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Title: Sexual ethics
Author: Auguste Forel
Contributor: Caleb W. Saleeby
Translator: Ashley Dukes
Release date: October 18, 2023 [eBook #71898]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: The New Age Press, 1908
Credits: Produced by Tim Lindell, Donald Cummings, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEXUAL ETHICS ***
SEXUAL ETHICS
SEXUAL ETHICS
BY
AUGUST FOREL, M.D., PH.D., LL.D.
FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY AT
AND DIRECTOR OF
THE INSANE ASYLUM IN ZURICH (SWITZERLAND)
WITH INTRODUCTION
BY
Dr. C. W. SALEEBY, F.R.S. Edin.
[Illustration]
LONDON
THE NEW AGE PRESS
140 FLEET STREET
1908
_Translated from the German by Ashley Dukes_
INTRODUCTION
By Dr. C. W. SALEEBY, F.R.S. Edin.
There is something absurd, as such, in a request for an introduction
by any one to the work of one of the greatest of living thinkers, and
something still more absurd in the fact that Professor Forel should,
at this date, need an introduction to any intelligent audience in any
civilised country, as it seems he does to English readers; but if
compliance with that request is at all likely to increase, even by one,
the number of his readers, it is a duty to comply with it.
Not to consider his treatises on philosophy and psychology, nor his
long series of original and important researches on the senses and
lives of the social insects, Professor Forel has already given to
the world a volume entitled _Die Sexuelle Frage_――this has now been
published in English[A]――which is by far the best work on the sex
question in any language, and has actually received on the Continent
something like the recognition which is its due. The gist of its
teaching is to be found in this little treatise on Sexual Ethics,
and the reader who may find himself or herself unconvinced, or even
repelled, by the brief and dogmatic theses of the following pages, may
be earnestly counselled to read the larger work. Here, and in that,
Professor Forel deals――always from the loftiest moral standpoint, the
interests of human life at its highest――with the question which must
remain fundamental for man so long as he is mortal, and with which the
statesmen of the future will primarily concern themselves, realising as
they will, and as the “blind mouths” called statesmen to-day cannot,
that there is no wealth but life, that the culture of the racial life
is the vital industry of any people, and must so remain so long as
three times in every century the only wealth of nations is reduced
to dust and raised again from helpless infancy. Professor Forel sees
this question from the only standpoint that is worthy of it. The sexual
question is concerned with nothing less than the life of this world to
come. It is for this reason that every productive sexual union should
be a sacrament; it involves nothing less than the creation of a human
life――the most tremendous act of which man or woman can be capable.
It is the no less than sacred cause of Eugenics or Race-Culture that
gives the sexual life its meaning and the dignity which it may rightly
claim, and it is just because the Swiss thinker sees this and never
loses sight of it that his work is so immeasurably raised above the
ordinary discussions of marriage, prostitution, venereal disease, and
the like. His claim for posterity on the ground of our debt to the past
may be amplified by the reflection that, in serving the racial life,
and in making its welfare the criterion of our sexual ethics, we are
serving human beings as real as we are ourselves, and tens or hundreds
for units whom we can serve to-day. There is always an interval――nine
months at least――and no one expects babies or politicians to associate
cause and effect over such abysses of time; but there are others who
are learning to think in generations, and Professor Forel will yet add
to their number.
[A] _The Sexual Question._ Rebman, Ltd.
In his criticisms of alcohol and the abuse of capital, Professor Forel
opposes himself to the most powerful of vested interests. Well, if
you invest your interests in any other bank than that of the laws of
life, you or your heirs will find that theirs is but a rotten concern.
The history of organic evolution is proof enough that the higher life
and the things which buttress it, “sagging but pertinacious,” will
always win through in the long run. As a direct enemy of human life,
and notably through its influence upon the sexual instinct, alcohol
is certainly doomed. If life is the only wealth, the manufacture of
_illth_ is a process too cannibal to be permitted for ever.
Professor Forel speaks of subduing the sexual instinct. I would
rather speak of transmuting it. The direct method of attack is often
futile, always necessitous of effort, but it is possible for us to
transmute our sex-energy into higher forms in our individual lives,
thus justifying the evolutionary and psychological contention that it
is the source of the higher activities of man, of moral indignation and
of the “restless energy” which has changed the surface of the earth.
As directly interfering with this transmutation, the extent of which
probably constitutes the essential difference between civilised and
savage man, alcohol is the more to be condemned.
In what Professor Forel has to say regarding prostitution and the
ideal of marriage, he will win assent from all except the profligate
and those medical men who, in hideous alliance with the _protozoon_
of syphilis and the _coccus_ of gonorrhœa, defend prostitution and
even acclaim it as the necessary complement to marriage. If there is a
stronger phrase than most damnable of lies to apply to such teaching,
here is certainly the time for its employment. On this subject of
prostitution, Professor Forel has said the last word in a masterly
chapter of _Die Sexuelle Frage_. In his praise of monogamy, he is only
echoing the stern verdict of the ages――delivered a thousand æons before
any existing religion was born or thought of, and likely to outlast
a whole wilderness of their dogmas. The essence of marriage I would
define as _common parental care of offspring_, and its survival-value
as consisting in the addition of the father’s to the mother’s care.
In the absence of parenthood, a sexual association between man and
woman is on the same plane as any other human association; it means
neither more nor less, and must be judged as they are judged. It is
when the life of the world to come is involved that new questions
arise――questions as momentous as is the difference between the
production of human life at its best and of a child rotten with
syphilis, or permanently blinded to the light as it opens its eyes for
the first time, or doomed to intelligence less than a dog’s.
