The Sexual Question Part 40

Faith in the dogmas and authority of an existing inst.i.tution has led medical men to take a false view of the question. They demand from the adversaries of regulation proof of a diminution in venereal disease when regulation was not in force. This is both unjust and absurd. It is for the supporters of regulation to prove that State regulation of prost.i.tution has led to any appreciable improvement of the social evil. Then only can it be asked if the maintenance of such vexatious measures is still justifiable. But medicine has not furnished the proof demanded from it; on the contrary, its attempts in this direction have entirely failed. After all, the system is kept up, not because it diminishes venereal infection, but because it gives satisfaction to the s.e.xual appet.i.te of men and their desire for change. Society, however, has no right to organize such a monstrosity as regulated prost.i.tution and licensed proxenetism, for the special pleasure of debauchees.

In virtue of the false dogma of regulation, many doctors, even at the present day, recommend young men to visit brothels, for alleged hygienic reasons. This deplorable custom perverts youth and gives it false ideas. It is a remedy much worse and much more dangerous than the evil it is supposed to cure, worse than masturbation, much worse than nocturnal emissions. s.e.xual anomalies and perversions are not cured in brothels; on the contrary they develop there.

Moreover, it is absurd to exaggerate the effects of onanism and s.e.xual excesses in themselves, and thus increase the anxiety of a number of unfortunates. In Chapter IV, we have already spoken of great variations which the s.e.xual appet.i.te presents without ceasing to be normal, and we have mentioned the rule given by Luther. In my opinion the advice given by the doctor should be as follows:

As long as he does not wish to marry, a young man should remove as far as possible all s.e.xual ideas from his thoughts. He should be contented with nocturnal emissions, which are produced spontaneously, and should avoid all the manipulations of onanism. A young girl should do the same all the more easily, because her s.e.xual appet.i.te is normally weaker, and is not accompanied by glandular secretions which more or less demand e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

Persons unable to resist their s.e.xual appet.i.te should be extremely prudent in their extra-nuptial intercourse. Moreover, there is no need for this to a.s.sume the character of prost.i.tution.

=Medical Advice.=--It is the doctor's duty to give friendly advice to every one who consults him on s.e.xual questions, without posing as a judge or a moralist. He should never frighten or reprimand the poor hypochondriac who blames himself for masturbation, nor s.e.xual perverts of any kind, unless, of course, they are absolutely dangerous, such as s.a.d.i.s.ts. He should, on the contrary, calm their fears and give them encouragement; and in this way he may do much good.

Hypnotic suggestion gives him a means of directly combating many cases of s.e.xual excitation, or at least of attenuating them, by directing the cerebral activity of the patient to other subjects. Each case should be judged by itself and attention should be paid to the different points we have studied in this book. Even between husband and wife, and especially as a consequence of monogamy, certain unfortunate or delicate circ.u.mstances may raise difficulties; for example, the periods during which conception should be avoided, a certain time after accouchement and during certain morbid conditions.

In this case unskillful medical advice may have unfortunate results.

When a doctor forbids a husband to have s.e.xual intercourse with his wife he exposes him to two dangers. If the husband remains continent and sleeps in a separate room for too long a time, conjugal love may become so cooled that a permanent barrier is established between man and wife; if, on the other hand, he abandons himself to prost.i.tution, he may contract venereal disease and infect his wife. Again, the husband may become enamored of another woman and wreck the happiness of his family. The doctor who prohibits conjugal coitus thus takes a great responsibility. For this and other reasons we have now an important question to consider.

Opinions differ considerably as to the effects of s.e.xual continence.

All extreme a.s.sertions are erroneous. It is quite certain that the harmful effects of continence have been greatly exaggerated. Normal persons of both s.e.xes may remain continent, although not without some trouble and discomfort. In a general way, we may accept the statement that many morbid conditions are known to result from s.e.xual excess, but few from continence. This, however, goes a little too far, for certain psychopaths and s.e.xual hyperaesthetics often lapse into a state of mental and nervous excitement from forced continence, so that their neurosis becomes accentuated and may even end in insanity. I have seen this occur both in men and women, but such cases are very rare.

