en the chief object of attention. It has also been
argued, on the other hand, that the blush is the vestigial
remains of a general erethism of sex, in which shame originated;
that the blush was thus once more widely diffused, and is so
still among the women of some lower races, its limitation to the
face being due to sexual selection and the enhanced beauty thus
achieved. Fere once had occasion to examine, when completely
nude, a boy of thirteen whose sexual organs were deformed; when
accused of masturbation he became covered by a blush which spread
uniformly over his face, neck, body and limbs, before and behind,
except only the hands and feet. Fere asks whether such a
universal blush is more common than we imagine, or whether the
state of nudity favors its manifestation. (_Comptes Rendus,
Societe de Biologie_, April 1, 1905.) It may be added that
Partridge mentions one case in which the hands blushed.

The sexual relationships of blushing are unquestionable. It occurs chiefly
in women; it attains its chief intensity at puberty and during
adolescence; its most common occasion is some more or less sexual
suggestion; among one hundred and sixty-two occasions of blushing
enumerated by Partridge, by far the most frequent cause was teasing,
usually about the other sex. "An erection," it has been said, "is a
blushing of the penis." Stanley Hall seems to suggest that the sexual
blush is a vicarious genital flushing of blood, diverted from the genital
sphere by an inhibition of fear, just as, in girls, giggling is also very
frequently a vicarious outlet of shame; the sexual blush would thus be the
outcome of an ancestral sex-fear; it is as an irradiation of sexual
erethism that the blush may contain an element of pleasure.[65]

Bloch remarks that the blush is sexual, because reddening of the
face, as well as of the genitals, is an accompaniment of sexual
emotion (_Beitraege zur AEtiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil
II, p. 39). "Do you not think," a correspondent writes, "that
the sexual blush, at least, really represents a vaso-relaxor
effect quite the same as erection? The embarrassment which arises
is due to a perception of this fact under circumstances which are
felt to be unsuited for such a condition. There may arise the
fear of awakening disgust by the exhibition of a state which is
out of place. I have noticed that suc