The association of the aptitude for detumescence with a tendency to a deep rather than to a high voice, both in men and women, has frequently been noted and has seldom been denied.  The onset of puberty always affects the voice; in general, Bierent states, the more bass the voice is the more marked is the development of the sexual apparatus; “a very robust man, with very developed sexual organs, and very dark and abundant hairy system, a man of strong puberty in a word, is nearly always a bass."[152] The influence of sexual excitement in deepening the voice is shown by the rules of sexual hygiene prescribed to tenors, while a bass has less need to observe similar precautions.  In women every phase of sexual life—­puberty, menstruation, coitus, pregnancy—­tends to affect the voice and always by giving it a deeper character.  The deepening of the voice by sexual intercourse was an ancient Greek observation, and Martial refers to a woman’s good or bad singing as an index to her recent sexual habits.  Prostitutes tend to have a deep voice.  Venturi points out that married women preserve a fresh voice to a more advanced age than spinsters, this being due to the precocious senility in the latter of an unused function.  Such a phenomenon indicates that the relationship of detumescence to the deepening of the voice is not quite simple.  This is further indicated by the fact that in robust men abstinence still further deepens the voice (the monk of melodrama always has a bass voice), while excessive or precocious sexual indulgence tends to be associated with the same kind of puerile voice as is found in those persons in whom pubertal development has not been carried very far, or who are of what Griffiths terms eunuchoid type.  Idiot boys, who are often sexually undeveloped, tend to have a high voice, while idiot girls (who often manifest marked sexual proclivities) not infrequently have a deep voice.[153]

Bright dilated eyes are among the phenomena of detumescence, and are very frequently noted in persons of a pronounced erotic temperament.  This is, indeed, an ancient observation, and Burton says of people with a black, lively, and sparkling eye, “without question they are most amorous,” drawing his illustrations mostly from classic literature.[154] Tardieu described the erotic woman as having bright eyes, and Heywood Smith states that the eyes of lascivious women resemble, though in a less degree, those of the insane.[155] Sexual excitement is one among many causes—­intellectual excitement, pain, a loud noise, even any sensory irritation—­which produce dilatation of the pupils and enlargement of the palpebral fissure, with some protrusion of the eyeball.  The influence of the sexual system upon the eye appears to be far less potent in men than in women.[156] Sexual desire is, however, by no means the only irritant within the sexual sphere which may thus influence the eye; morbid irritations may produce the same effect.  Milner Fothergill, in his book