I, for one, have no shadow of doubt that the ideal of sexual ethics
will some day be realised, that pre-eminently preventable――because
contagious――diseases like syphilis and gonorrhœa will be made an end
of, that prostitution will disappear with its economic cause, that
we shall make parenthood the privilege of the worthy alone, and thus
create on earth a better heaven than ever theologians dreamed of in
the sky. “There are many events in the womb of Time which will be
delivered.” Individuals are mortal, and churches, and creeds, but Life
is not. Already the gap between moss or microbe and man is no small
one, and the time to come is very nearly “unending long.” Uranium and
radium will see to that.
C. W. SALEEBY.
SEXUAL ETHICS
The two conceptions of morality and sexual life are frequently
confounded and expressed by the same term in the popular usages of
speech. The word “moral” is commonly used to mean sexually pure, that
is to say, continent; while the word “immoral” suggests the idea of
sexual incontinence and debauch. This is a misuse of words, and rests
upon a confusion of ideas, for sexuality has in itself nothing to do
with morality. It points, however, to the undoubted fact that the
sexual impulse, since it has other human beings as its object, easily
leads to moral conflicts within the breast of the individual.
It will be convenient to discuss our subject under the two heads: I. Of
ethics in general; and II. Of sexual ethics in particular.
I. ETHICS
Ethics is the science of morals. Morals may be said to consist of two
very distinct factors, which we will attempt to analyse:――
1. An instinctive sense, the conscience, sense of duty, or ethical
impulse, which says to us: “This shalt thou do, and that shalt thou
leave undone.” A person in whom it is highly developed experiences
satisfaction if he obeys the “voice of conscience,” and remorse if he
fails to do so.
2. The second factor of morals includes the objects of conscience, that
is, the things which conscience commands or forbids.
The great philosopher Kant founded upon the instinct of conscience
his Categorical Imperative, and held the further investigation of its
causes to be unnecessary. If the conscience says “Thou shalt,” one
must simply act accordingly. This is, in Kant’s opinion, the absolute
moral law, which bids or forbids an action independently of any other
consideration.
The further they progress, however, the more do reason and science
rebel against the conception of the Categorical Imperative. Kant,
great as he was, was not infallible. The imperative of the conscience
is in itself no more categorical and absolute than that of the sexual
impulse, of fear, of maternal love, or of other emotions and instincts.
In the first place daily observation shows us the existence of people
born conscienceless, in whom the sense of duty is lacking, who are
aware of no “Thou shalt,” and in whose eyes other individuals are
merely welcome objects for plunder or inconvenient hindrances. For
these “ethically defective” persons there can be no categorical
imperative, because they have no conception of duty.
The ethical sense may exist in varying degrees of intensity. In some
persons the conscience is weak, in others strong; and there are cases
in which it is developed to an exaggerated and morbid extent. People of
this type suffer pangs of conscience over the merest trifle, reproach
themselves for “sins” which they have never committed, or which are no
sins at all, and make themselves and others miserable. How can all this
be reconciled with the absolute moral law as stated by Kant?
The theory of the Categorical Imperative becomes even more absurd when
we consider the actions to which men are guided by their consciences.
The same habit――the drinking of wine, for instance――may be for one
man a matter of duty (for a Christian at the Eucharist or for an
officer at the toast of the King); for another (the Mohammedan) it
may be forbidden as a deadly sin. Murder, which is certainly almost
universally prohibited by conscience, is a “duty” in time of war,
and even for certain persons in the duel. Such instances could be
multiplied indefinitely.
We will presently state the profounder reasons which prove Kant’s
error; but we must first mention another source of pretended ethical
commandments. The _religions_ exhibit a remarkable medley of various
products of human mystical phantasy and human emotions which have
crystallised and formed themselves into legends and dogmas, and these
latter have become interwoven with human morals in such a fashion that
they seem at first inextricable.
The instinct of fear and the lust for power, the hypertrophy of the
Ego and the ethical sentiments have here intermingled in a thousand
different ways. More especially we may mention the fear of the unknown,
of darker powers, and of death; the expansion of the beloved Ego, which
becomes idealised in the conception of godhead, and then immortalised;
the feelings of sympathy, antipathy and duty towards other individuals,
and so forth. The mysterious powers which move the universe are then
conceived as anthropomorphic (personal) gods, or as one such God.
The next stage is the attribution of godlike qualities to man,
which flatters his vanity considerably, and gives him a sense of
satisfaction.
As a result of this habit of thought, and assisted by the hallucinations
of highly imaginative, hysterical, or insane individuals, there have
developed the various conceptions of a direct intercourse between the
Godhead and man. Hypnotism and psychiatry, in the respective cases of
the sane and the insane, teach us how extraordinarily sensitive the
human brain is to such impressions.
In this way the legendary revelations, according to which God has
manifested himself directly and personally to certain individuals,
and dictated to them commandments for the guidance of Humanity, have
resulted.
In this, and in no other way, has come into existence the social
tyranny of religious dogmas. Certain men have made God in their
own image, and have, in the course of centuries, imposed their own
handiwork upon whole nations, mainly by means of the organising
ability of their more ambitious successors. Even to-day such prophets
frequently arise, both within and without the walls of lunatic
asylums. Each one declares that he alone possesses the true revelation.
The divine injunctions vary considerably according to the different
religions, and are often mutually contradictory. Among them are
commandments relating to the Godhead which have nothing to do with
natural moral law, and yet are amalgamated with it. Some of these are
from the human point of view frankly immoral. Many, on the other hand,
represent the precepts of a more or less suitable moral code, which
varies according to the personal views of the founder of the religion.
The Koran ordains polygamy and forbids the use of wine, while modern
Christianity allows the latter and ordains monogamy. Both Moses and
Mohammed, however, regard woman as subordinate to man, and as his
private property; a view which contradicts a higher and at the same
time a more natural moral law.
