PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



tain tricks and certain traditional gestures indicate the 

 length of the brush desired. In Java one replaces this 

 apparatus known as the ampallang, by a sheath of goat 

 skin, more or less thick. In other countries there are 

 incrustations of little pebbles, which give the gland the 

 shape of an embossed mace; and these pebbles are some- 

 times replaced by tiny bells, so that the men make in 

 running a sound like mules, and attentive women can 

 judge their value according to the intensity of their 

 sexual music. These customs, noted by de Paw among 

 certain aborigines of America, have not been recently 

 observed, doubtless because the Christian modesty of 

 modern travellers has obliterated their eyes and ears at 

 convenient moments. No custom is abolished save in the 

 face of some other custom more useful to sensuality, and 

 the imagination seems rather to advance than to recede in 

 these matters. It is true that the inventors hide them- 

 selves, even in savage countries, sexual morality tending 

 toward uniformity. 



These artifices, which appear curious to us, have cer- 

 tainly been created at the instigation of women, since 

 theirs is the profit of them. Males have submitted to 

 them, happy no doubt to be delivered at the price of 

 passing pain from the terrible lasciviousness of their fe- 

 males. Racked and flayed by such instruments the 

 women ought, at least for a few days, to flee the male 

 and brood in silence upon their luxurious memories. 

 Chinese and Japs, whose women are likewise lascivious, 

 are familiar with analogous means; to dominate their 

 companions they have also invented ingenious onanist 

 methods which give them time to attend to their own 

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