Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 | Page 3

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.

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