CHAPTER XXX

What is an obscene, pornographic book or picture? In order to obtain an accurate and objective definition of this idea, we must always keep clearly before our minds the distinction between “pornography” and “eroticism.” The confusion between these two ideas explains the great conflict of opinion on the part of expert witnesses in connexion with the question whether any specified book or picture is to be regarded as “immoral” or “indecent.”

The obscene differs toto cœlo from the erotic. In my own possession is a rare work which is probably the first monograph regarding obscene books. It dates from the year 1688, and is the thesis of a Leipzig doctor.[776] At that time it was still possible to compose academic essays upon such topics. To-day this would only be possible in the legal faculty and from the criminal standpoint. In respect of the unprejudiced scientific and historical consideration of pornography, we have experienced a notable retrogression, and at the present day a certain degree of courage is needed to make these things an object of scientific study, to consider in an unprejudiced and objective manner these peculiar outgrowths of the human soul.

In the above-mentioned essay the learned writer gives, on p. 5, a definition of the obscene, which shows that he had not thoroughly differentiated it from the erotic, but confused the two ideas under the same term. In his view, obscene writings are “all such writings whose authors use distinctly improper language, and speak plainly about the sexual organs, or describe the shameless acts of voluptuous and impure human beings, in such words that chaste and tender ears would shudder to hear them.”

But such improper descriptions might occur in a work without its being possible to designate this as obscene. A book can justly be called obscene only when it has been composed simply, solely, and exclusively for the purpose of producing sexual excitement—when its contents aim at inducing in its readers a condition of coarse and brutish sensuality.

This definition clearly excludes all those literary products which, notwithstanding the existence of isolated erotic, or even obscene, passages, are yet composed for purposes radically different from that above described—it excludes, for example, artistic, religious, and scientific works (the history of civilization, poetry, belles-lettres, medicine, folk-lore, etc.).

The question, namely, whether simple sexual relationships can properly be made the object of artistic or scientific representation, may be answered with an unconditional affirmative, if we presuppose a purely artistic or scientific critical representation and consideration of erotic objects; that is to say, in the work of art, or the scientific work, as the case may be, the purely sexual must completely disappear behind the higher artistic or scientific conception. This is possible only when that which is represented is completely devoid of actuality; when time and place are entirely ignored, so that the object is regarded rather from its general human aspect; and when, further, in the artistic representation of the purely sexual we find expression also, on the part of the artist, of a conception enlightening and to a degree overcoming the purely physical; or when, finally, on the part of the man of science, we recognize a critical point of view, by means of which the causal relationships of the sexual find expression.

The general tendency is determinative, not the shocking individual detail. I need not waste any more words upon the importance of medical, ethnological, psychological, and historical works upon the sexual life.[777] This fact is, fortunately, now fully recognized even by the greatest morality fanatics, and it would hardly now be possible in Germany that a law-court—as recently in Belgium[778]—should witness proceedings against a medical undertaking on account of pornographic (!) illustrations.[779]

The same is true of the artistic consideration of sexual matters. For example, how readily everything sexual lends itself to the humorous point of view! How short here is the step from the sublime to the ridiculous! In a copy which lies before me of Fr. Th. Vischers’ first work, “The Sublime and the Ridiculous” (Stuttgart, 1837), which was once in the possession of a friend of Goethe, the Driburg physician, Anton Theobald Brück, we find on p. 203, in his handwriting, the apt marginal note: “Wit gilds the nickel of the obscene.” Sexual matters actually provoke humour. This fact was enunciated by Schopenhauer, and was ascribed by him to the profound earnestness which underlies the sexual (“Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” i., 330). For this reason, as Eduard Fuchs[780] rightly insists, the majority of all erotic creations are of the nature of caricatures. The most brilliant advocate of this humorous view of sexual matters is the brilliant English artist Thomas Rowlandson, whose works, both in England and in Germany, have long been kept under lock and key.

