Читать книгу The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization - Iwan 1872-1922 Bloch - Страница 35

“There is no doubt that the face is a bearer of the sexual sense in the second and third degree. Not only the mouth or the larynx. The nose, especially in virtue of the mucous membranes by which odours are perceived. The eye, in virtue of the magnetic currents, the perception of light, and the chemical activity of the retina. But even the cheeks and the ears. Let some one you are fond of whisper something into your ear—notice the emotional wave you will feel, and observe how from the ear there are paths of conduction to the sexual cells [!]. Above all, however, naturally the mouth. We speak of the labia of the female genital organs, and therewith already we indicate the relationship to the lips of the mouth. We can, in fact, prove the existence, not only of a parallelism in the structure of the mouth and that of the sexual organs, in man just as in woman. We can go even further: we can regard the sacral region as the forehead, the anal region as the nose, the pudendal region as the mouth, and the gluteal region as the cheeks [!].

“If we regard the sexual differentiation of the features of the face as established, from this standpoint we gain an interesting light upon the deeper lying causes of the wearing of clothes. Civilized mankind conceals the sexual organs of the first degree; the sexual organs of the third degree—that is, the features of the face—are left naked; in fact, on account of the thorough way in which the parts of the body adjacent to the face are covered, stress is actually laid upon the nakedness of the face as bearing sexual organs of the third degree—now we recognize the rôle played by the hat—and by means of that which we call coquetry, we see mirrored in the features the proper sexual organs, or we have our attention drawn to the sexual organs by means of the features, and by the latter we are made aware of certain peculiarities of the former. In this connexion, let us remember certain facial adornments which serve to limit still more the naked area of the face, and to clothe a larger portion of that region, such as the locks of hair covering the ears which the dancer Cléo de Mérode introduced, ringlets such as were worn in youth by our grandmothers, or the chin-band drawn across the middle of the chin. Perhaps even other ornaments of the face (neck-band, ear-rings, and even eyeglasses and lorgnette [!]) also play a certain part in this connexion. Think, above all, of the stand-up collar and all other varieties of high collar by which the clothing is carried up as high as the chin. But those parts of the face which remain naked must now be as naked as possible; for this reason hairs, unless they belong to the beard as sexual organs of the second degree, must be removed, and society determinedly insists that faces shall be clean-shaven.”[127]

The relation of the face to the clothing already makes clear to us the idea of “costume” as an extension of clothing beyond the mere covering of the body. All which surrounds man, which has a relation to his appearance, is costume in the widest sense of the word; thus, sitting-room, workshop, study, dressing-room, park, library, etc.

“We take pains regarding all that we have nearest to us and round about us, our toilet, because therein we are at home, therein we suffer and we rejoice. Where we feel ourselves at home, we shall endeavour so to arrange matters that everything is comfortable to us, down to the furthest manifestations of our existence, so that our sitting-room, our bedroom, our house and our garden, constitute a prolongation, an extension of our clothing” (A. von Eye).[128]

Thus it happens that fashion is concerned, not merely with clothing, but also with an abundance of customary details of environment. The arrangement and furnishing of rooms, artistic objects, bodily exercises, social intercourse, sports, etc., are subject to the caprices of fashion. On this extended idea of fashion is based Fr. Th. Vischer’s definition: “Fashion is a general term to denote a complex of temporary current forms of civilization.”

The theory of fashion has been elaborated especially by Sombart[129] and Simmel.[130] In the work of W. Fred,[131] also, we find some thoughtful observations.

According to Simmel, fashion fulfils a double task. On the one hand, it is the imitation of a given example, and thus satisfies the need for social dependence; it leads the individual along the path on which all are going. But, on the other hand, it satisfies also the need for difference, the tendency to differentiation, to variation, to self-assertion. This fashion effects by means of frequent changes, and by the fact that first of all it is always a class fashion. The fashions of the upper classes are distinguished from those of the lower classes, and are instantly abandoned when the lower classes adopt them. Thus, according to Simmel’s definition, fashion is nothing else than a peculiar form among many forms of life, by means of which the tendency towards social equalization is connected with the tendency towards individual differentiation and variation to constitute a unitary activity.

