That is a question which belongs to aesthetics, not to
sexual psychology, and it is a question on which aestheticians are not
altogether in agreement. We need not even be concerned to make any
definite assertion on the question whether our ideas of sexual beauty have
developed under the influence of more general and fundamental laws, or
whether sexual ideals themselves underlie our more general conceptions of
beauty. Practically, so far as man and his immediate ancestors are
concerned, the sexual and the extra-sexual factors of beauty have been
interwoven from the first. The sexually beautiful object must have
appealed to fundamental physiological aptitudes of reaction; the
generally beautiful object must have shared in the thrill which the
specifically sexual object imparted. There has been an inevitable action
and reaction throughout. Just as we found that the sexual and the
non-sexual influences of agreeable odors throughout nature are
inextricably mingled, so it is with the motives that make an object
beautiful to our eyes.[131]
The sexual element in the constitution of beauty is well
recognized even by those writers who concern themselves
exclusively with the aesthetic conception of beauty or with its
relation to culture.
Pages:
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276