We should expect this to be the case since literature
is chiefly produced by men. The question as to whether men or women are
really more apt to be sexually influenced in this way cannot thus be
decided. Among animals, it seems probable, both sexes are alike influenced
by odors, for, while it is usually the male whose sexual regions are
furnished with special scent glands, when such occur, the peculiar odor of
the female during the sexual season is certainly not less efficacious as
an allurement to the male. If we compare the general susceptibility of men
and women to agreeable odors, apart from the question of sexual
allurement, there can be little doubt that it is most marked among women.
As Groos points out, even among children little girls are more interested
in scents than boys, and the investigations of various workers, especially
Garbini, have shown that there is actually a greater power of
discriminating odors among girls than among boys. Marro has gone further,
and in an extended series of observations on girls before and after the
establishment of puberty--which is of considerable interest from the point
of view of the sexual significance of olfaction--he has shown reason to
believe that girls acquire an increased susceptibility to odors when
sexual life begins, although they show no such increased powers as regards
the other senses.
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