Sex-education Part 5

Now, unless we can devise some way to counteract the prevailing narrow, vulgar, disrespectful, and irreverent att.i.tude towards all aspects of s.e.x and reproduction; unless we can make people see s.e.xual processes in all their normal aspects as n.o.ble, beautiful, and splendid steps in the great plan of nature; unless we can subst.i.tute a philosophical and aesthetic view of s.e.x relationship for the time-worn interpretation of everything s.e.xual as inherently vulgar, base, ign.o.ble, and demanding asceticism for those who would reach the highest spiritual development; unless we can begin to make these changes in the prevailing att.i.tude towards s.e.x and reproduction, we cannot make any decided advance in the attempt to help solve s.e.xual problems by special instruction.

First of all, s.e.x-education must work for a purified and dignified att.i.tude which sees vulgarity and impurity only when the functions of s.e.x have been voluntarily and knowingly misused and thereby debased.

s.e.x-education must work against the idea that s.e.xual processes are inherently vulgar, degraded, base, and impure. Such an interpretation is correct only when s.e.xual instincts are uncontrolled and thereby out of harmony with the highest ideals of life. But control does not mean asceticism which aims at complete subjugation of s.e.xual instincts and would annihilate them if that were biologically possible. The early Christians, disgusted with the s.e.xual degradation of the paganistic and materialistic Romans, preached a doctrine of s.e.xual asceticism as the ideal for those who would rise to the heights of spiritual life. This pessimistic interpretation of the relation of s.e.x and life has persisted even in some ecclesiastical teachings of the twentieth century, and probably has had not a little responsibility for the widely accepted and depressing view that s.e.x is a necessary but regrettable fact of human life.

[Sidenote: Att.i.tude changing.]

Fortunately, the old ascetic point of view is pa.s.sing rapidly.

Nineteenth-century science has given us a n.o.bler view of the physical world. Scientifically considered, matter is no longer base and degraded. Especially has the biological science of the past fifty years made _living_ matter and its activities profoundly impressive. And of the life-activities none are so significant and so all-important as those relating to the perpetuation of the human species. Biological science has taught this emphatically, and the processes connected with s.e.x have been lifted to a place of dignity and purity.

[Sidenote: aesthetic att.i.tude desirable.]

The old asceticism, with its uniformly dark outlook on life, has no lessons worth while in our modern problems relating to s.e.x.[10] We need severe control and not annihilation of our most powerful instincts. The bright outlook of aesthetics rather than the dark one of asceticism should prevail, for s.e.x-instincts and processes are essentially pure and beautiful phases of that wonderful something we call "life."

s.e.x-education should aim to give this att.i.tude by presenting life as fundamentally free from the degradation arising from misuse and misunderstanding of s.e.x.

[Sidenote: Not a new ideal.]

The aesthetic interpretation of s.e.x is no new ideal. Canon Lyttleton, formerly Head Master of Eton College and later Canon of Westminster, believed that "viewed rightly, the subject of s.e.x, the ever-recurring miracle of generation and birth, is full of n.o.bleness, purity, and health." The late Dr. Prince A. Morrow wrote, "the s.e.x function is intimately connected with the physical, mental, and moral development.

Its right use is the surest basis of individual health, happiness and usefulness in life, as well as of racial permanence and prosperity. Its abuse and misuse is the cause of a vast deal of disease and misery."

And finally, we may quote President-Emeritus Eliot of Harvard University: "Society must be relieved by sound instruction of the horrible doctrine that the begetting and bearing of children are in the slightest degree sinful or foul processes. That doctrine lies at the root of the feeling of shame in connection with these processes and of the desire for secrecy. The plain fact is that there is nothing so sacred and propitious on earth as the bringing of another normal child into the world in marriage. There is nothing staining or defiling about it, and therefore there is no need for shame or secrecy, but only for pride and joy. This doctrine should be part of the instruction given to all young people."

[Sidenote: Att.i.tude all-important in s.e.x-education.]

