An Outline of Sexual Morality Part 3

And in practice this theoretical conclusion is found to hold true. For in the countries, such as France, where the Code Napoleon does not cover these prosecutions, h.o.m.os.e.xuality is far less rife than in England, or in Germany, where until the Revolution the penal law was rigidly enforced.

It is well that we should face these facts unreservedly, however strong may be our personal antipathy to the practices.

The second att.i.tude may be described generally as that of society. Public opinion must necessarily be too vague to admit of succinct definition. But generally its att.i.tude towards this question may be defined as that of an ordinary man towards a freak; he has no sympathy with freaks and indeed dislikes them--but they are so very rare that he can afford to ignore them.

The problem of the h.o.m.os.e.xual cannot however be avoided in this way, for the simple reason that the invert forms so comparatively large and permanent a part of the community. It is difficult to attempt an accurate estimate, partly because many h.o.m.os.e.xuals are so afraid of incurring the odium of public opinion that they successfully disguise their true nature and are unsuspected even by their most intimate friends. But there is a more fundamental difficulty. It appears to be undeniable that a large number of normal people possess to some extent a strain of the h.o.m.os.e.xual temperament. We have, in fact, as in almost all cla.s.sifications, not a naturally dividing gulf but a gradually ascending scale. Some individuals may have only 5 per cent. inverted and 95 per cent. hetero-s.e.xual tendencies, while others are only 10 per cent. normal. There are a large and increasing number of persons who are almost equally balanced on either side. These bis.e.xuals often marry happily and at the same time enjoy h.o.m.ogenic experiences.

When we remember that, according to psycho-a.n.a.lysis, everyone about the age of p.u.b.erty pa.s.ses through a h.o.m.os.e.xual stage, it is probably not an exaggeration to state that few people fail to preserve a stratum of this nature, however small the percentage and however deeply such tendencies may be buried in the unconsciousness.

If however we decide to draw an arbitrary distinction and to define persons with less than 30 per cent. inverted nature as normal, persons from 30 to 60 per cent. as bis.e.xual, and the remainder as h.o.m.os.e.xual, we are left with a considerable number of the last variety. Havelock Ellis has reckoned the percentage of h.o.m.os.e.xuals among the professional middle cla.s.ses in England as 5 per cent. and among women as 10 per cent.[17] In any case the popular view that the proportion is so small as to be negligible is quite impossible, and is due to the fact that most men are so un.o.bservant of psychological evidence that their opinion is of little serious value.

However undesirable, then, this species of temperament may be, it cannot be described as unnatural in the sense of artificial or unusual. The third or current scientific att.i.tude does seem at first to avoid these superst.i.tions and to rest on a reasonable basis. This att.i.tude may be described as that of regarding h.o.m.os.e.xuality as a disease, which should neither be punished nor ignored, but treated. The theory that we all pa.s.s through a h.o.m.os.e.xual period at a comparatively early stage, lends support to this conclusion. The hero-age of boys and girls, it is urged, is almost always directed towards the child's own s.e.x. Therefore it can fairly be argued that where the s.e.x development has been restricted to these lines it denotes some strange dislocation which has prevented natural growth.

The fact that in some cases this cause can actually be traced--such as a disappointment in an early love affair with the opposite s.e.x, or to artificial circ.u.mstances which have made for celibacy--confirm many students of s.e.x-science in this opinion.

But as if nature deliberately intends to thwart all easily attained explanations, she sets out certain facts, in practice, which entirely invalidate the theory. It is true that many h.o.m.os.e.xuals, both men and women, portray in general mental efficiency that peculiar want of proportion in some direction which is the inevitable symptom of mental abnormality; the male may be obviously effeminate, or, male or female, eccentric or hysterical. But this is distinctly the exception. So far as my personal experience goes, the majority of h.o.m.os.e.xuals are indistinguishable from normal men, except by some psychic or intuitional sense, in physical or mental appearance; and I observe that this experience is shared by all those scientists who have written on the subject. The undeniable facts are that among this minority of the race a majority of men have, in all ages and races, held a pre-eminent and honourable position in society, revealing the brilliance of sanity rather than the abnormality of genius. The h.o.m.os.e.xual has succeeded not only as might have been expected in the arts. It is true that, in general, he possesses certain feminine attributes, such as a gentler and more emotional positivity than the normal. But he has excelled in such masculine paths as soldiering, statesmanship, and engineering. It is almost irritating, where one wishes to find support for the scientific explanation, to turn to history and discover that the h.o.m.os.e.xual section of the Greeks were magnificent warriors as well as philosophers; that not only Shakespeare, who wrote many of his sonnets to a boy, or Michael Angelo, but Alexander the Great, Charles XII of Sweden, Frederick II of Prussia, and William III of England, had their h.o.m.os.e.xual tendencies.

