end to banality.
If we go to a ball or a fashionable _soiree_, if we observe women at
the theater, their toilettes, their looks and expressions, or if we
read a novel by Guy de Maupassant, "Fort Comme la Mort," or "Notre
Coeur," for example, we can study all the degrees and all the
degeneration of this part of the sexual psychology of women. Many of
them have such bad taste that they transform themselves into
caricatures; dye their hair, paint their eyebrows and lips to give
themselves the appearance of what they are not, or to make themselves
appear young and beautiful.

These artifices of civilized countries resemble the tattooing,
nose-rings, etc., with which savage women adorn themselves. The latter
are represented by earrings, bracelets and necklaces. All these
customs constitute irradiations of the sexual appetite or the desire
to please men. Male sexual inverts (vide Chap. VIII) also practice
them, and often also certain dandies with otherwise normal sexual
instincts.

=The Pornographic Spirit in Woman.=--This is absolutely contrary to
the normal feminine nature, which cannot be said of eroticism. Among
prostitutes, as we have seen, the pornographic spirit is only the echo
of their male companions, and in spite of this, we still find a
vestige of modesty even in them. No doubt, in very erotic women,
sexual excitations may lead to indecent acts and expressions, but
these are rare exceptions and of a pathological nature.

Natural feminine eroticism, not artificially perverted, only shows
itself openly in complete intimacy, and even here modesty and the
aesthetic sense of woman correct and attenuate it. Normally, all
obscenity and cynicism disgusts women and only inspires them with
contempt for the male sex. On the other hand, they are easily
stimulated to eroticism by pictures or novels, if they are
sufficiently aesthetic, or even moral. This is a great danger for both
sexes, especially for woman--eroticism dissimulated under hypocritical
forms, and intended to idealize dishonest intentions (vide de
Maupassant: "_Ce Cochon de Morin_").

=Modesty and Prudery in Woman.=--In woman the sentiments of modesty
and prudery have a peculiar character, which results from her natural
disgust for pornography on the one hand, and also from her attachment
to fashion and prejudice. Many women have a perfect terror of exposing
certain parts of their body, even to a medical man. This fact depends
on convention, and sometimes o