Page:Personal Beauty and Racial Betterment.djvu/43

Rh adults, I shall not discuss, as I might be accused of being prejudiced.

The other details of the pate-hair character: fineness or coarseness, straightness or kinkiness, color and contour of distribution, are largely important as indicators of race or stock; yet fineness,has a direct sex value in its greater pleasingness to touch. It may also be true that color has a direct value; that the masculine preference for red-haired women which is so frequent, and of which the Elizabethan and pre-Elizabethan erotic writings are so full, is not due solely to the association of the hair color with the ardent temperament which without doubt was a characteristic of the red-haired stocks; but is in part at least due to the direct effect of the visual stimulation.

All parts of the body except the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, and certain other small areas, are covered with fine hair, which in the pre-adolescent person are usually so fine and so colorless that they are hardly noticeable. With the beginning of puberty, the axillary hair (the hair of the arm pits), and the hair of the pubic region in both sexes begins to develop, increasing in diameter as well as in length and in pigmentation.In the male also, but slightly later, the face hair undergoes similar development, and still later the hair on the chest, abdomen, and limbs of the male develops in manners which differ greatly