Indeed, were it permissible to do so, it would be possible to instance some of our most famous generals and politicians of modern times as possessing this unmistakable temperament.

It is well then freely to admit that the scientific theory simply does not square with the full facts of the case.

The fourth att.i.tude is that of religion. The Church's official position is mainly indistinguishable from that of the State, although the atmosphere of the Church has tended largely to be congenial to this development. It is evident that Christianity was influenced in its early days by the appalling condition of vice in Roman society, and it is not to be wondered at that a severe legacy of prejudice has been inherited in the light of this indescribable experience. But this brings us conveniently to a point where we must admit a fallacy underlying almost all considerations of the h.o.m.ogenic s.e.x nature. And unless we are able to dispose of the fallacy in our minds, further investigation is useless.

The fallacy consists of the a.s.sumption that h.o.m.os.e.xuality means only the perpetration of the physical s.e.x-act. In reality this is as untrue as to suppose that the normal man is necessarily a patron of prost.i.tutes. Such a confusion of thought is obviously ludicrous. But not less inaccurate is this prevailing idea regarding the h.o.m.os.e.xual. Not only is the particular s.e.x-act, popularly a.s.sociated with this subject, an extremely rare occurence, even as among the physical s.e.x-expressions of this temperament, but probably a vast majority of h.o.m.os.e.xuals are deliberately celibate.

h.o.m.os.e.xuality is a romantic cult rather than a physical vice. Nine-tenths of its energy is directed purely in the realm of ideals. The old misconception of s.e.x as a rather disreputable physical function again dogs our steps. But s.e.x is almost entirely emotional; s.e.x-love, and especially h.o.m.os.e.xual love, is not l.u.s.t. Its desire is romantic and idealistic, and when physical incidents occur, they are usually the unintentional outlets of the purely emotional pa.s.sion.

The literature of h.o.m.os.e.xuality is almost entirely romantic, and small though it is forced to be, in quality and ideal its average must rank as extraordinarily n.o.ble.

It is noticeable, indeed, that in a large proportion of the unpleasant cases which are tried in police-courts, the offenders are admittedly normal men who have deliberately perpetrated h.o.m.os.e.xual acts for various causes, such as a neurotic desire for novelty, or the desire to avoid disease. There are also the considerable cla.s.s of perverted normals whose deviation from their natural path as the result of some such influence as heteros.e.xual disappointment or repression, has been so emphasized as to render their perversion distinct from natural developments, and who refuse, or are unable, to deny themselves physical gratification.

If we dissociate the true h.o.m.os.e.xual from this cla.s.s, and concentrate our attention only on the "celibate" species of such attachments, it is evident that we are in the presence, not merely of something which is not criminal, but of an ideal which is sacred in character. Pure love, especially so intense a love as the h.o.m.ogenic attachment, is not profane but divine. And though the Church may be unable to recognize it by her sacramental benediction, because, unlike marriage, it cannot effect physical procreation, she possesses such Biblical precedents as the story of David and Jonathan--an episode which is obviously h.o.m.os.e.xual in the sense that it describes not a platonic companionship but a romantic pa.s.sion.

In the social sphere also, the place of this aspect of h.o.m.os.e.xuality is obvious. The h.o.m.os.e.xual must, and does in fact, exist in the most honoured offices of the community. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to declare that few men can be successful in educational or philanthropic work unless they have some h.o.m.ogenic temperament in their nature. Without this they may compel discipline but they are powerless to attract sympathetic co-operation. The testimony in favour of this a.s.sertion is overwhelming.