The mystic-satanic element in the sexual also stimulates artistic representations, and in the works of Baudelaire, Barbey d’Aurevilly, Félicien Rops, Aubrey Beardsley, Toulouse Lautrec, etc., we see that the “perverse” also is thoroughly capable of erotic representation. But even pure obscenity, without any underlying idea—as, for example, we see it to-day in the obscene drawings of Carracci—may have the effect of a simple artistic product, if the taste of the onlooker is so far matured that the purely sexual can recede completely behind the artistic conception. We must, generally speaking, not fail to take into account the individuality and the age of the spectator or reader. For children and immature persons, even works that are obviously not obscene, such as artistic, religious, and scientific literature, may, in certain circumstances, be dangerous—works which adults regard and judge in the spirit of their own time, as, for example, the Bible and the writings of the Fathers of the Church. John Milton, who was certainly not lacking in piety, wrote: “The Bible often relates blasphemies in no very delicate manner; it describes the fleshly lusts of vicious men not without elegance.”[781] Books which are to be read by children cannot be chosen too carefully, for a very large proportion also of the literature which is not, properly speaking, obscene, but which deals with sexual matters, has upon the childish imagination an effect equivalent to that of true pornography upon the adult.

In passing judgment on an erotic work, we must, finally, take into consideration the standard of the epoch to which the work belongs; we must bear in mind the nature of the contemporary moral ideas. Much which to us to-day appears obscene was not so in the middle ages. On the other hand, we must not excuse everything on this plea, for our forefathers were also familiar with pornographic and utterly obscene books. Works such as those of the Marquis de Sade or of Nicolas Chorier (“Gespräche der Aloysia Sigaea”) have not only an importance in the history of civilization: they also have an interest for anthropologists and medical men. They constitute remarkable documents of the nature and mode of manifestation of sexual perversities in earlier times. Moreover, all pornographic writings afford us valuable assistance in our study of the genesis of sexual perversions. But while we admit the importance of such writings—for example, those of de Sade—to learned men and bibliophiles, we cannot condemn in sufficiently strong terms the insane undertaking of translating de Sade’s books in our own day. This is simply pornology; for all those who, as medical men, psychologists, or historians of civilization, are occupied with pornographic literature, are—or, at any rate, should be—competent to read these authors in the original tongue.[782] I feel therefore that the mass of recently published German translations of the pornographic writings of John Cleland, Mirabeau, Nerciat, de Sade, of the “Antijustine” of Rétif de la Bretonne, of the “Portier des Chartreux,” of Alfred de Musset’s “Gamiani,” etc., can only be described as pornography, although I must admit that the original editions are often inaccessible to the scientific student interested in the matter, who in such cases must, faute de mieux, content himself with translations.

These obscene writings may be compared with natural poisons, which must also be carefully studied, but which can be entrusted only to those who are fully acquainted with their dangerous effects, who know how to control and counteract these effects, and who regard them as an object of natural research by means of which they will be enabled to obtain an understanding of other phenomena.

