculiar moment, they may make a powerful reverberation in
the emotional and more specifically sexual sphere. One man falls in love
with his future wife because he has to carry her upstairs with a sprained
ankle. Another dates his love-story from a romp in which his cheek
accidentally came in contact with that of his future wife. A woman will
sometimes instinctively strive to attract the attention of the man who
appeals to her by a peculiar and prolonged pressure of the hand--the only
touch contact permitted to her. Dante, as Penta has remarked, refers to
"sight or touch" as the two channels through which a woman's love is
revived (_Purgatorio_, VIII, 76). Even the hand-shake of a sympathetic man
is enough in some chaste and sensitive women to produce sexual excitement
or sometimes even the orgasm. The cases in which love arises from the
influence of stimuli coming through the sense of touch are no doubt
frequent, and they would be still more frequent if it were not that the
very proximity of this sense to the sexual sphere causes it to be guarded
with a care which in the case of the other senses it is impossible to
exercise. This intimacy of touch and the reaction against its sexual
approximations leads to what James has called "the _antisexual instinct_,
the instinct of personal isolation, the actual repulsiveness to us of the
idea of intimate contact with most of the persons we meet, especially
those of our own sex." He refers in this connection to the unpleasantness
of the sensation felt on occupying a seat still warm from the body of
another person.[3] The Catholic Church has always recognized the risks of
vuluptuous emotion involved in tactile contacts, and the facility with
which even the most innocent contacts may take on a libidinous
character.[4]
The following observations were written by a lady (aged 30) who
has never had sexual relationships: "I am only conscious of a
very sweet and pleasurable emotion when coming in contact with
honorable men, and consider that a comparison can be made between
the idealism of such emotions and those of music, of beauties of
Nature, and of productions of art. While studying and writing
articles upon a new subject I came in contact with a specialist,
who rendered me considerable aid, and, one day, while jointly
correcting a piece of work, he touched my hand. This produced a
sweet and pure sensation of thrill through the whole system. I
said nothing; in fact, was too thrilled for speech; and never to
this day have shown any responsive action, but for months at
certain periods, generally twice a month, I have experienced the
most pleasurable emotions. I have seen this friend twice since,
and have a curious feeling that I stand on one side of a hedge,
while he is on the other, and, as neither makes an approach,
pleasure of the highest kind is experienced, but not allowed to
go beyond reasonable and health-giving bounds. In some moments I
feel overcome by a sense of mastery by this man, and yet, feeling
that any approach would be undignified, some pleasure is
experienced in restraining and keeping within proper bounds this
passional emotion. All these thrills of pleasurable emotion
possess a psychic value, and, so long as the nervous system is
kept in perfect health, they do not seem to have the power to
injure, but rather one is able to utilize the passionate emotions
as weapons for pleasure and work."
Various parts of the skin surface appear to have special sexual
sensitiveness, peculiarly marked in many individuals, especially
women; so that, as Féré remarks (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, second
edition, 1902, p. 130), contact stimulation of the lips, lobe of
ear, nape of neck, little finger, knee, etc., may suffice even to
produce the orgasm. Some sexually hyperæsthetic women, as has
already been noted, experience this when shaking hands with a man
who is attractive to them. In some neurotic persons this
sensibility, as Féré shows, may exist in so morbid a degree that
even the contact of the sensitive spot with unattractive persons
or inanimate objects may produce the orgasm. In this connection
reference may be made to the well-known fact that in some
hysterical subjects there are so-called "erogenous zones" simple
pressure on which suffices to evoke the complete orgasm. There
is, perhaps, some significance, from our present point of view,
in the fact that, as emphasized by Savill ("Hysterical Skin
Symptoms," _Lancet_, January 30, 1904), the skin is one of the
very best places to study hysteria.
The intimate connection between the skin and the sexual sphere is
also shown in pathological conditions of the skin, especially in
acne as well as simple pimples on the face. The sexual
development of puberty involves a development of hair in various
regions of the body which previously were hairless. As, however,
the sebaceous glands on the face and elsewhere are the vestiges
of former hairs and survive from a period when the whole body was
hairy, they also tend to experience in an abortive manner this
same impulse. Thus, we may say that, with the development of the
sexual organs at puberty, there is correlated excitement of the
whole pilo-sebaceous apparatus. In the regions where this
apparatus is vestigial, and notably in the face, this abortive
attempt of the hair-follicles and their sebaceous appendages to
produce hairs tends only to disorganization, and simple
_comedones_ or pustular acne pimples are liable to occur. As a
rule, acne appears about puberty and dies out slowly during
adolescence. While fairly common in young women, it is usually
much less severe, but tends to be exacerbated at the menstrual
periods; it is also apt to appear at the change of life. (Stephen
Mackenzie, "The Etiology and Treatment of Acne Vulgaris,"
_British Medical Journal_, September 29, 1894. Laycock [_Nervous
Diseases of Women_, 1840, p. 23] pointed out that acne occurs
chiefly in those parts of the surface covered by sexual hair. A
lucid account of the origin of acne will be found in Woods
Hutchinson's _Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology_, pp.
179-184. G.J. Engelmann ["The Hystero-neuroses," _Gynæcological
Transactions_, 1887, pp. 124 et seq.] discusses various
pathological disorders of the skin as reflex disturbances
originating in the sexual sphere.)
The influence of menstruation in exacerbating acne has been
called in question, but it seems to be well established. Thus,
Bulkley ("Relation between Certain Diseases of the Skin and the
Menstrual Function," _Transactions of the Medical Society of New
York_, 1901, p. 328) found that, in 510 cases of acne in women,
145, or nearly one-third, were worse about the monthly period.
Sometimes it only appeared during menstruation. The exacerbation
occurred much more frequently just before than just after the
period. There was usually some disturbance of menstruation.
Various other disorders of the skin show a similar relationship
to menstruation.
It has been asserted that masturbation is a frequent or constant
cause of acne at puberty. (See, e.g., discussion in _British
Medical Journal_, July, 1882.) This cannot be accepted. Acne very
frequently occurs without masturbation, and masturbation is very
frequently practiced without producing acne. At the same time we
may well believe that at the period of puberty, when the
pilo-sebaceous system is already in sensitive touch with the
sexual system, the shock of frequently repeated masturbation may
(in the same way as disordered menstruation) have its
repercussion on the skin. Thus, a lady has informed me that at
about the age of 18 she found that frequently repeated
masturbation was followed by the appearance of _comedones_.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] A. Franklin, _Les Soins de Toilette_, p. 81.
[3] W. James, _Principles of Psychology_, vol. ii. p. 347.
[4] Numerous passages from the theologians bearing on this point are
brought together in _Moechialogia_, pp. 221-220.
II.
Ticklishness--Its Origin and Significance--The Psychology of
Tickling--Laughter--Laughter as a Kind of Detumescence--The Sexual
Relationships of Itching--The Pleasure of Tickling--Its Decrease with Age
and Sexual Activity.
Touch, as has already been remarked, is the least intellectual of the
senses. There is, however, one form of touch sensation--that is to say,
ticklishness--which is of so special and peculiar a nature that it has
sometimes been put aside in a class apart from all other touch sensations.
Scaliger proposed to class titillation as a sixth, or separate, sense.
Alrutz, of Upsala, regards tickling as a milder degree of itching, and
considers that the two together constitute a sensation of distinct quality
with distinct end-organs, for the mediation of that quality.[5] However we
may regard this extreme view, tickling is certainly a specialized
modification of touch and it is at the same time the most intellectual
mode of touch sensation and that with the closest connection with the
sexual sphere. To regard tickling as an intellectual manifestation may
cause surprise, more especially when it is remembered that ticklishness is
a form of sensation which reaches full development very early in life, and
it has to be admitted that, as compared even with the messages that may be
sent through smell and taste, the intellectual element in ticklishness
remains small. But its presence here has been independently recognized by
various investigators. Groos points out the psychic factor in tickling as
evidenced by the impossibility of self-tickling.[6] Louis Robinson
considers that ticklishness "appears to be one of the simplest
developments of mechanical and automatic nervous processes in the
direction of the complex functioning of the higher centres which comes
within the scope of psychology,"[7] Stanley Hall and Allin remark that
"these minimal touch excitations represent the very oldest stratum of
psychic life in the soul."[8] Hirman Stanley, in a somewhat similar
manner, pushes the intellectual element in ticklishness very far back and
associates it with "tentacular experience." "By temporary self-extension,"
he remarks, "even low amoeboid organisms have slight, but suggestive,
touch experiences that stimulate very general and violent reactions, and
in higher organisms extended touch-organs, as tentacles, antennæ, hair,
etc., become permanent and very delicately sensitive organs, where minimal
contacts have very distinct and powerful reactions." Thus ticklishness
would be the survival of long passed ancestral tentacular experience,
which, originally a stimulation producing intense agitation and alarm, has
now become merely a play activity and a source of keen pleasure.[9]
We need not, however, go so far back in the zoölogical series to explain
the origin and significance of tickling in the human species. Sir J.Y.
Simpson suggested, in an elaborate study of the position of the child in
the womb, that the extreme excitomotory sensibility of the skin in various
regions, such as the sole of the foot, the knee, the sides, which already
exists before birth, has for its object the excitation and preservation of
the muscular movements necessary to keep the foetus in the most favorable
position in the womb.[10] It is, in fact, certainly the case that the
stimulation of all the ticklish regions in the body tends to produce
exactly that curled up position of extreme muscular flexion and general
ovoid shape which is the normal position of the foetus in the womb. We may
well believe that in this early developed reflex activity we have the
basis of that somewhat more complex ticklishness which appears somewhat
later.
The mental element in tickling is indicated by the fact that even a child,
in whom ticklishness is highly developed, cannot tickle himself; so that
tickling is not a simple reflex. This fact was long ago pointed out by
Erasmus Darwin, and he accounted for it by supposing that voluntary
exertion diminishes the energy of sensation.[11] This explanation is,
however, inadmissible, for, although we cannot easily tickle ourselves by
the contact of the skin with our own fingers, we can do so with the aid of
a foreign body, like a feather. We may perhaps suppose that, as
ticklishness has probably developed under the influence of natural
selection as a method of protection against attack and a warning of the
approach of foreign bodies, its end would be defeated if it involved a
simple reaction to the contact of the organism with itself. This need of
protection it is which involves the necessity of a minimal excitation
producing a maximal effect, though the mechanism whereby this takes place
has caused considerable discussion. We may, it is probable, best account
for it by invoking the summation-irradiation theory of pain-pleasure, the
summation of the stimuli in their course through the nerves, aided by
capillary congestion, leading to irradiation due to anastomoses between
the tactile corpuscles, not to speak of the much wider irradiation which
is possible by means of central nervous connections.
Prof. C.L. Herrick adopts this explanation of the phenomena of
tickling, and rests it, in part, on Dogiel's study of the tactile
corpuscles ("Psychological Corollaries of Modern Neurological
Discoveries," _Journal of Comparative Neurology_, March, 1898).
The following remarks of Prof. A. Allin may also be quoted in
further explanation of the same theory: "So far as ticklishness
is concerned, a very important factor in the production of this
feeling is undoubtedly that of the summation of stimuli. In a
research of Stirling's, carried on under Ludwig's direction, it
was shown that reflex contractions only occur from repeated
shocks to the nerve-centres--that is, through summation of
successive stimuli. That this result is also due in some degree
to an alternating increase in the sensibility of the various
areas in question from altered supply of blood is reasonably
certain. As a consequence of this summation-process there would
result in many cases and in cases of excessive nervous discharge
the opposite of pleasure, namely: pain. A number of instances
have been recorded of death resulting from tickling, and there is
no reason to doubt the truth of the statement that Simon de
Montfort, during the persecution of the Albigenses, put some of
them to death by tickling the soles of their feet with a feather.
An additional causal factor in the production of tickling may lie
in the nature and structure of the nervous process involved in
perception in general. According to certain histological
researches of recent years we know that between the sense-organs
and the central nervous system there exist closely connected
chains of conductors or neurons, along which an impression
received by a single sensory cell on the periphery is propagated
avalanchelike through an increasing number of neurons until the
brain is reached. If on the periphery a single cell is excited
the avalanchelike process continues until finally hundreds or
thousands of nerve-cells in the cortex are aroused to
considerable activity. Golgi, Ramón y Cajal, Koelliker, Held,
Retzius, and others have demonstrated the histological basis of
this law for vision, hearing, and smell, and we may safely assume
from the phenomena of tickling that the sense of touch is not
lacking in a similar arrangement. May not a suggestion be
offered, with some plausibility, that even in ideal or
representative tickling, where tickling results, say, from
someone pointing a finger at the ticklish places, this
avalanchelike process may be incited from central centres, thus
producing, although in a modified degree, the pleasant phenomena
in question? As to the deepest causal factor, I should say that
tickling is the result of vasomotor shock." (A. Allin, "On
Laughter," _Psychological Review_, May, 1903.)
The intellectual element in tickling conies out in its connection with
laughter and the sense of the comic, of which it may be said to constitute
the physical basis. While we are not here concerned with laughter and the
comic sense,--a subject which has lately attracted considerable
attention,--it may be instructive to point out that there is more than an
analogy between laughter and the phenomena of sexual tumescence and
detumescence. The process whereby prolonged tickling, with its nervous
summation and irradiation and accompanying hyperæmia, finds sudden relief
in an explosion of laughter is a real example of tumescence--as it has
been defined in the study in another volume entitled "An Analysis of the
Sexual Impulse"--resulting finally in the orgasm of detumescence. The
reality of the connection between the sexual embrace and tickling is
indicated by the fact that in some languages, as in that of the
Fuegians,[12] the same word is applied to both. That ordinary tickling is
not sexual is due to the circumstances of the case and the regions to
which the tickling is applied. If, however, the tickling is applied within
the sexual sphere, then there is a tendency for orgasm to take place
instead of laughter. The connection which, through the phenomena of
tickling, laughter thus bears to the sexual sphere is well indicated, as
Groos has pointed out, by the fact that in sexually-minded people sexual
allusions tend to produce laughter, this being the method by which they
are diverted from the risks of more specifically sexual detumescence.[13]
Reference has been made to the view of Alrutz, according to which
tickling is a milder degree of itching. It is more convenient and
probably more correct to regard itching or pruritus, as it is
termed in its pathological forms, as a distinct sensation, for it
does not arise under precisely the same conditions as tickling
nor is it relieved in the same way. There is interest, however,
in pointing out in this connection that, like tickling, itching
has a real parallelism to the specialized sexual sensations.
Bronson, who has very ably interpreted the sensations of itching
(New York Neurological Society, October 7, 1890; _Medical News_,
February 14, 1903, and summarized in the _British Medical
Journal_, March 7, 1903; and elsewhere), regards it as a
perversion of the sense of touch, a dysæsthesia due to obstructed
nerve-excitation with imperfect conduction of the generated force
into correlated nervous energy. The scratching which relieves
itching directs the nervous energy into freer channels, sometimes
substituting for the pruritus either painful or voluptuous
sensations. Such voluptuous sensations may be regarded as a
generalized aphrodisiac sense comparable to the specialized
sexual orgasm. Bronson refers to the significant fact that
itching occurs so frequently in the sexual region, and states
that sexual neurasthenia is sometimes the only discoverable cause
of genital and anal pruritus. (Cf. discussion on pruritus,
_British Medical Journal_, November 30, 1895.) Gilman, again
(_American Journal of Psychology_, vi, p. 22), considers that
scratching, as well as sneezing, is comparable to coitus.
The sexual embrace has an intimate connection with the phenomena of
ticklishness which could not fail to be recognized. This connection is,
indeed, the basis of Spinoza's famous definition of love,--"_Amor est
titillatio quædam concomitante idea causæ externæ_,"--a statement which
seems to be reflected in Chamfort's definition of love as "_l'échange de
deux fantaisies, et le contact de deux epidermes_." The sexual act, says
Gowers, is, in fact, a skin reflex.[14] "The sexual parts," Hall and Allin
state, "have a ticklishness as unique as their function and as keen as
their importance." Herrick finds the supreme illustration of the summation
and irradiation theory of tickling in the phenomena of erotic excitement,
and points out that in harmony with this the skin of the sexual region is,
as Dogiel has shown, that portion of the body in which the tactile
corpuscles are most thoroughly and elaborately provided with anastomosing
fibres. It has been pointed out[15] that, when ordinary tactile
sensibility is partially abolished,--especially in hemianæsthesia in the
insane,--some sexual disturbance is specially apt to be found in
association.
In young children, in girls even when they are no longer children, and
occasionally in men, tickling may be a source of acute pleasure, which in
very early life is not sexual, but later tends to become so under
circumstances predisposing to the production of erotic emotion, and
especially when the nervous system is keyed up to a high tone favorable
for the production of the maximum effect of tickling.
"When young," writes a lady aged 28, "I was extremely fond of
being tickled, and I am to some extent still. Between the ages of
10 and 12 it gave me exquisite pleasure, which I now regard as
sexual in character. I used to bribe my younger sister to tickle
my feet until she was tired."
Stanley Hall and Allin in their investigation of the phenomena of
tickling, largely carried out among young women teachers, found
that in 60 clearly marked cases ticklishness was more marked at
one time than another, "as when they have been 'carrying on,' or
are in a happy mood, are nervous or unwell, after a good meal,
when being washed, when in perfect health, when with people they
like, etc." (Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," _American
Journal of Psychology_, October, 1897.) It will be observed that
most of the conditions mentioned are such as would be favorable
to excitations of an emotionally sexual character.
The palms of the hands may be very ticklish during sexual
excitement, especially in women, and Moll (_Konträre
Sexualempfindung_, p. 180) remarks that in some men titillation
of the skin of the back, of the feet, and even of the forehead
evokes erotic feelings.
It may be added that, as might be expected, titillation of the
skin often has the same significance in animals as in man. "In
some animals," remarks Louis Robinson (art. "Ticklishness,"
_Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_), "local titillation of
the skin, though in parts remote from the reproductive organs,
plainly acts indirectly upon them as a stimulus. Thus, Harvey
records that, by stroking the back of a favorite parrot (which he
had possessed for years and supposed to be a male), he not only
gave the bird gratification,--which was the sole intention of the
illustrious physiologist,--but also caused it to reveal its sex
by laying an egg."
The sexual significance of tickling is very clearly indicated by the fact
that the general ticklishness of the body, which is so marked in children
and in young girls, greatly diminishes, as a rule, after sexual
relationships have been established. Dr. Gina Lombroso, who investigated
the cutaneous reflexes, found that both the abdominal and plantar
reflexes, which are well marked in childhood and in young people between
the ages of 15 and 18, were much diminished in older persons, and to a
greater extent in women than in men, to a greater extent in the abdominal
region than on the soles of the feet;[16] her results do not directly show
the influence of sexual relationship, but they have an indirect bearing
which is worth noting.
The difference in ticklishness between the unmarried woman and the married
woman corresponds to their difference in degree of modesty. Both modesty
and ticklishness may be said to be characters which are no longer needed.
From this point of view the general ticklishness of the skin is a kind of
body modesty. It is so even apart from any sexual significance of
tickling, and Louis Robinson has pointed out that in young apes, puppies,
and other like animals the most ticklish regions correspond to the most
vulnerable spots in a fight, and that consequently in the mock fights of
early life skill in defending these spots is attained.
In Iceland, according to Margarethe Filhés (as quoted by Max
Bartels, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, ht. 2-3, p. 57), it
may be known whether a youth is pure or a maid is intact by their
susceptibility to tickling. It is considered a bad sign if that
is lost.
I am indebted to a medical correspondent for the following
communication: "Married women have told me that they find that
after marriage they are not ticklish under the arms or on the
breasts, though before marriage any tickling or touching in these
regions, especially by a man, would make them jump or get
hysterical or 'queer,' as they call it. Before coitus the sexual
energy seems to be dissipated along all the nerve-channels and
especially along the secondary sexual routes,--the breasts, nape
of neck, eyebrows, lips, cheeks, armpits, and hair thereon,
etc.,--but after marriage the surplus energy is diverted from
these secondary channels, and response to tickling is diminished.
I have often noted in insane cases, especially mania in
adolescent girls, that they are excessively ticklish. Again, in
ordinary routine practice I have observed that, though married
women show no ticklishness during auscultation and percussion of
the chest, this is by no means always so in young girls. Perhaps
ticklishness in virgins is Nature's self-protection against rape
and sexual advances, and the young girl instinctively wishing to
hide the armpits, breasts, and other ticklish regions, tucks
herself up to prevent these parts being touched. The married
woman, being in love with a man, does not shut up these parts, as
she reciprocates the advances that he makes; she no longer
requires ticklishness as a protection against sexual aggression."
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Alrutz's views are summarized in _Psychological Review_, Sept., 1901.
[6] _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 206.
[7] L. Robinson, art. "Ticklishness," Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological
Medicine_.
[8] Stanley Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," _American Journal of
Psychology_, October, 1897.
[9] H.M. Stanley, "Remarks on Tickling and Laughter," _American Journal of
Psychology_, vol. ix, January, 1898.
[10] Simpson, "On the Attitude of the Foetus in Utero," _Obstetric
Memoirs_, 1856, vol. ii.
[11] Erasmus Darwin, _Zoönomia_, Sect. XVII, 4.
[12] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii. p.
296.
[13] Such an interpretation is supported by the arguments of W. McDougall
("The Theory of Laughter," _Nature_, February 5, 1903), who contends,
without any reference to the sexual field, that one of the objects of
laughter is automatically to "disperse our attention."
[14] Even the structure of the vaginal mucous membrane, it may be noted,
is analogous to that of the skin. D. Berry Hart, "Note on the Development
of the Clitoris, Vagina, and Hymen," _Transactions of the Edinburgh
Obstetrical Society_, vol. xxi, 1896.
[15] W.H.B. Stoddart, "Anæsthesia in the Insane," _Journal of Mental
Science_, October, 1899.
[16] Gina Lombroso, "Sur les Réflexes Cutanés," International Congress of
Criminal Anthropology, Amsterdam, _Comptes Rendus_, p. 295.
III.
The Secondary Sexual Skin Centres--Orificial Contacts--Cunnilingus and
Fellatio--The Kiss--The Nipples--The Sympathy of the Breasts with the
Primary Sexual Centres--This Connection Operative both through the Nerves
and through the Blood--The Influence of Lactation on the Sexual
Centres--Suckling and Sexual Emotion--The Significance of the Association
between Suckling and Sexual Emotion--This Association as a Cause of Sexual
Perversity.
We have seen that the skin generally has a high degree of sensibility,
which frequently tends to be in more or less definite association with the
sexual centres. We have seen also that the central and specific sexual
sensation, the sexual embrace itself, is, in large measure, a specialized
kind of skin reflex. Between the generalized skin sensations and the great
primary sexual centre of sensation there are certain secondary sexual
centres which, on account of their importance, may here be briefly
considered.
These secondary centres have in common the fact that they always involve
the entrances and the exits of the body--the regions, that is, where skin
merges into mucous membrane, and where, in the course of evolution,
tactile sensibility has become highly refined. It may, indeed, be said
generally of these frontier regions of the body that their contact with
the same or a similar frontier region in another person of opposite sex,
under conditions otherwise favorable to tumescence, will tend to produce a
minimum and even sometimes a maximum degree of sexual excitation. Contact
of these regions with each other or with the sexual region itself so
closely simulates the central sexual reflex that channels are set up for
the same nervous energy and secondary sexual centres are constituted.
It is important to remember that the phenomena we are here concerned with
are essentially normal. Many of them are commonly spoken of as
perversions. In so far, however, as they are aids to tumescence they must
be regarded as coming within the range of normal variation. They may be
considered unæsthetic, but that is another matter. It has, moreover, to be
remembered that æsthetic values are changed under the influence of sexual
emotion; from the lover's point of view many things are beautiful which
are unbeautiful from the point of view of him who is not a lover, and the
greater the degree to which the lover is swayed by his passion the greater
the extent to which his normal æsthetic standard is liable to be modified.
A broad consideration of the phenomena among civilized and uncivilized
peoples amply suffices to show the fallacy of the tendency, so common
among unscientific writers on these subjects, to introduce normal æsthetic
standards into the sexual sphere. From the normal standpoint of ordinary
daily life, indeed, the whole process of sex is unæsthetic, except the
earlier stages of tumescence.[17]
So long as they constitute a part of the phase of tumescence, the
utilization of the sexual excitations obtainable through these channels
must be considered within the normal range of variation, as we may
observe, indeed, among many animals. When, however, such contacts of the
orifices of the body, other than those of the male and female sexual
organs proper, are used to procure not merely tumescence, but
detumescence, they become, in the strict and technical sense, perversions.
They are perversions in exactly the same sense as are the methods of
intercourse which involve the use of checks to prevent fecundation. The
æsthetic question, however, remains the same as if we were dealing with
tumescence. It is necessary that this should be pointed out clearly, even
at the risk of misapprehension, as confusions are here very common.
The essentially sexual character of the sensitivity of the
orificial contacts is shown by the fact that it may sometimes be
accidentally developed even in early childhood. This is well
illustrated in a case recorded by Féré. A little girl of 4, of
nervous temperament and liable to fits of anger in which she
would roll on the ground and tear her clothes, once ran out into
the garden in such a fit of temper and threw herself on the lawn
in a half-naked condition. As she lay there two dogs with whom
she was accustomed to play came up and began to lick the
uncovered parts of the body. It so happened that as one dog
licked her mouth the other licked her sexual parts. She
experienced a shock of intense sensation which she could never
forget and never describe, accompanied by a delicious tension of
the sexual organs. She rose and ran away with a feeling of shame,
though she could not comprehend what had happened. The impression
thus made was so profound that it persisted throughout life and
served as the point of departure of sexual perversions, while the
contact of a dog's tongue with her mouth alone afterward sufficed
to evoke sexual pleasure. (Féré, _Archives de Neurologie_, 1903,
No. 90.)
I do not purpose to discuss here either _cunnilingus_ (the
apposition of the mouth to the female pudendum) or _fellatio_
(the apposition of the mouth to the male organ), the agent in the
former case being, in normal heterosexual relationships, a man,
in the latter a woman; they are not purely tactile phenomena, but
involve various other physical and psychic elements.
_Cunnilingus_ was a very familiar manifestation in classic times,
as shown by frequent and mostly very contemptuous references in
Aristophanes, Juvenal, and many other Greek and Roman writers;
the Greeks regarded it as a Phoenician practice, just as it is
now commonly considered French; it tends to be especially
prevalent at all periods of high civilization. _Fellatio_ has
also been equally well known, in both ancient and modern times,
especially as practiced by inverted men. It may be accepted that
both _cunnilingus_ and _fellatio_, as practiced by either sex,
are liable to occur among healthy or morbid persons, in
heterosexual or homosexual relationships. They have little
psychological significance, except to the extent that when
practiced to the exclusion of normal sexual relationships they
become perversions, and as such tend to be associated with
various degenerative conditions, although such associations are
not invariable.
The essentially normal character of _cunnilingus_ and _fellatio_,
when occurring as incidents in the process of tumescence, is
shown by the fact that they are practiced by many animals. This
is the case, for instance, among dogs. Moll points out that not
infrequently the bitch, while under the dog, but before
intromission, will change her position to lick the dog's
penis--apparently from an instinctive impulse to heighten her own
and his excitement--and then return to the normal position, while
_cunnilingus_ is of constant occurrence among animals, and on
account of its frequency among dogs was called by the Greeks
skylax (Rosenbaum, _Geschichte der Lustseuche im Altertume_,
fifth edition, pp. 260-278; also notes in Moll, _Untersuchungen
über pie Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, pp. 134, 369; and Bloch,
_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, pp.
216 et seq.)
The occurrence of _cunnilingus_ as a sexual episode of tumescence
among lower human races is well illustrated by a practice of the
natives of the Caroline Islands (as recorded by Kubary in his
ethnographic study of this people and quoted by Ploss and
Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i). It is here customary for a man to
place a piece of fish between the labia, while he stimulates the
latter by his tongue and teeth until under stress of sexual
excitement the woman urinates; this is regarded as an indication
that the proper moment for intercourse has arrived. Such a
practice rests on physiologically sound facts whatever may be
thought of it from an æsthetic standpoint.
The contrast between the normal æsthetic standpoint in this
matter and the lover's is well illustrated by the following
quotations: Dr. A.B. Holder, in the course of his description of
the American Indian _boté_, remarks, concerning _fellatio_: "Of
all the many varieties of sexual perversion, this, it seems to
me, is the most debased that could be conceived of." On the other
hand, in a communication from a writer and scholar of high
intellectual distinction occurs the statement: "I affirm that, of
all sexual acts, _fellatio_ is most an affair of imagination and
sympathy." It must be pointed out that there is no contradiction
in these two statements, and that each is justified, according as
we take the point of view of the ordinary onlooker or of the
impassioned lover eager to give a final proof of his or her
devotion. It must be added that from a scientific point of view
we are not entitled to take either side.
Of the whole of this group of phenomena, the most typical and the most
widespread example is certainly the kiss. We have in the lips a highly
sensitive frontier region between skin and mucous membrane, in many
respects analogous to the vulvo-vaginal orifice, and reinforcible,
moreover, by the active movements of the still more highly sensitive
tongue. Close and prolonged contact of these regions, therefore, under
conditions favorable to tumescence sets up a powerful current of nervous
stimulation. After those contacts in which the sexual regions themselves
take a direct part, there is certainly no such channel for directing
nervous force into the sexual sphere as the kiss. This is nowhere so well
recognized as in France, where a young girl's lips are religiously kept
for her lover, to such an extent, indeed, that young girls sometimes come
to believe that the whole physical side of love is comprehended in a kiss
on the mouth; so highly intelligent a woman as Madam Adam has described
the agony she felt as a girl when kissed on the lips by a man, owing to
the conviction that she had thereby lost her virtue. Although the lips
occupy this highly important position as a secondary sexual focus
in the sphere of touch, the kiss is--unlike _cunnilingus_ and
_fellatio_--confined to man and, indeed, to a large extent, to civilized
man. It is the outcome of a compound evolution which had its beginning
outside the sphere of touch, and it would therefore be out of place to
deal with the interesting question of its development in this place. It
will be discussed elsewhere.[18]
There is yet another orificial frontier region which is a highly important
tactile sexual focus: the nipple. The breasts raise, indeed, several
interesting questions in their intimate connection with the sexual sphere
and it may be worth while to consider them at this point.
The breasts have from the present point of view this special significance
among the sexual centres that they primarily exist, not for the contact of
the lover, but the contact of the child. This is doubtless, indeed, the
fundamental fact on which all the touch contacts we are here concerned
with have grown up. The sexual sensitivity of the lover's lips to
orificial contacts has been developed from the sensitivity of the infant's
lips to contact with his mother's nipple. It is on the ground of that
evolution that we are bound to consider here the precise position of the
breasts as a sexual centre.
As the great secreting organs of milk, the function of the breasts must
begin immediately the child is cut off from the nutrition derived from
direct contact with his mother's blood. It is therefore essential that the
connection between the sexual organs proper, more especially the womb, and
the breasts should be exceedingly intimate, so that the breasts may be in
a condition to respond adequately to the demand of the child's sucking
lips at the earliest moment after birth. As a matter of fact, this
connection is very intimate, so intimate that it takes place in two
totally distinct ways--by the nervous system and by the blood.
The breasts of young girls sometimes become tender at puberty in
sympathy with the evolution of the sexual organs, although the
swelling of the breasts at this period is not normally a
glandular process. At the recurring periods of menstruation,
again, sensations in the breasts are not uncommon.
It is not, however, until impregnation occurs that really
decisive changes take place in the breasts. "As soon as the ovum
is impregnated, that is to say within a few days," as W.D.A.
Griffith states it ("The Diagnosis of Pregnancy," _British
Medical Journal_, April 11, 1903), "the changes begin to occur in
the breast, changes which are just as well worked out as are the
changes in the uterus and the vagina, which, from the
commencement of pregnancy, prepare for the labor which ought to
follow nine months afterward. These are changes in the direction
of marked activity of function. An organ which was previously
quite passive, without activity of circulation and the effects of
active circulation, begins to grow and continues to grow in
activity and size as pregnancy progresses."
The association between breasts and womb is so obvious that it
has not escaped many savage peoples, who are often, indeed,
excellent observers. Among one primitive people at least the
activity of the breast at impregnation seems to be clearly
recognized. The Sinangolo of British New Guinea, says Seligmann
(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, July-December, 1902,
p. 298) believe that conception takes place in the breasts; on
this account they hold that coitus should never take place before
the child is weaned or he might imbibe semen with the milk.
It is natural to assume that this connection between the activity
of the womb and the glandular activity of the breasts is a
nervous connection, by means of the spinal cord, and such a
connection certainly exists and plays a very important part in
the stimulating action of the breasts on the sexual organs. But
that there is a more direct channel of communication even than
the nervous system is shown by the fact that the secretion of
milk will take place at parturition, even when the nervous
connection has been destroyed. Mironoff found that, when the
mammary gland is completely separated from the central nervous
system, secretion, though slightly diminished, still continued.
In two goats he cut the nerves shortly before parturition and
after birth the breasts still swelled and functioned normally
(_Archives des Sciences Biologiques_, St. Petersburg, 1895,
summarized in _L'Année Biologique_; 1895, p. 329). Ribbert,
again, cut out the mammary gland of a young rabbit and
transplanted it into the ear; five months after the rabbit bore
young and the gland secreted milk freely. The case has been
reported of a woman whose spinal cord was destroyed by an
accident at the level of the fifth and sixth dorsal vertebræ,
yet lactation was perfectly normal (_British Medical Journal_,
August 5, 1899, p. 374). We are driven to suppose that there is
some chemical change in the blood, some internal secretion from
the uterus or the ovaries, which acts as a direct stimulant to
the breasts. (See a comprehensive discussion of the phenomena of
the connection between the breasts and sexual organs, though the
conclusions are not unassailable, by Temesvary, _Journal of
Obstetrics and Gynæcology of the British Empire_, June, 1903).
That this hypothetical secretion starts from the womb rather than
the ovaries seems to be indicated by the fact that removal of
both ovaries during pregnancy will not suffice to prevent
lactation. In favor of the ovaries, see Beatson, _Lancet_, July,
1896; in favor of the uterus, Armand Routh, "On the Interaction
between the Ovaries and the Mammary Glands," _British Medical
Journal_, September 30, 1899.
While, however, the communications from the sexual organs to the breast
are of a complex and at present ill understood character, the
communication from the breasts to the sexual organs is without doubt
mainly and chiefly nervous. When the child is put to the breast after
birth the suction of the nipple causes a reflex contraction of the womb,
and it is held by many, though not all, authorities that in a woman who
does not suckle her child there is some risk that the womb will not return
to its normal involuted size. It has also been asserted that to put a
child to the breast during the early months of pregnancy causes so great a
degree of uterine contraction that abortion may result.
Freund found in Germany that stimulation of the nipples by an
electrical cupping apparatus brought about contraction of the
pregnant uterus. At an earlier period it was recommended to
irritate the nipple in order to excite the uterus to parturient
action. Simpson, while pointing out that this was scarcely
adequate to produce the effect desired, thought that placing a
child to the breast after labor had begun might increase uterine
action. (J.Y. Simpson, _Obstetric Memoirs_, vol. i, p. 836; also
Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 132).
The influence of lactation over the womb in preventing the return
of menstruation during its continuance is well known. According
to Remfry's investigation of 900 cases in England, in 57 per
cent. of cases there is no menstruation during lactation. (L.
Remfry, in paper read before Obstetrical Society of London,
summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, January 11, 1896, p.
86). Bendix, in Germany, found among 140 cases that in about 40
per cent. there was no menstruation during lactation (paper read
before Düsseldorf meeting of the Society of German Naturalists
and Physicians, 1899). When the child is not suckled menstruation
tends to reappear about six months after parturition.
It is possible that the divergent opinions of authorities
concerning the necessarily favorable influence of lactation in
promoting the return of the womb to its normal size may be due to
a confusion of two distinct influences: the reflex action of the
nipple on the womb and the effects of prolonged glandular
secretion of the breasts in debilitated persons. The act of
suckling undoubtedly tends to promote uterine contraction, and in
healthy women during lactation the womb may even (according to
Vineberg) be temporarily reduced to a smaller size than before
impregnation, thus producing what is known as "lactation
atrophy." In debilitated women, however, the strain of
milk-production may lead to general lack of muscular tone, and
involution of the womb thus be hindered rather than aided by
lactation.
