Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume V Part 14

The lips are sometimes noted as red and everted, perhaps thick[158]; Tardieu remarked that the typically erotic woman has thick red lips. This corresponds with the characteristic type of the satyr in cla.s.sic statues as in later paintings; his lips are always thick and everted. Fullness, redness, and eversion of the lips are correlated with good breathing, the absence of anaemia, laughter, a well-fleshed face.

This kind of mouth indicates, perhaps, not so much a congenitally erotic temperament, as an abandonment to impulse. The opposite type of mouth-with inverted, thin, and retracted lips-would appear to be found with especial frequency in persons who habitually repress their impulses on moral grounds. Any kind of effort to restrain involuntary muscular action may lead to retraction of the lips: the effort to overcome anger or fear, or even the resistance to a strong desire to urinate or defecate. In religious young men, however, it becomes habitual and fixed. I recall a small band of medical students, gathered together from a large medical school, who were accustomed to meet together for prayer and Bible-reading; the majority showed this type of mouth to a very marked degree: pale faces, with drawn, retracted lips. It may be termed the Christian or pious facies. It is much less frequently seen in religious women (unless of masculine type), doubtless because religion for women is in a much less degree than for men a moral discipline.

It may be added that an interesting form of this contraction of the lips, and one that is not purely repressive, is that which indicates the state of muscular tension a.s.sociated with the impulse to guard and protect. In this form the contracted mouth is the index of tenderness, and is characteristic of the mother who is watching over the infant she is suckling at her breast. I have observed precisely the same expression in the face of a boy of 14 with a large congenital scrotal hernia; when the tumor was being examined his lower lip became retracted, well marked lines appearing from the angles downwards, though the upper lip retained its normal expression It was precisely the tender look we may see in the faces of mothers who are watching anxiously over their offspring, and the emotion is evidently the same in both cases: solicitude for a sensitive and tenderly guarded object.

The degree of pigmentation is clearly correlated with s.e.xual vigor. "In general," Heusinger laid down, in 1823, "the quant.i.ty of pigment is proportional to the functional effectiveness of the genital organs." This connection is so profound that it may be traced very widely throughout the organic world.

The connection between pigmentation and s.e.xual activity is very ancient. Even leaving out of account the wedding apparel of animals, nearly always gorgeous in scales and plumage and hair, the s.e.xual orifice shows a more or less marked tendency to pigmentation during the breeding season from fishes upward, while in mammals the darker pigmentation of this region is a constant phenomenon in s.e.xually mature individuals.[159]

In the human species both the negative standard of castration and the positive standard of p.u.b.erty alike indicate a correlation of this kind. Those individuals in whom p.u.b.erty never fully develops and who are consequently said to be affected by infantilism, reveal a relative absence of pigment in the s.e.xual centers which are normally pigmented to a high degree.[160] Among those Asiatic races who extirpate the ovaries in young girls the skin remains white in the perineum, round the a.n.u.s, and in the armpits.[161] Even in mature women who undergo ovariotomy, as Kepler found, the pigmentation of the nipples and areola disappears, as well as of the perineum and a.n.u.s, the skin taking on a remarkable whiteness.

Normally the s.e.xual centers, and in a high degree the genital orifice, represent the maximum of pigmentation, and under some circ.u.mstances this is clearly visible even in infancy. Thus babies of mixed black and white blood may show no traces of negro ancestry at birth, but there will always be increased pigmentation about the external genitalia.[162] The linea fusca, which reaches from the p.u.b.es to the navel and occasionally to the ensiform cartilage, is a line of s.e.xual pigmentation sometimes regarded as characteristic of pregnancy, but as Andersen, of Copenhagen, has found by the examination of several hundred children of both s.e.xes, it exists in a slight form in about 75 per cent. of young girls, and in almost as large a proportion of boys. But there is no doubt that it tends to increase with age as well as to become marked at pregnancy. At p.u.b.erty there is a general tendency to changes in pigmentation; thus G.o.din found that in 28 per cent, adolescent changes occurred in the eyes and hair at this period, the hair becoming darker, though the eyes sometimes become lighter. Ammon, in his investigation of conscripts at the age of 20 (post, p. 196), discovered the significant fact that the eyes and hair darken pari pa.s.su with s.e.xual development. In women, during menstruation, there is a general tendency to pigmentation; this is especially obvious around the eyes, and in some cases black rings of true pigment form in this position. Even the skin of the negro women of Loango sometimes becomes a few shades darker during menstruation.[163] During pregnancy this tendency to pigmentation reaches its climax. Pregnancy constantly gives rise to pigmentation of the face, the neck, the nipples, the abdomen, and this is especially marked in brunettes.

