The Sexual Question Part 18

Lastly, it by no means excludes a change after a certain time. We are speaking only of man, and not of birds and monkeys, who are more monogamous than ourselves.

Monogamy without children has little reason for its existence and must be considered simply as a means to satisfy the s.e.xual appet.i.te or as a union for convenience. It is the same with certain marriages between individuals of very different ages, especially the marriage of a young man with a woman already old and sterile.

As far as we can ascertain, the majority of s.e.xual perversions, of which we shall speak in Chapter VIII, are a sad pathological acquisition of the human race. We observe, however, especially in the higher mammals, acts of pederasty between males when the female is wanting.

The s.e.xual repulsion which normally exists between animals of different species rests on a selective basis, the hereditary mneme of their reciprocal germs being unable to place itself in h.o.m.ophony, and their blood also having a mutual toxic action. In speaking of sodomy we shall see that this instinctive repulsion may disappear in pathological cases, both in man and in animals, owing to bad habits or unsatisfied s.e.xual appet.i.te. We cannot absolutely demonstrate the phylogenetic existence of an instinctive disgust for consanguineous s.e.xual intercourse.

The s.e.xual advances made by women in civilized countries, show how easily we may be deceived in attributing to a phylogenetic or hereditary origin, certain details which are only due to external circ.u.mstances. In man, the bearer of the active germ, the instinct of s.e.xual advance has deep phylogenetic roots. It is quite natural to him and is evident among savage races, where the man risks more by remaining single than the woman. Violent combats between rivals to obtain the woman, who remains pa.s.sive like most animals, are evidence of this.

Civilization has changed all this, and has developed two castes of women, the old maids and the prost.i.tutes. The latter satisfy the appet.i.tes of men in an artificial and unhealthy manner, while marriage and family cares only bring them labor and burdens instead of riches.

Owing to the promiscuous polyandry of prost.i.tution, man can always obtain enough women, while woman can with difficulty obtain a suitable husband. These circ.u.mstances have more and more developed the art of flirtation, coquetry and advances on the part of girls, and we can now see, especially in the United States, that advances come more and more from the female side, if not in principle, at any rate in fact. This is not a question of a phylogenetic or hereditary transformation of the s.e.xes among civilized peoples, but an unhealthy effect resulting from abnormal circ.u.mstances, that is the non-satisfaction of the s.e.xual desires of woman, together with the satiety of those of men.

Woman makes advances from the fear of remaining celibate; she will cease to do so when the unnatural causes which have produced this state of things have been done away with.

As a rule, a normal and adaptable man will conduct himself in s.e.xual matters as in others according to the prevailing fashion. He will most often succeed in accommodating his sentiments to those of his conjoint. On the other hand, this average representative of normal mediocrity easily becomes the slave of routine and incapable of new ideas. However normal he may be, he has less faculty of adaptation or mental plasticity and less liberty, than a man of higher nature independent of prejudices.

ONTOGENY OF s.e.xUAL LIFE

The first striking fact in the ontogeny of s.e.xual life is the following: All the s.e.xual organs, both external and internal, remain in an embryonic and non-functional state, not only in the embryo but for a long time in the child. The organs and their elements exist, but they are still small, imperfectly developed, and in a state of rest.

At the time of p.u.b.erty, which varies in different individuals, the s.e.xual glands and the other copulatory apparatus enlarge and begin to functionate. In the European races p.u.b.erty occurs between the age of twelve and seventeen years in girls, and between fourteen and nineteen in boys; it is generally earlier in the South and later in the North.

It is curious to note that the correlative irradiations of the s.e.xual appet.i.te in the human mind develop much earlier than the organs, or even the s.e.xual appet.i.te. Again, the s.e.xual appet.i.te often appears before the normal development of the genital organs. In other rare cases the s.e.xual appet.i.te is absent in the adult, even when the corresponding organs are well-developed. (Vide Chapter VIII.) Such irregularities of the s.e.xual appet.i.te belong to the domain of pathology.

