Note AD — Chapter XII · SENSUAL LOVE
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When a man, for instance, is attached to a woman because of her outward harmonious appearance, i. e., beauty, it means that she pleases his sense of sight. If he is fascinated by her beautiful voice, then his sense of hearing has been appealed to. When he falls in love by the touch of her soft little hand, then his tactile sense has been excited. The meaning of all such attachments is the desire to satisfy the senses. Hence the love is sensual. For any of the five senses may be the starting point of sexual desire.
The generative centre is in communication with the centres of all the other senses and may be excited by them.
Certain odors occasion pleasurable sexual feelings. The love of sensual women for perfumes indicates a relation between the olfactory and the sexual centres.
The sense of taste is sometimes in the service of sexuality. One of the author’s patients had sexual sensations of a pleasurable character when eating liver-sausages.
The sight of a beautiful specimen of the other sex, or even its picture only, may frequently excite the sexual centre.
Emotional persons are often sexually excited by certain music. An exaggerated fondness for music is always suspicious of being of a sexual nature.
The tactile sense is the main sense in the service of sexuality. The touch of any part of the male body by a soft female hand will cause sensual excitement. The touch of the nipple in woman often causes intense libido, a fact which plays an important part in the nursing of the young throughout all the types of mammals. The sexual sphere may also be excited by a stimulation of the gluteal region. The practice of the Flagellants was suppressed by the church when it was discovered that sensual motives played an important part in their exercises. Rousseau in his confessions describes the pleasure he felt when spanked by his nurse. Spanking often incites children to masturbation. The main irritation of the genitals is induced by touch. Erection, orgasm and ejaculation may be induced by the tactile irritation of the penis in the man and of the clitoris in a virgin, and after defloration, by the excitation of the anterior wall of the vagina. Certain zones of the skin become secondarily related to sexuality, mostly at such points where the skin turns into mucous membrane. These are the erogenous zones.