If s.e.x-education succeeds in giving young people this enlightened att.i.tude, there will be little difficulty in solving most of the ethical and hygienic problems of s.e.x. A young man who has caught a glimpse of the highest interpretation of s.e.x in its relation to human life, in short a young man to whom all natural s.e.xual processes are essentially pure and n.o.ble and beautiful, is not one who will make grave hygienic mistakes in his own life, and he will not be personally connected with the social evil and its diseases, and he will avoid almost intuitively the physiologic and psychologic mistakes that most often cause matrimonial disaster. Everything, then, in successful s.e.x-education depends upon the att.i.tude formed in the minds of learners; and towards this our major efforts should be directed.

[Sidenote: Comparison with animals not helpful.]

The prevailing vulgar att.i.tude towards s.e.x will not be greatly improved by repeated emphasis upon the animal nature of reproduction in attempts at supporting the thesis that propagation is the sole function of s.e.xual processes in human life. Such an interpretation of human s.e.xuality as purely animalistic in function is implied, if not expressed, by some workers for the "purity" movement. I sincerely believe that such a view will inevitably tend to increase the feeling that s.e.xual processes are heritages from the beasts which unfortunately must be tolerated because nature has provided no other way for perpetuating human life.

[Sidenote: s.e.xual pessimism.]

An intelligent woman, a happy wife and mother, who had accepted this ascetic and pessimistic view of s.e.x, said the other day: "Oh, love and marriage and motherhood would be so beautiful were it possible to escape the unspeakably vulgar facts of physical life!" Poor woman! It must have been some fiend incarnate who in the guise of a prophet of purity preached to her the animalistic interpretation of s.e.x, which made her overlook the fact that the very beauty which she could not quite grasp had its origin in her emotions arising from the despised s.e.xual nature.

This is not an isolated case. Several young women who have graduated from college within ten years vouch for the statement that many thoughtful students are strong in the belief that ideal marriage is platonic friendship and that it is a sad fact of life that husband and wife must lay aside their high ideals in order to become parents.

Such depressing interpretations of life are bound to come from the radical type of "purity" preaching based on the s.e.xual mistakes of the past and on the lives of animals. A similar pessimistic view regarding the function of eating might be based on mistakes of drunkards and gluttons and on the habits of the porcine family. If these are to guide our conduct, then food-taking is to be regarded as a necessary but vulgar habit inherited from our animal ancestors; and if we are to be logical and attempt to rise to ideal purity in eating, we must hasten to dispense with the culinary science and all the aesthetics which have made civilized eating a fine art. Of course, this is just what the strict ascetic does; but such radical disbelievers in the pleasures that we have a.s.sociated with eating would be declared lunatics in any civilized country.

[Sidenote: Two kinds of hunger.]

I have chosen eating for ill.u.s.trating my point, for the demands for food and for s.e.xual activity are the two primal and necessary forms of hunger. The hunger for food has led to the refinements of civilized dining, but there has been great evolution. The animals feed (German, fressen) in order to satisfy hunger only; civilized humans eat (essen) not only to satisfy the hunger appet.i.te inherited from the animals, but also for the sake of the concomitant social aesthetic pleasures that add much to the joy of living. Now, if we are logical, we must interpret on parallel lines the s.e.xual hunger that is necessary for the perpetuation of human life. Like eating, it is a necessary function inherited from the animals; but there has been an evolution of greater significance.

In the animal world, s.e.xual activity has only one function, reproduction; but human life at its highest has superadded psychical and social meaning to s.e.xual relationships, and the result has been affection and the human family. If we reject this higher view of the double significance of s.e.xuality in human life, and insist that only the necessary propagative function is worthy of recognition, it is almost inevitable that most people will continue to accept the hopeless view that human s.e.xuality is on the same vulgar plane as that of the animals; in short, that it is only an animal function. This, I insist, is a depressing interpretation that will never help overcome the prevailing vulgar att.i.tude toward s.e.x.

