Sex efficiency through exercises : special physical culture for women / by Th. H. van de Velde ; [photos, by E. Steinemann].

recommended its advantages. In the last two years I have recommended it to many married couples who sought advice on coital technique, and have been able to overcome previous difficulties by its adoption and practice. The procedure is as follows : The man lies half sideways and half supine (i.e., on his back). One leg rests on the couch, slightly bent at knee and hip. The woman lies down over this leg, half sideways, half in the ventral attitude (face downwards). And she inter- twines her legs and thighs with the man's. Of course, a certain amount of adaptation and adjustment is necessary before complete contact is possible, and not all couples are able to manage this. But when it is once satisfactorily mastered, and if the woman has trained pelvic muscles, she has great freedom of movement and full choice and scope both for pelvic inclination, and for clitoridal friction if desired, as well as for adjustment at the moment of ejacula- tion, which certainly helps either to promote or avert impregnation. Which attitude gives the woman least freedom of move- ment ? Undoubtedly flexion. In many respects this posture is second to none, but it gives least scope for the knowledge and powers obtained through pelvic physical culture. Only the most adept erotic artists understand how to give special stimulus in the flexed attitude by very slight and gentle sideways motions or, rather, undulations of the whole abdomen and pelvis. Change of pelvic inclinations is quite out of the question in flexion. The medial attitude—which most Europeans regard as normal—is midway between the immobility imposed by flexion and the possible freedom of action in the attitudes first enumerated. Here much depends on the man's build and weight, both absolutely and relatively to hers, and also, even more, on his consideration and tenderness. If he is so lacking in regard as to let his partner bear his whole weight, both change of pelvic inclination and rhythmic contraction of the perivaginal muscles become almost impossible. But if he exercises due care and thought and supports himself mainly on his elbows and knees, drawing the latter higher