Sex-education Part 14

-- 36. _Dress of Women as a s.e.x Problem for Men_

[Sidenote: Dress and immorality.]

Some of the students of s.e.x problems a.s.sert with great emphasis that dress is the responsible factor in the s.e.xual immorality of many men.

Accepting the probability that there is some truth in the a.s.sertion, what is the solution of the problem? Should women in general adopt a style of dress which in lines and color is as repellently ugly as the official garb of women devotees of certain religious organizations? In short, should women make their dress decidedly un.o.btrusive and unattractive in order that the s.e.xual temptations of _some_ men may be reduced? The answer must be an emphatic negative. We need more beauty in this life of ours, and we cannot afford to omit any beauty which women express in dress. The pity is that economic conditions so often set a limit to such expression. We must believe in making every possible application of the beauty of nature and art to human life; and beautiful dress on all women, and especially beautiful dress on attractive women, is the most important of such relations of beauty and life.

[Sidenote: Dress and s.e.xual appeal.]

Accepting, then, beauty of dress as worthy of encouragement, what shall be done about its s.e.xual attractiveness? This is a difficult question in these days with ever-changing fas.h.i.+ons whose novelty makes extreme modes more dangerously attractive than they would be if universally adopted for a long term of years. But permanency of extreme styles or general adaptation of modest ones are absolutely impossible for the average woman of to-day. Hence, we must look forward to one extreme style following another. Young men must face the problem and fight their own battles. Like certain widespread diseases, there is constant danger of infection, and the only hope for young men is in special education as a kind of protective inoculation against temptation. This means that young men should be taught to see beauty in woman's form, face, and dress without allowing themselves to get into habits of sensual or physical emotions. Of course, for the normal young man there is sure to be more or less consciousness of emotions stimulated by the beautiful a.s.sociated with women, but the individual man may train himself to turn such emotions into aesthetic or psychical lines instead of into those which are sensual, animalistic, or physical. In this connection, I have long been of the opinion that training in art appreciation, especially of sculpture, may help many men to an aesthetic att.i.tude towards the human form.

It is well known that beauty of woman's face or form or dress has sometimes led men into immorality; but I often wonder whether such men of weak control would not have fallen sooner or later at the command of some other form of stimulation. At any rate, such men do not lead us to general conclusions, for there are many more men who have been led upward and not downward by the combined beauty of form, face, and dress of women.

[Sidenote: Duty of women.]

While we refuse to excuse men who allow the s.e.xual suggestiveness of women's dress to overcome their self-control, we should at the same time recognize that women have themselves to blame for much of the existing situation. I believe it is true that the average woman does not understand how dress that makes unusual exposure of the body may make a s.e.xual appeal to men; but there is no such innocence on the part of the demi-mondes by whom many of the most dangerous styles are introduced. Perhaps women of intelligence and good standing may some day come to realize their responsibility for wearing clothing that means unusual temptation for men. However, this seems Utopian in these years when even women of the best groups are wearing equivocal dress; and so men must learn to fight their own battles against natural instincts stirred to greater intensity by dress invented to increase the trade of the women of the underworld.

-- 37. _The Problem of Self-control for Young Men_

[Sidenote: Difference between s.e.xes.]

[Sidenote: Automatic arousing of boys' instincts.]

The problem of control of the insistent pa.s.sions of normal young men has been unscientifically minimized by numerous writers and lecturers.