[Sidenote: Human s.e.xuality more than animal.]

It is only by frankly recognizing and developing the psychical and aesthetic meanings that are distinctly human and superadded to the merely propagative function of the animals, that people can be led far away from the vulgar outlook on s.e.x and reproduction in human life.

[Sidenote: Relation of att.i.tude and morality.]

There is no question that wholesome att.i.tude towards s.e.x and reproduction is closely a.s.sociated with the problems of s.e.xual morality, and especially so far as educational procedure is concerned.

It is true that large numbers of moral people hold the vulgar att.i.tude towards s.e.x and reproduction; but for people who do not accept the moral code without question there is probably no better way of teaching s.e.xual morality than by influencing the individual's att.i.tude. There are many people who stand for s.e.xual morality for no other reason than that they have a dignified and aesthetic att.i.tude towards s.e.x.

[Sidenote: s.e.xual vulgarity a stage in evolution.]

There is much evidence that the world is rapidly improving in this respect. s.e.xual vulgarity seems to represent a stage in the evolution of human life from the barbaric to the fully civilized. The s.e.xual vulgarity of primitive peoples, both ancient and modern, has been all too frequently recalled by writers whose pseudo-scientific superficiality leads them to believe that knowledge concerning barbaric and ultra-b.e.s.t.i.a.l sensuality will help solve modern s.e.x problems. In the cla.s.sical days when Venus and Bacchus and other deities of sensuality were worshipped by their devotees, there was s.e.xual vulgarity in action and language such as now exists only among the most ignorant or depraved people in civilized lands. The advent of Christian civilization in Europe left no place for temples and worship of sensuality, but still the age-old tendency towards a crude and barbaric kind of s.e.xual vulgarity and obscenity has continued in folklore, in colloquial language, and in literature. However, there has been a vast change in the att.i.tude of the best people within the last two centuries. Once many English writers, many of them now deservedly obscure, published prose and poetry that would now be criminal. An unexpurgated edition of Shakespeare's "Complete Works," or of Boccaccio's "Decameron," could not be circulated through the United States mails, and there are many good people who are asking how long we shall continue to allow the unexpurgated "Old Testament" the privilege of circulation. It is not simply prose and poetry that has been purified. Scientific literature has shown the influence of the reaction against obscenity. Linnaeus and other naturalists of the past were fond of giving scientific names that perpetuated vulgar comparisons with s.e.xual organs, but no naturalist of the present day would dare suggest such designations for unnamed animals and plants. The older medical literature contains abundant obscenities; but scientific dignity, as well as the refinement of modern medical writers, has tended to compel the elimination of vulgarity. However, there are still too many physicians, especially those working with venereal and genito-urinary diseases, who go out of their way to illuminate their conversations, lectures, books, and magazine articles with veiled vulgarity. Even high-cla.s.s medical journals occasionally contain ill.u.s.trations of this tendency. However, the medical profession as a cla.s.s stands for dignified scientific presentation of facts, and obscenity will soon be tabooed in medical and all other reputable literature. Save for occasional emanations privately printed by and for degenerate persons, public obscenity will soon be unknown. Its complete disappearance will have a vast influence upon the problem of s.e.xual att.i.tude.

-- 12. _The Seventh Problem for s.e.x-instruction: Marriage_

[Sidenote: Physiology and psychology of marriage.]

It is the consensus of opinion of numerous physicians, ministers, and lawyers that a very large proportion of matrimonial disharmonies have their foundation in the common misunderstanding of the physiology and especially of the psychology of s.e.x. In the opinion of many students of s.e.xual problems, this is the strongest reason for s.e.x-instruction. It is certainly a line in which limited spread of information has already given some definite and satisfactory results. Many of my friends and former students have helped me acc.u.mulate a long list of cases in which scientific knowledge regarding s.e.x has prevented and corrected matrimonial disagreements; and having easily found so much definite influence of s.e.x-science upon marriage, I am forced to believe that s.e.x-instruction specially organized for people of marriageable age is already giving results of tremendous importance to very many individuals. Large numbers of young people are already awake to the need of scientific guidance in marriage, and there is a great demand for helpful information.