Continence is not an easy matter for erotic individuals, and requires a heroic internal struggle, especially in men. The Canadian reformer, Chiniqui, whom we have previously quoted, relates the history of a monk who tore off his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es in despair at being unable to conquer his violent s.e.xual appet.i.te.

The fine preachers of morality, endowed with a cold temperament, or simply senile, who hold forth on the "immorality" of the consequences of the s.e.xual appet.i.te, would do well to take such facts to heart.

We must not forget that among our brutal, yet human ancestors the struggle for life demanded the cruel and wanton exposure or slaughter of all weak and decrepit individuals, and that epidemic diseases, plagues, and pests ravaged the peoples without mercy. Of course our present civilization has put up a barrier against all this. Yet, for that very reason the blind and thoughtless propagation of degenerate, tainted, and enfeebled individuals is another atrocious danger to society. But then the s.e.xual appet.i.te cannot be legislated out of existence or killed by repressive measures.

Quite recently it has been scientifically demonstrated that absolute sterilization can be produced by the application of the Roentgen Ray, but at what period of treatment this result may be obtained still remains an unsettled question, thus leaving the possibility of incurring the risk of effecting only a doubtful degeneration of the germs.

We can but consider all legislation and all police measures which are intended to regulate the s.e.xual intercourse in the human family, as absolute failures, as inhuman, in fact as down-right detrimental to the race. Exacting laws have never improved the morals of any race or nation; hypocrisy and secret evasion are the only results obtained. It would be better by far if steps were taken to enlighten the ma.s.ses on the questions of s.e.xual heredity and degeneration. Wisdom of this kind does not corrupt. It is rather the unrestricted power of capital and wealth that brings the rot into the community. Healthy people should be made to know that a large number of sound, industrious children is a blessing, in fact, riches to the family, but on the one condition only, viz.: that they are not relegated to detestable slavery through the overbearing suppression of capital.

When the dignity of labor shall once have been raised on the pedestal of wors.h.i.+p now occupied by Mammon, there will no longer be need for complaint about small families and decreasing birth-rates, such as we hear so much at the present day in France and in the United States.

A few examples might throw some light on this subject.

(1) Dr. Pelman of Bonn, a.s.sisted by the local authorities, made an inquiry into the progeny of a certain Ada Jurke (born in 1740, died in the beginning of the nineteenth century), who was hereditarily tainted, a drunkard and a degenerate. Her descendants down to the present time number 834 persons. The lives of 709 of these individuals have been officially recorded as follows: 106 were illegitimate children; 142 were mendicants and tramps; 64 were unable to perform any kind of work towards their own support and became a charge to the community; 181 of the women were prost.i.tutes; 7 persons were convicted of murder and 69 of other crimes. All this within a period of 75 years at a cost to the state, according to the public records, of five millions of marks (about $1,250,000) in the shape of monetary support, jail and law expenses, claims for damages, etc., etc.

(2) Dr. Jorger, Director of the Insane Asylum at Waldhaus, by Chur, in Switzerland, followed up in a similar fas.h.i.+on the history of a family of vagrants. The full report may be found under the t.i.tle of "The Zero Family," in the _Archiv fur Gesellschaft's-u. Ra.s.senbiologie_, 1905, Heft 4, page 494 et seq. It is sad to read of the untold misery, profligacy, and distress spread broadcast by this family, not to speak of the many crimes committed by its members.

