Sex-education Part 3

[Sidenote: One problem for s.e.x-education.]

Our brief survey of the hygienic problems caused by s.e.xual promiscuity and its characteristic diseases is sufficient to indicate one great problem for s.e.x-education. Such social-hygiene problems have been most responsible for the recent and rapid rise of the movement for s.e.x-education, and they must be recognized in any adequate scheme for instruction of young people.

[Sidenote: Is s.e.x-hygiene adequate?]

Can scientific education hope to solve the s.e.xual problems of society by inculcating such fear of venereal diseases that men will remain true to the monogamic code of morality? Many cynical disbelievers in s.e.x-hygiene answer this question negatively by asking in biblical phrase, "Can the leopard change his spots?" In other words, these doubting ones believe that s.e.xual instincts are so firmly fixed in the nature of _many_ men and _some_ women that there is no hope of radical change through education.[3] There is something in this point of view.

It is probably true that even the most radical advocates of s.e.x-education do not hope to secure universal monogamy and consequent disappearance of social diseases. A conservative and rational answer to the above question whether s.e.x-education can solve the problem of social diseases, is that a large percentage of even civilized people are not yet ready to have their most powerful instincts controlled by scientific knowledge. Hence, there is no hope that the hygienic task of s.e.x-education will be finished soon after instruction becomes an established part of general education in homes and schools. At the very best there will be incomplete returns for the social-hygienic aspect of s.e.x-instruction, but already we know for a certainty that enough young men will be influenced to make the teaching justifiable. I feel sure of this because I have met personally many such men and my friends know many more.

According to the investigations made by Dr. Exner, the medical secretary of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, a great reduction of venereal disease has followed s.e.x-hygienic campaigns in college towns.

[Sidenote: Medical treatment.]

In another way hygienic teaching may reduce the amount of venereal diseases, and that is by leading infected individuals to seek thorough medical treatment without delay. This, of course, will render the diseased person non-infectious to others. Physicians report that there is now a marked movement in this direction and, moreover, that many infected young men voluntarily seek medical examinations before marriage.

[Sidenote: Woman's need of information.]

Even if we refuse to believe that social-hygienic teaching will protect many young men from s.e.xual diseases, there is the woman's need of information to be considered. As said before, women more than men suffer the consequences of venereal infections. Therefore, every young woman who considers marriage should know the possibility of danger to herself and her children, and be able to decide accordingly. Of course, even with much knowledge she may marry the wrong man, for correct diagnosis of social disease is not always easy; but if her confidence is betrayed and she becomes infected, she ought to know the importance of immediate and radical medical treatment. Let me ill.u.s.trate these statements that women should know the danger of venereal disease. One of my college friends neglected an important legal case to travel seven hundred miles in order to tell face to face another college friend that she was about to marry a dangerous man. Being utterly ignorant of the existence of s.e.xual diseases, the girl and her mother characterized my friend's statement by a short and ugly word, and ordered him to leave their home instantly. The marriage occurred and some months later the young woman went to her grave, a victim of gonorrheal salpingitis and peritonitis.

Another case which ill.u.s.trates the danger of a woman's ignorance: One of my students of many years ago married a minister who infected her with syphilis and kept her from medical attention until the disease was in a highly developed stage, and even then conspired with an inefficient doctor to keep her ignorant of the nature of the disease.

[Sidenote: The right to knowledge.]

These are not extreme cases, for any physician with large experience knows that such things are common. Medical literature is full of such painful recitals of venereal tragedies. It is not desirable that all young women should know the details of such tragedies, but they should know that dangers exist. Parents and educators will not have done their duty until they cooperate to give all young women the protective knowledge they have a right to demand.[4]

[Sidenote: Best people must lead.]

There is another way of looking at the possible effect of the social side of s.e.x-hygienic instruction. It is sure to make a decided impression upon many young people of the type that we regard as the best in every way. These will be the leaders of the future and they in turn will help improve conditions. Perhaps it may all work out as the drug problem is being solved. Widespread social and hygienic information regarding the harmful effect of alcohol, cocaine, opium, and other drugs has first of all impressed leading citizens; and these are beginning to control by laws those who cannot be reached directly by education. In some such ways those who are impressed by formal s.e.x-education may lend a hand in influencing many who could not be touched directly by hygienic education.

