Thus such characters would come to be recognized
as habitually symptomatic of pleasurable feelings. Finding
similar features in human beings, and particularly in children,
though not developed in the same degree, we may assume that in
our monkey-like ancestors facial characters similar to those of
the mandril were developed, though to a less extent, and that
they were symptomatic of pleasure, because connected with the
period of courtship. Then they became conventionalized as
pleasurable symptoms." (S.S. Buckmann, "Human Babies: What They
Teach," _Nature_, July 5, 1900.) If this view is accepted, it may
be said that the smile, having in man become a generalized sign
of amiability, has no longer any special sexual significance. It
is true that a faint and involuntary smile is often associated
with the later stages of tumescence, but this is usually lost
during detumescence, and may even give place to an expression of
ferocity.
When we have realized how profound is the organic convulsion involved by
the process of detumescence, and how great the general motor excitement
involved, we can understand how it is that very serious effects may follow
coitus.
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