e arteries have at times been unable to resist the
high blood-pressure, and cerebral haemorrhage with paralysis has occurred.
In elderly men the excitement of intercourse with strange women has
sometimes caused death, and various cases are known of eminent persons who
have thus died in the arms of young wives or of prostitutes.[126]

These morbid results, are, however, very exceptional. They usually occur
in persons who are abnormally sensitive, or who have imprudently
transgressed the obvious rules of sexual hygiene. Detumescence is so
profoundly natural a process; it is so deeply and intimately a function of
the organism, that it is frequently harmless even when the bodily
condition is far from absolutely sound. Its usual results, under favorable
circumstances, are entirely beneficial. In men there normally supervenes,
together with the relief from the prolonged tension of tumescence, with
the muscular repose and falling blood-pressure,[127] a sense of profound
satisfaction, a glow of diffused well-being,[128] perhaps an agreeable
lassitude, occasionally also a sense of mental liberation from an
overmastering obsession. Under reasonably happy circumstances there is no
pain, or exhaustion, or sadness, or emotional revulsion. The happy lover's
attitude toward his partner is not expressed by the well-known Sonnet
(CXXIX) of Shakespeare:--

"Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated."

He feels rather with Boccaccio that the kissed mouth loses not its charm,

"Bocca baciata non perde ventura."

In women the results of detumescence are the same, except that the
tendency to lassitude is not marked unless the act has been several times
repeated; there is a sensation of repose and self-assurance, and often an
accession of free and joyous energy. After completely satisfactory
detumescence she may experience a feeling as of intoxication, lasting for
several hours, an intoxication that is followed by no evil reaction.

Such, so far as our present vague and imperfect knowledge extends, are the
main features in the process of detumescence. In the future, without
doubt, we shall learn to know more precisely a process which has been so
supremely important in the life of man and of his ancestors.

FOOTNOTES:

[98] The elements furnished by the sense of touch in sexual selection have
been discussed in the first section of the previous volume of these
_Studies_.

[99] See Appendix A. "The Origins o