The widespread and
various unnatural sex practices, the use of aphrodisiacs, the practice
of drawing attention to the girl at puberty, phallic worship, erotic
dances, and periodic orgies, of which the Orient furnishes so many
examples, are all found also among the natural races.[212]
Again, the eagerness of men to obtain girl wives, and even a claim on
infants, thus assuring virginity and marriage at the moment of sexual
maturity;[213] the habit of keeping girls in solitary confinement from
a tender age until the consummation of marriage;[214] and the African
custom of infibulation,[215] are classes of facts indicating that
the sexual element occupied a large place in the consciousness of the
natural races.
We must also consider the fact that sexual life is organically a
utilization of a surplus of nutriment, and that when food and leisure
are abundant there is a tendency on the part of sexual activity to
become a play activity, just as there is a tendency of activities in
general to become play activities under the same conditions. And while
there was no leisure class in early society, primitive man was a man
of leisure in the sense that his work activities were intermittent;
a successful hunt was followed by a period of rest, recuperation, and
surplus energy, and a consequent turning of attention to sexual life,
with the result that the sex interest appears as one of the main play
interests among the natural races.
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