=Religious Prudery.=--The results of such a combination of sexual life with religious prescriptions are a mixture of ridiculous prudery and continual eroticism. In certain convents (those of the nuns of Galicia, for example) the nuns forbid their pupils to wash the sexual organs, because it is improper! In Austria the nuns often cover the crucifix in their bedroom with a handkerchief, "so that Christ cannot see their nakedness"! But the convents of nuns, in the Middle Ages, were often transformed into brothels; and it is not uncommon to see hypocrites or the subjects of erotic hysteria (both men and women) perform sexual orgies of the worst kind under the cloak of religious ecstasy. =Hottentots. Eunuchs.=--Among the Hottentots, the lips of the vulva (_labia minora_) in women are artificially elongated, and among the Orientals eunuchs are made. In themselves these two operations have certainly nothing to do with religion and only originated in profane customs. In the course of time they were made religious precepts, which has deeply rooted them in the customs of the people. =Religious Eroticism.=--The examples which we have cited show to what extent man is disposed to clothe his eroticism with the cloak of religion. He then attributes a divine origin to his desires and lays the precepts which he attaches to them on the commandments of his God or gods, so as to sanctify them. Hence, the unnatural influence of a mysticism, which is nothing else than the crystallized product of the fantastic imagination of men, raised to a dogma, imposes itself indirectly on natural sexual life, by entering at the back door under the cloak of religion. It is obvious that grave abuses or even vices often acquire the seal and power of religious precepts; while in the same domain a number of other customs or precepts are based on good hygienic or moral principles, for example, circumcision and conjugal fidelity. It is perhaps in the domain of pathology that the relations of religion to sexual life are the most striking (see Chapter VIII). We must not forget that the facts of reproduction seem to ignorant people and especially to barbarians, to be of a very mysterious nature. These people have no idea of germinal cells or their conjugation. They see in conception, embryogeny, pregnancy and birth, the miraculous effects of a divine and occult higher power--of the divinity, often even of the devil. The violent excitement which is associated with the sexual appetite and with love urges man to ecstasy; hence it is not to be wondered at that eroticism is so often complicated by ecstatic religious sentiments.