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Title: The common sense of sex
Author: James Oppenheim
Editor: E. Haldeman-Julius
Release date: September 7, 2025 [eBook #76836]
Language: English
Original publication: Girard: Haldeman-Julius Company, 1926
Credits: Tim Miller, Daniel Lowe, 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 THE COMMON SENSE OF SEX ***
Little Blue Book No. =1089=
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
The Common Sense of Sex
James Oppenheim
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1926
Haldeman-Julius Company
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE COMMON SENSE OF SEX
Perhaps one of the hardest lessons this generation has had to learn is
that sex is a natural thing. Christianity has had to admit, of course,
that sexuality is necessary if the race is to go on, yet it has always
frowned upon it. The holy people didn’t marry; the best people became
priests, monks or nuns. And so deep has this puritanism gone that even
a modern like Bernard Shaw has said that he was shocked at the conduct
of married people--so many of them indulged in love for mere pleasure!
A wave of revolt has been sweeping over the western world. We have had
poets like Walt Whitman who have celebrated sex as a clean, strong
thing; writers like Havelock Ellis who have gathered together a mine
of information on the subject; and finally, we have had the great
psychologist, Freud, who has made a scientific study of sex and given
us a flood of new light on its mysteries.
In spite of this new knowledge, however, most people are apparently
still in ignorance. The subject is hedged around with fears and taboos.
Shame attaches to many phases of it. There are men and women of strong
desires who think they are living in sin; and, on the other hand,
those without desire who think they are unnatural. It is time for this
dark cloud to roll away; and this booklet is simply one more attempt
to place the matter not only in the light of science, but also in the
light of common sense.
ABNORMAL SEXUALITY
According to Freud, sexuality begins as something vague, distributed
all over the child’s body, and gradually concentrating in the sexual
organs. The first vague sexual act is suckling. The child not only
experiences the pleasure of food, but also of an act that has rhythm in
it, the rhythm of the mouth working with the nipple. It soon discovers
that it can produce this rhythm by itself. It works its thumb into
its mouth and sucks it. Here begins a pleasure, separated from the
food-pleasure, which is dependent on rhythm, and includes the mouth and
hand.
The hand, having learned this trick, now begins to rub various parts of
the body in a rhythmical manner. In a vague sort of way auto-erotism
sets in.
Along with this comes a growing interest in its own body, and a love of
displaying it; the stage of exhibitionism. And naturally this leads to
curiosity about other bodies, especially bodies like its own.
But, finally, interest is aroused in the opposite sex, and with the
awakening of genuine sexual desire in puberty, the child is prepared
to step over to normal sexuality.
According to this, every child who develops steadily will finally
come to normal sexuality. Yet it is obvious that the world is full of
people who have sexual trouble. There are men suffering from partial
or complete impotence; there are women with whom desire centers upon
the lips; there are others terrified at the sexual act; there are
homosexuals, and those who cannot break the auto-erotic habit. Finally,
there are those whose only pleasure consists in cruelty to others,
or having cruelty practiced upon themselves--the sadists and the
masochists.
These troubles, according to Freud, can be traced back to the child’s
original love-attachment to the mother or father. It is the Oedipus
complex, named after the Greek king who innocently and unknowingly
married his own mother, had children by her, and when the truth was
revealed to him, put out his own eyes and wandered homeless about the
land. This is the crime of incest, tabooed almost universally by every
race.
In other words, Freud thinks it natural that the child’s first love
should have a sexual coloring; that the boy desires the mother, and
the girl the father; but that the deep taboo, felt by the child though
not understood by him, produces a fear that drives him finally to take
some substitute for the mother, another woman (how often men seek women
who are like their mothers!), or may make it impossible for him ever to
have normal sexuality.
In other words, the child, in fear of going any further toward the goal
of his love, the mother, may become fixed at some point of childish
expression: one boy may never go further than auto-erotism; another
may remain all his life at the homosexual phase. In this way the
perversions are accounted for; they are infantile expressions, due to
fear.
The cure, according to Freud, is two-fold: the patient must come to
understand that the cause of the trouble is his love for the parent,
and that this love must be sacrificed, and the attachment broken, in
order that the desire for normal sexuality may be cultivated.
The other solution is _sublimation_. That is to say, express your
abnormal desire, but on a higher level and in a different form. In
fact, Freud traces many of the glories of our civilization to this
technic, employed unconsciously as a rule. For instance, a man may be a
sadist; his desire is to cut other people with a knife. Let him, then,
become a surgeon, and cut people creatively instead of destructively.
Another man is an exhibitionist. He wants to display himself publicly.
Let him become an actor.
A third has intense curiosity; he would, if he expressed this desire
unsublimated, become a Peeping Tom. Let him become a scientist, intent
on looking into the unknown.
Against this viewpoint of Freud’s, Dr. Jung, the psychologist of
Zurich, brings a barrage of criticism. He says, first, that while these
expressions of the child have every appearance of sexuality, they
cannot be sexual, because as a rule true sexuality does not awaken in
a child until puberty. And he says, second, that the desire for incest
is relatively rare: since, naturally, when it comes to sexuality, a man
desires a young woman and not an old.
While these criticisms seem to me well-founded, great credit must
nevertheless go to Freud for having shown us that these sexual
manifestations are not necessarily rooted in innate depravity and
sinfulness, but appear as natural expressions in the development of
everyone. For while it is true that not many children have sexual
feeling before puberty, on the other hand in the cases of men and women
who practice perversions it is usually found that the habit originated
in childhood, and was not broken when puberty dawned.
I will reserve the treatment of the abnormal for a later chapter.
THE THIRD SEX
Edward Carpenter of England has advanced the theory that there is
a third sex, which is hermaphroditic, or bi-sexual. He would place
this sex as midway between man and woman and having some of the same
characteristics of both. This does not mean that the third sex is
physically hermaphroditic. While such people exist, they are relatively
rare. It merely means men who have much of the woman in them, and women
who have much of the masculine. However, often this shows in some
physical characteristic, as an effeminate voice in a man, a growth of
hair on a woman’s chin, a manner of walking, etc.
Edward Carpenter believes that this third sex was the one which,
because it could not follow the beaten path, gave birth to philosophy,
religion, art, law and invention. As he pictures it, in the savage
tribe there would be a man who felt himself so different from the
rest of the men and so much more akin to the women, that he would
evade in every manner joining in the masculine occupations of hunting
and fighting. He would stay home with the women and justify this by
becoming the shaman or medicine-man, the first doctor and mystic.
Thus he would have time for brooding, and in this way cultivate his
imagination, and bring forth new theory and new arts.
That there is some basis for this theory is obvious. The founders of
religion are usually pictured as more or less hermaphroditic in nature.
Jesus, for instance, is shown as not only aggressive, courageous and
self-assertive in the true masculine way, but also as gentle, loving,
forgiving, merciful or feminine. He speaks of himself as the hen who
would have gathered its brood under its protecting wings; and he tells
his disciples to eat of his body in the form of the bread. (It is the
mother who gives her body to her child to eat.)