This a.s.sociation of pigmentation and s.e.xual apt.i.tudes has been recognized in the popular lore of some peoples. Thus the Sicilians, who admire brown skin and have no liking either for a fair skin or light hair, believe that a white woman is incapable of responding to love. It is the brown woman who feels love; as it is said in Sicilian dialect: "Fimmina scura, fimmina amurusa."[164]

The dependence of pigmentation upon the s.e.xual system is shown by the fact that irritation of the genital organs by disease will frequently suffice to produce a high degree of pigmentation. This may the neck, the trunk, the hands. Simpson long since noted that uterine irritation apart from pregnancy may produce pigmentation of the areolae of the nipples (Obstetric Works, vol. i, p. 345). Engelmann discussed the subject and gave cases, "The Hystero-Neuroses," pp. 124-139, in Gynaecological Transactions, vol. xii, 1887; and a summary of a memoir by Fouquet on this subject in La Gynecologie, February, 1903, will be found in British Medical Journal, March 28, 1903,

Of all physical traits vigor of the hairy system has most frequently perhaps been regarded as the index of vigorous s.e.xuality. In this matter modern medical observations are at one with popular belief and ancient physiognomical a.s.sertions.[165] The negative test of castration and the positive test of p.u.b.erty point in the same direction.

It is at p.u.b.erty that all the hair on the body, except that on the head, begins to develop; indeed, the very word "p.u.b.erty" has reference to this growth as the most obvious sign of the whole process. When castration takes place at an early age all this development of p.u.b.escent hair is arrested. When the primary s.e.xual organs are undeveloped the s.e.xual hair is also undeveloped, as in a case, recorded by Plant,[166] of a girl with rudimentary uterus and ovaries who had little or no axillary and pubic hair, although the hair of the head was long and strong.[167]

The pseudo-Michael Scot among the Signa mulieris calidae naturae et quae coit libenter stated that her hair, both on the head and body, is thick and coa.r.s.e and crisp, and Della Porta, the greatest of the physiognomists, said that thickness of hair in women meant wantonness. Venette, in his Generation de l'Homme, remarked that men who have much hair on the body are most amorous. At a more recent period Roubaud has said that pubic hair in its quant.i.ty, color and curliness is an index of genital energy. A poor pilous system, on the other hand, Roubaud regarded as a probable though not an irrefragable proof of s.e.xual frigidity in women. "In the cold woman the pilous system is remarkable for the languor of its vitality; the hairs are fair, delicate, scarce and smooth, while in ardent natures there are little curly tufts about the temples." (Traite de l'Impuissance, pp. 124, 523.) Martineau declared (Lecons sur les Deformations v.u.l.v.aires, p. 40) that "the more developed the genital organs the more abundant the hair covering them; abundance of hair appears to be in relation to the perfect development of the organs." Tardieu described the typically erotic woman as very hairy.

Bergh found that among 2200 young Danish prost.i.tutes those who showed an unusual extension and amount of pubic hair included several women who were believed to be libidinous in a very high degree. (Bergh, "Symbolae," etc., Hospitalstidende, August, 1894.) Moraglia, again, in Italy, in describing various women, mostly prost.i.tutes, of unusually strong s.e.xual proclivities, repeatedly notes very thick hair, with down on the face. (Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. xvi, fasc. iv-v.)

Marro, also, in Italy found that abundance of hair and down is especially marked in women who are guilty of infanticide (as also Pasini has found), though criminal women generally, in his experience, tend to have abnormally abundant hair. (Caratteri del Delinquenti, cap. XXII.) Lombroso finds that prost.i.tutes generally tend to be hairy (Donna Delinquente, p. 320.)

