Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5: Erotic Symbolism; The Mechanism of Detumescence; The Psychic State in PregnancyEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5: Erotic Symbolism; The Mechanism of Detumescence; The Psychic State in Pregnancy
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
There is another factor which enters into this question and renders the
definition of a physical sexual type less precise than it would otherwise
be. The sexual instinct is common to all persons, and while it seems
probable that there is a type of person in whom sexual 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 sexual type, as we
have seen, tends to be associated 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 assert that while persons with pronounced aptitude for
sexual detumescence tend to be dark, persons whose pronounced energy in
sexual 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 sexuality may be connected with the fact that
the violent and criminal man who commits sexual 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 sexual 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 sexual 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 sexual 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 (Kryptadia, vol. ii, p. 258), red or yellow hair is
sometimes regarded as a mark of sexuality.
In harmony with this fairness, sexual offenders would appear to
be more dolichocephalic than other criminals. In Italy Marro
found the foreheads of sexual offenders to be narrow, and in
California Drähms found that while murderers had an average
cephalic index of 83.5, and thieves of 80.5, that of sexual
offenders was 79.
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