The art of sound pictures (1930)

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS 157 Both types of erotic emotion, passion and captivation, are identical in quality in persons of both sexes. It is ridiculous to suppose that the passion felt by a woman is in any way different from the passion felt by a man. Or that the captivation emotion of a woman is a different sort of feeling from the captivation experienced by a man. The very fact that erotic excitement experienced by both sexes has been given an identical name, sex emotion, proves that the emotional excitement experienced is thought of as identical in men and women. If, then, passion and captivation, like desire and satisfaction, are emotions felt by both sexes, they cannot properly be termed sex emotion. The word “erotic” is derived from the name Eros, the Greek god of love. Throughout our discussion, therefore, we shall use the term “erotic emotion” rather than the more ordinary but erroneous term sex emotion. All through literature, ancient and modern, we find descriptions of love pursuit and love capture, in most of which woman is the person pursued and man is the lover pursuing. Most writers have assumed that when woman runs away from man, she feels the more passive sort of erotic excitement, while man feels the active, capturing excitement. But a few authors of more intellectual insight, such as George Bernard Shaw, have observed that woman, though she runs away, is really the captress, while man, for the very reason that he is led on by her fleeing charms, is the captured lover. This analysis represents the true psychology of the situation. Erotic capture is not made by dominant destruction of an opponent’s resistance. It is accomplished by irresistible attraction. Woman’s proverbial love tactics, in running away from