Children sometimes, even when scarcely more than infants, produce
sexual excitement by friction against the corner of a chair or other piece
of furniture, and women sometimes do the same.[203] Guttceit, in Russia,
knew women who made a large knot in their chemises to rub against, and
mentions a woman who would sit on her naked heel and rub it against her.
Girls in France, I am informed, are fond of riding on the
_chevaux-de-bois_, or hobby-horses, because of the sexual excitement thus
aroused; and that the sexual emotions play a part in the fascination
exerted by this form of amusement everywhere is indicated by the ecstatic
faces of its devotees.[204] At the temples in some parts of Central India,
I am told, swings are hung up in pairs, men and women swinging in these
until sexually excited; during the months when the men in these districts
have to be away from home the girls put up swings to console themselves
for the loss of their husbands.
It is interesting to observe the very wide prevalence of
swinging, often of a religious or magic character, and the
evident sexual significance underlying it, although this is not
always clearly brought out. Groos, discussing the frequency of
swinging (_Die Spiele der Menschen_, p. 114) refers, for
instance, to the custom of the Gilbert Islanders for a young man
to swing a girl from a coco palm, and then to cling on and swing
with her.
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