Mental science has now the hardihood to maintain, Kant and the
religious dogmas notwithstanding, that the moral law is completely
accessible to its investigations; that true human ethics can be founded
upon human nature alone; that the dogmas and commandments of pretended
revelation serve only to check a progressively higher development
of morals; and that the dogma which holds out promises of heaven or
threats of hell in the hereafter is in its effect actually immoral,
inasmuch as it seeks to regulate the moral conduct of men by purely
selfish motives――by the aid of a bill of exchange upon the future life,
so to speak.
* * * * *
In order to understand natural human ethics we must consider its
natural source, that is to say, the origin of the sense of duty or
social conscience.
The sense of duty is, as an inclination, inborn, and therefore
hereditary. It can indeed be developed or dulled by education, but it
cannot be acquired; and only diseases of the brain can destroy it where
it once clearly exists. What is actually inculcated or acquired, as
the case may be, is not the conscience, but the object towards which
it is directed, as is the case with the feeling of shame or modesty.
Just as the European woman is ashamed to exhibit her bare legs, but not
her face, while with the Turkish woman the reverse holds true, so the
objects of the conscience, according to acquired local customs, can
be absolutely opposed to one another, or at least very different in
their nature. They have, however, for the most part certain features
in common, which are suited to the requirements of human nature. The
reason for this we shall see below.
* * * * *
From what does conscience, or the sense of duty, arise? First of all
from a conflict between two groups of instinctive emotions allied with
instinctive impulses: (1) the group of so-called egoistic feelings and
impulses, directed towards self-preservation and self-gratification;
and (2) the group of sympathetic or altruistic impulses directed
towards the preservation and well-being of others.
If I feel sympathy or love for a person, an animal, or an object, I
suffer personally and feel displeasure as soon as the object of my
sympathy suffers or is endangered. Hence the words compassion and
sympathy (suffering with). I therefore seek to help the object of my
sympathy, to save him even at the risk of personal injury; and thence
the conflict arises. If my egotism triumphs I do not come to his aid,
or at most only do so if I risk nothing thereby. If, on the other hand,
my sense of sympathy is victorious, I sacrifice myself.
In the former instance I experience a feeling of dissatisfaction, the
feeling of neglected duty and of remorse; in the latter I have the
pleasurable sensation of duty fulfilled. And yet the nature of the
object matters little. Only the intensity of the sympathy, together
with the individual development of the conscience, determine the
intensity of the sense of duty in any given case. An insane person
can feel the most vehement sense of duty or remorse without any real
object, or as the result of entirely perverted conceptions.
As every living creature, particularly if it possesses a separate
nervous system, has the instinct of self-preservation, the conscience
therefore results directly from the conflict between this instinct
and the secondary emotions of altruistic sympathy. These latter are
of later origin, and have for the most part been evolved from the
attraction between the sexes (sexual love), or from the relationship of
parents to the offspring dependent upon them (parental love).
The first feelings of duty and of sympathy in the animal kingdom are
therefore confined to the family, and adapted to the preservation
of the species. They are also exclusive, and may only persist for
a short time (as in the case of cats), but frequently they are of
lifelong duration. The conjugal fidelity of certain apes and parrots is
exemplary.
But the necessity of protection against common foes brought about
in the case of many animals a ripening of the sense of sympathy,
and it became extended to whole groups, so that here and there free
communities (swallows, buffaloes, monkeys) have resulted. Finally
certain species have developed the senses of sympathy and duty to such
an extent that they have led to a complete anarchistic Socialism, as
is the case among wasps, bees, and ants. Here the social sense has so
far overcome both egotism and altruism limited to a few individuals
that it wholly dominates them. The individual devotes his whole energy
and labour to the communal existence, and even sacrifices his life for
this object. He never, however, sacrifices his life for another single
member of the community, unless the latter is of primary importance for
the maintenance of the species. One worker-bee does not immolate itself
for another, but does so without hesitation for the queen and the hive.
It will even empty the whole contents of its stomach into the queen
bee’s mouth and starve in order to save her. The altruism of the ants
and the bees knows nothing of family affection or sexual love; it is
confined absolutely to the hive or nest. Different beehives or ants’
nests are either inimical or indifferent to one another.
Nearer to man stand the higher mammals. Every one is aware of the
sentiments of sympathy and duty in the dog, for instance. In man
himself these affections are pre-eminently domestic, as may be seen in
the love of mother and child, husband and wife, father and son, and in
all the obligations thus contracted. But they also have a considerable
tendency to extend to other intimate objects or persons with whom the
individual frequently comes into contact――to friends, animals, etc.
We can also observe this inclination among bees and ants, where
strangers are received into the hive or nest after a short period
of familiarisation. But among mankind the tendency always maintains
a strongly individual character. The result is on the one hand a
grouping into communities, such as castes, tribes, and nations; and on
the other a host of individual friendships and enmities.
This fundamentally individual character of the human sense of sympathy
rests primarily upon the fact that our nearest ancestors in the animal
world, the parents of the existing anthropoid apes, were domestic
and solitary, while our primeval ancestors lived in numberless tiny
communities, inimical to one another.
In this way there appeared among mankind instinctive and exclusive
impulses of sympathy and of duty, combined with intensely selfish
predatory desires. The extraordinary complexity of the human brain
is responsible for the strange many-sidedness of character which
resulted. For example, crime and heroism developed side by side; child
murder, parricide, rapine and robbery, slavery, war, and in particular
the vilest subjugation of woman as an article of commerce or a beast
of burden――these represent the fruits of egotism and its attendant
cunning and meanness. On the other hand we see self-sacrifice, valour,
heroic martyrdom, patriotism, sense of justice, asceticism, pity for
the weak, and persistent labour for the family and the State, resulting
as the fruits of the instinct of sympathy and the social sense.