We find, too, this hermaphroditic quality in some of the great artists
and poets. Walt Whitman, our American poet, is a good example. He was
powerfully built, robust, healthy and overflowing with vitality, so
masculine that it is related that Lincoln said of him, “There goes a
man”; yet he was as tender as a woman. He nursed personally thousands
of soldiers in the Civil War, and their feeling was that he gave them a
kind of mother love.
But there have been other great men, not artists or religious leaders,
who were similar. Lincoln, for instance, had the brooding tenderness
and the deep sympathy which we associate with the mother.
However, the implication in Carpenter’s theory is that it isn’t just
a matter of mental qualities, but also sexual; that the third sex has
some of the sexual feeling and need of both sexes, and that this is an
explanation of the cause of homosexuality.
The facts, however, are against the Carpenter theory. One finds, in
practice, that there are homosexual men aggressively masculine, and
with hardly a trace of the feminine about them; and, on the other hand,
more or less effeminate men whose sexuality is absolutely normal.
Moreover, there is a deeper explanation for the man who couldn’t go out
and fight and hunt with the other men, and for the woman who hated the
agricultural and house duties of other women. According to Jung, there
are two great types, the extraverted and the introverted.
These types appear, he believes, as differentiations of the two
basic and primary instincts, that of self-preservation and that of
race-propagation, or, in other words, the ego-instinct and the sexual.
We are, evidently, born into the one type or the other, just as we are
born into the one sex or the other.
The sexual instinct, unconsciously, of course, leads toward the
propagation of the species; the urge of nature is for reproduction so
that the race can go on. And hence this instinct leads to marriage, the
establishment of the family, and finally that of the tribe and nation.
And it leads too to all the activities connected with these things. The
men must fight to protect their women and children or to bring them
more prosperity and power; they must hunt to bring food. The women must
bring up the children, make and preserve the home, engage in activities
like cooking, spinning, weaving, agriculture.
The sexual instinct leads them to activities, to the general run
of common life; and in its higher development to the ideal of the
brotherhood of man, democracy, etc.
The ego-instinct leads to contrary things. It is the opposite to the
sexual instinct. Both instincts are natural and exist in everyone: for
if it is natural to mate and to seek the good of others, it is equally
natural to defend and develop oneself. However, the opposing types
arise, according to Jung, because we are born with one instinct or the
other predominant.
The ego-instinct makes one think of oneself. And while this
self-concentration appears first as selfishness, as egotism, as setting
oneself above and against others; in its development it leads further.
It leads to withdrawing from others, in order to brood, to study, to
develop the imagination. It leads to introverting, going into oneself.
It was this type then that produced the first shaman and medicine-man.
For in order to give birth to art, or philosophy, or discovery and
invention, one must seclude oneself from others, and enter the world
of the imagination. Naturally, the introvert in the savage tribe felt
himself different from others. He was not concerned with activity, with
hunting, fighting, mating, having children; he was concerned with his
own ideas and emotions, with the pictures that loomed up in his mind
and which he felt compelled to scratch out on stone or bone; with an
unseen world which he saw as one of gods and demons; with religion and
invention.
The tribe doubtless thought him strange and abnormal; but not
necessarily effeminate. He secured his place by the results he
produced, so that, in the common mind, he became linked with the
supernatural. In fact, up to very recent years, the world held as more
or less sacred its religious leaders and artists, its doctors and great
students.
The introvert dreams the future which the extravert lives. Our whole
structure of civilization, with its sciences, its arts, its inventions,
and even its manners and habits, was built up by extraverts who made
use of the great discoveries of introverts.
It may be seen at a glance that the problem of sexuality differs for
the two types. If the extraverted, or active, type is rooted in the
sexual-instinct, naturally it is the more sexual type; whereas the
introverted type, rooted in the ego-instinct, is less so. However, we
must remember that the types are rarely pure; both instincts exist in
every one of us, only in the extravert the one is accented, in the
introvert, the other.
But quite aside from the problem of type, there is the problem of
bi-sexuality. To Jung this is a mental and emotional matter, rather
than a physical. In other words, just as in all of us exist the ego and
sexual instincts, just so there exist in all of us the masculine and
feminine _principles_.
In the recent fight for Women’s Rights, there were those women who
enlightened us by saying that men and women are fundamentally alike,
that there must be a single standard of morality or immorality, that
women could do the work of men, etc. On the other hand, the so-called
he-men of America are fond of affirming that they are red-blooded and
masculine through and through. Neither of these statements can bear
much scrutiny.
According to Jung, the masculine and feminine are not only opposing
physical structures, but opposing principles.
The masculine tendency is to _spend_, the feminine to _retain_. This
may be seen in the sexual act itself.
Man, in his true nature, is the gambler, the adventurer, the one who
strays to new fields, who fights, who is more or less reckless, and who
tends, therefore, toward the new and the radical. Men have been our
great pioneers whether along extraverted or introverted lines, whether
in giving us great new ideas or arts, or in exploration, tearing down
and rebuilding, leading peoples to new forms of government, etc.
Woman, on the other hand, in her true nature is cautious, wants to keep
things as they are, looks for safety. A woman who had been radical
in her youth told a friend of mine that getting children made her a
conservative. This was natural. All the womanly qualities of patience,
love, loyalty and devotion are necessary in bringing up children; and
naturally she wants that security and rock of changelessness that
her task may not be broken up. Woman tends, therefore, to be the
conservative. While man rushes out to grasp the new, she safeguards the
heritage of the past.
It is not curious, therefore, that just a few days before the general
strike broke out in England, one of the most radical acts that nation
has known, there was a great parade of women of every rank protesting
against strikes--or, in other words, a demand that the vast problem be
worked out along conservative and safe lines.
However, while these two principles of the masculine and feminine are
mutually opposed, we find on close study that they co-exist in each one
of us. It would seem as if each human being had in him the whole of
human nature, and that whole is not only the qualities of aggression,
of self-assertion, of recklessness and courage, but also the qualities
of tenderness, devotion, patience, etc. Put differently, while the
bodies of man and woman differ from each other sexually, they are
fundamentally the same body; so, too, while a man is more masculine
than a woman, and she more feminine than a man, each has, though in
less degree, the traits of the other.
This is one explanation of how men and women attract each other. A man
who was, say, sixty percent masculine and forty feminine, would be apt
to be attracted by his opposite, a woman sixty percent feminine and
forty masculine. A man extremely feminine would seek a woman extremely
masculine, and so on. And obviously enough, the percentage of either
principle in a man or woman would have some effect on the sexuality. A
more feminine man would lack aggressiveness and assertiveness, and be
more passive; a more masculine woman would want to take the upper hand.
With this understanding of the mixed natures of man and woman we may
better comprehend the art of love.