[Sidenote: Legislation needed.]

There is no doubt that public enlightenment regarding the dangers of social diseases will soon lead to legislation and public medical work which will contribute greatly towards reduction of the diseases. For example, legislation with reference to venereal disease should require doctors to report cases to health officers, should forbid "quack"

advertising of fake "cures," should forbid sale by drug stores of nostrums for personal treatment, should provide dispensaries and hospitals for reliable treatment at reasonable cost, should require medical examinations for marriage licenses and provide for such examinations at moderate charges or at public expense, should require certain sanitary precautions in care of eyes of new-born infants, and should provide for discovery and treatment of congenital syphilis in school children. These are lines in which good laws might help vastly in the war against the social diseases. Moreover, it is obvious that all laws which help control the social evil will work indirectly against the social diseases.

[Sidenote: Probable results of instruction.]

In conclusion, it seems probable that popular knowledge of the social side of s.e.x-hygiene will reduce the amount of venereal disease (1) by teaching some people the dangers of promiscuity, (2) by adoption of certain sanitary precautions that lessen danger of infection, (3) by leading people to seek competent medical aid which, while often failing to restore the victim's health, will probably eliminate the danger of contagion for others, and (4) by intelligent support of laws that directly or indirectly affect the social diseases.

[Sidenote: Social diseases not most important.]

I have given great prominence to the social-s.e.xual diseases in their relation to s.e.x-education because along this line there has been developed the widespread interest in s.e.x-instruction as _one_ method of protecting young people against promiscuity. So far as the questions of teaching are concerned, my personal view is that some of the other reasons or problems for s.e.x-instruction are more important, because I believe that educational emphasis on them will give the greatest results in improved s.e.xual conditions of society.

-- 8. _Third Problem for s.e.x-instruction: the Social Evil_

So far as the problems of s.e.x-education are concerned, there is nothing to be gained by an extensive review of commercialized prost.i.tution. It is generally accepted that the social evil or prost.i.tution is increased by the common ignorance of young people of both s.e.xes regarding the physical and social relations of s.e.x.

Of course, it is not true that all prost.i.tution is due to ignorance, for it often involves enlightened men and women. However, there seems to be good reason for believing that large numbers of people of both s.e.xes might be kept out of prost.i.tution by very simple s.e.x-instruction.

Let us look for a moment at some facts concerning the relation of the ignorance of the women to their entrance into the underworld, and later consider certain reasons why many men patronize the social evil.

[Sidenote: Why women enter prost.i.tution.]

With regard to the women victims of prost.i.tution, it seems to be generally accepted that economic pressure, feeble-mindedness, bad social environment, and unguided instincts, independently or combined, are the chief causes of their downfall. However, there is a deeper reason why numerous women enter prost.i.tution, for all of these factors commonly operate because of inadequate s.e.xual knowledge. In short, ignorance is the fundamental cause of much prost.i.tution on the part of women. Many a girl with starvation wages, bad social surroundings, sub-normal mentality, or even intense instincts is able to keep her womanhood because she knows the awful dangers of s.e.xual promiscuity.

For our present educational purposes, it is sufficient to point out the opinion of competent social workers that knowledge might often counteract the forces that lead women from virtue and down into prost.i.tution.

[Sidenote: Men also ignorant.]

A large number of men patronize prost.i.tution because they are ignorant in one or more of the following respects. Some of them have drifted into abnormal s.e.xual habits when they were boys, and later into illicit relations. Some of them did not know the effect of alcoholic drinks in leading many young men to their first immoral s.e.xual acts. Some of them have deliberately patronized prost.i.tution because they have accepted as truth the monstrous lie that s.e.xual activity is necessary to preserve the health of men.[5] Most of the men do not realize that prost.i.tution offers great danger to their own health, still greater danger to the health of innocent wives and children, and a greatly shortened life for many women who are the victims of s.e.xual slavery. Most men do not know that dark tragedies are often concealed beneath the apparent gay life of the women who are victims of s.e.xual degradation. These are some of the things of which many young men I have known were very ignorant, and it has been no difficult task to trace a close connection between their ignorance and their vice.

[Sidenote: Ignorance the chief cause.]