The primitive sense of duty, which arose from direct assistance
rendered to the object of sympathy, is now being enlarged by a higher
racial and individual development, and is, indeed, resolving itself
into a universal inclination to subdue egoistic instincts and passions.
If from a sense of duty I do something which is wearisome or dangerous,
it is for the most part no longer out of direct sympathy with the
particular object. The primeval impulse (which led to conflict)
is becoming independent, and is taking the form of a higher and
secondary instinct, tending towards the suppression of baser desires
and weaknesses. And yet it is necessary, in order to prevent the
degeneration of this instinct, that the objects towards which it is
directed shall be ever more adequately and better suited to the social
welfare of the community.
* * * * *
From the above brief sketch, which is based upon the theory of
evolution and the researches of science, it is clear as the day that
moral laws can only be relative. They were always relative to the
family, to the tribe, to the fatherland; they must become relative
to mankind. The racial (that is, inherited and instinctive) social
sense in man is unfortunately very variable in individual cases. In
the average it is extremely weak and chiefly directed towards a few
individuals. Moreover, as the result of centuries of bad habits and
ancient prejudices, its objects are falsely or unsuitably taught in
process of educating children. Instead of the child’s sense of duty
being directed to the necessity of labour and social sacrifice for
mankind as a whole and posterity in particular, it is directed towards
false codes of honour, local patriotism, family exclusiveness, private
property, pretended divine commandments, and so forth.
The Earth is small, and human intercourse becomes more extensive every
year; the union of all civilised peoples into a single great civilised
community is _inevitable_. Ethics must, therefore, as far as reason
permits, be directed towards this object. We require animals and plants
in order to live, so that we can further extend our altruism at most
to a moderate protection of other animals, if we are to avoid injury
to our own race. We may remark in passing that the altruism of many
lovers of animals, who prefer their favourite pets to human beings and
to the social welfare, is typical of the exclusiveness and stupidity of
misdirected impulses of sympathy.
Morality must therefore in the future consist of a common social
impulse――it must itself become social. This impulse must overthrow not
only egotism, but also the exclusiveness of individual sympathies. We
are still, alas, far from this goal! The family is often a thieves’
kitchen; patriotism is a prolific parent of wars; while communities and
societies, however noble their objects may be, readily degenerate into
petty sects and cliques.
And now comes yet another difficulty, namely, the frequent lack of
harmony between the ethical motives which inspire an action and its
real moral value.
“Ich bin
Ein Theil von jener Kraft
Die stets das Böse will
Und stets das Gute schafft,”
says Mephistopheles in Goethe’s _Faust_.[B] Let us say often instead
of always, and mention also that other Power which often wills the
good and yet does the evil, and we have the well-known picture of
the intelligent, ambitious egotist, who, without any sense of duty,
achieves great and good results; and that of the foolish, infatuated
altruist, who devotes the whole might of his zeal for duty to the
service of socially pernicious forces!
[B] “I am a part of that power which always wills the evil and always
does the good.”
* * * * *
As a result of exaggerating the above-mentioned phenomena certain
theorists have imagined that ethics can be founded upon pure egotism.
But this is a mistake. Without the altruistic impulses of sympathy
and duty among its individual members no common social existence can
thrive; on the contrary, it must degenerate.
The power of the emotions in man is much too strong to allow of any
other result. Any one who imagines that he is completely master of his
emotions makes, if possible, a still greater mistake than one who avows
that he has never lied, or that his actions are governed by free-will.
All human morality is bound up with these impulses and emotions.
Socialism, for instance, will become moral, or else it will not come
to pass. Without the support of the social conscience of mankind it
cannot become moral. Every effort must therefore be directed towards
strengthening the social conscience.
The falsity of the theory of absolute good and evil is demonstrated by
the whole disposition of a world in which living creatures are designed
to prey upon one another. When a spider devours a fly it is good for
the spider and bad for the fly. The ethical value of the act itself is
therefore purely relative.
It is just the same with human ethics. To attempt to explain all the
evil in the world by the sin of Adam is to attribute a miserable
incapacity to God. The same holds true of the attempts of certain
modern Protestants to set up the dogma of a progressive revelation,
in order to bring the older dogmas into harmony with the theory of
evolution and descent. All these halting exegeses are only new models
of the artificial drags which theology seeks to impose upon the free
research of science.
Altruism and egotism stand only in relative opposition. Among ants
and bees they are instinctively adjusted to one another with wonderful
harmony, and are rarely, if ever, found in conflict. This result
can and must be striven after by mankind, however great may be the
difficulties presented by our hereditary nature. For its achievement a
harmonious co-operation of the hereditary social conscience with reason
and knowledge is absolutely necessary.
I must briefly mention two other points. Firstly, morality and social
or race hygiene become one and the same thing directly we include in
our conception of hygiene a healthy condition of the brain or soul,
and subordinate the individual hygiene to that of society in general.
Then everything socially unhygienic is immoral, and everything immoral
socially unhygienic. If, for instance, I ruin a healthy, active member
of society, in order possibly to achieve the salvation of an incurably
diseased criminal, I am committing, although from altruistic motives,
an act which is injurious from the point of view both of ethics and
social hygiene, and therefore evil and immoral.
Secondly, the boundaries of jurisprudence and of ethics are by no means
clear. Jurisprudence is more narrowly confined. It has no right to lay
claim to or to pass a verdict upon everything which ethics may discover
or attain. Laws and the constraint they imply are a necessary evil,
a crutch for the lame and defective social conscience. They must be
reduced to an indispensable minimum. The ethical and social instincts,
on the other hand, can never be too highly developed. Humanity must
gradually develop in the future to such a point that jurisprudence may
be completely replaced by an instinctive and inculcated social impulse.
“Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte
Wie eine ew’ge Krankheit fort.”[C]
[C] “Laws and statutes pass on in heritage, like an eternal
disease.”――Goethe, _Faust_.
In order now properly to understand our actual subject, viz. sexual
ethics, we must state the fact that an action, as well as the motives
which inspire it, may be either (1) _ethically positive_, i.e. good;
(2) _ethically negative_, i.e. evil; or (3) _ethically indifferent_,
i.e. without any relation to morals.
In their relationship to morals an action and its motive may be
completely independent of one another, as we have already seen.
We must further note that there are various degrees of duty, and that
from this cause conflicts may arise. There are duties towards one’s
self, which serve to increase the worth, and particularly the social
worth, of the individual by self-culture and education. In these days
of effeminate culture it is too often forgotten that self-discipline
and restraint, and even a certain degree of asceticism, fit the
individual for freedom and happiness, while the craving for pleasure
makes him useless and dependent.
Then there are duties towards the family and those nearer to us,
towards the State, towards existing Humanity, and towards posterity.
This last duty is the highest of all. Everything that we enjoy to-day
in culture and knowledge we owe to the toil, the suffering, and often
the martyrdom of our forefathers. Our most sacred duty is, therefore,
to secure for our descendants a loftier, happier and worthier existence
than our own.
Speaking generally, a rational system of morals must subordinate the
welfare of the individual to that of the community at large. A man who
is unprejudiced and possesses the ethical and social instinct will
therefore hold it as a principle first of all to do no man any injury;
then to develop his own individuality as highly as possible, which will
be both for his own good and that of the community; and as far as in
him lies to be of service to others and to Humanity.
From this we may derive the following commandment of sexual ethics:――
_Thou shalt take heed in thy sexual desire, in its manifestations in
thy soul, and chiefly in thy sexual acts, that thou do no hurt to
thyself nor another, nor, above all, to the race of men; but shalt
strive with thy might to increase the worth of each and all._
II. SEXUAL ETHICS
Everything that we have up to the present said of ethics and the social
sense in general applies also to sexual ethics in particular. The
only essential thing is to discuss the matter without prejudice, and
to put aside the ancient traditions of mystagogy, dogma, and custom.
This should be comparatively easy when we consider our present-day
conventions, hypocritical as they are to the point of nausea, and the
manner in which they support the right of the stronger and other rank
abuses under the false cloak of morality.
In itself the sexual desire is neither moral nor immoral. It is simply
an instinct adapted to the reproduction of the species. The common
confusion of sexuality with immorality is, I repeat, entirely erroneous.
A man without sexual feeling must of course be extraordinarily “moral”
in his sex relationships, and yet he can be the greatest scoundrel
imaginable. His sexual coldness and indifference have not the smallest
ethical value.
According to the definition given above, we may classify every sexual
desire as ethically positive if it is of benefit to individuals,
to society, and especially to the race (that is, to posterity); as
ethically negative if it does injury to any or all of these; and as
ethically indifferent if it neither does injury nor is of any service.
At the same time we must observe the ethical gradation: (1) _the race_,
(2) _society_, (3) _the more intimate surroundings or family_, and (4)
the _individual self_.
When we come to examine the concrete cases more closely we find that
the circumstances attendant upon the gratification of the sexual
desire, and the consequences of this gratification, lead to conflicts
with morality far more frequently than does the sexual act itself.
In the first place even the normal reproduction of human beings
may become immoral, in that it may do injury to the race or to
individuals. Malthus pointed out this fact. Habitable space upon the
earth is limited, while, on the other hand, the procreative capacity
of mankind is unlimited. If unlimited reproduction is permitted, it
is possible that the existing space may be insufficient to meet the
needs of the enormous multitudes of men which must result. The latter
may then fall victims to famine and distress, as in the case of the
Chinese, or the rabbits of Australia; and only disease, starvation, or
slaughter can bring about a return to the normal condition. It must
be obvious to every unbiassed person that this is not _moral_. And
as there are harmless methods of regulating the number of births and
to some extent the quality of the offspring, the just and proper use
of these methods must be described as ethically positive. Everything
is moral which makes for the happiness and well-being of society;
everything immoral which prejudices or endangers it.
There can, however, be too few people in the world; and there is
everywhere a great dearth of men and women wholly sound in mind and
body, light-hearted, unselfish, industrious, persevering, intelligent,
able and yet well-intentioned, peaceable, and honest.
On the other hand, we have a monstrous superabundance of feeble,
sickly, mentally perverted, criminally disposed, idle, treacherous,
vain, crafty, covetous, passionate, capricious, and untrustworthy
individuals, whose claims upon others are inexhaustible, while their
own services to society are either valueless or actually harmful.
While the first-mentioned class produce far more than they consume,
it is appalling to think of the vast store of human energy and human
life which goes to waste in sick-rooms, lunatic asylums, hospitals,
and prisons. And if we look more closely we find outside these
institutions, and under no restraint, a still vaster army of human
sharks, who prey physically and mentally upon society, and are a burden
upon the industrious community. The greater number of these useless
pests owe their faults to an hereditarily defective constitution of the
protoplasmic germs which brought them into being; and therefore a sound
system of racial ethics demands rational selection in breeding.
Equally destructive, however, are external conditions and habits of
life, such as the use of alcohol, resulting as they do in paralysis
of energy, confusion of the mind, and degeneration of the cells
(blastophthory).