On the objective side, then, the nipple is to be regarded as an erectile
organ, richly supplied with nerves and vessels, which, under the
stimulation of the infant's lips--or any similar compression, and even
under the influence of emotion or cold,--becomes firm and projects, mainly
as a result of muscular contraction; for, unlike the penis and the
clitoris, the nipple contains no true erectile tissue and little capacity
for vascular engorgement.[19] We must then suppose that an impetus tends
to be transmitted through the spinal cord to the sexual organs, setting up
a greater or less degree of nervous and muscular excitement with uterine
contraction. These being the objective manifestations, what manifestations
are to be noted on the subjective side?
It is a remarkable proof of the general indifference with which in Europe
even the fairly constant and prominent characteristics of the psychology
of women have been treated until recent times that, so far as I am
aware,--though I have made no special research to this end,--no one before
the end of the eighteenth century had recorded the fact that the act of
suckling tends to produce in women voluptuous sexual emotions. Cabanis in
1802, in the memoir on "Influence des Sexes" in his _Rapports du Physique
et du Moral de l'Homme_, wrote that several suckling women had told him
that the child in sucking the breast made them experience a vivid
sensation of pleasure, shared in some degree by the sexual organs. There
can be no doubt that in healthy suckling women this phenomenon is
exceedingly common, though in the absence of any methodical and precise
investigation it cannot be affirmed that it is experienced by every woman
in some degree, and it is highly probable that this is not the case. One
lady, perfectly normal, states that she has had stronger sexual feelings
in suckling her children than she has ever experienced with her husband,
but that so far as possible she has tried to repress them, as she regards
them as brutish under these circumstances. Many other women state
generally that suckling is the most delicious physical feeling they have
ever experienced. In most cases, however, it does not appear to lead to a
desire for intercourse, and some of those who make this statement have no
desire for coitus during lactation, though they may have strong sexual
needs at other times. It is probable that this corresponds to the normal
condition, and that the voluptuous sensations aroused by suckling are
adequately gratified by the child. It may be added that there are probably
many women who could say, with a lady quoted by Féré,[20] that the only
real pleasures of sex they have ever known are those derived from their
suckling infants.
It is not difficult to see why this normal association of sexual emotion
with suckling should have come about. It is essential for the preservation
of the lives of young mammals that the mothers should have an adequate
motive in pleasurable sensation for enduring the trouble of suckling. The
most obvious method for obtaining the necessary degree of pleasurable
sensation lay in utilizing the reservoir of sexual emotion, with which
channels of communication might already be said to be open through the
action of the sexual organs on the breasts during pregnancy. The
voluptuous element in suckling may thus be called a merciful provision of
Nature for securing the maintenance of the child.
Cabanis seems to have realized the significance of this
connection as the basis of the sympathy between mother and child,
and more recently Lombroso and Ferrero have remarked (_La Donna
Delinquente_, p. 438) on the fact that maternal love has a sexual
basis in the element of venereal pleasure, though usually
inconsiderable, experienced during suckling. Houzeau has referred
to the fact that in the majority of animals the relation between
mother and offspring is only close during the period of
lactation, and this is certainly connected with the fact that it
is only during lactation that the female animal can derive
physical gratification from her offspring. When living on a farm
I have ascertained that cows sometimes, though not frequently,
exhibit slight signs of sexual excitement, with secretion of
mucus, while being milked; so that, as the dairymaid herself
observed, it is as if they were being "bulled." The sow, like
some other mammals, often eats her own young after birth,
mistaking them, it is thought, for the placenta, which is
normally eaten by most mammals; it is said that the sow never
eats her young when they have once taken the teat.
It occasionally happens that this normal tendency for suckling to
produce voluptuous sexual emotions is present in an extreme
degree, and may lead to sexual perversions. It does not appear
that the sexual sensations aroused by suckling usually culminate
in the orgasm; this however, was noted in a case recorded by
Féré, of a slightly neurotic woman in whom intense sexual
excitement occurred during suckling, especially if prolonged; so
far as possible, she shortened the periods of suckling in order
to prevent, not always successfully, the occurrence of the orgasm
(Féré, _Archives de Neurologie_ No. 30, 1903). Icard refers to
the case of a woman who sought to become pregnant solely for the
sake of the voluptuous sensations she derived from suckling, and
Yellowlees (Art. "Masturbation," _Dictionary of Psychological
Medicine_) speaks of the overwhelming character of "the storms of
sexual feeling sometimes observed during lactation."
It may be remarked that the frequency of the association between
lactation and the sexual sensations is indicated by the fact
that, as Savage remarks, lactational insanity is often
accompanied by fancies regarding the reproductive organs.
When we have realized the special sensitivity of the orificial regions and
the peculiarly close relationships between the breasts and the sexual
organs we may easily understand the considerable part which they normally
play in the art of love. As one of the chief secondary sexual characters
in women, and one of her chief beauties, a woman's breasts offer
themselves to the lover's lips with a less intimate attraction than her
mouth only because the mouth is better able to respond. On her side, such
contact is often instinctively desired. Just as the sexual disturbance of
pregnancy is accompanied by a sympathetic disturbance in the breasts, so
the sexual excitement produced by the lover's proximity reacts on the
breasts; the nipple becomes turgid and erect in sympathy with the
clitoris; the woman craves to place her lover in the place of the child,
and experiences a sensation in which these two supreme objects of her
desire are deliciously mingled.
The powerful effect which stimulation of the nipple produces on
the sexual sphere has led to the breasts playing a prominent part
in the erotic art of those lands in which this art has been most
carefully cultivated. Thus in India, according to Vatsyayana,
many authors are of the opinion that in approaching a woman a
lover should begin by sucking the nipples of her breasts, and in
the songs of the Bayaderes of Southern India sucking the nipple
is mentioned as one of the natural preliminaries of coitus.
In some cases, and more especially in neurotic persons, the
sexual pleasure derived from manipulation of the nipple passes
normal limits and, being preferred even to coitus, becomes a
perversion. In girls' schools, it is said, especially in France,
sucking and titillation of the breasts are not uncommon; in men,
also, titillation of the nipples occasionally produces sexual
sensations (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 132).
Hildebrandt recorded the case of a young woman whose nipples had
been sucked by her lover; by constantly drawing her breasts she
became able to suck them herself and thus attained extreme sexual
pleasure. A.J. Bloch, of New Orleans, has noted the case of a
woman who complained of swelling of the breasts; the gentlest
manipulation produced an orgasm, and it was found that the
swelling had been intentionally produced for the sake of this
manipulation. Moraglia in Italy knew a very beautiful woman who
was perfectly cold in normal sexual relationships, but madly
excited when her husband pressed or sucked her breasts. Lombroso
(_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1885, fasc. IV) has described the
somewhat similar case of a woman who had no sexual sensitivity in
the clitoris, vagina, or labia, and no pleasure in coitus except
in very strange positions, but possessed intense sexual feelings
in the right nipple as well as in the upper third of the thigh.
It is remarkable that not only is suckling apt to be accompanied
by sexual pleasure in the mother, but that, in some cases, the
infant also appears to have a somewhat similar experience. This
is, at all events, indicated in a remarkable case recorded by
Féré (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 257). A female
infant child of slightly neurotic heredity was weaned at the age
of 14 months, but so great was her affection for her mother's
breasts, though she had already become accustomed to other food,
that this was only accomplished with great difficulty and by
allowing her still to caress the naked breasts several times a
day. This went on for many months, when the mother, becoming
again pregnant, insisted on putting an end to it. So jealous was
the child, however, that it was necessary to conceal from her the
fact that her younger sister was suckled at her mother's breasts,
and once at the age of 3, when she saw her father aiding her
mother to undress, she became violently jealous of him. This
jealousy, as well as the passion for her mother's breasts,
persisted to the age of puberty, though she learned to conceal
it. At the age of 13, when menstruation began, she noticed in
dancing with her favorite girl friends that when her breasts came
in contact with theirs she experienced a very agreeable
sensation, with erection of the nipples; but it was not till the
age of 16 that she observed that the sexual region took part in
this excitement and became moist. From this period she had erotic
dreams about young girls. She never experienced any attraction
for young men, but eventually married; though having much esteem
and affection for her husband, she never felt any but the
slightest sexual enjoyment in his arms, and then only by evoking
feminine images. This case, in which the sensations of an infant
at the breast formed the point of departure of a sexual
perversion which lasted through life, is, so far as I am aware,
unique.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Jonas Cohn (_Allgemeine Æsthetik_, 1901, p. 11) lays it down that
psychology has nothing to do with good or bad taste. "The distinction
between good and bad taste has no meaning for psychology. On this account,
the fundamental conceptions of æsthetics cannot arise from psychology." It
may be a question whether this view can be accepted quite absolutely.
[18] See Appendix A: "The Origins of the Kiss."
[19] See J.B. Hellier, "On the Nipple Reflex," _British Medical Journal_,
November 7, 1896.
[20] Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 147.
IV.
The Bath--Antagonism of Primitive Christianity to the Cult of the
Skin--Its Cult of Personal Filth--The Reasons which Justified this
Attitude--The World-wide Tendency to Association between Extreme
Cleanliness and Sexual Licentiousness--The Immorality Associated with
Public Baths in Europe down to Modern Times.
The hygiene of the skin, as well as its special cult, consists in bathing.
The bath, as is well known, attained under the Romans a degree of
development which, in Europe at all events, it has never reached before or
since, and the modern visitor to Rome carries away with him no more
impressive memory than that of the Baths of Caracalla. Since the coming of
Christianity the cult of the skin, and even its hygiene, have never again
attained the same general and unquestioned exaltation. The Church killed
the bath. St. Jerome tells us with approval that when the holy Paula noted
that any of her nuns were too careful in this matter she would gravely
reprove them, saying that "the purity of the body and its garments means
the impurity of the soul."[21] Or, as the modern monk of Mount Athos still
declares: "A man should live in dirt as in a coat of mail, so that his
soul may sojourn more securely within."
Our knowledge of the bathing arrangements of Roman days is
chiefly derived from Pompeii. Three public baths (two for both
men and women, who were also probably allowed to use the third
occasionally) have so far been excavated in this small town, as
well as at least three private bathing establishments (at least
one of them for women), while about a dozen houses contain
complete baths for private use. Even in a little farm house at
Boscoreale (two miles out of Pompeii) there was an elaborate
series of bathing rooms. It may be added that Pompeii was well
supplied with water. All houses but the poorest had flowing
jets, and some houses had as many as ten jets. (See Man's
_Pompeii_, Chapters XXVI-XXVIII.)
The Church succeeded to the domination of imperial Rome, and
adopted many of the methods of its predecessor. But there could
be no greater contrast than is presented by the attitude of
Paganism and of Christianity toward the bath.
As regards the tendencies of the public baths in imperial Rome,
some of the evidence is brought together in the section on this
subject in Rosenbaum's _Geschichte der Lustseuche im Alterthume_.
As regards the attitude of the earliest Christian ascetics in
this matter I may refer the reader to an interesting passage in
Lecky's _History of European Morals_ (vol. ii, pp. 107-112), in
which are brought together a number of highly instructive
examples of the manner in which many of the most eminent of the
early saints deliberately cultivated personal filth.
In the middle ages, when the extreme excesses of the early
ascetics had died out, and monasticiam became regulated, monks
generally took two baths a year when in health; in illness they
could be taken as often as necessary. The rules of Cluny only
allowed three towels to the community: one for the novices, one
for the professed, and one for the lay brothers. At the end of
the seventeenth century Madame de Mazarin, having retired to a
convent of Visitandines, one day desired to wash her feet, but
the whole establishment was set in an uproar at such an idea, and
she received a direct refusal. In 1760 the Dominican Richard
wrote that in itself the bath is permissible, but it must be
taken solely for necessity, not for pleasure. The Church taught,
and this lesson is still inculcated in convent schools, that it
is wrong to expose the body even to one's own gaze, and it is not
surprising that many holy persons boasted that they had never
even washed their hands. (Most of these facts have been taken
from A. Franklin, _Les Soins de Toilette_, one of the _Vie Privée
d'Autrefois_ series, in which further details may be found.)
In sixteenth-century Italy, a land of supreme elegance and
fashion, superior even to France, the conditions were the same,
and how little water found favor even with aristocratic ladies we
may gather from the contemporary books on the toilet, which
abound with recipes against itch and similar diseases. It should
be added that Burckhardt (_Die Cultur der Renaissance in
Italien_, eighth edition, volume ii, p. 92) considers that in
spite of skin diseases the Italians of the Renaissance were the
first nation in Europe for cleanliness.
It is unnecessary to consider the state of things in other
European countries. The aristocratic conditions of former days
are the plebeian conditions of to-day. So far as England is
concerned, such documents as Chadwick's _Report on the Sanitary
Condition of the Laboring Population of Great Britain_ (1842)
sufficiently illustrate the ideas and the practices as regards
personal cleanliness which prevailed among the masses during the
nineteenth century and which to a large extent still prevail.
A considerable amount of opprobrium has been cast upon the Catholic Church
for its direct and indirect influence in promoting bodily uncleanliness.
Nietzsche sarcastically refers to the facts, and Mr. Frederick Harrison
asserts that "the tone of the middle ages in the matter of dirt was a form
of mental disease." It would be easy to quote many other authors to the
same effect.
It is necessary to point out, however, that the writers who have committed
themselves to such utterances have not only done an injustice to
Christianity, but have shown a lack of historical insight. Christianity
was essentially and fundamentally a rebellion against the classic world,
against its vices, and against their concomitant virtues, against both its
practices and its ideals. It sprang up in a different part of the
Mediterranean basin, from a different level of culture; it found its
supporters in a new and lower social stratum. The cult of charity,
simplicity, and faith, while not primarily ascetic, became inevitably
allied with asceticism, because from its point of view: sexuality was the
very stronghold of the classic world. In the second century the genius of
Clement of Alexandria and of the great Christian thinkers who followed him
seized on all those elements in classic life and philosophy which could be
amalgamated with Christianity without, as they trusted, destroying its
essence, but in the matter of sexuality there could be no compromise, and
the condemnation of sexuality involved the condemnation of the bath. It
required very little insight and sagacity for the Christians to
see--though we are now apt to slur over the fact--that the cult of the
bath was in very truth the cult of the flesh.[22] However profound their
ignorance of anatomy, physiology, and psychology might be, they had
before them ample evidence to show that the skin is an outlying sexual
zone and that every application which promoted the purity, brilliance, and
healthfulness of the skin constituted a direct appeal, feeble or strong as
the case might be, to those passions against which they were warring. The
moral was evident: better let the temporary garment of your flesh be
soaked with dirt than risk staining the radiant purity of your immortal
soul. If Christianity had not drawn that moral with clear insight and
relentless logic Christianity would never have been a great force in the
world.
If any doubt is felt as to the really essential character of the
connection between cleanliness and the sexual impulse it may be
dispelled by the consideration that the association is by no
means confined to Christian Europe. If we go outside Europe and
even Christendom altogether, to the other side of the world, we
find it still well marked. The wantonness of the luxurious people
of Tahiti when first discovered by European voyagers is
notorious. The Areoi of Tahiti, a society largely constituted on
a basis of debauchery, is a unique institution so far as
primitive peoples are concerned. Cook, after giving one of the
earliest descriptions of this society and its objects at Tahiti
(Hawkesworth, _An Account of Voyages_, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p.
55), immediately goes on to describe the extreme and scrupulous
cleanliness of the people of Tahiti in every respect; they not
only bathed their bodies and clothes every day, but in all
respects they carried cleanliness to a higher point than even
"the politest assembly in Europe." Another traveler bears similar
testimony: "The inhabitants of the Society Isles are, among all
the nations of the South Seas, the most cleanly; and the better
sort of them carry cleanliness to a very great length"; they
bathe morning and evening in the sea, he remarks, and afterward
in fresh water to remove the particles of salt, wash their hands
before and after meals, etc. (J.R. Forster, "_Observations made
during a Voyage round the World_," 1798, p. 398.) And William
Ellis, in his detailed description of the people of Tahiti
(_Polynesian Researches_, 1832, vol. i, especially Chapters VI
and IX), while emphasizing their extreme cleanliness, every
person of every class bathing at least once or twice a day,
dwells on what he considers their unspeakable moral debasement;
"notwithstanding the apparent mildness of their disposition and
the cheerful vivacity of their conversation, no portion of the
human race was ever perhaps sunk lower in brutal licentiousness
and moral degradation."
After leaving Tahiti Cook went on to New Zealand. Here he found
that the people were more virtuous than at Tahiti, and also, he
found, less clean.
It is, however, a mistake to suppose that physical uncleanliness ruled
supreme through mediæval and later times. It is true that the eighteenth
century, which saw the birth of so much that marks our modern world,
witnessed a revival of the old ideal of bodily purity. But the struggle
between two opposing ideals had been carried on for a thousand years or
more before this. The Church, indeed, was in this matter founded on an
impregnable rock. But there never has been a time when influences outside
the Church have not found a shelter somewhere. Those traditions of the
classic world which Christianity threw aside as useless or worse quietly
reappeared. In no respect was this more notably the case than in regard to
the love of pure water and the cult of the bath. Islam adopted the
complete Roman bath, and made it an institution of daily life, a necessity
for all classes. Granada is the spot in Europe where to-day we find the
most exquisite remains of Mohammedan culture, and, though the fury of
Christian conquest dragged the harrow over the soil of Granada, even yet
streams and fountains spring up there and gush abundantly and one seldom
loses the sound of the plash of water. The flower of Christian chivalry
and Christian intelligence went to Palestine to wrest the Holy Sepulchre
from the hands of pagan Mohammedans. They found there many excellent
things which they had not gone out to seek, and the Crusaders produced a
kind of premature and abortive Renaissance, the shadow of lost classic
things reflected on Christian Europe from the mirror of Islam.
Yet it is worth while to point out, as bearing on the
associations of the bath here emphasized, that even in Islam we
may trace the existence of a religious attitude unfavorable to
the bath. Before the time of Mohammed there were no public baths
in Arabia, and it was and is believed that baths are specially
haunted by the djinn--the evil spirits. Mohammed himself was at
first so prejudiced against public baths that he forbade both men
and women to enter them. Afterward, however, he permitted men to
use them provided they wore a cloth round the loins, and women
also when they could not conveniently bathe at home. Among the
Prophet's sayings is found the assertion: "Whatever woman enters
a bath the devil is with her," and "All the earth is given to me
as a place of prayer, and as pure, except the burial ground and
the bath." (See, e.g., E.W. Lane, _Arabian Society in the Middle
Ages_, 1883, pp. 179-183.) Although, therefore, the bath, or
_hammam_, on grounds of ritual ablution, hygiene, and enjoyment
speedily became universally popular in Islam among all classes
and both sexes, Mohammed himself may be said to have opposed it.
Among the discoveries which the Crusaders made and brought home with them
one of the most notable was that of the bath, which in its more elaborate
forms seems to have been absolutely forgotten in Europe, though Roman
baths might everywhere have been found underground. All authorities seem
to be agreed in finding here the origin of the revival of the public bath.
It is to Rome first, and later to Islam, the lineal inheritor of classic
culture, that we owe the cult of water and of physical purity. Even to-day
the Turkish bath, which is the most popular of elaborate methods of
bathing, recalls by its characteristics and its name the fact that it is a
Mohammedan survival of Roman life.
From the twelfth century onward baths have repeatedly been introduced from
the East, and reintroduced afresh in slightly modified forms, and have
flourished with varying degrees of success. In the thirteenth century they
were very common, especially in Paris, and though they were often used,
more especially in Germany, by both sexes in common, every effort was made
to keep them orderly and respectable. These efforts were, however, always
unsuccessful in the end. A bath always tended in the end to become a
brothel, and hence either became unfashionable or was suppressed by the
authorities. It is sufficient to refer to the reputation in England of
"hot-houses" and "bagnios." It was not until toward the end of the
eighteenth century that it began to be recognized that the claims of
physical cleanliness were sufficiently imperative to make it necessary
that the fairly avoidable risks to morality in bathing should be avoided
and the unavoidable risks bravely incurred. At the present day, now that
we are accustomed to weave ingeniously together in the texture of our
lives the conflicting traditions of classic and Christian days, we have
almost persuaded ourselves that the pagan virtue of cleanliness comes next
after godliness, and we bathe, forgetful of the great moral struggle which
once went on around the bath. But we refrain from building ourselves
palaces to bathe in, and for the most part we bathe with exceeding
moderation.[23] It is probable that we may best harmonize our conflicting
traditions by rejecting not only the Christian glorification of dirt, but
also, save for definitely therapeutic purposes, the excessive heat,
friction, and stimulation involved by the classic forms of bathing. Our
reasonable ideal should render it easy and natural for every man, woman,
and child to have a simple bath, tepid in winter, cold in summer, all the
year round.
For the history of the bath in mediæval times and later Europe,
see A. Franklin, _Les Soins de Toilette_, in the _Vie Privée
d'Autrefois_ series; Rudeck, _Geschichte der öffentlichen
Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_; T. Wright, _The Homes of Other
Days_; E. Dühren, _Das Geschlechtsleben in England_, bd. 1.
Outside the Church, there was a greater amount of cleanliness
than we are sometimes apt to suppose. It may, indeed, be said
that the uncleanliness of holy men and women would have attracted
no attention if it had corresponded to the condition generally
prevailing. Before public baths were established bathing in
private was certainly practiced; thus Ordericus Vitalis, in
narrating the murder of Mabel, the Countess de Montgomery, in
Normandy in 1082, casually mentions that she was lying on the bed
after her bath (_Ecclesiastical History_, Book V, Chapter XIII).
In warm weather, it would appear, mediæval ladies bathed in
streams, as we may still see countrywomen do in Russia, Bohemia,
and occasionally nearer home. The statement of the historian
Michelet, therefore, that Percival, Iseult, and the other
ethereal personages of mediæval times "certainly never washed"
(_La Sorcière_, p. 110) requires some qualification.
In 1292 there were twenty-six bathing establishments in Paris,
and an attendant would go through the streets in the morning
announcing that they were ready. One could have a vapor bath only
or a hot bath to succeed it, as in the East. No woman of bad
reputation, leper, or vagabond was at this time allowed to
frequent the baths, which were closed on Sundays and feast-days.
By the fourteenth century, however, the baths began to have a
reputation for immorality, as well as luxury, and, according to
Dufour, the baths of Paris "rivaled those of imperial Rome: love,
prostitution, and debauchery attracted the majority to the
bathing establishments, where everything was covered by a decent
veil." He adds that, notwithstanding the scandal thus caused and
the invectives of preachers, all went to the baths, young and
old, rich and poor, and he makes the statement, which seems to
echo the constant assertion of the early Fathers, that "a woman
who frequented the baths returned home physically pure only at
the expense of her moral purity."
In Germany there was even greater freedom of manners in bathing,
though, it would seem, less real licentiousness. Even the
smallest towns had their baths, which were frequented by all
classes. As soon as the horn blew to announce that the baths were
ready all hastened along the street, the poorer folk almost
completely undressing themselves before leaving their homes.
Bathing was nearly always in common without any garment being
worn, women attendants commonly rubbed and massaged both sexes,
and the dressing room was frequently used by men and women in
common; this led to obvious evils. The Germans, as Weinhold
points out (_Die Deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter_, 1882, bd. ii,
pp. 112 et seq.), have been fond of bathing in the open air in
streams from the days of Tacitus and Cæsar until comparatively
modern times, when the police have interfered. It was the same in
Switzerland. Poggio, early in the sixteenth century, found it the
custom for men and women to bathe together at Baden, and said
that he seemed to be assisting at the _floralia_ of ancient Rome,
or in Plato's Republic. Sénancour, who quotes the passage (_De
l'Amour_, 1834, vol. i, p. 313), remarks that at the beginning of
the nineteenth century there was still great liberty at the Baden
baths.
Of the thirteenth century in England Thomas Wright (_Homes of
Other Days_, 1871, p. 271) remarks: "The practice of warm bathing
prevailed very generally in all classes of society, and is
frequently alluded to in the mediæval romances and stories. For
this purpose a large bathing-tub was used. People sometimes
bathed immediately after rising in the morning, and we find the
bath used after dinner and before going to bed. A bath was also
often prepared for a visitor on his arrival from a journey; and,
what seems still more singular, in the numerous stories of
amorous intrigues the two lovers usually began their interviews
by bathing together."
In England the association between bathing and immorality was
established with special rapidity and thoroughness. Baths were
here officially recognized as brothels, and this as early as the
twelfth century, under Henry II. These organized bath-brothels
were confined to Southwark, outside the walls of the city, a
quarter which was also given up to various sports and amusements.
At a later period, "hot-houses," bagnios, and hummums (the
eastern _hammam_) were spread all over London and remained
closely identified with prostitution, these names, indeed,
constantly tending to become synonymous with brothels. (T.
Wright, _Homes of Other Days_, 1871, pp. 494-496, gives an
account of them.)
In France the baths, being anathematized by both Catholics and
Huguenots, began to lose vogue and disappear. "Morality gained,"
remarks Franklin, "but cleanliness lost." Even the charming and
elegant Margaret of Navarre found it quite natural for a lady to
mention incidentally to her lover that she had not washed her
hands for a week. Then began an extreme tendency to use
cosmetics, essences, perfumes, and a fierce war with vermin, up
to the seventeenth century, when some progress was made, and
persons who desired to be very elegant and refined were
recommended to wash their faces "nearly every day." Even in 1782,
however, while a linen cloth was advised for the purpose of
cleaning the face and hands, the use of water was still somewhat
discountenanced. The use of hot and cold baths was now, however,
beginning to be established in Paris and elsewhere, and the
bathing establishments at the great European health resorts were
also beginning to be put on the orderly footing which is now
customary. When Casanova, in the middle of the eighteenth
century, went to the public baths at Berne he was evidently
somewhat surprised when he found that he was invited to choose
his own attendant from a number of young women, and when he
realized that these attendants were, in all respects, at the
disposition of the bathers. It is evident that establishments of
this kind were then already dying out, although it may be added
that the customs described by Casanova appear to have persisted
in Budapest and St. Petersburg almost or quite up to the present.
The great European public baths have long been above suspicion in
this respect (though homosexual practices are not quite
excluded), while it is well recognized that many kinds of hot
baths now in use produce a powerfully stimulating action upon the
sexual system, and patients taking such baths for medical
purposes are frequently warned against giving way to these
influences.
The struggle which in former ages went on around bathing
establishments has now been in part transferred to massage
establishments. Massage is an equally powerful stimulant to the
skin and the sexual sphere,--acting mainly by friction instead of
mainly by heat,--and it has not yet attained that position of
general recognition and popularity which, in the case of bathing
establishments, renders it bad policy to court disrepute.
Like bathing, massage is a hygienic and therapeutic method of
influencing the skin and subjacent tissues which, together with
its advantages, has certain concomitant disadvantages in its
liability to affect the sexual sphere. This influence is apt to
be experienced by individuals of both sexes, though it is perhaps
specially marked in women. Jouin (quoted in Paris _Journal de
Médecine_, April 23, 1893) found that of 20 women treated by
massage, of whom he made inquiries, 14 declared that they
experienced voluptuous sensations; 8 of these belonged to
respectable families; the other 6 were women of the _demimonde_
and gave precise details; Jouin refers in this connection to the
_aliptes_ of Rome. It is unnecessary to add that the
gynæcological massage introduced in recent years by the Swedish
teacher of gymnastics, Thure-Brandt, as involving prolonged
rubbing and kneading of the pelvic regions, "_pression glissante
du vagin_" etc. (_Massage Gynécologique_, by G. de Frumerie,
1897), whatever its therapeutic value, cannot fail in a large
proportion of cases to stimulate the sexual emotions. (Eulenburg
remarks that for sexual anæsthesia in women the Thure-Brandt
system of massage may "naturally" be recommended, _Sexuale
Neuropathie_, p. 78.) I have been informed that in London and
elsewhere massage establishments are sometimes visited by women
who seek sexual gratification by massage of the genital regions
by the _masseuse_.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] "_Dicens munditiam corporis atque vestitus animæ esse
immunditiam_"--St. Jerome, _Ad Eustochium Virginem_.
[22] With regard to the physiological mechanism by which bathing produces
its tonic and stimulating effects Woods Hutchinson has an interesting
discussion (Chapter VII) in his _Studies in Human and Comparative
Pathology_.
[23] Thus among the young women admitted to the Chicago Normal School to
be trained as teachers, Miss Lura Sanborn, the director of physical
training, states (_Doctor's Magazine_, December, 1900) that a bath once a
fortnight is found to be not unusual.
V.
Summary--Fundamental Importance of Touch--The Skin the Mother of All the
Other Senses.
The sense of touch is so universally diffused over the whole skin, and in
so many various degrees and modifications, and it is, moreover, so truly
the Alpha and the Omega of affection, that a broken and fragmentary
treatment of the subject has been inevitable.
The skin is the archæological field of human and prehuman experience, the
foundation on which all forms of sensory perception have grown up, and as
sexual sensibility is among the most ancient of all forms of sensibility,
the sexual instinct is necessarily, in the main, a comparatively slightly
modified form of general touch sensibility. This primitive character of
the great region of tactile sensation, its vagueness and diffusion, the
comparatively unintellectual as well as unæsthetic nature of the mental
conceptions which arise on the tactile basis make it difficult to deal
precisely with the psychology of touch. The very same qualities, however,
serve greatly to heighten the emotional intensity of skin sensations. So
that, of all the great sensory fields, the field of touch is at once the
least intellectual and the most massively emotional. These qualities, as
well as its intimate and primitive association with the apparatus of
tumescence and detumescence, make touch the readiest and most powerful
channel by which the sexual sphere may be reached.
In disentangling the phenomena of tactile sensibility ticklishness has
been selected for special consideration as a kind of sensation, founded on
reflexes developing even before birth, which is very closely related to
sexual phenomena. It is, as it were, a play of tumescence, on which
laughter supervenes as a play of detumescence. It leads on to the more
serious phenomena of tumescence, and it tends to die out after
adolescence, at the period during which sexual relationships normally
begin. Such a view of ticklishness, as a kind of modesty of the skin,
existing merely to be destroyed, need only be regarded as one of its
aspects. Ticklishness certainly arose from a non-sexual starting-point,
and may well have protective uses in the young animal.
The readiness with which tactile sensibility takes on a sexual character
and forms reflex channels of communication with the sexual sphere proper
is illustrated by the existence of certain secondary sexual foci only
inferior in sexual excitability to the genital region. We have seen that
the chief of these normal foci are situated in the orificial regions where
skin and mucous membrane meet, and that the contact of any two orificial
regions between two persons of different sex brought together under
favorable conditions is apt, when prolonged, to produce a very intense
degree of sexual erethism. This is a normal phenomenon in so far as it is
a part of tumescence, and not a method of obtaining detumescence. The kiss
is a typical example of these contacts, while the nipple is of special
interest in this connection, because we are thereby enabled to bring the
psychology of lactation into intimate relationship with the psychology of
sexual love.
The extreme sensitiveness of the skin, the readiness with which its
stimulation reverberates into the sexual sphere, clearly brought out by
the present study, enable us to understand better a very ancient
contest--the moral struggle around the bath. There has always been a
tendency for the extreme cultivation of physical purity to lead on to the
excessive stimulation of the sexual sphere; so that the Christian ascetics
were entirely justified, on their premises, in fighting against the bath
and in directly or indirectly fostering a cult of physical uncleanliness.
While, however, in the past there has clearly been a general tendency for
the cult of physical purity to be associated with moral licentiousness,
and there are sufficient grounds for such an association, it is important
to remember that it is not an inevitable and fatal association; a
scrupulously clean person is by no means necessarily impelled to
licentiousness; a physically unclean person is by no means necessarily
morally pure. When we have eliminated certain forms of the bath which must
be regarded as luxuries rather than hygienic necessities, though they
occasionally possess therapeutic virtues, we have eliminated the most
violent appeals of the bath to the sexual impulse. So imperative are the
demands of physical purity now becoming, in general opinion, that such
small risks to moral purity as may still remain are constantly and wisely
disregarded, and the immoral traditions of the bath now, for the most
part, belong to the past.
SMELL.
I.
The Primitiveness of Smell--The Anatomical Seat of the Olfactory
Centres--Predominance of Smell among the Lower Mammals--Its Diminished
Importance in Man--The Attention Paid to Odors by Savages.
The first more highly organized sense to arise on the diffused tactile
sensitivity of the skin is, in most cases, without doubt that of smell. At
first, indeed, olfactory sensibility is not clearly differentiated from
general tactile sensibility; the pit of thickened and ciliated epithelium
or the highly mobile antennæ which in many lower animals are sensitive to
odorous stimuli are also extremely sensitive to tactile stimuli; this is,
for instance, the case with the snail, in whom at the same time olfactive
sensibility seems to be spread over the whole body.[24] The sense of smell
is gradually specialized, and when taste also begins to develop a kind of
chemical sense is constituted. The organ of smell, however, speedily
begins to rise in importance as we ascend the zoölogical scale. In the
lower vertebrates, when they began to adopt a life on dry land, the sense
of smell seems to have been that part of their sensory equipment which
proved most useful under the new conditions, and it developed with
astonishing rapidity. Edinger finds that in the brain of reptiles the
"area olfactoria" is of enormous extent, covering, indeed, the greater
part of the cortex, though it may be quite true, as Herrick remarks, that,
while smell is preponderant, it is perhaps not correct to attribute an
exclusively olfactory tone to the cerebral activities of the _Sauropsida_
or even the _Ichthyopsida_. Among most mammals, however, in any case,
smell is certainly the most highly developed of the senses; it gives the
first information of remote objects that concern them; it gives the most
precise information concerning the near objects that concern them; it is
the sense in terms of which most of their mental operations must be
conducted and their emotional impulses reach consciousness. Among the apes
it has greatly lost importance and in man it has become almost
rudimentary, giving place to the supremacy of vision.
Prof. G. Elliot Smith, a leading authority on the brain, has well
summarized the facts concerning the predominance of the olfactory
region in the mammal brain, and his conclusions may be quoted. It
should be premised that Elliot Smith divides the brain into
rhinencephalon and neopallium. Rhinencephalon designates the
regions which are pre-eminently olfactory in function: the
olfactory bulb, its peduncle, the tuberculum olfactorium and
locus perforatus, the pyriform lobe, the paraterminal body, and
the whole hippocampal formation. The neopallium is the dorsal cap
of the brain, with frontal, parietal, and occipital areas,
comprehending all that part of the brain which is the seat of the
higher associative activities, reaching its fullest development
in man.
"In the early mammals the olfactory areas form by far the greater
part of the cerebral hemisphere, which is not surprising when it
is recalled that the forebrain is, in the primitive brain,
essentially an appendage, so to speak, of the smell apparatus.
When the cerebral hemisphere comes to occupy such a dominant
position in the brain it is perhaps not unnatural to find that
the sense of smell is the most influential and the chief source
of information to the animal; or, perhaps, it would be more
accurate to say that the olfactory sense, which conveys general
information to the animal such as no other sense can bring
concerning its prey (whether near or far, hidden or exposed), is
much the most serviceable of all the avenues of information to
the lowly mammal leading a terrestrial life, and therefore
becomes predominant; and its particular domain--the
forebrain--becomes the ruling portion of the nervous system.
"This early predominance of the sense of smell persists in most
mammals (unless an aquatic mode of life interferes and deposes
it: compare the _Cetacea, Sirenia_, and _Pinnipedia_, for
example) even though a large neopallium develops to receive
visual, auditory, tactile, and other impressions pouring into the
forebrain. In the _Anthropoidea_ alone of nonaquatic mammals the
olfactory regions undergo an absolute (and not only relative, as
in the _Carnivora_ and _Ungulata_) dwindling, which is equally
shared by the human brain, in common with those of the other
_Simiidæ_, the _Cercopithecidæ_, and the _Cebidæ_. But all the
parts of the rhinencephalon, which are so distinct in macrosmatic
mammals, can also be recognized in the human brain. The small
ellipsoidal olfactory bulb is moored, so to speak, on the
cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone by the olfactory nerves; so
that, as the place of attachment of the olfactory peduncle to the
expanding cerebral hemisphere becomes removed (as a result of the
forward extension of the hemisphere) progressively farther and
farther backward, the peduncle becomes greatly stretched and
elongated. And, as this stretching involves the gray matter
without lessening the number of nerve-fibres in the olfactory
tract, the peduncle becomes practically what it is usually
called--i.e., the olfactory 'tract.' The tuberculum olfactorium
becomes greatly reduced and at the same time flattened; so that
it is not easy to draw a line of demarcation between it and the
anterior perforated space. The anterior rhinal fissure, which is
present in the early human foetus, vanishes (almost, if not
altogether) in the adult. Part of the posterior rhinal fissure is
always present in the 'incisura temporalis,' and sometimes,
especially in some of the non-European races, the whole of the
posterior rhinal fissure is retained in that typical form which
we find in the anthropoid apes." (G. Elliot Smith, in
_Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Physiological
Series of Comparative Anatomy Contained in the Museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons of England_, second edition, vol. ii.)