On the other hand, it is quite normal for young girls and boys to show early signs of mental differences corresponding to those we have described in Chapter V. In young girls we observe coquetry and jealousy and the desire for finery. Their love of dolls and the care they take of them, is very characteristic of the precocious instinct of their s.e.x. This is an early sign of instinctive maternal love, before the development of any s.e.xual sensation or function. Among boys we observe a tendency to brag and to boast of their strength before girls, to show their contempt for dolls and the coquetry of little girls, and also to pose as protectors, etc.

s.e.xual jealousy already exists in young children. We see little boys, seeking for the favors of little girls, show violent jealousy when another is preferred to them. All these phenomena depend either on subconscious instincts, or on vague s.e.xual presentiments which play a large part in the infantile exaltation of sentiment. Portraits of pretty women, the sight of certain parts of the body or feminine clothing often provoke exalted sentiments in boys; girls rather admire boldness, an imposing presence and often beauty, in the other s.e.x.

p.u.b.erty is produced by certain phenomena which occur in the s.e.xual organs. In the boy erections occur at an early age when the p.e.n.i.s is still very small. It is curious to note that certain pathological conditions and friction of the glans p.e.n.i.s, especially in the case of phimosis and as a result of bad example, are often sufficient to produce s.e.xual sensations and appet.i.tes in very young boys. The same thing is produced in little girls by excitation of the c.l.i.toris. All these phenomena lead to onanism or masturbation, of which we shall speak later on. As the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of young boys do not secrete s.e.m.e.n, masturbation only provokes secretion from the accessory glands, but this is accompanied by o.r.g.a.s.m.

More singular still are cases of coitus between little boys and girls whose s.e.xual glands are still undeveloped and produce no germinal cells. Although they are pathological, these phenomena are characteristic, because they clearly show that the brain has acquired by phylogeny a s.e.xual appet.i.te relatively independent of the development of the s.e.xual glands. No doubt the s.e.xual appet.i.te does not develop, or disappears, in eunuchs when they are castrated quite young; but it is preserved together with the secretions and functions of the external genitals when castration is performed after p.u.b.erty is established.

The important conclusion which results from these facts is that the existence of a s.e.xual excitation or appet.i.te of this nature is not sufficient to prove that they are normal. In Chapter VIII we shall prove that not only the anomalies of the hereditary s.e.xual disposition, but artificial excitations and bad habits may also produce all kinds of misconduct and excesses which should be energetically combated.

We have described in Chapter IV the great individual variations of the s.e.xual appet.i.te in the two s.e.xes, as well as that of the s.e.xual power in man. The s.e.xual power and appet.i.te in man are strongest between the years of twenty and forty. We may even consider this period as the most advantageous for the procreation of strong and healthy offspring and that the procreator is at his best before the age of thirty.

The ontogenetic development of the s.e.xual appet.i.te and love generally produces in man a peculiar phenomenon. While habitual gratification and education of the s.e.xual appet.i.te tends to make it more and more calculating and cynical, love, on the contrary, becomes more elevated and refined with age and less egoistical than in youth. Owing to general mental development, the education of sentiments progresses and becomes refined, while the s.e.xual appet.i.te diminishes in intensity and becomes more imperious and more coa.r.s.e. We are only speaking here of normal cases.

In youth, the intoxication of love combined with intense s.e.xual appet.i.te triumphs; when the appet.i.te is once satisfied the unbridled and egoistic pa.s.sions of this age come to the surface and are often antagonistic to love. At a more advanced age, on the contrary, love becomes more constant and more tranquil. The mistake that is so often made is the confusion of love with s.e.xual appet.i.te. The novelists who speculate on the eroticism of the public are no doubt more interested in describing s.e.xual pa.s.sion and amorous intoxication, with all the catastrophes and conflicts which arise from them, than the tranquil and regular love of a couple more advanced in age, the greatest happiness of which consists in harmony of sentiment and thought, as well as the mutual regard and devotion of the couple for each other.

