The Sexual Question Part 31

First of all they foster one of the lowest forms of prost.i.tution; soldiers' women are proverbial, and one of them alone may infect a whole regiment. In the second place, the absence of normal s.e.xual intercourse favors all kinds of perversion, such as pederasty, masturbation, etc. The abominable s.e.xual life of soldiers and sailors corrupts them to such an extent that when they marry later on they come to their wives with filthy habits, to say nothing of syphilis and gonorrhea. The result is the procreation of offspring who are more or less tainted in body and mind by the effects of venereal disease combined with alcohol. We have already mentioned the rules which forbid German officers to marry a woman unless she possesses a certain fortune.

In the Norwegian mercantile marine the customs contrast happily with those we have just mentioned, and permit officers to live on board with their wives. In all respects the Norwegian serves as a model in the s.e.xual question; does he not favor conjugal life by only charging half-price on the boats for women who travel with their husbands!

Other cla.s.ses have a less obvious influence on s.e.xual life. On the whole, however, all s.e.xual isolation of castes has an unfavorable influence. Wherever the prejudices of a caste compel its members to intermarry, certain special degenerations are produced. Good quality in man is not derived from cla.s.s or position, but from true innate or hereditary n.o.bility of character, and this alone should be the object of positive selection, without any distinction of cla.s.ses.

=Individual Life.=--There is no doubt that the mode of life of the individual exerts an influence on his s.e.xual life. High living combined with little bodily exercise generally increases the s.e.xual appet.i.te, while insufficient food combined with severe muscular work diminishes it.

Intellectual work acts in a variable manner. A distinguished psychologist a.s.sured me that intense intellectual work excited his s.e.xual appet.i.te; others have said the opposite. As a rule, a sedentary life increases the s.e.xual appet.i.te; a life full of occupation and muscular activity diminishes it. But the question is complicated by other influences.

Alcohol diminishes s.e.xual power, while exalting desire or even perverting it. The artificial excitants of the s.e.xual appet.i.te, cultivated by modern civilization by interested speculation, act in rather a different way. Erotic pictures, obscene novels and dramas, etc., const.i.tute an unhealthy medium in our centers of civilization, which overexcites and corrupts the s.e.xual appet.i.te. The more delicate and poisonous the perfume of this atmosphere and the more aesthetic the refinement by which it t.i.tillates the senses, the greater is its destructive action.

The question of the reunion or separation of the s.e.xes plays an important part. Life in common among girls and boys from infancy usually diminishes s.e.xual excitation, in the same way as among brothers and sisters. We find something a.n.a.logous in different branches of human activity where the two s.e.xes live together; for instance, at college, in the fields, and in general where work and play is common to both s.e.xes.

There are, however, certain exceptions to this rule, which must not be taken too generally. Under certain circ.u.mstances, life in common of the two s.e.xes leads to unfavorable and even perverted s.e.xual excitation. This is especially the case when alcohol adds its influence; also among nervous or ill-balanced individuals. In my opinion it is absolutely unreasonable for the superintendent of a lunatic asylum to organize b.a.l.l.s at which the insane of both s.e.xes are provided with beer or wine. I have only seen bad results from this, while I have obtained excellent effects from a temporary reunion of the insane of both s.e.xes, by avoiding all alcoholic drinks as well as everything which could excite the s.e.xual appet.i.te, such as dancing, or the bringing together of erotic or perverted individuals. A young female onanist who suffered from s.e.xual excitement complicated with a nervous condition, complained to me of being obliged to work as a telegraphist among young men, as this continually excited her eroticism without the possibility of satisfying it.

This situation, which is a common one in both s.e.xes, gives us a valuable indication. No doubt life in common for the two s.e.xes is normal and natural, but only on the condition that it leads eventually to normal s.e.xual intercourse as the result of love. It is neither healthy nor normal to excite an appet.i.te continually without satisfying it. Any one who wishes to live a continent life, for religious or other reasons, ought not to expose himself to continual excitement by too great intimacy with the opposite s.e.x; he should, on the contrary, avoid everything which tends to excite his s.e.xual appet.i.te and seek everything which tends to pacify it. I am not referring here to individuals of a naturally cold and indifferent nature, who run little or no risk under such circ.u.mstances.

Certain occupations, such as those of employees in stores, telegraph offices, etc., in which the two s.e.xes are closely a.s.sociated in their work, const.i.tute from this point of view a double-edged sword. Other unhealthy and monotonous occupations, combined with bad conditions of food and lodging, and with all kinds of seduction--factory hands for example--have a positively deleterious effect on s.e.xual life, which becomes absolutely depraved when the two s.e.xes work together. The situation is hardly any better when they are only separated during working hours.

