Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In ManEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In Man
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
Sometimes admiration for this characteristic is associated with admiration
for marked obesity generally, and it may be noted that a somewhat greater
degree of fatness may also be regarded as a feminine secondary sexual
character. This admiration is specially marked among several of the black
peoples of Africa, and here to become a beauty a woman must, by drinking
enormous quantities of milk, seek to become very fat. Sonnini noted that
to some extent the same thing might be found among the Mohammedan women of
Egypt. After bright eyes and a soft, polished, hairless skin, an Egyptian
woman, he stated, most desired to obtain _embonpoint_; men admired fat
women and women sought to become fat. "The idea of a very fat woman,"
Sonnini adds, "is nearly always accompanied in Europe by that of softness
of flesh, effacement of form, and defect of elasticity in the outlines. It
would be a mistake thus to represent the women of Turkey in general, where
all seek to become fat. It is certain that the women of the East, more
favored by Nature, preserve longer than others the firmness of the flesh,
and this precious property, joined to the freshness and whiteness of their
skin, renders them very agreeable. It must be added that in no part of the
world is cleanliness carried so far as by the women of the East."[145]
The special characteristics of the feminine hips and buttocks become
conspicuous in walking and may be further emphasized by the special method
of walking or carriage. The women of some southern countries are famous
for the beauty of their way of walk; "the goddess is revealed by her
walk," as Virgil said. In Spain, especially, among European countries, the
walk very notably gives expression to the hips and buttocks. The spine is
in Spain very curved, producing what is termed _ensellure_, or
saddle-back--a characteristic which gives great flexibility to the back
and prominence to the gluteal regions, sometimes slightly simulating
steatopygia. The vibratory movement naturally produced by walking and
sometimes artificially heightened thus becomes a trait of sexual beauty.
Outside of Europe such vibration of the flanks and buttocks is more
frankly displayed and cultivated as a sexual allurement. The Papuans are
said to admire this vibratory movement of the buttocks in their women.
Young girls are practiced in it by their mothers for hours at a time as
soon as they have reached the age of 7 or 8, and the Papuan maiden walks
thus whenever she is in the presence of men, subsiding into a simpler gait
when no men are present. In some parts of tropical Africa the women walk
in this fashion. It is also known to the Egyptians, and by the Arabs is
called _ghung_.[146] As Mantegazza remarks, the essentially feminine
character of this gait makes it a method of sexual allurement. It should
be observed that it rests on feminine anatomical characteristics, and that
the natural walk of a femininely developed woman is inevitably different
from that of a man.
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