s.e.xual appet.i.te and s.e.xual power in man become extinguished between the ages of sixty and eighty; old men of eighty are sometimes still capable, but they are no longer fecund. As a rule s.e.xual power diminishes before s.e.xual appet.i.te, and this sometimes leads old men to use artificial means to revive their power, or to satisfy their s.e.xual desires. This explains why the egoists who have never known true love often become so base in their s.e.xual manifestations when they grow old. Their experience of s.e.xual life makes them experts in the art of seduction. If this fact appears to be antagonistic to the law that true love is refined with advancing age, we must bear in mind that the ontogenetic development of the s.e.xual appet.i.te is not the same as that of love; that in some respects it develops in a contrary direction; and that the result may consequently become inverted according as one or other predominates. It is needless to say that there are a number of intermediate gradations, and that inverse phenomena may be produced concurrently in the same individual.

According to Westermark elderly men generally fall more easily in love with middle-aged women than with young girls. No doubt this is often the case when reason and love predominate, but it is necessary to avoid generalization, and it is curious to observe how often very old men become enamored of quite young girls, as the latter may fall in love with old men. It is common knowledge that young girls do not marry old graybeards solely for their money or their name. No doubt this is not uncommon, but I have often seen girls of eighteen or twenty fall in love with old _roues_, when money, name and position were theirs and not the man's. However, in such cases it is most often the old man who is amorous. Westermark maintains that this condition is not normal, and we shall see that very often it is a case of commencing _senile dementia_, a pathological cerebral condition in which the s.e.xual appet.i.te becomes suddenly revived.

The love of a young girl for an old man may be explained by the intellectual superiority of the old man or by the absence of another object for love. It is often also due to hysteria and consequently pathological.

In old age, when the s.e.xual life of two conjoints is extinguished, there remains a purified love which colors the evening of their life with autumn tints. The modern detractors of marriage too often forget this phenomenon. No doubt the evening of conjugal life is often troubled with discord and sorrow, but then it is usually a question of "_mariage de convenance_," marriage for money or position, mutual misunderstanding, or irreflective amorous intoxication. Quarrels may also arise when pathological conditions become introduced into marriage.

In woman, s.e.xual ontogeny is not the same as in man. She matures earlier and more rapidly. In our race, a woman at eighteen is s.e.xually mature; between eighteen and twenty-five she is in the best condition for s.e.xual life; toward fifty the menopause occurs, and with it cessation of fecundity. Hence the period during which a woman is fecund is much shorter than in man and terminates much earlier.

Owing to this, the development of the intellectual and sentimental irradiations of the s.e.xual appet.i.te in woman is more rapid than in man. A young girl is much more mature and full grown as regards her reproductive power than a young man. These phenomena extend to the whole mental life of woman, who is less capable of an ulterior development in old age than man, because she generally becomes settled and automatic much more rapidly than the latter. No doubt these phenomena are partly due to the defective mental education of women, but this explanation is insufficient. Here again we must distinguish the phylogenetic disposition of woman from the effects of education during her ontogenetic development.

The s.e.xual appet.i.te of woman manifests itself at first in vague desires, in a want of love, and does not as a rule develop locally till after coitus. It often follows that in ontogenetic evolution the s.e.xual appet.i.te of women increases at a more advanced age (between thirty and forty). At this age women often become enamored with young boys, whom they seduce easily. Widows are especially disposed to form unions with men younger than themselves; these unions are rarely happy, for the woman who is older than her husband easily becomes jealous, and the husband soon becomes tired of a woman whose charms have faded. We can therefore affirm that, as a rule, in order to be both normal and lasting, a monogamous union requires that the husband should be from six to twelve years older than his wife, and that the latter should marry as young as possible.

In the s.e.xual ontogeny of normal woman, pregnancies, childbirth, the nursing and education of children play an infinitely greater role than the s.e.xual appet.i.te. These important events in woman's life, together with affection for her husband occupy a great part of the cerebral activity of every woman, and are at the same time the conditions for her true happiness.

We should expect the s.e.xual appet.i.te in woman to diminish or cease at the menopause; but this is not usually the case, and elderly women are sometimes tormented by the s.e.xual appet.i.te, which is all the more painful because men are not attracted by them. Such hyperaesthesia cannot, however, be considered as normal; most often the s.e.xual appet.i.te diminishes with age and is replaced, as in man, by the tranquil love of old age, of which we have spoken.