THE ART OF LOVE
Havelock Ellis, the great English student of sexuality, and a pioneer
in that field, coined the phrase.
The sexual act, he maintains, is not a simple matter; it is part of an
art, the art of lovemaking. This is based on the fact that, normally,
the woman is more slow than the man to respond to sexual stimulus,
and must be aroused. The man is swift, ready and active; the woman
slow, unresponsive and passive. In order to bring her full response,
there must be an interval of wooing. And it is this, from Havelock
Ellis’s point of view, which makes sexuality a beautiful and a human
thing, raising the act, in his mind, to something almost sacramental,
something in which the poetry and mystery of existence participate.
While sexuality in its origin was merely an instinct aiming at
generation and reproduction, like every other instinct it has been
turned into an art by man and become a rich part of his life. Eating,
too, is an instinctive performance; yet very few find satisfaction in
eating alone and in a plain way. Man, at his best, has raised eating to
a joyous affair, where people not only share the food, but share each
other’s society. Even the food itself may be prepared and served in an
artistic manner and in pleasant surroundings.
So, too, sexuality, according to Havelock Ellis, has become an end in
itself: the joyous union of man and woman in the mystery of love. For
instance, he says, in India the art is well known, and the act often
prolonged for hours. The West he finds backward in both the knowledge
and the practice of this art.
The sexual act he divides into two parts: the forepleasure and the act
itself. The forepleasure is the preparation and wooing. It summarizes,
according to him, all those so-called childish things which taken
separately are called perversions. As we have seen, the child goes
through every phase: sucking, rubbing, looking, exhibiting, caressing,
etc., and in various ways. These, according to Ellis’s studies, are
found in the sexual act wherever it is practiced as an art. And he
finds them natural and good insofar as they contribute toward the
complete arousal of the woman and the final act itself.
They become perversions only, he says, where they are ends in
themselves. A man, for instance, who cares mainly for expression of the
mouth has a perverted sexuality; but if this is merely a step toward
complete sexuality, it is part of the natural process and enhances the
act.
In short, in the sexual act as an art the man and woman relive their
whole development from the stage of suckling to the act itself.
Havelock Ellis also maintains that the positions assumed by the man
and woman need not be the so-called normal, but any that is found
satisfactory. In fact, he believes that a sense of equality between the
sexes may be cultivated by the man assuming what is usually the woman’s
position.
However, there are those who do not accept completely some of these
contentions. Recently, a well-known New York psychologist said before
a large audience that he and his colleagues in investigating a large
number of cases, found a surprising proportion of sensitive people who
had no interest in the sexual act itself, but only in certain phases
of the forepleasure. These people were, he said, found to be normal in
every other way, and he advocated lifting off the stigma of shame which
still attaches to such acts.
What Jung says in this connection is that it isn’t the _form_ of the
sexuality that matters, but rather the attitude we have toward the
sexual. And, if we bear in mind the mixed nature of men and women,
that some men are more feminine, for instance, and some women more
masculine, it will readily be understood that sexuality means different
things to different people. With some the forepleasure is negligible,
with others it is the chief thing. Some women are like men, swift and
immediate; some men like women, slow and passive. It remains in each
case for those concerned to find their own way.
SEXUALITY AND THE FOUR FUNCTIONS
But if sexuality means one thing to the introvert, and another to the
extravert, if also it means one thing to man and another to woman,
there are still other sharply marked differences of meaning, which lead
one to believe that in the matter of sexuality no one has a right to
lay down a general morality, a general rule of conduct. If it is wrong
for a so-called pure person to rule that all other persons must be
pure, it is equally wrong for those to whom sexuality is necessary to
rule that everyone must have sexual expression.
Before, however, going further in these differences of meaning, let us
look more closely at the difference between introvert and extravert in
reaction to sexuality.
If the extraverted attitude springs from the sexual instinct, it
is natural that in the average extravert, who has not, due to bad
teaching, distorted his nature, the sexual development has been normal
and reached a more or less strong maturity. But with the introvert
it is different. Since the introverted attitude arises from the
ego-instinct, the development is more along the lines of thought, idea,
philosophy, art, etc., and the sexual as a rule remains undeveloped. If
it is undeveloped, it is, in fact, childish.
In other words, what Freud explains as fixations, due to attachment to
the parent, Jung explains as simply that side of the nature which is
still undeveloped. Introverts who in many ways are highly developed,
may, at the same time, remain children when it comes to sexuality.
The question then arises: Is it better to suppress the sexuality of
the introvert altogether, since the only kind he is capable of has an
air of perverseness about it, is perhaps auto-erotic, or concentrated
on the forepleasure, or wrong in some other way? Certainly you can’t
demand of a child what you demand of an adult; and neither can you
demand of an undeveloped function what you demand of one fully matured.
On the other hand the repression of the sexual instinct may be a
dangerous thing, in this connection the dream of an introvert is
illuminating. He was a man highly developed along mental lines, a man,
in fact, of some prominence; but he experienced great difficulty in
his sexuality. It was characterized as over-impulsive and more or less
passive. He wanted to play a more or less feminine part toward the
women.
Because of his high integrity he felt that this was wrong, and so
attempted to suppress his sexuality altogether. Then he developed
symptoms; strange feelings in his head, a sense of weakness in his
legs. He had the following dream:
He and his wife were at Coney Island, going about with three people
of a cruder type. Two of these were men, and one a woman. The woman
fainted on the street, and no one knew what to do for her. A man then
rushed out of the building, took hold of her, and began an infantile
stimulation. She revived at once.
The dream is easily understood. He and his wife stood for the higher
side of himself, the developed or introverted side; the three low-brows
and rough-necks were the undeveloped side. Coney Island suggests some
attempt at expressing the lower and undeveloped side. Since this
undeveloped side was the extraverted, or sexual, the two men and the
woman represented this side; and the woman suggests that part of his
sexuality which is more or less feminine and passive.
She faints. That is, he develops the symptoms. The man who rushes out
to help he connected with an uncle of his who was noted for his common
sense. In other words, his common sense tells him: Cure her by any
means possible. See, if I do this for her, she revives. Better that
than to be sick, to develop symptoms.
No code of morality could have helped this man. He had as an introvert
to realize and accept the fact that his sexuality was still childish,
and to realize also that he had to begin with it at the point where it
actually was if he ever wanted to develop it to something higher and
better.
I do not mean to imply here that all introverts are so infantile in
their sexuality. There are those introverts who began early to develop
this side also, and have reached a fair maturity. However, it is more
often the other way round.
But if there is this distinction to be made, there are yet others to
show how individual a matter sexuality may be.
For while we have the two main types of introvert and extravert based
on the two major instincts, we have also the four types based on the
functions. In other words, a man may not only be an extravert or
introvert, but also a thinking type, a feeling type, an intuitive type
or a sensational type.