=Internats.=--All internats, _i.e._, all establishments where individuals of the same s.e.x live in the same dwelling for a long time, exert a peculiar influence on s.e.xual life--schools and convents, for example.

The great inconvenience of all these establishments lies in the danger of contamination from habits of onanism or pederasty. Inverts are strongly attracted towards internats, where they find their heart's desire where they can easily indulge their perverted pa.s.sions; the dormitory of such an inst.i.tution having the same effect on them as that of a girl's school would have on a young man. (Vide Chapter VIII.)

This is a matter which has not received sufficient attention in organizing boarding-schools for boys and girls, because it was not known that h.o.m.os.e.xual instincts are hereditary and innate. Such cases were regarded only as acquired bad habits.

Lunatic asylums are especially attractive to s.e.xual inverts, who apply for the positions of attendants or nurse so as to be able to indulge their pa.s.sions on the insane patients, who are incapable of betraying them.

Without being h.o.m.os.e.xual, nor even seduced by inverts, many normal but erotic individuals try to satisfy their s.e.xual appet.i.te on their companions--boys by pederasty, girls by lesbian love, and both s.e.xes by mutual onanism.

The chief danger is that of some s.e.xually perverted individual gaining entry to a boarding-school and contaminating numbers of normal individuals, without anything being discovered; because it is much more difficult to supervise a school than a family. This could be remedied better by confidence between masters and pupils than by supervision.

=Varia.=--I should never finish if I attempted to describe all the influences of environment. The examples mentioned will suffice to show that, in a natural appet.i.te such as the s.e.xual, the two extremes of asceticism and excess lead to evil and unnatural aberrations, and that the important point is to find or create a healthy environment for a healthy s.e.xual life.

We hear a good deal about good or bad luck or chance in the matter of love. I do not deny that fortuitous circ.u.mstances often determine the happiness of an individual in his love affairs. But it is all the more deplorable that what is called the good manners of society make it so difficult to correct Cupid's blunders. There is room for improvement in this direction, and many spoilt lives and much unhappiness might be avoided. The unfavorable influence of environment might often be corrected by separation or change, if this could be done in time.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Vide "Alkoholvergiftung und Degeneration" by Bunge: Leipzig 1904; and "Hygiene of the Nerves and Mind" by Forel: Stuttgart 1905.

CHAPTER XII

RELIGION AND s.e.xUAL LIFE

=Transformation of Profane Customs into Religious Dogmas.=--Ethnography has taught us that in the course of time human tribes often unconsciously transform profane customs into integral parts of their religion, either by attributing them to a divine origin, or by elevating them to the rank of commandments of the G.o.ds, or by connecting them with other dogmas, combining them with wors.h.i.+p, etc.

s.e.xual connection plays an important part in this matter. A great number of religious rites and customs are nothing else than the customs of s.e.xual life (taken in its widest sense) which have been symbolized; inversely, a number of dogmas have for their only motive the application of a religious basis to s.e.xual customs, which gives them more authority.

The religious rites react powerfully on the s.e.xual life and on the way in which the members of the tribe or people understand it. We will give a few striking examples.

We have seen in Chapter VI that polygamy depends first on the idea of owners.h.i.+p, and secondly on marriage by purchase, to which it owes its historic origin. But the fact that Islamism and Mormonism, for example, have made polygamy an integral part of their religious dogmas, has given to the whole organization of the Mahometans and Mormons, as well as to their point of view of existence, a particular direction which cannot be ignored. In reality, we are just as polygamous as they are, but our theoretical and religious s.e.xual morality is monogamous while theirs is polygamous, each based on contradictory "divine commandments."

Among certain Buddhists, the wife is compelled to follow her husband to the grave, which naturally influences s.e.xual life profoundly.

Among many savage races there exists matriarchism, which gives the woman a high social position. This has even been made a religious dogma, while it simply originates from the natural and just idea that the mother is much more intimately connected with the children than the father.

The duty imposed on men to marry the widow of their brother originated from a profane command intended to regulate unions; eventually this was made a religious dogma. In the same way circ.u.mcision among the Jews had its origin in a hygienic custom having no relation to religious faith. This did not prevent it becoming later on as important a custom as baptism in Christianity. For the Jewish people it has the advantage of protecting them to a great extent from venereal infection, and against one of the chief causes of masturbation.

=Catholicism.=--We have already spoken of the celibacy of the Catholic priests and of its lay origin. The Catholic religion also contains a series of detailed precepts concerning s.e.xual connection in general and marriage in particular; precepts which were only gradually transformed into religious dogmas. As they determine to a great extent opinions and manners in the s.e.xual domain, they exert a considerable social influence.