Old women are often spoken of with contempt. No doubt, unsatisfied pa.s.sions and wounded feelings of all kinds, want of intellectual culture and high ideals, and especially a pathological condition of the brain, make many old women anything but amiable. I am, however, convinced that the elevation of woman's social position, and greater care in her education, will considerably facilitate the development of her faculties. Education should not develop mundane qualities in women, but depth of sentiment. There are many aged women who can be cited as examples of activity and perseverance, for their sound and clear judgment, as well as for their affability and simplicity of manners. Although their intellectual productiveness ceases earlier than that of man, this in no way excludes an excellent and persevering activity of mind, combined with much judgment and sentimental qualities. A woman who is growing old and has lost the members of her family, especially her husband, requires some object to replace them in her affection. To devote herself to social activity will be the best antidote against the peevish, querulous or sorrowful moods which so easily take possession of the aged woman. It appears that love, which is a phylogenetic derivative of the s.e.xual appet.i.te, and which in middle life is intimately a.s.sociated with this appet.i.te, becomes afterwards more and more independent of it and then requires more compensation. There is here a great adaptation of love to life, an adaptation which it is necessary to bear in mind.

In infancy the individual is naturally egoistic; his appet.i.tes all tend to self-preservation. There are even then, however, great individual differences, and we meet with children who are endowed with a remarkable sentiment of duty and a great sensibility to the troubles of others. After p.u.b.erty man's s.e.xual desire leads him to love, toward dual egoism, and this desire becomes the princ.i.p.al factor in the reproduction of the species. In old age the individual has no reproductive aims to fulfill; his life is only a burden on society, if it is not directed with a view to benefit others and society in general. By expansion and purification love, at first s.e.xual, is gradually transformed into purely humanitarian love, _i.e._, altruistic or social. At least this is what it should be, and then the fundamental biogenetic law of Haeckel (ontogeny is an abridged repet.i.tion of phylogeny) will receive an ultimate confirmation. Our primitive unicellular animal ancestor lived for itself alone; later on s.e.xual reproduction without love was established; then conjugal and family love appeared (birds, monkeys, mammals, etc.), finally social love or altruism was produced, _i.e._, the sense of social solidarity based on the sentiment of duty.

The last is still very weak in man, while some animal species, such as the bees and ants, have developed it in a more complete manner, on the basis of instinct. According to this natural law, all social organization naturally develops altruism or the sentiment of duty. The history of humanity proves that our social union is only developed slowly and laboriously through innumerable contests, and that it is derived, directly or indirectly, from the family union of individuals.

Extension of communication on the surface of the earth causes the artificial development of social organization to advance much more rapidly than the natural phylogenetic development by evolution of the sentiments or social instincts. The latter are, however, forced to follow the movement, resting first on the deep roots of family and friendly altruism, as well as on that of caste or clan (patriotism); _i.e._, on sentiments of sympathy and duty toward certain individuals who are more closely connected with us, sentiments which are hereditary in man. A vague general humanitarian sentiment, a hothouse flower which is still feeble, has already commenced to grow on this natural basis. Let us hope that it will live.

It would be a fundamental error to try and found social solidarity solely on our phylogenetic sentiments of sympathy, or on our ideal faculty of devotion and self-sacrifice; but to try and take egoism as a basis for this solidarity is a still greater error. We must not make an antinomy of egoism and altruism, but regard them as two elements inseparable from all human society, as well as the individuals who compose it. We cannot deny that the altruist, endowed with strong sentiments of sympathy and duty, is an excellent social worker, while the pure egoist const.i.tutes an element of decomposition for society.

It is, therefore, a social duty to proceed by the s.e.xual route to a selection which will cause the first to multiply and eliminate the second as far as possible by sterilizing his germs.

