ut I believe that they are a source, not
only of curiosity and wonder to many persons, but also objects of
admiration. I happen to know of one man, extremely intellectual
and refined, who delights in lying between his mistress's thighs
and gazing long at the dilated vagina. Also another man, married,
and not intellectual, who always tenderly gazes at his wife's
organs, in a strong light, before intercourse, and kisses her
there and upon the abdomen. The wife, though amative, confessed
to another woman that she could not understand the attraction. On
the other hand, two married men have told me that the sight of
their wives' genital parts would disgust them, and that they have
never seen them.

"If the sexual parts cannot be called aesthetic, they have still a
strong charm for many passionate lovers, of both sexes, though
not often, I believe, among the unimaginative and the uneducated,
who are apt to ridicule the organs or to be repelled by them.
Many women confess that they are revolted by the sight of even a
husband's complete nudity, though they have no indifference for
sexual embraces. I think that the stupid bungle of Nature in
making the generative organs serve as means of relieving the
bladder has much to do with this revulsion. But some women of
erotic temperament find pleasure in looking at the penis of a
husband or lover, in handling it, and kissing it. Prostitutes do
this in the way of business; some chaste, passionate wives act
thus voluntarily. This is scarcely morbid, as the mammalia of
most species smell and lick each others' genitals. Probably
primitive man did the same."

Brantome (_Vie des Dames Galantes_, Discours II) has some remarks
to much the same effect concerning the difference between men,
some of whom take no pleasure in seeing the private parts of
their wives or mistresses, while others admire them and delight
to kiss them.

I must add that, however natural or legitimate the attraction of
the sexual parts may be to either sex, the question of their
purely aesthetic beauty remains unaffected.

Remy de Gourmont, in a discussion of the aesthetic element in
sexual beauty, considers that the invisibility of the sexual
organs is the decisive fact in rendering women more beautiful
than men. "Sex, which is sometimes an advantage, is always a