When we leave the consideration of racial differences to
consider sexual differences, not only do we no longer find any charm of
parity, but we find that there is an actual charm of disparity. At this
point it is necessary to remember all that has been brought forward in
earlier pages[191] concerning the emphasis of the secondary sexual
characters in the ideal of beauty. All those qualities which the woman
desires to see emphasized in the man are the precise opposite of the
qualities which the man desires to see emphasized in the woman. The man
must be strong, vigorous, energetic, hairy, even rough, to stir the
primitive instincts of the woman's nature; the woman who satisfies this
man must be smooth, rounded, and gentle. It would be hopeless to seek for
any homogamy between the manly man and the virile woman, between the
feminine woman and the effeminate man. It is not impossible that this
tendency to seek disparity in sexual characters may exert some disturbing
influences on the tendency to seek parity in anthropological racial
characters, for the sexual difference to some extent makes itself felt in
racial characters. A somewhat greater darkness of women is a secondary
(or, more precisely, tertiary) sexual character, and on this account
alone, it is possible, somewhat attractive to men[192].
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