CHAPTER VIII

s.e.xUAL PATHOLOGY

On this subject we refer the reader to the well-known work of Krafft-Ebing, "Psychopathia s.e.xualis,"[4] in which will be found a number of observations, the details of which we cannot enter into here. We may first of all say that with the exception of venereal diseases the genital organs by themselves only play a very small part in s.e.xual pathology. The brain is the true domain of nearly all s.e.xual anomalies.

In the second place, we may remark that the disorders of s.e.xual life only rarely belong to acute affections which the physician can treat with pharmaceutical or other common remedies. They almost exclusively originate in the mental const.i.tution, _i.e._, in the hereditary dispositions of the brain of the individual. But the pathology of mental or cerebral conditions offers an extremely vast field, capable of so much extension that no definite limit can be fixed between the normal state and morbid states, which are themselves connected by numerous transitions. A great number of acts due to mental conditions which the public and even learned theologians, jurists and physicians not initiated in psychiatry, consider as criminal, sinful, or infamous, are only the product of pathological aberrations due to hereditary dispositions. I was recently consulted by a patient of this kind, otherwise possessed of n.o.ble sentiments, who told me that a physician in Germany to whom he related his troubles, turned on him furiously and said, "These things are filthy; you are a pig; hold your tongue and get away from here!" As a matter of fact this unfortunate patient was sustaining a heroic struggle against his perverted pathological s.e.xual appet.i.tes. Knowing little or nothing of these matters human society, with few exceptions, is of the same opinion as the ignorant doctor mentioned above. For this reason I think it necessary at least to give an outline of phenomena which, although very repulsive in themselves, throw much light on the s.e.xual question.

PATHOLOGY OF THE s.e.xUAL ORGANS

Every deformity, disease or operation which destroys the s.e.xual glands in the child, or prevents them from developing, gives rise to the phenomena which we have described when speaking of castration. This is the case, for instance, with cryptorchidism in which the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es remain in the inguinal ca.n.a.l and become atrophied, instead of descending into the s.c.r.o.t.u.m. The following case is an example, and is interesting in other respects:

A young man was affected with imbecility and congenital cryptorchidism with atrophy of the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. A eunuch from birth, he developed no s.e.xual appet.i.te and no correlative masculine character. To make a man of him, his too eager aunts married him to a strong girl, who was anything but innocent. She attempted by all kinds of manipulations to cure the s.e.xual blindness of her husband; but this was a waste of labor, as the unhappy wretch only regarded the performance as disgusting and filthy. He was violently excited and became somnambulistic.

Soon afterwards the wife consoled herself with a lover of normal s.e.xual power, and they both overwhelmed the poor eunuch with raillery. The latter, becoming furious, offered his wife a cake poisoned with a.r.s.enic on her birthday, but she saw through the stratagem. The poor wretch was sent for trial and condemned to a long term of imprisonment for attempted poisoning. I consider this judgment as a legal crime. In spite of my protests, imbecility was not admitted, and the somnambulism was looked upon as simulated.

On the other hand, the same lesions when they occur in the adult neither destroy the correlative s.e.xual characters, nor the power of coitus, nor the voluptuous sensation of the o.r.g.a.s.m.

In man, _aspermia_ sometimes occurs; the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es appear to be well formed, but the s.e.m.e.n contains no spermatozoa. In spite of this the aspermatic individual generally has erections, a certain amount of s.e.xual power and o.r.g.a.s.m, and is capable of amorous feelings, although his s.e.xual functions are generally feeble. But he is incapable of fecundating a woman.

Some women who have never menstruated possess normal ovaries and may become pregnant.

Tuberculosis, tumors and inflammations of the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and ovaries may cause sterility.

The erection of the p.e.n.i.s is often rendered impossible by certain deformities, such as _hypospadias_ and _epispadias_, in which the urethral ca.n.a.l opens respectively below or above the p.e.n.i.s.

Involuntary emissions of s.e.m.e.n without erection, with or without voluptuous sensation, is called _spermatorrhea_. This is often a result of onanism, nervousness or constipation. Too much importance has been attached to it. In hypochondriacs spermatorrhea becomes a bugbear, which often makes them the dupes of charlatans. The less attention is paid to it the quicker it disappears; especially when it is of purely nervous origin, as is usually the case.