It should be noted that many of these are men who have long since forgotten the storms and stresses of their early manhood, and others are women who do not know the facts indicating that the s.e.xual instincts young men are characteristically active, aggressive, spontaneous, and automatic, while those of women _as a rule_ are pa.s.sive and subject to awakening by external stimuli, especially in connection with affection. Such forgetful men and uninformed women are p.r.o.ne to regard the lack of control of many young men as simply due to "original sin," "innate viciousness," "bad companions," or "irresistible temptations"; and they overlook the great fact that maintaining perfect s.e.xual control in his pre-marital years is for the average healthy young man a problem compared with which all others, including the alcoholic temptation, are of little significance. Such being the truth about young men, nothing is to be gained and much is to be lost if older people fail to take an understanding and sympathetic att.i.tude. I question whether any young man has ever been helped through his adolescent crises by such oft-repeated a.s.sertions as that "there is no more reason that a young man should go astray than that his sister should," or, in other words, that "continence is as easy for a young man as for a girl of similar age." An observing young man will doubt such statements, and if he has had access to scientific information, he will feel sure that there has been an attempt to influence him by the kind of exaggeration commonly adopted by specialists in moral preachments. The plain truth is that there is a physiological "reason"

or explanation, although not a justification for failure of self-control. Even if we accept the improbable statement of some writers that boys and girls are in early adolescence potentially equal in s.e.xual instincts and a.s.suming that they may be protected equally against vicious habits, we must not forget that every normal boy pa.s.ses in early p.u.b.erty through peculiar physiological changes that arouse his deepest instincts. I refer especially to the frequent occurrence of involuntary s.e.xual tumescence and to the occasional nocturnal emissions, which processes leave the boy in no doubt whatever as to the nature, source, and desirability of s.e.xual pleasure. Especially is this true of the automatic emissions that usually follow continence of healthy young men, for in connection with such relief of seminal pressure every nerve center of the s.e.xual mechanism seems to be involved in the culminating nerve storm of which the awakening individual is often quite pleasurably conscious. In short, as men looking backward to their early manhood well understand, the physical sensations that come into the normal s.e.xual experience of the adolescent boy are different only in degree of intensity from those which later are concomitants of s.e.xual union. Such, in brief, is the physiological history of the normal adolescent boy, and one who has fallen into even most limited masturbation will probably be still more conscious of the fact that the ordinary sequence of events in the activity of the s.e.xual organs leads to intense excitement that has almost irresistible attractiveness.

[Sidenote: Average young women different.]

Now, most scientifically-trained women seem to agree that there are no corresponding phenomena in the early p.u.b.ertal life of the normal young woman who has good health. A limited number of mature women, some of them physicians, report having experienced in the p.u.b.ertal years localized tumescence and other disturbances which made them definitely conscious of s.e.xual instincts. However, it should be noted that most of these are known to have had a personal history including one or more such abnormalities as dysmenorrhea, uterine displacement, pathological ovaries, leucorrhea, tuberculosis, masturbation, neurasthenia, nymphomania, or other disturbances which are sufficient to account for local s.e.xual stimulation. In short, such women are not normal. Such facts have led many physicians to the generalization that the average healthy adolescent girl does not undergo normal spontaneous changes which make her definitely conscious of the nature, source, and desirability of localized s.e.xual pleasure. On the contrary, such consciousness commonly comes to many only as the result of stimuli arising in connection with affection.[18] Clearly it is nonsense to claim that the s.e.xual temptations arising within the individual are equal for the two s.e.xes. Potentially, girls may have pa.s.sions as strong as boys, but they do not become so definitely and spontaneously conscious of their latent instincts.

[Sidenote: Helping the young man.]

Thus considering the available facts regarding the physiological reasons for the s.e.xual tendencies of men, it seems to me that we gain nothing in trying to minimize the young man's s.e.xual problems, for he is quite conscious that they are insistent. Far better it is that mature men who know life in its completeness should make the young man feel that his problems are not new, not insignificant, and that many another man has met and solved them in such a way as to make life more full of real happiness. Such sympathetic helpfulness will mean something to a young man, but he cannot be led far by one who in his own early experience has not learned both the strength and the mastery of the s.e.xual instincts.

[Sidenote: Women should know.]

