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

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXcomposer's effort to translate passioninto esthetic terms;the actual effect of the music is not sexual, and it can wellbe believed that the results of experiments as regards thesexual influence of the Tristan music on men under theinfluence of hypnotism have been, as reported, negative.The music of less important composers, however, especiallyMassenet, has been found to have a definite sexualeffect. Helmholtz went too far in stating that the expressionof sexual longing in music is identical with that ofreligious longing.Ferd mentions the case of a young man in hospital withacute arthritis who complained of painful erections wheneverhe heard through the door the very agreeable voiceof the young woman (invisible to him) who superintendedthe linen. But such phenomena do not appear tobe common, or, at all events, very pronounced.So far asmy own inquiries go, only a small proportion of menwould appear to experience definite sexual feelings onlistening to music.The reasons which make itimprobable that men shouldbe sexually attracted through hearing render itprobablethat women should be so attracted. The change in thevoice at puberty renders the deeper masculine voice acharacteristic secondary sexual attribute of man, while thethe male that isfact that, among mammals generally, it ismost vocal and that chiefly, or even sometimes exclusively,at the rutting seasonrenders it antecedently likelythat among mammals generally, including the humanspecies,there is inthe female an actual or latent susceptibilityto the sexual significance of the male voice, a susceptibilitywhich, under the conditions of human civilization,may be transferred to music generally. Music is forwomen, as the Goncourts have expressed it, "la messe de6*