Further Antedating of "Sex Appeal"

[Fred Shapiro]

On Tue, 5 Jun 2007, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> Fred, are you sure this is exactly the usual sense?  It could mean
> (believe it or not) "interest for one sex, especially women, and not the
> other."

I was going to agree with you, but then I thought, maybe I should look at
the actual context, which turns out to be the following:

***

The best friends of the theater, Shaw maintains, cannot deny that a
considerable proportion of our theatrical entertainments stimulate the
sexual instinct of the spectators.  The play which contains no sex appeal
is described by professional critics as being "undramatic" or "not a play
at all."

***

"Stimulate the sexual instinct of the spectators" certainly seems to be
the usual sense.

Fred Shapiro


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