In Paris, the centre of fashion, the associated work of these two tendencies may be studied most accurately and purely. We can there observe how at first always a portion only of society adopts the fashion, whilst the commonalty are still only on the way towards its adoption. If the fashion has become entirely general, if it is followed without exception, it is already over, it is no longer “fashionable,” because this class difference has ceased to exist.

“By means of this interplay—between its tendency to general diffusion on the one hand, and, on the other, the annihilation of its significance which this very diffusion brings about—fashion exercises the peculiar charm of the border-line, the charm of simultaneous beginning and ending, the charm of that which is at the same time new and obsolete” (Simmel).

In connexion with this fact we find that from the earliest times the “demi-monde” has always given the impulse to new fashions. Owing to the peculiarly uncertain position occupied by this class, everything conventional, everything long in use, is detested by its members; only newness and change are agreeable.

“In the continuous endeavour to find new, hitherto unheard-of fashions, in the heedlessness with which precisely that which is opposed to what has gone before is passionately grasped, there lies an æsthetic form of the destructive impulse, which all pariah existences appear to possess, so long, at any rate, as they are not completely enslaved” (Simmel).

On the other hand, the equalizing tendency of fashion serves delicate, sensitive natures as a kind of protection of their personality, as Simmel has shown in a masterly manner. To such persons fashion plays the part, as it were, of a mask.

“Thus it is a delicate shame and shyness, lest by a peculiarity in outward aspect, some peculiarity of the subjective character might perhaps be betrayed, that leads many natures to seek with eagerness the concealing equalization of fashion.... It gives a veil and a protection to all that lies within, and that thereby becomes more perfectly free.”

That modern fashion is, for the most part, a child of the nineteenth century, and is most intimately dependent upon the nature of capitalism, has been directly proved by W. Sombart. He indicates as a decisive fact in the process of the formation of fashion the perception that the participation of the consumer is thereby reduced to a minimum, that, on the contrary, the driving force in the creation of modern fashion is the capitalistic entrepreneur. If, for example, a Parisian cocotte discovers a new style of dress, or if, as the newspapers recently reported, the King of England introduces the fashion of a white hat or white shoes for men, these actions have, according to Sombart, the character only of intermediate assistance. The true driving agent for the rapid general diffusion of fashion, and for the frequent changes of fashion, remains the capitalistic entrepreneur, the producer, or merchant. Sombart proves this convincingly by striking examples. This economic aspect of fashion must receive no less consideration than the psychological.

If men’s clothing, as we have already said, is, in the gross, far less subject to the dominion of fashion than women’s clothing, still recently efforts have been apparent to simplify women’s clothing also, to make it independent of the caprices of fashion, and, above all, to subordinate it to hygienic principles. It is noteworthy that these efforts proceed more particularly from the leaders of the modern woman’s movement, an interesting proof of the connexion already alluded to between personality and clothing. The more differentiated and the more inwardly rich the personality, the simpler and more monotonous is the clothing. To this extent, therefore, the desire for simplification of feminine clothing is an entirely logical postulate of the emancipation of women. But this demand finds a justification also from the point of view of hygiene. This fact has been discussed especially by Paul Schultze-Naumburg in his book on “The Culture of the Feminine Body as the Basis of Women’s Clothing” (Leipzig, 1901). He insists above all on the complete abandonment of the corset, and of the “small waist,” and on a return of women’s clothing to the free, simple outlines of the antique. He makes, also, very noteworthy observations on the unhygienic footgear of both sexes.

The idea that woman’s clothing should unconstrainedly represent the form of her body has been admirably realized in the different varieties of the so-called “reformed dress.” Not without influence on these deserving attempts has been the recognition of the distinguished simplicity and hygienic purposefulness of the Japanese women’s clothing.

For the present, however, fashion, as of old, remains dominant, and celebrates annually its triumph in respect of new discoveries and refinements of the dress of women of the world, employing for this purpose the familiar means of accentuation and disclosure, and of coloured and ornamental stimuli. The “woman’s movement” has as yet had little ostensible and practical influence in liberating women’s dress from the all-powerful control of fashion.