A full statement of Elliot Smith's investigations, with diagrams,
is given by Bullen, _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1899. It
may be added that the whole subject of the olfactory centres has
been thoroughly studied by Elliot Smith, as well as by Edinger,
Mayer, and C.L. Herrick. In the _Journal of Comparative
Neurology_, edited by the last named, numerous discussions and
summaries bearing on the subject will be found from 1896 onward.
Regarding the primitive sense-organs of smell in the various
invertebrate groups some information will be found in A.B.
Griffiths's _Physiology of the Invertebrata_, Chapter XI.
The predominance of the olfactory area in the nervous system of the
vertebrates generally has inevitably involved intimate psychic
associations between olfactory stimuli and the sexual impulse. For most
mammals not only are all sexual associations mainly olfactory, but the
impressions received by this sense suffice to dominate all others. An
animal not only receives adequate sexual excitement from olfactory
stimuli, but those stimuli often suffice to counterbalance all the
evidence of the other senses.
We may observe this very well in the case of the dog. Thus, a
young dog, well known to me, who had never had connection with a
bitch, but was always in the society of its father, once met the
latter directly after the elder dog had been with a bitch. He
immediately endeavored to behave toward the elder dog, in spite
of angry repulses, exactly as a dog behaves toward a bitch in
heat. The messages received by the sense of smell were
sufficiently urgent not only to set the sexual mechanism in
action, but to overcome the experiences of a lifetime. There is
an interesting chapter on the sense of smell in the mental life
of the dog in Giessler's _Psychologie des Geruches_, 1894,
Chapter XI, Passy (in the appendix to his memoir on olfaction,
_L'Année Psychologique_, 1895) gives the result of some
interesting experiments as to the effects of perfume on dogs;
civet and castoreum were found to have the most powerfully
exciting effect.
The influences of smell are equally omnipotent in the sexual life
of many insects. Thus, Féré has found that in cockchafers sexual
coupling failed to take place when the antennæ, which are the
organs of smell, were removed; he also found that males, after
they had coupled with females, proved sexually attractive to
other males (_Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie_, May 21,
1898). Féré similarly found that, in a species of _Bombyx_, males
after contact with females sometimes proved attractive to other
males, although no abnormal relationships followed. (_Soc. de
Biol_, July 30, 1898.)
With the advent of the higher apes, and especially of man, all this has
been changed. The sense of smell, indeed, still persists universally and
it is still also exceedingly delicate, though often neglected.[25] It is,
moreover, a useful auxiliary in the exploration of the external world,
for, in contrast to the very few sensations furnished to us by touch and
by taste, we are acquainted with a vast number of smells, though the
information they give us is frequently vague. An experienced perfumer,
says Piesse, will have two hundred odors in his laboratory and can
distinguish them all. To a sensitive nose nearly everything smells. Passy
goes so far as to state that he has "never met with any object that is
really inodorous when one pays attention to it, not even excepting glass,"
and, though we can scarcely accept this statement absolutely,--especially
in view of the careful experiments of Ayrton, which show that, contrary
to a common belief, metals when perfectly clean and free from traces of
contact with the skin or with salt solutions have no smell,--odor is still
extremely widely diffused. This is especially the case in hot countries,
and the experiments of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition on the
sense of smell of the Papuans were considerably impeded by the fact that
at Torres Straits everything, even water, seemed to have a smell. Savages
are often accused more or less justly of indifference to bad odors. They
are very often, however, keenly alive to the significance of smells and
their varieties, though it does not appear that the sense of smell is
notably more developed in savage than in civilized peoples. Odors also
continue to play a part in the emotional life of man, more especially in
hot countries. Nevertheless both in practical life and in emotional life,
in science and in art, smell is, at the best, under normal conditions,
merely an auxiliary. If the sense of smell were abolished altogether the
life of mankind would continue as before, with little or no sensible
modification, though the pleasures of life, and especially of eating and
drinking, would be to some extent diminished.
In New Ireland, Duffield remarks (_Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, 1886, p. 118), the natives have a very keen sense of
smell; unusual odors are repulsive to them, and "carbolic acid
drove them wild."
The New Caledonians, according to Foley (_Bulletin de la Société
d'Anthropologie_, November 6, 1879), only like the smells of meat
and fish which are becoming "high," like _popoya_, which smells
of fowl manure, and _kava_, of rotten eggs. Fruits and vegetables
which are beginning to go bad seem the best to them, while the
fresh and natural odors which we prefer seem merely to say to
them: "We are not yet eatable." (A taste for putrefying food,
common among savages, by no means necessarily involves a distaste
for agreeable scents, and even among Europeans there is a
widespread taste for offensively smelling and putrid foods,
especially cheese and game.)
The natives of Torres Straits were carefully examined by Dr. C.S.
Myers with regard to their olfactory acuteness and olfactory
preferences. It was found that acuteness was, if anything,
slightly greater than among Europeans. This appeared to be
largely due to the careful attention they pay to odors. The
resemblances which they detected among different odorous
substances were frequently found to rest on real chemical
affinities. The odors they were observed to dislike most
frequently were asafoetida, valerianic acid, and civet, the last
being regarded as most repulsive of all on account of its
resemblance to fæcal odor, which these people regard with intense
disgust. Their favorite odors were musk, thyme, and especially
violet. (_Report of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to
Torres Straits_, vol. ii, Part II, 1903.)
In Australia Lumholtz (_Among Cannibals_, p. 115) found that the
blacks had a keener sense of smell than he possessed.
In New Zealand the Maoris, as W. Colenso shows, possessed,
formerly at all events, a very keen sense of smell or else were
very attentive to smell, and their taste as regarded agreeable
and disagreeable odors corresponded very closely to European
taste, although it must be added that some of their common
articles of food possessed a very offensive odor. They are not
only sensitive to European perfumes, but possessed various
perfumes of their own, derived from plants and possessing a
pleasant, powerful, and lasting odor; the choicest and rarest was
the gum of the _taramea_ (_Aciphylla Colensoi_), which was
gathered by virgins after the use of prayers and charms. Sir
Joseph Banks noted that Maori chiefs wore little bundles of
perfumes around their necks, and Cook made the same observation
concerning the young women. References to the four chief Maori
perfumes are contained in a stanza which is still often hummed to
express satisfaction, and sung by a mother to her child:--
"My little neck-satchel of sweet-scented moss,
My little neck-satchel of fragrant fern,
My little neck-satchel of odoriferous gum,
My sweet-smelling neck-locket of sharp-pointed _taramea_."
In the summer season the sleeping houses of Maori chiefs were
often strewed with a large, sweet-scented, flowering grass of
powerful odor. (W. Colenso, _Transactions of the New Zealand
Institute_, vol. xxiv, reprinted in _Nature_, November 10, 1892.)
Javanese women rub themselves with a mixture of chalk and strong
essence which, when rubbed off, leaves a distinct perfume on the
body. (Stratz, _Die Frauenkleidung_, p. 84.)
The Samoans, Friedländer states (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_,
1899, p. 52), are very fond of fragrant and aromatic odors. He
gives a list of some twenty odorous plants which they use, more
especially as garlands for the head and neck, including
ylang-ylang and gardenia; he remarks that of one of these plants
(cordyline) he could not himself detect the odor.
The Nicobarese, Man remarks (_Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, 1889, p. 377), like the natives of New Zealand,
particularly dislike the smell of carbolic acid. Both young men
and women are very partial to scents; the former say they find
their use a certain passport to the favor of their wives, and
they bring home from the jungle the scented leaves of a certain
creeper to their sweethearts and wives.
Swahili women devote much attention to perfuming themselves. When
a woman wishes to make herself desirable she anoints herself all
over with fragrant ointments, sprinkles herself with rose-water,
puts perfume into her clothes, strews jasmine flowers on her bed
as well as binding them round her neck and waist, and smokes
_ûdi_, the perfumed wood of the aloe; "every man is glad when his
wife smells of _ûdi_" (Velten, _Sitten und Gebraüche der
Suaheli_, pp. 212-214).
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Emile Yung, "Le Sens Olfactif de l'Escargot (Helix Pomata),"
_Archives de Psychologie_, November, 1903.
[25] The sensitiveness of smell in man generally exceeds that of chemical
reaction or even of spectral analysis; see Passy, _L'Année Psychologique_,
second year, 1895, p. 380.
II.
Rise of the Study of Olfaction--Cloquet--Zwaardemaker--The Theory of
Smell--The Classification of Odors--The Special Characteristics of
Olfactory Sensation in Man--Smell as the Sense of Imagination--Odors as
Nervous Stimulants--Vasomotor and Muscular Effects--Odorous Substances as
Drugs.
During the eighteenth century a great impetus was given to the
physiological and psychological study of the senses by the philosophical
doctrines of Locke and the English school generally which then prevailed
in Europe. These thinkers had emphasized the immense importance of the
information derived through the senses in building up the intellect, so
that the study of all the sensory channels assumed a significance which it
had never possessed before. The olfactory sense fully shared in the
impetus thus given to sensory investigation. At the beginning of the
nineteenth century a distinguished French physician, Hippolyte Cloquet, a
disciple of Cabanis, devoted himself more especially to this subject.
After publishing in 1815 a preliminary work, he issued in 1821 his
_Osphrésiologie, ou Traité des odeurs, du sens et des organes de
l'Olfaction_, a complete monograph on the anatomy, physiology, psychology,
and pathology of the olfactory organ and its functions, and a work that
may still be consulted with profit, if indeed it can even yet be said to
be at every point superseded. After Cloquet's time the study of the sense
of smell seems to have fallen into some degree of discredit. For more than
half a century no important progress was made in this field. Serious
investigators seemed to have become shy of the primitive senses generally,
and the subject of smell was mainly left to those interested in "curious"
subjects. Many interesting observations were, however, incidentally made;
thus Laycock, who was a pioneer in so many by-paths of psychology and
anthropology, showed a special interest in the olfactory sense, and
frequently touched on it in his _Nervous Diseases of Women_ and
elsewhere. The writer who more than any other has in recent years restored
the study of the sense of smell from a by-path to its proper position as a
highway for investigation is without doubt Professor Zwaardemaker, of
Utrecht. The invention of his first olfactometer in 1888 and the
appearance in 1895 of his great work _Die Physiologie des Geruchs_ have
served to give the physiology of the sense of smell an assured status and
to open the way anew for much fruitful investigation, while a number of
inquirers in many countries have had their attention directed to the
elucidation of this sense.
Notwithstanding, however, the amount of work which has been done in this
field during recent years, it cannot be said that the body of assured
conclusions so far reached is large. The most fundamental principles of
olfactory physiology and psychology are still somewhat vague and
uncertain. Although sensations of smell are numerous and varied, in this
respect approaching the sensations of vision and hearing, smell still
remains close to touch in the vagueness of its messages (while the most
sensitive of the senses, remarks Passy, it is the least precise), the
difficulty of classifying them, the impossibility of so controlling them
as to found upon them any art. It seems better, therefore, not to attempt
to force the present study of a special aspect of olfaction into any
general scheme which may possibly not be really valid.
The earliest and most general tendency in regard to the theory of
smell was to regard it as a kind of chemical sense directly
stimulated by minute particles of solid substance. A vibratory
theory of smell, however, making it somewhat analogous to
hearing, easily presents itself. When I first began the study of
physiology in 1881, a speculation of this kind presented itself
to my mind. Long before Philipp von Walther, a professor at
Landshut, had put forward a dynamic theory of olfaction
(_Physiologie des Menschen_, 1807-8, vol. ii, p. 278). "It is a
purely dynamic operation of the odorous substance in the
olfactory organ," he stated. Odor is conveyed by the air, he
believed, in the same way as heat. It must be added that his
reasons for this theory will not always bear examination. More
recently a similar theory has been seriously put forward in
various quarters. Sir William Ramsay tentatively suggested such a
theory (_Nature_, vol. xxv, p. 187) in analogy with light and
sound. Haycraft (_Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_,
1883-87, and _Brain_, 1887-88), largely starting from
Mendelieff's law of periodicity, similarly sought to bring smell
into line with the higher senses, arguing that molecules with the
same vibration have the same smell. Rutherford (_Nature_, August
11, 1892, p. 343), attaching importance to the evidence brought
forward by von Brunn showing that the olfactory cells terminate
in very delicate short hairs, also stated his belief that the
different qualities of smell result from differences in the
frequency and form of the vibrations initiated by the action of
the chemical molecules on these olfactory cells, though he
admitted that such a conception involved a very subtle conception
of molecular vibration. Vaschide and Van Melle (Paris Academy of
Sciences, December 26, 1899) have, again, argued that smell is
produced by rays of short wave-lengths, analogous to light-rays,
Röntgen rays, etc. Chemical action is however, a very important
factor in the production of odors; this has been well shown by
Ayrton (_Nature_, September 8, 1898). We seem to be forced in the
direction of a chemico-vibratory theory, as pointed out by
Southerden (_Nature_, March 26, 1903), the olfactory cells being
directly stimulated, not by the ordinary vibrations of the
molecules, but by the agitations accompanying chemical changes.
The vibratory hypothesis of the action of odors has had some
influence on the recent physiologists who have chiefly occupied
themselves with olfaction. "It is probable," Zwaardemaker writes
(_L'Année Psychologique_, 1898), "that aroma is a
physico-chemical attribute of the molecules"; he points out that
there is an intimate analogy between color and odor, and remarks
that this analogy leads us to suppose in an aroma ether
vibrations of which the period is determined by the structure of
the molecule.
Since the physiology of olfaction is yet so obscure it is not
surprising that we have no thoroughly scientific classification
of smells, notwithstanding various ambitious attempts to reach a
classification. The classification adopted by Zwaardemaker is
founded on the ancient scheme of Linnæus, and may here be
reproduced:--
I. Ethereal odors (chiefly esters; Rimmel's fruity series).
II. Aromatic odors (terpenes, camphors, and the spicy,
herbaceous, rosaceous, and almond series; the chemical types are
well determined: cineol, eugenol, anethol, geraniol,
benzaldehyde).
III. The balsamic odors (chiefly aldehydes, Rimmel's jasmin,
violet, and balsamic series, with the chemical types: terpineol,
ionone, vanillin).
IV. The ambrosiacal odors (ambergris and musk).
V. The alliaceous odors, with the cacodylic group (asafoetida,
ichthyol, etc.).
VI. Empyreumatic odors.
VII. Valerianaceous odors (Linnæus's _Odores hircini_, the capryl
group, largely composed of sexual odors).
VIII. Narcotic odors (Linnæus's _Odores tetri_).
IX. Stenches.
A valuable and interesting memoir, "Revue Générale sur les
Sensations Olfactives," by J. Passy, the chief French authority
on this subject, will be found in the second volume of _L'Année
Psychologique_, 1895. In the fifth issue of the same year-book
(for 1898) Zwaardemaker presents a full summary of his work and
views, "Les Sensations Olfactives, leurs Combinaisons et leurs
Compensations." A convenient, but less authoritative, summary of
the facts of normal and pathological olfaction will be found in a
little volume of the "Actualités Médicales" series by Dr. Collet,
_L'Odorat et ses Troubles_, 1904. In a little book entitled
_Wegweiser zu einer Psychologie des Geruches_ (1894) Giessler has
sought to outline a psychology of smell, but his sketch can only
be regarded as tentative and provisional.
At the outset, nevertheless, it seems desirable that we should at least
have some conception of the special characteristics which mark the great
and varied mass of sensations reaching the brain through the channel of
the olfactory organ. The main special character of olfactory images seems
to be conditioned by the fact that they are intermediate in character
between those of touch or taste and those of sight or sound, that they
have much of the vagueness of the first and something of the richness and
variety of the second. Æsthetically, also, they occupy an intermediate
position between the higher and the lower senses.[26] They are, at the
same time, less practically useful than either the lower or the higher
senses. They furnish us with a great mass of what we may call
by-sensations, which are of little practical use, but inevitably become
intimately mixed with the experiences of life by association and thus
acquire an emotional significance which is often very considerable. Their
emotional force, it may well be, is connected with the fact that their
anatomical seat is the most ancient part of the brain. They lie in a
remote almost disused storehouse of our minds and show the fascination or
the repulsiveness of all vague and remote things. It is for this reason
that they are--to an extent that is remarkable when we consider that they
are much more precise than touch sensations--subject to the influence of
emotional associations. The very same odor may be at one moment highly
pleasant, at the next moment highly unpleasant, in accordance with the
emotional attitude resulting from its associations. Visual images have no
such extreme flexibility; they are too definite to be so easily
influenced. Our feelings about the beauty of a flower cannot oscillate so
easily or so far as may our feelings about the agreeableness of its odor.
Our olfactory experiences thus institute a more or less continuous series
of by-sensations accompanying us through life, of no great practical
significance, but of considerable emotional significance from their
variety, their intimacy, their associational facility, their remote
ancestral reverberations through our brains.
It is the existence of these characteristics--at once so vague and so
specific, so useless and so intimate--which led various writers to
describe the sense of smell as, above all others, the sense of
imagination. No sense has so strong a power of suggestion, the power of
calling up ancient memories with a wider and deeper emotional
reverberation, while at the same time no sense furnishes impressions which
so easily change emotional color and tone, in harmony with the recipient's
general attitude. Odors are thus specially apt both to control the
emotional life and to become its slaves. With the use of incense religions
have utilized the imaginative and symbolical virtues of fragrance. All the
legends of the saints have insisted on the odor of sanctity that exhales
from the bodies of holy persons, especially at the moment of death. Under
the conditions of civilization these primitive emotional associations of
odor tend to be dispersed, but, on the other hand, the imaginative side of
the olfactory sense becomes accentuated, and personal idiosyncrasies of
all kinds tend to manifest themselves in the sphere of smell.
Rousseau (in _Emile_, Bk. II) regarded smell as the sense of the
imagination. So, also, at an earlier period, it was termed
(according to Cloquet) by Cardano. Cloquet frequently insisted on
the qualities of odors which cause them to appeal to the
imagination; on their irregular and inconstant character; on
their power of intoxicating the mind on some occasions; on the
curious individual and racial preferences in the matter of odors.
He remarked on the fact that the Persians employed asafoetida as
a seasoning, while valerian was accounted a perfume in antiquity.
(Cloquet, _Osphrésiologie_, pp. 28, 45, 71, 112.) It may be
added, as a curious example familiar to most people of the
dependence of the emotional tone of a smell on its associations,
that, while the exhalations of other people's bodies are
ordinarily disagreeable to us, such is not the case with our own;
this is expressed in the crude and vigorous dictum of the
Elizabethan poet, Marston, "Every man's dung smell sweet i' his
own nose." There are doubtless many implications, moral as well
as psychological, in that statement.
The modern authorities on olfaction, Passy and Zwaardemaker, both
alike insist on the same characteristics of the sense of smell:
its extreme acuity and yet its vagueness. "We live in a world of
odor," Zwaardemaker remarks (_L'Année Psychologique_, 1898, p.
203), "as we live in a world of light and of sound. But smell
yields us no distinct ideas grouped in regular order, still less
that are fixed in the memory as a grammatical discipline.
Olfactory sensations awake vague and half-understood perceptions,
which are accompanied by very strong emotion. The emotion
dominates us, but the sensation which was the cause of it remains
unperceived." Even in the same individual there are wide
variations in the sensitiveness to odors at different times, more
especially as regards faint odors; Passy (_L'Année
Psychologique_, 1895, p. 387) brings forward some observations on
this point.
Maudsley noted the peculiarly suggestive power of odors; "there
are certain smells," he remarked, "which never fail to bring back
to me instantly and visibly scenes of my boyhood"; many of us
could probably say the same. Another writer (E. Dillon, "A
Neglected Sense," _Nineteenth Century_, April, 1894) remarks that
"no sense has a stronger power of suggestion."
Ribot has made an interesting investigation as to the prevalence
and nature of the emotional memory of odors (_Psychology of the
Emotions_, Chapter XI). By "emotional memory" is meant the
spontaneous or voluntary revivability of the image, olfactory or
other. (For the general question, see an article by F. Pillon,
"La Mémoire Affective, son Importance Théorique et Pratique,"
_Revue Philosophique_, February, 1901; also Paulhan, "Sur la
Mémoire Affective," _Revue Philosophique_, December, 1902 and
January, 1903.) Ribot found that 40 per cent. of persons are
unable to revive any such images of taste or smell; 48 per cent,
could revive some; 12 per cent, declared themselves capable of
reviving all, or nearly all, at pleasure. In some persons there
is no necessary accompanying revival of visual or tactile
representations, but in the majority the revived odor ultimately
excites a corresponding visual image. The odors most frequently
recalled were pinks, musk, violets, heliotrope, carbolic acid,
the smell of the country, of grass, etc. Piéron (_Revue
Philosophique_, December, 1902) has described the special power
possessed by vague odors, in his own case, of evoking ancient
impressions.
Dr. J.N. Mackenzie (_American Journal of the Medical Sciences_,
January, 1886) considers that civilization exerts an influence in
heightening or encouraging the influence of olfaction as it
affects our emotions and judgment, and that, in the same way, as
we ascend the social scale the more readily our minds are
influenced and perhaps perverted by impressions received through
the sense of smell.
Odors are powerful stimulants to the whole nervous system, causing, like
other stimulants, an increase of energy which, if excessive or prolonged,
leads to nervous exhaustion. Thus, it is well recognized in medicine that
the aromatics containing volatile oils (such as anise, cinnamon,
cardamoms, cloves, coriander, and peppermint) are antispasmodics and
anæsthetics, and that they stimulate digestion, circulation, and the
nervous system, in large doses producing depression. The carefully
arranged plethysmographic experiments of Shields, at the Johns Hopkins
University, have shown that olfactory sensations, by their action on the
vasomotor system, cause an increase of blood in the brain and sometimes in
addition stimulation of the heart; musk, wintergreen, wood violet, and
especially heliotrope were found to act strongly in these ways.[27]
Féré's experiments with the dynamometer and the ergograph have greatly
contributed to illustrate the stimulating effects of odors. Thus, he found
that smelling musk suffices to double muscular effort. With a number of
odorous substances he has found that muscular work is temporarily
heightened; when taste stimulation was added the increase of energy,
notably when using lemon was "colossal." A kind of "sensorial
intoxication" could be produced by the inhalation of odors and the whole
system stimulated to greater activity; the visual acuity was increased,
and electric and general excitability heightened.[28] Such effects may be
obtained in perfectly healthy persons, though both Shields and Féré have
found that in highly nervous persons the effects are liable to be much
greater. It is doubtless on this account that it is among civilized
peoples that attention is chiefly directed to perfumes, and that under the
conditions of modern life the interest in olfaction and its study has been
revived.
It is the genuinely stimulant qualities of odorous substances which led to
the widespread use of the more potent among them by ancient physicians,
and has led a few modern physicians to employ them still. Thus, vanilla,
according to Eloy, deserves to be much more frequently used
therapeutically than it is, on account of its excitomotor properties; he
states that its qualities as an excitant of sexual desire have long been
recognized and that Fonssagrives used to prescribe it for sexual
frigidity.[29]
FOOTNOTES:
[26] The opinions of psychologists concerning the æsthetic significance of
smell, not on the whole very favorable, are brought together and discussed
by J.V. Volkelt, "Der Æsthetische Wert der niederen Sinne," _Zeitschrift
für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane_, 1902, ht. 3.
[27] T.E. Shields, "The Effect of Odors, etc., upon the Blood-flow,"
_Journal of Experimental Medicine_, vol. i, November, 1896. In France, O.
Henry and Tardif have made somewhat similar experiments on respiration and
circulation. See the latter's _Les Odeurs et les Parfums_, Chapter III.
[28] Féré, _Sensation et Mouvement_, Chapter VI; ib., _Comptes Rendus de
la Société de Biologie_, November 3, December 15 and 22, 1900.
[29] Eloy, art. "Vanille," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences
Médicales_.
III.
The Specific Body Odors of Various Peoples--The Negro, etc.--The
European--The Ability to Distinguish Individuals by Smell--The Odor of
Sanctity--The Odor of Death--The Odors of Different Parts of the Body--The
Appearance of Specific Odors at Puberty--The Odors of Sexual
Excitement--The Odors of Menstruation--Body Odors as a Secondary Sexual
Character--The Custom of Salutation by Smell--The Kiss--Sexual Selection
by Smell--The Alleged Association between Size of Nose and Sexual
Vigor--The Probably Intimate Relationship between the Olfactory and
Genital Spheres--Reflex Influences from the Nose--Reflex Influences from
the Genital Sphere--Olfactory Hallucinations in Insanity as Related to
Sexual States--The Olfactive Type--The Sense of Smell in Neurasthenic and
Allied States--In Certain Poets and Novelists--Olfactory Fetichism--The
Part Played by Olfaction in Normal Sexual Attraction--In the East,
etc.--In Modern Europe--The Odor of the Armpit and its Variations--As a
Sexual and General Stimulant--Body Odors in Civilization Tend to Cause
Sexual Antipathy unless some Degree of Tumescence is Already Present--The
Question whether Men or Women are more Liable to Feel Olfactory
Influences--Women Usually more Attentive to Odors--The Special Interest in
Odors Felt by Sexual Inverts.
In approaching the specifically sexual aspect of odor in the human species
we may start from the fundamental fact--a fact we seek so far as possible
to disguise in our ordinary social relations--that all men and women are
odorous. This is marked among all races. The powerful odor of many, though
not all, negroes is well known; it is by no means due to uncleanly habits,
and Joest remarks that it is even increased by cleanliness, which opens
the pores of the skin; according to Sir H. Johnston, it is most marked in
the armpits and is stronger in men than in women. Pruner Bey describes it
as "ammoniacal and rancid; it is like the odor of the he-goat." The odor
varies not only individually, but according to the tribe; Castellani
states that the negress of the Congo has merely a slight "_goût de
noisette_" which is agreeable rather than otherwise. Monbuttu women,
according to Parke, have a strong Gorgonzola perfume, and Emin told Parke
that he could distinguish the members of different tribes by their
characteristic odor. In the same way the Nicobarese, according to Man, can
distinguish a member of each of the six tribes of the archipelago by
smell. The odor of Australian blacks is less strong than that of negroes
and has been described as of a phosphoric character. The South American
Indians, d'Orbigny stated, have an odor stronger than that of Europeans,
though not as strong as most negroes; it is marked, Latcham states, even
among those who, like the Araucanos, bathe constantly. The Chinese have a
musky odor. The odor of many peoples is described as being of garlic.[30]
A South Sea Islander, we are told by Charles de Varigny, on coming to
Sydney and seeing the ladies walking about the streets and apparently
doing nothing, expressed much astonishment, adding, with a gesture of
contempt, "and they have no smell!" It is by no means true, however, that
Europeans are odorless. They are, indeed, considerably more odorous than
are many other races,--for instance, the Japanese,--and there is doubtless
some association between the greater hairiness of Europeans and their
marked odor, since the sebaceous glands are part of the hair apparatus. A
Japanese anthropologist, Adachi, has published an interesting study on the
odor of Europeans,[31] which he describes as a strong and pungent
smell,--sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter,--of varying strength in
different individuals, absent in children and the aged, and having its
chief focus in the armpits, which, however carefully they are washed,
immediately become odorous again. Adachi has found that the sweat-glands
are larger in Europeans than in the Japanese, among whom a strong personal
odor is so uncommon that "armpit stink" is a disqualification for the
army. It is certainly true that the white races smell less strongly than
most of the dark races, odor seeming to be correlated to some extent with
intensity of pigmentation, as well as with hairiness; but even the most
scrupulously clean Europeans all smell. This fact may not always be
obvious to human nostrils, apart from intimate contact, but it is well
known to dogs, to whom their masters are recognizable by smell. When Hue
traveled in Tibet in Chinese disguise he was not detected by the natives,
but the dogs recognized him as a foreigner by his smell and barked at him.
Many Chinese can tell by smell when a European has been in a room.[32]
There are, however, some Europeans who can recognize and distinguish their
friends by smell. The case has been recorded of a man who with bandaged
eyes could recognize his acquaintances, at the distance of several paces,
the moment they entered the room. In another case a deaf and blind mute
woman in Massachusetts knew all her acquaintances by smell, and could sort
linen after it came from the wash by the odor alone. Governesses have been
known to be able when blindfolded to recognize the ownership of their
pupil's garments by smell; such a case is known to me. Such odor is
usually described as being agreeable, but not one person in fifty, it is
stated, is able to distinguish it with sufficient precision to use it as a
method of recognition. Among some races, however this aptitude would
appear to be better developed. Dr. C.S. Myers at Sarawak noted that his
Malay boy sorted the clean linen according to the skin-odor of the
wearer.[33] Chinese servants are said to do the same, as well as
Australians and natives of Luzon.[34]
Although the distinctively individual odor of most persons is not
sufficiently marked to be generally perceptible, there are cases
in which it is more distinct to all nostrils. The most famous
case of this kind is that of Alexander the Great, who, according
to Plutarch, exhaled so sweet an odor that his tunics were soaked
with aromatic perfume (_Convivalium Disputationum_, lib. I,
quest. 6). Malherbe, Cujas, and Haller are said to have diffused
a musky odor. The agreeable odor of Walt Whitman has been
remarked by Kennedy and others. The perfume exhaled by many holy
men and women, so often noted by ancient writers (discussed by
Görres in the second volume of his _Christliche Mystik_) and
which has entered into current phraseology as a merely
metaphorical "odor of sanctity," was doubtless due, as Hammond
first pointed out, to abnormal nervous conditions, for it is well
known that such conditions affect the odor, and in insanity, for
instance, the presence is noted of bodily odors which have
sometimes even been considered of diagnostic importance. J.B.
Friedreich, _Allgemeine Diagnostik der Psychischen Krankheiten_,
second edition, 1832, pp. 9-10, quotes passages from various
authors on this point, which he accepts; various writers of more
recent date have made similar observations.
The odor of sanctity was specially noted at death, and was
doubtless confused with the _odor mortis_, which frequently
precedes death and by some is regarded as an almost certain
indication of its approach. In the _British Medical Journal_, for
May and June, 1898, will be found letters from several
correspondents substantiating this point. One of these
correspondents (Dr. Tuckey, of Tywardwreath, Cornwall) mentions
that he has in Cornwall often seen ravens flying over houses in
which persons lay dying, evidently attracted by a characteristic
odor.
It must be borne in mind, however, that, while every person has, to a
sensitive nose, a distinguishing odor, we must regard that odor either as
but one of the various sensations given off by the body, or else as a
combination of two or more of these emanations. The body in reality gives
off a number of different odors. The most important of these are: (1) the
general skin odor, a faint, but agreeable, fragrance often to be detected
on the skin even immediately after washing; (2) the smell of the hair and
scalp; (3) the odor of the breath; (4) the odor of the armpit; (5) the
odor of the feet; (6) the perineal odor; (7) in men the odor of the
preputial smegma; (8) in women the odor of the mons veneris, that of
vulvar smegma, that of vaginal mucus, and the menstrual odor. All these
are odors which may usually be detected, though sometimes only in a very
faint degree, in healthy and well-washed persons under normal conditions.
It is unnecessary here to take into account the special odors of various
secretions and excretions.[35]
It is a significant fact, both as regards the ancestral sexual connections
of the body odors and their actual sexual associations to-day, that, as
Hippocrates long ago noted, it is not until puberty that they assume their
adult characteristics. The infant, the adult, the aged person, each has
his own kind of smell, and, as Monin remarks, it might be possible, within
certain limits, to discover the age of a person by his odor. Jorg in 1832
pointed out that in girls the appearance of a specific smell of the
excreta indicates the establishment of puberty, and Kaan, in his
_Psychopathia Sexualis_, remarked that at puberty "the sweat gives out a
more acrid odor resembling musk." In both sexes puberty, adolescence,
early manhood and womanhood are marked by a gradual development of the
adult odor of skin and excreta, in general harmony with the secondary
sexual development of hair and pigment. Venturi, indeed, has, not without
reason, described the odor of the body as a secondary sexual
character.[36] It may be added that, as is the case with the pigment in
various parts of the body in women, some of these odors tend to become
exaggerated in sympathy with sexual and other emotional states.
The odor of the infant is said to be of butyric acid; that of old
people to resemble dry leaves. Continent young men have been said
by many ancient writers to smell more strongly than the unchaste,
and some writers have described as "seminal odor"--an odor
resembling that of animals in heat, faintly recalling that of the
he-goat, according to Venturi--the exhalations of the skin at
such times.
During sexual excitement, as women can testify, a man very
frequently, if not normally, gives out an odor which, as usually
described, proceeds from the skin, the breath, or both. Grimaldi
states that it is as of rancid butter; others say it resembles
chloroform. It is said to be sometimes perceptible for a distance
of several feet and to last for several hours after coitus.
(Various quotations are given by Gould and Pyle, _Anomalies and
Curiosities of Medicine_, section on "Human Odors," pp. 397-403.)
St. Philip Neri is said to have been able to recognize a chaste
man by smell.
During menstruation girls and young women frequently give off an
odor which is quite distinct from that of the menstrual fluid,
and is specially marked in the breath, which may smell of
chloroform or violets. Pouchet (confirmed by Raciborski, _Traité
de la Menstruation_, 1868, p. 74) stated that about a day before
the onset of menstruation a characteristic smell is exuded.
Menstruating girls are also said sometimes to give off a smell of
leather. Aubert, of Lyons (as quoted by Galopin), describes the
odor of the skin of a woman during menstruation as an agreeable
aromatic or acidulous perfume of chloroform character. By some
this is described as emanating especially from the armpits.
Sandras (quoted by Raciborski) knew a lady who could always tell
by a sensation of faintness and _malaise_--apparently due to a
sensation of smell--when she was in contact with a menstruating
woman. I am acquainted with a man, having strong olfactory
sympathies and antipathies, who detects the presence of
menstruation by smell. It is said that Hortense Baré, who
accompanied her lover, the botanist Commerson, to the Pacific
disguised as a man, was recognized by the natives as a woman by
means of smell.
Women, like men, frequently give out an odor during coitus or
strong sexual excitement. This odor may be entirely different
from that normally emanating from the woman, of an acid or
hircine character, and sufficiently strong to remain in a room
for a considerable period. Many of the ancient medical writers
(as quoted by Schurigius, _Parthenologia_, p. 286) described the
goaty smell produced by venery, especially in women; they
regarded it as specially marked in harlots and in the newly
married, and sometimes even considered it a certain sign of
defloration. The case has been recorded of a woman who emitted a
rose odor for two days after coitus (McBride, quoted by Kiernan
in an interesting summary, "Odor in Pathology," _Doctor's
Magazine_, December, 1900). There was, it is said (_Journal des
Savans_ 1684, p. 39, quoting from the _Journal d'Angleterre_) a
monk in Prague who could recognize by smell the chastity of the
women who approached him. (This monk, it is added, when he died,
was composing a new science of odors.)
Gustav Klein (as quoted by Adler, _Die Mangelhafte
Geschlechtsempfindungen des Weibes_, p. 25) argues that the
special function of the glands at the vulvar orifice--the
_glandulæ vestibulares majores_--is to give out an odorous
secretion to act as an attraction to the male, this relic of
sexual periodicity no longer, however, playing an important part
in the human species. The vulvar secretion, however, it may be
added, still has a more aromatic odor than the vaginal secretion,
with its simple mucous odor, very clearly perceived during
parturition.
It may be added that we still know extremely little concerning
the sexual odors of women among primitive peoples. Ploss and
Bartels are only able to bring forward (_Das Weib_, 1901, bd. 1,
p. 218) a statement concerning the women of New Caledonia, who,
according to Moncelon, when young and ardent, give out during
coitus a powerful odor which no ablution will remove. In abnormal
states of sexual excitement such odor may be persistent, and,
according to an ancient observation, a nymphomaniac, whose
periods of sexual excitement lasted all through the spring-time,
at these periods always emitted a goatlike odor. It has been said
(G. Tourdes, art. "Aphrodisie," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des
Sciences Médicales_) that the erotic temperament is characterized
by a special odor.
If the body odors tend to develop at puberty, to be maintained during
sexual life, especially in sympathy with conditions of sexual disturbance,
and to become diminished in old age, being thus a kind of secondary sexual
character, we should expect them to be less marked in those cases in which
the primary sexual characters are less marked. It is possible that this is
actually the case. Hagen, in his _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, quotes from
Roubaud's _Traité de l'Impuissance_ the statement that the body odor of
the castrated differs from that of normal individuals. Burdach had
previously stated that the odor of the eunuch is less marked than that of
the normal man.
