Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 — Analysis of the Sexual Impulse, Part 3

As may be seen from the foregoing fairly typical examples, the phenomena of courtship are highly developed, and have been most carefully studied, in animals outside the mammal series.

It may seem a long leap from birds to man; yet, as will be seen, the phenomena among primitive human peoples, if not, indeed, among many civilized peoples also, closely resemble those found among birds, though, unfortunately, they have not usually been so carefully studied.

In Australia, where dancing is carried to a high pitch of elaboration, its association with the sexual impulse is close and unmistakable.

Thus, Mr. Samuel Gason (of whom it has been said that "no man living has been more among blacks or knows more of their ways") remarks concerning a dance of the Dieyerie tribe: "This dance men and women only take part in, in regular form and position, keeping splendid time to the rattle of the beat of two boomerangs; some of the women keep time by clapping their hands between their thighs; promiscuous sexual intercourse follows after the dance; jealousy is forbidden."

Again, at the Mobierrie, or rat-harvest, "many weeks' preparation before the dance comes off; no quarreling is allowed; promiscuous sexual intercourse during the ceremony."

The fact that jealousy is forbidden at these festivals clearly indicates that sexual intercourse is a recognized and probably essential element in the ceremonies.

This is further emphasized by the fact that at other festivals open sexual intercourse is not allowed.

Thus, at the Mindarie, or dance at a peace festival (when a number of tribes comes together), "there is great rejoicing at the coming festival, which is generally held at the full of the moon, and kept up all night.

The men are artistically decorated with down and feathers, with all kinds of designs.

The down and feathers are stuck on their bodies with blood freshly taken from their penis; they are also nicely painted with various colors; tufts of boughs are tied on their ankles to make a noise while dancing.

Promiscuous sexual intercourse is carried on _secretly_; many quarrels occur at this time."

(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol. xxiv, November, 1894, p. 174. ) In Australian dances, sometimes men and women dance together, sometimes the men dance alone, sometimes the women.

In one dance described by Eyre: "Women are the chief performers; their bodies are painted with white streaks, and their hair adorned with cockatoo feathers.

They carry large sticks in their hands, and place themselves in a row in front, while the men with their spears stand in a row behind them.

They then all commence their movements, but without intermingling, the males and females dancing by themselves.

The women have occasionally another mode of dancing, by joining the hands together over the head, closing the feet, and bringing the knees into contact.

The legs are then thrown outward from the knee, while the feet and hands are kept in their original position, and, being drawn quickly in again, a sharp sound is produced by the collision.

This is also practised alone by young girls or by several together for their own amusement.

It is adopted also when a single woman is placed in front of a row of male dancers to excite their passions."

(E.

J.

Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions into Central Australia_, vol. ii, p. 235. ) A charming Australian folk-tale concerning two sisters with wings, who disliked men, and their wooing by a man, clearly indicates, even among the Australians (whose love-making is commonly supposed to be somewhat brutal in character), the consciousness that it is by his beauty, charm, and skill in courtship that a man wins a woman.

Unahanach, the lover, stole unperceived to the river where the girls were bathing and at last showed himself carelessly sitting on a high tree.

The girls were startled, but thought it would be safe to amuse themselves by looking at the intruder.

"Young and with the most active figure, yet of a strength that defied the strongest emu, and even enabled him to resist an 'old man' kangaroo, he had no equal in the chase, and conscious power gave a dignity to his expression that at one glance calmed the fears of the two girls.

His large brilliant eyes, shaded by a deep fringe of soft black eyelashes, gazed down upon them admiringly, and his rich black hair hung around his well-formed face, smooth and shining from the emu-oil with which it was abundantly covered."

At last he persuaded them to talk and by and by induced them to call him husband.

Then they went off with him, with no thought of flight in their hearts.

("Australian Folklore Stories," collected by W. Dunlop, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, new series, vol. i, 1898, p. 33. ) Of the people of Torres Straits Haddon states (_Reports Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 222): "It was during the secular dance, or _Kap_, that the girls usually lost their hearts to the young men.

A young man who was a good dancer would find favor in the sight of the girls.

This can be readily understood by anyone who has seen the active, skilful, and fatiguing dances of these people.

A young man who could acquit himself well in these dances must be possessed of no mean strength and agility, qualities which everywhere appeal to the opposite sex.

Further, he was decorated, according to local custom, with all that would render him more imposing in the eyes of the spectators.

As the former chief of Mabuiag put it, 'In England if a man has plenty of money, women want to marry him; so here, if a man dances well they too want him.'

In olden days the war-dance, which was performed after a successful foray, would be the most powerful excitement to a marriageable girl, especially if a young man had distinguished himself sufficiently to bring home the head of someone he had killed."

Among the tribes inhabiting the mouth of the Wanigela River, New Guinea, "when a boy admires a girl, he will not look at her, speak to her, or go near her.

He, however, shows his love by athletic bounds, posing, and pursuit, and by the spearing of imaginary enemies, etc. , before her, to attract her attention.