According to Jung, these four functions of _thinking_, _feeling_,
_intuition_ and _sensation_ constitute the make-up of the psyche; and
each of us tends to accent one of them at the expense of the others.
The _thinking type_ is one of the most easily discernible. He takes
thought, he thinks things out; he thinks before he acts. He is apt
to be logical, deliberate, fairly sure of himself, even dogmatic. He
usually lives by a system of thought he has worked out, and which he
tries to force upon others. He has strong opinions, because he has
arrived at them by sure-footed thinking. If he is extraverted he is
the good executive, the engineer, the lawyer; if introverted, the
philosopher and certain types of scientist. The thinking type is found
mostly among men; in Jung’s opinion thinking is a masculine function.
The _feeling type_ is usually found among women; though there have
been men, and great ones, who were of this type: notably Goethe,
Wagner and Walt Whitman. The feeling type, normally, is not good at
thinking, is, in fact, opposed to thinking, since thinking a thing out
is the opposite of feeling it out. Feeling, itself, is a reaction of
_like_ and _dislike_ and is a delicate adjustment to the _fitness of
things_. The values of the extraverted feeling woman are almost purely
external. In choosing a husband she aims rather at the correct thing
than at the deeper qualities. The man who has wealth, position, and who
dresses according to the style, who has good company manners and is
worldly is apt to appeal to her. Her feelings are appeased by him; she
isn’t “jarred” or made to feel his unfitness for the world she lives
in. She “likes” him. Her opinions on things are according to the styles
of the moment. She desires everything to move along harmoniously,
without any unpleasantness. She is not deep, but she keeps society
afloat by her ease and attempt to bring everything into harmony.
The _introverted feeling woman_ is one of the silent women. Her
feelings form into long moods, which persist sometimes for days. She
suffers quietly and cannot express herself. She has no language for
these moods.
Feeling, by the way, must not be confused with _emotion_. Emotion,
as Jung points out, is a _feeling-sensation_; that is, it is at the
same time both mental and physical; something instinctive, which we
share with the animals. An emotion of joy, for instance, not only is
perceived mentally, a state of happiness, but also is felt physically:
the pulse goes faster, the cheeks become flushed, etc. But feeling is
something separated more or less from sensation and developed into an
independent function.
The developed feeling person feels her likes and dislikes, or her
moods, as something mental, which no more affect the body than
developed thinking in the thinking type. Thinking, as we know, can be
very cool and detached where it is pure and mature.
Thinking and feeling then are developed and consciously controlled
functions; where, on the other hand, _intuition_ and _sensation_ are
inborn and uncontrollable by consciousness.
The _intuitive type_, works by those instantaneous flashes of insight
which we call intuitions. These may be in the nature of hunches, or in
the nature of an ability to see the hidden character of others; or it
may have to do with far off things. Intuitives sometimes know events
happening at a distance; as the sickness of a relative, or something
even more startling. Though Goethe was a feeling type, he was also
very intuitive. One summer night he called his man-servant into his
room. The weather was sultry, brooding and ominous. Goethe said: “At
this moment there is an earthquake taking place far off.” Some weeks
later came the news of the great Lisbon earthquake. He had known it
to the minute. An intuitive I know was in Virginia when he dreamed
vividly that his brother in Texas had been killed by a Negro and that
a messenger had come with a telegram bidding his return to Texas. The
next morning the messenger came. It is by intuition that the painter
sees the soul of the sitter, and reveals the hidden nature in his
picture.
The intuitive type is the noble, or what has been called, the spiritual
type. Just as the two conscious functions of _thinking_ and _feeling_
are in opposition to each other, so the two unconscious functions of
_intuition_ and _sensation_ are in opposition; for intuition is the
least earthy function, sensation (the senses, sexuality) the most
earthy or animal.
The intuitive, because he sees into the core of things, sees better
than anyone else the possibility of things. He can see the man in the
child; the growth of a new movement in politics or science or labor or
business; the development of new ideas and their importance for the
human race. If such a man is extraverted, he hurls himself into new
tendencies, and then as soon as they are about to come to harvest, he
is no longer interested, and turns to new possibilities. He is the
pioneer who opens up the wilderness, but does not stay to enjoy the
cities that spring up. He sows, but he rarely reaps.
If he is introverted he brings forth out of himself great new ideas or
works of art. A good example is Nietzsche.
The _sensational type_ is of the earth, earthy. His main function
is sensation; the taste, the scent, the sound, the touch and the
look of things. He is highly sensuous, and is constantly seeking new
sensations. He is very realistic, and opposed to anything noble or
idealistic. He is often the actor, the acrobat, the sensualist.
If he is introverted he gets his sensations through imagining strange
pictures of an inverted world, such as the world depicted in the prose
and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe.
This is, of course, not a complete setting forth of the types; but
merely enough to come to some understanding of their differing sexual
reactions.
If a man or woman is an extraverted thinking or feeling type, the
sexuality is apt to be normal. It is apt to be governed by what the
world considers good form. That is to say, it is probably monogamous,
done at regular intervals, and often without glamor.
But when we come to the intuitives and the sensationals, everything
is quite otherwise. The intuitive is usually in strong opposition to
the sensational. To him sexuality is apt to appear as something low,
animal and disgusting. He himself is often without desire, and cannot
understand the need of it in others.
It is true that sometimes an individual by deep development transcends
the groove of his type, and in this way some intuitives are able
finally to develop their sexuality; but, on the contrary, it is
sometimes dangerous doctrine to ask an intuitive to be sexual.
Intuitives who do this often violate their natures, and so produce
symptoms or become ill. They are apt to oscillate between periods of
intuition and that of sensation, and when they are on the sensational
side they are tempted to make an orgy of it. Sensitive intuitive
artists get drunk and go on debauches: women of this type behave
somewhat like prostitutes.
The Freudians err therefore in their doctrine that sexuality is good
for everyone. It is not good for certain of the intuitives. In fact,
many men and women of this type live on in the full bloom of their
power without knowing a sexual life.
On the other hand, since sexuality permeates the life of the senses
and is all bound up with them, the sensational usually needs and has a
full sexual life. The men are apt to be Casanovas and flit from woman
to woman. Sensations, as we know, if repeated, soon tire us. We long
for new ones. So in a life that depends on sensations and sensational
happenings, soon an appetite develops for something still more strange,
more unexpected, more flavorous. Ordinary sexuality may, to the
sensational, soon lose its zest, and he hungers for things abnormal and
unheard of. In this way, he may develop from one stage to another of
the perversions, not because of a fixation on the mother, or even, in
his case, because of an undeveloped function (since sensation is his
developed function), but merely because sensation itself demands more
and different sensations, and the ordinary round is soon exhausted.
It is said of the sensational that if he can’t get a good sensation, he
will get a bad one; if he can’t get one of pleasure, he will take one
of pain. It is like the poet Keats putting pepper in his mouth so that
the wine would taste the cooler.