It is depressing to witness how sheer ignorance and callousness to the interests of the human race at large allow such people to multiply without let or hindrance. The unfortunate part about it all is that this species of humanity is on the steady increase. They really form the princ.i.p.al hearths whence emanate our criminal cla.s.ses, that fill our jails, our Charity Homes, our Hospitals, our Sanatoria, our Insane Asylums. They breed and multiply not because it affords them a special pleasure to procreate crime, insanity, and degeneracy, but because no one takes the trouble to instruct them in the perniciousness of bringing into this world offspring that can only find and themselves again disseminate misery, want, and wretchedness; or to teach them how to prevent this calamity.

(3) Still another category of dangerous elements is becoming more numerous every day. I refer to the _neurasthenics_. Heredity is an important factor here, too, as every neurologist is able to attest from his own daily observations. The worst feature about this peril is the fact that neurotics as a rule suffer from excess of s.e.xual appet.i.te, whilst they are sorely lacking the power of self-control, circ.u.mstances which often enough lead to crime, insanity, and suicide.

Untold thousands of them, unaware of the fearful consequences of hereditary impairment, go on bringing into this world children destined to unhappiness and suffering. It is noteworthy too that these nervous wrecks generally intermarry. Does not this account to a large extent for the great number of unhappy marriages recorded nowadays?

Of course, it is quite evident that under such pitiable conditions, the hereditary taints become increasingly aggravated. If the patients have money, which is very often the case, they prove profitable customers of the "nerve-specialist," and likewise of the endless chain of private sanatoria for nervous diseases. It is a sad spectacle indeed. My own experience has taught me that nine out of ten of these unfortunate beings have families, because they are ignorant of the dangers of heredity, and unfamiliar with the safe and proper means for preventing conception. Why not teach them? A few cases may suffice.

(_a_) An hysterical woman, whose father was a lascivious, egotistical crank, married a man absolutely devoid of will power and energy. She was gifted; the marriage a failure. Of the two children, one was an indolent, thoroughly useless, good-for-nothing boy, whose only thought was of wasting money on pretty neckties and the like and of flirting with the girls, of which art he was a past-master. The other one, a girl, betrayed the same characteristics and disposition. The mother was in despair and inconsolable, cursing her offspring and the marriage alike. Too late, alas!

(_b_) The son of a neurasthenic father and an hysterical mother, although of a good-natured disposition, had the vilest, uncontrolable temper, which would suddenly carry him away to acts of violence only to be bitterly regretted immediately afterwards. Whilst drunk he became excited and drawing a revolver wounded several innocent bystanders. As an officer in the army he was insulted by a tipsy student, whom he shot down on the spot, although he was sober himself at the time. On another occasion he shot himself in the breast, but recovered. Presently he fell in love most desperately with an hysterical woman and married her. The mother-in-law, who was an eccentric, mischievous person, started a bitter feud between the two families. He became greatly wrought up over the affair and demanded of his wife to stop the quarrel at once. As she demurred, he ended her life with a bullet from a pistol. Of course, he was arrested and languished in jail in utter agony and despair. What a future for those two unfortunate children that sprang from this union! I may point out here that at the time when he killed his wife, whom he loved pa.s.sionately, he was not under the influence of strong drink, for he had given up the use of alcohol altogether for quite a number of years.

(_c_) A very religious lady had married a man who became insane. He, too, was a devout churchman. There were 8 children. Under treatment the father improved and was dismissed from the asylum. I urged them both to prevent further conception, having in view the dangers of hereditary taint in the possible offspring. The wife indignantly told me that her church demanded of her to bear as many children as she could. They had several more, all of them candidates for the insane asylum or the inst.i.tute for nervous patients. And that is called religion and morality!

(_d_) A heavily tainted couple, desperately enamored of each other, came to me in great distress to ask: "May we get married?" I answered: "It does not strike me as being the wisest thing for you to do. But if you cannot exist without each other, by all means get married; but think what a calamity it would be, if two beings tainted as you both are, were to beget offspring." "But we are so fond of children."

"Well, that is easily mended. There are plenty of healthy orphans whose parents were strong and sound both in body and in mind, but who are strangers to a father's and mother's love, and are craving for a good education. Make your own choice, but take only the very best.