If the girl reciprocates his love she will employ a small girl to give to him an _ugauga gauna_, or love invitation, consisting of an areca-nut whose skin has been marked with different designs, significant of her wish to _ugauga_.

After dark he is apprised of the place where the girl awaits him; repairing thither, he seats himself beside her as close as possible, and they mutually share in the consumption of the betel-nut."

This constitutes betrothal;

henceforth he is free to visit the girl's house and sleep there.

Marriages usually take place at the most important festival of the year, the _kapa_, preparations for which are made during the three previous months, so that there may be a bountiful and unfailing supply of bananas.

Much dancing takes place among the unmarried girls, who, also, are tattooed at this time over the whole of the front of the body, special attention being paid to the lower parts, as a girl who is not properly tattooed there possesses no attraction in the eyes of young men.

Married women and widows and divorced women are not forbidden to take part in these dances, but it would be considered ridiculous for them to do so.

(R.

E.

Guise, "On the Tribes of the Wanigela River," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, new series, vol. i, 1899, pp. 209, 214 et seq.

) In the island of Nias in the Malay Archipelago, Modigliani (mainly on the excellent authority of Sundermann, the missionary) states, at a wedding "dancing and singing go on throughout the day.

The women, two or three at a time, a little apart from the men, take part in the dancing, which is very well adapted to emphasize the curves of the flanks and the breasts, though at the same time the defects of their legs are exhibited in this series of rhythmic contortions which constitute a Nias dance.

The most graceful movement they execute is a lascivious undulation of the flanks while the face and breast are slowly wound round by the _sarong_ [a sort of skirt] held in the hands, and then again revealed.

These movements are executed with jerks of the wrist and contortions of the flanks, not always graceful, but which excite the admiration of the spectators, even of the women, who form in groups to sing in chorus a compliment, more or less sincere, in which they say: 'They dance with the grace of birds when they fly.

They dance as the hawk flies; it is lovely to see.'

They sing and dance both at weddings and at other festivals."

(Elio Modigliani, _Un Viaggio a Nias_, 1890, p. 549. ) In Sumatra Marsden states that chastity prevails more, perhaps, than among any other people: "But little apparent courtship precedes their marriages.

Their manners do not admit of it, the _boojong_ and _geddas_ (youths of each sex) being carefully kept asunder and the latter seldom trusted from under the wings of their mothers....

The opportunities which the young people have of seeing and conversing with each other are at the _birnbangs_, or public festivals.

On these occasions the young people meet together and dance and sing in company.

The men, when determined in their regard, generally employ an old woman as their agent, by whom they make known their sentiments, and send presents to the female of their choice.

The parents then interfere, and the preliminaries being settled, a _birnbang_ takes place.

The young women proceed in a body to the upper end of the _balli_ (hall), where there is a part divided off for them by a curtain.

They do not always make their appearance before dinner, that time, previous to a second or third meal, being appropriated to cock-fighting or other diversions peculiar to men.

In the evening their other amusements take place, of which the dances are the principal.

These are performed either singly or by two women, two men, or with both mixed.

Their motions and attitudes are usually slow, approaching often to the lascivious.

They bend forward as they dance, and usually carry a fan, which they close and strike smartly against their elbows at particular cadences....

The assembly seldom breaks up before daylight and these _birnbangs_ are often continued for several days together.

The young men frequent them in order to look out for wives, and the lasses of course set themselves off to the best advantage.

They wear their best silken dresses, of their own weaving, as many ornaments of filigree as they possess, silver rings upon their arms and legs, and ear-rings of a particular construction.

Their hair is variously adorned with flowers, and perfumed with oil of benjamin.

Civet is also in repute, but more used by the men.

To render their skin fine, smooth, and soft they make use of a white cosmetic called _poopoor_ [a mixture of ginger, patch-leaf, maize, sandal-wood, fairy-cotton, and mush-seed with a basis of fine rice]."

(W.

Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, 1783, p. 230. ) The Alfurus of Seram in the Moluccas, who have not yet been spoilt by foreign influences, are very fond of music and dancing.

Their _maku_ dances, which take place at night, have been described by Joest: "Great torches of dry bamboos and piles of burning resinous leaves light up the giant trees to their very summits and reveal in the distance the little huts which the Alfuras have built in the virgin forests, as well as the skulls of the slain.

The women squat together by the fire, making a deafening noise with the gongs and the drums, while the young girls, richly adorned with pearls and fragrant flowers, await the beginning of the dance.

Then appear the men and youths without weapons, but in full war-costume, the girdle freshly marked with the number of slain enemies.

[Among the Alfuras it is the man who has the largest number of heads to show who has most chance of winning the object of his love.

] They hold each other's arms and form a circle, which is not, however, completely closed.

A song is started, and with small, slow steps this ring of bodies, like a winding snake, moves sideways, backward, closes, opens again, the steps become heavier, the songs and drums louder, the girls enter the circle and with closed eyes grasp the girdle of their chosen youths, who clasp them by the hips and necks, the chain becomes longer and longer, the dance and song more ardent, until the dancers grow tired and disappear in the gloom of the forest."