There is not much to say about it. In every civilized country certain
classes of people are looked upon as outside the general code, as in
a class apart. Thus we have the conceptions of Bohemia, of Red Light
districts, and we even exempt from the usual censure certain types of
actors and actresses in a recognition that what we call morality means
little to them.
What stands out clearly in noting these differences of reaction, is
that no one type should legislate the morality of the other types. If
it is perfectly clear to anyone that a code erected by the extraverted
sensational type would be ruinous to the rest of the population,
it should also be clear by inference that the thinking type can’t
legislate for the sensational, nor the extravert for the introvert.
What we come down to finally is that sexuality, like religion, is an
individual matter, and must be found by the individual according to his
needs and his nature.
MISPLACED ENERGY
However, it should not be taken for granted that perverse sexuality
is, in itself, good. Nothing that is raw and undeveloped is as good as
that which is strong and mature. On the other hand, a seed cannot by
magic suddenly become a beautiful flower. It must pass through the dark
stage of being in the muck and manure, and only painfully and slowly,
step by step, will it develop to the flower. This appears to be a law
of nature, and we can say of the development of man, that his evolution
began in the “mud and slime of things,” and that in the myriad ages
that have passed, he has not yet attained full manhood.
When we look at some of the dark things that the race has gone through,
we cannot call them “good,” but often we must admit that they were
necessary. So, too, with this matter of sexuality: it cannot always be
arranged according to what we think is best.
Nevertheless, there are many cases of what might be called sick or
false sexuality. It would appear, according to Jung, that anyone who
neglects a function or gift which he should be developing, is apt to
go astray sexually. In other words, our energy craves the outlets
provided for it by our innate character. If a man, for instance, was
born an artist, that is not something he can escape. Art is the natural
outlet of much of his energy. But if, because of his training, or say,
his belief that art is an idle matter and not manly enough, he should
turn from this gift, then a certain amount of his energy goes idle.
Idle energy, so Jung has found, usually descends to the sexual zone;
and the young man finds himself with an unnatural and excessive sexual
craving. Since this is more than the normal sexual desire, it is apt to
take abnormal form; and the man becomes by an irresistible compulsion,
a homosexual.
His homosexuality is not an innate thing; it is a _symptom_. It is
_misplaced energy_. The cure, of course, is for him to take up his art.
His sexuality then will become quite normal.
There is the case of the young woman who not only had an incessant and
excessive sexual craving, but who desired any and every man she met.
It took all her strength to hide her feelings, for she was well-bred,
sensitive, and with a high standard. She went to a noted analyst who
discovered that she was the rare case of a woman who belonged to the
thinking type. But thinking in her circle was not favored when it came
to women. She had therefore neglected to develop her intellect, and
as soon as she began to do so, the symptom disappeared and she became
quite normal.
It should be clear from these cases that wherever perverse sexuality
appears, there is need of an investigation. It is necessary to discover
if it isn’t a case of misplaced energy. Indeed, one may say offhand,
that all _excessive_ cases are of this nature, as for instance, a
marked sadism (sexual cruelty), a marked homosexuality, a too great
sexual desire. Such cases need the treatment of a psycho-analyst.
However, if energy may be misplaced _to_ the sexual zone, it may also
be misplaced _from_ the sexual zone. This is particularly true in this
country, because of our Puritan tradition. It was no longer ago than my
own childhood that a vast array of American children were taught that
sex is a bad thing; that to think in sexual terms was evil, that to
commit sexual acts was wicked; and that sexuality existed solely for
the purpose of propagating the species. It was whispered about that
auto-erotism led to insanity or loss of manhood. Words like gonorrhea
and syphilis were not mentioned, and ignorance in sexual matters was
not only disastrous, but, one might say, criminal. There were women
who came to marriage without any inkling of how children were born;
there were boys who doubtless did go insane from the practice of
auto-eroticism, not because the practice hurt them, but because of the
shame and fear attached to their “secret sin.”
This darkness has not wholly vanished yet, though much light has
appeared. It is natural that many sensitive people, growing up in such
an atmosphere, should _repress_ their sexuality. In certain cases this
might do no harm; an intuitive woman, for instance, might be all the
better for it. But since sexuality is a powerful instinct which needs
in the end its own natural expression, the repression of it, in many
cases, would mean that sexual energy was misplaced away from the sexual
zone, and produced a symptom.
Perhaps the simplest way of saying it is this, that whatever we attempt
to repress in ourselves we tend to repress in others. If we have cut
off the glow of life in ourselves, we come under a compulsion sometimes
to cut off others in the same way. This is where the misplaced sexual
energy goes. We become crusaders, we go out and fight vice wherever it
shows its head, we censor art, we bring about prohibition. We become
persecutors, driven by a kind of madness, thus poisoning our own lives
and the lives of others.
But since sexuality is a social instinct, and is at the root of
love, its repression may lead to something equally fanatic, but of a
different nature. The crusading spirit, instead of being prohibitive,
calls the world to salvation. The revivalist appears, or the bringer of
a new religion, or the founder of a sect. There is a feverish attempt
to convert and to “save the world.”
America is full of it. Great waves of sexualized religious fervor sweep
over the country. Any means may be used: the revivalist may use jazz
bands and slang, do the Charleston on his platform, paint primitive
pictures of hellfire and damnation, broadcast his violent sermons,
shame people into conversion, and arouse a whole community to hysteria.
To anyone with a discerning eye, the performance is false on the face
of it. It is a lot of misplaced sexual energy gone wrong and running
like a high fever.
A mild case of it which came under an analyst’s observation shows the
trouble clearly enough. The man in question felt that he had a message
to broadcast to the people, which would bring them to a better life.
The scheme, however, was actually of a cheap nature, which he admitted,
on criticism, but could not give up nevertheless. It was as if he had
to do it. The key-dream which showed the situation was as follows:
An advertising man of his acquaintance had set out to put up the
highest advertising sign in the world. This was being built on a
prairie, so that it could be seen from immense distances. It was
already so high that the dreamer could not see the top of it. On
rope-hung scaffoldings many men were at work on the sign. At the
bottom of the sign was a moat of water. Closing time came, and the men
immediately leaped from their scaffoldings like frogs into the water
below.
His scheme is shown up as not a real attempt to help others, but as
a matter of self advertising, a stunt. More than this, the energy
which put up the sign, namely, the men at work on it, leaps down like
frogs. Frogs, as a rule, have a sexual significance; and sometimes mean
auto-erotism.
In short, the energy behind his attempt to save the world is misplaced
sexuality, and that sexuality of an infantile nature. His compulsion
left him when he gained the proper sexual expression.
However, if repression of sexuality is a bad thing, temporary
abstinence is sometimes good. Not only are men and women able, at
times, to go without sexuality for relatively long periods but, in
certain cases, and at certain times, this has the highest value.
In many savage tribes, on the night before the warriors went out to
battle, the men were not allowed to have any contact with women.