But when we admit that s.e.x tends to find a physical expression, and we come therefore face to face with the physical problem, the difficulty I admit to be considerable. And I can only re-emphasize that this feature is numerically and potentially the least important, but that there can be no religious countenance for any physical s.e.x-act outside the sacrament of matrimony.

Rape, and seduction without consent, are obviously evils calling for legal prosecution, as being an infringement of personal liberty. And in this connexion it must be remembered that h.o.m.os.e.xual practices tend to seduction, inasmuch as the attraction is frequently towards those who have not attained intellectual manhood. For the rest, I am inclined only to re-affirm the general principle which I have already attempted to define--namely, that s.e.x becomes a sin where the main objective becomes the physical gratification. Once the proportion is weighed on the side of physical expression, love is prost.i.tuted. The purity of true love is known by the fact that its face is turned not to mere physical functions, but beyond the emotional and even mental, to the spiritual ideal. Indeed, a lover, whatever his temperament happens to be, loves even if his beloved is removed from all physical reach. That is the test.

I do not look for salvation to the arms of mere criminal legislation. This seems to me to be almost powerless as a moral force, and indeed, to encourage the hideous apparatus of blackmail.[18] Gradual and unsensational as it may be, I believe that morals can only be improved by educational and religious influences.

And so far as theoretical solutions are concerned I believe that Mr.

Edward Carpenter[19] comes nearest to the truth. Nature is deliberate in creating not uniformity but variety, and I doubt if the world would continue if there were only normal men in it. The h.o.m.os.e.xual has his place, within restrictions, as has the celibate or the s.e.xless type. The real truth, I feel to be, is that few men are wholly masculine or women feminine, and that somewhere, in comparative degrees, h.o.m.os.e.xuality is in us all. It may become so excessive as to be a disease, or so feeble as to create that unaesthetic, bourgeoise type, which is an unpleasant symptom of super-normality.

We enter the realm of pure conjecture if we attempt to inquire the purpose for which this type has been deliberately created. And I can only record my own entirely unproveable, but definite opinion, that the human race, in the far ages ahead, will return, by a spiral process, to the bis.e.xual species from which I believe it has come. If this is so, the h.o.m.os.e.xual is apparently a prototype, a preliminary attempt of nature to combine both s.e.x-natures in one individual. And with all his present imperfections, I believe that there are evidences which go strongly to support this conjecture.

Chapter 9: The s.e.xless Cla.s.s

There is little that need be written on this subject, not because it is devoid of interest, but because it raises no vital s.e.x problem.

The number of s.e.xless people is small, though apparently increasing. It may be questioned whether there are any really s.e.xless people--individuals, i.e. whose s.e.x-nature is non-existent. Probably in most of these cases s.e.x, for some reason or other, is there, dormant but positive. But it is convenient so to cla.s.sify those in whom, for some reason, the s.e.x-force has never yet been stirred.

It must be remembered that this cla.s.s is quite distinct from the religious celibate. The celibate has all the s.e.xual ardour for his religious or humanitarian devotion. The s.e.xless man or woman is cold, intellectually aloof, and generally critical.

There are only two considerations calling for remarks on this interesting psychological problem. The first is that we must not allow the great body of normal opinion to label such people as unnatural, and as having no part to play in the community. They have, on the contrary, an important role.

Their intellectual ability is in itself a great a.s.set, particularly in abstract and critical directions. And in all s.e.x questions they should, and frequently have, an impartial outlook, for the very reason that they can view s.e.x from a detached standpoint.

But, conversely--and this is the second consideration--they possess the immoral tendency of regarding s.e.x with abhorrence, especially when they confuse s.e.x with mere physical expression. In extreme cases the s.e.xless individual has been known even to faint or exhibit symptoms of nausea at the chance touch of a woman. This is obviously to magnify the physical side out of all clean proportion. And probably such cases show themselves to be the result of artificial repression and consequent complex. It may be argued from this that all deviations from the normal are the results of repression. But, as we have seen, the difference between natural and unnatural is comparative, and most of our nature is built up, in the first instance, by early exterior influences.