The pornographic element of literature and art[783] has an ancient history. In Greece, Rome, and Egypt, but more especially in India, Japan, and China, there existed an extensive obscene literature. In Europe the French, Italian, and English obscene literature occupies the first place as regards comprehensiveness and wide diffusion. Exceptionally dangerous in their effect are French pornographic writings, because their mode of expression is so elegant, whereas the English obscene books, with the single exception of Cleland’s “Fanny Hill,” are positively deterrent, on account of the coarse phraseology employed in them. The German writings in this department are not much better than the English, and consist to a large extent of bad translations of foreign pornographic works—if we except a few older writings, which are repeatedly reissued, such as the “Denkwürdigkeiten des Herrn von H.,” by Schilling, or the “Memoiren einer Sängerin,” the first part of which is ascribed to the celebrated Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. Speaking generally, it is a remarkable phenomenon (and one which is in flat contradiction to the assertion so frequently made that pornography and true art cannot possibly be associated) that so many spirits of the first rank, great artists either in literature or plastic art, have enriched pornography themselves by works of their own, or, failing this, have at least been notorious lovers of pornography. This fact was clearly manifested at the time of the Italian renascence, but it can be traced down to the present day. Men like Voltaire (“La Pucelle d’Orléans”), Mirabeau (“L’Éducation de Laure,” “Ma Conversion,” etc.), Alfred de Musset (“Gamiani”), Guy de Maupassant (“Les Cousines de la Colonelle”), Théophile Gautier (“Lettre à la Présidente”), and Gustave Droz (“Un Été à la Campagne”), have written indubitably pornographic books. But the heroes of our own German literature have not been free from such tendencies. Goethe not only wrote the “Tagebuch,” but composed other (still completely unknown) erotica, which, by command of the Grand Duchess Sophie, were sealed and hidden away.[784] Schopenhauer,[785] who said to Frauenstädt that a philosopher must be active, “not only with his head, but also with his genital organs,” was a lover of pornography, even of a skatological character, and was fond of telling “bawdy stories which will not bear repetition”—for example, he would enumerate the different kinds of kissing, describe the varieties of the sexual impulse, etc.[786] Schiller and Goethe enjoyed reading Diderot’s “The Nun” (“La Religieuse”) and his “Bijoux Indiscrets,” Rétif’s “Monsieur Nicolas,” and the “Liaisons Dangereuses” of Choderlos de Laclos, books which would nowadays be suppressed as “immoral.” Lichtenberg also was a very zealous reader, and a connoisseur, not only of erotic, but also of pornographic literature. In his letters he alludes to reading such pornographic works as Cleland’s “Woman of Pleasure” (“Letters,” edition Leitzmann and Schüddekopf, vol. ii., p. 187) and “Lyndamine,” etc. Talented women of that period also read pornographic works. Pauline Wiesel, the beloved of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, greatly admired Mirabeau’s obscene writings, as we learn from a letter of Friedrich Gentz, in which the latter decries them as “cold libertinage,” and recommends to his friend similar products of Voltaire, Crébillon, and Grécourt.[787]

These facts do not excuse pornography, but they refute the assertion that pornography and true artistic perception are incompatible. As Schopenhauer truly says, many contrasts can exist side by side in the same human being. This is even more clearly manifest in pictorial art. Anyone who turns over the leaves of Eduard Fuchs’ book upon the erotic element in caricature will learn that the greatest painters have occasionally painted deliberately improper, obscene pictures. I need mention only the names of Lucas Cranach, Annibale Carracci, H. S. Beham, Rembrandt, G. Aldegrever, Adrian van Ostade, Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, Vivan-Denon, Gillray, Lawrence, Rowlandson, Heinrich Ramberg, Wilhelm von Kaulbach, Schadow, Otto Greiner, Willette, Kubin, Julius Pascin,[788] Beardsley, etc.[789]

Side by side with these higher pornographic works there exists also a lower kind—obscene garbage writings and pornographic pictures of the worst possible kind, such as picture postcards, “act-photographs,” etc., in which all possible sexual perversities are represented, either in printed matter or by pictures (masturbation, poses lubriques, representations of nude portions of the body, copralagnistic and urolagnistic acts, bestiality, sadism, masochism, pæderasty, incest, fornicatory acts with children, orgies, obscene paraphrases of proverbs, rape, etc.). Kemmer (op. cit., pp. 31-45) gives a detailed account of the sale of these obscenities, and of the way in which they are advertised in catalogues, etc. They are manufactured in France, Germany, Belgium, and Spain (especially in Barcelona). The dangerous character of these articles is indisputable; they have a suggestive influence, and stimulate those who look at them to imitative acts. They may thus directly give rise to sexual perversities.[790] But they are not so dangerous as the true hawkers’ literature[791] and popular garbage writings about “secret sins.” These inflame the imagination, and thus lead to crime and sexual infamies. This is an old experience. In the year 1901, at the trial of the boy murderers Thärigen and Kroft (Vossische Zeitung, No. 161, April 5, 1901), the two murderers confessed that they had been incited to the commission of crime by backstairs romances, and by tales of Indians and robbers. The same cause was alleged, in December, 1906, in Kottbus, by a boy fourteen years of age, who was accused of murder.