Now that we have considered clothing and fashion in their relations to the sexual life, and have learned to understand how they combine in action as means of sexual stimulation of a peculiar nature, we are in a position to grasp the relations between the sense of shame and nudity, as it presents itself to us as a problem of modern civilization.

While, as Simmel also maintains, and as we have thoroughly explained above, clothing, through the intermediation of fashion, gives rise to shamelessness as a group manifestation, or, as we are accustomed to say at the present day, seriously impairs the sense of shame in such a manner as would be repelled with disgust if it were adopted by the personal choice of an isolated individual,[132] clothing has, on the other hand, led astray the natural biological sense of shame, since it is the sole cause of the “exaggerated sense of shame” known as prudery. Prudery recognizes the existence of clothed human beings only; it will not recognize the existence of naked man; it refuses to admit the purely moral-æsthetic influence of natural nudity—to prudery this is something immoral and repulsive.

To prudery alone we must ascribe the fact that we modern civilized human beings have completely lost the taste for natural nudity, and also for the natural sense of shame, and thus we show little understanding of the ennobling, civilizing influence of both.

Natural nudity, the state in which every human being is born into this world, not artificial nudity, with its lascivious influence dependent upon clothing, posture, and gesture, is purely an object of simple contemplation for the human being of normal perceptions, who sees in the unclothed human body precisely the same individual natural object as he sees in the bodies of other living beings. People, in other respects extremely prudish, admit this when they have the opportunity—at the present day certainly very rare—of seeing completely naked human beings in natural surroundings, as, for instance, when bathing.

It is only when we introduce intentionally a sensual or, speaking generally, an artificial influence, that nudity has an effect of lascivious stimulation. Prudery is, however, nothing more than such a way of looking at nudity, with concealed lustful feelings. The talented Schleiermacher already recognized this fact. He unmasked prudery as a lack of the sense of shame, and very clearly pointed out the sexual and lascivious element which it conceals. In his “Vertrauten Briefen über die Lucinde” (edition of K. Gutzkow, Hamburg, 1835, pp. 63-65) we find the following beautiful passage:

“What, then, shall we think of those who pretend to be in a condition of quiet thought and activity, and yet are so intolerably sensitive that as a result of the most trivial and most remote impulse, passion arises in them, and who believe themselves to be the more fully equipped with the sense of shame the more readily they find in everything something worthy of suspicion? They do not really find what they pretend to find in every occurrence; it is their own crude lust which lies always on the watch, and springs forward as soon as anything shows itself in the distance akin to themselves, and which therefore they find it possible to condemn; and they will quickly seize an opportunity for blaming anything of which the motives were absolutely blameless. Ordinarily, indeed, blamelessness appears to them a pretence. Youths and maidens are represented as knowing nothing as yet of love, but none the less as full of yearnings which every moment threaten to break out, and which clutch the slightest opportunity in order to grasp the forbidden fruit. But this is absurd. True youths and maidens are, indeed, the ideals of this kind of modesty, but in them it takes another form. Only that which has no other purpose than to arouse desire and passion can do them any harm; but why should they not be allowed to learn love and to understand Nature, both of which they see everywhere round them? Why should they not, without restraint, understand and enjoy what is thought and said about these matters, since in this way so much the less would passion be aroused in them? Such anxious and limited modesty as is at the present day characteristic of society is based only upon the consciousness of a great and widespread perversity, and upon a deep corruption. What will be the end of all this? If matters were left to themselves, they would become worse and worse; when we so persistently hunt out that which in reality is not shameful, we shall at last succeed in finding something immodest in every circle of ideas; and finally all conversation and all society must come to an end; we must separate the sexes so that they may not look at one another; we must introduce monasticism, or even something more severe. But this is not to be borne, and it will happen to our society as it happened to our wives when morality confined them ever more and more strictly, until at last it became improper for them to show the tips of their fingers—and then in despair they suddenly turned round, and they exposed their necks, their shoulders, and their breasts to the rude winds and to lascivious eyes; or, like the caterpillars, they cast off their old skin by a predetermined movement. Thus will it be; when corruption has reached its climax, and the crude impulses become so dominant that it is no longer possible to keep them within bounds, all these false appearances will break down of themselves, and behind them we shall see youthful shamelessness which has long intimately entwined itself round the body of society, so that this has become the true skin in which society naturally and easily moves. Complete corruption and completed culture, by way of which we return to blamelessness—both of these make an end of prudery.”