Chapter 10: Super-Abnormalities

Under this head I have included a number of characteristics, which have no connective bearing upon one another. It seemed the most convenient cla.s.sification.

Perhaps it will be best to take as the first example a s.e.x tendency which can hardly be described as super-abnormal, for among single men, and especially among boys, it is extremely common.

Auto-eroticism in the form of self-abuse is not an easy problem to tackle.

The usual policy adopted towards boys is most immoral. Well-meaning but hopelessly vicious purists, write terrifying pamphlets or deliver lectures in which they declare that this practice will inevitably lead to lunacy, paralysis or even death. The result is that the boy is scared into an ineffectual attempt at repression, which, so far as it is successful, sets the s.e.x-impulse at work into morose channels and makes him a liar or a thief. Or he may be impelled to inquire for himself. He finds that, so long as self-abuse occurs infrequently, it does not bring about these dire evils, and accordingly he a.s.sumes that all moral doctrine is hypocrisy and often falls into the opposite extreme of constant self-abuse, with the result that actual physical and mental deterioration sets in.

What is really the truth?

The first consideration is that frequent and unregulated abuse does cause physical harm. The margin of frequency which will escape this harm varies with the individual. But, with growing boys, the practice is perhaps more dangerous than after physical maturity. The whole reserve of the physical const.i.tution appears to be needed while the body is developing.

The difficulty of this problem is its complications. There are several entirely conflicting influences which must be weighed one against the other.

We have seen the physical danger, and, since morality must not be founded on a lie, we must freely admit that the physical danger may be eliminated by limiting the frequency of the practice. It may then be physically harmless. There remain, however, at least two causes which make for a misuse of the s.e.x-force, that is--for immorality. The first is that it is usually the result of mental weakness, sheer inability to overcome the inclination. The mind, the will, _must_ be supreme in its own house. Until that is done little else matters. And it comes, therefore, to this, so far as this particular consideration is concerned, that it is better for a man deliberately to regulate himself by programme to certain times, than to keep up an ineffectual struggle, or to obey whenever the inclination arises.

For, in both these cases, remorse follows. And this is as great an evil as the failure of will; indeed, it _is_ failure of will. Remorse is not penitence. It is useless thereby to regret what has been done. A man must simply own to himself that he has failed, make a resolution to be stronger next time, and then sweep the recollection from his mind, switching off on to other mental channels.

The second influence which makes for impurity is that by this practice the s.e.x-force becomes literally selfish. Now, s.e.x is fundamentally a movement towards union through love, whether it be physical or super-physical. This practice is merely a vicious circle, in which the love element, save in the perverted form of narcissism, is absent. Accordingly, there must, almost always, be evil mental results from this abuse. And, once again, we see that the real evil is not in the physical act but in the realm of thought, whether the act occurs or not.

On the other hand, we must not become such abstract moralists as to deny that in many individuals the s.e.x-force is so strong as to press almost irresistibly towards physical expression. Even dreams, which are the normal outlet, may not be sufficient. A man who for some reason, cannot marry, will therefore argue that his only alternative is recourse to prost.i.tution, and that self-abuse, so long as it is regulated, is morally preferable. One remedy is, as we have already seen, the transfer of the s.e.x-force to higher channels, so that all the glow and energy of s.e.x is energized in devotion to a group of persons, or to a religious or humanitarian ideal in concrete labour. For s.e.x is primarily creative, and if it is not creating physical children it may have, and should have, a spiritual progeny--as in art and literature.

The truth is that each individual case must be treated according to its particular state of development. General rules in this instance are particularly dangerous. We can only repeat that the repression is worse than commission, that a seething ma.s.s of s.e.xual thought is worse when it has no physical outlet; that the ideal, when there may be no legitimate outlet--and, indeed, to some extent, in all cases--is to find an emotional outlet, to dig thought and emotional channels along which the s.e.x-force may flow, but the physical expression of which is, in the ordinary sense of the term, non-s.e.xual.[20]

And this is quite possible.

II