“Hardly any other object,” remarks Dr. Richard Andree, “has been with such great unanimity represented by nearly all peoples as the phallus, the symbol of procreative force in the religions of the East and an object of veneration at public festivals.  In the Moabitic Baal Peor, in the cult of Dionysos, everywhere, indeed, except in Persia, we meet with Priapic representations and the veneration accorded to the generative organ.  It is needless to refer to the great significance of the Linga puja, the procreative organ of the god Siva, in India, a god to whom more temples were erected than to any other Indian deity.  Our museums amply show how common phallic representations are in Africa, East Asia, the Pacific, frequently in connection with religious worship.” (R.  Andree, “Amerikansche Phallus-Darstellungen,” Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, 1895, ht. 6, p. 678.)

Women have no external generative organ like the phallus to play a large part in life as a sacred symbol.  There is, however, some reason to believe that the triangle is to some extent such a symbol.  Lejeune ("La Representation Sexuelle en Religion, Art, et Pedagogie,” Bulletin de la Societe d’Anthropologie, Paris, October 3, 1901) brings forward reasons in favor of the view that the triangular hair-covered region of the mons veneris has had considerable significance in this respect, and he presents various primitive figures in illustration.

Apart from the religions and magical properties so widely accorded to the primary sexual characters, there are other reasons why they should not often have gained or long retained any great importance as objects of sexual allurement.  They are unnecessary and inconvenient for this purpose.  The erect attitude of man gives them here, indeed, an advantage possessed by very few animals, among whom it happens with extreme rarity that the primary sexual characters are rendered attractive to the eye of the opposite sex, though they often are to the sense of smell.  The sexual regions constitute a peculiarly vulnerable spot, and remain so even in man, and the need for their protection which thus exists conflicts with the prominent display required for a sexual allurement.  This end is far more effectively attained, with greater advantage and less disadvantage, by concentrating the chief ensigns of sexual attractiveness on the upper and more conspicuous parts of the body.  This method is well-nigh universal among animals as well as in man.

There is another reason why the sexual organs should be discarded as objects of sexual allurement, a reason which always proves finally decisive as a people advances in culture.  They are not aesthetically beautiful.  It is fundamentally necessary that the intromittent organ of the male and the receptive canal of the female should retain their primitive characteristics; they cannot, therefore, be greatly modified by sexual or natural selection, and the exceedingly primitive character