an
excitable dancer.

The same thing often occurs when a passionate couple caress and
embrace each other without the genital organs being touched or even
exposed. In this respect the woman is better protected than the man,
but when she is very excitable an orgasm may be produced in her during
the caresses of a passionate flirtation by the pressure or friction of
her legs against each other (a variety of masturbation in woman).

As a rule, however, things do not go so far as this in flirtation. The
sight and touch are used alternately. The eyes play an important part,
for they may express much and consequently act powerfully. A pressure
of the hands, an apparently chance movement, touching the dress and
the skin, etc., are the usual means of flirtation. In situations where
people are close together or pressed against each other, as in railway
carriages, or at table, the legs play a well-known part, by pressure
of the knees and feet.

This dumb conversation of the sexual appetite begins at first in a
prudent and apparently innocent manner, so that the acting party does
not risk being taxed with impropriety; but as soon as he who began the
flirtation perceives that his slight invitations are welcome he grows
bolder, a tacit mutual agreement is established, and the game
continues without a single word betraying the reciprocal sensations.
Many who practice flirtation, both men and women, avoid betraying
themselves by words, and they take pleasure in this mutual excitation
of their genital sensibility, however incomplete it may be.

Flirtation may assume very different forms according to education and
temperament. The action of alcohol on the brain develops the coarsest
forms of flirtation. Every one knows the clumsy embraces of
semi-intoxicated persons which can often be seen at night or on
Sundays and holidays, in the street or in railway carriages, etc. I
designate these by the term "alcoholic flirtation." Even in the best
and most refined society flirtation loses its delicacy even under the
effect of the slightest degree of alcoholic intoxication.

Flirtation assumes a more delicate and more complicated character,
rendering it gracious and full of charm, in persons of higher
education, especially when they are highly intellectual or artistic.

We must also mention the intellectual variety of flirtation which is
not expressed by sight or touch, but only by language. Delicate
allusions to sexual matters and somewhat