x
by laying an egg."

The sexual significance of tickling is very clearly indicated by the fact
that the general ticklishness of the body, which is so marked in children
and in young girls, greatly diminishes, as a rule, after sexual
relationships have been established. Dr. Gina Lombroso, who investigated
the cutaneous reflexes, found that both the abdominal and plantar
reflexes, which are well marked in childhood and in young people between
the ages of 15 and 18, were much diminished in older persons, and to a
greater extent in women than in men, to a greater extent in the abdominal
region than on the soles of the feet;[16] her results do not directly show
the influence of sexual relationship, but they have an indirect bearing
which is worth noting.

The difference in ticklishness between the unmarried woman and the married
woman corresponds to their difference in degree of modesty. Both modesty
and ticklishness may be said to be characters which are no longer needed.
From this point of view the general ticklishness of the skin is a kind of
body modesty. It is so even apart from any sexual significance of
tickling, and Louis Robinson has pointed out that in young apes, puppies,
and other like animals the most ticklish regions correspond to the most
vulnerable spots in a fight, and that consequently in the mock fights of
early life skill in defending these spots is attained.

In Iceland, according to Margarethe Filhes (as quoted by Max
Bartels, _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1900, ht. 2-3, p. 57), it
may be known whether a youth is pure or a maid is intact by their
susceptibility to tickling. It is considered a bad sign if that
is lost.

I am indebted to a medical correspondent for the following
communication: "Married women have told me that they find that
after marriage they are not ticklish under the arms or on the
breasts, though before marriage any tickling or touching in these
regions, especially by a man, would make them jump or get
hysterical or 'queer,' as they call it. Before coitus the sexual
energy seems to be dissipated along all the nerve-channels and
especially along the secondary sexual routes,--the breasts, nape
of neck, eyebrows, lips, cheeks, armpits, and hair thereon,
etc.,--but after marriage the surplus energy is diverted from
these secondary channels, and response to tickling is diminished.
I have often noted in insane ca