(W.

Joest, _Welt-Fahrten_, 1895, Bd.

ii, p. 159. ) The women of the New Hebrides dance, or rather sway, to and fro in the midst of a circle formed by the men, with whom they do not directly mingle.

They leap, show their genital parts to the men, and imitate the movements of coitus.

Meanwhile the men unfasten the _manou_ (penis-wrap) from their girdles with one hand, with the other imitating the action of seizing a woman, and, excited by the women, also go through a mock copulation.

Sometimes, it is said, the dancers masturbate.

This takes place amid plaintive songs, interrupted from time to time by loud cries and howls.

(_Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_, by a French army-surgeon, 1898, vol. ii, p. 341. ) Among the hill tribes of the Central Indian Hills may be traced a desire to secure communion with the spirit of fertility embodied in vegetation.

This appears, for instance, in a tree-dance, which is carried out on a date associated not only with the growths of the crops or with harvest, but also with the seasonal period for marriage and the annual Saturnalia.

(W.

Crooke, "The Hill Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, new series, vol. i, 1899, p. 243. ) The association of dancing with seasonal ritual festivals of a generative character--of which the above is a fairly typical instance--leads us to another aspect of these phenomena on which I have elsewhere touched in these _Studies_ (vol. i) when discussing the "Phenomena of Periodicity."

The Tahitians, when first discovered by Europeans, appear to have been highly civilized on the sexual side and very licentious.

Yet even at Tahiti, when visited by Cook, the strict primitive relationship between dancing and courtship still remained traceable.

Cook found "a dance called Timorodee, which is performed by young girls, whenever eight or ten of them can be collected together, consisting of motions and gestures beyond imagination wanton, in the practice of which they are brought up from their earliest childhood, accompanied by words which, if it were possible, would more explicitly convey the same ideas.

But the practice which is allowed to the virgin is prohibited to the woman from the moment that she has put these hopeful lessons in practice and realized the symbols of the dance."

He added, however, that among the specially privileged class of the Areoi these limitations were not observed, for he had heard that this dance was sometimes performed by them as a preliminary to sexual intercourse.

(Hawkesworth, _An Account of the Voyages_, etc. , 1775, vol. ii, p. 54. ) Among the Marquesans at the marriage of a woman, even of high rank, she lies with her head at the bridegroom's knees and all the male guests come in single file, singing and dancing--those of lower class first and the great chiefs last--and have connection with the woman.

There are often a very large number of guests and the bride is sometimes so exhausted at the end that she has to spend several days in bed.

(Tautain, "Etude sur le Mariage chez les Polynésiens," _L'Anthropologie_, November-December, 1895, p. 642. ) The interesting point for us here is that singing and dancing are still regarded as a preliminary to a sexual act.

It has been noted that in sexual matters the Polynesians, when first discovered by Europeans, had largely gone beyond the primitive stage, and that this applies also to some of their dances.

Thus the _hula-hula_ dance, while primitive in origin, may probably be compared more to a civilized than to a primitive dance, since it has become divorced from real life.

In the same way, while the sexual pantomime dance of the Azimba girls of central Africa has a direct and recognized relationship to the demands of real life, the somewhat allied _danses du ventre_ of the Hamitic peoples of northern Africa are merely an amusement, a play more or less based on the sexual instinct.

At the same time it is important to bear in mind that there is no rigid distinction between dances that are, and those that are not, primitive.

As Haddon truly points out in a book containing valuable detailed descriptions of dances, even among savages dances are so developed that it is difficult to trace their origin, and at Torres Straits, he remarks, "there are certainly play or secular dances, dances for pure amusement without any ulterior design."

(A.

C.

Haddon, _Head Hunters_, p. 233. ) When we remember that dancing had probably become highly developed long before man appeared on the earth, this difficulty in determining the precise origin of human dancing cannot cause surprise.

Spix and Martius described how the Muras of Brazil by moonlight would engage all night in a Bacchantic dance in a great circle, hand in hand, the men on one side, the women on the other, shouting out all the time, the men "Who will marry me?"

the women, "You are a beautiful devil; all women will marry you," (Spix and Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_, 1831, vol. iii, p. 1117. ) They also described in detail the dance of the Brazilian Puris, performed in a state of complete nakedness, the men in a row, the women in another row behind them.

They danced backward and forward, stamping and singing, at first in a slow and melancholy style, but gradually with increasing vigor and excitement.

Then the women began to rotate the pelvis backward and forward, and the men to thrust their bodies forward, the dance becoming a pantomimic representation of sexual intercourse (ibid.

, vol. i, 1823, pp. 373-5).

Among the Apinages of Brazil, also, the women stand in a row, almost motionless, while the men dance and leap in front of them, both men and women at the same time singing.

(Buscalioni, "Reise zu den Apinages," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, ht.