Fine words from a theologian! This thoroughly just description of the nature of prudery and of its dangers should be laid seriously to heart by our modern theological bigots and moral fanatics. How truly Schleiermacher has depicted the nature of prudery is shown by the observations of the alienist J. L. A. Koch, that it is precisely the women who were formerly prudish and “moral” when they become insane—for example, in mania—who are much more shameless than women who in everyday life had taken a more natural view of sexual relationships.

The eternal concealment of the most natural things is what first makes them appear unnatural, first awakens desire, where otherwise they would have been passed by quietly and harmlessly without attention. At the present day the natural justifiable sense of shame has been intensified to an unnatural degree, and has been falsified to such an extent that this exaggeration of the sense of shame, this unceasing objective suppression of natural harmless activities and feelings, has really increased the hidden desires to an immeasurable degree; it is this, in fact, which heaps fuel on the fire of fleshly lust.[133]

The genuine, natural, biological sense of shame sets bounds to lust. To this shame we owe the ennobling and spiritualizing of the crude sexual impulse; it is the preliminary stage to the individualization of that impulse. It is intimately related to that voluntary, temporary, and relative continence which has so great an importance for the individual life. The sense of shame has civilized the sexual impulse without denying its essential basis.

Complete culture returns to complete innocence. It knows no fig-leaves; it does not go about, as did recently in the Dresden Museum a clergyman affected with the psychosis of hyper-prudery, knocking off the genital organs from naked statues; nor does it castrate the human spirit, as we find most biographers do even now in the case of the great men whose lives they describe. It recognizes the sexual as something noble and natural.

The sense of shame is an inalienable acquirement of civilization; it is self-respect. But, as Havelock Ellis rightly remarks, in completely developed human beings self-respect keeps a tight rein on any excess of the sense of shame. Knowledge and culture give the death-blow to all false prudery. The cultured man looks the natural in the face; he recognizes its value and its necessity. To him the sexual is the indispensable preliminary of life; hence in its essential nature it is something harmless, wholly comprehensible; something that must not be underrated, but above all must not be overrated, as our virtuous hypocrites and fanatics of prudery invariably overrate it.

The true league against immorality is the league against prudery. The apostles of the nude do more service to true morality than the men of the “Lex-Heinze,” than those who hold conferences on morality, than the German Christian League of Virtue. A natural conception of the nude—that is the watchword of the future. This is shown by all the hygienic, æsthetic, and ethical endeavours of our time.

[72] G. Simmel, “Philosophy of Fashion” (Berlin, 1906, p. 27).

[73] Cf. C. Lombroso and G. Ferrero, “Woman as Criminal and Prostitute.”

[74] Karl von den Steinen, “Experiences among the Savage Races of Central Brazil” (Berlin, 1894, p. 199).

[75] Op. cit., p. 66.

[76] Op. cit., p. 64.

[77] A discussion of the early manifestations of the sexual sense of shame as exhibited by savages and by primitive man would hardly be complete without an allusion to the theory mentioned by Robert Browning (“Bishop Blougram’s Apology,” Collected Works, 1889, vol. iv., p. 271):

“Suppose a pricking to incontinence—

Philosophers deduce you chastity

Or shame, from just the fact that at the first

Whoso embraced a woman in the field,

Threw club down and forewent his brains beside,

So stood a ready victim in the reach

Of any brother savage, club in hand;

Hence saw the use of going out of sight

In wood or cave to prosecute his loves:

I read this in a French book t’other day.”