The absolute interdiction of divorce among the Catholics (man has not the right to separate those whom G.o.d has joined together) seals forever the most unfortunate unions and leads to misfortunes of all kinds, separation of the married couple, _liaisons_ apart from marriage, etc. According to Liguori, the Catholic Church prescribes a number of details concerning s.e.xual relations in marriage. The woman who, during coitus places herself upon the man instead of under him, commits a sin. The position and manner of performing coitus are prescribed in the most minute details, and the holy fathers make the woman play a part unworthy of her position as wife, while according the man the widest liberty.

In truly Catholic marriage it is prescribed to procreate as many children as possible, and all preventive measures in coitus are severely condemned. Hence, if the woman is very fruitful, the husband has only the choice between complete abstention from coitus (when both conjoints are in agreement) and pregnancies following without interruption. The woman never has the right to refuse coitus to her husband, nor the latter to refuse it to his wife, so long as he is capable of accomplis.h.i.+ng it.

It is easy to understand what powerful effects such precepts have had and still have on the conjugal life of the Catholics, particularly on the quant.i.ty and quality of their descendants.

=Aural Confession.=--Confession requires special mention. In his book, "Fifty Years in the Roman Church" (Jeheber, Geneva), on page 151, Father Chiniqui, the celebrated Canadian reformer, who later on became a Protestant, and for many years played an important part in the Canadian Catholic clergy, mentions the points on which the confessor interrogates the penitents of both s.e.xes. One cannot reproach him with being incompetent.

No doubt the Church of to-day would reply that the confessor is not obliged to put all these questions and that the details are left to his tact. We will agree that there is a difference between the Canada of the last century, a new and primitive country, and the Europe of the present day. But I maintain: First, that the confessor does not content himself with listening to what the penitents of both s.e.xes tell him, but that it is his duty to interrogate them; secondly, that a celibate Catholic person, extremely serious and virtuous, to whom I put the question unawares, informed me that not only are s.e.xual matters dealt with at the confessional, but that they play the princ.i.p.al role. And, as it is a question of warning the penitents against so-called sins, mortal or not, or of absolving them, I fail to see how the priest can avoid speaking of them, when the detailed precepts of which we have spoken exist.

I reproduce here the original Latin text. It deals with questions which have been treated in Chapter VIII, so that I shall dispense with giving a translation.

The confessor puts the following questions to his penitents:

1. _Peccant uxores, quae susceptum viri s.e.m.e.n ejiciunt, vel ejicere conantur_ (Dens, vol. VII, p. 147).

2. _Peccant conjuges mortaliter, si, copula incepta, prohibeant seminationem._

3. _Si vir jam seminaverit, dubium fit an femina lethaliter peccat, si se retrahat a seminando; aut peccat lethaliter vir non expectando seminationem uxoris_ (p. 153).

4. _Peccant conjuges inter se circa actum conjugalem. Debet servari modus, sive situs; uno ut non servetur debitum vas, sed copula habeatur in vase praepostero, aliquoque non naturali. Si fiat accedendo a postero, a latere, stando, sedendo, vel si vir sit succ.u.mbus_ (p. 166).

5. _Impotentia. Est incapacitas perficiendi copulam carnalem perfectam c.u.m seminatione viri in vase se debito, seu, de se, aptam generationi.

Vel, ut si mulier sit nimis arcta respectu unius non respectu alterius_ (p. 273).

6. _Notatur quod pollutio, in mulieribus possit perfici, ita ut s.e.m.e.n earum non effluat extra membrum genitale. Indicium istius allegat Billuart, si scilicet mulier sensiat seminis resolutionem c.u.m magno voluptatis sensu, qua completa, pa.s.sio satiatur_ (vol. IV, p. 168).

7. _Uxor se accusans, in confessione, quod negaverit debitum, interrogatur an ex pleno rigore juris sui id petiverit_ (vol. VII, p.

168).

8. _Confessarius poenitentem, qui confitetur se pecca.s.se c.u.m sacerdote, vel solicitatem ab eo ad turpia, potest interrogare utrum ille sacerdos sit ejus confessarius, an in confessione sollicitaverit_ (vol. VI, p. 297).

In volumes V and VII of Dens may be found many such precepts, impossible to reproduce, on which the pious casuist desires his penitents to be examined.

Let us now pa.s.s on to the celebrated Liguori. Among numerous other obscene questions of a refined erotic nature, every confessor is bound to put the two following to his penitents: