The very marked sexual fascination which odor, associated with
the men they love, exerts on women has easily passed unperceived,
since women have not felt called upon to proclaim it. In sexual
inversion, however, when the woman takes a more active and
outspoken part than in normal love, it may very clearly be
traced. Here, indeed, it is often exaggerated, in consequence of
the common tendency for neurotic and neurasthenic persons to be
more than normally susceptible to the influence of odors. In the
majority of inverted women, it may safely be said, the odor of
the beloved person plays a very considerable part. Thus, one
inverted woman asks the woman she loves to send her some of her
hair that she may intoxicate herself in solitude with its perfume
(_Archivio di Psicopatie Sessuali_, vol. i, fasc. 3, p. 36).
Again, a young girl with some homosexual tendencies, was apt to
experience sexual emotions when in ordinary contact with
schoolfellows whose body odor was marked (Fere, _L'Instinct
Sexuel_, p. 260). Such examples are fairly typical.
That the body odor of men may in a large number of cases be
highly agreeable and sexually attractive is shown by the
testimony of male sexual inverts.
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