The physical difference between man and woman is also beyond question the principal cause of the difference between masculine and feminine clothing. According to Waldeyer (Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Congress of Anthropologists at Kassel, 1895, published in the Journal of the German Society of Anthropologists, No. 9, p. 76), it is especially the difference in the length and position of the thigh-bones that is responsible for the differentiation between masculine and feminine clothing. In woman, the upper ends of the femora are, in consequence of the greater width of the pelvis, more widely separated than in the male; and since in both sexes these bones are closely approximated at the knees, in women their position appears more oblique. This, in combination with the comparative shortness of women’s thighs, has a manifest influence upon the gait, especially in running, in which man distinctly excels woman. In this purely anatomical difference is to be found the reason why the masculine mode of dress, which makes the lower extremities very manifest, is not adapted for woman, especially when in the upright posture. This is an important cause for the differentiation between masculine and feminine clothing.
A further fundamental difference between the clothing of man and that of woman is the much greater simplicity and monotony, on the whole, of masculine clothing. This has, with good reason, been associated with the greater intellectual differentiation of man, who, therefore, stands less in need of any peculiar accentuation of the individual personality by means of clothing. Woman, who earlier was only a sexual being, utilized clothing in manifold ways as a means of sexual allurement, as the chief means of compensation for the life of activity denied her by Nature and custom, whereas to man, on the whole, the employment of sexual stimulation by means of clothing was superfluous.
Georg Simmel writes from another point of view. He is of opinion that woman, in comparison with man, is, on the whole, the more constant being, but that precisely this constancy, which expresses the equability and unity of her nature on the emotional side, demands, on the principle of compensation of vital tendencies, a more active variability in other less central provinces; whereas, on the contrary, man, in his very nature less constant, who is not accustomed to cleave with the same unconditional concentration of all vital interests to any once experienced emotional relationship, precisely in consequence of this, stands less in need of such external variability. Man, as regards objective phenomena, is, on the whole, more indifferent than woman, because fundamentally he is the more variable being, and therefore can more easily dispense with such objective variability.[120]
Notwithstanding this, down to the beginning of the nineteenth century there were not wanting, in the fashion of men’s clothing, attempts to employ certain parts of dress for the purpose of sexual stimulation. I refer in this connexion to my earlier contributions.[121] Here I shall allude only in passing to the peculiar and characteristic variations of men’s clothing in the form of marked attention drawn to the male genitals by the breeches-flap (braguettes); to the shoe, à la poulaine, which imitated the form of a male penis; to certain effeminate tendencies in the dress of man which have recurred very often since the days of the Roman Empire,[122] which are connected with the wide diffusion of homosexual tendencies, and which sometimes have given men’s dress so variegated a character, have involved such frequent changes and such occasional nudities, that at these times it could enter into competition with women’s clothing. In this respect, clothing enables us to draw conclusions not merely regarding the nature of the men who wore it, but also regarding the character of the time. There exists also the modern dandyhood, which recalls many peculiarities of earlier times; but, on the whole, fashion in men’s clothing tends to simplicity and sexual indifference. This movement originated in England, and the English fashion in men’s clothing has become dominant throughout the whole world, whereas women’s clothing now, as formerly, receives its fashionable stimulus from Paris.
