THE NATURAL 



with groans. What one hears at night are not cries of 

 voluptuousness but of suffering, the bowlings of a beast 

 whom nature has caught in the trap. This does not 

 prevent the female from being very enterprising; respond- 

 ing to the cries of the pursuing male she excites him in a 

 hundred ways, biting at neck and belly with an insistence 

 which has, they say, provided a metaphor in the erotic 

 vocabulary. Biting the neck is much more curious, as 

 it is of a much less direct intention. Bitches also bite the 

 neck of the dog in prelude. For near the neck is situated 

 the bulb, original knot of nerves governing the secret 

 parts and the genital region. 



The pain which accompanies sexual acts ought to be 

 differentiated, with precision, from passive suffering. It 

 is very possible (women can testify to the fact) that 

 sighs and even cries emitted at such time are the ex- 

 pression of a mixed sensation, wherein joy has almost 

 as great a part as suffering. We must not judge feline 

 exclamations from the shrillness of timbre; tortured by 

 the male prong the she-cats howl, but they await the su- 

 preme benediction. The rigour of the first approaches is 

 perhaps but the promise of deeper delights: at any rate 

 some women have thought so. 



One knows that a cat's tongue is rough: so is the tongue 

 and all the mucous surfaces of negroes. This roughness 

 of surface notably augments the genital pleasure, as men 

 who have known negresses testify. It has been perfected. 

 The Dyaks of Borneo pierce the extremity of the penis, 

 through the navicular channel and fit into it a pin to 

 both ends of which are attached tufts of stiff hair in the 

 form of a brush. Before surrender the women by cer- 

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