6, p. 650. ) Among the Gilas of New Mexico, "when a young man sees a girl whom he desires for a wife, he first endeavors to gain the good-will of the parents; this accomplished, he proceeds to serenade his lady-love, and will often sit for hours, day after day, near her home, playing on his flute.

Should the girl not appear, it is a sign she rejects him; but if, on the other hand, she comes out to meet him, he knows that his suit is accepted, and he takes her to his home.

No marriage ceremony is performed."

[33] (H.

H.

Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific_, vol. i, p. 549. ) "Among the Minnetarees a singular night-dance is, it is said, sometimes held.

During this amusement an opportunity is given to the squaws to select their favorites.

A squaw, as she dances, will advance to a person with whom she is captivated, either for his personal attractions or for his renown in arms; she taps him on the shoulder and immediately runs out of the lodge and betakes herself to the bushes, followed by the favorite.

But if it should happen that he has a particular preference for another from whom he expects the same favor, or if he is restrained by a vow, or is already satiated with indulgence, he politely declines her offer by placing his hand in her bosom, on which they return to the assembly and rejoin the dance."

It is worthy of remark that in the language of the Omahas the word _watche_ applies equally to the amusement of dancing and to sexual intercourse.

(S.

H.

Long, _Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, 1823, vol. i, p. 337. ) At a Kaffir marriage "singing and dancing last until midnight.

Each party [the bride's and the bridegroom's] dances in front of the other, but they do not mingle together.

As the evening advances, the spirits and passions of all become greatly excited;

and the power of song, the display of muscular action, and the gesticulations of the dancers and leapers are something extraordinary.

The manner in which, at certain times, one man or woman, more excited than the rest, bounds from the ranks, leaps into the air, bounces forward, and darts backward beggars all description.

These violent exercises usually close about midnight, when each party retires; generally, each man selects a paramour, and, indulging in sexual gratification, spends the remainder of the night."

(W.

C.

Holden, _The Kaffir Race_, 1866, p. 192. ) At the initiation of Kaffir boys into manhood, as described by Holden, they were circumcised.

"Cattle are then slaughtered by the parents, and the boys are plentifully supplied with flesh meat; a good deal of dancing also ensues at this stage of the proceedings.

The _ukut-shila_ consists in attiring themselves with the leaves of the wild date in the most fantastic manner;

thus attired they visit each of the kraals to which they belong in rotation, for the purpose of dancing.

These dances are the most licentious which can be imagined.

The women act a prominent part in them, and endeavor to excite the passions of the novices by performing all sorts of obscene gesticulations.

As soon as the soreness occasioned by the act of circumcision is healed the boys are, as it were, let loose upon society, and exempted from nearly all the restraints of law; so that should they even steal and slaughter their neighbor's cattle they would not be punished; and they have the special privilege of seizing by force, if force be necessary, every unmarried woman they choose, for the purpose of gratifying their passions."

Similar festivals take place at the initiation of girls.

(W.

C.

Holden, _The Kaffir Race_, 1866, p. 185. ) The Rev. J.

Macdonald has described the ceremonies and customs attending and following the initiation-rites of a young girl on her first menstruation among the Zulus between the Tugela and Delagoa Bay.

At this time the girl is called an _intonjane_.

A

beast is killed as a thank-offering to the ancestral spirits, high revel is held for several days, and dancing and music take place every night till those engaged in it are all exhausted or daylight arrives.

"After a few days and when dancing has been discontinued, young men and girls congregate in the outer apartment of the hut, and begin singing, clapping their hands, and making a grunting noise to show their joy.

At nightfall most of the young girls who were the intonjane's attendants, leave for their own homes for the night, to return the following morning.

Thereafter the young men and girls who gathered into the hut in the afternoon separate into pairs and sleep together _in puris naturalibus_, for that is strictly ordained by custom.

Sexual intercourse is not allowed, but what is known as _metsha_ or _ukumetsha_ is the sole purpose of the novel arrangement.

_Ukumetsha_ may be defined as partial intercourse.

Every man who sleeps thus with a girl has to send to the father of the intonjane an assegai; should he have formed an attachment for his partner of the night and wish to pay her his addresses, he sends two assegais."

(Rev. J.

Macdonald, "Manners, etc. , of South African Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol. xx, November, 1890, p. 117. ) Goncourt reports the account given him by a French officer from Senegal of the dances of the women, "a dance which is a gentle oscillation of the body, with gradually increasing excitement, from time to time a woman darting forward from the group to stand in front of her lover, contorting herself as though in a passionate embrace, and, on passing her hand between her thighs, showing it covered with the moisture of amorous enjoyment."

(_Journal_, vol. ix, p. 79. ) The dance here referred to is probably the Bamboula dance of the Wolofs, a spring festival which has been described by Pierre Loti in his _Roman d'un Spahi_, and concerning which various details are furnished by a French army-surgeon, acquainted with Senegal, in his _Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_.