It is thus possible that defective sexual development tends to be
associated with corresponding olfactory defect. Heschl[37] has reported a
case in which absence of both olfactory nerves coincided with defective
development of the sexual organs. Féré remarks that the impotent show a
repugnance for sexual odors. Dr. Kiernan informs me that in women after
oöphorectomy he has noted a tendency to diminished (and occasionally
increased) sense of smell. These questions, however, await more careful
and extended observation.
A very significant transition from the phenomena of personal odor to those
of sexual attraction by personal odor is to be found in the fact that
among the peoples inhabiting a large part of the world's surface the
ordinary salutation between friends is by mutual smelling of the person.
In some form or another the method of salutation by applying the nose to
the nose, face, or hand of a friend in greeting is found throughout a
large part of the Pacific, among the Papuans, the Eskimo, the hill tribes
of India, in Africa, and elsewhere.[38] Thus, among a certain hill tribe
in India, according to Lewin, they smell a friend's cheek: "in their
language, they do not say, 'Give me a kiss,' but they say 'Smell me.'" And
on the Gambia, according to F. Moore, "When the men salute the women,
they, instead of shaking their hands, put it up to their noses, and smell
twice to the back of it." Here we have very clearly a recognition of the
emotional value of personal odor widely prevailing throughout the world.
The salutation on an olfactory basis may, indeed, be said to be more
general than the salutation on a tactile basis on which European
handshaking rests, each form involving one of the two most intimate and
emotional senses. The kiss may be said to be a development proceeding both
from the olfactory and the tactile bases, with perhaps some other elements
as well, and is too complex to be regarded as a phenomenon of either
purely tactile or purely olfactory origin.[39]
As the sole factor in sexual selection olfaction must be rare. It is said
that Asiatic princes have sometimes caused a number of the ladies to race
in the seraglio garden until they were heated; their garments have then
been brought to the prince, who has selected one of them solely by the
odor.[40] There was here a sexual selection mainly by odor. Any exclusive
efficacy of the olfactory sense is rare, not so much because the
impressions of this sense are inoperative, but because agreeable personal
odors are not sufficiently powerful, and the olfactory organ is too
obtuse, to enable smell to take precedence of sight. Nevertheless, in many
people, it is probable that certain odors, especially those that are
correlated with a healthy and sexually desirable person, tend to be
agreeable; they are fortified by their association with the loved person,
sometimes to an irresistible degree; and their potency is doubtless
increased by the fact, to which reference has already been made, that many
odors, including some bodily odors, are nervous stimulants.
It is possible that the sexual associations of odors have been still
further fortified by a tendency to correlation between a high development
of the olfactory organ and a high development of the sexual apparatus. An
association between a large nose and a large male organ is a very ancient
observation and has been verified occasionally in recent times. There is
normally at puberty a great increase in the septum of the nose, and it is
quite conceivable, in view of the sympathy, which, as we shall see,
certainly exists between the olfactory and sexual region, that the two
regions may develop together under a common influence.
The Romans firmly believed in the connection between a large nose
and a large penis. "Noscitur e naso quanta sit hasta viro,"
stated Ovid. This belief continued to prevail, especially in
Italy, through the middle ages; the physiognomists made much of
it, and licentious women (like Joanna of Naples) were, it
appears, accustomed to bear it in mind, although disappointment
is recorded often to have followed. (See e.g., the quotations and
references given by J.N. Mackenzie, "Physiological and
Pathological Relations between the Nose and the Sexual Apparatus
in Man." _Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_, No. 82, January,
1898; also Hagen, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, pp. 15-19.) A
similar belief as to the association between the sexual impulse
in women and a long nose was evidently common in England in the
sixteenth century, for in Massinger's _Emperor of the East_ (Act
II, Scene I) we read,
"Her nose, which by its length assures me
Of storms at midnight if I fail to pay her
The tribute she expects."
At the present day, a proverb of the Venetian people still
embodies the belief in the connection between a large nose and a
large sexual member.
The probability that such an association tends in many cases to
prevail is indicated not only by the beliefs of antiquity, when
more careful attention was paid to these matters, but by the
testimony of various modern observers, although it does not
appear that any series of exact observations have yet been made.
It may be noted that Marro, in his careful anthropological study
of criminals (_I Caratteri dei Delinquenti_), found no class of
criminals with so large a proportion alike of anomalies of the
nose and anomalies of the genital organs as sexual offenders.
However this may be, it is less doubtful that there is a very intimate
relation both in men and women between the olfactory mucous membrane of
the nose and the whole genital apparatus, that they frequently show a
sympathetic action, that influences acting on the genital sphere will
affect the nose, and occasionally, it is probable, influences acting on
the nose reflexly affect the genital sphere. To discuss these
relationships would here be out of place, since specialists are not
altogether in agreement concerning the matter. A few are inclined to
regard the association as extremely intimate, so that each region is
sensitive even to slight stimuli applied to the other region, while, on
the other hand, many authorities ignore altogether the question of the
relationship. It would appear, however, that there really is, in a
considerable number of people at all events, a reflex connection of this
kind. It has especially been noted that in many cases congestion of the
nose precedes menstruation.
Bleeding of the nose is specially apt to occur at puberty and during
adolescence, while in women it may take the place of menstruation and is
sometimes more apt to occur at the menstrual periods; disorders of the
nose have also been found to be aggravated at these periods. It has even
been possible to control bleeding of the nose, both in men and women, by
applying ice to the sexual regions. In both men and women, again, cases
have been recorded in which sexual excitement, whether of coitus or
masturbation, has been followed by bleeding of the nose. In numerous cases
it is followed by slight congestive conditions of the nasal passages and
especially by sneezing. Various authors have referred to this phenomenon;
I am acquainted with a lady in whom it is fairly constant.[41] Féré
records the case of a lady, a nervous subject, who began to experience
intense spontaneous sexual excitement shortly after marriage, accompanied
by much secretion from the nose.[42] J.N. Mackenzie is acquainted with a
number of such cases, and he considers that the popular expression
"bride's cold" indicates that this effect of strong sexual excitement is
widely recognized.
The late Professor Hack, of Freiburg, in 1884, called general
medical attention to the intimate connection between the nose and
states of nervous hyperexcitability in various parts of the body,
although such a connection had been recognized for many centuries
in medical literature. While Hack and his disciples thus gave
prominence to this association, they undoubtedly greatly
exaggerated its importance and significance. (Sir Felix Semon,
_British Medical Journal_, November 9, 1901.) Even many workers
who have more recently further added to our knowledge have also,
as sometimes happens with enthusiasts, unduly strained their own
data. Starting from the fact that in women during menstruation
examination of the nose reveals a degree of congestion not found
during the rest of the month, Fliess (_Die Beziehungen zwischen
Nase und Weiblichen Geschlechtsorganen_, 1897), with the help of
a number of elaborate and prolonged observations, has reached
conclusions which, while they seem to be hazardous at some
points, have certainly contributed to build up our knowledge of
this obscure subject. Schiff (_Wiener klinische Wochenschrift_,
1900, p. 58, summarized in _British Medical Journal_, February
16, 1901), starting from a skeptical standpoint, has confirmed
some of Fliess's results, and in a large number of cases
controlled painful menstruation by painting with cocaine the
so-called "genital spots" in the nose, all possibility of
suggestion being avoided. Ries, of Chicago, has been similarly
successful with the method of Fliess (_American Gynæcology_, vol.
iii, No. 4, 1903). Benedikt (_Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift_,
No. 8, 1901, summarized in _Journal of Medical Science_, October,
1901), while pointing out that the nose is not the only organ in
sympathetic relation with the sexual sphere, suggests that the
mechanism of the relationship is involved in the larger problem
of the harmony in growth and in nutrition of the different parts
of the organism. In this way, probably, we may attach
considerable significance to the existence of a kind of erectile
tissue in the nose.
An interesting example of a reflex influence from the nose
affecting the genital sphere has been brought forward by Dr. E.S.
Talbot, of Chicago: "A 56-year-old man was operated on
(September 1, 1903) for the removal of the left cartilage of the
septum of the nose owing to a previous traumatic fracture at the
sixteenth year. No pain was experienced until two years ago, when
a continual soreness occurred at the apical end of the fracture
during the winter months. The operation was decided upon fearing
more serious complications. The parts were cocainized. No pain
was experienced in the operation except at one point at the lower
posterior portion near the floor of the nose. A profound shock to
the general system followed. The reflex influence of the pain
upon the genital organs caused semen to flow continually for
three weeks. Treatment of general motor irritability with camphor
monobromate and conium, on consultation with Dr. Kiernan, checked
the flow. The discharge produced spinal neurasthenia. The legs
and feet felt heavy. Erythromelalgia caused uneasiness. The
patient walked with difficulty. The tired feeling in the feet and
limbs was quite noticeable four months after the operation,
although the pain had, to a great extent diminished." (Chicago
Academy of Medicine, January, 1904, and private letter.)
J.N. Mackenzie has brought together a great many original
observations, together with interesting quotations from old
medical literature, in his two papers: "The Pathological Nasal
Reflex" (_New York Medical Journal_, August 20, 1887) and "The
Physiological and Pathological Relations between the Nose and the
Sexual Apparatus of Man" (_Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_,
January 1, 1898). A number of cases have also been brought
together from the literature by G. Endriss in his Inaugural
Dissertation, _Die bisherigen Beobachtungen von Physiologischen
und Pathologischen Beziehungen der oberen Luftwege zu den
Sexualorganen_, Teil. II, Würzburg, 1892.
The intimate association between the sexual centers and the olfactory
tract is well illustrated by the fact that this primitive and ancient
association tends to come to the surface in insanity. It is recognized by
many alienists that insanity of a sexual character is specially liable to
be associated with hallucinations of smell.
Many eminent alienists in various countries are very decidedly of
the opinion that there is a special tendency to the association
of olfactory hallucinations with sexual manifestations, and,
although one or two authorities have expressed doubt on the
matter, the available evidence clearly indicates such an
association. Hallucinations of smell are comparatively rare as
compared to hallucinations of sight and hearing; they are
commoner in women than in men and they not infrequently occur at
periods of sexual disturbance, at adolescence, in puerperal
fever, at the change of life, in women with ovarian troubles, and
in old people troubled with sexual desires or remorse for such
desires. They have often been noted as specially frequent in
cases of excessive masturbation.
Krafft-Ebing, who found olfactory hallucinations common in
various sexual states, considers that they are directly dependent
on sexual excitement (_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_,
bd. 34, ht. 4, 1877). Conolly Norman believes in a distinct and
frequent association between olfactory hallucinations and sexual
disturbance (_Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1899, p. 532).
Savage is also impressed by the close association between sexual
disturbance or changes in the reproductive organs and
hallucinations of smell as well as of touch. He has found that
persistent hallucinations of smell disappeared when a diseased
ovary was removed, although the patient remained insane. He
considers that such hallucinations of smell are allied to
reversions. (G.H. Savage, "Smell, Hallucinations of," Tuke's
_Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_; cf. the same author's
manual of _Insanity and Allied Neuroses_.) Matusch, while not
finding olfactory hallucinations common at the climacteric,
states that when they are present they are connected with uterine
trouble and sexual craving. He finds them more common in young
women. (Matusch, "Der Einfluss des Climacterium auf Entstchung
und Form der Geistesstörung," _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für
Psychiatrie_, vol. xlvi, ht. 4). Féré has related a significant
case of a young man in whom hallucinations of smell accompanied
the sexual orgasm; he subsequently developed epilepsy, to which
the hallucination then constituted the aura (_Comptes Rendus de
la Société de Biologie_, December, 1896). The prevalence of a
sexual element in olfactory hallucinations has been investigated
by Bullen, who examined into 95 cases of hallucinations of smell
among the patients in several asylums. (In a few cases there were
reasons for believing that peripheral conditions existed which
would render these hallucinations more strictly illusions.) Of
these, 64 were women. Sixteen of the women were climacteric
cases, and 3 of them had sexual hallucinations or delusions.
Fourteen other women (chiefly cases of chronic delusional
insanity) had sexual delusions. Altogether, 31 men and women had
sexual delusions. This is a large proportion. Bullen is not,
however, inclined to admit any direct connection between the
reproductive system and the sense of smell. He finds that other
hallucinations are very frequently associated with the olfactory
hallucinations, and considers that the co-existence of olfactory
and sexual troubles simply indicates a very deep and widespread
nervous disturbance. (F. St. John Bullen, "Olfactory
Hallucinations in the Insane," _Journal of Mental Science_, July,
1899.) In order to elucidate the matter fully we require further
precise inquiries on the lines Bullen has laid down.
It may be of interest to note, in this connection, that smell and
taste hallucinations appear to be specially frequent in forms of
religious insanity. Thus, Dr. Zurcher, in her inaugural
dissertation on Joan of Arc (_Jeanne d'Arc_, Leipzig, 1895, p.
72), estimates that on the average in such insanity nearly 50 per
cent, of the hallucinations affect smell and taste; she refers
also to the olfactory hallucinations of great religious leaders,
Francis of Assisi, Katherina Emmerich, Lazzaretti, and the
Anabaptists.
It may well be, as Zwaardemaker has suggested in his _Physiologie des
Geruchs_, that the nasal congestion at menstruation and similar phenomena
are connected with that association of smell and sexuality which is
observable throughout the whole animal world, and that the congestion
brings about a temporary increase of olfactory sensitiveness during the
stage of sexual excitation.[43] Careful investigation of olfactory
acuteness would reveal the existence of such menstrual heightening of its
acuity.
In a few exceptional, but still quite healthy people, smell would appear
to possess an emotional predominance which it cannot be said to possess in
the average person. These exceptional people are of what Binet in his
study of sexual fetichism calls olfactive type; such persons form a group
which, though of smaller size and less importance, is fairly comparable to
the well-known groups of visual type, of auditory type, and of psychomotor
type. Such people would be more attentive to odors, more moved by
olfactory sympathies and antipathies, than are ordinary people. For these,
it may well be, the supremacy accorded to olfactory influences in Jäger's
_Entdeckung der Seele_, though extravagantly incorrect for ordinary
persons, may appear quite reasonable.
It is certain also that a great many neurasthenic people, and
particularly those who are sexually neurasthenic, are peculiarly
susceptible to olfactory influences. A number of eminent poets and
novelists--especially, it would appear, in France--seem to be in this
case. Baudelaire, of all great poets, has most persistently and most
elaborately emphasized the imaginative and emotional significance of odor;
the _Fleurs du Mal_ and many of the _Petits Poèmes en Prose_ are, from
this point of view, of great interest. There can be no doubt that in
Baudelaire's own imaginative and emotional life the sense of smell played
a highly important part; and that, in his own words, odor was to him what
music is to others. Throughout Zola's novels--and perhaps more especially
in _La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret_--there is an extreme insistence on odors of
every kind. Prof. Leopold Bernard wrote an elaborate study of this aspect
of Zola's work[44]; he believed that underlying Zola's interest in odors
there was an abnormally keen olfactory sensibility and large development
of the olfactory region of the brain. Such a supposition is, however,
unnecessary, and, as a matter of fact, a careful examination of Zola's
olfactory sensibility, conducted by M. Passy, showed that it was somewhat
below normal.[45] At the same time it was shown that Zola was really a
person of olfactory psychic type, with a special attention to odors and a
special memory for them; as is frequently the case with perfumers with
less than normal olfactory acuity he possessed a more than normal power of
discriminating odors; it is possible that in early life his olfactory
acuity may also have been above normal. In the same way Nietzsche, in his
writings, shows a marked sensibility, and especially antipathy, as regards
odors, which has by some been regarded as an index to a real physical
sensibility of abnormal keenness; according to Möbius, however, there was
no reason for supposing this to be the case.[46] Huysmans, who throughout
his books reveals a very intense preoccupation with the exact shades of
many kinds of sensory impressions, and an apparently abnormally keen
sensibility to them, has shown a great interest in odors, more especially
in an oft-quoted passage in _A Rebours_. The blind Milton of "Paradise
Lost" (as the late Mr. Grant Allen once remarked to me), dwells much on
scents; in this case it is doubtless to the blindness and not to any
special organic predisposition that we must attribute this direction of
sensory attention.[47] Among our older English poets, also, Herrick
displays a special interest in odors with a definite realization of their
sexual attractiveness.[48] Shelley, who was alive to so many of the
unusual æsthetic aspects of things, often shows an enthusiastic delight in
odors, more especially those of flowers. It may, indeed, be said that most
poets--though to a less degree than those I have mentioned--devote a
special attention to odors, and, since it has been possible to describe
smell as the sense of imagination, this need not surprise us. That
Shakespeare, for instance, ranked this sense very high indeed is shown by
various passages in his works and notably by Sonnet LIV: "O, how much more
doth beauty beauteous seem?"--in which he implicitly places the attraction
of odor on at least as high a level as that of vision.[49]
A neurasthenic sensitiveness to odors, specially sexual odors, is
frequently accompanied by lack of sexual vigor. In this way we may account
for the numerous cases in which old men in whom sexual desire survives the
loss of virile powers--probably somewhat abnormal persons at the
outset--find satisfaction in sexual odors. Here, also, we have the basis
for olfactory fetichism. In such fetichism the odor of the woman alone,
whoever she may be and however unattractive she may be, suffices to
furnish complete sexual satisfaction. In many, although not all, of those
cases in which articles of women's clothing become the object of
fetichistic attraction, there is certainly an olfactory element due to the
personal odor attaching to the garments.[50]
Olfactory influences play a certain part in various sexually
abnormal tendencies and practices which do not proceed from an
exclusively olfactory fascination. Thus, _cunnilingus_ and
_fellatio_ derive part of their attraction, more especially in
some individuals, from a predilection for the odors of the sexual
parts. (See, e.g., Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido
Sexualis_, bd. 1, p. 134.) In many cases smell plays no part in
the attraction; "I enjoy _cunnilingus_, if I like the girl very
much," a correspondent writes, "_in spite_ of the smell." We may
associate this impulse with the prevalence of these practices
among sexual inverts, in whom olfactory attractions are often
specially marked. Those individuals, also, who are sexually
affected by the urinary and alvine excretions ("_renifleurs_,"
"_stereoraires_," etc.) are largely, though not necessarily
altogether, moved by olfactory impressions. The attraction was,
however, exclusively olfactory in the case of the young woman
recorded by Moraglia (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1892, p. 267),
who was irresistibly excited by the odor of the fermented urine
of men, and possibly also in the case narrated to Moraglia by
Prof. L. Bianchi (ib. p. 568), in which a wife required flatus
from her husband.
The sexual pleasure derived from partial strangulation (discussed
in the study of "Love and Pain" in a previous volume) may be
associated with heightened olfactory sexual excitation. Dr.
Kiernan, who points this out to me, has investigated a few
neuropathic patients who like to have their necks squeezed, as
they express it, and finds that in the majority the olfactory
sensibility is thus intensified.
Even in ordinary normal persons, however, there can be no doubt that
personal odor tends to play a not inconsiderable part in sexual
attractions and sexual repulsions. As a sexual excitant, indeed, it comes
far behind the stimuli received through the sense of sight. The
comparative bluntness of the sense of smell in man makes it difficult for
olfactory influence to be felt, as a rule, until the preliminaries of
courtship are already over; so that it is impossible for smell ever to
possess the same significance in sexual attraction in man that it
possesses in the lower animals. With that reservation there can be no
doubt that odor has a certain favorable or unfavorable influence in sexual
relationships in all human races from the lowest to the highest. The
Polynesian spoke with contempt of those women of European race who "have
no smell," and in view of the pronounced personal odor of so many savage
peoples as well as of the careful attention which they so often pay to
odors, we may certainly assume, even in the absence of much definite
evidence, that smell counts for much in their sexual relationships. This
is confirmed by such practices as that found among some primitive
peoples--as, it is stated, in the Philippines--of lovers exchanging their
garments to have the smell of the loved one about them. In the barbaric
stages of society this element becomes self-conscious and is clearly
avowed; personal odors are constantly described with complacency,
sometimes as mingled with the lavish use of artificial perfumes, in much
of the erotic literature produced in the highest stages of barbarism,
especially by Eastern peoples living in hot climates; it is only necessary
to refer to the _Song of Songs_, the _Arabian Nights_, and the Indian
treatises on love. Even in some parts of Europe the same influence is
recognized in the crudest animal form, and Krauss states that among the
Southern Slavs it is sometimes customary to leave the sexual parts
unwashed because a strong odor of these parts is regarded as a sexual
stimulant. Under the usual conditions of life in Europe personal odor has
sunk into the background; this has been so equally under the conditions of
classic, mediæval, and modern life. Personal odor has been generally
regarded as unæsthetic; it has, for the most part, only been mentioned to
be reprobated, and even those poets and others who during recent centuries
have shown a sensitive delight and interest in odors--Herrick, Shelley,
Baudelaire, Zola, and Huysmans--have seldom ventured to insist that a
purely natural and personal odor can be agreeable. The fact that it may be
so, and that for most people such odors cannot be a matter of indifference
in the most intimate of all relationships, is usually only to be learned
casually and incidentally. There can be no doubt, however, that, as
Kiernan points out, the extent to which olfaction influences the sexual
sphere in civilized man has been much underestimated. We need not,
therefore, be surprised at the greater interest which has recently been
taken in this subject. As usually happens, indeed, there has been in some
writers a tendency to run to the opposite extreme, and we cannot, with
Gustav Jäger, regard the sexual instinct as mainly or altogether an
olfactory matter.
Of the Padmini, the perfect woman, the "lotus woman," Hindu
writers say that "her sweat has the odor of musk," while the
vulgar woman, they say, smells of fish (_Kama Sutra of
Vatsyayana_). Ploss and Bartels (_Das Weib_, 1901, p. 218) bring
forward a passage from the Tamil _Kokkôgam_, minutely describing
various kinds of sexual odor in women, which they regard as
resting on sound observation.
Four things in a woman, says the Arab, should be perfumed: the
mouth, the armpits, the pudenda, and the nose. The Persian poets,
in describing the body, delighted to use metaphors involving
odor. Not only the hair and the down on the face, but the chin,
the mouth, the beauty spots, the neck, all suggested odorous
images. The epithets applied to the hair frequently refer to
musk, ambergris, and civet. (_Anis El-Ochchâq_ translated by
Huart, _Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes_, fasc. 25,
1875.)
The Hebrew _Song of Songs_ furnishes a typical example of a very
beautiful Eastern love-poem in which the importance of the appeal
to the sense of smell is throughout emphasized. There are in this
short poem as many as twenty-four fairly definite references to
odors,--personal odors, perfumes, and flowers,--while numerous
other references to flowers, etc., seem to point to olfactory
associations. Both the lover and his sweetheart express pleasure
in each other's personal odor.
"My beloved is unto me," she sings, "as a bag of myrrh
That lieth between my breasts;
My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna flowers
In the vineyard of En-gedi."
And again: "His cheeks are as a bed of spices [or balsam], as
banks of sweet herbs." While of her he says: "The smell of thy
breath [or nose] is like apples."
Greek and Roman antiquity, which has so largely influenced the
traditions of modern Europe, was lavish in the use of perfumes,
but showed no sympathy with personal odors. For the Roman
satirists, like Martial, a personal odor is nearly always an
unpleasant odor, though, there are a few allusions in classic
literature recognizing bodily smell as a sexual attraction. Ovid,
in his _Ars Amandi_ (Book III), says it is scarcely necessary to
remind a lady that she must not keep a goat in her armpits: "_ne
trux caper iret in alas_." "_Mulier tum bene olet ubi nihil
olet_" is an ancient dictum, and in the sixteenth century
Montaigne still repeated the same saying with complete approval.
A different current of feeling began to appear with the new
emotional movement during the eighteenth century. Rousseau called
attention to the importance of the olfactory sense, and in his
educational work, _Emile_ (Bk. II), he referred to the odor of a
woman's "_cabinet de toilette_" as not so feeble a snare as is
commonly supposed. In the same century Casanova wrote still more
emphatically concerning the same point; in the preface to his
_Mémoires_ he states: "I have always found sweet the odor of the
women I have loved"; and elsewhere: "There is something in the
air of the bedroom of the woman one loves, something so intimate,
so balsamic, such voluptuous emanations, that if a lover had to
choose between Heaven and this place of delight his hesitation
would not last for a moment" (_Mémoires_, vol. iii). In the
previous century, in England, Sir Kenelm Digby, in his
interesting and remarkable _Private Memoirs_, when describing a
visit to Lady Venetia Stanley, afterward his wife, touches on
personal odor as an element of attraction; he had found her
asleep in bed and on her breasts "did glisten a few drops of
sweatlike diamond sparks, and had a more fragrant odor than the
violets or primroses whose season was newly passed."
In 1821 Cadet-Devaux published, in the _Revue Encyclopédique_, a
study entitled "De l'atmosphère de la Femme et de sa Puissance,"
which attracted a great deal of attention in Germany as well as
in France; he considered that the exhalations of the feminine
body are of the first importance in sexual attraction.
Prof. A. Galopin in 1886 wrote a semiscientific book, _Le Parfum
de la Femme_, in which the sexual significance of personal odor
is developed to its fullest. He writes with enthusiasm concerning
the sweet and health-giving character of the natural perfume of a
beloved woman, and the mischief done both to health and love by
the use of artificial perfumes. "The purest marriage that can be
contracted between a man and a woman," he asserts (p. 157) "is
that engendered by olfaction and sanctioned by a common
assimilation in the brain of the animated molecules due to the
secretion and evaporation of two bodies in contact and sympathy."
In a book written during the first half of the nineteenth century
which contains various subtle observations on love we read, with
reference to the sweet odor which poets have found in the breath
of women: "In reality many women have an intoxicatingly agreeable
breath which plays no small part in the love-compelling
atmosphere which they spread around them" (_Eros oder Wörterbuch
über die Physiologie_, 1849, Bd. 1, p. 45).
Most of the writers on the psychology of love at this period,
however, seem to have passed over the olfactory element in sexual
attraction, regarding it probably as too unæsthetic. It receives
no emphasis either in Sénancour's _De l'Amour_ or Stendhal's _De
l'Amour_ or Michelet's _L'Amour_.
The poets within recent times have frequently referred to odors,
personal and other, but the novelists have more rarely done so.
Zola and Huysmans, the two novelists who have most elaborately
and insistently developed the olfactory side of life, have dwelt
more on odors that are repulsive than on those that are
agreeable. It is therefore of interest to note that in a few
remarkable novels of recent times the attractiveness of personal
odor has been emphasized. This is notably so in Tolstoy's _War
and Peace_, in which Count Peter suddenly resolves to marry
Princess Helena after inhaling her odor at a ball. In
d'Annunzio's _Trionfo della Morte_ the seductive and consoling
odor of the beloved woman's skin is described in several
passages; thus, when Giorgio kissed Ippolita's arms and
shoulders, we are told, "he perceived the sharp and yet delicate
perfume of her, the perfume of the skin that in the hour of joy
became intoxicating as that of the tuberose, and a terrible lash
to desire."
When we are dealing with the sexual significance of personal odors in man
there is at the outset an important difference to be noticed in comparison
with the lower mammals. Not only is the significance of odor altogether
very much less, but the focus of olfactory attractiveness has been
displaced. The centre of olfactory attractiveness is not, as usually among
animals, in the sexual region, but is transferred to the upper part of the
body. In this respect the sexual olfactory allurement in man resembles
what we find in the sphere of vision, for neither the sexual organs of man
nor of woman are usually beautiful in the eyes of the opposite sex, and
their exhibition is not among us regarded as a necessary stage in
courtship. The odor of the body, like its beauty, in so far as it can be
regarded as a possible sexual allurement, has in the course of development
been transferred to the upper parts. The careful concealment of the sexual
region has doubtless favored this transfer. It has thus happened that when
personal odor acts as a sexual allurement it is the armpit, in any case
normally the chief focus of odor in the body, which mainly comes into
play, together with the skin and the hair.
Aubert, of Lyons, noted that during menstruation the odor of the
armpits may become more powerful, and describes it as being at
this time an aromatic odor of acidulous or chloroform character.
Galopin remarks that, while some women's armpits smell of sheep
in rut, others, when exposed to the air, have a fragrance of
ambergris or violet. Dark persons (according to Gould and Pyle)
are said sometimes to exhale a prussic acid odor, and blondes
more frequently musk; Galopin associates the ambergris odor more
especially with blondes.
While some European poets have faintly indicated the woman's
armpit as a centre of sexual attraction, it is among Eastern
poets that we may find the idea more directly and naturally
expressed. Thus, in a Chinese drama ("The Transmigration of
Yo-Chow," _Mercure de France_, No. 8, 1901) we find a learned
young doctor addressing the following poem to his betrothed:--
"When I have climbed to the bushy summit of Mount Chao,
I have still not reached to the level of your odorous armpit.
I must needs mount to the sky
Before the breeze brings to me
The perfume of that embalsamed nest!"
This poet seems, however, to have been carried to a pitch of
enthusiasm unusual even in China, for his future mother-in-law,
after expressing her admiration for the poem, remarks: "But who
would have thought one could find so many beautiful things under
my daughter's armpit!"
The odor of the armpit is the most powerful in the body,
sufficiently powerful to act as a muscular stimulant even in the
absence of any direct sexual association. This is indicated by an
observation made by Féré, who noticed, when living opposite a
laundry, that an old woman who worked near the window would,
toward the close of the day, introduce her right hand under the
sleeve of the other to the armpit and then hold it to her nose;
this she would do about every five minutes. It was evident that
the odor acted as a stimulant to her failing energies. Féré has
been informed by others who have had occasion to frequent
workrooms that this proceeding is by no means uncommon among
persons of both sexes. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second
edition, p. 135.) I have myself noticed the same gesture very
deliberately made in the street by a young English woman of the
working class, under circumstances which suggested that it acted
as an immediate stimulant in fatigue.
Huysmans--who in his novels has insisted on odors, both those of
a personal kind and perfumes, with great precision--has devoted
one of the sketches, "Le Gousset," in his _Croquis Parisiens_
(1880) to the varying odors of women's armpits. "I have followed
this fragrance in the country," he remarks, "behind a group of
women gleaners under the bright sun. It was excessive and
terrible; it stung your nostrils like an unstoppered bottle of
alkali; it seized you, irritating your mucous membrane with a
rough odor which had in it something of the relish of wild duck
cooked with olives and the sharp odor of the shallot. On the
whole, it was not a vile or repugnant emanation; it united, as an
anticipated thing, with the formidable odors of the landscape; it
was the pure note, completing with the human animals' cry of heat
the odorous melody of beasts and woods." He goes on to speak of
the perfume of feminine arms in the ball-room. "There the aroma
is of ammoniated valerian, of chlorinated urine, brutally
accentuated sometimes, even with a slight scent of prussic acid
about it, a faint whiff of overripe peaches." These
"spice-boxes," however, Huysmans continues, are more seductive
when their perfume is filtered through the garments. "The appeal
of the balsam of their arms is then less insolent, less cynical,
than at the ball where they are more naked, but it more easily
uncages the animal in man. Various as the color of the hair, the
odor of the armpit is infinitely divisible; its gamut covers the
whole keyboard of odors, reaching the obstinate scents of syringa
and elder, and sometimes recalling the sweet perfume of the
rubbed fingers that have held a cigarette. Audacious and
sometimes fatiguing in the brunette and the black woman, sharp
and fierce in the red woman, the armpit is heady as some sugared
wines in the blondes." It will be noted that this very exact
description corresponds at various points with the remarks of
more scientific observers.
Sometimes the odor of the armpit may even become a kind of fetich
which is craved for its own sake and in itself suffices to give
pleasure. Féré has recorded such a case, in a friend of his own,
a man of 60, with whom at one time he used to hunt, of robust
health and belonging to a healthy family. On these hunting
expeditions he used to tease the girls and women he met
(sometimes even rather old women) in a surprising manner, when he
came upon them walking in the fields with their short-sleeved
chemises exposed. When he had succeeded in introducing his hand
into the woman's armpit he went away satisfied, and frequently
held the hand to his nose with evident pleasure. After long
hesitation Féré asked for an explanation, which was frankly
given. As a child he had liked the odor, without knowing why. As
a young man women with strong odors had stimulated him to
extraordinary sexual exploits, and now they were the only women
who had any influence on him. He professed to be able to
recognize continence by the odor, as well as the most favorable
moment for approaching a woman. Throughout life a cold in the
head had always been accompanied by persistent general
excitement. (Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1902, p. 134.)
We not only have to recognize that in the course of evolution the specific
odors of the sexual region have sunk into the background as a source of
sexual allurements, we have further to recognize the significant fact that
even those personal odors which are chiefly liable under normal
circumstances to come occasionally within the conscious sexual sphere, and
indeed purely personal odors of all kinds, fail to exert any attraction,
but rather tend to cause antipathy, unless some degree of tumescence has
already been attained. That is to say, our olfactory experiences of the
human body approximate rather to our tactile experiences of it than to our
visual experiences. Sight is our most intellectual sense, and we trust
ourselves to it with comparative boldness without any undue dread that its
messages will hurt us by their personal intimacy; we even court its
experiences, for it is the chief organ of our curiosity, as smell is of a
dog's. But smell with us has ceased to be a leading channel of
intellectual curiosity. Personal odors do not, as vision does, give us
information that is very largely intellectual; they make an appeal that is
mainly of an intimate, emotional, imaginative character. They thus tend,
when we are in our normal condition, to arouse what James calls the
antisexual instinct.
"I cannot understand how people do not see how the senses are
connected," said Jenny Lind to J.A. Symonds (Horatio Brown, _J.A.
Symonds_, vol. i, p. 207). "What I have suffered from my sense of
smell! My youth was misery from my acuteness of sensibility."
Mantegazza discusses the strength of olfactory antipathies
(_Fisiologia dell' Odio_, p. 101), and mentions that once when
ill in Paraguay he was nursed by an Indian girl of 16, who was
fresh as a peach and extremely clean, but whose odor--"a mixture
of wild beast's lair and decayed onions"--caused nausea and
almost made him faint.
Moll (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 135)
records the case of a neuropathic man who was constantly rendered
impotent by his antipathy to personal body odors. It had very
frequently happened to him to be attracted by the face and
appearance of a girl, but at the last moment potency was
inhibited by the perception of personal odor.
In the case of a man of distinguished ability known to me,
belonging to a somewhat neuropathic family, there is extreme
sensitiveness to the smell of a woman, which is frequently the
most obvious thing to him about her. He has seldom known a woman
whose natural perfume entirely suits him, and his olfactory
impressions have frequently been the immediate cause of a rupture
of relationships.
It was formerly discussed whether strong personal odor
constituted adequate ground for divorce. Hagen, who brings
forward references on this point (_Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, pp.
75-83), considers that the body odors are normally and naturally
repulsive because they are closely associated with the capryl
group of odors, which are those of many of the excretions.
Olfactory antipathies are, however, often strictly subordinated
to the individual's general emotional attitude toward the object
from which they emanate. This is illustrated in the case, known
to me, of a man who on a hot day entering a steamboat with a
woman to whom he was attached seated himself between her and a
man, a stranger. He soon became conscious of an axillary odor
which he concluded to come from the man and which he felt as
disagreeable. But a little later he realized that it proceeded
from his own companion, and with this discovery the odor at once
lost its disagreeable character.
In this respect a personal odor resembles a personal touch. Two
intimate touches of the hand, though of precisely similar
physical quality, may in their emotional effects be separated by
an immeasurable interval, in dependence on our attitude toward
the person from whom they proceed.
Personal odor, in order to make its allurement felt, and not to arouse
antipathy, must, in normal persons, have been preceded by conditions which
have inhibited the play of the antisexual instinct. A certain degree of
tumescence must already have been attained. It is even possible, when we
bear in mind the intimate sympathy between the sexual sphere and the nose,
that the olfactory organ needs to have its sensibility modified in a form
receptive to sexual messages, though such an assumption is by no means
necessary. It is when such a faint preliminary degree of tumescence has
been attained, however it may have been attained,--for the methods of
tumescence, as we know, are innumerable,--that a sympathetic personal odor
is enabled to make its appeal. If we analyze the cases in which olfactory
perceptions have proved potent in love, we shall nearly always find that
they have been experienced under circumstances favorable for the
occurrence of tumescence. When this is not the case we may reasonably
suspect the presence of some degree of perversion.
In the oft-quoted case of the Austrian peasant who found that he
was aided in seducing young women by dancing with them and then
wiping their faces with a handkerchief he had kept in his armpit,
we may doubtless regard the preliminary excitement of the dance
as an essential factor in the influence produced.
In the same way, I am acquainted with the ease of a lady not
usually sensitive to simple body odors (though affected by
perfumes and flowers) who on one occasion, when already in a
state of sexual erethism, was highly excited when perceiving the
odor of her lover's axilla.
