r.
Girls in France, I am informed, are fond of riding on the
_chevaux-de-bois_, or hobby-horses, because of the sexual excitement thus
aroused; and that the sexual emotions play a part in the fascination
exerted by this form of amusement everywhere is indicated by the ecstatic
faces of its devotees.[204] At the temples in some parts of Central India,
I am told, swings are hung up in pairs, men and women swinging in these
until sexually excited; during the months when the men in these districts
have to be away from home the girls put up swings to console themselves
for the loss of their husbands.

It is interesting to observe the very wide prevalence of
swinging, often of a religious or magic character, and the
evident sexual significance underlying it, although this is not
always clearly brought out. Groos, discussing the frequency of
swinging (_Die Spiele der Menschen_, p. 114) refers, for
instance, to the custom of the Gilbert Islanders for a young man
to swing a girl from a coco palm, and then to cling on and swing
with her. In ancient Greece, women and grown-up girls were fond
of see-saws and swings. The Athenians had, indeed, a swinging
festival (Athenaeus, Bk. XIV, Ch. X). Songs of a voluptuous
character, we gather from Athenaeus, were sung by the women at
this festival. J.G. Frazer (_The Golden Bough_, vol. ii, note A,
"Swinging as a Magical Rite") discusses the question, and brings
forward instances in which men, or, especially, women swing. "The
notion seems to be," he states, "that the ceremony promotes
fertility, whether in the vegetable or in the animal kingdom;
though why it should be supposed to do so, I confess myself
unable to explain" (loc. cit., p. 450). The explanation seems,
however, not far to seek, in view of the facts quoted above, and
Frazer himself refers to the voluptuous character of the songs
sometimes sung.

Even apart from actual swinging of the whole body, a swinging
movement may suffice to arouse sexual excitement, and may,--at
all events, in women,--constitute an essential part of methods of
attaining solitary sexual gratification. Kiernan thus describes
the habitual auto-erotic procedure of a young American woman:
"The patient knelt before a chair, let her elbows drop on its
seat, grasping the arms with a firm grip, then commenced a
swinging, writhing motion, seeming to