* * * * *
The _libido sexualis_, or sexual desire in mankind is infinitely
stronger than is necessary for the reproduction of the race. Man has no
breeding season; he is always ready for sexual intercourse. Although
the number of women in the aggregate only slightly exceeds that of men,
the male has usually an instinctive inclination to polygamy. Luther
accurately estimated the normal requirements of a healthy man in the
prime of life at on the average two to three sexual connections in
each week; and yet this is far in excess of what is necessary for the
procreation of children in a monogamous marriage. It is, moreover, well
known that a man can even considerably exceed the above number without
injury to his health, and there are women whose needs in this respect
are actually greater than those of men.
It therefore follows that the widespread artificial excitement of the
sexual desire from motives of sensuality is harmful from the standpoint
both of ethics and of social hygiene.
We cannot, it is true, be held responsible for a natural instinct
inherited from our ancestors. But we must seek to subdue this instinct
as far as possible, not to excite and stimulate it by artificial means.
Already there is more than enough purposeless, and therefore ethically
indifferent, sexual intercourse.
And yet Tolstoy is wrong in wishing to forbid this. As long as it does
no actual harm we must tolerate it, the more so because the happiness
of the individual and the cheerfulness with which he labours are so
often dependent upon the normal satisfaction of his instincts.
Within the limits indicated above, the gratification of the sexual
instinct, whether in the case of man or woman, is in itself ethically
indifferent, provided it does not result in the procreation of
children. We have already dealt with the ethical value of procreation,
which depends upon the nature of the results expected. And we are
therefore bold enough to declare that every sexual connection which
does not injure either of the two persons who take part in it, or any
third person, and which, moreover, can do no injury to the child which
may be engendered by it, is in itself ethically indifferent, and cannot
therefore be immoral.
We have certainly imposed considerable modifications in this sentence,
for it is possible for a perfectly normal sexual connection to do
untold injury, especially to the woman and the child she bears; so
that an act which is in theory not immoral may become so in practice,
or may give rise to grave moral conflicts. This often happens at the
present time as the result of our prejudices, established customs, and
unjust laws.
From the standpoint of sexual ethics the ideal marriage is undoubtedly
a monogamous union, resting upon mutual and enduring affection and
loyalty, and consummated by the birth of several children; a union in
which the husband may be from six to twelve years older than the wife,
and both must be robust in mind and body.
This ideal state of things is not as rare as our modern pessimists
would have us believe, but neither is it especially common. Moreover,
if this marriage is to reach that perfection which it can and must
attain, it must be completely free, that is to say, both parties must
be absolutely equal before the law, and no external compulsion other
than that of common obligations towards the children must bind them to
one another. To this end a complete separation of property, and a just
and proper valuation of every service performed by the wife as well as
the husband are of the first importance.
From the aforesaid it must by no means be inferred that every person is
to yield without restraint to his sexual desires. Unfortunately this
fundamentally false conception of free marriage and free love is at
the present time widespread, and it cannot be too vigorously combated.
In the first place, two persons are concerned in the sexual act, and
any exercise of constraint by one upon the other is immoral and even
criminal. The same holds true of every seduction.
Moreover, the highest freedom of man lies in his mastery of self. The
only man who is truly free is the man who is able to control his lower
instincts. The compulsion which must be exercised in a mutually happy
sex relationship conformable to ethical principle must, however, be no
external legal compulsion, but an inward self-repression. Fidelity in
marriage must be a matter of mutual trust and yet a matter of honour.
The State and the laws cannot compel it, and have never been able to do
so; external constraint begets only hypocrisy, strife, and treachery.
On the other hand the State and the law must, as time goes on, become
more and more adapted to the protection of the helpless offspring of
sex unions.
Both parents, in proportion to their fitness and ability, must be
made responsible for the support of their children. It is in the
highest degree immoral to make a distinction between legitimate and
illegitimate children, and so to expose them and their mothers to
public disgrace because of the fulfilment of a natural function. Is
it not senseless, from the standpoint both of ethics and of law, to
declare the existence of a child, and therefore of a human being, to be
legal or illegal, or to speak of “natural children,” as if the others
were unnatural! In what bureaucratic brain can such an idea have first
arisen? It is only a remnant of a barbarous code of morals, based upon
the grossest prejudice. Antiquity, alas, justifies everything――even
crime!
* * * * *
Every woman who is healthy and strong should be proud of becoming a
mother. If sexual intercourse were frankly and naturally treated as one
of the most important acts in human life, the paternity of the child
would be easily ascertainable. A woman should not wait until the birth
of the child before speaking of it, but should promptly make a formal
declaration as to its parentage to the registrar of births as soon as
she becomes aware of her pregnancy. This would be easily practicable
if all girls received proper instruction regarding the most important
function of their lives. Instead of this, everything is now concealed
from them, and they are brought up in gross ignorance of their sexual
nature and duties.
If every pregnancy were at once legally recognised in this way, and if
the law would determine the responsibilities of both parents towards
their offspring, untrammelled by marriage laws and with the well-being
of society as its only aim, the most pressing need of our time, from
the standpoint of sexual ethics, would be satisfied. A complete
equality can only be attained by naming all children after the mother.
This is, moreover, the only rational and just system. It was formerly
the custom among many primitive peoples.
None of these reforms, however, need in any way debar the formation of
voluntary marriage contracts. Such contracts are, indeed, distinctly
advisable, for the voluntary resolve of two people to remain faithful
to one another, and to build up a permanent home for their children, is
at once the best, truest, and most natural foundation of marriage.