The same influence of preliminary excitement may be seen in
another instance known to me, that of a gentlemen who when
traveling abroad fell in with three charming young ladies during
a long railway journey. He was conscious of a pleasurable
excitement caused by the prolonged intimacy of the journey, but
this only became definitely sexual when the youngest of the
ladies, stretching before him to look out of the window and
holding on to the rack above, accidentally brought her axilla
into close proximity with his face, whereupon erection was
caused, although he himself regards personal odors, at all events
when emanating from strangers, as indifferent or repulsive.
A medical correspondent, referring to the fact that with many men
(indeed women also) sexual excitement occurs after dancing for a
considerable time, remarks that he considers the odor of the
woman's sweat is here a considerable factor.
The characteristics of olfaction which our investigation has so far
revealed have not, on the whole, been favorable to the influence of
personal odors as a sexual attraction in civilized men. It is a primitive
sense which had its flowering time before men arose; it is a comparatively
unæsthetic sense; it is a somewhat obtuse sense which among Europeans is
usually incapable of perceiving the odor of the "human flower"--to use
Goethe's phrase--except on very close contact, and on this account, and on
account of the fact that it is a predominantly emotional sense, personal
odors in ordinary social intercourse are less likely to arouse the sexual
instinct than the antisexual instinct. If a certain degree of tumescence
is required before a personal odor can exert an attractive influence, a
powerful personal odor, strong enough to be perceived before any degree of
tumescence is attained, will tend to cause repulsion, and in so doing
tend, consciously or unconsciously, to excite prejudice against personal
odor altogether. This is actually the case in civilization, and most
people, it would appear, view with more or less antipathy the personal
odors of those persons to whom they are not sexually attracted, while
their attitude is neutral in this respect toward the individuals to whom
they are sexually attracted.[51] The following statement by a
correspondent seems to me to express the experience of the majority of men
in this respect: "I do not notice that different people have different
smells. Certain women I have known have been in the habit of using
particular scents, but no associations could be aroused if I were to smell
the same scent now, for I should not identify it. As a boy I was very fond
of scent, and I associate this with my marked sexual proclivities. I like
a woman to use a little scent. It rouses my sexual feelings, but not to
any large extent. I dislike the smell of a woman's vagina." While the last
statement seems to express the feeling of many if not most men, it may be
proper to add that there seems no natural reason why the vulvar odor of a
clean and healthy woman should be other than agreeable to a normal man who
is her lover.
In literature it is the natural odor of women rather than men which
receives attention. We should expect this to be the case since literature
is chiefly produced by men. The question as to whether men or women are
really more apt to be sexually influenced in this way cannot thus be
decided. Among animals, it seems probable, both sexes are alike influenced
by odors, for, while it is usually the male whose sexual regions are
furnished with special scent glands, when such occur, the peculiar odor of
the female during the sexual season is certainly not less efficacious as
an allurement to the male. If we compare the general susceptibility of men
and women to agreeable odors, apart from the question of sexual
allurement, there can be little doubt that it is most marked among women.
As Groos points out, even among children little girls are more interested
in scents than boys, and the investigations of various workers, especially
Garbini, have shown that there is actually a greater power of
discriminating odors among girls than among boys. Marro has gone further,
and in an extended series of observations on girls before and after the
establishment of puberty--which is of considerable interest from the point
of view of the sexual significance of olfaction--he has shown reason to
believe that girls acquire an increased susceptibility to odors when
sexual life begins, although they show no such increased powers as regards
the other senses.[52] On the whole, it would appear that, while women are
not apt to be seriously affected, in the absence of any preliminary
excitation, by crude body odors, they are by no means insusceptible to the
sexual influence of olfactory impressions. It is probable, indeed, that
they are more affected, and more frequently affected, in this way, than
are men.
Edouard de Goncourt, in his novel _Chérie_--the intimate history
of a young girl, founded, he states, on much personal
observation--describes (Chapter LXXXV) the delight with which
sensuous, but chaste young girls often take in strong perfumes.
"Perfume and love," he remarks, "impart delights which are
closely allied." In an earlier chapter (XLIV) he writes of his
heroine at the age of 15: "The intimately happy emotion which the
young girl experienced in reading _Paul et Virginie_ and other
honestly amorous books she sought to make more complete and
intense and penetrating by soaking the book with scent, and the
love-story reached her senses and imagination through pages moist
with liquid perfume."
Carbini (_Archivio per l'Antropologia_, 1896, fasc. 3) in a very
thorough investigation of a large number of children, found that
the earliest osmo-gustative sensations occurred in the fourth
week in girls, the fifth week in boys; the first real and
definite olfactory sensations appeared in the fifteenth month in
girls, in the sixteenth in boys; while experiments on several
hundred children between the ages of 3 and 6 years showed the
girls slightly, but distinctly, superior to the boys. It may, of
course, be argued that these results merely show a somewhat
greater precocity of girls. I have summarized the main
investigations into this question in _Man and Woman_, revised and
enlarged edition, 1904, pp. 134-138. On the whole, they seem to
indicate greater olfactory acuteness on the part of women, but
the evidence is by no means altogether concordant in this sense.
Popular and general scientific opinion is also by no means always
in harmony. Thus, Tardif, in his book on odors in relation to the
sexual instinct, throughout assumes, as a matter of course, that
the sense of smell is most keen in men; while, on the other hand,
I note that in a pamphlet by Mr. Martin Perls, a manufacturing
perfumer, it is stated with equal confidence that "it is a
well-known fact that ladies have, even without a practice of long
standing, a keener sense of smell than men," and on this account
he employs a staff of young ladies for testing perfumes by smell
in the laboratory by the glazed paper test.
It is sometimes said that the use of strong perfumes by women
indicates a dulled olfactory organ. On the other hand, it is said
that the use of tobacco deadens the sensitiveness of the
masculine nose. Both these statements seem to be without
foundation. The use of a large amount of perfume is rather a
question of taste than a question of sensory acuteness (not to
mention that those who live in an atmosphere of perfume are, of
course, only faintly conscious of it), and the chemist perfumer
in his laboratory surrounded by strong odors can distinguish them
all with great delicacy. As regards tobacco, in Spain the
_cigarreras_ are women and girls who live perpetually in an
atmosphere of tobacco, and Señora Pardo Bazan, who knows them
well, remarks in her novel, _La Tribuna_, which deals with life
in a tobacco factory, that "the acuity of the sense of smell of
the _cigarreras_ is notable, and it would seem that instead of
blunting the nasal membrane the tobacco makes the olfactory
nerves keener."
"It was the same as if I was in a sweet apple garden, from the
sweetness that came to me when the light wind passed over them
and stirred their clothes," a woman is represented as saying
concerning a troop of handsome men in the Irish sagas (_Cuchulain
of Muirthemne_, p. 161). The pleasure and excitement experienced
by a woman in the odor of her lover is usually felt concerning a
vague and mixed odor which may be characteristic, but is not
definitely traceable to any specific bodily sexual odor. The
general odor of the man she loves, one woman states, is highly,
sometimes even overwhelmingly, attractive to her; but the
specific odor of the male sexual organs which she describes as
fishy has no attraction. A man writes that in his relations with
women he has never been able to detect that they were influenced
by the axillary or other specific odors. A woman writes: "To me
any personal odor, as that of perspiration, is very disagreeable,
and the healthy _naked_ human body is very free from any odor.
Fresh perspiration has no disagreeable smell; it is only by
retention in the clothing that it becomes objectionable. The
faint smell of smoke which lingers round men who smoke much is
rather exciting to me, but only when it is _very_ faint. If at
all strong it becomes disagreeable. As most of the men who have
attracted me have been great smokers, there is doubtless a direct
association of ideas. It has only once occurred to me that an
indifferent unpleasant smell became attractive in connection with
some particular person. In this case it was the scent of stale
tobacco, such as comes from the end of a cold cigar or cigarette.
It was, and is now, very disagreeable to me, but, for the time
and in connection with a particular person, it seemed to me more
delightful and exciting than the most delicious perfume. I think,
however, only a very strong attraction could overcome a dislike
of this sort, and I doubt if I could experience such a
twist-round if it had been a personal odor. Stale tobacco, though
nasty, conveys no mentally disagreeable idea. I mean it does not
suggest dirt or unhealthiness."
It is probably significant of the somewhat considerable part
which, in one way or another, odors and perfumes play in the
emotional life of women, that, of the 4 women whose sexual
histories are recorded in Appendix B of vol. iii of these
_Studies_, all are liable to experience sexual effects from
olfactory stimuli, 3 of them from personal odors (though this
fact is not in every case brought out in the histories as
recorded), while of the 8 men not one has considered his
olfactory experiences in this respect as worthy of mention.
The very marked sexual fascination which odor, associated with
the men they love, exerts on women has easily passed unperceived,
since women have not felt called upon to proclaim it. In sexual
inversion, however, when the woman takes a more active and
outspoken part than in normal love, it may very clearly be
traced. Here, indeed, it is often exaggerated, in consequence of
the common tendency for neurotic and neurasthenic persons to be
more than normally susceptible to the influence of odors. In the
majority of inverted women, it may safely be said, the odor of
the beloved person plays a very considerable part. Thus, one
inverted woman asks the woman she loves to send her some of her
hair that she may intoxicate herself in solitude with its perfume
(_Archivio di Psicopatie Sessuali_, vol. i, fasc. 3, p. 36).
Again, a young girl with some homosexual tendencies, was apt to
experience sexual emotions when in ordinary contact with
schoolfellows whose body odor was marked (Féré, _L'Instinct
Sexuel_, p. 260). Such examples are fairly typical.
That the body odor of men may in a large number of cases be
highly agreeable and sexually attractive is shown by the
testimony of male sexual inverts. There is abundant evidence to
this effect. Raffalovich (_L'Uranisme et l'Unisexualité_, p. 126)
insists on the importance of body odors as a sexual attraction to
the male invert, and is inclined to think that the increased odor
of the man's own body during sexual excitement may have an
auto-aphrodisiacal effect which is reflected on the body of the
loved person. The odor of peasants, of men who work in the open
air, is specially apt to be found attractive. Moll mentions the
case of an inverted man who found the "forest, mosslike odor" of
a schoolfellow irresistibly attractive.
The following passage from a letter written by an Italian marquis
has been sent to me: "Bonifazio stripped one evening, to give me
pleasure. He has the full, rounded flesh and amber coloring which
painters of the Giorgione school gave to their S. Sebastians.
When he began to dress, I took up an old _fascia_, or girdle of
netted silk, which was lying under his breeches, and which still
preserved the warmth of his body. I buried my face in it, and was
half inebriated by its exquisite aroma of young manhood and fresh
hay. He told me he had worn it for two years. No wonder it was
redolent of him. I asked him to let me keep it as a souvenir. He
smiled and said: 'You like it because it has lain so long upon my
_panoia_.' 'Yes, just so,' I replied; 'whenever I kiss it, thus
and thus, it will bring you back to me.' Sometimes I tie it round
my naked waist before I go to bed. The smell of it is enough to
cause a powerful erection, and the contact of its fringes with my
testicles and phallus has once or twice produced an involuntary
emission."
I may here reproduce a communication which has reached me
concerning the attractiveness of the odor of peasants: "One
predominant attraction of these men is that they are pure and
clean; their bodies in a state of healthy normal function. Then
they possess, if they are temperate, what the Greek poet Straton
called the phydikê chrôtos (a quality which, according to this
authority, is never found in women). This 'natural fair perfume
of the flesh' is a peculiar attribute of young men who live in
the open air and deal with natural objects. Even their
perspiration has an odor very different from that of girls in
ball-rooms: more refined, ethereal, pervasive, delicate, and
difficult to seize. When they have handled hay--in the time of
hay-harvest, or in winter, when they bring hay down from mountain
huts--the youthful peasants carry about with them the smell of 'a
field the Lord hath blessed.' Their bodies and their clothes
exhale an indefinable fragrance of purity and sex combined. Every
gland of the robust frame seems to have accumulated scent from
herbs and grasses, which slowly exudes from the cool, fresh skin
of the lad. You do not perceive it in a room. You must take the
young man's hands and bury your face in them, or be covered with
him under the same blanket in one bed, to feel this aroma. No
sensual impression on the nerves of smell is more poignantly
impregnated with spiritual poetry--the poetry of adolescence, and
early hours upon the hills, and labor cheerfully accomplished,
and the harvest of God's gifts to man brought home by human
industry. It is worth mentioning that Aristophanes, in his
description of the perfect Athenian Ephebus, dwells upon his
being redolent of natural perfumes."
In a passage in the second part of _Faust_ Goethe (who appears to
have felt considerable interest in the psychology of smell) makes
three women speak concerning the ambrosiacal odor of young men.
In this connection, also, I note a passage in a poem ("Appleton
House") by our own English poet Marvell, which it is of interest
to quote:--
"And now the careless victors play,
Dancing the triumphs of the hay,
When every mower's wholesome heat
Smells like an Alexander's sweat.
Their females fragrant as the mead
Which they in fairy circles tread,
When at their dance's end they kiss,
Their new-mown hay not sweeter is."
FOOTNOTES:
[30] R. Andree, "Völkergeruch," in _Ethnographische Parallelen_, Neue
Folge, 1889, pp. 213-222, brings together many passages describing the
odors of various peoples. Hagen, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, pp. 166 et
seq., has a chapter on the subject; Joest, supplement to _International
Archiv für Ethnographie_, 1893, p. 53, has an interesting passage on the
smells of various races, as also Waitz, _Introduction to Anthropology_, p.
103. Cf. Sir H.H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, p. 395; T.H. Parke,
_Experiences in Equatorial Africa_, p. 409; E.H. Man, _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, 1889, p. 391; Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of
Victoria_, vol. i, p. 7; d'Orbigny, _L'Homme Américain_, vol. i, p. 87,
etc.
[31] B. Adachi "Geruch der Europaer," _Globus_, 1903, No. 1.
[32] Hagen quotes testimonies on this point, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, p.
173. The negro, Castellani states, considers that Europeans have a smell
of death.
[33] _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition_, vol. ii, p.
181.
[34] Waitz, _Introduction to Anthropology_, p. 103.
[35] Monin, _Les Odeurs du Corps Humain_, second edition, Paris, 1886,
discusses briefly but comprehensively the normal and more especially the
pathological odors of the body and of its secretions and excretions.
[36] Venturi, _Degenerazione Psicho-sessuale_, p. 417.
[37] Quoted by Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1902, p. 133.
[38] H. Ling Roth, "On Salutations," _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, November, 1889.
[39] See Appendix A: "The Origins of the Kiss."
[40] See, e.g., passage quoted by I. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der
Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil II, p. 205.
[41] It must at the same time be remembered that the more or less degree
of exposure involved by sexual intercourse is itself a cause of nasal
congestion and sneezing.
[42] Féré, _Pathologie des Emotions_, p. 81
[43] J.N. Mackenzie similarly suggests (_Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin_,
No. 82, 1898) that "irritation and congestion of the nasal mucous membrane
precede, or are the excitants of, the olfactory impression that forms the
connecting link between the sense of smell and erethism of the
reproductive organs exhibited in the lower animals."
[44] _Les Odeurs dans les Romans de Zola_, Montpellier, 1889.
[45] Toulouse, _Emile Zola_, pp. 163-165, 173-175.
[46] P.J. Möbius, _Das Pathologische bei Nietzsche_.
[47] Moll has a passage on the sense of smell in the blind, more
especially in sexual respects, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_,
bd. 1, pp. 137 et seq.
[48] See, for instance, his poem, "Love Perfumes all Parts," in which he
declares that "Hands and thighs and legs are all richly aromatical." And
compare the lyrics entitled "A Song to the Maskers," "On Julia's Breath,"
"Upon Julia's Unlacing Herself," "Upon Julia's Sweat," and "To Mistress
Anne Soame."
[49] There are various indications that Goethe was attentive to the
attraction of personal odors; and that he experienced this attraction
himself is shown by the fact that, as he confessed, when he once had to
leave Weimar on an official journey for two days he took a bodice of Frau
von Stein's away in order to carry the scent of her body with him.
[50] Hagen has brought together from the literature of the subject a
number of typical cases of olfactory fetichism, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_,
1901, pp. 82 et seq.
[51] Moll's inquiries among normal persons have also shown that few people
are conscious of odor as a sexual attraction. (_Untersuchungen über die
Libido Sexualis_. Bd. I, p. 133.)
[52] Marro, _La, Pubertà_, 1898, Chapter II. Tardif found in boys that
perfumes exerted little or no influence on circulation and respiration
before puberty, though his observations on this point were too few to
carry weight.
IV.
The Influence of Perfumes--Their Aboriginal Relationship to Sexual Body
Odors--This True even of the Fragrance of Flowers--The Synthetic
Manufacture of Perfumes--The Sexual Effects of Perfumes--Perfumes perhaps
Originally Used to Heighten the Body Odors--The Special Significance of
the Musk Odor--Its Wide Natural Diffusion in Plants and Animals and
Man--Musk a Powerful Stimulant--Its Widespread Use as a Perfume--Peau
d'Espagne--The Smell of Leather and its Occasional Sexual Effects--The
Sexual Influence of the Odors of Flowers--The Identity of many Plant Odors
with Certain Normal and Abnormal Body Odors--The Smell of Semen in this
Connection.
So far we have been mainly concerned with purely personal odors. It is,
however, no longer possible to confine the discussion of the sexual
significance of odor within the purely animal limit. The various
characteristics of personal odor which have been noted--alike those which
tend to make it repulsive and those which tend to make it attractive--have
led to the use of artificial perfumes, to heighten the natural odor when
it is regarded as attractive, to disguise it when it is regarded as
repellent; while at the same time, happily covering both of these
impulses, has developed the pure delight in perfume for its own
agreeableness, the æsthetic side of olfaction. In this way--although in a
much less constant and less elaborate manner--the body became adorned to
the sense of smell just as by clothing and ornament it is adorned to the
sense of sight.
But--and this is a point of great significance from our present
standpoint--we do not really leave the sexual sphere by introducing
artificial perfumes. The perfumes which we extract from natural products,
or, as is now frequently the case, produce by chemical synthesis, are
themselves either actually animal sexual odors or allied in character or
composition, to the personal odors they are used to heighten or disguise.
Musk is the product of glands of the male _Moschus moschiferus_ which
correspond to preputial sebaceous glands; castoreum is the product of
similar sexual glands in the beaver, and civet likewise from the civet;
ambergris is an intestinal calculus found in the rectum of the
cachelot.[53] Not only, however, are nearly all the perfumes of animal
origin, in use by civilized man, odors which have a specially sexual
object among the animals from which they are derived, but even the
perfumes of flowers may be said to be of sexual character. They are given
out at the reproductive period in the lives of plants, and they clearly
have very largely as their object an appeal to the insects who secure
plant fertilization, such appeal having as its basis the fact that among
insects themselves olfactory sensibility has in many cases been developed
in their own mating.[54] There is, for example, a moth in which both sexes
are similarly and inconspicuously marked, but the males diffuse an
agreeable odor, said to be like pineapple, which attracts the females.[55]
If, therefore, the odors of flowers have developed because they proved
useful to the plant by attracting insects or other living creatures, it is
obvious that the advantage would lie with those plants which could put
forth an animal sexual odor of agreeable character, since such an odor
would prove fascinating to animal creatures. We here have a very simple
explanation of the fundamental identity of odors in the animal and
vegetable worlds. It thus comes about that from a psychological point of
view we are not really entering a new field when we begin to discuss the
influence of perfumes other than those of the animal body. We are merely
concerned with somewhat more complex or somewhat more refined sexual
odors; they are not specifically different from the human odors and they
mingle with them harmoniously. Popular language bears witness to the
truth of this statement, and the normal and abnormal human odors, as we
have already seen, are constantly compared to artificial, animal, and
plant odors, to chloroform, to musk, to violet, to mention only those
similitudes which seem to occur most frequently.
The methods now employed for obtaining the perfumes universally
used in civilized lands are three: (1) the extraction of
odoriferous compounds from the neutral products in which they
occur; (2) the artificial preparation of naturally occurring
odoriferous compounds by synthetic processes; (3) the manufacture
of materials which yield odors resembling those of pleasant
smelling natural objects. (See, e.g., "Natural and Artificial
Perfumes," _Nature_, December 27, 1900.) The essential principles
of most of our perfumes belong to the complex class of organic
compounds known as terpenes. During recent years a number of the
essential elements of natural perfumes have been studied, in many
cases the methods of preparing them artificially discovered, and
they are largely replacing the use of natural perfumes not only
for soaps, etc., but for scent essences, though it appears to be
very difficult to imitate exactly the delicate fragrance achieved
by Nature. Artificial musk was discovered accidentally by Bauer
when studying the butyltoluenes contained in a resin extractive.
Vanillin, the odoriferous principle of the vanilla bean, is an
aldehyde which was first artificially prepared by Tiemann and
Haarmann in 1874 by oxidizing coniferin, a glucoside contained in
the sap of various coniferæ, but it now appears to be usually
manufactured from eugenol, a phenol contained in oil of cloves.
Piperonal, an aldehyde closely allied to vanillin, is used in
perfumery under the name of heliotropin and is prepared from oil
of sassafras and oil of camphor. Cumarine, the material to which
tonka bean, sweet woodruff, and new-mown hay owe their
characteristic odors, was synthetically prepared by W.H. Parkin
in 1868 by heating sodiosalicylic aldehyde with acetic anhydride,
though now more cheaply prepared from an herb growing in Florida.
Irone, which has the perfume of violets, was isolated in 1893
from a ketone contained in orris-root; and ionone, another ketone
which has a very closely similar odor of fresh violets and was
isolated after some years' further work, is largely used in the
preparation of violet perfume. Irone and ionone are closely
similar in composition to oil of turpentine which when taken into
the body is partly converted into perfume and gives a strong odor
of violets to the urine. "Little has yet been accomplished toward
ascertaining the relation between the odor and the chemical
constitution of substances in general. Hydrocarbons as a class
possess considerable similarity in odor, so also do the organic
sulphides and, to a much smaller extent, the ketones. The
subject waits for some one to correlate its various
physiological, psychological and physical aspects in the same way
that Helmholtz did for sound. It seems, as yet, impossible to
assign any probable reason to the fact that many substances have
a pleasant odor. It may, however, be worth suggesting that
certain compounds, such as the volatile sulphides and the
indoles, have very unpleasant odors because they are normal
constituents of mammalian excreta and of putrefied animal
products; the repulsive odors may be simply necessary results of
evolutionary processes." (_Loc. cit._, _Nature_, December 27,
1900.)
Many of the perfumes in use are really combinations of a great
many different odors in varying proportions, such as oil of rose,
lavender oil, ylang-ylang, etc. The most highly appreciated
perfumes are often made up of elements which in stronger
proportion would be regarded as highly unpleasant.
In the study and manufacture of perfumes Germany and France have
taken the lead in recent times. The industry is one of great
importance. In France alone the trade in perfumes amounts to
£4,000,000.
It is doubtless largely owing to the essential and fundamental identity of
odors--to the chemical resemblances even of odors from the most widely
remote sources--that we find that perfumes in many cases have the same
sexual effects as are primitively possessed by the body odors. In northern
countries, where the use of perfumes is chiefly cultivated by women, it is
by women that this sexual influence is most liable to be felt. In the
South and in the East it appears to be at least equally often experienced
by men. Thus, in Italy Mantegazza remarks that "many men of strong sexual
temperament cannot visit with impunity a laboratory of essences and
perfumes."[56] In the East we find it stated in the Islamic book entitled
_The Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nefzaoui_ that the use of perfumes by women,
as well as by men, excites to the generative act. It is largely in
reliance on this fact that in many parts of the world, especially among
Eastern peoples and occasionally among ourselves in Europe, women have
been accustomed to perfume the body and especially the vulva.[57]
It seems highly probable that, as has been especially emphasized by Hagen,
perfumes were primitively used by women, not as is sometimes the case in
civilization, with the idea of disguising any possible natural odor, but
with the object of heightening and fortifying the natural odor.[58] If the
primitive man was inclined to disparage a woman whose odor was slight or
imperceptible,--turning away from her with contempt, as the Polynesian
turned away from the ladies of Sydney: "They have no smell!"--women would
inevitably seek to supplement any natural defects in this respect, and to
accentuate their odorous qualities, in the same way as by corsets and
bustles, even in civilization, they have sought to accentuate the sexual
saliencies of their bodies. In this way we may, as Hagen suggests, explain
the fact that until recent times the odors preferred by women have not
been the most delicate or exquisite, but the strongest, the most animal,
the most sexual: musk, castoreum, civet, and ambergris.
In that interesting novel--dealing with the adventures of a
Jewish maiden at the Persian court of Xerxes--which under the
title of _Esther_ has found its way into the Old Testament we are
told that it was customary in the royal harem at Shushan to
submit the women to a very prolonged course of perfuming before
they were admitted to the king: "six months with oil of myrrh and
six months with sweet odors." (_Esther_, Chapter II, v. 12.)
In the _Arabian Nights_ there are many allusions to the use of
perfumes by women with a more or less definitely stated
aphrodisiacal intent. Thus we read in the story of Kamaralzaman:
"With fine incense I will perfume my breasts, my belly, my whole
body, so that my skin may melt more sweetly in thy mouth, O apple
of my eye!"
Even among savages the perfuming of the body is sometimes
practiced with the object of inducing love in the partner.
Schellong states that the Papuans of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land rub
various fragrant plants into their bodies for this purpose.
(_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, ht. i, p. 19.) The
significance of this practice is more fully revealed by Haddon
when studying the Papuans of Torres Straits among whom the
initiative in courtship is taken by the women. It was by scenting
himself with a pungent odorous substance that a young man
indicated that he was ready to be sued by the girls. A man would
wear this scent at the back of his neck during a dance in order
to attract the attention of a particular girl; it was believed to
act with magical certainty, after the manner of a charm (_Reports
of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_,
vol. v, pp. 211, 222, and 328).
The perfume which is of all perfumes the most interesting from the present
point of view is certainly musk. With ambergris, musk is the chief member
of Linnæus's group of _Odores ambrosiacæ_, a group which in sexual
significances, as Zwaardemaker remarks, ranks besides the capryl group of
odors. It is a perfume of ancient origin; its name is Persian[59]
(indicating doubtless the channel whence it reached Europe) and ultimately
derived from the Sanskrit word for testicle in allusion to the fact that
it was contained in a pouch removed from the sexual parts of the male
musk-deer. Musk odors, however, often of considerable strength, are very
widely distributed in Nature, alike among animals and plants. This is
indicated by the frequency with which the word "musk" forms part of the
names of animals and plants which are by no means always nearly related.
We have the musk-ox, the musky mole, several species called musk-rat, the
musk-duct, the musk-beetle; while among plants which have received their
names from a real or supposed musky odor are, besides several that are
called musk-plant, the musk-rose, the musk-hyacinth, the musk-mallow, the
musk-orchid, the musk-melon, the musk-cherry, the musk-pear, the
musk-plum, muskat and muscatels, musk-seed, musk-tree, musk-wood, etc.[60]
But a musky odor is not merely widespread in Nature among plants and the
lower animals, it is peculiarly associated with man. Incidentally we have
already seen how it is regarded as characteristic of some races of man,
especially the Chinese. Moreover, the smell of the negress is said to be
musky in character, and among Europeans a musky odor is said to be
characteristic of blondes. Laycock, in his _Nervous Diseases of Women_,
stated his opinion that "the musk odor is certainly the sexual odor of
man"; and Féré states that the musk odor is that among natural perfumes
most nearly approaching the odor of the sexual secretions. We have seen
that the Chinese poet vaunts the musky odor of his mistress's armpits,
while another Oriental saying concerning the attractive woman is that "her
navel is filled with musk." Persian literature contains many references to
musk as an attractive body odor, and Firdusi speaks of a woman's hair as
"a crown of musk," while the Arabian poet Motannabi says of his mistress
that "her hyacinthine hair smells sweeter than Scythian musk." Galopin
stated that he knew women whose natural odor of musk (and less frequently
of ambergris) was sufficiently strong to impart to a bath in less than an
hour a perfume due entirely to the exhalations of the musky body; it must
be added that Galopin was an enthusiast in this matter.
The special significance of musk from our present point of view lies not
only in the fact that we here have a perfume, widely scattered throughout
nature and often in an agreeable form, which is at the same time a very
frequent personal odor in man. Musk is the odor which not only in the
animals to which it has given a name, but in many others, is a
specifically sexual odor, chiefly emitted during the sexual season. The
sexual odors, indeed, of most animals seem to be modifications of musk.
The Sphinx moth has a musky odor which is confined to the male and is
doubtless sexual. Some lizards have a musky odor which is heightened at
the sexual season; crocodiles during the pairing season emit from their
submaxillary glands a musky odor which pervades their haunts. In the same
way elephants emit a musky odor from their facial glands during the
rutting season. The odor of the musk-duck is chiefly confined to the
breeding season.[61] The musky odor of the negress is said to be
heightened during sexual excitement.
The predominance of musk as a sexual odor is associated with the fact that
its actual nervous influence, apart from the presence of sexual
association, is very considerable. Féré found it to be a powerful muscular
stimulant. In former times musk enjoyed a high reputation as a cardiac
stimulant; it fell into disuse, but in recent years its use in asthenic
states has been revived, and excellent results, it has been claimed, have
followed its administration in cases of collapse from Asiatic cholera. For
sexual torpor in women it still has (like vanilla and sandal) a certain
degree of reputation, though it is not often used, and some of the old
Arabian physicians (especially Avicenna) recommended it, with castoreum
and myrrh, for amenorrhoea. Its powerful action is indicated by the
experience of Esquirol, who stated that he had seen cases in which sensory
stimulation by musk in women during lactation had produced mania. It has
always had the reputation, more especially in the Mohammedan East, of
being a sexual stimulant to men; "the noblest of perfumes," it is called
in _El Ktab_, "and that which most provokes to venery."
It is doubtless a fact significant of the special sexual effects of musk
that, as Laycock remarked, in cases of special idiosyncrasy to odors, musk
appears to be that odor which is most liked or disliked. Thus, the old
English physician Whytt remarked that "several delicate women who could
easily bear the stronger smell of tobacco have been thrown into fits by
musk, ambergris, or a pale rose."[62] It may be remarked that in the
_Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nefzaoui_ it is stated that it is by their
sexual effects that perfumes tend to throw women into a kind of swoon, and
Lucretius remarks that a woman who smells castoreum, another animal sexual
perfume, at the time of her menstrual period may swoon.[63]
Not only is musk the most cherished perfume of the Islamic world, and the
special favorite of the Prophet himself, who greatly delighted in perfumes
("I love your world," he is reported to have said in old age, "for its
women and its perfumes"),[64] it is the only perfume generally used by the
women of a land in which the refinements of life have been carried so far
as Japan, and they received it from the Chinese.[65]
Moreover, musk is still the most popular of European perfumes. It is the
perfumes containing musk, Piesse states in his well-known book on the _Art
of Perfumery_, which sell best. It is certainly true that in its simple
form the odor of musk is not nowadays highly considered in Europe. This
fact is connected with the ever-growing refinement in accordance with
which the specific odors of the sexual regions in human beings tend to
lose their primitive attractiveness and bodily odors generally become
mingled with artificial perfumes and so disguised. But, although musk in
its simple form, and under its ancient name, has lost its hold in Europe,
it is an interesting and significant fact that it is still the perfumes
which contain musk that are the most widely popular.
Peau d'Espagne may be mentioned as a highly complex and luxurious perfume,
often the favorite scent of sensuous persons, which really owes a large
part of its potency to the presence of the crude animal sexual odors of
musk and civet. It consists of wash-leather steeped in ottos of neroli,
rose, santal, lavender, verbena, bergamot, cloves, and cinnamon,
subsequently smeared with civet and musk. It is said by some, probably
with a certain degree of truth, that Peau d'Espagne is of all perfumes
that which most nearly approaches the odor of a woman's skin; whether it
also suggests the odor of leather is not so clear.
There is, however, no doubt that the smell of leather has a curiously
stimulating sexual influence on many men and women. It is an odor which
seems to occupy an intermediate place between the natural body odors and
the artificial perfumes for which it sometimes serves as a basis; possibly
it is to this fact that its occasional sexual influence is owing, for, as
we have already seen, there is a tendency for sexual allurement to attach
to odors which are not the specific personal body odors but yet are
related to them. Moll considers, no doubt rightly, that shoe fetichism,
perhaps the most frequent of sexual fetichistic perversions, is greatly
favored, if, indeed, it does not owe its origin to, the associated odor of
the feet and of the shoes.[66] He narrates a case of shoe fetichism in a
man in which the perversion began at the age of 6; when for the first time
he wore new shoes, having previously used only the left-off shoes of his
elder brother; he felt and smelt these new shoes with sensations of
unmeasured pleasure; and a few years later began to use shoes as a method
of masturbation.[67] Näcke has also recorded the case of a shoe fetichist
who declared that the sexual attraction of shoes (usually his wife's) lay
largely in the odor of the leather.[68] Krafft-Ebing, again, brings
forward a case of shoe fetichism in which the significant fact is
mentioned that the subject bought a pair of leather cuffs to smell while
masturbating.[69] Restif de la Bretonne, who was somewhat of a shoe
fetichist, appears to have enjoyed smelling shoes. It is not probable that
the odor of leather explains the whole of shoe fetichism,--as we shall see
when, in another "Study," this question comes before us--and in many cases
it cannot be said to enter at all; it is, however, one of the factors.
Such a conclusion is further supported by the fact that by many the odor
of new shoes is sometimes desired as an adjuvant to coitus. It is in the
experience of prostitutes that such a device is not infrequent. Näcke
mentions that a colleague of his was informed by a prostitute that several
of her clients desired the odor of new shoes in the room, and that she was
accustomed to obtain the desired perfume by holding her shoes for a moment
over the flame of a spirit lamp.
The direct sexual influence of the odor of leather is, however, more
conclusively proved by those instances in which it exists apart from shoes
or other objects having any connection with the human body. I have
elsewhere in these "Studies"[71] recorded the case of a lady, entirely
normal in sexual and other respects, who is conscious of a considerable
degree of pleasurable sexual excitement in the presence of the smell of
leather objects, more especially of leather-bound ledgers and in shops
where leather objects are sold. She thinks this dates from the period
when, as a child of 9, she was sometimes left alone for a time on a high
stool in an office. A possible explanation in this case lies in the
supposition that on one of these early occasions sexual excitement was
produced by the contact with the stool (in a way that is not infrequent in
young girls) and that the accidentally associated odor of leather
permanently affected the nervous system, while the really significant
contact left no permanent impression. Even on such a supposition it might,
however, still be maintained that a real potency of the leather odor is
illustrated by this case, and this is likewise suggested by the fact that
the same subject is also sexually affected by various perfumes and odorous
flowers not recalling leather.[70]
It has been suggested to me by a lady that the odor of leather suggests
that of the sexual organs. The same suggestion is made by Hagen,[72] and I
find it stated by Gould and Pyle that menstruating girls sometimes smell
of leather. The secret of its influence may thus be not altogether
obscure; in the fact that leather is animal skin, and that it may thus
vaguely stir the olfactory sensibilities which had been ancestrally
affected by the sexual stimulus of the skin odor lies the probable
foundation of the mystery.
In the absence of all suggestion of personal or animal odors, in its most
exquisite forms in the fragrance of flowers, olfactory sensations are
still very frequently of a voluptuous character. Mantegazza has remarked
that it is a proof of the close connection between the sense of smell and
the sexual organs that the expression of pleasure produced by olfaction
resembles the expression of sexual pleasures.[73] Make the chastest woman
smell the flowers she likes best, he remarks, and she will close her eyes,
breathe deeply, and, if very sensitive, tremble all over, presenting an
intimate picture which otherwise she never shows, except perhaps to her
lover. He mentions a lady who said: "I sometimes feel such pleasure in
smelling flowers that I seem to be committing a sin."[74] It is really the
case that in many persons--usually, if not exclusively, women--the odor of
flowers produces not only a highly pleasurable, but a distinctly and
specifically sexual, effect. I have met with numerous cases in which this
effect was well marked. It is usually white flowers with heavy,
penetrating odors which exert this influence. Thus, one lady (who is
similarly affected by various perfumes, forget-me-nots, ylang-ylang,
etc.) finds that a number of flowers produce on her a definite sexual
effect, with moistening of the pudenda. This effect is especially produced
by white flowers like the gardenia, tuberose, etc. Another lady, who lives
in India, has a similar experience with flowers. She writes: A scent to
cause me sexual excitement must be somewhat heavy and _penetrating_.