Doubtless this was done that their energy might remain unimpaired,
and that their warlike fervor might not be softened with any of the
feelings of love.
In fact, in times of crisis, it would appear that there can be a
displacement of sexual energy which is beneficial. When men are under
the unusual strain of a great task, abstinence often seems to help.
Their whole energy becomes transformed into the task, which they can
now do with greater freedom. Naturally, this is a detour, a forced
march, and not a way of living.
We find often in the case of great artists, that before beginning work
on their masterpieces, they withdraw from sexual experience. Balzac,
for instance, always cut himself off from society, put on a monk’s
robe and secluded himself until the task was accomplished. It is
obvious what the monk’s robe meant: it was a temporary renunciation of
love as well as of the world.
THE COMMON SENSE OF IT
We now come to the common sense of it. Undoubtedly in a great number of
cases of perversion and other sexual trouble, we need not search for
the cause in a mother-attachment, an incest-wish, or an undeveloped
function. The cause is often of a relatively simple nature.
Perhaps at the top of the list we may put woman’s fear of being
impregnated, of conceiving and bearing a child; a fear which a man who
loves his wife often shares with her. Such fears are sometimes morbid,
and are part of a general fear of life. Women who are made, as it were,
to be mothers, may be evading their life-work and refusing pain and
responsibility. That is quite possible.
But, on the other hand, if we look at the matter in the light of common
sense, we see, first, that to an imaginative person, the fear is
perfectly natural, just as a perfectly natural fear may spring up in a
man as he goes into battle; and that, second, circumstances may justify
and deepen the fear to a point where it becomes a deterrent to normal
sexuality. For instance, poverty might make it impossible for the
parents to support children, or more than the one or two already born.
Or the woman’s health or structure may be such as to make child-bearing
a grave danger.
Of course “birth control” is urged for such people; the use of
contraceptives. However, not only are such things sometimes unreliable,
but certain types of people find their use exceedingly unpleasant,
turning what should be a joyous union, a spontaneous act, into
something mechanical and self-conscious. Besides that, if the fear of
impregnation is great, the use of contraceptives does not abolish it.
It is no wonder then that very many married people turn from normal
sexuality to something that comes under the heading of perversions. The
whole aim is to get the glow and satisfaction by any means rather than
that of normal entrance. Naturally, if either of the couple concerned
is strongly normal in his sexual desire, there is a loss here; but
whether that loss is as great as the loss through worry and fear, is
open to question.
There is no use denying that when man ceased to regard the sexual act
as purely animal, for propagation purposes, and made an art of it, he
turned aside from nature; just as he has turned aside when he invented
the wheel or used fire for cooking. Those who argue that nature’s
way is best should return to the jungle. But if we agree that man may
refashion not only his environment but his mind and his character, then
we must admit that he may also refashion his sexuality.
As Jung said, it isn’t the _form_ of the sexuality, but the attitude
we have toward the sexual. If it is an expression of mutual love, an
endearment of life, an art, something that brings a greater beauty
to life, and riches otherwise missing, surely it is both right and
good. And even if it is a necessary outlet for something not so good,
but which is undeveloped, and needs development, at least it is a
preventive of sometimes serious disorder.
Certainly the ideal of Havelock Ellis is the highest, that sexuality
should be the art of love, and that the forepleasure should culminate
in the act itself; and it is true also that in many cases the fear of
impregnation may be conquered, and that the self-control of the man may
shield the woman. It is also true that often the use of contraceptives
may cease to seem unnatural. But how legislate in the matter?
Prohibition does not prohibit; and there is no way of making a couple,
in the privacy of their own lives, observe an external standard. What
is far better is to allow each couple to find their own moral law with
reference to sexuality. If they know they are living up to something
good, they should be courageous enough not to be ashamed of it.
If the fear of impregnation is woman’s chief fear, that of man’s is
often the fear of impotence. Many men, through lack of experience
sexually or for some other reason, have this fear. This, too, may be
morbid. It may originate in the fear of life itself; an inability to
break through in the world; a feeling of failure, of “not being a man.”
Or it may be due to undeveloped sexuality. But if we look at the matter
sensibly we may see that often it is not due to any such cause, but
to something more simple. For instance, it might be caused by either
of two opposite teachings: the one, that sexuality in itself is a bad
thing, the other, the gossip of men, that a man isn’t a man unless he
is sexually virile.
If a man believes the first, he must always connect with sexuality
something evil and low, and if he is at all religious he may feel
that he is harming his soul, or even damning it, if he has sexual
pleasure. Such an inhibition in itself would be enough to cripple his
sexual expression, for the very essence of sexuality, like love, is
that it casts out fear. The sexual feeling in a man brings courage and
aggressiveness.
On the other hand, if a man believes that he is unmanly unless he
is virile, and that other men, if they knew of it, would think him
a eunuch or womanly, he might (and many do) feel it incumbent upon
himself to prove, over and over again, that he is a man. But it is
foreign to the sexual act to use it to prove anything. If it is not a
joy, and a self-forgetfulness, it is nothing. Hence, the man trying to
prove his case, is apt to turn out exactly as he fears.
There must be a change of attitude. In some men virility of character
is combined with sexual virility; in other men, it is not. If we
remember the distinction between extravert and introvert, we may
understand that some men may be outwardly weak, but inwardly giants,
giants of intellect or of art; and doubtless many of these men, by
their virility of thought or of creativeness, have made the world
itself more virile. It is said of Michelangelo that he was not normal
sexually, yet his mighty torsos in marble, his colossal painting of the
Last Judgment could only have been produced by a giant of character.
There is no single test for what constitutes manhood. With some
sexuality would play a large part, with others not. What is important
is that a man be true to himself, and if his sexuality is of an
inferior or undeveloped order, that he acknowledge it as such and so
bring it to a better development. He may then discover, when he ceases
to strain after lifting himself by his bootstraps, that, with the
disappearance of fear, he is actually more sexually powerful than he
thought.
Another great cause for perversion or unsuccessful sexuality, which
is also perfectly obvious, is mismating. Between sensitive people,
sexuality amounts to very little unless the couple are also mates. A
man may find that his wife, however fond of her he may be, does not
stimulate that side of his nature; or the woman may make the same
discovery of her husband. Without the natural means of attraction,
other means are sought for. Some employ drink to stimulate them; others
resort to perversions.
There is also the case of a woman, brought to an analyst’s attention,
who did not love her husband, but was madly in love with another man.
If, in intercourse with her husband, she thought of him as the other
man and so pictured him, the sexuality was successful.
However, this forcible mating of the mismated is not often good; and
indeed if the physical antipathy is strong enough, it may not even be
possible. In such cases, often enough, another of the simple, but great
problems, comes up. It is that either of divorce or of polygamy.
Is man naturally polygamous? That is a question hard to answer. I
rather think that the introvert is more monogamous, the extravert
more polygamous. The introvert tends to go deep with everything; to
concentrate more and more on a few things; and he is the same in his
relationships. They tend to be few, but to be rather intense. When it
comes to marriage, this concentration is apt to exclude every woman but
his wife.