A lad of 14, guilty of numerous crimes of violence having a s.e.xual source, is described by Arthur Macdonald in America as having hair on the chest as well as all over the p.u.b.es. (A. Macdonald, Archives de L'Anthropologie Criminelle, January, 1893, p. 55.) The a.s.sociation of hairiness with abnormal s.e.xuality in the weak-minded has been noted at Bicetre (Recherches Cliniques sur l'Epilepsie, vol. xix, pp. 69, 77.)

Hypertrichosis universalis, a general hairiness of body, has been described by Cascella in a woman with very strong s.e.xual desires, who eventually became insane. (Revista Mensile di Psichiatria, 1903, p. 408.) Bucknill and Tuke give the case of a religiously minded girl, with very strong and repressed s.e.xual desires, who became insane; the only abnormal feature in her physical development was the marked growth of hair over the body.

Brantome refers to a great lady known to him whose body was very hairy, and quotes a saying to the effect that hairy people are either rich or wanton; the lady in question, he adds, was both. (Brantome, Vie des Dames Galantes, Discours II.)

De Sade, whose writings are now regarded as a treasure house of true observations in the domain of s.e.xual psychology, makes the Rodin of Justine dark, with much hair and thick eyebrows, while his very s.e.xual sister is described as dark, thin and very hairy. (Duhren, Der Marquis de Sade, third edition, p. 440.)

A correspondent who has always taken a special interest in the condition as regards hairiness of the women to whom he has been attracted, has sent me notes concerning a series of 12 women. It may be gathered from these notes that 5 women were neither markedly s.e.xual nor markedly hairy (either as regards head or p.u.b.es), 6 cases both hairy and s.e.xual, 1 was s.e.xual and not hairy, none were hairy and not s.e.xual. My correspondent remarks: "There may be women with scanty pubic hair possessing very strong s.e.xual emotions. My own experience is quite the opposite." He has also independently reached the conclusion, arrived at by many medical observers and clearly suggested by some of the facts here brought together, that profuse hair frequently denotes a neurotic temperament.

It may be added that Mirabeau, as we learn from an anecdote told by an eyewitness and recorded by Legouve, had a very hairy chest, while the same is recorded of Restif de la Bretonne.

It is a very ancient and popular belief that if a hairy man is not sensual he is strong: vir pilosus aut libidinosus aut fortis. The Greeks insisted on the hairy nates of Hercules, and Ninon de l'Enclos, when the great Conde shared her bed without touching her, remarked, on seeing his hairy body: "Ah, Monseigneur, que vous devez etre fort!" It may be doubted whether there is any exact parallelism between muscular strength and hairiness, for strength is largely a matter of training, but there can be no doubt that hairiness really tends to be a.s.sociated with a generally vigorous development of the body.

Although the observations concerning hairiness of body as an index of vigor, whether s.e.xual or only generally physical, are so ancient, until recent years no attempts have been made to demonstrate on a large scale whether there is actually a correlation between hairiness and s.e.xual or general development of the body. Some importance, therefore, attaches to Ammon's careful observations of many thousand conscripts in Baden. These observations fully justify this ancient belief, since they show that on the one hand the size of the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, and on the other hand girth of chest and stature, are correlated with hairiness of body.

Ammon's observations were made on nearly 4000 conscripts of the age of 20. From the point of view of the hairy system he divided them, into four cla.s.ses:-

I. To which 6.1 per cent, of the men belonged, with smooth bodies.

II. Including 25.3 per cent., only slight hairiness.

III. 53.8 per cent., more developed hairy system, but belly, breast and back smooth.

IV. 14.7 per cent., hair all over body.

V. 0.1 per cent., extreme cases of hairiness.

The beardless were 12.1 per cent., those with no axillary hair 9 per cent., those with no hair on pubis 0.4 per cent. This corresponds with the fact that hair appears first on the pubis and last on the chin.

In the first cla.s.s 69 per cent, were beardless, 54 per cent, without any axillary hair and 6 per cent, without pubic hair. In the second cla.s.s 24 per cent, were beardless, 17 per cent, without axillary hair. In the third cla.s.s 3 per cent, were beardless and 3 per cent without axillary hair.