The dance, as described by the latter, takes place at night during full moon, the dancers, male and female, beginning timidly, but, as the beat of the tam-tams and the encouraging cries of the spectators become louder, the dance becomes more furious.

The native name of the dance is _anamalis fobil_, "the dance of the treading drake."

"The dancer in his movements imitates the copulation of the great Indian duck.

This drake has a member of a corkscrew shape, and a peculiar movement is required to introduce it into the duck.

The woman tucks up her clothes and convulsively agitates the lower part of her body; she alternately shows her partner her vulva and hides it from him by a regular movement, backward and forward, of the body."

(_Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_, Paris, 1898, vol. ii, p. 112. ) Among the Gurus of the Ivory Coast (Gulf of Guinea), Eysséric observes, dancing is usually carried on at night and more especially by the men, and on certain occasions women must not appear, for if they assisted at fetichistic dances "they would die."

Under other circumstances men and women dance together with ardor, not forming couples but often _vis-à-vis_: their movements are lascivious.

Even the dances following a funeral tend to become sexual in character.

At the end of the rites attending the funeral of a chief's son the entire population began to dance with ever-growing ardor; there was nothing ritualistic or sad in these contortions, which took on the character of a lascivious dance.

Men and women, boys and girls, young and old, sought to rival each other in suppleness, and the festival became joyous and general, as if in celebration of a marriage or a victory.

(Eysséric, "La Côte d'Ivoire," _Nouvelles Archives des Missions Scientifiques_, tome ix, 1890, pp. 241-49. ) Mrs. French-Sheldon has described the marriage-rites she observed at Taveta in East Africa.

"During this time the young people dance and carouse and make themselves generally merry and promiscuously drunk, carrying the excess of their dissipation to such an extent that they dance until they fall down in a species of epileptic fit."

It is the privilege of the bridegroom's four groomsmen to enjoy the bride first, and she is then handed over to her legitimate husband.

This people, both men and women, are "great dancers and merry-makers; the young fellows will collect in groups and dance as though in competition one with the other;

one lad will dash out from the circle of his companions, rush into the middle of a circumscribed space, and scream out 'Wow, wow!'

Another follows him and screams; then a third does the same.

These men will dance with their knees almost rigid, jumping into the air until their excitement becomes very great and their energy almost spasmodic, leaving the ground frequently three feet as they spring into the air.

At some of their festivals their dancing is carried to such an extent that I have seen a young fellow's muscles quiver from head to foot and his jaws tremble without any apparent ability on his part to control them, until, foaming at the mouth and with his eyes rolling, he falls in a paroxysm upon the ground, to be carried off by his companions."

The writer adds significantly that this dancing "would seem to emanate from a species of voluptuousness."

(Mrs. French-Sheldon, "Customs among the Natives of East Africa," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol. xxi, May, 1892, pp. 366-67. ) It may be added that among the Suaheli dances are intimately associated with weddings; the Suaheli dances have been minutely described by Velten (_Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli_, pp. 144-175).

Among the Akamba of British East Africa, also, according to H. R.

Tate (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Jan.

-June, 1904, p. 137), the dances are followed by connection between the young men and girls, approved of by the parents.

The dances of the Faroe Islanders have been described by Raymond Pilet ("Rapport sur une Mission en Islande et aux lies Féroë," _Nouvelles Archives des Missions Scientifiques_, tome vii, 1897, p. 285).

These dances, which are entirely decorous, include poetry, music, and much mimicry, especially of battle.

They sometimes last for two consecutive days and nights.

"The dance is simply a permitted and discreet method by which the young men may court the young girls.

The islander enters the circle and places himself beside the girl to whom he desires to show his affection;

if he meets with her approval she stays and continues to dance at his side; if not, she leaves the circle and appears later at another spot."

Pitre (_Usi, etc. , del Popolo Siciliano_, vol. ii, p. 24, as quoted in Marro's _Pubertà_) states that in Sicily the youth who wishes to marry seeks to give some public proof of his valor and to show himself off.

In Chiaramonte, in evidence of his virile force, he bears in procession the standard of some confraternity, a high and richly adorned standard which makes its staff bend to a semicircle, of such enormous weight that the bearer must walk in a painfully bent position, his head thrown back and his feet forward.

On reaching the house of his betrothed he makes proof of his boldness and skill in wielding this extremely heavy standard which at this moment seems a plaything in his hands, but may yet prove fatal to him through injury to the loins or other parts.

This same tendency, which we find in so highly developed a degree among animals and primitive human peoples, is also universal among the children of even the most civilized human races, although in a less organized and more confused way.

It manifests itself as "showing-off."

Sanford Bell, in his study of the emotion of love in children, finds that "showing-off" is an essential element in the love of children in what he terms the second stage (from the eighth to the twelfth year in girls and the fourteenth in boys).

"It constitutes one of the chief numbers in the boy's repertory of love charms, and is not totally absent from the girl's. It is a most common sight to see the boys taxing their resources in devising means of exposing their own excellencies, and often doing the most ridiculous and extravagant things.