With the extravert it is different. Since his attention goes out
from himself to the world, since his interest is easily aroused, his
relationships are apt to multiply. They are not often deep, but they
are swift and easy, and without great trouble he can pass, if he is
sexual, from one woman to another.
Now it seems to me (though I know this question is still up in the
air) that woman is less polygamous than man. To man sexuality is in
every way a lighter matter. To begin with, he is more swiftly and more
easily satisfied, and, moreover, he has for himself few consequences
to fear. It is apparent that the woman, more slow to respond, gives
a great depth in the response when it finally comes, and the man who
has the key to her must take on an overwhelming value. Not only that,
but her nature connects the sexual act with child-bearing, and this at
once gives the whole matter a more serious coloring. She may, in time,
disconnect the sexual act from that of child-bearing, but it still
remains more intense and more serious than for a man. For this reason,
and especially if the man is the father of her children, his value is
such that she concentrates on him with possessiveness, and this tends
toward monogamy.
However, woman’s lack of economic independence in the past, her great
dependence on man, may have been a large factor in the problem;
and, indeed, today it is not rare to find women who claim the same
freedom that men have often claimed, and who are polyandrous in their
relationships.
It would seem, again, that the matter should be relegated for solution
to the individuals concerned; and so far as the State is concerned that
either divorce should be made easy, or extra-marital relations allowed
for good cause.
As a matter of fact, with the attitude now prevailing, there is much
needless suffering. I remember the case of a man who married the girl
of his choice when they were both very young. He was a man absorbed in
his business to such an extent as not to be aware of any sexual need.
He was content to have a wife who ran the home, was his companion in
his travels, and helped receive his guests. They were very fond of each
other, but had no sexual relationship.
He told his wife everything. He discussed his business and personal
problems with her; and everything went well until he became so
successful that a trust bought out his business. As soon as he relaxed,
he was aware that he had not known the full joy of living. It was not
surprising that at that very time, he met an independent and very
attractive woman, and that he fell madly in love with her. He was
quite intoxicated; life suddenly had become an intense affair, full of
glamour. He was irresistibly drawn into an affair with her, and what
was more, he found her so delightful a person, that it appeared to him
that the relationship would become permanent.
However, his old fondness for his wife was unabated. Their many years
together, their complete candor with each other, had given their
relationship an enduring basis. He knew, nevertheless, that if his wife
got wind of his new relationship, it would quite wreck her life. She
was puritanic, she believed in monogamy, and she trusted him completely.
He attempted to evade the matter; to get time off by giving business
excuses; but she soon became suspicious, and deeply troubled. She knew
he was hiding something, and feared that it was exactly as it was.
Finally, in his dilemma, he came to an analyst. After hearing the case,
the analyst asked him:
“Can you give up the other woman?”
The poor man was lost in his thoughts for several minutes. Then he
looked up, and spoke slowly:
“No, I cannot. I should rather die.”
Such tragedies are hidden in our present system of inelastic monogamy.
Had the wife been brought up to a more sensible attitude, or had either
of them been taught the value of sexuality in their youth, the tragedy
might have been avoided.
Certainly there is one thing that every couple must take into
consideration; and that is, that the nature of either may undergo
a change so divergent from the other, as to cause the need of a
genuine readjustment. But if people take this into consideration, they
cannot but be less possessive of one another; and, indeed, too great
concentration on each other is usually an evil in marriage. For one
thing, it often leads to the feeling of staleness, and this in turn
either leads to artificial stimulants, to perversions in the sexuality,
or it may end in a break.
One of the essentials in most marriages is occasional separation, and
diverse interests and relationships.
It will be seen then that from the standpoint of common sense there are
many reasons for abnormal or unsuccessful sexuality besides those that
are due to deeper causes.
SOME THINGS TO DO
As I said in the beginning, it is time for this dark cloud of ignorance
and prejudice and fear which we call the sexual problem, to roll away.
This can only come about by a passionate realization of the principle
of _difference_. There are different kinds of people, and it takes
all kinds to make a world. We cannot legislate a sexual code, whether
the law we make says, “Thou shalt not,” or even “Thou shalt,” without
violating the natures and needs of large sections of the population.
What it comes down to, finally, is the individual. It is he who must be
studied, and it is he who must find his own path.
Doubtless we shall not come to a true sexual morality until our
education includes the psychological study of children. Until the child
is known, his hidden need is not apparent. If he is an introvert, he
should not be developed, as he is today, particularly in this country,
along extraverted lines that are against his bent. And if he is an
extraverted sensational, we cannot demand the same standard of him as
we could of an intuitive.
But even these type differences are insufficient for our study. The
child, after all, is himself, and therefore in some ways different from
all others. His problem is always unique, and must often be solved in
new and unique ways.
But since a change in our education which would include the technic of
modern psycho-analysis, is still far off; all that we can do in the
meantime is to spread the new knowledge and new insight, so as to break
down the old prejudices, shames and fears, and put new weapons into the
hands of parents.
It is often difficult for parents to be candid with their children
concerning sexuality, especially if their own attitude is vague or
prejudiced. Where the difficulty is too great, the child should be
turned over to a trusted friend or teacher for enlightenment and
guidance.
The first step in gaining the confidence of the child is to give him a
good attitude. Nothing that he tells will be used against him; there
will be an attempt to understand all. Besides that, he should be told
that the problem is practically universal, and the things that he does,
if at all, are not so much sins as bits of childishness which may, in
many cases, be overcome.
When he has learned to speak freely, he may, for instance, for the
problem is general, say that he practices auto-erotism. In this case,
if the child is still under the age of puberty, he can be told that it
may become a habit and later on give him considerable trouble, and that
it is something he should attempt to overcome. He is to report progress
and should not mind confessing a slip.
Most children are amenable to such treatment, and overcome the habit.
In a few cases, this appears impossible, and some deeper cause should
be looked for. For instance, the child is afraid of the dark, and
uses auto-erotism to quiet himself and soothe himself to sleep. In
that case, it would be better, of course, that there was a light in
his room, or someone remained near him while he was trying to sleep.
Or it may be found that he has contracted the habit as a substitution
for some other gratification. He may, for example, have a craving for
candy which a too-wise parent has entirely tabooed for him. The cure is
candy, by all means.
It will often be found that the hidden cause is as simple as the
foregoing, and that the cure is equally simple.
However, if the child is at puberty, if he is adolescing, the problem
is more difficult. In many cases, if the boy is shown that such a habit
may make it difficult later on to be normal sexually, he will break
it, and by a vigorous life avoid the problem. But there are cases which
refuse to yield to such common sense, and either such a child needs
an analysis, or, as one of our noted psychologists thinks, he may be
permitted a limited expression until he gets past the dangerous years.