[78] Op. cit., pp. 190, 191, 195. Cf. also the interesting remarks regarding the nudity of the indigens of South America by Alex. von Humboldt, “Journey in the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent” (Stuttgart, vol. ii., pp. 15, 16).

[79] Somewhat diverging from these views, Karl von den Steinen (op. cit., pp. 174, 178, and 186) is of opinion that man learned first by their use for practical ends the employment of the articles later utilized for adornment. Above all, in this connexion, he alludes to tattooing, which originated, he believes, in the practice of smearing the body with various coloured earths and with different kinds of clay, these at the same time serving to promote coolness and to afford a protection against the bites of insects. Cf. also Yrjö Hirn, “The Origin of Art” (Leipzig, 1904, p. 222).

[80] E. Herrmann, “Natural History of Clothing” (Vienna, 1878, p. 239).

[81] Edward Westermarck, “History of Human Marriage.”

[82] Wilhelm Joest, “Tattooing, Scarifying, and Painting the Body” (Berlin, 1887).

[83] Carl Marquardt, “Tattooing of Both Sexes in Samoa” (Berlin. 1899).

[84] Ludwig Stein, “The Beginnings of Human Civilization” (Leipzig, 1906, pp. 74, 75); Edward Tylor, “Anthropology: an Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization” (Macmillan, 1881, p. 237).

[85] According to Karl von den Steinen (op. cit., p. 186), the oil colours used in painting the body are “actually the clothing of the Indians, employed for this purpose as occasion demands.” Their oldest aim was protection against heat, cutaneous irritation, and external noxious influences.

[86] Cf. Y. Hirn, “The Origin of Art” (Leipzig, 1904, pp. 223, 224).

[87] Cf. my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., p. 338.

[88] Cf. K. Lange, “The Nature of Art” (Berlin, 1901, vol. ii., pp. 185, 186).

[89] The significance of tattooing of this nature in the diagnosis of sexual perversities we shall later discuss at greater length.

[90] Cf. Kurella, “The Natural History of the Criminal” (Stuttgart, 1893, pp. 105-112).

[91] “Erotic Tattooing” in “Anthropophyteia, Annual for Folk-lore and for Researches regarding the History of the Evolution of Sexual Morals,” edited by Friedrich S. Krauss (Leipzig, 1904, vol. i., pp. 507-513). According to an account in the Temps, in a deserter from the French army the most remarkable tattooings were observed. On the breast there were two seductive women throwing kisses to a sturdy musketeer, in addition to portraits of music-hall singers, both male and female—for example, Yvette Guilbert. The entire back was covered with love sketches. Cf. B. Z. am Mittag, August 21, 1906.

[92] William Ellis, “Polynesian Researches” (London, 1859, vol. i., p. 235).

[93] Cf. Hirn, “The Origin of Art,” pp. 214, 215.

[94] Cf. Havelock Ellis, op. cit. pp. 56-62.

[95] It is well known that the buttocks formed an object of erotic allurement in many savage races, and especially so in certain African tribes.

[96] J. J. Virey, “Woman” (Leipzig, 1825, p. 300).

[97] Westermarck, “History of Human Marriage,” pp. 193, 197.

[98] C. H. Stratz, “Women’s Clothing” (Stuttgart, 1900, p. 42).

[99] In his “Confessions,” Rousseau writes regarding the collar of the beautiful courtesan Giulietta: “Her cuffs and collar had silken threads running through them, and were adorned with pictures of roses. These made a beautiful contrast with her fine skin.”

[100] H. Lotze, “Mikrokosmus: Ideas regarding the Natural History of Mankind” (third edition, Leipzig, 1878, vol. ii., p. 210).

[101] H. Bahr, “Clothing Reform,” in Dokumente der Frauen, 1902, vol. vi., No. 23, p. 665.

[102] Cf. the detailed account of this aspect of clothing in my “Contributions to the Etiology of the Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 334-336.

[103] Cf. Lucianus, “Erotics of Clothing,” published in Die Fackel, edited by Karl Kraus (Vienna, No. 198, March 12, 1906, pp. 12, 13).