In addition to the indirect relations of clothing with the vita sexualis, which we have already described, there is a direct relationship, and this is the effect of certain fabrics upon the skin, from which certain associations of ideas and certain abnormal tendencies may arise. Thus, for example, the contact of woollen stuffs and of furs has a sexually stimulating influence. Ryan compared their influence with that of flagellation.[123] In this sense, also, furs and the whip go together—these two symbols of “masochism”; velvet has a similar effect. The celebrated author of “Venus im Pelz,” Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, in his well-known romance bearing this name, deals fully with the sexual significance of furs. According to him, they exert a peculiar, prickling, physical stimulus, perhaps dependent upon their being charged with electricity, and upon the warmth of their atmosphere. A woman in a fur coat is like a “great cat,[124] a powerful electric battery.” Influences of smell also appear to be associated herewith. For, in a letter to his wife, Sacher-Masoch once wrote to tell her what voluptuous pleasure it would give to him to bathe his face in the warm odour of her furs.[125] With the description of the stimulating effect of fur dependent upon sensations of contact and smell, he associated also the fact that fur gave woman a dominant, masterful, magical influence. His “Venus im Pelz” is also to him “one who commands.” Titian found for the rosy beauty of his beloved one no more costly frame than dark fur. It is doubtless the strong contrast-effect between the delicate charm and the shaggy surroundings that evokes that remarkable symbolical relationship to longings for power and cruel despotism. In a thoughtful essay, “Venus im Pelz” (Berliner Tageblatt, No. 487, September 25, 1903), the idea is developed and explained, that the love of woman for furs results from her inward nature. It is the secret longing for an increase of her power and influence by means of contrast.[126]
Men’s and women’s clothing comprises the covering of the entire body with the exception of the face—the idea does not, as a rule, include the head-covering and the way the hair is dressed. In a recent work, H. Pudor brings the face into a peculiar sexual relationship with the clothing. His remarks on this subject, which contain many valuable observations, notwithstanding the fact that much of what he says is overdrawn, run as follows:
“There is no doubt that the face is a bearer of the sexual sense in the second and third degree. Not only the mouth or the larynx. The nose, especially in virtue of the mucous membranes by which odours are perceived. The eye, in virtue of the magnetic currents, the perception of light, and the chemical activity of the retina. But even the cheeks and the ears. Let some one you are fond of whisper something into your ear—notice the emotional wave you will feel, and observe how from the ear there are paths of conduction to the sexual cells [!]. Above all, however, naturally the mouth. We speak of the labia of the female genital organs, and therewith already we indicate the relationship to the lips of the mouth. We can, in fact, prove the existence, not only of a parallelism in the structure of the mouth and that of the sexual organs, in man just as in woman. We can go even further: we can regard the sacral region as the forehead, the anal region as the nose, the pudendal region as the mouth, and the gluteal region as the cheeks [!].
“If we regard the sexual differentiation of the features of the face as established, from this standpoint we gain an interesting light upon the deeper lying causes of the wearing of clothes. Civilized mankind conceals the sexual organs of the first degree; the sexual organs of the third degree—that is, the features of the face—are left naked; in fact, on account of the thorough way in which the parts of the body adjacent to the face are covered, stress is actually laid upon the nakedness of the face as bearing sexual organs of the third degree—now we recognize the rôle played by the hat—and by means of that which we call coquetry, we see mirrored in the features the proper sexual organs, or we have our attention drawn to the sexual organs by means of the features, and by the latter we are made aware of certain peculiarities of the former. In this connexion, let us remember certain facial adornments which serve to limit still more the naked area of the face, and to clothe a larger portion of that region, such as the locks of hair covering the ears which the dancer Cléo de Mérode introduced, ringlets such as were worn in youth by our grandmothers, or the chin-band drawn across the middle of the chin. Perhaps even other ornaments of the face (neck-band, ear-rings, and even eyeglasses and lorgnette [!]) also play a certain part in this connexion. Think, above all, of the stand-up collar and all other varieties of high collar by which the clothing is carried up as high as the chin. But those parts of the face which remain naked must now be as naked as possible; for this reason hairs, unless they belong to the beard as sexual organs of the second degree, must be removed, and society determinedly insists that faces shall be clean-shaven.”[127]
The relation of the face to the clothing already makes clear to us the idea of “costume” as an extension of clothing beyond the mere covering of the body. All which surrounds man, which has a relation to his appearance, is costume in the widest sense of the word; thus, sitting-room, workshop, study, dressing-room, park, library, etc.
“We take pains regarding all that we have nearest to us and round about us, our toilet, because therein we are at home, therein we suffer and we rejoice. Where we feel ourselves at home, we shall endeavour so to arrange matters that everything is comfortable to us, down to the furthest manifestations of our existence, so that our sitting-room, our bedroom, our house and our garden, constitute a prolongation, an extension of our clothing” (A. von Eye).[128]