Then you will have a family and enjoy all the pleasures of parenthood.

As for the rest, heed my advice. Avoid pregnancy."

The law of heredity winds like a red thread through the family history of every criminal, of every epileptic, eccentric and insane person.

And we should sit still and witness our civilization go into decay and fall to pieces without raising the cry of warning and applying the remedy?

However, this is by no means all. Tuberculosis is the white plague of to-day. It is considered an established fact that every living human being inhales and swallows tubercle bacilli by the millions every day, and it is even claimed that every one of us harbors somewhere in the economy this dreadful poison to a larger or smaller degree. Whilst the pure, immune blood in a sound, robust const.i.tution is able to resist the inroads of, and even to kill, sterilize, and eliminate these bacilli, the weaker and hereditarily tainted individual falls a prey to the attacks of this dire disease by the thousands. True, serum therapy and open-air treatment are accomplis.h.i.+ng many cures, but the hereditary disposition remains in the system all the same, and may be transmitted to the coming generation, or at any rate may impair the power of resistance in the offspring.

Moreover, the s.e.xual appet.i.te is very p.r.o.nounced in phthisical patients. They marry and beget children in the most wanton fas.h.i.+on.

The law cannot and does not prevent them, and the carnal instinct is not to be killed. What is to be done when law and religion forbid the application of preventive measures and even prosecute the person that recommends them?

Local disease and pathological conditions in the woman (at times in man also), within wedlock, may render parturition an immediate danger to the life of the mother or of the child or of both together, for instance, cancer of the womb or other affections of the uterus, kidney disease, a deformed pelvis. Surely in such cases it is the bounden duty of the physician to intervene and council against, nay, absolutely forbid impregnation. Well, how is it to be done? Must husband and wife, who love and esteem each other, be separated? It would be unnatural, in fact it is quite impossible. Or should they abandon s.e.xual intercourse all together and live like brother and sister? Well, a few exceptionally cold natures may have will power enough to carry into effect such a pact. But in 99 out of 100 cases the interdict of the s.e.xual act sends the husband to satisfy his cravings elsewhere and contract disease, or he falls in love with another woman and wrecks home and family.

Similar conditions may be brought about by other causes as well. Take, for instance, the poor workingman or mechanic who has already six or seven children and whose wife is unusually fertile, giving birth to children year after year. The wages of the father do not suffice to properly support them all. The food that can be purchased with the slender means is not at all adequate. Rent and other bills fall behind and the man gets in debt. They are both young yet. What is to be done?

If they follow the natural law there will be an increase in the family every year. Moreover, these ever-recurring labors weaken the const.i.tution of the woman and sap away her strength. Starvation?

s.e.xual continence in wedlock? It is strange, indeed, to hear rich men, well-fed clergymen, pious zealots and reformers, leaning back in their comfortable chairs after a sumptuous meal and smoking an expensive Havana cigar, discuss this burning question and bewail the immorality of the common people.

Statistics prove that these very people, who extol to the poor all the blessing of a big family, never live up to their teachings either in theory or in practice. The majority of these apostles of morality have no children at all, or at the utmost two or three. Why should that be so? What interesting reading it would make if the s.e.xual history of these persons were followed up and printed.

Money, hygiene, reason, and the most elementary laws of humanity demand that the wife, who is fertile above the average, should have a rest of at least 18 months between each succeeding pregnancy. But this cannot be achieved in the natural course of events, except in very rare cases, without wrecking the marriage.

If we crystallize this s.e.xual, social question, we arrive at the following conclusions:

There are a great many cases, especially of a pathological character, but none the less also in normal and sound individuals, in which procreation, within wedlock or without, is dangerous either definitely or temporarily, either for the mother or the child, or for both, and for that reason should be interdicted. Very few men and a very small proportion of women--no matter how firmly they may be resolved--are capable of effectually suppressing their s.e.xual needs. And even if they succeed, the consequences are generally of a disastrous nature, loss of marital love, secret illicit relations with others and subsequent infidelity, nervous disorders, impotence, etc.