Nearly all white flowers so affect me and many Indian flowers with heavy,
almost pungent scents. (All the flower scents are quite unconnected with
me with any individual.) Tuberose, lilies of the valley, and frangipani
flowers have an almost intoxicating effect on me. Violets, roses,
mignonette, and many others, though very delicious, give me no sexual
feeling at all. For this reason the line, 'The lilies and languors of
virtue for the roses and raptures of vice' seems all wrong to me. The lily
seems to me a very sensual flower, while the rose and its scent seem very
good and countrified and virtuous. Shelley's description of the lily of
the valley, 'whom youth makes so fair and _passion_ so pale,' falls in
much more with my ideas. "I can quite understand," she adds, "that
leather, especially of books, might have an exciting effect, as the smell
has this _penetrating_ quality, but I do not think it produces any special
feeling in me." This more sensuous character of white flowers is fairly
obvious to many persons who do not experience from them any specifically
sexual effects. To some people lilies have an odor which they describe as
sexual, although these persons may be quite unaware that Hindu authors
long since described the vulvar secretion of the _Padmini_, or perfect
woman, during coitus, as "perfumed like the lily that has newly
burst."[75] It is noteworthy that it was more especially the white
flowers--lily, tuberose, etc.--which were long ago noted by Cloquet as
liable to cause various unpleasant nervous effects, cardiac oppression and
syncope.[76]
When we are concerned with the fragrances of flowers it would seem that we
are far removed from the human sexual field, and that their sexual effects
are inexplicable. It is not so. The animal and vegetable odors, as,
indeed, we have already seen, are very closely connected. The recorded
cases are very numerous in which human persons have exhaled from their
skins--sometimes in a very pronounced degree--the odors of plants and
flowers, of violets, of roses, of pineapple, of vanilla. On the other
hand, there are various plant odors which distinctly recall, not merely
the general odor of the human body, but even the specifically sexual
odors. A rare garden weed, the stinking goosefoot, _Chenopodium vulvaria_,
it is well known, possesses a herring brine or putrid fish odor--due, it
appears, to propylamin, which is also found in the flowers of the common
white thorn or mayflower (_Cratægus oxyacantha_) and many others of the
_Rosaceæ_--which recalls the odor of the animal and human sexual
regions.[77] The reason is that both plant and animal odors belong
chemically to the same group of capryl odors (Linnæus's _Odores hircini_),
so called from the goat, the most important group of odors from the sexual
point of view. Caproic and capryl acid are contained not only in the odor
of the goat and in human sweat, and in animal products as many cheeses,
but also in various plants, such as Herb Robert (_Geranium robertianum_),
and the Stinking St. John's worts (_Hypericum hircinum_), as well as the
_Chenopodium_. Zwaardemaker considers it probable that the odor of the
vagina belongs to the same group, as well as the odor of semen (which
Haller called _odor aphrodisiacus_), which last odor is also found, as
Cloquet pointed out, in the flowers of the common berberry (_Berberis
vulgaris_) and in the chestnut. A very remarkable and significant example
of the same odor seems to occur in the case of the flowers of the henna
plant, the white-flowered Lawsonia (_Lawsonia inermis_), so widely used in
some Mohammedan lands for dyeing the nails and other parts of the body.
"These flowers diffuse the sweetest odor," wrote Sonnini in Egypt a
century ago; "the women delight to wear them, to adorn their houses with
them, to carry them to the baths, to hold them in their hands, and to
perfume their bosoms with them. They cannot patiently endure that
Christian and Jewish women shall share the privilege with them. It is very
remarkable that the perfume of the henna flowers, when closely inhaled, is
almost entirely lost in a very decided spermatic odor. If the flowers are
crushed between the fingers this odor prevails, and is, indeed, the only
one perceptible. It is not surprising that so delicious a flower has
furnished Oriental poetry with many charming traits and amorous similes."
Such a simile Sonnini finds in the _Song of Songs_, i. 13-14.[78]
The odor of semen has not been investigated, but, according to
Zwaardemaker, artificially produced odors (like cadaverin) resemble it.
The odor of the leguminous fenugreek, a botanical friend considers,
closely approaches the odor given off in some cases by the armpit in
women. It is noteworthy that fenugreek contains cumarine, which imparts
its fragrance to new-mown hay and to various flowers of somewhat similar
odor. On some persons these have a sexually exciting effect, and it is of
considerable interest to observe that they recall to many the odor of
semen. "It seems very natural," a lady writes, "that flowers, etc., should
have an exciting effect, as the original and by far the pleasantest way of
love-making was in the open among flowers and fields; but a more purely
physical reason may, I think, be found in the exact resemblance between
the scent of semen and that of the pollen of flowering grasses. The first
time I became aware of this resemblance it came on me with a rush that
here was the explanation of the very exciting effect of a field of
flowering grasses and, perhaps through them, of the scents of other
flowers. If I am right, I suppose flower scents should affect women more
powerfully than men in a sexual way. I do not think anyone would be likely
to notice the odor of semen in this connection unless they had been
greatly struck by the exciting effects of the pollen of grasses. I had
often noticed it and puzzled over it." As pollen is the male sexual
element of flowers, its occasionally stimulating effect in this direction
is perhaps but an accidental result of a unity running through the organic
world, though it may be perhaps more simply explained as a special form of
that nasal irritation which is felt by so many persons in a hay-field.
Another correspondent, this time a man, tells me that he has noted the
resemblance of the odor of semen to that of crushed grasses. A scientific
friend who has done much work in the field of organic chemistry tells me
he associates the odor of semen with that produced by diastasic action on
mixing flour and water, which he regards as sexual in character. This
again brings us to the starchy products of the leguminous plants. It is
evident that, subtle and obscure as many questions in the physiology and
psychology of olfaction still remain, we cannot easily escape from their
sexual associations.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] H. Beauregard, _Matière Médicale Zoölogique: Histoire des Drogues
d'origine Animate_, 1901.
[54] Professor Plateau, of Ghent, has for many years carried on a series
of experiments which would even tend to show that insects are scarcely
attracted by the colors of flowers at all, but mainly influenced by a
sense which would appear to be smell. His experiments have been recorded
during recent years (from 1887) in the _Bulletins de l'Académie Royale de
Belgique_, and have from time to time been summarized in _Nature_, e.g.,
February 5, 1903.
[55] David Sharp, _Cambridge Natural History: Insects_, Part II, p. 398.
[56] Mantegazza, _Fisiologia dell' Amore_, 1873, p. 176.
[57] Mantegazza (_L'Amour dans l'Humanité_, p. 94) refers to various
peoples who practice this last custom. Egypt was a great centre of the
practice more than 3000 years ago.
[58] Hagen, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, 1901, p. 226. It has been suggested
to me by a medical correspondent that one of the primitive objects of the
hair, alike on head, mons veneris, and axilla, was to collect sweat and
heighten its odor to sexual ends.
[59] The names of all our chief perfumes are Arabic or Persian: civet,
musk, ambergris, attar, camphor, etc.
[60] Cloquet (_Osphrésiologie_, pp. 73-76) has an interesting passage on
the prevalence of the musk odor in animals, plants, and even mineral
substances.
[61] Laycock brings together various instances of the sexual odors of
animals, insisting on their musky character (_Nervous Diseases of Women_;
section, "Odors"). See also a section in the _Descent of Man_ (Part II,
Chapter XVIII), in which Darwin argues that "the most odoriferous males
are the most successful in winning the females." Distant also has an
interesting paper on this subject, "Biological Suggestions," _Zoölogist_,
May, 1902; he points out the significant fact that musky odors are usually
confined to the male, and argues that animal odors generally are more
often attractive than protective.
[62] R. Whytt, _Works_, 1768, p. 543.
[63] Lucretius, VI, 790-5.
[64] Mohammed, said Ayesha, was very fond of perfumes, especially "men's
scents," musk and ambergris. He used also to burn camphor on odoriferous
wood and enjoy the fragrant smell, while he never refused perfumes when
offered them as a present. The things he cared for most, said Ayesha, were
women, scents, and foods. Muir, _Life of Mahomet_, vol. iii, p. 297.
[65] H. ten Kate, _International Centralblatt für Anthropologie_, Ht. 6,
1902. This author, who made observations on Japanese with Zwaardemaker's
olfactometer, found that, contrary to an opinion sometimes stated, they
have a somewhat defective sense of smell. He remarks that there are no
really native Japanese perfumes.
[66] Moll: _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1890, p. 306.
[67] Moll: _Libido Sexualis_, bd. 1, p. 284.
[68] P. Näcke, "Un Cas de Fetichisme de Souliers," _Bulletin de la Société
de Médecine Mentale de Belgique_, 1894.
[69] _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English edition, p. 167.
[70] Philip Salmuth (_Observationes Medicæ_, Centuria II, no. 63) in the
seventeenth century recorded a case in which a young girl of noble birth
(whose sister was fond of eating chalk, cinnamon, and cloves) experienced
extreme pleasure in smelling old books. It would appear, however, that in
this case the fascination lay not so much in the odor of the leather as in
the mouldy odor of worm-eaten books; "_fætore veterum liborum, a blattis
et tineis exesorum, situque prorsus corruptorum_" are Salmuth's words.
[71] _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. iii, "Appendix B, History
VIII."
[72] _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, p. 106.
[73] Mantegazza, _Fisiologia dell' Amore_, p. 176.
[74] In this connection I may quote the remark of the writer of a
thoughtful article in the _Journal of Psychological Medicine_, 1851: "The
use of scents, especially those allied to the musky, is one of the
luxuries of women, and in some constitutions cannot be indulged without
some danger to the morals, by the excitement to the ovaria which results.
And although less potent as aphrodisiacs in their action on the sexual
system of women than of men, we have reason to think that they cannot be
used to excess with impunity by most."
[75] _Kama Sutra_ of Vatsyayana, 1883, p. 5.
[76] Cloquet, _Osphrésiologie_, p. 95.
[77] In Normandy the _Chenopodium_, it is said, is called "conio," and in
Italy erba connina (con, cunnus), on account of its vulvar odor. The
attraction of dogs to this plant has been noted. In the same way cats are
irresistibly attracted to preparations of valerian because their own urine
contains valerianic acid.
[78] Sonnini, _Voyage dans la Haute et Basse Egypte_, 1799, vol. i. p.
298.
V.
The Evil Effects of Excessive Olfactory Stimulation--The Symptoms of
Vanillism--The Occasional Dangerous Results of the Odors of
Flowers--Effects of Flowers on the Voice.
The reality of the olfactory influences with which we have been concerned,
however slight they may sometimes appear, is shown by the fact that odors,
both agreeable and disagreeable, are stimulants, obeying the laws which
hold good for stimulants generally. They whip up the nervous energies
momentarily, but in the end, if the excitation is excessive and prolonged,
they produce fatigue and exhaustion. This is clearly shown by Féré's
elaborate experiments on the influences of odors, as compared with other
sensory stimulants, on the amount of muscular work performed with the
ergograph.[79] Commenting on the remark of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, that
"man uses perfumes to impart energy to his passion," Féré remarks: "But
perfumes cannot keep up the fires which they light." Their prolonged use
involves fatigue, which is not different from that produced by excessive
work, and reproduces all the bodily and psychic accompaniments of
excessive work.[80] It is well known that workers in perfumes are apt to
suffer from the inhalation of the odors amid which they live. Dealers in
musk are said to be specially liable to precocious dementia. The symptoms
generally experienced by the men and women who work in vanilla factories
where the crude fruit is prepared for commerce have often been studied and
are well known. They are due to the inhalation of the scent, which has all
the properties of the aromatic aldehydes, and include skin eruptions,[81]
general excitement, sleeplessness, headache, excessive menstruation, and
irritable bladder. There is nearly always sexual excitement, which may be
very pronounced.[82]
We are here in the presence, it may be insisted, not of a nervous
influence only, but of a direct effect of odor on the vital processes. The
experiments of Tardif on the influence of perfumes on frogs and rabbits
showed that a poisonous effect was exerted;[83] while Féré, by incubating
fowls' eggs in the presence of musk, found repeatedly that many
abnormalities occurred, and that development was retarded even in the
embryos that remained normal; while he obtained somewhat similar results
by using essences of lavender, cloves, etc.[84] The influence of odors is
thus deeper than is indicated by their nervous effects; they act directly
on nutrition. We are led, as Passy remarks, to regard odors as very
intimately related to the physiological properties of organic substances,
and the sense of smell as a detached fragment of generally sensibility,
reacting to the same stimuli as general sensibility, but highly
specialized in view of its protective function.
The reality and subtlety of the influence of odors is further
shown, by the cases in which very intense effects are produced
even by the temporary inhalation of flowers or perfumes or other
odors. Such cases of idiosyncrasy in which a person--frequently
of somewhat neurotic temperament--becomes acutely sensitive to
some odor or odors have been recorded in medical literature for
many centuries. In these cases the obnoxious odor produces
congestion of the respiratory passages, sneezing, headache,
fainting, etc., but occasionally, it has been recorded, even
death. (Dr. J.N. Mackenzie, in his interesting and learned paper
on "The Production of the so-called 'Rose Cold,' etc.," _American
Journal of Medical Sciences_, January, 1886, quotes many cases,
and gives a number of references to ancient medical authors; see
also Layet, art. "Odeur," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des
Sciences Médicales_.)
An interesting phenomenon of the group--though it is almost too
common to be described as an idiosyncrasy--is the tendency of the
odor of certain flowers to affect the voice and sometimes even to
produce complete loss of voice. The mechanism of the process is
not fully understood, but it would appear that congestion and
paresis of the larynx is produced and spasm of the bronchial
tube. Botallus in 1565 recorded cases in which the scent of
flowers brought on difficulty of breathing, and the danger of
flowers from this point of view is well recognized by
professional singers. Joal has studied this question in an
elaborate paper (summarized in the _British Medical Journal_,
March 3, 1895), and Dr. Cabanès has brought together (_Figaro_,
January 20, 1894) the experiences of a number of well-known
singers, teachers of singing, and laryngologists. Thus, Madame
Renée Richard, of the Paris Opera, has frequently found that when
her pupils have arrived with a bunch of violets fastened to the
bodice or even with a violet and iris sachet beneath the corset,
the voice has been marked by weakness and, on using the
laryngoscope, she has found the vocal cords congested. Madame
Calvé confirmed this opinion, and stated that she was specially
sensitive to tuberose and mimosa, and that on one occasion a
bouquet of white lilac has caused her, for a time, complete loss
of voice. The flowers mentioned are equally dangerous to a number
of other singers; the most injurious flower of all is found to be
the violet. The rose is seldom mentioned, and artificial perfumes
are comparatively harmless, though some singers consider it
desirable to be cautious in using them.
FOOTNOTES:
[79] Féré, _Travail et Plaisir_, Chapter XIII.
[80] _Travail et Plaisir_, p. 175. It is doubtless true of the effects of
odors on the sexual sphere. Féré records the case of a neurasthenic lady
whose sexual coldness toward her husband only disappeared after the
abandonment of a perfume (in which heliotrope was apparently the chief
constituent) she had been accustomed to use in excessive amounts.
[81] It is perhaps significant that many colors are especially liable to
produce skin disorders, especially urticaria; a number of cases have been
recorded by Joal, _Journal de Médecine_, July 10, 1899.
[82] Layet, art. "Vanillisme," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences
Médicales_; cf. Audeoud, _Revue Médicale de la Suisse Romande_, October
20, 1899, summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, 1899.
[83] E. Tardif, _Les Odeurs et Parfums_, Chapter III.
[84] Féré, _Société de Biologie_, March 28, 1896.
VI.
The Place of Smell in Human Sexual Selections--It has given Place to the
Predominance of Vision largely because in Civilized Man it Fails to Act at
a Distance--It still Plays a Part by Contributing to the Sympathies or the
Antipathies of Intimate Contact.
When we survey comprehensively the extensive field we have here rapidly
traversed, it seems not impossible to gain a fairly accurate view of the
special place which olfactory sensations play in human sexual selection.
The special peculiarity of this group of sensations in man, and that which
gives them an importance they would not otherwise possess, is due to the
fact that we here witness the decadence of a sense which in man's remote
ancestors was the very chiefest avenue of sexual allurement. In man, even
the most primitive man,--to some degree even in the apes,--it has declined
in importance to give place to the predominance of vision.[85] Yet, at
that lower threshold of acuity at which it persists in man it still bathes
us in a more or less constant atmosphere of odors, which perpetually move
us to sympathy or to antipathy, and which in their finer manifestations we
do not neglect, but even cultivate with the increase of our civilization.
It thus comes about that the grosser manifestations of sexual allurement
by smell belong, so far as man is concerned, to a remote animal past which
we have outgrown and which, on account of the diminished acuity of our
olfactory organs, we could not completely recall even if we desired to;
the sense of sight inevitably comes into play long before it is possible
for close contact to bring into action the sense of smell. But the latent
possibilities of sexual allurement by olfaction, which are inevitably
embodied in the nervous structure we have inherited from our animal
ancestors, still remain ready to be called into play. They emerge
prominently from time to time in exceptional and abnormal persons. They
tend to play an unusually larger part in the psychic lives of neurasthenic
persons, with their sensitive and comparatively unbalanced nervous
systems, and this is doubtless the reason why poets and men of letters
have insisted on olfactory impressions so frequently and to so notable a
degree; for the same reason sexual inverts are peculiarly susceptible to
odors. For a different reason, warmer climates, which heighten all odors
and also favor the growth of powerfully odorous plants, lead to a
heightened susceptibility to the sexual and other attractions of smell
even among normal persons; thus we find a general tendency to delight in
odors throughout the East, notably in India, among the ancient Hebrews,
and in Mohammedan lands.
Among the ordinary civilized population in Europe the sexual influences of
smell play a smaller and yet not altogether negligible part. The
diminished prominence of odors only enables them to come into action, as
sexual influences, on close contact, when, in some persons at all events,
personal odors may have a distinct influence in heightening sympathy or
arousing antipathy. The range of variation among individuals is in this
matter considerable. In a few persons olfactory sympathy or antipathy is
so pronounced that it exerts a decisive influence in their sexual
relationships; such persons are of olfactory type. In other persons smell
has no part in constituting sexual relationships, but it comes into play
in the intimate association of love, and acts as an additional excitant;
when reinforced by association such olfactory impressions may at times
prove irresistible. Other persons, again, are neutral in this respect, and
remain indifferent either to the sympathetic or antipathetic working of
personal odors, unless they happen to be extremely marked. It is probable
that the majority of refined and educated people belong to the middle
group of those persons who are not of predominantly olfactory type, but
are liable from time to time to be influenced in this manner. Women are
probably at least as often affected in this manner as men, probably more
often.
On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odors play a
not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest,
but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection--whether in
preferential mating or in assortative mating--is comparatively small.
FOOTNOTES:
[85] Moll has a passage on this subject, _Untersuchungen über die Libido
Sexualis_. Bd. I, pp. 376-381.
HEARING.
I.
The Physiological Basis of Rhythm--Rhythm as a Physiological Stimulus--The
Intimate Relation of Rhythm to Movement--The Physiological Influence of
Music on Muscular Action, Circulation, Respiration, etc.--The Place of
Music in Sexual Selection among the Lower Animals--Its Comparatively Small
Place in Courtship among Mammals--The Larynx and Voice in Man--The
Significance of the Pubertal Changes--Ancient Beliefs Concerning the
Influence of Music in Morals, Education, and Medicine--Its Therapeutic
Uses--Significance of the Romantic Interest in Music at Puberty--Men
Comparatively Insusceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of
Music--Rarity of Sexual Perversions on the Basis of the Sense of
Hearing--The Part of Music in Primitive Human Courtship--Women Notably
Susceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music and the Voice.
The sense of rhythm--on which it may be said that the sensory exciting
effects of hearing, including music, finally rest--may probably be
regarded as a fundamental quality of neuro-muscular tissue. Not only are
the chief physiological functions of the body, like the circulation and
the respiration, definitely rhythmical, but our senses insist on imparting
a rhythmic grouping even to an absolutely uniform succession of
sensations. It seems probable, although this view is still liable to be
disputed, that this rhythm is the result of kinæsthetic
sensations,--sensations arising from movement or tension started reflexly
in the muscles by the external stimuli,--impressing themselves on the
sensations that are thus grouped.[86] We may thus say, with Wilks, that
music appears to have had its origin in muscular action.[87]
Whatever its exact origin may be, rhythm is certainly very deeply
impressed on our organisms. The result is that, whatever lends itself to
the neuro-muscular rhythmical tendency of our organisms, whatever tends
still further to heighten and develop that rhythmical tendency, exerts
upon us a very decidedly stimulating and exciting influence.
All muscular action being stimulated by rhythm, in its simple form or in
its more developed form as music, rhythm is a stimulant to work. It has
even been argued by Bücher and by Wundt[88] that human song had its chief
or exclusive origin in rhythmical vocal accompaniments to systematized
work. This view cannot, however, be maintained; systematized work can
scarcely be said to exist, even to-day, among most very primitive races;
it is much more probable that rhythmical song arose at a period antecedent
to the origin of systematized work, in the primitive military, religious,
and erotic dances, such as exist in a highly developed degree among the
Australians and other savage races who have not evolved co-ordinated
systematic labor. There can, however, be no doubt that as soon as
systematic work appears the importance of vocal rhythm in stimulating its
energy is at once everywhere recognized. Bücher has brought together
innumerable examples of this association, and in the march music of
soldiers and the heaving and hoisting songs of sailors we have instances
that have universally persisted into civilization, although in
civilization the rhythmical stimulation of work, physiologically sound as
is its basis, tends to die out. Even in the laboratory the influence of
simple rhythm in increasing the output of work may be demonstrated; and
Féré found with the ergograph that a rhythmical grouping of the movements
caused an increase of energy which often more than compensated the loss of
time caused by the rhythm.[89]
Rhythm is the most primitive element of music, and the most fundamental.
Wallaschek, in his book on _Primitive Music_, and most other writers on
the subject are agreed on this point. "Rhythm," remarks an American
anthropologist,[90] "naturally precedes the development of any fine
perception of differences in pitch, of time-quality, or of tonality.
Almost, if not all, Indian songs," he adds, "are as strictly developed out
of modified repetitions of a motive as are the movements of a Mozart or a
Beethoven symphony." "In all primitive music," asserts Alice C.
Fletcher,[91] "rhythm is strongly developed. The pulsations of the drum
and the sharp crash of the rattles are thrown against each other and
against the voice, so that it would seem that the pleasure derived by the
performers lay not so much in the tonality of the song as in the measured
sounds arrayed in contesting rhythm, and which by their clash start the
nerves and spur the body to action, for the voice which alone carries the
tone is often subordinated and treated as an additional instrument." Groos
points out that a melody gives us the essential impression of a _voice
that dances_;[92] it is a translation of spatial movement into sound, and,
as we shall see, its physiological action on the organism is a reflection
of that which, as we have elsewhere found,[93] dancing itself produces,
and thus resembles that produced by the sight of movement. Dancing, music,
and poetry were primitively so closely allied as to be almost identical;
they were still inseparable among the early Greeks. The refrains in our
English ballads indicate the dancer's part in them. The technical use of
the word "foot" in metrical matters still persists to show that a poem is
fundamentally a dance.
Aristotle seems to have first suggested that rhythm and melodies
are motions, as actions are motions, and therefore signs of
feeling. "All melodies are motions," says Helmholtz. "Graceful
rapidity, gravel procession, quiet advance, wild leaping, all
these different characters of motion and a thousand others can be
represented by successions of tones. And as music expresses these
motions it gives an expression also to those mental conditions
which naturally evoke similar motions, whether of the body and
the voice, or of the thinking and feeling principle itself."
(Helmholtz, _On the Sensations of Tone_, translated by A. J.
Ellis, 1885, p. 250.)
From another point of view the motor stimulus of music has been
emphasized by Cyples: "Music connects with the only sense that
can be perfectly manipulated. Its emotional charm has struck men
as a great mystery. There appears to be no doubt whatever that it
gets all the marvelous effects it has beyond the mere pleasing of
the ear, from its random, but multitudinous summonses of the
efferent activity, which at its vague challenges stirs
unceasingly in faintly tumultuous irrelevancy. In this way, music
arouses aimlessly, but splendidly, the sheer, as yet unfulfilled,
potentiality within us." (W. Copies, _The Process of Human
Experience_, p. 743.)
The fundamental element of transformed motion in music has been
well brought out in a suggestive essay by Goblot ("La Musique
Descriptive," _Revue Philosophique_, July, 1901): "Sung or
played, melody figures to the ear a successive design, a moving
arabesque. We talk of _ascending_ and _descending_ the gamut, of
_high_ notes or _low_ notes; the; higher voice of woman is called
_soprano_, or _above_, the deeper voice of man is called _bass_.
_Grave_ tones were so called by the Greeks because they seemed
heavy and to incline downward. Sounds seem to be subject to the
action of gravity; so that some rise and others fall. Baudelaire,
speaking of the prelude to _Lohengrin_, remarks: 'I felt myself
_delivered from the bonds of weight_.' And when Wagner sought to
represent, in the highest regions of celestial space, the
apparition of the angels bearing the Holy Grail to earth, he uses
very high notes, and a kind of chorus played exclusively by the
violins, divided into eight parts, in the highest notes of their
register. The descent to earth of the celestial choir is rendered
by lower and lower notes, the progressive disappearance of which
represents the reascension to the ethereal regions.
"Sounds seem to rise and fall; that is a fact. It is difficult to
explain it. Some have seen in it a habit derived from the usual
notation by which the height of the note corresponds to its
height in the score. But the impression is too deep and general
to be explained by so superficial and recent a cause. It has been
suggested also that high notes are generally produced by small
and light bodies, low notes by heavy bodies. But that is not
always true. It has been said, again, that high notes in nature
are usually produced by highly placed objects, while low notes
arise from caves and low placed regions. But the thunder is heard
in the sky, and the murmur of a spring or the song of a cricket
arise from the earth. In the human voice, again, it is said, the
low notes seem to resound in the chest, high notes in the head.
All this is unsatisfactory. We cannot explain by such coarse
analogies an impression which is very precise, and more sensible
(this fact has its importance) for an interval of half a tone
than for an interval of an octave. It is probable that the true
explanation is to be found in the still little understood
connection between the elements of our nervous apparatus.
"Nearly all our emotions tend to produce movement. But education
renders us economical of our acts. Most of these movements are
repressed, especially in the adult and civilized man, as harmful,
dangerous, or merely useless. Some are not completed, others are
reduced to a faint incitation which externally is scarcely
perceptible. Enough remain to constitute all that is expressive
in our gestures, physiognomy, and attitudes. Melodic intervals
possess in a high degree this property of provoking impulses of
movement, which, even when repressed, leave behind internal
sensations and motor images. It would be possible to study these
facts experimentally if we had at our disposition a human being
who, while retaining his sensations and their motor reactions,
was by special circumstances rendered entirely spontaneous like a
sensitive automaton, whose movements were neither intentionally
produced nor intentionally repressed. In this way, melodic
intervals in a hypnotized subject might be very instructive."
A number of experiments of the kind desired by Goblot had already
been made by A. de Rochas in a book, copiously illustrated by
very numerous instantaneous photographs, entitled _Les
Sentiments, la Musique et la Geste_, 1900. Chapter III. De Rochas
experimented on a single subject, Lina, formerly a model, who was
placed in a condition of slight hypnosis, when various simple
fragments of music were performed: recitatives, popular airs, and
more especially national dances, often from remote parts of the
world. The subject's gestures were exceedingly marked and varied
in accordance with the character of the music. It was found that
she often imitated with considerable precision the actual
gestures of dances she could never have seen. The same music
always evoked the same gestures, as was shown by instantaneous
photographs. This subject, stated to be a chaste and well-behaved
girl, exhibited no indications of definite sexual emotion under
the influence of any kind of music. Some account is given in the
same volume of other hypnotic experiments with music which were
also negative as regards specific sexual phenomena.
It must be noted that, as a physiological stimulus, a single musical note
is effective, even apart from rhythm, as is well shown by Féré's
experiments with the dynamometer and the ergograph.[94] It is, however,
the influence of music on muscular work which has been most frequently
investigated, and both on brief efforts with the dynamometer and prolonged
work with the ergograph it has been found to exert a stimulating
influence. Thus, Scripture found that, while his own maximum thumb and
finger grip with the dynamometer is 8 pounds, when the giant's motive from
Wagner's _Rheingold_ is played it rises to 8¾ pounds.[95] With the
ergograph Tarchanoff found that lively music, in nervously sensitive
persons, will temporarily cause the disappearance of fatigue, though slow
music in a minor key had an opposite effect.[96] The varying influence on
work with the ergograph of different musical intervals and different keys
has been carefully studied by Féré with many interesting results. There
was a very considerable degree of constancy in the results. Discords were
depressing; most, but not all, major keys were stimulating; and most, but
not all, minor keys depressing. In states of fatigue, however, the minor
keys were more stimulating than the major, an interesting result in
harmony with that stimulating influence of various painful emotions in
states of organic fatigue which we have elsewhere encountered when
investigating sadism.[97] "Our musical culture," Féré remarks, "only
renders more perceptible to us the unconscious relationships which exist
between musical art and our organisms. Those whom we consider more endowed
in this respect have a deeper penetration of the phenomena accomplished
within them; they feel more profoundly the marvelous reactions between the
organism and the principles of musical art, they experience more strongly
that art is within them."[98] Both the higher and the lower muscular
processes, the voluntary and the involuntary, are stimulated by music.
Darlington and Talbot, in Titchener's laboratory at Cornell University,
found that the estimation of relative weights was aided by music.[99]
Lombard found, when investigating the normal variations in the knee-jerk,
that involuntary reflex processes are always reinforced by music; a
military band playing a lively march caused the knee-jerk to increase at
the loud passages and to diminish at the soft passages, while remaining
always above the normal level.[100]
With this stimulating influence of rhythm and music on the neuro-muscular
system--which may or may not be direct--there is a concomitant influence
on the circulatory and breathing apparatus. During recent years a great
many experiments have been made on man and animals bearing on the effects
of music on the heart and respiration. Perhaps the earliest of these were
carried out by the Russian physiologist Dogiel in 1880.[101] His methods
were perhaps defective and his results, at all events as regards man,
uncertain, but in animals the force and rapidity of the heart were
markedly increased. Subsequent investigations have shown very clearly the
influence of music on the circulatory and respiratory systems in man as
well as in animals. That music has an apparently direct influence on the
circulation of the brain is shown by the observations of Patrizi on a
youth who had received a severe wound of the head which had removed a
large portion of the skull wall. The stimulus of melody produced an
immediate increase in the afflux of blood to the brain.[102]
In Germany the question was investigated at about the same time by
Mentz.[103] Observing the pulse with a sphygmograph and Marey tambour he
found distinct evidence of an effect on the heart; when attention was
given to the music the pulse was quickened, in the absence of attention it
was slowed; Mentz also found that pleasurable sensations tended to slow
the pulse and disagreeable ones to quicken it.
Binet and Courtier made an elaborate series of experiments on the action
of music on the respiration (with the double pneumograph), the heart, and
the capillary circulation (with the plethysmograph of Hallion and Comte)
on a single subject, a man very sensitive to music and himself a cultured
musician. Simple musical sounds with no emotional content accelerated the
respiration without changing its regularity or amplitude. Musical
fragments, mostly sung, usually well known to the subject, and having an
emotional effect on him, produced respiratory irregularity either in
amplitude or rapidity of breathing, in two-thirds of the trials. Exciting
music, such as military marches, accelerated the breathing more than sad
melodies, but the intensity of the excitation had an effect at least as
great as its quality, for intense excitations always produced both
quickened and deeper breathing. The heart was quickened in harmony with
the quickened breathing. Neither breathing nor heart was ever slowed. As
regards the capillary pulsation, an influence was exerted chiefly, if not
exclusively, by gay and exciting melodies, which produced a shrinking.
Throughout the experiments it was found that the most profound
physiological effects were exerted by those pieces which the subject found
to be most emotional in their influence on him.[104]
Guibaud studied the question on a number of subjects, confirming and
extending the conclusions of Binet and Courtier. He found that the
reactions of different individuals varied, but that for the same
individual reactions were constant. Circulatory reaction was more often
manifest than respiratory reaction. The latter might be either a
simultaneous modification of depth and of rapidity or of either of these.
The circulatory reaction was a peripheral vasoconstriction with diminished
fullness of pulse and slight acceleration of cardiac rhythm; there was
never any distinct slowing of heart under the influence of music. Guibaud
remarks that when people say they feel a shudder at some passage of music,
this sensation of cold finds its explanation in the production of a
peripheral vasoconstriction which may be registered by the
plethysmograph.[105]
Since music thus directly and powerfully affects the chief vital
processes, it is not surprising that it should indirectly influence
various viscera and functions. As Tarchanoff and others have demonstrated,
it affects the skin, increasing the perspiration; it may produce a
tendency to tears; it sometimes produces desire to urinate, or even actual
urination, as in Scaliger's case of the Gascon gentleman who was always
thus affected on hearing the bagpipes. In dogs it has been shown by
Tarchanoff and Wartanoff that auditory stimulation increases the
consumption of oxygen 20 per cent., and the elimination of carbonic acid
17 per cent.
In addition to the effects of musical sound already mentioned, it may be
added that, as Epstein, of Berne, has shown,[106] the other senses are
stimulated under the influence of sound, and notably there is an increase
in acuteness of vision which may be experimentally demonstrated. It is
probable that this effect of music in heightening the impressions received
by the other senses is of considerable significance from our present point
of view.
Why are musical tones in a certain order and rhythm pleasurable? asked
Darwin in _The Descent of Man_, and he concluded that the question was
insoluble. We see that, in reality, whatever the ultimate answer may be,
the immediate reason is quite simple. Pleasure is a condition of slight
and diffused stimulation, in which the heart and breathing are faintly
excited, the neuro-muscular system receives additional tone, the viscera
gently stirred, the skin activity increased; and certain combinations of
musical notes and intervals act as a physiological stimulus in producing
these effects.[107]
Among animals of all kinds, from insects upward, this physiological action
appears to exist, for among nearly all of them certain sounds are
agreeable and attractive, and other sounds indifferent and disagreeable.
It appears that insects of quite different genera show much appreciation
of the song of the Cicada.[108] Birds show intense interest in the singing
of good performers even of other species. Experiments among a variety of
animals in the Zoölogical Gardens with performances on various instruments
showed that with the exception of seals none were indifferent, and all
felt a discord as offensive. Many animals showed marked likes and
dislikes; thus, a tiger, who was obviously soothed by the violin, was
infuriated by the piccolo; the violin and the flute were preferred by most
animals.[109]
Most persons have probably had occasion to observe the
susceptibility of dogs to music. It may here suffice to give one
personal observation. A dog (of mixed breed, partly collie), very
well known to me, on hearing a nocturne of Chopin, whined and
howled, especially at the more pathetic passages, once or twice
catching and drawing out the actual note played; he panted,
walked about anxiously, and now and then placed his head on the
player's lap. When the player proceeded to a more cheerful piece
by Grieg, the dog at once became indifferent, sat down, yawned,
and scratched himself; but as soon as the player returned once
more to the nocturne the dog at once repeated his accompaniment.
There can be no doubt that among a very large number of animals of most
various classes, more especially among insects and birds, the attraction
of music is supported and developed on the basis of sexual attraction, the
musical notes emitted serving as a sexual lure to the other sex. The
evidence on this point was carefully investigated by Darwin on a very wide
basis.[110] It has been questioned, some writers preferring to adopt the
view of Herbert Spencer,[111] that the singing of birds is due to
"overflow of energy," the relation between courtship and singing being
merely "a relation of concomitance." This view is no longer tenable;
whatever the precise origin of the musical notes of animals may be,--and
it is not necessary to suppose that sexual attraction had a large part in
their first rudimentary beginnings,--there can now be little doubt that
musical sounds, and, among birds, singing, play a very large part indeed
in bringing the male and the female together.[112] Usually, it would
appear, it is the performance of the male that attracts the female; it is
only among very simple and primitive musicians, like some insects, that
the female thus attracts the male.[113] The fact that it is nearly always
one sex only that is thus musically gifted should alone have sufficed to
throw suspicion on any but a sexual solution of this problem of animal
song.