Running, jumping, dancing, prancing, sparring, wrestling, turning handsprings, somersaults, climbing, walking fences, swinging, giving yodels and yells, whistling, imitating the movements of animals, 'taking people off,' courting danger, affecting courage are some of its common forms....

This 'showing-off' in the boy lover is the forerunner of the skilful, purposive, and elaborate means of self-exhibition in the adult male and the charming coquetry in the adult female, in their love-relations."

(Sanford Bell, "The Emotion of Love Between the Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July, 1902; cf.

"Showing-off and Bashfulness," _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1903. ) If, in the light of the previous discussion, we examine such facts as those here collected, we may easily trace throughout the perpetual operations of the same instinct.

It is everywhere the instinctive object of the male, who is very rarely passive in the process of courtship, to assure by his activity in display, his energy or skill or beauty, both his own passion and the passion of the female.

Throughout nature sexual conjugation only takes place after much expenditure of energy.

[34] We are deceived by what we see among highly fed domesticated animals, and among the lazy classes of human society, whose sexual instincts are at once both unnaturally stimulated and unnaturally repressed, when we imagine that the instinct of detumescence is normally ever craving to be satisfied, and that throughout nature it can always be set off at a touch whenever the stimulus is applied.

So far from the instinct of tumescence naturally needing to be crushed, it needs, on the contrary, in either sex to be submitted to the most elaborate and prolonged processes in order to bring about those conditions which detumescence relieves.

A state of tumescence is not normally constant, and tumescence must be obtained before detumescence is possible.

[35] The whole object of courtship, of the mutual approximation and caresses of two persons of the opposite sex, is to create the state of sexual tumescence.

It will be seen that the most usual method of attaining tumescence--a method found among the most various kinds of animals, from insects and birds to man--is some form of the dance.

Among the Negritos of the Philippines dancing is described by A. B.

Meyer as "jumping in a circle around a girl and stamping with the feet"; as we have seen, such a dance is, essentially, a form of courtship that is widespread among animals.

"The true cake-walk," again, Stanley Hall remarks, "as seen in the South is perhaps the purest expression of this impulse to courtship antics seen in man."

[36] Muscular movement of which the dance is the highest and most complex expression, is undoubtedly a method of auto-intoxication of the very greatest potency.

All energetic movement, indeed, tends to produce active congestion.

In its influence on the brain violent exercise may thus result in a state of intoxication even resembling insanity.

As Lagrange remarks, the visible effects of exercise--heightened color, bright eyes, resolute air and walk--are those of slight intoxication, and a girl who has waltzed for a quarter of an hour is in the same condition as if she had drunk champagne.

[37] Groos regards the dance as, above all, an intoxicating play of movement, possessing, like other methods of intoxication,--and even apart from its relationship to combat and love,--the charm of being able to draw us out of our everyday life and lead us into a self-created dream-world.

[38] That the dance is not only a narcotic, but also a powerful stimulant, we may clearly realize from the experiments which show that this effect is produced even by much less complex kinds of muscular movement.

This has been clearly determined, for instance, by Féré, in the course of a long and elaborate series of experiments dealing with the various influences that modify work as measured by Mosso's ergograph.

This investigator found that muscular movement is the most efficacious of all stimulants in increasing muscular power.

[39] It is easy to trace these pleasurable effects of combined narcotic and stimulant motion in everyday life and it is unnecessary to enumerate its manifestations.

[40] Dancing is so powerful an agent on the organism, as Sergi truly remarks (_Les Emotions_, p. 288), because its excitation is general, because it touches every vital organ, the higher centers no longer dominating.

Primitive dancing differs very widely from that civilized kind of dancing--finding its extreme type in the ballet--in which energy is concentrated into the muscles below the knee.

In the finest kinds of primitive dancing all the limbs, the whole body, take part.

For instance, "the Marquisan girls," Herman Melville remarked in _Typee_, "dance all over, as it were;

not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers,--ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads.

In good sooth, they so sway their floating forms, arch their necks, toss aloft their naked arms, and glide, and swim, and whirl," etc. If we turn to a very different people, we find this characteristic of primitive dancing admirably illustrated by the missionary, Holden, in the case of Kaffir dances.

"So far as I have observed," he states, "the perfection of the art or science consists in their _being able to put every part of the body into motion at the same time_.

And as they are naked, the bystander has a good opportunity of observing the whole process, which presents a remarkably odd and grotesque appearance,--the head, the trunk, the arms, the legs, the hands, the feet, bones, muscles, sinews, skin, scalp, and hair, each and all in motion at the same time, with feathers waving, tails of monkeys and wild beasts dangling, and shields beating, accompanied with whistling, shouting, and leaping.

It would appear as though the whole frame was hung on springing wires or cords.

Dances are held in high repute, being the natural expression of joyous emotion, or creating it when absent.

There is, perhaps, no exercise in greater accordance with the sentiments or feelings of a barbarous people, or more fully calculated to gratify their wild and ungoverned passions."

