The same thing often occurs when a passionate couple caress and embrace each other without the genital organs being touched or even exposed. In this respect the woman is better protected than the man, but when she is very excitable an orgasm may be produced in her during the caresses of a passionate flirtation by the pressure or friction of her legs against each other (a variety of masturbation in woman).
As a rule, however, things do not go so far as this in flirtation. The sight and touch are used alternately. The eyes play an important part, for they may express much and consequently act powerfully. A pressure of the hands, an apparently chance movement, touching the dress and the skin, etc., are the usual means of flirtation. In situations where people are close together or pressed against each other, as in railway carriages, or at table, the legs play a well-known part, by pressure of the knees and feet.
This dumb conversation of the sexual appetite begins at first in a prudent and apparently innocent manner, so that the acting party does not risk being taxed with impropriety; but as soon as he who began the flirtation perceives that his slight invitations are welcome he grows bolder, a tacit mutual agreement is established, and the game continues without a single word betraying the reciprocal sensations. Many who practice flirtation, both men and women, avoid betraying themselves by words, and they take pleasure in this mutual excitation of their genital sensibility, however incomplete it may be.
Flirtation may assume very different forms according to education and temperament. The action of alcohol on the brain develops the coarsest forms of flirtation. Every one knows the clumsy embraces of semi-intoxicated persons which can often be seen at night or on Sundays and holidays, in the street or in railway carriages, etc. I designate these by the term "alcoholic flirtation." Even in the best and most refined society flirtation loses its delicacy even under the effect of the slightest degree of alcoholic intoxication.
Flirtation assumes a more delicate and more complicated character, rendering it gracious and full of charm, in persons of higher education, especially when they are highly intellectual or artistic.
We must also mention the intellectual variety of flirtation which is not expressed by sight or touch, but only by language. Delicate allusions to sexual matters and somewhat lascivious conversation excite eroticism as much as looks and touch. According to the education of the persons concerned, this talk may be coarse and vulgar, or on the contrary refined and full of wit, managed with more or less skill, or clumsily. Here the natural finesse of woman plays a considerable part. Men wanting in tact are clumsy and offensive in their attempts at flirtation, and thus extinguish instead of exciting the woman's eroticism. The manner in which alcoholic flirtation manifests itself in cynical, dull, obtrusive and stupid conversation, corresponds to its other forms of expression. Woman desires flirtation; but does not wish it to assume an unbecoming form.
One can say anything to a woman; all depends on the way in which it is said. I have seen lady doctors with whom one could discuss the most ticklish subjects, profoundly shocked by the misplaced pleasantries of a tactless professor. In themselves these pleasantries were quite innocent for medical ears, as my lady colleagues were finally obliged to admit, when I pointed out to them the specially feminine character of their psychic reaction, proving to them that they listened without a frown to things ten times worse, when the lecturer gave them a moral tone.
Men also generally feel disgusted with the dull, cynical or clumsy form of female eroticism, although they are not usually over-refined themselves in this respect.
This last phenomenon leads us to distinguish between flirtation in man and in woman. For woman it constitutes the only permissible way of expressing erotic sentiments, and even then much restraint is imposed on her. Circumstances develop in her the art of flirtation and give it remarkable finesse. Unless she exposes herself to great danger, woman can only leave her sensuality to be guessed. Every audacious and tactless provocation fails in its object; it drives away the men and destroys a young girl's reputation. Even when possessed by the most violent erotic desire woman cannot ostensibly depart from her passive role without compromising herself. Nevertheless, she succeeds on the whole very easily in exciting the passions of man, by the aid of a few artifices. No doubt she does not entirely dominate him by this means. She must be very delicate and adroit, at any rate at first, in the provocative art of flirtation. These frivolities are greatly facilitated by her whole nature and by the character of her habitual eroticism. Man, on the other hand, may be more audacious in the expression of his passion. This brings us back to what has been said concerning the sexual differences.
A whole volume could be written on the forms of flirtation, which is the indispensable expression of all sexual desire. Among engaged couples it assumes a legal character and even a conventional form. The way in which barmaids flirt with their customers is also somewhat conventional, although in quite a different way. In society, flirtation is generally seasoned with more Attic salt, whether it is not allowed to exceed certain limits, or whether it leads to free liaisons after the manner of the Greek hetaira. In the country, among peasant girls and boys it takes a grosser form, if not more sensual, than among the cultivated classes; in the latter, language takes the principal part. Among rich idlers in watering places, large hotels, and even in some sanatoriums, flirtation takes a dominant place and constitutes, in all its degrees, the chief occupation of a great number of the visitors. It grows like a weed wherever man has a monotonous occupation or suffers from the ennui of idleness.