satisfaction which she may find
difficult or impossible in the normal position.

The theologians seem to have been less unfavorably disposed to
the position normal among quadrupeds, _a posteriori_, though the
old Penitentials were inclined to treat it severely, the
Penitential of Angers prescribing forty days penance, and
Egbert's three years, if practiced habitually. (It is discussed
by J. Petermann, "Venus Aversa," _Sexual-Probleme_, Feb., 1909).
There are good reasons why in many cases this position should be
desirable, more especially from the point of view of women, who
indeed not infrequently prefer it. It must be always remembered,
as has already been pointed out, that in the progress from
anthropoid to man it is the female, not the male, whose method of
coitus has been revolutionized. While, however, the obverse human
position represents a psychic advance, there has never been a
complete physical readjustment of the female organs to the
obverse method. More especially, in Adler's opinion (op. cit.,
pp. 117-119), the position of the clitoris is such that, as a
rule, it is more easily excited by coitus from behind than from
in front. A more recent writer, Klotz, in his book, _Der Mensch
ein Vierfuessler_ (1908), even takes the too extreme position that
the quadrupedal method of coitus, being the only method that
insures due contact with the clitoris, is the natural human
method. It must, however, be admitted that the posterior mode of
coitus is not only a widespread, but a very important variation,
in either of its two most important forms: the Pompeiian method,
in which the woman bends forwards and the man approaches behind,
or the method described by Boccaccio, in which the man is supine
and the woman astride.

_Fellatio_ and _cunnilinctus_, while they are not strictly
methods of coitus, in so far as they do not involve the
penetration of the penis into the vagina, are very widespread as
preliminaries, or as vicarious forms of coitus, alike among
civilized and uncivilized peoples. Thus, in India, I am told that
_fellatio_ is almost universal in households, and regarded as a
natural duty towards the paterfamilias. As regards _cunnilinctus_
Max Dessoir has stated (_Allgemeine Zeitschrift fuer Psychiatrie_,
1894, Heft 5) that the superior Berlin prostitutes say that a