Looking at the social evil from any point of view, it seems to me that ignorance, dense ignorance, is largely responsible for the existence of that darkest blot on our boasted civilization--the social-s.e.xual evil.

No matter how we look at the established facts regarding prost.i.tution, they all point to the need of s.e.xual instruction for the protection of the youth of both s.e.xes. The Chicago Vice Commission concluded that "the lack of information, education and training with reference to the function and control of the s.e.xual instinct, and the consequences of its abuse and perversion, appears at every point of our inquiry for the sources of the supply of the victims of vice, either as the cause of the perversion of children and youth or as a complication of all other causes."[6] Of course, we dare not dream that any s.e.x-instruction that now seems possible will completely eradicate prost.i.tution; but we do know of thousands of boys and girls who have been directed to safety by knowledge of some fundamental s.e.xual facts.

[Sidenote: s.e.x plays and novels.]

Concerning presentation of the social evil by fiction and the drama, there is much honest disagreement. My personal opinion is that little good is done by the theater or by such publications as Reginald Kaufmann's "House of Bondage," and Elizabeth Robin's "My Little Sister." They all leave the unsophisticated reader with an exaggerated and even hysterical notion that white slavery is exceedingly common and the main cause of prost.i.tution. Certainly the great majority of the army of prost.i.tutes, both public and clandestine, in America, and a still higher percentage on the continent of Europe, did not become novitiates of vice in prisons of prost.i.tution.

[Sidenote: Limited reading desirable.]

It seems to me that a very limited reading regarding the social evil is sufficient for one who is not engaged in medical or social work that requires scientific knowledge of this darkest side of human life.

Certainly, the indiscriminate reading of vice investigations is dangerous for many young people,--for young men because some of them are allured into personal investigations, and for young women because they get an exaggerated and pessimistic view of all s.e.xual problems.

For the intelligent reader who wants the general information that every public-spirited citizen should have, the well-known book by Jane Addams will serve both as an outline and an encyclopedia of the social evil.

Social workers and some educators will find use for the other books mentioned below.

Jane Addams.--"A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil."

(Macmillan).

Seligman, E.R.A. (Editor).--"The Social Evil." (Putnam.) Contains bibliography on the subject.

Sumner, Dean W.T., and others.--"The Social Evil in Chicago."

Vice-Commission Report, 1911. Now published by the American Social Hygiene a.s.sociation. The "introduction and summary" (pp.

25-47) deserves careful reading.

c.o.c.ks, O.G.--"The Social Evil" (a.s.sociation Press).

"Vigilance," a journal devoted to attacking the social evil, has been discontinued and replaced by bulletins of the American Social Hygiene a.s.sociation, 105 West 40th Street, New York City.

-- 9. _The Fourth Problem for s.e.x-education: Illegitimacy_

[Sidenote: Society condemns illegitimacy.]

Most awful of all the results of the s.e.xual mistakes of men and women are the unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children. Of course, I know that there are well-meaning people who argue that motherhood is the supreme fact and that the formality of a marriage ceremony is merely a medievalism in our laws and customs; but the inexorable truth remains that our modern social system is centered around the home which is strictly regulated by church and state and public opinion.[7]

Whatever may be the philosophical rights and wrongs of individual freedom in s.e.xual relationship, the facts of practical life are that an overwhelming majority of the most intelligent people are united in support of our established laws and customs demanding legitimacy of motherhood and birthright. As a result of this age-old stand for legitimacy, illegitimate mothers and children do not have a square deal at the bar of public opinion. Everybody knows that the vast majority of illegitimate children do not have a fair chance in the world's work.

Professor Cattell, in _Science_, March, 1914, points out that since illegitimates occur one in every twenty-five births in the United States, and since they are on the whole equal to other children in mentality, there ought to be forty of them among the thousand leading men of science designated in the directory of the "American Men of Science;" but none are known. The conclusion must be that illegitimate children do not have an equal chance at education which leads to prominence in science. But it is not simply a matter of limited education, for in every way the fate of most illegitimate children is usually pitiful. Only now and then one born under a lucky star is adopted and educated by large-minded foster parents who recognize that the illegitimate is not responsible for having come into this world under conditions opposed to the best interests of society.

[Sidenote: Ignorance the cause.]