Sex pleasure in woman, as I have said, is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; if words or movements oppose the magic of caresses, the spell is broken. This is one of the reasons why the woman closes her eyes; physiologically, this is a reflex compensating for the dilation of the pupils; but she lowers her eyelids even in the dark. She would abolish all surroundings, abolish the singularity of the moment, of herself, and of her lover, she would fain be lost in a carnal night as shadowy as the maternal womb.
Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949)