It is, however, an exceedingly remarkable fact that, although among
insects and lower vertebrates the sexual influence of music is so large,
and although among mammals and predominantly in man the emotional and
æsthetic influence of music is so great, yet neither in man nor any of the
higher mammals has music been found to exert a predominant sexual
influence, or even in most cases any influence at all. Darwin, while
calling attention to the fact that the males of most species of mammals
use their vocal powers chiefly, and sometimes exclusively, during the
breeding-season, adds that "it is a surprising fact that we have not as
yet any good evidence that these organs are used by male mammals to charm
the female."[114] From a very different standpoint, Féré, in studying the
pathology of the human sexual instinct in the light of a very full
knowledge of the available evidence, states that he knows of no detailed
observations showing the existence of any morbid sexual perversions based
on the sense of hearing, either in reference to the human voice or to
instrumental music.[115]
When, however, we consider that not only in the animals most nearly
related to man, but in man himself, the larynx and the voice undergo a
marked sexual differentiation at puberty, it is difficult not to believe
that this change has an influence on sexual selection and sexual
psychology. At puberty there is a slight hyperæmia of the larynx,
accompanied by rapid development alike of the larynx itself and of the
vocal cords, which become larger and thicker, while there is an associated
change in the voice, which deepens. All these changes are very slight in
girls, but very pronounced in boys, whose voices are said to "break" and
then become lower by at least an octave. The feminine larynx at puberty
only increases in the proportion of 5 to 7, but the masculine larynx in
the proportion of 5 to 10. The direct dependence of this change on the
general sexual development is shown not merely by its occurrence at
puberty, but by the fact that in eunuchs in whom the testicles have been
removed before puberty the voice retains its childlike qualities.[116]
As a matter of fact, I believe that we may attach a considerable degree of
importance to the voice and to music generally as a method of sexual
appeal. On this point I agree with Moll, who remarks that "the sense of
hearing here plays a considerable part, and the stimulation received
through the ears is much larger than is usually believed."[117] I am not,
however, inclined to think that this influence is considerable in its
action on men, although Mantegazza remarks, doubtless with a certain
truth, that "some women's voices cannot be heard with impunity." It is
true that the ancients deprecated the sexual or at all events the
effeminating influence of some kinds of music, but they seem to have
regarded it as sedative rather than stimulating; the kind of music they
approved of as martial and stimulating was the kind most likely to have
sexual effects in predisposed persons.
The Chinese and the Greeks have more especially insisted on the
ethical qualities of music and on its moralizing and demoralizing
effects. Some three thousand years ago, it is stated, a Chinese
emperor, believing that only they who understood music are
capable of governing, distributed administrative functions in
accordance with this belief. He acted entirely in accordance with
Chinese morality, the texts of Confucianism (see translations in
the "Sacred Books of the East Series") show clearly that music
and ceremony (or social ritual in a wide sense) are regarded as
the two main guiding influences of life--music as the internal
guide, ceremony as the external guide, the former being looked
upon as the more important.
Among the Greeks Menander said that to many people music is a
powerful stimulant to love. Plato, in the third book of the
_Republic_, discusses what kinds of music should be encouraged in
his ideal state. He does not clearly state that music is ever a
sexual stimulant, but he appears to associate plaintive music
(mixed Lydian and Hypolydian) with drunkenness, effeminacy, and
idleness and considers that such music is "useless even to women
that are to be virtuously given, not to say to men." He only
admits two kinds of music: one violent and suited to war, the
other tranquil and suited to prayer or to persuasion. He sets out
the ethical qualities of music with a thoroughness which almost
approaches the great Chinese philosopher: "On these accounts we
attach such importance to a musical education, because rhythm and
harmony sink most deeply into the recesses of the soul, and take
most powerful hold of it, bringing gracefulness in their train,
and making a man graceful if he be rightly nurtured, ... leading
him to commend beautiful objects, and gladly receive them into
his soul, and feed upon them, and grow to be noble and good."
Plato is, however, by no means so consistent and thorough as the
Chinese moralist, for having thus asserted that it is the
influence of music which molds the soul into virtue, he proceeds
to destroy his position with the statement that "we shall never
become truly musical until we know the essential forms of
temperance and courage and liberality and munificence," thus
moving in a circle. It must be added that the Greek conception of
music was very comprehensive and included poetry.
Aristotle took a wider view of music than Plato and admitted a
greater variety of uses for it. He was less anxious to exclude
those uses which were not strictly ethical. He disapproved,
indeed, of the Phrygian harmony as the expression of Bacchic
excitement. He accepts, however, the function of music as a
katharsis of emotion, a notion which is said to have originated
with the Pythagoreans. (For a discussion of Aristotle's views on
music, see W.L. Newman, _The Politics of Aristotle_, vol. i, pp.
359-369.)
Athenæus, in his frequent allusions to music, attributes to it
many intellectual and emotional properties (e.g., Book XIV,
Chapter XXV) and in one place refers to "melodies inciting to
lawless indulgence" (Book XIII, Chapter LXXV).
We may gather from the _Priapeia_ (XXVI) that cymbals and
castanets were the special accompaniment in antiquity of wanton
songs and dances: "_cymbala, cum crotalis, pruriginis arma_."
The ancient belief in the moralizing influence of music has
survived into modern times mainly in a somewhat more scientific
form as a belief in its therapeutic effects in disordered nervous
and mental conditions. (This also is an ancient belief as
witnessed by the well-known example of David playing to Saul to
dispel his melancholia.) In 1729 an apothecary of Oakham, Richard
Broune, published a work entitled _Medicina Musica_, in which he
argued that music was beneficial in many maladies. In more recent
days there have been various experiments and cases brought
forward showing its efficacy in special conditions.
An American physician (W.F. Hutchinson) has shown that anæsthesia
may be produced with accurately made tuning forks at certain
rates of vibration (summarized in the _British Medical Journal_,
June 4, 1898). Ferrand in a paper read before the Paris Academy
of Medicine in September, 1895, gives reasons for classing some
kinds of music as powerful antispasmodics with beneficial
therapeutic action. The case was subsequently reported of a child
in whom night-terrors were eased by calming music in a minor key.
The value of music in lunatic asylums is well recognized; see
e.g., Näcke, _Revue de Psychiatrie_, October, 1897. Vaschide and
Vurpas (_Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie_, December 13,
1902) have recorded the case of a girl of 20, suffering from
mental confusion with excitation and central motor
disequilibrium, whose muscular equilibrium was restored and
movements rendered more co-ordinated and adaptive under the
influence of music.
While there has been much extravagance in the ancient doctrine
concerning the effects of music, the real effects are still
considerable. Not only is this demonstrated by the experiments
already referred to (p. 118), indicating the efficacy of musical
sounds as physiological stimulants, but also by anatomical
considerations. The roots of the auditory nerves, McKendrick has
pointed out, are probably more widely distributed and have more
extensive connections than those of any other nerve. The
intricate connections of these nerves are still only being
unraveled. This points to an explanation of how music penetrates
to the very roots of our being, influencing by associational
paths reflex mechanisms both cerebral and somatic, so that there
is scarcely a function of the body that may not be affected by
the rhythmical pulsations, melodic progressions, and harmonic
combinations of musical tones. (_Nature_, June 15, 1899, p. 164.)
Just as we are not entitled from the ancient belief in the influence of
music on morals or the modern beliefs in its therapeutic influence--even
though this has sometimes gone to the length of advocating its use in
impotence[118]--to argue that music has a marked influence in exciting the
specifically sexual instincts, neither are we entitled to find any similar
argument in the fact that music is frequently associated with the
love-feelings of youth. Men are often able to associate many of their
earliest ideas of love in boyhood with women singing or playing; but in
these cases it will always be found that the fascination was romantic and
sentimental, and not specifically erotic.[119] In adult life the music
which often seems to us to be most definitely sexual in its appeal (such
as much of Wagner's _Tristan_) really produces this effect in part from
the association with the story, and in part from the intellectual
realization of the composer's effort to translate passion into æsthetic
terms; the actual effect of the music is not sexual, and it can well be
believed that the results of experiments as regards the sexual influence
of the _Tristan_ music on men under the influence of hypnotism have been,
as reported, negative. Helmholtz goes so far as to state that the
expression of sexual longing in music is identical with that of religious
longing. It is quite true, again, that a soft and gentle voice seems to
every normal man as to Lear "an excellent thing in woman," and that a
harsh or shrill voice may seem to deaden or even destroy altogether the
attraction of a beautiful face. But the voice is not usually in itself an
adequate or powerful method of evoking sexual emotion in a man. Even in
its supreme vocal manifestations the sexual fascination exerted by a great
singer, though certainly considerable, cannot be compared with that
commonly exerted by the actress. Cases have, indeed, been
recorded--chiefly occurring, it is probable, in men of somewhat morbid
nervous disposition--in which sexual attraction was exerted chiefly
through the ear, or in which there was a special sexual sensibility to
particular inflections or accents.[120] Féré mentions the case of a young
man in hospital with acute arthritis who complained of painful erections
whenever he heard through the door the very agreeable voice of the young
woman (invisible to him) who superintended the linen.[121] But these
phenomena do not appear to be common, or, at all events, very pronounced.
So far as my own inquiries go, only a small proportion of men would
appear to experience definite sexual feelings on listening to music. And
the fact that in woman the voice is so slightly differentiated from that
of the child, as well as the very significant fact that among man's
immediate or even remote ancestors the female's voice can seldom have
served to attract the male, sufficiently account for the small part played
by the voice and by music as a sexual allurement working on men.[122]
It is otherwise with women. It may, indeed, be said at the outset that the
reasons which make it antecedently improbable that men should be sexually
attracted through hearing render it probable that women should be so
attracted. The change in the voice at puberty makes the deeper masculine
voice a characteristic secondary sexual attribute of man, while the fact
that among mammals generally it is the male that is most vocal--and that
chiefly, or even sometimes exclusively, at the rutting season--renders it
antecedently likely that among mammals generally, including the human
species, there is in the female an actual or latent susceptibility to the
sexual significance of the male voice,[123] a susceptibility which, under
the conditions of human civilization, may be transferred to music
generally. It is noteworthy that in novels written by women there is a
very frequent attentiveness to the qualities of the hero's voice and to
its emotional effects on the heroine.[124] We may also note the special
and peculiar personal enthusiasm aroused in women by popular musicians, a
more pronounced enthusiasm than is evoked in them by popular actors.
As an interesting example of the importance attached by women
novelists to the effects of the male voice I may refer to George
Eliot's _Mill on the Floss_, probably the most intimate and
personal of George Eliot's works. In Book VI of this novel the
influence of Stephen Guest (a somewhat commonplace young man)
over Maggie Tulliver is ascribed almost exclusively to the effect
of his base voice in singing. We are definitely told of Maggie
Tulliver's "sensibility to the supreme excitement of music."
Thus, on one occasion, "all her intentions were lost in the vague
state of emotion produced by the inspiring duet--emotion that
seemed to make her at once strong and weak: strong for all
enjoyment, weak for all resistance. Poor Maggie! She looked very
beautiful when her soul was being played on in this way by the
inexorable power of sound. You might have seen the slightest
perceptible quivering through her whole frame as she leaned a
little forward, clasping her hands as if to steady herself; while
her eyes dilated and brightened into that wideopen, childish
expression of wondering delight, which always came back in her
happiest moments." George Eliot's novels contain many allusions
to the powerful emotional effects of music.
It is unnecessary to refer to Tolstoy's _Kreutzer Sonata_, in
which music is regarded as the Galeotto to bring lovers
together--"the connecting bond of music, the most refined lust of
the senses."
In primitive human courtship music very frequently plays a considerable
part, though not usually the sole part, being generally found as the
accompaniment of the song and the dance at erotic festivals.[125] The
Gilas, of New Mexico, among whom courtship consists in a prolonged
serenade day after day with the flute, furnish a somewhat exceptional
case. Savage women are evidently very attentive to music; Backhouse (as
quoted, by Ling Roth[126]) mentions how a woman belonging to the very
primitive and now extinct Tasmanian race, when shown a musical box,
listened "with intensity; her ears moved like those of a dog or horse, to
catch the sound."
I have found little evidence to show that music, except in occasional
cases, exerts even the slightest specifically sexual effect on men,
whether musical or unmusical. But I have ample evidence that it very
frequently exerts to a slight but definite extent such an influence on
women, even when quite normal. Judging from my own inquiries it would,
indeed, seem likely that the majority of normal educated women are liable
to experience some degree of definite sexual excitement from music; one
states that orchestral music generally tends to produce this effect;
another finds it chiefly from Wagner's music; another from military music,
etc. Others simply state--what, indeed, probably expresses the experience
of most persons of either sex--that it heightens one's mood. One lady
mentions that some of her friends, whose erotic feelings are aroused by
music, are especially affected in this way by the choral singing in Roman
Catholic churches.[127]
In the typical cases just mentioned, all fairly normal and healthy women,
the sexual effects of music though definite were usually quite slight. In
neuropathic subjects they may occasionally be more pronounced. Thus, a
medical correspondent has communicated to me the case of a married lady
with one child, a refined, very beautiful, but highly neurotic, woman,
married to a man with whom she has nothing in common. Her tastes lie in
the direction of music; she is a splendid pianist, and her highly trained
voice would have made a fortune. She confesses to strong sexual feelings
and does not understand why intercourse never affords what she knows she
wants. But the hearing of beautiful music, or at times the excitement of
her own singing, will sometimes cause intense orgasm.
Vaschide and Vurpas, who emphasize the sexually stimulating
effects of music, only bring forward one case in any detail, and
it is doubtless significant that this case is a woman. "While
listening to a piece of music X changes expression, her eyes
become bright, the features are accentuated, a smile begins to
form, an expression of pleasure appears, the body becomes more
erect, there is a general muscular hypertonicity. X tells us that
as she listens to the music she experiences sensations very like
those of normal intercourse. The difference chiefly concerns the
local genital apparatus, for there is no flow of vaginal mucus.
On the psychic side the resemblance is marked." (Vaschide and
Vurpas, "Du Coefficient Sexual de l'Impulsion Musicale,"
_Archives de Neurologie_, May, 1904.)
It is sometimes said, or implied, that a woman (or a man) sings
better under the influence of sexual emotion. The writer of an
article already quoted, on "Woman in her Psychological Relations"
(_Journal of Psychological Medicine_, 1851), mentions that "a
young lady remarkable for her musical and poetical talents
naïvely remarked to a friend who complimented her upon her
singing: 'I never sing half so well as when I've had a
love-fit.'" And George Eliot says. "There is no feeling, perhaps,
except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not make a man
sing or play the better." While, however, it may be admitted that
some degree of general emotional exaltation may exercise a
favorable influence on the singing voice, it is difficult to
believe that definite physical excitement at or immediately
before the exercise of the voice can, as a rule, have anything
but a deleterious effect on its quality. It is recognized that
tenors (whose voices resemble those of women more than basses,
who are not called upon to be so careful in this respect) should
observe rules of sexual hygiene; and menstruation frequently has
a definite influence in impairing the voice (H. Ellis, _Man and
Woman_, fourth edition, p. 290). As the neighborhood of
menstruation is also the period when sexual excitement is most
likely to be felt, we have here a further indication that sexual
emotion is not favorable to singing. I agree with the remarks of
a correspondent, a musical amateur, who writes: "Sexual
excitement and good singing do not appear to be correlated. A
woman's emotional capacity in singing or acting may be remotely
associated with hysterical neuroses, but is better evinced for
art purposes in the absence of disturbing sexual influences. A
woman may, indeed, fancy herself the heroine of a wanton romance
and 'let herself go' a little in singing with improved results.
But a memory of sexual ardors will help no woman to make the best
of her voice in training. Some women can only sing their best
when they think of the other women they are outsinging. One girl
'lets her soul go out into her voice' thinking of jamroll,
another thinking of her lover (when she has none), and most, no
doubt, when they think of nothing. But no woman is likely to
'find herself' in an artistic sense because she has lost herself
in another sense--not even if she has done so quite respectably."
The reality of the association between the sexual impulse and music--and,
indeed, art generally--is shown by the fact that the evolution of puberty
tends to be accompanied by a very marked interest in musical and other
kinds of art. Lancaster, in a study of this question among a large number
of young people (without reference to difference in sex, though they were
largely female), found that from 50 to 75 per cent of young people feel an
impulse to art about the period of puberty, lasting a few months, or at
most a year or two. It appears that 464 young people showed an increased
and passionate love for music, against only 102 who experienced no change
in this respect. The curve culminates at the age of 15 and falls rapidly
after 16. Many of these cases were really quite unmusical.[128]
FOOTNOTES:
[86] This view has been more especially developed by J.B. Miner, _Motor,
Visual, and Applied Rhythms_, Psychological Review Monograph Supplements,
vol. v, No. 4, 1903.
[87] Sir S. Wilks, _Medical Magazine_, January, 1894; cf. Clifford
Allbutt, "Music, Rhythm, and Muscle," _Nature_, February 8, 1894.
[88] Bücher, _Arbeit und Rhythmus_, third edition, 1902; Wundt,
_Völkerpsychologie_, 1900, Part I, p. 265.
[89] Féré deals fully with the question in his book, _Travail et Plaisir_,
1904, Chapter III, "Influence du Rhythme sur le Travail."
[90] Fillmore, "Primitive Scales and Rhythms," _Proceedings of the
International Congress of Anthropology_, Chicago, 1893.
[91] "Love Songs among the Omaha Indians," in _Proceedings_ of same
congress.
[92] Groos, _Spiele der Menschen_, p. 33.
[93] "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_,
vol. iii.
[94] Féré, _Sensation et Mouvement_, Chapter V; id., _Travail et Plaisir_,
Chapter XII.
[95] Scripture, _Thinking, Feeling, Doing_, p. 85.
[96] Tarchanoff, "Influence de la Musique sur l'Homme et sur les Animaux,"
_Atti dell' XI Congresso Medico Internationale_, Rome, 1894, vol. ii, p.
153; also in _Archives Italiennes de Biologie_, 1894.
[97] "Love and Pain," _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. iii.
[98] Féré, _Travail et Plaisir_, Chapter XII, "Action Physiologique des
Sens Musicaux." "A practical treatise on harmony," Goblot remarks (_Revue
Philosophique_, July, 1901, p. 61), "ought to tell us in what way such an
interval, or such a succession of intervals, affects us. A theoretical
treatise on harmony ought to tell us the explanation of these impressions.
In a word, musical harmony is a psychological science." He adds that this
science is very far from being constituted yet; we have hardly even
obtained a glimpse of it.
[99] _American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898.
[100] _American Journal of Psychology_, November, 1887. The influence of
rhythm on the involuntary muscular system is indicated by the occasional
effect of music in producing a tendency to contraction of the bladder.
[101] _Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie_ (Physiologisches Abtheilung),
1880, p. 420.
[102] M.L. Patrizi, "Primi esperimenti intorno all' influenza della musica
sulla circolozione del sangue nel cervello umano," _International Congress
für Psychologie_, Munich, 1897, p. 176.
[103] _Philosophische Studien_, vol. xi.
[104] Binet and Courtier, "La Vie Emotionelle," _Année Psychologique_,
Third Year, 1897, pp. 104-125.
[105] Guibaud, _Contribution à l'étude expérimentale de l'influence de la
musique sur la circulation et la respiration_. Thèse de Bordeaux, 1898,
summarized in _Année Psychologique_, Fifth Year, 1899, pp. 645-649.
[106] _International Congress of Physiology_, Berne, 1895.
[107] The influence of association plays no necessary part in these
pleasurable influences, for Féré's experiments show that an unmusical
subject responds physiologically, with much precision, to musical
intervals he is unable to recognize. R. MacDougall also finds that the
effective quality of rhythmical sequences does not appear to be dependent
on secondary associations (_Psychological Review_, January, 1903).
[108] R.T. Lewis, in _Nature Notes_, August, 1891.
[109] Cornish, "Orpheus at the Zoo," in _Life at the Zoo_, pp. 115-138.
[110] _Descent of Man_, Chapters XIII and XIX.
[111] "The Origin of Music" (1857), _Essays_, vol. ii.
[112] Anyone who is in doubt on this point, as regards bird song, may
consult the little book in which the evidence has been well summarized by
Häcker, _Der Gesang der Vögel_, or the discussion in Groos's _Spiele der
Thiere_, pp. 274 et seq.
[113] Thus, mosquitoes are irresistibly attracted by music, and especially
by those musical tones which resemble the buzzing of the female; the males
alone are thus attracted. (Nuttall and Shipley, and Sir Hiram Maxim,
quoted in _Nature_, October 31, 1901, p. 655, and in _Lancet_, February
22, 1902.)
[114] _Descent of Man_, second edition, p. 567. Groos, in his discussion
of music, also expresses doubt whether hearing plays a considerable part
in the courtship of mammals, _Spiele der Menschen_, p. 22.
[115] Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 137.
[116] See Biérent, _La Puberté_ Chapter IV; also Havelock Ellis, _Man and
Woman_, fourth edition, pp. 270-272. Endriss (_Die Bisherigen
Beobachtungen von Physiologischen und Pathologischen Beziehungen der
oberen Luftwege zu den Sexualorganen_, Teil III) brings together various
observations on the normal and abnormal relations of the larynx to the
sexual sphere.
[117] Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. 1, p. 133.
[118] J.L. Roger, _Traité des Effets de la Musique_, 1803, pp. 234 and
342.
[119] A typical example occurs in the early life of History I in Appendix
B to vol. iii of these _Studies_.
[120] Vaschide and Vurpas state (_Archives de Neurologie_, May, 1904) that
in their experience music may facilitate sexual approaches in some cases
of satiety, and that in certain pathological cases the sexual act can only
be accomplished under the influence of music.
[121] Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 137. Bloch (_Beiträge_, etc., vol. ii,
p. 355) quotes some remarks of Kistemaecker's concerning the sound of
women's garments and the way in which savages and sometimes civilized
women cultivate this rustling and clinking. Gutzkow, in his
_Autobiography_, said that the _frou-frou_ of a woman's dress was the
music of the spheres to him.
[122] The voice is doubtless a factor of the first importance in sexual
attraction among the blind. On this point I have no data. The
expressiveness of the voice to the blind, and the extent to which their
likes and dislikes are founded on vocal qualities, is well shown by an
interesting paper written by an American physician, blind from early
infancy, James Cocke, "The Voice as an Index to the Soul," _Arena_,
January, 1894.
[123] Long before Darwin had set forth his theory of sexual selection
Laycock had pointed out the influence which the voice of the male, among
man and other animals, exerts on the female (_Nervous Diseases of Women_,
p. 74). And a few years later the writer of a suggestive article on "Woman
in her Psychological Relations" (_Journal of Psychological Medicine_,
1851) remarked: "The sonorous voice of the male man is exactly analogous
in its effect on woman to the neigh and bellow of other animals. This
voice will have its effect on an amorous or susceptible organization much
in the same way as color and the other visual ovarian stimuli." The writer
adds that it exercises a still more important influence when modulated to
music: "in this respect man has something in common with insects as well
as birds."
[124] Groos refers more than once to the important part played in German
novels written by women by what one of them terms the "bearded male
voice."
[125] Various instances are quoted in the third volume of these _Studies_
when discussing the general phenomena of courtship and tumescence, "An
Analysis of the Sexual Impulse."
[126] _The Tasmanians_, p. 20.
[127] An early reference to the sexual influence of music on women may
perhaps be found in a playful passage in Swift's _Martinus Scriblerus_
(possibly due to his medical collaborator, Arbuthnot): "Does not Ælian
tell how the Libyan mares were excited to horsing by music? (which ought
to be a caution to modest women against frequenting operas)." _Memoirs of
Martinus Scriblerus_, Book I, Chapter 6. (The reference is to Ælian,
_Hist. Animal_, lib. XI, cap. 18, and lib. XII, cap. 44.)
[128] E. Lancaster, "Psychology of Adolescence," _Pedagogical Seminary_,
July, 1897.
II.
Summary--Why the Influence of Music in Human Sexual Selection is
Comparatively Small.
We have seen that it is possible to set forth in a brief space the facts
at present available concerning the influence on the pairing impulse of
stimuli acting through the ear. They are fairly simple and uncomplicated;
they suggest few obscure problems which call for analysis; they do not
bring before us any remarkable perversions of feeling.
At the same time, the stimuli to sexual excitement received through the
sense of hearing, although very seldom of exclusive or preponderant
influence, are yet somewhat more important than is usually believed.
Primarily the voice, and secondarily instrumental music, exert a distinct
effect in this direction, an effect representing a specialization of a
generally stimulating physiological influence which all musical sounds
exercise upon the organism. There is, however, in this respect, a definite
difference between the sexes. It is comparatively rare to find that the
voice or instrumental music, however powerful its generally emotional
influence, has any specifically sexual effect on men. On the other hand,
it seems probable that the majority of women, at all events among the
educated classes, are liable to show some degree of sexual sensibility to
the male voice or to instrumental music.
It is not surprising to find that music should have some share in arousing
sexual emotion when we bear in mind that in the majority of persons the
development of sexual life is accompanied by a period of special interest
in music. It is not unexpected that the specifically sexual effects of the
voice and music should be chiefly experienced by women when we remember
that not only in the human species is it the male in whom the larynx and
voice are chiefly modified at puberty, but that among mammals generally it
is the male who is chiefly or exclusively vocal at the period of sexual
activity; so that any sexual sensibility to vocal manifestations must be
chiefly or exclusively manifested in female mammals.
At the best, however, although æsthetic sensibility to sound is highly
developed and emotional sensibility to it profound and widespread,
although women may be thrilled by the masculine voice and men charmed by
the feminine voice, it cannot be claimed that in the human species hearing
is a powerful factor in mating. This sense has here suffered between the
lower senses of touch and smell, on the one hand, with their vague and
massive appeal, and the higher sense, vision, on the other hand, with its
exceedingly specialized appeal. The position of touch as the primary and
fundamental sense is assured. Smell, though in normal persons it has no
decisive influence on sexual attraction, acts by virtue of its emotional
sympathies and antipathies, while, by virtue of the fact that among man's
ancestors it was the fundamental channel of sexual sensibility, it
furnishes a latent reservoir of impressions to which nervously abnormal
persons, and even normal persons under the influence of excitement or of
fatigue, are always liable to become sensitive. Hearing, as a sense for
receiving distant perceptions has a wider field than is in man possessed
by either touch or smell. But here it comes into competition with vision,
and vision is, in man, the supreme and dominant sense.[129] We are always
more affected by what we see than by what we hear. Men and women seldom
hear each other without speedily seeing each other, and then the chief
focus of interest is at once transferred to the visual centre.[130] In
human sexual selection, therefore, hearing plays a part which is nearly
always subordinated to that of vision.
FOOTNOTES:
[129] Nietzsche has even suggested that among primitive men delicacy of
hearing and the evolution of music can only have been produced under
conditions which made it difficult for vision to come into play: "The ear,
the organ of fear, could only have developed, as it has, in the night and
in the twilight of dark woods and caves.... In the brightness the ear is
less necessary. Hence the character of music as an art of night and
twilight." (_Morgenröthe_, p. 230.)
[130] At a concert most people are instinctively anxious to _see_ the
performers, thus distracting the purely musical impression, and the
reasonable suggestion of Goethe that the performers should be invisible is
still seldom carried into practice.
VISION
I.
Primacy of Vision in Man--Beauty as a Sexual Allurement--The Objective
Element in Beauty--Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Various Parts of the
World--Savage Women sometimes Beautiful from European Point of
View--Savages often Admire European Beauty--The Appeal of Beauty to some
Extent Common even to Animals and Man.
Vision is the main channel by which man receives his impressions. To a
large extent it has slowly superseded all the other senses. Its range is
practically infinite; it brings before us remote worlds, it enables us to
understand the minute details of our own structure. While apt for the most
abstract or the most intimate uses, its intermediate range is of universal
service. It furnishes the basis on which a number of arts make their
appeal to us, and, while thus the most æsthetic of the senses, it is the
sense on which we chiefly rely in exercising the animal function of
nutrition. It is not surprising, therefore, that from the point of view of
sexual selection vision should be the supreme sense, and that the
love-thoughts of men have always been a perpetual meditation of beauty.
It would be out of place here to discuss comparatively the origins of our
ideas of beauty. That is a question which belongs to æsthetics, not to
sexual psychology, and it is a question on which æstheticians are not
altogether in agreement. We need not even be concerned to make any
definite assertion on the question whether our ideas of sexual beauty have
developed under the influence of more general and fundamental laws, or
whether sexual ideals themselves underlie our more general conceptions of
beauty. Practically, so far as man and his immediate ancestors are
concerned, the sexual and the extra-sexual factors of beauty have been
interwoven from the first. The sexually beautiful object must have
appealed to fundamental physiological aptitudes of reaction; the
generally beautiful object must have shared in the thrill which the
specifically sexual object imparted. There has been an inevitable action
and reaction throughout. Just as we found that the sexual and the
non-sexual influences of agreeable odors throughout nature are
inextricably mingled, so it is with the motives that make an object
beautiful to our eyes.[131]
The sexual element in the constitution of beauty is well
recognized even by those writers who concern themselves
exclusively with the æsthetic conception of beauty or with its
relation to culture. It is enough to quote two or three
testimonies on this point. "The whole sentimental side of our
æsthetic sensibility," remarks Santayana, "--without which it
would be perceptive and mathematical rather than æsthetic,--is
due to our sexual organization remotely stirred.... If anyone
were desirous to produce a being with a great susceptibility to
beauty, he could not invent an instrument better designed for
that object than sex. Individuals that need not unite for the
birth and rearing of each generation might retain a savage
independence. For them it would not be necessary that any vision
should fascinate, or that any languor should soften, the prying
cruelty of the eye. But sex endows the individual with a dumb and
powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually
toward another; makes it one of the dearest enjoyments of his
life to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession
the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest rage, and to
solitude an eternal melancholy. What more could be needed to
suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and beauty? The
attention is fixed upon a well-defined object, and all the
effects it produces in the mind are easily regarded as powers or
qualities of that object.... To a certain extent this kind of
interest will center in the proper object of sexual passion, and
in the special characteristics of the opposite sex[131]; and we
find, accordingly, that woman is the most lovely object to man,
and man, if female modesty would confess it, the most interesting
to woman. But the effects of so fundamental and primitive a
reaction are much more general. Sex is not the only object of
sexual passion. When love lacks its specific object, when it does
not yet understand itself, or has been sacrificed to some other
interest, we see the stifled fire bursting out in various
directions.... Passion then overflows and visibly floods those
neighboring regions which it had always secretly watered. For the
same nervous organization which sex involves, with its
necessarily wide branchings and associations in the brain, must
be partially stimulated by other objects than its specific or
ultimate one; especially in man, who, unlike some of the lower
animals, has not his instincts clearly distinct and intermittent,
but always partially active, and never active in isolation. We
may say, then, that for man all nature is a secondary object of
sexual passion, and that to this fact the beauty of nature is
largely due." (G. Santayana, _The Sense of Beauty_, pp. 59-62.)
Not only is the general fact of sexual attraction an essential
element of æsthetic contemplation, as Santayana remarks, but we
have to recognize also that specific sexual emotion properly
comes within the æsthetic field. It is quite erroneous, as Groos
well points out, to assert that sexual emotion has no æsthetic
value. On the contrary, it has quite as much value as the emotion
of terror or of pity. Such emotion, must, however, be duly
subordinated to the total æsthetic effect. (K. Groos, _Der
Æsthetische Genuss_, p. 151.)
"The idea of beauty," Remy de Gourmont says, "is not an unmixed
idea; it is intimately united with the idea of carnal pleasure.
Stendhal obscurely perceived this when he defined beauty as 'a
promise of happiness.' Beauty is a woman, and women themselves
have carried docility to men so far as to accept this aphorism
which they can only understand in extreme sexual perversion....
Beauty is so sexual that the only uncontested works of art are
those that simply show the human body in its nudity. By its
perseverance in remaining purely sexual Greek statuary has placed
itself forever above all discussion. It is beautiful because it
is a beautiful human body, such a one as every man or every woman
would desire to unite with in the perpetuation of the race....
That which inclines to love seems beautiful; that which seems
beautiful inclines to love. This intimate union of art and of
love is, indeed, the only explanation of art. Without this
genital echo art would never have been born and never have been
perpetuated. There is nothing useless in these deep human depths;
everything which has endured is necessary. Art is the accomplice
of love. When love is taken away there is no art; when art is
taken away love is nothing but a physiological need." (Remy de
Gourmont, _Culture des Idées_, 1900, p. 103, and _Mercure de
France_, August, 1901, pp. 298 et seq.)
Beauty as incarnated in the feminine body has to some extent
become the symbol of love even for women. Colin Scott finds that
it is common among women who are not inverted for female beauty
whether on the stage or in art to arouse sexual emotion to a
greater extent than male beauty, and this is confirmed by some of
the histories I have recorded in the Appendix to the third
volume of these _Studies_. Scott considers that female beauty has
come to be regarded as typical of ideal beauty, and thus tends to
produce an emotional effect on both sexes alike. It is certainly
rare to find any æsthetic admiration of men among women, except
in the case of women who have had some training in art. In this
matter it would seem that woman passively accepts the ideals of
man. "Objects which excite a man's desire," Colin Scott remarks,
"are often, if not generally, the same as those affecting woman.
The female body has a sexually stimulating effect upon both
sexes. Statues of female forms are more liable than those of male
form to have a stimulating effect upon women as well as men. The
evidence of numerous literary expressions seems to show that
under the influence of sexual excitement a woman regards her body
as made for man's gratification, and that it is this complex
emotion which forms the initial stage, at least, of her own
pleasure. Her body is the symbol for her partner, and indirectly
for her, through his admiration of it, of their mutual joy and
satisfaction." (Colin Scott, "Sex and Art," _American Journal of
Psychology_, vol. vii, No. 2, p. 206; also private letter.)
At the same time it must be remembered that beauty and the
conception of beauty have developed on a wider basis than that of
the sexual impulse only, and also that our conceptions of the
beautiful, even as concerns the human form, are to some extent
objective, and may thus be in part reduced to law. Stratz, in his
books on feminine beauty, and notably in _Die Schönheit des
Weiblichen Körpers_, insists on the objective element in beauty.
Papillault, again, when discussing the laws of growth and the
beauty of the face, argues that beauty of line in the face is
objective, and not a creation of fancy, since it is associated
with the highest human functions, moral and social. He remarks on
the contrast between the prehistoric man of
Chancelade,--delicately made, with elegant face and high
forehead,--who created the great Magdalenian civilization, and
his seemingly much more powerful, but less beautiful,
predecessor, the man of Spy, with enormous muscles and powerful
jaws. (_Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie_, 1899, p. 220.)
The largely objective character of beauty is further indicated by
the fact that to a considerable extent beauty is the expression
of health. A well and harmoniously developed body, tense muscles,
an elastic and finely toned skin, bright eyes, grace and
animation of carriage--all these things which are essential to
beauty are the conditions of health. It has not been demonstrated
that there is any correlation between beauty and longevity, and
the proof would not be easy to give, but it is quite probable
that such a correlation may exist, and various indications point
in this direction. One of the most delightful of Opie's pictures
is the portrait of Pleasance Reeve (afterward Lady Smith) at the
age of 17. This singularly beautiful and animated brunette lived
to the age of 104. Most people are probably acquainted with
similar, if less marked, cases of the same tendency.
The extreme sexual importance of beauty, so far, at all events, as
conscious experience is concerned is well illustrated by the fact that,
although three other senses may and often do play a not inconsiderable
part in the constitution of a person's sexual attractiveness,--the tactile
element being, indeed, fundamental,--yet in nearly all the most elaborate
descriptions of attractive individuals it is the visible elements that are
in most cases chiefly emphasized. Whether among the lowest savages or in
the highest civilization, the poet and story-teller who seeks to describe
an ideally lovely and desirable woman always insists mainly, and often
exclusively, on those characters which appeal to the eye. The richly laden
word _beauty_ is a synthesis of complex impressions obtained through a
single sense, and so simple, comparatively, and vague are the impressions
derived from the other senses that none of them can furnish us with any
corresponding word.
Before attempting to analyze the conception of beauty, regarded
in its sexual appeal to the human mind, it may be well to bring
together a few fairly typical descriptions of a beautiful woman
as she appears to the men of various nations.
In an Australian folklore story taken down from the lips of a
native some sixty years ago by W. Dunlop (but evidently not in
the native's exact words) we find this description of an
Australian beauty: "A man took as his wife a beautiful girl who
had long, glossy hair hanging around her face and down her
shoulders, which were plump and round. Her face was adorned with
red clay and her person wrapped in a fine large opossum rug
fastened by a pin formed from the small bone of the kangaroo's
leg, and also by a string attached to a wallet made of rushes
neatly plaited of small strips skinned from their outside after
they had been for some time exposed to the heat of the fire;
which being thrown on her back, the string passing under one arm
and across her breast, held the soft rug in a fanciful position
of considerable elegance; and she knew well how to show to
advantage her queenlike figure when she walked with her polished
yam stick held in one of her small hands and her little feet
appearing below the edge of the rug" (W. Dunlop, "Australian
Folklore Stories," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
August and November, 1898, p. 27).