In all these cases we are confronted with the following dilemma:

(1) In the unmarried person: onanism or prost.i.tution, or both. Is that morality? Such people must either forever forego love, marriage, and normal, lawful s.e.xual intercourse, or face sterility in wedded life.

(I do not recognize prost.i.tution--see chapter X--as normal intercourse.)

(2) Within marriage: onanism, prost.i.tution, and infidelity, or the adoption of rational preventive measures.

I leave it to the reader and to the lawmakers to pick out the correct alternative and to arrive at the one possible, decent, and ethical solution of these conflicting questions.

I do not admit that const.i.tutionally frigid natures or those who find it easy to control their s.e.xual appet.i.te, have any right whatsoever to pose as normal samples of the human race and to simply ignore the existence of temperaments, characters, and const.i.tutions so widely differing from their own. This world's history teaches us that nothing good has ever come from such vain a.s.sumptions, unless it be empty phrases and dead letters. These righteous, frigid, and strong natures ought, indeed, to be grateful to their ancestors for having handed down to them that happy disposition, and to prove their grat.i.tude by making particular efforts to help those that are yet to come, in obtaining and sharing the same benign blessing.

It seems almost incredible that in some countries medical men who are not ashamed to throw young men into the arms of prost.i.tution, blush when mention is made of anticonceptional methods. This false modesty, created by custom and prejudice, waxes indignant at innocent things, whilst it encourages the greatest infamies.

=Hygiene of Marriage.=--When marriage is consummated on the basis of free reciprocal consent, when both parties know exactly to what they have pledged themselves, when the corrupting influence of money is eliminated, when all unnatural regulation is suppressed, when the superfluous blending of religion and legislation have been abolished from the bonds of matrimony, when woman has finally obtained equal rights with man--then love and mutual respect, combined with the s.e.xual appet.i.te, will const.i.tute the intimate and personal ties of marriage. At the same time, instinctive sentiments and legal duties toward the offspring will furnish it with a complementary and lasting cement. Among men whose nature is true, the instructive sentiment of altruism or conscience urges them to the performance of social duties without the necessity of any legal obligation.

A few medical points now require our attention. The husband should be older than the wife, on the average from six to twelve years. This point is very important if a monogamous union is to be lasting. Woman matures earlier than man, both mentally and s.e.xually; her personality becomes more rapidly adult than his; she ages more quickly and loses her faculty of procreation sooner than man. Certain savage races solve the problem by marrying as boys and girls, casting off their wives when they grow old, to marry younger ones. Among civilized races, man manages his affairs by making use of prost.i.tution. From his youth he succ.u.mbs to physical and moral corruption, often complicated with venereal infection, and then often regards marriage as a kind of hospital for incurables, where the wife plays the parts of housekeeper and nurse combined!

It is not easy to steer clear of these rocks, nor to formulate a rule for lasting monogamy. The old style of polygamy is brutal, and prost.i.tution is still more disgusting. The sentiments of the egoist are summed up in the maxim, "After me the deluge!" To this the preacher of morals replies that "man should curb his pa.s.sions." But this eternal dialogue does not help us in the least.

I propose a middle course, as follows: The young man who possesses sufficient strength to overcome his s.e.xual appet.i.te, or whose s.e.xual appet.i.te is so moderate that he can remain continent till the age of about twenty-five years, so as to enable him to avoid prost.i.tution, promiscuous s.e.xual intercourse or masturbation--this young man, I maintain, has the best chance of gaining the first prize in life. If he is free from prejudice and is not afraid of using anticonceptional measures for a certain time, he may then marry a young girl, to whom he may become permanently attached, if their two characters suit each other.