Below p.u.b.erty the diameter of t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es is below 14 millimeters. There were 13 conscripts having a testicular diameter of less than 14 millimeters. These infantile individuals all belonged to the first three cla.s.ses and mostly to the first. The average testicular diameter in the first cla.s.s was nearly 24 millimeters, and progressively rose in the succeeding cla.s.ses to over 26 millimeters in the fourth.

While there was not much difference in height, the first cla.s.s was the shortest, the fourth the tallest. The fourth cla.s.s also showed the greatest chest perimeter. The cephalic index of all cla.s.ses was 84. (O. Ammon, "L'Infantilisme et le Feminisme au Conseil de Revision," L'Anthropologie, May-June, 1896.)

We thus see that it is quite justifiable to admit a type of person who possesses a more than average apt.i.tude for detumescence. Such persons are more likely to be short than tall; they will show a full development of the secondary s.e.xual characters; the voice will tend to be deep and the eyes bright; the glandular activity of the skin will probably be marked, the lips everted; there is a tendency to a more than average degree of pigmentation, and there is frequently an abnormal prevalence of hair on some parts of the body. While none of these signs, taken separately, can be said to have any necessary connection with the s.e.xual impulse, taken altogether they indicate an organism that responds to the instinct of detumescence with special apt.i.tude or with marked energy. In these respects observation, both scientific and popular, concords with the probabilities suggested by the three standards in this matter which have already been set forth.

No generalization, however, can here be set down in an absolute and unqualified manner. There are definite reasons why this should be so. There is, for instance, the highly important consideration that the s.e.xual impulse of the individual may be conspicuous in two quite distinct ways. It may a.s.sume prominence because the individual possesses a highly vigorous and well-nourished organism, or its prominence may be due to mental irritation in a very morbid individual. In the latter case-although occasionally the two sets of conditions are combined-most of the signs we might expect in the former case may be absent. Indeed, the s.e.xual impulses which proceed from a morbid psychic irritability do not in most cases indicate any special apt.i.tude for detumescence at all; in that largely lies their morbid character.

Again, just in the same way that the exaggerated impulse itself may either be healthy or morbid, so the various characters which we have found to possess some value as signs of the impulse may themselves either be healthy or morbid. This is notably the case as regards an abnormal growth of hair on the body, more especially when it appears on regions where normally there is little or no hair. Such hypertrichosis is frequently degenerative in character, though still often a.s.sociated with the s.e.xual system. When, however, it is thus a degenerative character of s.e.xual nature, having its origin in some abnormal ftal condition or later atrophy of the ovaries, it is no necessary indication of any apt.i.tude for detumescence.

Idiots, more especially it would seem idiot girls, tend to show a highly developed hairy system. Thus Voisin, when investigating 150 idiot and imbecile girls, found the hair long and thick and tending to occupy a large surface; one girl had hair on the areolae of the mamma. (J. Voisin, "Conformation des organes genitaux chez les Idiots," Annales d'Hygiene Publique, June, 1894.) It should be said that in idiot boys p.u.b.erty is late, and the s.e.xual organs as well as the s.e.xual instinct frequently undeveloped, while in idiot girls there is no delay in p.u.b.erty, and the s.e.xual organs and instinct are frequently fully and even abnormally developed.

Hegar has described an interesting case showing an a.s.sociation, of ftal origin, between s.e.xual anomaly and abnormal hairness. In this case a girl of 16 had a uterus duplex, an infantile pelvis, very slight menstruation and undeveloped b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She was very hairy on the face, the anterior aspects of the chest and abdomen, the s.e.xual regions, and the thighs, but not specially so on the rest of the body. The hairs were of lanugo-like character, but dark in color. (A. Hegar, Beitrage zur Geburtshulfe und Gynakologie, vol. i, p. III, 1898.) Sometimes hiruties of the face and abdomen begin to appear during pregnancy, apparently from disease or degeneration of the ovaries. (A case is noted in British Medical Journal, August 2 and 16, pp. 375 and 436, 1902.) Layc.o.c.k many years ago referred to the popular belief that women who have hair on the upper lip seldom bear children, and regarded this opinion as "questionless founded on fact." (Layc.o.c.k, Nervous Diseases of Women, p. 22.) When this is so, we may suppose that the abnormal hairy growth is a.s.sociated with degeneration of the ovaries.