Advanced s.e.x-instruction with reference to the problems of marriage need not wait for general establishment of elementary instruction for children of school ages. Lectures and books are already reaching large numbers of adults. Such enlightenment will help in two ways, by the influence on marriage and by preparing adults to teach children.

[Sidenote: Other knowledge needed.]

There is another side to the problem of marriage that points to need of the larger s.e.x-education. Physiology and psychology of s.e.x are fundamental; but they alone are not sufficient to complete that mutual adjustment and understanding which marriage at the full development of its possibilities involves. Matrimonial harmony cannot be entirely a problem of applied science, as some superficial devotees of science seem to think; for science can never a.n.a.lyze those subtle and ever-varying qualities that go to make up what we call personality, and marriage in its largest outlook is the intimate blending of two personalities. Psychological and physiological knowledge will undoubtedly help the two married individuals in their progress towards the harmonious adjustment of their individualities; but there are many little, but often serious, problems that the physiology and psychology of s.e.x cannot solve. They are problems that involve mutual affection, comradeship, sympathy, unselfishness, cooperation, kindliness, and devotion of husband and wife. Obviously, these can never be developed by any formal instruction.

[Sidenote: Helpful literature.]

Probably there is no better way to help young people realize the possibilities of matrimonial harmony than by suggesting wholesome literature. Some of this is a part of the world's general treasure of books that in prose and poetry, in history and romance, hold up a high ideal of love with marriage. There is much such literature that gives young people inspiration, but too much of it, like college life, ends with a commencement. "And then they were married and lived happily ever after"--is the familiar closing as the novelist rings down the curtain after reciting only the prologue in the life drama of his two lovers.

We need more literature that does not end with the wedding march, but which gives young people the successful solution of the problems after marriage. Some such is available in history and biography; some in essays. As I write there come to my mind several books that have impressed me: Professor Palmer's "Life of Alice Freeman Palmer"; Leonard Huxley's "Life and Letters of T.H. Huxley," which gives many intimate glimpses of the ideal home life which the great biologist centered around Mrs. Huxley; William George Jordan's "Little Problems of Married Life"; Orrin c.o.c.k's "Engagement and Marriage"; and that much misunderstood[11] but helpful book "Love and Marriage" by Ellen Key.

Many of the stories by Virginia Terhune Van de Water, published in the magazines and collected in a book ent.i.tled "Why I Left my Husband"

(Moffatt, Yard), deal with real problems of married life.

[Sidenote: Similar education of the s.e.xes.]

The problems of co-education and coordinate education have not a little bearing on the adjustment of the two s.e.xes in marriage. In these days when vocational education is fashionable in theory and is attracting attention in practice, we are told that co-education and coordinate education are mistakes because they provide the same training for both s.e.xes. We are told that girls must be educated for their vocation of home-making, while boys must be educated for business, trades, or professions. Everywhere in this current movement for vocational education we find the emphasis placed on making education for the two s.e.xes just as dissimilar as possible. Fortunately for the educational adjustments of the two s.e.xes to each other, much of the present-day discussion that demands extensive s.e.x specialization of education cannot be made practical and the training of the two s.e.xes will inevitably continue to be quite similar, with at most a limited amount of time spent on application of certain knowledge to practical ends that are chiefly of interest to one s.e.x only. By far the greater part of education from kindergarten through the university is in the nature of the fundamentals of knowledge and will continue to be essentially similar for both s.e.xes. For ill.u.s.tration, the writer happens to be connected with a college which offers a four-year course and graduate work specially arranged with reference to household arts. Surely here is an opportunity for education far different from that of the typical college for men. As a matter of fact, there is great similarity. The greater part of the four years is filled with general courses in English, modern languages, chemistry, biology, physics, sociology, economics, and fine arts, while a minor part of the curriculum consists of courses in cookery, clothing, and household administration. The general courses are in essentials not different from courses in colleges for men. Here and there instructors select materials and in other ways relate the general courses to household arts, but after all a girl who completes these courses has acquired the same educational fundamentals that her brother gets in Columbia College or in any other standard college for men. It is only, then, in the cookery, clothing, and administration that there is s.e.x-differentiated education, and even in these the practice necessary to acquire proficiency in technique is the chief peculiarity. So far as fundamental knowledge is concerned; cookery is chiefly an application of chemistry, physics, and physiology that could easily be made clear to one who had completed courses in these sciences in a college for men; dress design is an application of fine arts and its construction is a mechanical problem. The mental problems involved in dress design and making cannot be far different from house design and construction which are supposed to be primarily adapted to men.