But no one can foresee the future, and therefore simple facilities for
divorce must be provided in case it becomes intolerable or inexpedient
for the two persons to live together any longer. A divorce must take
place if one or both of the parties wish for it. The State and the Law
must only have the right to demand the fulfilment by the parents of
all obligations towards their children. Marriage contracts for a fixed
period are therefore as such not immoral. Such agreements have even
been recommended by the Christian philosopher Charles Secrétan, in his
book _Le Droit de la Femme_.
Sterile marriages, or other sex relationships, must be free. The law
has no concern with them as long as they do not involve injury to
any one’s property, health, or personal will. They are in themselves
ethically indifferent.
On the other hand, all sexual intercourse which is bought or sold,
such as marriage for money, the keeping of paid mistresses, and the
whole system of prostitution, is immoral, because it is corrupting and
devoid of love, and amounts simply to plunder by the aid of money.
Prostitution is a hotbed of sexual vices and abnormal practices. By
its means the sexual instinct is perverted and led astray into every
imaginable bypath, while women are degraded in the basest of all
slaveries.
Most repulsive of all, from the point of view of ethics, is the trade
in prostitutes known as the “white slave traffic,” with its criminal
devices for the enticement, intimidation, and seduction of young girls.
The traffic in waitresses for cafés and beer-gardens is often little
better. It is sad enough to reflect that these loathsome outgrowths
of sexual immorality often still enjoy the protection of the State,
and that many medical men defend their continuance under the pretext
of hygiene. It is just in this very respect that we see that social
hygiene and ethics are one and the same thing. Only the idiotic
one-sidedness of your specialist could declare such a monstrosity as
State-established prostitution to be hygienic. A system which makes for
the mental and physical ruin of the race cannot be hygienic, and the
delusion that by its aid men are protected from venereal disease is in
direct conflict with the actual facts.
Moreover, sexual intercourse which is bought and sold has no relation
to love. As a mode of gratifying the sex instinct it stands even lower
in the moral scale than the habit of self-abuse. And any man who makes
use of prostitution becomes an accomplice in creating this miserable
class of outcasts whom we speak of as “unfortunates.” In short,
whoremongery and prostitution are a social cancer, and therefore in
the highest degree immoral. They furnish an instance of the manner in
which money corrupts our whole civilisation. This corrupting influence,
with its robbery of one man by another, makes itself felt in every
department of life, and is exercised by every form of private capital.
The climax of immorality in the cult of Mammon is reached, however,
by the capital employed in maintaining the two great evils of alcohol
and prostitution, both of which act as bloodsuckers upon the vitality
of the individual, the race, and all that is holiest in men. These
two forms of capital work hand in hand, fashioning the goddess of
love in the likeness of a lewd, sordid harlot, with the man as at
once her ravisher and her victim. They are also the worst enemies of
our descendants, whose procreation is often undertaken in a moment of
intoxication, and whose lives are exposed to the risk of alcoholic
degeneration or venereal disease!
These, therefore, are the chief foes of sexual morality: the struggle
for wealth (as exemplified in the domination of private capital) and
the use of alcohol. Let us combat both in the name of ethics. “_In hoc
signo vincemus!_”
* * * * *
The following will, I hope, make my meaning still clearer.
In sexual ethics many diseases and abnormalities play, of course,
a great part. First of all there are the venereal diseases, and
particularly syphilis and gonorrhœa, which often destroy family
happiness and endanger the offspring. It is too often forgotten that
chronic gonorrhœa can poison marriage, and that decay of the spinal
marrow (locomotor ataxia) and the so-called softening of the brain
(progressive or general paralysis) are nothing else than a very late
result of syphilis, appearing from ten to twenty years after infection.
In a brief statistical discussion of the question, based upon medical
information, I have shown that seventy-five per cent of venereal
infections are acquired while in a state of alcoholic excitement. In
the vast majority of these cases the infection is communicated by
means of prostitution, which, as the result of the incredibly numerous
and varied sex relationships of the women, serves simply as a vast
manufactory of venereal diseases.
It is true that married women are often infected by their husbands
or lovers, but this is only a result of the previous visits of the
latter to houses of ill-fame. Hygiene and morals both suffer serious
injury in this way. Any one who is infected, and nevertheless has
sexual connection with a person not infected in the same way, commits
a basely immoral act, if not a crime. This is done, however, _daily_,
when the infection is concealed. Nay, more, the medical men who
officially visit and examine prostitutes are well aware that they can
at most only temporarily remedy a few of the worst symptoms, and that
they are powerless to cure the disease itself. In spite of this such
women are set at liberty once more to carry on their disastrous trade!
And very few prostitutes ever completely escape venereal infection.
These are the fruits of paid “love,” maintained chiefly by the
drinking habits of the present day. It is plain that the chief task of
sexual ethics must be the cleansing of this Augean stable. There are,
however, a host of other social evils of a similar kind, such as the
seduction and exploitation of waitresses, women factory workers, and
so forth. These abuses belong to the same domain and present the same
opportunities of infection.
* * * * *
The various perversions of the sexual instinct constitute another
prolific source of disaster. Most of these are hereditary, and
therefore inborn. We will only briefly mention sadism (the combination
of acts of cruelty and violence with sexual gratification), masochism
(sexual gratification combined with the passive endurance of similar
cruelty and violence), inverted sexual feeling (homosexuality),
fetishism (sexual attraction for inanimate objects), exhibitionism,
sodomy, etc.
The unfortunate people who suffer from these perversions are treated
unjustly and, for the most part, far too harshly. Perverse instincts
which injure no one when carried into practice (fetishism, for
example), are ethically indifferent and harmless, in that their
possessors, generally speaking, do not multiply. It is, however,
immoral for such persons to marry. Any one who suffers from an
hereditary perversion of the sex instinct should avoid marriage and all
procreation of children.