There is another factor which enters into this question and renders the definition of a physical s.e.xual type less precise than it would otherwise be. The s.e.xual instinct is common to all persons, and while it seems probable that there is a type of person in whom s.e.xual energies are predominant, it would also appear that the people who otherwise show a very high level of energy in life usually exhibit a more than average degree of energy in matters of love. The predominantly s.e.xual type, as we have seen, tends to be a.s.sociated with a high degree of pigmentation; the person specially apt for detumescence inclines to belong to the dark rather than to the purely fair group of the population. On the other hand, the active, energetic, practical man, the man who is most apt for the achievement of success in life, tends to belong to the fair rather than to the dark type.[168] Thus we have a certain conflict of tendencies, and it becomes possible to a.s.sert that while persons with p.r.o.nounced apt.i.tude for s.e.xual detumescence tend to be dark, persons whose p.r.o.nounced energy in s.e.xual matters tends to ensure success are most likely to be fair.

The tendency of the fair energetic type, the type of the northern European man, to s.e.xuality may be connected with the fact that the violent and criminal man who commits s.e.xual crimes tends to be fair even amid a dark population. Criminals on the whole would appear to tend to be dark rather than fair; but Marro found in Italy that the group of s.e.xual offenders differed from all other groups of criminals in that their hair was predominantly fair. (Caratteri del Delinquenti, p. 374.) Ottolenghi, in the same way, in examining 100 s.e.xual offenders, found that they showed 17 per cent., of fair hair, though criminals generally (on a basis of nearly 2000) showed only 6 per cent., and normal persons (nearly 1000) 9 per cent. Similarly while the normal persons showed only 20 per cent. of blue eyes and criminals generally 36 per cent., the s.e.xual offenders showed 50 per cent. of blue eyes. (Ottolenghi, Archivio di Psichiatria, fasc. vi, 1888, p. 573.) Burton remarked (Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem. II, Subs. II) that in all ages most amorous young men have been yellow-haired, adding, "Synesius holds every effeminate fellow or adulterer is fair-haired." In folk-lore, it has been noted (???pt?d?a, vol. ii, p. 258), red or yellow hair is sometimes regarded as a mark of s.e.xuality.

In harmony with this fairness, s.e.xual offenders would appear to be more dolichocephalic than other criminals. In Italy Marro found the foreheads of s.e.xual offenders to be narrow, and in California Drahms found that while murderers had an average cephalic index of 83.5, and thieves of 80.5, that of s.e.xual offenders was 79.

On the other hand, high cheek-bones and broad faces-a condition most usually found a.s.sociated with brachycephaly-have sometimes been noted as a.s.sociated with undue or violent s.e.xuality. Marro noted the excess of prominent cheek-bones in s.e.xual offenders, and in America it has been found that unchaste girls tend to have broad faces. (Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1896, pp. 231, 235.)

It will be seen that, when we take a comprehensive view of the facts and considerations involved, it is possible to obtain a more definite and coherent picture of the physical signs of a marked apt.i.tude for detumescence than has. .h.i.therto been usually supposed possible. But we also see that while the ensemble of these signs is probably fairly reliable as an index of marked s.e.xuality, the separate signs have no such definite significance, and under some circ.u.mstances their significance may even be reversed.

[144]

See Bierent, La p.u.b.erte; Marro, La p.u.b.erta (and enlarged French translation, La p.u.b.erte), and portions of G. S. Hall's Adolescence; also Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman (fourth edition, revised and enlarged).

[145]

Adler, Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, p. 174; Moll, "Perverse s.e.xualempfindung, Psychische Impotenz und Ehe" (Section II), in Senator and Kaminer, Krankheiten und Ehe.

[146]

Roubaud, Traite de l'Impuissance, p. 524.

[147]

Marro, Caratteri del Delinquenti, p. 374.

[148]

???pt?d?a, vol. ii, p. 258.

[149]

Marro, La p.u.b.erta, p. 196. In Italy, the sensuality of the lame is the subject of proverbs.

[150]

Archivio di Psichiatria, 1896, p. 515; ???pt?d?a, vol. vi, p. 212.