(W.

C.

Holden, _The Kaffir Race_, 1866, p. 274. ) Dancing, as the highest and most complex form of muscular movement, is the most potent method of obtaining the organic excitement muscular movement yields, and thus we understand how from the earliest zoölogical ages it has been brought to the service of the sexual instinct as a mode of attaining tumescence.

Among savages this use of dancing works harmoniously with the various other uses which dancing possesses in primitive times and which cause it to occupy so large and vital a part in savage life that it may possibly even affect the organism to such an extent as to mold the bones; so that some authorities have associated platycnemia with dancing.

As civilization advances, the other uses of dancing fall away, but it still remains a sexual stimulant.

Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, brings forward a number of quotations from old authors showing that dancing is an incitement to love.

[41] The Catholic theologians (Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, pp. 190-199) for the most part condemn dancing with much severity.

In Protestant Germany, also, it is held that dance meetings and musical gatherings are frequent occasions of unchastity.

Thus in the Leipzig district when a girl is asked "How did you fall?"

she nearly always replies "At the dance."

(_Die Geschlechtlich-Sittliche Verhältnisse im Deutschen Reiche_, vol. i, p. 196. ) It leads quite as often, and no doubt oftener, to marriage.

Rousseau defended it on this account (_Nouvelle Heloïse_, bk.

iv, letter x); dancing is, he held, an admirable preliminary to courtship, and the best way for young people to reveal themselves to each other, in their grace and decorum, their qualities and defects, while its publicity is its safeguard.

An International Congress of Dancing Masters was held at Barcelona in 1907. In connection with this Congress, Giraudet, president of the International Academy of Dancing Masters, issued an inquiry to over 3000 teachers of dancing throughout the world in order to ascertain the frequency with which dancing led to marriage.

Of over one million pupils of dancing, either married or engaged to be married, it was found that in most countries more than 50 per cent.

met their conjugal partners at dances.

The smallest proportion was in Norway, with only 39 per cent.

, and the highest, Germany, with 97 per cent.

Intermediate are France, 83 per cent.

; America, 80 per cent.

; Italy, 70 per cent.

; Spain, 68 per cent.

; Holland, Bulgaria, and England, 65 per cent.

;

Australia and Roumania, 60 per cent.

, etc. Of the teachers themselves 92 per cent.

met their partners at dances.

(Quoted from the _Figaro_ in Beiblatt "Sexualreform" to _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, 1907, p. 175. ) In civilization, however, dancing is not only an incitement to love and a preliminary to courtship, but it is often a substitute for the normal gratification of the sexual instinct, procuring something of the pleasure and relief of gratified love.

In occasional abnormal cases this may be consciously realized.

Thus Sadger, who regards the joy of dancing as a manifestation of "muscular eroticism," gives the case of a married hysterical woman of 21, with genital anesthesia, but otherwise strongly developed skin eroticism, who was a passionate dancer: "I often felt as though I was giving myself to my partner in dancing," she said, "and was actually having coitus with him.

I have the feeling that in me dancing takes the place of coitus."

[42] Normally something of the same feeling is experienced by many young women, who will expend a prodigious amount of energy in dancing, thus procuring, not fatigue, but happiness and relief.

[43] It is significant that, after sexual relations have begun, girls generally lose much of their ardor in dancing.

Even our modern dances, it is worthy of note, are often of sexual origin; thus, the most typical of all, the waltz, was originally (as Schaller, quoted by Groos, states) the close of a complicated dance which "represented the romance of love, the seeking and the fleeing, the playful sulking and shunning, and finally the jubilation of the wedding."

[44] Not only is movement itself a source of tumescence, but even the spectacle of movement tends to produce the same effect.

The pleasure of witnessing movement, as represented by its stimulating effect on the muscular system,--for states of well-being are accompanied by an increase of power,--has been found susceptible of exact measurement by Féré.

He has shown that to watch a colored disk when in motion produced stronger muscular contractions, as measured by the dynamometer, than to watch the same disk when motionless.

Even in the absence of color a similar influence of movement was noted, and watching a modified metronome produced a greater increase of work with the ergograph than when working to the rhythm of the metronome without watching it.

[45] This psychological fact has been independently discovered by advertisers, who seek to impress the value of their wares on the public by the device of announcing them by moving colored lights.

The pleasure given by the ballet largely depends on the same fact.

Not only is dancing an excitation, but the spectacle of dancing is itself exciting, and even among savages dances have a public which becomes almost as passionately excited as the dancers themselves.

[46] It is in virtue of this effect of dancing and similar movements that we so frequently find, both among the lower animals and savage man, that to obtain tumescence in both sexes, it is sufficient for one sex alone, usually the male, to take the active part.

This point attracted the attention of Kulischer many years ago, and he showed how the dances of the men, among savages, excite the women, who watch them intently though unobtrusively, and are thus influenced in choosing their lovers.

He was probably the first to insist that in man sexual selection has taken place mainly through the agency of dances, games, and festivals.

