Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

THE BIOLOGY OF SEXcontaining volatile oils are antispasmodics and anaesthetics,and that they stimulate digestion, circulation, and thenervous system, in large doses producing depression.Fare's experiments with the dynamometer and the ergographgreatly contributed to define the stimulating effectsof odors.We approach the specifically sexual aspect of odor inthe human species when we note that all men and womenare odorous. This is variously marked amongall races.It is a significant fact, both as regards the ancestral sexualconnections of the body odors and their actual sexualassociations today, that, as Hippocrates long ago noted,it is not until puberty that they assume their adult characteristics.The infant, the adult, the aged person, each hashis own kind of smell, and, as Monin remarks, itmightbe possible, within certain limits, to discover the age of aperson byhis odor. Inboth sexes, puberty, adolescence,early manhood and womanhood are marked by a gradualdevelopment of the adult odor of skin and excreta, ingeneral harmony with the secondary sexual developmentsof hair and pigment. Venturi, indeed, described the odorof the body as a secondary sexual character.As the sole factor in human sexual selection olfactionmust be rare, not so much because the impressions of thissense are inoperative, but because agreeable personalodors are not sufficiently powerful, and the olfactory organistoo obtuse, to enable smell to take precedence of sight.Nevertheless, in many people, certain odors, especiallythose that are correlated with a healthy and sexually desirableperson, tend to be agreeable; they are fortified bytheir association with the loved person, sometimes to anirresistible degree; and their potencyis doubtless increasedby the fact that many odors, including some bodilyodors, are nervous stimulants.[53]