The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization: Translated from the Sixth German EditionBloch, Iwan
Philosophy
The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization: Translated from the Sixth German Edition
Bloch, Iwan
Sex; Sexual ethics
found for the rosy beauty of his beloved one no more costly frame than
dark fur. It is doubtless the strong contrast-effect between the
delicate charm and the shaggy surroundings that evokes that remarkable
symbolical relationship to longings for power and cruel despotism. In a
thoughtful essay, “Venus im Pelz” (_Berliner Tageblatt_, No. 487,
September 25, 1903), the idea is developed and explained, that the love
of woman for furs results from her inward nature. It is the secret
longing for an increase of her power and influence by means of
contrast.[126]
Men’s and women’s clothing comprises the covering of the entire body
with the exception of the face--the idea does not, as a rule, include
the head-covering and the way the hair is dressed. In a recent work, H.
Pudor brings the face into a peculiar =sexual relationship with the
clothing=. His remarks on this subject, which contain many valuable
observations, notwithstanding the fact that much of what he says is
overdrawn, run as follows:
“There is no doubt that the face is a bearer of the sexual sense in
the second and third degree. Not only the mouth or the larynx. The
nose, especially in virtue of the mucous membranes by which odours are
perceived. The eye, in virtue of the magnetic currents, the perception
of light, and the chemical activity of the retina. But even the cheeks
and the ears. Let some one you are fond of whisper something into your
ear--notice the emotional wave you will feel, and observe how from the
ear there are paths of conduction to the sexual cells [!]. Above all,
however, naturally the mouth. We speak of the labia of the female
genital organs, and therewith already we indicate the relationship to
the lips of the mouth. We can, in fact, prove the existence, not only
of a parallelism in the structure of the mouth and that of the sexual
organs, in man just as in woman. We can go even further: we can regard
the sacral region as the forehead, the anal region as the nose, the
pudendal region as the mouth, and the gluteal region as the cheeks
[!].
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