This section is from the book "Human Sexuality", by J. Richardson Parke. Also available from Amazon: Human Sexuality.
Among savage races, particularly, is this crowning attribute of manhood " reverenced and esteemed; and in the song of the Indian girl, as given by Mr. Schoolcraft, we find the spontaneous outflowing of the female heart to its sexual ideal, just as in Solomon's song we see the female type of ideality pictured by the male: "My love is tall and graceful as the young pine, waving on the hill; as swift in his course as the noble, stately deer. His hair is flowing, and dark as the blackbird that floats through the air; and his eyes, like the eagle's, both piercing and bright. His heart, it is fearless and great; and his arm, it is strong in the fight."1
Often the curled and perfumed dandy is astonished and mystified to find himself "cut out," in the affection and regard of his lady-love, by some weather-beaten Bailor, or bronzed fireman, destitute of every charm save physical strength and manly courage; ignorant of the fact that the very means upon which he most relies to make himself pleasing to the feminine heart, the latter regards as stolen property, her own by right, and suggestive of contempt rather than admiration when appropriated by man.
The lovely Atalanta, according to Ovid,1 gave hereelf as a prize to the swiftest runner; and although won by the ruse of the wily Hippomenes, voiced, in the terms of the Arcadian race, the earliest instinct of her sex. The hero-lovers of Scandinavian mythology were subjected to extraordinary trials of prowess, and Westermarck tells of a beautiful Madagascar princess, for whom kings and warriors fought, surrendering herself at last to tbe lover who proved the strongest and most courageous.'
 
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sexuality, reporduction, genitals, love, female, humans, passion