[Sidenote: Little differentiation.]

On the whole, then, there is really little possibility of s.e.x-differentiated education. This, I insist, is a fortunate fact of vast importance in the mutual adjustment of the two s.e.xes in marriage.

There could be no adjustment on an intelligent basis if education could be utterly dissimilar. There can be perfect adjustment only when the two individuals are adjusted harmoniously, and that means similar outlooks on life's problems.

[Sidenote: Need of s.e.x-education for feminism.]

Many of the problems of the modern feministic movement are such as to demand rational education of both women and men with reference to s.e.x and marriage. Let me quote C. Gasquoine Hartley, whose suggestive Chapters VIII and IX in her "Truth About Woman" (Dodd, Mead) deserve to live long after the readable but unscientifically applied earlier chapters are consigned to oblivion:

"To hear many women talk it would appear that the new ideal is a one-s.e.xed world. A great army of women have espoused the task of raising their s.e.x out of subjection. For such a duty the strength and energy of pa.s.sion is required. Can this task be performed if the woman to any extent indulges in s.e.x--otherwise subjection to man? s.e.xuality debases, even reproduction and birth are regarded as 'nauseating.' Woman is not free, only because she has been the slave to the primitive cycle of emotions which belong to physical love. The renunciation, the conquest of s.e.x--it is this that must be gained. As for man, he has been shown up, women have found him out; his long-worn garments of authority and his mystery and glamour have been torn into shreds--woman will have none of him.

"Now obviously these are over-statements, yet they are the logical outcome of much of the talk that one hears. It is the visible sign of our incoherence and error, and in the measure of these follies we are sent back to seek the truth. Women need a robuster courage in the face of love, a greater faith in their womanhood, and in the scheme of Life. Nothing can be gained from the child's folly in breaking the toys that have momentarily ceased to please. The misogamist type of woman cannot fail to prove as futile as the misogamist man. Not 'Free _from_ man' is the watch-cry of women's emanc.i.p.ation that surely is to be, but 'Free _with_ man.'"

[Sidenote: s.e.x and intellectualism.]

And further on the same author, considering the problem of the women of the common type that are cla.s.sified as a "third s.e.x," that of temperamental neuter, says:

"Economic conditions are compelling women to enter with men into the fierce compet.i.tion of our disordered social state. Partly due to this reason, though much more, as I think, to the strong stirring in woman of her newly-discovered self, there has arisen what I should like to call an over-emphasized Intellectualism.

Where s.e.x is ignored there is bound to lurk danger. Every one recognizes the significance of the advance in particular cases of women towards a higher intellectual individuation, and the social utility of those women who have been truly the pioneers of the new freedom; but this does not lessen at all the disastrous influence of an ideal which holds up the renunciation of the natural rights of love and activities of women, and thus involves an irreparable loss to the race by the barrenness of many of its finest types.

The significance of such Intellectuals must be limited, because for them the possibility of transmission by inheritance of their valuable qualities is cut off, and hence the way is closed to a further progress. And, thus, we are brought back to that simple truth from which we started; there are two s.e.xes, the female and the male, on their specific differences and resemblances blended together in union every true advance in progress depends--on the perfected woman and the perfected man."