Prev | Current Page 373 | Next

Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Selection In Man"

A woman is not necessarily sexually
attractive in the ratio of her beauty, and with even a high degree of
beauty may have a low degree of attraction. The addition of vivacity or
the addition of languor may each furnish a sexual allurement, and each of
these is a translated tactile quality which possesses an obscure potency
from vague sexual implications.[170] But while in the man the demand for
these translated pressure qualities in the visible attractiveness of a
woman are not usually quite clearly realized, in a woman the corresponding
craving for the visual expression of pressure energy is much more
pronounced and predominant. It is not difficult to see why this should be
so, even without falling back on the usual explanation that natural
selection implies that the female shall choose the male who will be the
most likely father of strong children and the best protector of his
family. The more energetic part in physical love belongs to the man, the
more passive part to the woman; so that, while energy in a woman is no
index to effectiveness in love, energy in a man furnishes a seeming index
to the existence of the primary quality of sexual energy which a woman
demands of a man in the sexual embrace.


Pages:
361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385