[47] It is now clear, therefore, why the evacuation theory of the sexual impulse must necessarily be partial and inadequate.

It leaves out of account the whole of the phenomena connected with tumescence, and those phenomena constitute the most prolonged, the most important, the most significant stage of the sexual process.

It is during tumescence that the whole psychology of the sexual impulse is built up; it is as an incident arising during tumescence and influencing its course that we must probably regard nearly every sexual aberration.

It is with the second stage of the sexual process, when the instinct of detumescence arises, that the analogy of evacuation can alone be called in.

Even here, that analogy, though real, is not complete, the nervous element involved in detumescence being out of all proportion to the extent of the evacuation.

The typical act of evacuation, however, is a nervous process, and when we bear this in mind we may see whatever truth the evacuation theory possesses.

Beaunis classes the sexual impulse with the "needs of activity," but under this head he coordinates it with the "need of urination."

That is to say, that both alike are nervous explosions.

Micturition, like detumescence, is a convulsive act, and, like detumescence also, it is certainly connected with cerebral processes; thus in epilepsy the passage of urine which may occur (as in a girl described by Gowers with minor attacks during which it was emitted consciously, but involuntarily) is really a part of the process.

[48] There appears, indeed, to be a special and intimate connection between the explosion of sexual detumescence and the explosive energy of the bladder;

so that they may reinforce each other and to a limited extent act vicariously in relieving each other's tension.

It is noteworthy that nocturnal and diurnal incontinence of urine, as well as "stammering" of the bladder, are all specially liable to begin or to cease at puberty.

In men and even infants, distention of the bladder favors tumescence by producing venous congestion, though at the same time it acts as a physical hindrance to sexual detumescence[49]; in women--probably not from pressure alone, but from reflex nervous action--a full bladder increases both sexual excitement and pleasure, and I have been informed by several women that they have independently discovered this fact for themselves and acted in accordance with it.

Conversely, sexual excitement increases the explosive force of the bladder, the desire to urinate is aroused, and in women the sexual orgasm, when very acute and occurring with a full bladder, is occasionally accompanied, alike in savage and civilized life, by an involuntary and sometimes full and forcible expulsion of urine.

[50] The desire to urinate may possibly be, as has been said, the normal accompaniment of sexual excitement in women (just as it is said to be in mares; so that the Arabs judge that the mare is ready for the stallion when she urinates immediately on hearing him neigh).

The association may even form the basis of sexual obsessions.

[51] I have elsewhere shown that, of all the influences which increase the expulsive force of the bladder, sexual excitement is the most powerful.

[52] It may also have a reverse influence and inhibit contraction of the bladder, sometimes in association with shyness, but also independently of shyness.

There is also reason to suppose that the nervous energy expended in an explosion of the tension of the sexual organs may sometimes relieve the bladder; it is well recognized that a full bladder is a factor in producing sexual emissions during sleep, the explosive energy of the bladder being inhibited and passing over into the sexual sphere.

Conversely, it appears that explosion of the bladder relieves sexual tension.

An explosion of the nervous centers connected with the contraction of the bladder will relieve nervous tension generally; there are forms of epilepsy in which the act of urination constitutes the climax, and Gowers, in dealing with minor epilepsy, emphasizes the frequency of micturition, which "may occur with spasmodic energy when there is only the slightest general stiffness," especially in women.

He adds the significant remark that it "sometimes seems to relieve the cerebral tension,"[53] and gives the case of a girl in whom the aura consisted mainly of a desire to urinate; if she could satisfy this the fit was arrested; if not she lost consciousness and a severe fit followed.

If micturition may thus relieve nervous tension generally, it is not surprising that it should relieve the tension of the centers with which it is most intimately connected.

Sérieux records the case of a girl of 12, possessed by an impulse to masturbation which she was unable to control, although anxious to conquer it, who only found relief in the act of urination; this soothed her and to some extent satisfied the sexual excitement; when the impulse to masturbate was restrained the impulse to urinate became imperative; she would rise four or five times in the night for this purpose, and even urinate in bed or in her clothes to obtain the desired sexual relief.

[54] I am acquainted with a lady who had a similar, but less intense, experience during childhood.

Sometimes, especially in children, the act of urination becomes an act of gratification at the climax of sexual pleasure, the imitative symbol of detumescence.

Thus Schultze-Malkowsky describes a little girl of 7 who would bribe her girl companions with little presents to play the part of horses on all fours while she would ride on their necks with naked thighs in order to obtain the pleasurable sensation of close contact.

With one special friend she would ride facing backward, and leaning forward to embrace her body impulsively, and at the same time pressing the neck closely between her thighs, would urinate.

[55] Féré has recorded the interesting case of a man who, having all his life after puberty been subject to monthly attacks of sexual excitement, after the age of 45 completely lost the liability to these manifestations, but found himself subject, in place of them, to monthly attacks of frequent and copious urination, accompanied by sexual day-dreams, but by no genital excitement.