rt
points out in his _Buch fuer Eltern_) seems to be that the corset both
favors pelvic congestion and at the same time exerts a pressure on the
abdominal muscles which brings them into the state produced during coitus.
It is doubtless for the same reason that, as some women have found, more
distension of the bladder is possible without corsets than with them.

In a further class of cases no external object whatever is used to procure
the sexual orgasm, but the more or less voluntary pressure of the thighs
alone is brought to bear upon the sexual regions. It is done either when
sitting or standing, the thighs being placed together and firmly crossed,
and the pelvis rocked so that the sexual organs are pressed against the
inner and posterior parts of the thighs.[213] This is sometimes done by
men, and is fairly common among women, especially, according to
Martineau,[214] among those who sit much, such as dressmakers and
milliners, those who use the sewing-machine, and those who ride. Vedeler
remarks that in his experience in Scandinavia, thigh-friction is the
commonest form of masturbation in women. The practice is widespread, and a
medical correspondent in India tells me of a Brahmin widow who confessed
to this form of masturbation. I am told that in London Board Schools, at
the present time, thigh-rubbing is not infrequent among the girl scholars;
the proportion mentioned in one school was about ten per cent, of the
girls over eleven; the thigh-rubbing is done more or less openly and is
interpreted by the uninitiated as due merely to a desire to relieve the
bladder. It is found in female infants. Thus, Townsend records the case of
an infant, 8 months old, who would cross her right thigh over the left,
close her eyes and clench her fists; after a minute or two there would be
complete relaxation, with sweating and redness of face; this would occur
about once a week or oftener; the child was quite healthy, with no
abnormal condition of the genital organs.[215] The frequency of
thigh-friction among women as a form of masturbation is due to the fact
that it is usually acquired innocently and it involves no indecorum. Thus
Soutzo reports the case of a girl of 12 who at school, when having to wait
her turn at the water-closet, for fear of wetting herself would put her
clothes between her legs and press her thighs together, moving them
backwards and forwards in the effort to control the bladder; she
discovered that a pleasurabl