Such excitement may remain latent and not become specifically
sexual.[206] I am not aware that this quality of railway traveling has
ever been fostered as a sexual perversion, but the sewing-machine has
attracted considerable attention on account of its influence in exciting
auto-erotic manifestations. The early type of sewing-machine, especially,
was of very heavy character and involved much up and down movement of the
legs; Langdon Down pointed out many years ago that this frequently
produced great sexual erethism which led to masturbation.[207] According
to one French authority, it is a well-recognized fact that to work a
sewing-machine with the body in a certain position produces sexual
excitement leading to the orgasm. The occurrence of the orgasm is
indicated to the observer by the machine being worked for a few seconds
with uncontrollable rapidity. This sound is said to be frequently heard in
large French workrooms, and it is part of the duty of the superintendents
of the rooms to make the girls sit properly.[208]
"During a visit which I once paid to a manufactory of military
clothing," Pouillet writes, "I witnessed the following scene. In
the midst of the uniform sound produced by some thirty
sewing-machines, I suddenly heard one of the machines working
with much more velocity than the others. I looked at the person
who was working it, a brunette of 18 or 20.
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