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SEX AND THE LOVE-LIFE

overcome by the child's sense of modesty, which is inculcated by training and social repression.

There are some people, however, who never really outgrow this psychological stage, and their sexual life remains at the exhibitionist level as long as they live. This form of perversion is not rare. The extreme pathological type of exhibitionist obtains sexual gratification only by exposing himself to members of the opposite sex. The normal sexual relation does not interest him.

Like other abnormal states, exhibitionism is simply a normal condition highly magnified, or greatly exaggerated. By this I mean that there is a modified form of exhibitionism in everyone, and that it is not only socially unobjectionable, but it serves a constructive purpose to the individual.

The opposite trait to exhibitionism is sexual curiosity—the abnormal type being designated as the voyeur, or "Peeping Tom."

These traits are directed by the unconscious psychic processes and are bound up with the secondary characteristics of sex. As examples of modified exhibitionism, we may record the propensity of women to wear low-necked gowns and dresses, short skirts, sleeveless waists, transparent fabrics, and similar dress and undress effects, which permit more or less display of the flesh and figure, and this affords an unconscious, and also a conscious, gratification of woman's impulse to exhibitionism. Other characteristic examples are certain hair-dressing arrangements, picturesque hats, various poses and attitudes, and other evidences that tend to emphasize the sex appeal of femininity.

Prominent among men's exhibitionist practices are modes of dress that display or suggest masculine strength, such as square-cut or padded shoulders, athletic costumes and numerous actions and affectations which have as their motive the