In another lecture I have discussed the proposition that it would be better for all concerned if women could have scientific understanding of the physiological facts concerning the s.e.xual tendencies of men, not to make women more lenient or forgiving towards the mistakes of men, but rather to enable women to play an important part in the necessary adjustments through helpful comrades.h.i.+p. This last phrase will mean nothing to many people, but in many a modern home a well-informed wife has been able to lead the way to the satisfactory solution of the fundamental problems of life.

[Sidenote: Self-control in marriage.]

There is another and an all-important phase of the problem of teaching self-control which is commonly overlooked by those who are trying to help young men solve their greatest problems. I have in mind the need of self-control in marriage. Most writers and lecturers who emphasize the arguments for absolute self-control or continence before marriage, omit all reference to marital life. The natural inference, and one widely followed, is that the only moral duty of a young man is to control his intense desires and avoid illicit relations until s.e.xual abandon is permitted under the license of the law and the benediction of the church. Such, I submit, is a fair conclusion for young men to draw from at least ninety per cent of the s.e.x-education literature that is current to-day.

Now, I believe this is all wrong. In fact, I am so radical as to believe that the intelligent women of the world would gain more from temperance and unselfishness and delicacy of men in s.e.xual functioning in marriage than from s.e.xual continence before marriage. Of course, I do not propose that ideal s.e.xual conditions in marriage may justify pre-marital incontinence, but I make this sharp contrast simply to emphasize the belief that s.e.xual intemperance and selfishness of men in marriage causes more mental and physical suffering of women than does s.e.xual incontinence of men before marriage, and I am not forgetting the vast problem of social diseases and prost.i.tution.

I urge, then, that those who attempt to direct young men through the mazes of s.e.xual life should hold up ideals not only of pre-marital continence, but also of post-nuptial temperance and harmonious adjustment between husband and wife. This post-nuptial problem is far more difficult to solve, for the intimacy of married life, especially in the earlier years, is sure to offer stimuli that are likely to make s.e.xual instincts more insistent than those that come from celibate repression. However, self-control and temperance in marriage is no new and unattainable ideal, and harmonious adjustment of men and women in marriage is far more common than the pessimists would have us believe.

-- 38. _The Mental Side of the Young Man's s.e.xual Life_

[Sidenote: Effect of mental imagery.]

Most of the discussions of the education of young men for moral living have centered around the problem of keeping him from physical s.e.xual activity. So far as society is concerned, this is the great desideratum. So far as the individual life is concerned, it is important that self-control should extend to mental imagery. Professors Geddes and Thomson have well said, in "s.e.x," that "while anatomical chast.i.ty is a moral achievement, it is not the deepest virtue. The incisive declaration: 'Whosoever looketh on a woman to l.u.s.t after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart' expresses an even more searching standard, and modern science brings home to us the radical importance of our reflex thought and deep-down impulses, which appear to bulk largely in molding our lives and the lives of those who may spring from us." In language adapted to the understanding of average young men, this idea should be emphasized.

In the opinion of some physiologists the greatest harm done to the individual who has long been a victim of masturbation is in the centering of the attention on imaginary s.e.xual situations. This is especially true of mental masturbation. Hence, the relation of masturbation to the possible establishment of a disordered mental state should be known by adolescent boys and young men.

[Sidenote: Control of thoughts.]

It appears from the experience of many men that strenuous work and play are the only efficient weapons for driving s.e.xual images into the background of the mind. This applies not only to sordid and lewd thoughts of unchaste s.e.xual situations, but also to the mental images that are inevitably a.s.sociated with the purest affection and which should be trained to obey when calm reason so orders.

The following literature will be especially helpful to young men: W.S.

Hall's "s.e.xual Hygiene for Men," or his "s.e.xual Knowledge"; Exner's "The Rational s.e.x Life for Men"; Morrow's "The Young Man's Problem,"

and "Health and Hygiene of s.e.x for College Students"; King's "Fight for Character" (Y.M.C.A.); and the chapter on Ethics of s.e.x in "s.e.x" by Geddes and Thomson.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] The first three pamphlets are published by the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (New York); the Exner pamphlets by the a.s.sociation Press (New York).

