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.
[PREFACE.]
[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.
[INDEX OF AUTHORS.]
[INDEX OF SUBJECTS.]
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.
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.