THE MYTH OF THE VIRTUOUS SEX
A day or two ago I was passing one of the great London schools at the afternoon hour when the boys were released. I write “boys,” but among them were many of sixteen, seventeen, or even eighteen years who looked almost men.
On the street side, two flappers, quite young—not more, I should judge, than fifteen, stood with their faces pressed between the iron rails and watched the exit of the boys. Certainly they were not nice girls; they invited with smiles, they giggled, they ogled, they gestured. There could, I think, be no mistake as to the purpose of the girls.
I am glad to record that no single boy took the slightest notice of them.
Now this very unpleasant incident has set me thinking. I am oppressed with feelings of responsibility; yes—and also of shame. If I am to be honest I must accept here, as in all relations between the two sexes, the validity of the mans’ plea that rings—yes, and will continue to ring—through the centuries: “The woman tempted me!”
Now, though we may accept this responsibility in theory, most often we repudiate it in practice. From time to time—and the intervals are not long apart—efforts are made to pass new laws which are supported by many virtuous people—laws, whose one purpose is to increase the punishments of men for offences against young girls.
I am in whole-hearted sympathy with any changes in our law that will afford greater protection to young girls. I cannot, however, refuse to see the reverse side of the question. It is proposed to raise the age of consent for girls, while at the same time a woman is not to be held responsible for seducing a boy who is much younger than herself. This is unjust.
Why should we afford a period of protection longer for the girl than for the boy?
It may, of course, be argued that the boy is better able to look after himself. This is not true.
The girl grows up more quickly always than the boy; emotionally she is far more developed, and, therefore, should be more, and not less, responsible than he is. I have no doubt about this at all.
No boy knows very much about love until some girl or woman has taught him.
Of course, the view of the evil nature of men, and of women as always the victim, is one that can hardly fail to be pleasing to women, depending, as it does, on their moral superiority, which stamps them as Amazons of Purity, on the glorious mountain heights of virtue, from where they must send down climbing ropes and ladders, in the form of prohibitions and regulations and new laws, to pull men up out of the deep valleys of vice.
But if we inquire more honestly into this question of men’s sins, we shall find that it is not they who are wholly responsible. There is little difference between men’s virtue and women’s virtue.
Almost unceasingly in our streets women are tempting men.
Always there is the invitation near: “Come and make love to me.” To be provocative is the one simple rule of many women’s lives. Men’s admiration is a necessity to their very existence.
True, in the after results, the woman may be, and, indeed, often is, the victim—has to pay the heavier price; but at the start she is the leader of the assault.
The essential fact in every relationship of the sexes is the woman’s power over the man, and it is the misuse of this power that is the beginning of sin.
Do not think I am unfair. Most men, I know, are not only tolerant of women’s wiles; they like them. But most men succumb, I believe, against their will, and often against their inclination, to the tyranny of their own aroused passions.
Men’s chivalry, as well as their pride, has woven a cloak of silence on this question of the temptation they are so frequently called upon to resist and this silence has protected women—even the worst.
Let us alter our laws to help girls by all means. Yet, let us be just. There is such a thing as too much temptation for a boy—temptation that a woman has no right to give.
SENTIMENTAL TAMPERING WITH DIFFICULT PROBLEMS:
WITH SOME REMARKS ON SEX FAVOURITISM
It is sometimes difficult to have patience with the proposals that are brought forward, so frequently and with such persistent zeal, to amend our Criminal Law. One cannot doubt the sincerity of these efforts to improve our disordered moral conditions. But something more than good-will is required. There is such a thing as over-haste in righteousness.
Besides, the attitude taken by these scavengers of conduct is almost always sentimental and one-sided. It is also dishonest. I say so, because almost without exception, they fail entirely to meet the true facts of the evils they attempt to cure. As reformers they seem to have but one idea; if they have more, they keep them secret, for they agitate but for one object.
Morality is a word that has been wrested from its true meaning of the whole duty of man in his social character and limited to the one narrow application of sexual conduct. It is curious and significant. It is as if we transferred to others some judgment which unconsciously was imposed from within.
Yet obviously the strongest impediment against effective reform lies just here—in this blindness to reality; this separation from the truth. I need not wait to enlarge upon this further, it is impossible to contradict. To judge blindly is to judge upon a lie.
Would you ask me to give you examples?
There is, to take one illuminative instance, the long continued and still unsettled agitation for raising the age of consent for girls. Those who are chiefly eager for this reform invariably evince frenzied zeal, combined with the most curious and deplorable ignorance of the real facts. I cannot for a moment believe that they are in the least degree, consciously blind. But that does not alter the fact that they are blind. Instead of facing the situation squarely with knowledge and due consideration of all the complicated conditions, they ignore every thing they do not want to see. They wallow in sex-righteousness.
Consider again the controversy that raged now sometime back, with regard to the White Slave Traffic. The sudden frenzy. The unproved stories of the trapping of girls! The clamour for legislative measures! Every moral reformer became obsessed.
The instinctive attitude of the one-ideaed reformer had a unique chance of displaying itself, and one marvelled at the almost curious enthusiasm, mated to inexperience, with which the subject was approached. While the most offensive feature of the agitation was the sex-obsession, which gave rise to the silly notion of the helpless perfection of women and the dangerous opposite view of the indescribable imperfections of men. It is no exaggeration to say that every sense of reality was lost in white clouds of virtue.
I would wish to make it plain that I am not judging these questions either on one side or the other. What I desire to show is the danger of a prejudiced view. And the danger is particularly active in connection with all these attempts at changing the law, in order to give greater protection to women and girls, while, at the same time, boys are left unprotected.