[18] This is really not surprising if we remember the peculiarities of human instincts mentioned in an earlier lecture (-- 3).

IX

SPECIAL s.e.x-INSTRUCTION FOR MATURING YOUNG WOMEN

[Sidenote: Parents would limit knowledge of daughters.]

It was my original plan to make this lecture parallel with the preceding one for young men, but much discussion with parents and with scientifically trained women whose suggestions and criticisms I value has shown me that there is no consensus of opinion as to what should be taught to young women between eighteen and twenty-two years of age. I have found many fathers and mothers who think that their boys of fourteen or fifteen should be informed as suggested in the preceding lecture; but concerning some of the facts for boys these same parents were doubtful whether their daughters ought to know before twenty, and some of them have said twenty-five and even thirty. Some of them have said that they see no reason why an unmarried young woman of the protected group should know much more than a very limited amount of personal hygiene; but most of these people were decidedly hazy as to how the young woman about to marry may be sure of getting belated knowledge. In short, all along the line I have found intelligent parents and others who believe in very thorough s.e.x-instruction for boys, but that "nice" girls should be kept as ignorant and innocent as possible. With such disagreement existing, it is evidently not possible to make such specific recommendations as have been made for boys.

-- 39. _The Young Woman's Att.i.tude towards Manhood_

[Sidenote: Women should have ideals.]

Among those who agree heartily with the proposition that by education the young man's att.i.tude towards womanhood (-- 30) should be cultivated I find, to my surprise, many who object to any parallel attempt to influence young woman's ideals of manhood. I say that I am surprised because it has long seemed to me that many of the faults of men are largely traceable to the fact that women as a s.e.x have not been able to hold a high standard for manhood; and, therefore, I wonder when some thinking women question the desirability of trying to influence young women by organized instruction. Of course, we must not forget that before the coming of the economic and social freedom of women there were very few of them who were able to maintain a stand for their ideals of manhood; but this is no longer true in a great and rapidly increasing group of the individualized and educated cla.s.ses. Therefore, it seems clear that if the better groups of women want a higher type of manhood capable of better adjustment in marriage, it is important that they consider ways and means of molding the minds of young women with reference to ideal manhood.

[Sidenote: Ideals and disappointment.]

Occasionally I have met a strange view of life in some men and women who have grown pessimistic from revelations concerning the s.e.xual-social problems and who think that true manhood is so rare that emphasizing it with young women will lead to ideals that can rarely be realized in actual life; and therefore, for women so influenced there will be increasing discontent and disappointment in marriage or deliberate celibacy. No doubt this is in part true, as witness the many highly educated women who have written or said that there seem to be few attractive marriageable men of their own age. However, it is rare indeed that such women say that life would have meant more without the higher education and its resulting ideals that have stood in the way of marriage such as might be happy for uneducated women. This is in line with the fact that many cultivated men and women find that education has given unattained ideals and unsatisfied ambitions and strenuous life and disappointments, but it is rare that they long for the care-free and animal-like happiness of the tropical savage. We must remember that education gives us keener feeling for life's pains, but it also compensates by giving soul-satisfying appreciation of its joys.

So it seems reasonable to believe that while educating young women to believe in and demand a higher ideal of manhood in its natural relations to womanhood will certainly make disappointments more heart-pressing for some, it will just as surely make realization the supreme happiness of others. And as adjustment of manhood and womanhood through the larger s.e.x-education becomes more and more abundant and more and more perfected, the sum total of human happiness will increase.

Looking thus towards the ultimate good, I must refuse to accept the hopeless and depressing view that all young women should be kept ignorant of their relation to men and life in order that the absence of ideals of manhood may protect some women against possible disappointment by men.

-- 40. _The Young Woman's Att.i.tude towards Love and Marriage_