A non-medical correspondent in Australia, W.J.  Chidley, from whom I have received many communications on this subject, is strongly of opinion from his own observations that not only does the uterus take an active part in coitus, but that under natural conditions the vagina also plays an active part in the process.  He was led to suspect such an action many years ago, as well by an experience of his own, as also by hearing from a young woman who met her lover after a long absence that by the excitement thus aroused a tape attached to the underclothes had been drawn into the vagina.  Since then the confidences of various friends, together with observations of animals, have confirmed him in the view that the general belief that coitus must be effected by forcible entry of the male organ into a passive vagina is incorrect.  He considers that under normal circumstances coitus should take place but rarely, and then only under the most favorable circumstances, perhaps exclusively in spring, and, most especially, only when the woman is ready for it.  Then, when in the arms of the man she loves, the vagina, in sympathy with the active movements of the womb, becomes distended at the touch of the turgescent, but not fully erect, penis, “flashes open and draws in the male organ.”  “All animals,” he adds, “have sexual intercourse by the male organ being drawn, not forced, into the female.  I have been borne out in this by friends who have seen horses, camels, mules and other large animals in the coupling season.  What is more absurd, for instance, than to say that an entire penetrates the mare?  His penis is a sensitive, beautiful piece of mechanism, which brings its light head here and there till it touches the right spot, when the mare, if ready, takes it in.  An entire’s penis could not penetrate anything; it is a curve, a beautiful curve which would easily bend.  A bull’s, again, is turned down at the end and, more palpably still, would fold on itself if pressed with force.  The womb and vagina of a beautiful and healthy woman constitute a living, vital, moving organ, sensitive to a look, a word, a thought, a hand on the waist.”

A well-known American author thus writes in confirmation of the foregoing view:  “In nature the woman wooes.  When impassioned her vagina becomes erect and dilated, and so lubricated with abundant mucus to the lips that entrance is easy.  This dilatation and erectile expansion of vagina withdraws the hymen so close to the walls that penetration need not tear it or cause pain.  The more muscular, primitive and healthy the woman the tougher and less sensitive the hymen, and the less likely to break or bleed.  I think one great function of the foreskin also is to moisten the glans, so that it can be lubricated for entrance, and then to retract, moist side out, to make entrance still easier.  I think that in nature the glans penetrates within the labia, is withstood