This unpopular view of the need to protect the boy from the girl—the man from woman—the temptress of man—is not usually brought forward. Yet, it is a view of the situation, seen from a different side, that cannot be neglected. The evidence is overwhelming of girls of sixteen years and even younger tempting boys of the same age as well as those older than themselves. If in such cases the boy is to be punished and the girl treated as a wronged and helpless victim, not only will a great unjustice be done, but there will be a very certain danger of graver demoralisations.
This truth of the woman’s power, which depends upon Nature and not upon law, the supporters of a one-sided alteration of our criminal law too often fail to face.
I am reminded here of a little incident that happened many years ago. I had quarrelled seriously with a man, who before I had always liked and respected, for what I then considered was his light treatment of a certain girl who was my friend. She had written and told me her side of this occurrence.
Very well I recall what he said: “You don’t understand. She asked for it.” Then, when I pressed him further, he went on. “A man always treats a girl in the way she wants him to do.”
Now, one of the greatest troubles in connection with all sex-legislation to-day arises from this fact that women do not understand. They are inexperienced and in too great a hurry. They think they can cure old evils with quick penny-in-the slot reforms. There is still a chivalry that protects women and shields their ignorance. These illusions are maintained, even by men of the world, who are acquainted with all the complex difficulties. It is the romantic view, a kind of male blindness that nothing seems to cure. Women must be protected from men, who are the great offenders in all sexual sins. Often I have marvelled at the acceptance by men of a view of the sex-conflict so highly untrue, though flattering to women, depending as it does on their entirely unproved moral superiority.
And here I wish to ask your attention to a consideration of the question that is very rarely appreciated. I regard it as exceedingly important. Those who are possessed with a frenzy for protecting girls ought to remember that there is still greater necessity to protect boys. It is forgotten that the young girl is not usually in constant close relations with other men than her father and brothers. She has to be guarded only from the outside lover, whom in the first beginning of intimacy she could, if she wished, easily repel.
The reverse is the case with boys. In a sense, they cannot escape from situations of danger. At school, in lodgings, even at home, in sickness and also in health; on every occasion opportunities are provided that make abuse exceedingly easy. The part played in the sexual initiation of boys by servants, by lodging and boarding-house keepers, and by other women who have to tend, and feed and mend for them is much larger than is credited. It is folly to close our eyes to the evils that so often arise. Probably every man who is a seducer of women was himself first seduced by a woman.
In spite of the emancipation upon which women pride themselves, in spite of much theoretical knowledge, yes, in spite of social and rescue work—where, it should be noted, they hear the woman’s story but only in the rarest cases the man’s story—almost all women lead a shielded life. Much that happens is outside their experience—as long as they are virtuous. This sets definite limits to their knowledge and their power of comprehension. And this again explains the continued belief in the woman’s notion that, in all cases, the girl is the victim of the man.
It would be nearer the truth to reverse the position. Girls need to be taught their great and unavoidable responsibility. They should be trained to be protectors rather than to seek protection. Men will treat them as they want to be treated.
Let us now, for a moment, be practical and consider if there is any reason we can discover, which will explain why we hear so much more about the seduction of girls and the sins of men than we ever do about the other side—the tempting by women and girls, and the seduction of boys. The answer is simple. The boy will not talk about what happens to him if he is led into a sexual offence at an early age. This is true also to a large extent of the man. But the boy especially considers he ought to have known: also he is much more self-conscious. Then he expects to be blamed for not resisting, whatever the circumstances. He will probably not tell anyone, unless the girl does so, until years afterwards.
I know a schoolboy who was seduced by a woman relation years older than himself, in a very shameful way. This boy was of high character and very sensitive; he suffered in ways impossible to relate here, but he never told anyone until about ten years afterwards, when he told the woman he was to marry.
Now, if this case had been reversed and a young schoolgirl had been the victim of a male relative, I am fairly confident the fact would not have been concealed. Girls, even if not wholly innocent, almost always will tell, because it has at all times been allowed to them to blame the man. They thus can count on sympathy. This means much more than usually is reckoned with.
Let me give a less tragic instance of a different and humourous character. A schoolboy, about seventeen years old, was waiting for a motor-bus in which he was going home. He was a dreamy boy and a bus came up and, lost in his thoughts, he did not take it. He was brought back to reality by a girl accosting him. “I waited, too,” she said. “You, are glad arn’t you? You would like me to go in the bus with you.”
She smiled up at him: but he was not to be caught.
“I don’t care, the hell, what you do as long as you don’t expect me to pay your fare!”
That silenced her and sent her away. But how easily, had the boy been a less confident type, the incident might have taken a different course. And then, if disaster had followed, the boy would be blamed, the girl would be pitied. There is an enormous amount of sex unfairness.
I could recount many further cases in proof of how almost always it is the girl (or the woman) who takes the first steps in forming these friendships. Men, at least, will know that I speak the truth. And yet this fiction of the greater virtue of the woman is persistently maintained: while the man is condemned as being nearer the devil and the beast.
I know that the many horrible cases of criminal assault upon children will be quoted against me, in proof of the justice of this heavy condemnation of men. Please do not think that I am in any way unaware of the awfulness of these crimes. The protection of little children is the one matter on which I feel most deeply. But there can be no fair comparison between this class of crime and the ordinary cases of seduction, whether we believe it is the man who seduces the woman, or the other way round, the woman who tempts and excites the boy or the man. In the one case an unhappy and terrible degenerate is passion-driven into the commission of an atrocity, in the other there is, and, indeed, must be to some extent, a mutual purpose, usually with some calculation and a certain deliberate choice.
That is why it is so false to reality to regard the one partner as a helpless victim. It is really a position that is impossible and ridiculous. Are we to believe that all women are impotent and imbecile weaklings incapable of resisting men? The truth is that in slandering men we only slander women with the backward swing of the same blow.