A Malay description of female beauty is furnished by Skeat. "The
brow (of the Malay Helen for whose sake a thousand desperate
battles are fought in Malay romances) is like the one-day-old
moon; her eyebrows resemble 'pictured clouds,' and are 'arched
like the fighting-cock's (artificial) spur'; her cheek resembles
the 'sliced-off cheek of a mango'; her nose, 'an opening jasmine
bud'; her hair, the 'wavy blossom shoots of the areca-palm';
slender is her neck, 'with a triple row of dimples'; her bosom
ripening, her waist 'lissom as the stalk of a flower,' her head;
'of a perfect oval' (literally, bird's-egg shaped), her fingers
like the leafy 'spears of lemon-grass' or the 'quills of the
porcupine,' her eyes 'like the splendor of the planet Venus,' and
her lips 'like the fissure of a pomegranate.'" (W.W. Skeat,
_Malay Magic_, 1900, p. 363.)
In Mitford's _Tales of Old Japan_ (vol. i, p. 215) a "peerlessly
beautiful girl of 16" is thus described: "She was neither too fat
nor too thin, neither too tall nor too short; her face was oval,
like a melon-seed, and her complexion fair and white;; her eyes
were narrow and bright, her teeth small and even; her nose was
aquiline, and her mouth delicately formed, with lovely red lips;
her eyebrows were long and fine; she had a profusion of long
black hair; she spoke modestly, with a soft, sweet voice, and
when she smiled, two lovely dimples appeared in her cheeks; in
all her movements she was gentle and refined." The Japanese belle
of ancient times, Dr. Nagayo Sensai remarks (_Lancet_, February
15, 1890) had a white face, a long, slender throat and neck, a
narrow chest, small thighs, and small feet and hands. Bälz, also,
has emphasized the ethereal character of the Japanese ideal of
feminine beauty, delicate, pale and slender, almost uncanny; and
Stratz, in his interesting book, _Die Körperformen in Kunst und
Leben der Japaner_ (second edition, 1904), has dealt fully with
the subject of Japanese beauty.
The Singalese are great connoisseurs of beauty, and a Kandyan
deeply learned in the matter gave Dr. Davy the following
enumeration of a woman's points of beauty: "Her hair should be
voluminous, like the tail of the peacock, long, reaching to her
knees, and terminating in graceful curls; her eyebrows should
resemble the rainbow, her eyes, the blue sapphire and the petals
of the blue manilla-flower. Her nose should be like the bill of
the hawk; her lips should be bright and red, like coral or the
young leaf of the iron-tree. Her teeth should be small, regular,
and closely set, and like jessamine buds. Her neck should be
large and round, resembling the berrigodea. Her chest should be
capacious; her breasts, firm and conical, like the yellow
cocoa-nut, and her waist small--almost small enough to be clasped
by the hand. Her hips should be wide; her limbs tapering; the
soles of her feet, without any hollow, and the surface of her
body in general soft, delicate, smooth, and rounded, without the
asperities of projecting bones and sinews." (J. Davy, _An
Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, 1821, p. 110.)
The "Padmini," or lotus-woman, is described by Hindu writers as
the type of most perfect feminine beauty. "She in whom the
following signs and symptoms appear is called a _Padmini_: Her
face is pleasing as the full moon; her body, well clothed with
flesh, is as soft as the Shiras or mustard flower; her skin is
fine, tender, and fair as the yellow lotus, never dark colored.
Her eyes are bright and beautiful as the orbs of the fawn, well
cut, and with reddish corners. Her bosom is hard, full, and high;
she; has a good neck; her nose is straight and lovely; and three
folds or wrinkles cross her middle--about the umbilical region.
Her _yoni_ [vulva] resembles the opening lotus bud, and her
love-seed is perfumed like the lily that has newly burst. She
walks with swanlike [more exactly, flamingolike] gait, and her
voice is low and musical as the note of the Kokila bird [the
Indian cuckoo]; she delights in white raiment, in fine jewels,
and in rich dresses. She eats little, sleeps lightly, and being
as respectful and religious as she is clever and courteous, she
is ever anxious to worship the gods and to enjoy the conversation
of Brahmans. Such, then, is the Padmini, or lotus-woman." (_The
Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana_, 1883, p. 11.)
The Hebrew ideal of feminine beauty is set forth in various
passages of the _Song of Songs_. The poem is familiar, and it
will suffice to quote one passage:--
"How beautiful are thy feet in sandals, O prince's daughter!
Thy rounded thighs are like jewels,
The work of the hands of a cunning workman.
Thy navel is like a rounded goblet
Wherein no mingled wine is wanting;
Thy belly is like a heap of wheat
Set about with lilies.
Thy two breasts are like two fawns
They are twins of a roe.
Thy neck is like the tower of ivory;
Thine eyes as the pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim;
Thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon
That looketh toward Damascus.
Thine head upon thee is like Carmel
And the hair of thine head like purple;
The king is held captive in the tresses thereof.
This thy stature is like to a palm-tree,
And thy breasts to clusters of grapes,
And the smell of thy breath like apples,
And thy mouth like the best wine."
And the man is thus described in the same poem:--
"My beloved is fair and ruddy,
The chiefest among ten thousand.
His head as the most fine gold,
His locks are bushy (or curling), and black as a raven.
His eyes are like doves beside the water-brooks,
Washed with milk and fitly set.
His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as banks of sweet herbs;
His lips are as lilies, dropping liquid myrrh.
His hands are as rings of gold, set with beryl;
His body is as ivory work, overlaid with sapphires.
His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold.
His aspect is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.
His mouth is most sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely."
"The maiden whose loveliness inspires the most impassioned
expressions in Arabic poetry," Lane states, "is celebrated for
her slender figure: She is like the cane among plants, and is
elegant as a twig of the oriental willow. Her face is like the
full moon, presenting the strongest contrast to the color of her
hair, which is of the deepest hue of night, and falls to the
middle of her back (Arab ladies are extremely fond of full and
long hair). A rosy blush overspreads the center of each cheek;
and a mole is considered an additional charm. The Arabs, indeed,
are particularly extravagant in their admiration of this natural
beauty spot, which, according to its place, is compared to a drop
of ambergris upon a dish of alabaster or upon the surface of a
ruby. The eyes of the Arab beauty are intensely black,[132]
large, and long, of the form of an almond: they are full of
brilliancy; but this is softened by long silken lashes, giving a
tender and languid expression that is full of enchantment and
scarcely to be improved by the adventitious aid of the black
border of kohl; for this the lovely maiden adds rather for the
sake of fashion than necessity, having what the Arabs term
natural kohl. The eyebrows are thin and arched; the forehead is
wide and fair as ivory; the nose straight; the mouth, small; the
lips of a brilliant red; and the teeth, like pearls set in coral.
The forms of the bosom are compared to two pomegranates; the
waist is slender; the hips are wide and large; the feet and
hands, small; the fingers, tapering, and their extremities dyed
with the deep orange tint imparted by the leaves of the henna."
Lane adds a more minute analysis from an unknown author quoted by
El-Ishákee: "Four things in a woman should be _black_--the hair
of the head, the eyebrows, the eyelashes, and the dark part of
the eyes; four _white_--the complexion of the skin, the white of
the eyes, the teeth, and the legs; four _red_--the tongue, the
lips, the middle of the cheeks, and the gums; four _round_--the
head, the neck, the forearms, and the ankles; four _long_--the
back, the fingers, the arms, and the legs; four _wide_--the
forehead, the eyes, the bosom, and the hips; four _fine_--the
eyebrows, the nose, the lips, and the fingers; four _thick_--the
lower part of the back, the thighs, the calves of the legs, and
the knees; four _small_--the ears, the breasts, the hands, and
the feet." (E.W. Lane, _Arabian Society in the Middle Ages_,
1883, pp. 214-216.)
A Persian treatise on the figurative terms relating to beauty
shows that the hair should be black, abundant, and wavy, the
eyebrows dark and arched. The eyelashes also must be dark, and
like arrows from the bow of the eyebrows. There is, however, no
insistence on the blackness of the eyes. We hear of four
varieties of eye: the dark-gray eye (or narcissus eye); the
narrow, elongated eye of Turkish beauties; the languishing, or
love-intoxicated, eye; and the wine-colored eye. Much stress is
laid on the quality of brilliancy. The face is sometimes
described as brown, but more especially as white and rosy. There
are many references to the down on the lips, which is described
as greenish (sometimes bluish) and compared to herbage. This down
and that on the cheeks and the stray hairs near the ears were
regarded as very great beauties. A beauty spot on the chin,
cheek, or elsewhere was also greatly admired, and evoked many
poetic comparisons. The mouth must be very small. In stature a
beautiful woman must be tall and erect, like the cypress or the
maritime pine. While the Arabs admired the rosiness of the legs
and thighs, the Persians insisted on white legs and compared them
to silver and crystal. (_Anis El-Ochchâq_, by Shereef-Eddin Romi,
translated by Huart, _Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes_,
Paris, fasc. 25, 1875.)
In the story of Kamaralzaman in the _Arabian Nights_ El-Sett
Budur is thus described: "Her hair is so brown that it is blacker
than the separation of friends. And when it is arrayed in three
tresses that reach to her feet I seem to see three nights at
once.
"Her face is as white as the day on which friends meet again. If
I look on it at the time of the full moon I see two moons at
once.
"Her cheeks are formed of an anemone divided into two corollas;
they have the purple tinge of wine, and her nose is straighter
and more delicate than the finest sword-blade.
"Her lips are colored agate and coral; her tongue secretes
eloquence; her saliva is more desirable than the juice of
grapes.
"But her bosom, blessed be the Creator, is a living seduction. It
bears twin breasts of the purest ivory, rounded, and that may be
held within the five fingers of one hand.
"Her belly has dimples full of shade and arranged with the
harmony of the Arabic characters on the seal of a Coptic scribe
in Egypt. And the belly gives origin to her finely modeled and
elastic waist.
"At the thought of her flanks I shudder, for thence depends a
mass so weighty that it obliges its owner to sit down when she
has risen and to rise when she lies.
"Such are her flanks, and from them descend, like white marble,
her glorious thighs, solid and straight, united above beneath
their crown. Then come the legs and the slender feet, so small
that I am astounded they can bear so great a weight."
An Egyptian stela in the Louvre sings the praise of a beautiful
woman, a queen who died about 700 B.C., as follows: "The beloved
before all women, the king's daughter who is sweet in love, the
fairest among women, a maid whose like none has seen. Blacker is
her hair than the darkness of night, blacker than the berries of
the blackberry bush (?). Harder are her teeth (?) than the flints
on the sickle. A wreath of flowers is each of her breasts, close
nestling on her arms." Wiedemann, who quotes this, adds: "During
the whole classic period of Egyptian history with few exceptions
(such, for example, as the reign of that great innovator,
Amenophis IV) the ideal alike for the male and the female body
was a slender and but slightly developed form. Under the
Ethiopian rule and during the Ptolemaic period in Egypt itself we
find, for the first time, that the goddesses are represented with
plump and well-developed outlines. Examination of the mummies
shows that the earlier ideal was based upon actual facts, and
that in ancient Egypt slender, sinewy forms distinguished both
men and women. Intermarriage with other races and harem life may
have combined in later times to alter the physical type, and with
it to change also the ideal of beauty." (A. Wiedemann, _Popular
Literature in Ancient Egypt_, p. 7.)
Commenting on Plato's ideas of beauty in the _Banquet_
Eméric-David gives references from Greek literature showing that
the typical Greek beautiful woman must be tall, her body supple,
her fingers long, her foot small and light, the eyes clear and
moderately large, the eyebrows slightly arched and almost
meeting, the nose straight and firm, nearly--but not
quite--aquiline, the breath sweet as honey. (Eméric-David,
_Recherches sur l'Art Statuaire_, new edition, 1863, p. 42.)
At the end of classic antiquity, probably in the fifth century,
Aristænetus in his first Epistle thus described his mistress
Lais: "Her cheeks are white, but mixed in imitation of the
splendor of the rose; her lips are thin, by a narrow space
separated from the cheeks, but more red; her eyebrows are black
and divided in the middle; the nose straight and proportioned to
the thin lips; the eyes large and bright, with very black pupils,
surrounded by the clearest white, each color more brilliant by
contrast. Her hair is naturally curled, and, as Homer's saying
is, like the hyacinth. The neck is white and proportioned to the
face, and though unadorned more conspicuous by its delicacy; but
a necklace of gems encircles it, on which her name is written in
jewels. She is tall and elegantly dressed in garments fitted to
her body and limbs. When dressed her appearance is beautiful;
when undressed she is all beauty. Her walk is composed and slow;
she looks like a cypress or a palm stirred by the wind. I cannot
describe how the swelling, symmetrical breasts raise the
constraining vest, nor how delicate and supple her limbs are. And
when she speaks, what sweetness in her discourse!"
Renier has studied the feminine ideal of the Provençal poets, the
troubadours who used the "langue d'oc." "They avoid any
description of the feminine type. The indications refer in great
part to the slender, erect, fresh appearance of the body, and to
the white and rosy coloring. After the person generally, the eyes
receive most praise; they are sweet, amorous, clear, smiling, and
bright. The color is never mentioned. The mouth is laughing, and
vermilion, and, smiling sweetly, it reveals the white teeth and
calls for the delights of the kiss. The face is clear and fresh,
the hand white and the hair constantly blonde. The troubadours
seldom speak of the rest of the body. Peire Vidal is an
exception, and his reference to the well-raised breasts may be
placed beside a reference by Bertran de Born. The general
impression conveyed by the love lyrics of the langue d'oc is one
of great convention. There seemed to be no salvation outside
certain phrases and epithets. The woman of Provence, sung by
hundreds of poets, seems to have been composed all of milk and
roses, a blonde Nuremburg doll." (R. Renier, _Il Tipo Estetico
della Donna nel Medioevo_, 1885, pp. 1-24.)
The conventional ideal of the troubadours is, again, thus
described: "She is a lady whose skin is white as milk, whiter
than the driven snow, of peculiar purity in whiteness. Her
cheeks, on which vermilion hues alone appear, are like the
rosebud in spring, when it has not yet opened to the full. Her
hair, which is nearly always bedecked and adorned with flowers,
is invariably of the color of flax, as soft as silk, and
shimmering with a sheen of the finest gold." (J.F. Rowbotham,
_The Troubadours and Courts of Love_, p. 228.)
In the most ancient Spanish romances, Renier remarks, the
definite indications of physical beauty are slight. The hair is
"of pure gold," or simply fair (_rudios_, which is equal to
_blondos_, a word of later introduction), the face white and
rosy, the hand soft, white, and fragrant; in one place we find a
reference to the uncovered breasts, whiter than crystal. But
usually the ancient Castilian romances do not deal with these
details. The poet contents himself with the statement that a lady
is the sweetest woman in the world, "_la mas linda mujer del
mundo_." (R. Renier, _Il Tipo Estetico della Donna nel Medioevo_,
pp. 68 et seq.)
In a detailed and well-documented thesis, Alwin Schultz describes
the characteristics of the beautiful woman as she appealed to the
German authors of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She must
be of medium height and slender. Her hair must be fair, like
gold; long, bright, and curly; a man's must only reach to his
shoulders. Dark hair is seldom mentioned and was not admired. The
parting of the hair must be white, but not too broad. The
forehead must be white and bright and rounded, without wrinkles.
The eyebrows must be darker than the hair, arched, and not too
broad, as though drawn with a pencil, the space between them not
too broad. The eyes must be bright, clear, and sparkling, not too
large or too small; nothing definite was said of the color, but
they were evidently usually blue. The nose must be of medium
size, straight, and not curved. The cheeks must be white, tinged
with red; if the red was absent by nature women used rouge. The
mouth must be small; the lips full and red. The teeth must be
small, white, and even. The chin must be white, rounded, lovable,
dimpled; the ears small and beautiful; the neck of medium size,
soft, white, and spotless; the arm small; the hands and fingers
long; the joints small, the nails white and bright and well cared
for. The bosom must be white and large; the breasts high and
rounded, like apples or pears, small and soft. The body generally
must be slender and active. The lower parts of the body are very
seldom mentioned, and many poets are even too modest to mention
the breasts. The buttocks must be rounded, one poet, indeed,
mentions, and the thighs soft and white, the _meinel_ (mons)
brown. The legs must be straight and narrow, the calves full, the
feet small and narrow, with high instep. The color of the skin
generally must be clear and of a tempered rosiness. (A. Schultz,
_Quid de Perfecta Corporis Humani Pulchritudine Germani Soeculi
XII et XIII Senserint_, 1866.) A somewhat similar, but shorter,
account is given by K. Weinhold (_Die Deutschen Frauen im
Mittelalter_, 1882, bd. 1, pp. 219 et seq.). Weinhold considers
that, like the French, the Germans admired the mixed eye, _vair_
or gray.
Adam de la Halle, the Artois _trouvère_ of the thirteenth
century, in a piece ("Li Jus Adan ou de la feuillie") in which he
brings himself forward, thus describes his mistress: "Her hair
had the brilliance of gold, and was twisted into rebellious
curls. Her forehead was very regular, white, and smooth; her
eyebrows, delicate and even, were two brown arches, which seemed
traced with a brush. Her eyes, bright and well cut, seemed to me
_vairs_ and full of caresses; they were large beneath, and their
lids like little sickles, adorned by twin folds, veiled or
revealed at her will her loving gaze. Between her eyes descended
the pipe of her nose, straight and beautiful, mobile when she was
gay; on either side were her rounded, white cheeks, on which
laughter impressed two dimples, and which one could see blushing
beneath her veil. Beneath the nose opened a mouth with blossoming
lips; this mouth, fresh and vermilion as a rose, revealed the
white teeth, in regular array; beneath the chin sprang the white
neck, descending full and round to the shoulder. The powerful
nape, white and without any little wandering hairs, protruded a
little over the dress. To her sloping shoulders were attached
long arms, large or slender where they so should be. What shall I
say of her white hands, with their long fingers, and knuckles
without knots, delicately ending in rosy nails attached to the
flesh by a clear and single line? I come to her bosom with its
firm breasts, but short and high pointed, revealing the valley of
love between them, to her round belly, her arched flanks. Her
hips were flat, her legs round, her calf large; she had a slender
ankle, a lean and arched foot. Such she was as I saw her, and
that which her chemise hid was not of less worth." (Houdoy, _La
Beauté des Femmes_, p. 125, who quotes the original of this
passage, considers it the ideal model of the mediæval woman.)
In the twelfth century story of _Aucassin et Nicolette_,
"Nicolette had fair hair, delicate and curling; her eyes were
gray (_vairs_) and smiling; her face admirably modeled. Her nose
was high and well placed; her lips small and more vermilion than
the cherry or the rose in summer; her teeth were small and white;
her firm little breasts raised her dress as would two walnuts.
Her figure was so slender that you could inclose it with your two
hands, and the flowers of the marguerite, which her toes broke as
she walked with naked feet, seemed black in comparison with her
feet and legs, so white was she."
"Her hair was divided into a double tress," says Alain of Lille
in the twelfth century, "which was long enough to kiss the
ground; the parting, white as the lily and obliquely traced,
separated the hair, and this want of symmetry, far from hurting
her face, was one of the elements of her beauty. A golden comb
maintained that abundant hair whose brilliance rivaled it, so
that the fascinated eye could scarce distinguish the gold of the
hair from the gold of the comb. The expanded forehead had the
whiteness of milk, and rivaled the lily; her bright eyebrows
shone like gold, not standing up in a brush, and, without being
too scanty, orderly arranged. The eyes, serene and brilliant in
their friendly light, seemed twin stars, her nostrils embalsamed
with the odor of honey, neither too depressed in shape nor too
prominent, were of distinguished form; the nard of her mouth
offered to the smell a treat of sweet odors, and her half-open
lips invited a kiss. The teeth seemed cut in ivory; her cheeks,
like the carnation of the rose, gently illuminated her face and
were tempered by the transparent whiteness of her veil. Her chin,
more polished than crystal, showed silver reflections, and her
slender neck fitly separated her head from the shoulders. The
firm rotundity of her breasts attested the full expansion of
youth; her charming arms, advancing toward you, seemed to call
for caresses; the regular curve of her flanks, justly
proportioned, completed her beauty. All the visible traits of her
face and form thus sufficiently told what those charms must be
that the bed alone knew." (The Latin text is given by Houdoy, _La
Beauté des Femmes du XIIe au XVIe Siècle_, p. 119. Robert de
Flagy's portrait of Blanchefleur in _Sarin-le-Loherain_, written
in same century, reveals very similar traits.)
"The young woman appeared with twenty brightly polished daggers
and swords," we read in the Irish _Tain Bo Cuailgne_ of the
Badhbh or Banshee who appeared to Meidhbh, "together with seven
braids for the dead, of bright gold, in her right hand; a
speckled garment of green ground, fastened by a bodkin at the
breast under her fair, ruddy countenance, enveloped her form; her
teeth were so new and bright that they appeared like pearls
artistically set in her gums; like the ripe berry of the mountain
ash were her lips; sweeter was her voice than the notes of the
gentle harp-strings when touched by the most skillful fingers,
and emitting the most enchanting melody; whiter than the snow of
one night was her skin, and beautiful to behold were her
garments, which reached to her well molded, bright-nailed feet;
copious tresses of her tendriled, glossy, golden hair hung
before, while others dangled behind and reached the calf of her
leg." (_Ossianio Transactions_, vol. ii, p. 107.)
An ancient Irish hero is thus described: "They saw a great hero
approaching them; fairest of the heroes of the world; larger and
taller than any man; bluer than ice his eye; redder than the
fresh rowan berries his lips; whiter than showers of pearl his
teeth; fairer than the snow of one night his skin; a protecting
shield with a golden border was upon him, two battle-lances in
his hands; a sword with knobs of ivory [teeth of the sea-horse],
and ornamented with gold, at his side; he had no other
accoutrements of a hero besides these; he had golden hair on his
head, and had a fair, ruddy countenance." (_The Banquet of Dun na
n-gedh_, translated by O'Donovan, _Irish Archæological Society_,
1842.)
The feminine ideal of the Italian poets closely resembles that of
those north of the Alps. Petrarch's Laura, as described in the
_Canzoniere_, is white as snow; her eyes, indeed, are black, but
the fairness of her hair is constantly emphasized; her lips are
rosy; her teeth white; her cheeks rosy; her breast youthful; her
hands white and slender. Other poets insist on the tall, white,
delicate body; the golden or blonde hair; the bright or starry
eyes (without mention of color), the brown or black arched
eyebrows, the straight nose, the small mouth, the thin vermilion
lips, the small and firm breasts. (Renier, _Il Tipo Estetico_,
pp. 87 et seq.)
Marie de France, a French mediæval writer of the twelfth century,
who spent a large part of her life in England, in the _Lai of
Lanval_ thus described a beautiful woman: "Her body was
beautiful, her hips low, the neck whiter than snow, the eyes gray
(_vairs_), the face white, the mouth beautiful, the nose well
placed, the eyebrows brown, the forehead beautiful, the head
curly and blonde; the gleam of gold thread was less bright than
her hair beneath the sun."
The traits of Boccaccio's ideal of feminine beauty, a voluptuous
ideal as compared with the ascetic mediæval ideal which had
previously prevailed, together with the characteristics of the
very beautiful and almost classic garments in which he arrayed
women, have been brought together by Hortis (_Studi sulle opere
Latine del Boccaccio_, 1879, pp. 70 et seq.). Boccaccio admired
fair and abundant wavy hair, dark and delicate eyebrows, and
brown or even black eyes. It was not until some centuries later,
as Hortis remarks, that Boccaccio's ideal woman was embodied by
the painter in the canvases of Titian.
The first precise description of a famous beautiful woman was
written by Niphus in the sixteenth century in his _De Pulchro et
Amore_, which is regarded as the first modern treatise on
æsthetics. The lady described is Joan of Aragon, the greatest
beauty of her time, whose portrait by Raphael (or more probably
Giulio Romano) is in the Louvre. Niphus, who was the philosopher
of the pontifical court and the friend of Leo X, thus describes
this princess, whom, as a physician, he had opportunities of
observing accurately: "She is of medium stature, straight, and
elegant, and possesses the grace which can only be imparted by an
assemblage of characteristics which are individually faultless.
She is neither fat nor bony, but succulent; her complexion is not
pale, but white tinged with rose; her long hair is golden; her
ears are small and in proportion with the size of her mouth. Her
brown eyebrows are semicircular, not too bushy, and the
individual hairs short. Her eyes are blue (_oæsius_), brighter
than stars, radiant with grace and gaiety beneath the dark-brown
eyelashes, which are well spaced and not too long. The nose,
symmetrical and of medium size, descends perpendicularly from
between the eyebrows. The little valley separating the nose from
the upper lip is divinely proportioned. The mouth, inclined to be
rather small, is always stirred by a sweet smile; the rather
thick lips are made of honey and coral. The teeth are small,
polished as ivory, and symmetrically ranged, and the breath has
the odor of the sweetest perfumes. Her voice is that of a
goddess. The chin is divided by a dimple; the whole face
approximates to a virile rotundity. The straight long neck, white
and full, rises gracefully from the shoulders. On the ample
bosom, revealing no indication of the bones, arise the rounded
breasts, of equal and fitting size, and exhaling the perfume of
the peaches they resemble. The rather plump hands, on the back
like snow, on the palm like ivory, are exactly the length of the
face; the full and rounded fingers are long and terminating in
round, curved nails of soft color. The chest as a whole has the
form of a pear, reversed, but a little compressed, and the base
attached to the neck in a delightfully well-proportioned manner.
The belly, the flanks, and the secret parts are worthy of the
chest; the hips are large and rounded; the thighs, the legs, and
the arms are in just proportion. The breadth of the shoulders is
also in the most perfect relation to the dimensions of the other
parts of the body; the feet, of medium length, terminate in
beautifully arranged toes." (Houdoy reproduces this passage in
_La Beauté des Femmes_; cf. also Stratz, _Die Schönheit des
Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter III.)
Gabriel de Minut, who published in 1587 a treatise of no very
great importance, _De la Beauté_, also wrote under the title of
_La Paulegraphie_ a very elaborate description, covering sixty
pages, of Paule de Viguier, a Gascon lady of good family and
virtuous life living at Toulouse. Minut was her devoted admirer
and addressed an affectionate poem to her just before his death.
She was seventy years of age when he wrote the elaborate account
of her beauty. She had blue eyes and fair hair, though belonging
to one of the darkest parts of France.
Ploss and Bartels (_Das Weib_, bd. 1, sec. 3) have independently
brought together a number of passages from the writers of many
countries describing their ideals of beauty. On this collection I
have not drawn.
When we survey broadly the ideals of feminine beauty set down by the
peoples of many lands, it is interesting to note that they all contain
many features which appeal to the æsthetic taste of the modern European,
and many of them, indeed, contain no features which obviously clash with
his canons of taste. It may even be said that the ideals of some savages
affect us more sympathetically than some of the ideals of our own mediæval
ancestors. As a matter of fact, European travelers in all parts of the
world have met with women who were gracious and pleasant to look on, and
not seldom even in the strict sense beautiful, from the standpoint of
European standards. Such individuals have been found even among those
races with the greatest notoriety for ugliness.
Even among so primitive and remote a people as the Australians
beauty in the European sense is sometimes found. "I have on two
occasions," Lumholtz states, "seen what might be called beauties
among the women of western Queensland. Their hands were small,
their feet neat and well shaped, with so high an instep that one
asked oneself involuntarily where in the world they had acquired
this aristocratic mark of beauty. Their figure was above
criticism, and their skin, as is usually the case among the young
women, was as soft as velvet. When these black daughters of Eve
smiled and showed their beautiful white teeth, and when their
eyes peeped coquettishly from beneath the curly hair which hung
in quite the modern fashion down their foreheads," Lumholtz
realized that even here women could exert the influence ascribed
by Goethe to women generally. (C. Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, p.
132.) Much has, again, been written about the beauty of the
American Indians. See, e.g., an article by Dr. Shufeldt, "Beauty
from an Indian's Point of View," _Cosmopolitan Magazine_, April,
1895. Among the Seminole Indians, especially, it is said that
types of handsome and comely women are not uncommon. (_Clay_
MacCauley, "Seminole Indians of Florida," _Fifth Annual Report of
the Bureau of Ethnology_, 1883-1884, pp. 493 et seq.)
There is much even in the negress which appeals to the European
as beautiful. "I have met many negresses," remarks Castellani
(_Les Femmes au Congo_, p. 2), "who could say proudly in the
words of the Song of Songs, 'I am black, but comely.' Many of our
peasant women have neither the same grace nor the same delicate
skin as some natives of Cassai or Songha. As to color, I have
seen on the African continent creatures of pale gold or even red
copper whose fine and satiny skin rivals the most delicate white
skins; one may, indeed, find beauties among women of the darkest
ebony." He adds that, on the whole, there is no comparison with
white women, and that the negress soon becomes hideous.
The very numerous quotations from travelers concerning the women
of all lands quoted by Ploss and Bartels (_Das Weib_, seventh
edition, bd. i, pp. 88-106) amply suffice to show how frequently
some degree of beauty is found even among the lowest human races.
Cf., also, Mantegazza's survey of the women of different races
from this point of view, _Fisiologia della Donna_, Cap. IV.
The fact that the modern European, whose culture may be supposed to have
made him especially sensitive to æsthetic beauty, is yet able to find
beauty among even the women of savage races serves to illustrate the
statement already made that, whatever modifying influences may have to be
admitted, beauty is to a large extent an objective matter. The existence
of this objective element in beauty is confirmed by the fact that it is
sometimes found that the men of the lower races admire European women more
than women of their own race. There is reason to believe that it is among
the more intelligent men of lower race--that is to say those whose
æsthetic feelings are more developed--that the admiration for white women
is most likely to be found.
"Mr. Winwood Reade," stated Darwin, "who has had ample
opportunities for observation, not only with the negroes of the
West Coast of Africa, but with those of the interior who have
never associated with Europeans, is convinced that their ideas of
beauty are, _on the whole_, the same as ours; and Dr. Rohlfs
writes to me to the same effect with respect to Bornu and the
countries inhabited by the Pullo tribes. Mr. Reade found that he
agreed with the negroes in their estimation of the beauty of the
native girls; and that their appreciation of the beauty of
European women corresponded with ours.... The Fuegians, as I have
been informed by a missionary who long resided with them,
considered European women as extremely beautiful ... I should add
that a most experienced observer, Captain [Sir R.] Burton,
believes that a woman whom we consider beautiful is admired
throughout the world." (Darwin, _Descent of Man_, Chapter XIX.)
Mantegazza quotes a conversation between a South American chief
and an Argentine who had asked him which he preferred, the women
of his own people or Christian women; the chief replied that he
admired Christian women most, and when asked the reason said that
they were whiter and taller, had finer hair and smoother skin.
(Mantegazza, _Fisiologia della Donna_, Appendix to Cap. VIII.)
Nordenskjöld, as quoted by Ploss and Bartels, states that the
Eskimo regard their own type as more ugly than that produced by
crossing with white persons, and, according to Kropf, the Nosa
Kaffers admire and seek the fairer half-castes in preference to
their own women of pure race (Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_,
seventh edition, bd. 1, p. 78). There is a widespread admiration
for fairness, it may be added, among dark peoples. Fair men are
admired by the Papuans at Torres Straits (_Reports of the
Cambridge Anthropological Expedition_, vol. v, p. 327). The
common use of powder among the women of dark-skinned peoples
bears witness to the existence of the same ideal.
Stratz, in his books _Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_ and
_Die Rassenschönheit des Weibes_, argues that the ideal of beauty
is fundamentally the same throughout the world, and that the
finest persons among the lower races admire and struggle to
attain the type which is found commonly and in perfection among
the white peoples of Europe. When in Japan he found that among
the numerous photographs of Japanese beauties everywhere to be
seen, his dragoman, a Japanese of low birth, selected as the most
beautiful those which displayed markedly the Japanese type with
narrow-slitted eyes and broad nose. When he sought the opinion of
a Japanese photographer, who called himself an artist and had
some claim to be so considered, the latter selected as most
beautiful three Japanese girls who in Europe also would have been
considered pretty. In Java, also, when selecting from a large
number of Javanese girls a few suitable for photographing, Stratz
was surprised to find that a Javanese doctor pointed out as most
beautiful those which most closely corresponded to the European
type. (Stratz, _Die Rassenschönheit des Weibes_, fourth edition,
1903, p. 3; id., _Die Körperformen der Japaner_, 1904, p. 78.)
Stratz reproduces (Rassenschönheit, pp. 36 et seq.) a
representation of Kwan-yin, the Chinese goddess of divine love,
and quotes some remarks of Borel's concerning the wide deviation
of the representations of the goddess, a type of gracious beauty,
from the Chinese racial type. Stratz further reproduces the
figure of a Buddhistic goddess from Java (now in the
Archæological Museum of Leyden) which represents a type of
loveliness corresponding to the most refined and classic European
ideal.
Not only is there a fundamentally objective element in beauty throughout
the human species, but it is probably a significant fact that we may find
a similar element throughout the whole animated world. The things that to
man are most beautiful throughout Nature are those that are intimately
associated with, or dependent upon, the sexual process and the sexual
instinct. This is the case in the plant world. It is so throughout most of
the animal world, and, as Professor Poulton, in referring to this often
unexplained and indeed unnoticed fact, remarks, "the song or plume which
excites the mating impulse in the hen is also in a high proportion of
cases most pleasing to man himself. And not only this, but in their past
history, so far as it has been traced (e.g., in the development of the
characteristic markings of the male peacock and argus pheasant), such
features have gradually become more and more pleasing to us as they have
acted as stronger and stronger stimuli to the hen."[133]
FOOTNOTES:
[131] "It is likely that all visible parts of the organism, even those
with a definite physiological meaning, appeal to the æsthetic sense of the
opposite sex," Poulton remarks, speaking primarily of insects, in words
that apply still more accurately to the human species. E. Poulton, _The
Colors of Animals_, 1890, p. 304.
[132] "The Arabs in general," Lane remarks, "entertain a prejudice against
blue eyes--a prejudice said to have arisen from the great number of
blue-eyed persons among certain of their northern enemies."
[133] _Nature_, April 14, 1898, p. 55.
II.
Beauty to Some Extent Consists Primitively in an Exaggeration of the
Sexual Characters--The Sexual Organs--Mutilations, Adornments, and
Garments--Sexual Allurement the Original Object of Such
Devices--The Religious Element--Unæsthetic Character of the Sexual
Organs--Importance of the Secondary Sexual Characters--The Pelvis and
Hips--Steatopygia--Obesity--Gait--The Pregnant Woman as a Mediæval Type of
Beauty--The Ideals of the Renaissance--The Breasts--The Corset--Its
Object--Its History--Hair--The Beard--The Element of National or Racial
Type in Beauty--The Relative Beauty of Blondes and Brunettes--The General
European Admiration for Blondes--The Individual Factors in the
Constitution of the Idea of Beauty--The Love of the Exotic.
In the constitution of our ideals of masculine and feminine beauty it was
inevitable that the sexual characters should from a very early period in
the history of man form an important element. From a primitive point of
view a sexually desirable and attractive person is one whose sexual
characters are either naturally prominent or artificially rendered so. The
beautiful woman is one endowed, as Chaucer expresses it,
"With buttokes brode and brestës rounde and hye";
that is to say, she is the woman obviously best fitted to bear children
and to suckle them. These two physical characters, indeed, since they
represent aptitude for the two essential acts of motherhood, must
necessarily tend to be regarded as beautiful among all peoples and in all
stages of culture, even in high stages of civilization when more refined
and perverse ideals tend to find favor, and at Pompeii as a decoration on
the east side of the Purgatorium of the Temple of Isis we find a
representation of Perseus rescuing Andromeda, who is shown as a woman with
a very small head, small hands and feet, but with a fully developed body,
large breasts, and large projecting nates.[134]
To a certain extent--and, as we shall see, to a certain extent only--the
primary sexual characters are objects of admiration among primitive
peoples. In the primitive dances of many peoples, often of sexual
significance, the display of the sexual organs on the part of both men and
women is frequently a prominent feature. Even down to mediæval times in
Europe the garments of men sometimes permitted the sexual organs to be
visible. In some parts of the world, also, the artificial enlargement of
the female sexual organs is practised, and thus enlarged they are
considered an important and attractive feature of beauty.
Sir Andrew Smith informed Darwin that the elongated nymphæ (or
"Hottentot apron") found among the women of some South African
tribes was formerly greatly admired by the men (_Descent of Man_,