young London
prostitutes.[151]

The association of the aptitude for detumescence with a tendency to a deep
rather than to a high voice, both in men and women, has frequently been
noted and has seldom been denied. The onset of puberty always affects the
voice; in general, Bierent states, the more bass the voice is the more
marked is the development of the sexual apparatus; "a very robust man,
with very developed sexual organs, and very dark and abundant hairy
system, a man of strong puberty in a word, is nearly always a bass."[152]
The influence of sexual excitement in deepening the voice is shown by the
rules of sexual hygiene prescribed to tenors, while a bass has less need
to observe similar precautions. In women every phase of sexual
life--puberty, menstruation, coitus, pregnancy--tends to affect the voice
and always by giving it a deeper character. The deepening of the voice by
sexual intercourse was an ancient Greek observation, and Martial refers to
a woman's good or bad singing as an index to her recent sexual habits.
Prostitutes tend to have a deep voice. Venturi points out that married
women preserve a fresh voice to a more advanced age than spinsters, this
being due to the precocious senility in the latter of an unused function.
Such a phenomenon indicates that the relationship of detumescence to the
deepening of the voice is not quite simple. This is further indicated by
the fact that in robust men abstinence still further deepens the voice
(the monk of melodrama always has a bass voice), while excessive or
precocious sexual indulgence tends to be associated with the same kind of
puerile voice as is found in those persons in whom pubertal development
has not been carried very far, or who are of what Griffiths terms
eunuchoid type. Idiot boys, who are often sexually undeveloped, tend to
have a high voice, while idiot girls (who often manifest marked sexual
proclivities) not infrequently have a deep voice.[153]

Bright dilated eyes are among the phenomena of detumescence, and are very
frequently noted in persons of a pronounced erotic temperament. This is,
indeed, an ancient observation, and Burton says of people with a black,
lively, and sparkling eye, "without question they are most amorous,"
drawing his illustrations mostly from classic literature.[154] Tardieu
described the erotic woman as having bright eyes, and Heywood Smith states
that the eyes of lascivious women resemble, though in a less degree, those