<< Other Sense Organs >>

Many persons are conscious of the fact that they are sexually stimulated by things that they see, smell, taste, or hear. Oriental, Islamic, Classical Greek and Roman, Medieval, Galante, and more modern European sex literatures regularly refer to odors and to other chemical stimuli which are “aphrodisiacs” capable of exciting sexual responses.

But it is not certain that stimuli received through these other sense organs effect erotic arousal in the same direct fashion that tactile stimuli do. It is conceivable that great intensities of light, lights of particular colors, or movements of lights of different intensities or of different colors, do have some direct effect upon an animal’s sexual responses; but specific investigations have not yet been made.

It is also not impossible and even probable that strong odors, spices, and loud noises have direct effects upon the nervous system and thus start the physiologic changes which constitute sexual response. It is rather clear that particular sorts of rhythms (e.g., march and waltz time), variations of tempo, particular sequences of pitch (e.g., continued repetitions of one note or chord, alternations of tones which lie an exact octave apart), and variations in volume (e.g., crescendos and diminuendos, sudden and sharp notes, heavy chords) produce physiologic effects on the human and on some other animals which have some affinity to sexual responses. But on none of these points have there been sufficient scientific studies to warrant further discussion here.

It is more certain that stimuli received through these other sense organs operate primarily through the psychic associations which they evoke. The arousal which the average male and some females experience in seeing persons with whom they have had previous sexual contacts, in seeing potential new partners, or in seeing articles of clothing or other objects which have been connected with some previous experience, must depend largely upon the fact that they are reacting, consciously or subconsciously, to memories of the past events. In the same fashion one may be aroused by entering a room, seeing a beach, a mountain top, or a sunset which, by its similarity to some situation associated with the previous sexual contact, brings arousal through recall of that experience. Sexual arousal from the taste of some particular food, through particular odors, or from hearing particular birds sing, particular tones of ringing bells, certain words spoken, the tones of particular voices, particular musical themes sung or played, or any other particular sounds, appears to depend largely upon associations of those things with previous sexual experience.

All of this is a picture of psychologic learning and conditioning, and not one of direct mechanical stimulation of the sort which tactile stimuli provide. In considering the erotic significances of things that are seen, smelled, tasted, or heard, the possibility that both psychologic and sensory factors are involved should, therefore, always be taken into account.

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