In such a case, he must be warned against excess, to limiting himself
only to overwhelming desire.
This may seem like a poor way of handling the matter; but unfortunately
we have here “not a theory, but a condition.” Actually if the boy is
scared off, he may merely go on practicing the habit in private and
with no restraint; or if he has become afraid of that, may turn to
homosexuality or seek out a woman or a girl. Since this is not a mere
child’s problem, since it is known that the run of men who go off on
long expeditions, or sea voyages, or live in camps where there are no
women, resort to such practices, we can hardly expect highly-sexed boys
to observe a higher code.
The best thing, of course, would be a psycho-analysis at the hands of a
perfectly competent analyst. In that case a deep and hidden cause might
be found, such as those outlined in the earlier part of this booklet.
Where some boys find a kind of outlet in athletics and in general
activities, such a boy might, for example, find an outlet in creating
some form of art. He might be gifted as a painter or poet or writer of
fiction. In many cases, this is the cure, until he is old enough to
handle his sexual problem in the way best suited to him.
When it comes to adults, there is very little to be said. It would
seem, for instance, as though homosexuality ran counter to the best
tendencies of this age. Why this should be so is not apparent. When
Greece was at her height, and that height was great, homosexuality was
held in high esteem and practiced, along with normal sexuality, by the
most enlightened and developed men. The Greeks practiced bi-sexuality
and were a great nation, with production of marvelous ideas and
deathless art. Yet today homosexuality runs against the grain.
It may be, of course, that, in the end, no man completes himself,
except through woman. The rise of woman has made her all the more man’s
counterpart and complement. It is more or less through woman that man
is able to develop his true individuality. And it may be that man must
honor the symbol of woman, as well as the woman herself, by guiding his
desire toward her, and fulfilling himself also physically through her
love.
But, however true this may be, there is a certain percentage of men,
relatively small, who seem more like the victims, than the willing
practicers, of homosexuality. The overwhelming prejudice against them,
the fact that they are mocked or shunned like pariahs, the sense they
have that they cannot escape their doom, the often effeminate traits
which give them away, make them as a rule pitiable objects. It is true
that sometimes they turn, as a driven animal turns, and stand at bay,
flaunting their difference in the face of the world; but as a rule it
is the opposite.
Certainly, at least, such cases are for the psycho-analyst’s study,
rather than for the world’s contempt. There are cases which, as I have
noted, can be cured; since they are psychological in origin; but there
are other cases which still defy our insight.
But however reprehensible any given practice may be, when it comes to
adults there is very little legislation that can be done. They can, and
will, and do follow individual paths. One can only enlighten them on
the meaning of their acts. It is only in such excessive cases as that
of the seducer of young girls or the sadist who harms others that the
State can step in and put a stop to it.
Another aspect of the problem which must be included in this review
is that of prostitution and sexual disease. Is prostitution an evil,
or will its abolishment lead to more promiscuity? That, too, is a
difficult question, and by no means answerable in a simple way. It
does, however, seem apparent that prostitution is an evil, and that its
gradual elimination is leading to a greater promiscuity.
The obvious evil of prostitution is that, as a rule, it brings
sexuality down to its animal basis, and thus destroys one of the
beauties and joys of life. Its further evil is that it turns women
again into chattels. And finally, of course, it is a breeding ground
for disease.
Naturally, a part of the education in sexuality should include a
knowledge of the diseases of sex. This, in itself, especially among the
young, tends to curb the impulse toward promiscuity, or at least to
limit it to “petting” rather than to full sexuality.
Nevertheless, we must admit the fact that there is a growing
promiscuity, along with a change of attitude on the whole sexual
problem. Whether this is a passing phase, and due to the revolt of
youth against the old puritanism, or whether the future will look upon
sexuality with new eyes, we cannot really know. However, those who fear
that the institution of marriage will soon totter on its foundation
have not, I think, a very deep insight into man. Human nature has much
in it of restlessness, of desire for change, and for experiment, but
as a rule it has more on the side of inertia, with a deep craving for
security and comfort. Everything in man that loves to settle down and
be secure makes also for monogamous marriage. That, for most people, is
the only safe center in the world, the cave or retreat, the cavern of
comfort. Beside that, of course, so long as children are born into the
world, just so long will the run of people find much of the meaning of
life in their children’s growth and success. This is the powerful force
that keeps parents together, even where their tastes and their very
natures are incompatible.
LOVE
The love of man for woman and woman for man,
It is not often love....
When the married couple kiss do they drink the music of each
other’s souls,
Are they moved to unspeakable reverence and adoration,
Would they renounce the world for the good of the beloved?
No, kisses are become to them a routine and a duty:
They find each other’s bodies at midnight as they find breakfast
in the morning:
And they fill the idle hours with games, shows, rides and liquor,
All to escape from one another....
I have thoughts of a love that might be:
Of a love that is the tender caress of forehead and cheeks with
barely lingering hands:
Of a love that opens the skies at midnight for silent flight,
Flight far, with wings, in one another’s arms....
These lovers shall mean as much to each other as they mean to
themselves:
Their tenderness shall melt down irritations:
Their passion shall surcharge tasks with meaning....
Not alone shall the man find God in himself,
But in the beloved shall he find him, and in the sight of the
beloved shall he adore him....
--_Songs for the New Age._
That still remains the ideal. To the couple who have found such meaning
in each other, sexuality, as Havelock Ellis shows, becomes the art of
love, and the union is one of joy and mystery, revealing the greatness
of life.
The ideal of that sexuality remains also as Havelock Ellis states
it. As I have said several times, he divides the sexual act into the
forepleasure and the act itself. The forepleasure is a summarizing of
many of those things looked upon as infantile and perverse, but which,
as part of the art of love, become means of endearment and arousal, and
lead finally to the complete consummation.
It is well, even for those who have difficulty in the matter, to keep
this ideal before them as something finally capable of attainment.
For, while the various items of the forepleasure may become ends in
themselves, and this unavoidably because of the lack of development or
the person’s type, it should not be forgotten that things undeveloped
should finally be developed, so that marriage may become more complete
and love deeper.
NOTE
The reader who wants to pursue the matter further, would do well to
read Havelock Ellis’s _Psychology of Sex_, particularly volume six,
which contains the famous chapter on The Art of Love.
He may also gain much by reading Freud’s _General Introduction to
Psycho-Analysis_.
Finally, if he is interested in going more deeply into the psychology
of Jung, the problems of introvert vs. extravert, and the types, he is
referred to Little Blue Book No. 978 (_The Psychology of Jung_), Little
Blue Book No. 980 (_How I Psycho-Analyzed Myself_) and Little Blue Book
No. 985 (_A Psycho-Analysis of America_).
Transcriber’s Note
Some inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have
been retained.
This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text and =equals= to
indicate bold text.
p. 53: changed “genuie” to “genuine” (a genuine readjustment)
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMMON SENSE OF SEX ***
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