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

THE BIOLOGY OF SEXSince not only in the animals nearly related to Man,but in man himself, the larynx and the voice undergo amarked sexual differentiation at puberty, it is easy to believethat the change has an influence on sexual selectionand sexual psychology. At puberty there israpid developmentalike of the larynx itself and the vocal cords, whichbecome larger and thicker, while the voice deepens. Allthese changes are slight in girls, but pronounced in boys,whose voices are said to "break" and then become lowerby at least an octave. The feminine larynx at puberty onlyincreases in the proportion of five to seven, but the masculinelarynx in the proportionof five to ten. The directdependence of this change on the general sexual developmentis shown not merely byits occurrence at puberty,but by the fact that in eunuchs in whom the testicles havebeen removed before puberty the voice retains its childlikequalities.Bearing this in mind we may attach considerable importanceto the voice and to music generally as a method ofsexual appeal. On this point we may agree with Moll,"that sexual stimulation throughthe ears isgreaterthanis usually believed," though I consider that it is greateron women than on men, as we should expect, the causebeing that, as Robert Miiller remarks, a woman's voiceretains child-like qualities,and is therefore less specificallyfeminine than a man's voice isspecifically masculine.Men are, indeed, often able to associate many of theirearliest ideas of love in boyhood with women singing orplaying; but in these cases it will be found that the fascinationwas romantic and sentimental, and not specificallyerotic, while in adult life the music which oftenseems to us to be most definitely sexual in its appeal reallyproduces this effect in part from association with thestory, and in part from the intellectual realization of the[61]