Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3: Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in WomenEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3: Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in Women
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
Such instruments are not, however, entirely unknown in Europe. In
France, in the eighteenth century, it appears that rings,
sometimes set with hard knobs, and called "aides," were
occasionally used by men to heighten the pleasure of women in
intercourse. (Dühren, _Marquis de Sade_, 1901, p. 130.) In
Russia, according to Weissenberg, of Elizabethsgrad, it is not
uncommon to use elastic rings set with little teeth; these rings
are fastened around the base of the glans. (Weissenberg,
_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1893, ht. 2, p. 135.) This
instrument must have been brought to Russia from the East, for
Burton (in the notes to his _Arabian Nights_) mentions a
precisely similar instrument as in use in China. Somewhat similar
is the "Chinese hedgehog," a wreath of fine, soft feathers with
the quills solidly fastened by silver wire to a ring of the same
metal, which is slipped over the glans. In South America the
Araucanians of Argentina use a little horsehair brush fastened
around the penis; one of these is in the museum at La Plata; it
is said the custom may have been borrowed from the Patagonians;
these instruments, called _geskels_, are made by the women and
the workmanship is very delicate. (Lehmann-Nitsche, _Zeitschrift
für Ethnologie_, 1900, ht. 6, p. 491.) It is noteworthy that a
somewhat similar tuft of horsehair is also worn in Borneo.
(Breitenstein, _21 Jahre in India_, 1899, pt. i, p. 227.) Most of
the accounts state that the women attach great importance to the
gratification afforded by such instruments. In Borneo a modest
woman symbolically indicates to her lover the exact length of the
ampallang she would prefer by leaving at a particular spot a
cigarette of that length. Miklucho-Macleay considers that these
instruments were invented by women. Brooke Low remarks that "no
woman once habituated to its use will ever dream of permitting
her bedfellow to discontinue the practice of wearing it," and
Stevens states that at one time no woman would marry a man who
was not furnished with such an apparatus. It may be added that a
very similar appliance may be found in European countries
(especially Germany) in the use of a condom furnished with
irregularities, or a frill, in order to increase the woman's
excitement. It is not impossible to find evidence that, in
European countries, even in the absence of such instruments, the
craving which they gratify still exists in women. Thus, Mauriac
tells of a patient with vegetations on the glans who delayed
treatment because his mistress liked him so best (art.
"Végétations," _Dictionnaire de Médecine et Chirurgie pratique_).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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