[104] Cf., in this connexion, Ernest Kapp, “Fundamental Outlines of a Philosophy of Technique,” p. 267 (Brunswick, 1877).

[105] Lucianus, “Erotica of Clothing,” p. 16.

[106] W. Sombart, “Domestic Economy and Fashion” (Wiesbaden, 1902, p. 12).

[107] Stratz, “Woman’s Clothing,” pp. 123, 124.

[108] B. Ritter, “Nudities in the Middle Ages: Outlines of the History of Morals,” in the Annual of Science and Art, published by O. Wigand (Leipzig, 1855, vol. iii., p. 229).

[109] H. Bahr, “Clothing Reform,” op. cit., p. 666.

[110] G. Hirth, “Ways to Love,” p. 619.

[111] Leopold Bauer, in Documents of Women, March, 1902, pp. 675, 676.

[112] Op. cit., pp. 671, 672.

[113] Menge, “The Influence of Constricting Clothing upon the Abdominal Organs, and more Especially upon the Reproductive Organs of Woman” (Leipzig, 1904).

[114] O. Rosenbach, “The Corset and Anæmia” (Stuttgart, 1895).

[115] G. Hirth, “Ways to Love,” p. 49.

[116] The modern fancy for slender, ethereal, Pre-Raphaelite feminine figures is also to some extent allied with a negative accentuation of the breasts. Heinrich Pudor with good reason declares that at the present time perhaps the strongest sexual influence of woman is dependent upon the fact that “the existence of the breasts is concealed, and the appearance of the male sex is simulated.” Cf. his article, “Clothing and Sex,” in Die Gemeinschaft der Eigenen, August number, 1906, p. 22. Still, the sexual stimulating influence of this concealment of the breasts appears to be of a transient character, and confined to certain circles of the hyperæsthetic and the homosexual.

[117] Heinrich Pudor, “Nackt-Kultur,” vol. ii.; “Clothing and Sex; Limbs and Pelvis,” pp. 7, 8 (Berlin-Steglitz, 1906).

[118] Cf. the passages relating to this in my work, “Contributions,” etc., vol. i., pp. 152, 153.

[119] Schopenhauer, “Parerga and Paralipomena,” vol. v., p. 176.

[120] G. Simmel, “Philosophy of Fashion, p. 24” (Berlin, 1906).

[121] “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. i., pp. 158-162.

[122] Ovid, in his “Ars Amandi,” long ago advised men who wished to please women to avoid feminine adornments, and to leave those to the homosexual.

[123] J. Ryan, “Prostitution in London,” p. 382 (London, 1839).

[124] In Alfred de Musset’s erotic story, “Gamiani,” he describes how a woman danced on a mat of catskin, which gave rise in her to very voluptuous sensations.

[125] “Confessions of My Life,” Memoirs of Wanda von Sacher-Masoch, p. 38 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1906).

[126] Here we may allude to a remark in the diary of the de Goncourts that there is nothing to compare to the delicate voluptuous charm of old cashmere as a dress-fabric for women (E. and J. de Goncourt, “Diary,” 1851-1895).

[127] H. Pudor, “Nackt-Kultur,” vol. ii., pp. 4-6.

[128] Ernst Kapp, “Elements of a Philosophy of Technique,” pp. 269, 270 (Brunswick, 1877).

[129] W. Sombart, “Domestic Economy and Fashion” (Wiesbaden, 1902).

[130] G. Simmel, “The Psychology of Fashion,” published in Die Zeit, October 12, 1895; “The Philosophy of Fashion” (Berlin, 1906).

[131] W. Fred, “The Psychology of Fashion” (Berlin, 1905).

[132] Simmel rightly points out that many women would feel very uncomfortable if they had to appear in their private sitting-room, or before a single strange man, in a dress so décolleté as that in which they readily appear, in society and following the fashion, before thirty or a hundred.

[133] What serious dangers to health prudery may entail has recently been shown by Karl Ries in a valuable essay, “Prudery as the Cause of Bodily Disorders” (published in the Reports of the German Society for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases, 1906, vol. iv., pp. 113-121).