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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Selection In Man"

365 _et seq._)
has some interesting observations on the various psychic influences of
clothing; cf. Bloch, _Beitraege zur AEtiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_,
Teil II, pp. 330 et seq.
[137] _History of Human Marriage_, Chapter IX, especially p, 201. We have
a striking and comparatively modern European example of an article of
clothing designed to draw attention to the sexual sphere in the codpiece
(the French _braguette_), familiar to us through fifteenth and sixteenth
century pictures and numerous allusions in Rabelais and in Elizabethan
literature. This was originally a metal box for the protection of the
sexual organs in war, but subsequently gave place to a leather case only
worn by the lower classes, and became finally an elegant article of
fashionable apparel, often made of silk and adorned with ribbons, even
with gold and jewels. (See, e.g., Bloch, _Beitraege zur AEtiologie der
Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, p. 159.)
[138] A correspondent in Ceylon has pointed out to me that in the Indian
statues of Buddha, Vishnu, goddesses, etc., the necklace always covers the
nipples, a sexually attractive adornment being thus at the same time the
guardian of the orifices of the body.


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