But if the pervert can only gratify his instinct by injuring other
people, he must be regarded as a dangerous lunatic, and placed under
curative treatment. There must, however, be no question of legal
punishment. The foregoing treatment is above all necessary in the case
of sadists (who frequently commit murder) and in that of persons of
unsound mind who violate children. Homosexual persons (i.e. men or
women whose sexual inclination is for their own sex) are, on the other
hand, comparatively harmless as long as they direct their attentions to
adults, and provided there is no seduction or use of compulsion. The
same holds good in the case of other perversions such as inclination
for animals. Our laws are still entirely at fault in these matters, and
inflict punishment upon the basis of ancient theological dogmas.
The case of perversions acquired by suggestion, evil example, or
frequent repetition is somewhat different. These latter are much more
readily curable.
Perverted sexual habits often arise from a craving for variety, or as
makeshifts adopted when the opportunity for normal sex intercourse is
denied. Our efforts must be directed towards removing these causes by
raising the general standard of social morals.
Religious morality has been the cause of untold mischief in this matter
of sexual perversions by representing as great sins and crimes actions
which are in reality the result of a diseased mental state.
The habit of self-abuse is also extremely variable in its origin. It
arises usually as a makeshift, but often as the result of evil example.
It may also (although less frequently) be inherited, or originate from
nervous trouble, while in other cases it is prompted by mechanical
causes (phimosis, worms, or gymnastic exercises). There is no greater
blunder than that of exaggerating its importance by representing
it as a horrible and extremely dangerous vice. It must be cured by
_pacification_ and soothing, by strengthening of the will, and in some
cases by providing the means of normal sexual intercourse (_not_,
however, by means of prostitution). This is the only proper treatment
of self-abuse, which is not as dangerous as is commonly maintained. In
this, as in all other cases, our conception of sexual ethics will point
out the right path.
* * * * *
Abnormalities of the brain or mind, especially constitutional
(hereditary) mental inferiorities, such as weakness of will-power,
moral idiocy (inherent lack of conscience), epilepsy, hysteria,
hypochondria, kleptomania, etc., together with all acquired mental
troubles, are the cause of innumerable sexual disorders and perversions;
of vices, crimes, and misdeeds of every description; of rapine and
seduction; of unhappy marriages, or rather hells upon earth; and of the
birth of countless doomed and wretched children.
Here we may see once again that ethics and social hygiene are at one.
Until now the theologians and the lawyers have treated these mental
conditions by denouncing them as deadly sins and imprisoning the
unhappy victims. This is disastrous to morality, to the unfortunate
persons themselves, and to society at large. Expert mental treatment
with a view to a fundamental cure is the first necessity.
Here, again, alcohol and narcotics in general are the stone which
sets the whole avalanche in motion. The use of alcohol produces
mental inferiorities by its corrupting influence upon the cells
(blastophthory), and many people whose weakness of mind is traceable to
this cause cannot resist its use, and so become dangerous inebriates.
Once more, it is the source and fountain of the evil that must be
stopped.
But there are other hereditary diseases and degeneracies of every kind,
not only of the brain, but of the whole body, such as the disposition
to tuberculosis, rickets, short-sightedness, and diseases of the blood,
all of which are related to sexual life and morals, because they are
all more or less injurious to the individual and to society.
If persons suffering from such diseases have children at all they must
proceed with the greatest caution, and they should always be instructed
as to the hereditary nature of their maladies and the risk of their
transmission.
And now can we not hear the dictates of a truly human moral code, based
upon the facts that we have just considered?
_It is true that we cannot change the present hereditary nature of
man, but it is none the less our duty, now that Science has revealed
this nature to us, to prepare for our posterity a greater degree of
happiness and a higher standard of social life than we now possess.
To this end we must first strive with all our might to destroy the
all-corrupting supremacy of private capital and wealth, with its
exploitation of human life and energy; and we must further combat the
use of all narcotic poisons, especially that of alcohol._
_We must not rest until these two deadly monsters are overthrown._
_In the sphere of sexual life we must endeavour to replace by truth
and justice the present-day hypocrisy which parades under the false
banner of “morality.” We must also restore to woman the same natural
and equal rights possessed by man._
_Moreover, we must no longer be content to remain indifferent and idle
witnesses of the senseless and unthinking procreation of countless
wretched children, whose parents are diseased and vicious, and whose
lives are for the most part destined to be a curse both to themselves
and their fellow-men._
_We must therefore recommend to all persons who are sickly or infirm in
body or mind, and especially to all suffering from hereditary ailments,
the use of means for the prevention or regulation of conceptions,[D]
so that they may not, out of pure stupidity and ignorance, bring into
the world creatures doomed to misery and misfortune, and predisposed to
disease, insanity, and crime._
[D] We refer, of course, to such preventive methods as are completely
harmless to the persons making use of them. Methods for the prevention
of _conception_, in general fulfil this condition.
_We must endeavour in this way to bring about a vast and universal
sterilisation of all worthless, incapable or diseased people, without
attempting to prohibit in an ascetic and impracticable manner the
gratification of their normal sexual instinct and their desire for
affection._
_The qualification for parentage must not be the possession of a
certain amount of money or property, but solely the social worth and
intrinsic hereditary qualities of the two individuals._
_The multiplication of all who are healthy, capable, and ethically fit
must be encouraged as far as possible._
_An excessive frequency of childbirths in the case of one woman must be
prevented and regulated by the use of the means mentioned above._
_In this way we shall carry out a true racial selection and prepare the
way for a better and happier Humanity. And so at last we shall have
brought our true sexual ethics into living being and reality._
* * * * *
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Transcriber’s Notes:
――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_); text in
bold by “equal” signs (=bold=).
――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
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