How are we to counteract the moral harm done by such literature? I consider all the efforts of societies for the suppression of immorality to be illusory and two-edged, for they always fail to attain their end; and in addition, unfortunately—a matter of which there is no doubt—they endanger the freedom of art and science.[792] All measures calculated to keep away from children and immature persons books which might serve to give rise to sexual stimulation are worthy of support; and it must be remembered that for children and immature persons scientific books, religious writings—as, for example, the unexpurgated Bible—and also illustrated comic papers, etc., may be dangerous. But, for the most part, all prohibitions, and the whole campaign against immorality, serve only to favour pornography. The stricter the measures taken against it, the wider becomes its diffusion. This is a very old experience, an incontrovertible fact. Tacitus (“Ann.,” XIV., c. 50) rightly explained this peculiar phenomenon: “Libros exuri jussit, conquisitos lectitatosque, donec cum periculo parabantur: mox licentia habendi oblivionem attulit” (“He issued a decree that the books were to be burned; but as long as it was dangerous to publish them they were in great request, and were eagerly read: whereas as soon as people were permitted to possess them they passed into oblivion”). The pornographic books which during the last five hundred years have been burned by the public executioner, which have been confiscated, and which have been repeatedly destroyed to the last copy, the obscene engravings of which the plates have been destroyed—have all these disappeared from the surface of the earth, have all these confiscations and condemnations[793] of livres défendus been of any use whatever? No. All the pornographic writings, confiscated and destroyed a thousand times over, reappear again and again; indeed, they become more numerous the more the attempt is made to suppress them. The campaign against them has always been a campaign against a hydra, a labour of the Danaïdes, which has no object, and only entails the disadvantage that, in the general zeal to put an end to immoral literature, scientific and artistic interests are most seriously endangered. Happily, this campaign is to-day less vigorous than it was of yore. In proportion to the population, immoral literature in Germany was before 1870 far more widely diffused than it is at the present day. During the sixth and seventh decades of the nineteenth century it flourished more luxuriantly; even during the time of the war of liberation numerous original obscene books were printed in Germany. To-day the interest in social, scientific, technical, and philosophic questions, and in sport, has become so great, and the interest in sexual questions has become so much more profound, that an overgrowth of pornography is no longer to be feared. From these facts we recognize at once the only way, and the right way, which we must follow in order to paralyze the evil influences of pornography. This is to take a proper care for genuine popular culture, to increase educational opportunities, and to reduce the price of books. A single undertaking such as that of A. Reimann, who, in his Deutsche Bücherei, publishes for threepence a volume a collection of choice literature, containing not only the best fiction, but also popularly written scientific works from the pens of leading men of science and essayists—such an enterprise is far more effective in the suppression of garbage literature than all the Unions for the Promotion of Morality.

Supplementary Note to Chapter XXX.—In connexion with the questions discussed in this chapter, the reader may profitably consult the recently published book of Willy Schindler (written, however, from an unduly subjective standpoint), “The Erotic Element in Literature and Art” (Berlin, 1907).

[English readers interested in the question of the dangers of pornographic literature and art in relation to that “liberty of unlicensed printing” which is so essential to the welfare of the modern social democratic State, should read the thoughtful and luminous discussion of the topic by H. G. Wells, in one of the later chapters of his admirable “Mankind in the Making.”—Translator.]

[776] Johannes David Schreber (of Meissen), “De libris obscoenis” (Leipzig, 1688, quarto).

[777] Cf. Iwan Bloch, “The Lex Heinze and Medical Authorship,” published in Die Medizinsche Woche, No. 9, March 12, 1900.

[778] Cf., regarding this matter, the Aerztlicher Zentral-Anzeiger, No. 24, June 10, 1901.

[779] Unfortunately, I was mistaken in this optimistic assumption. In the Journal of the German Book Trade, No. 77, April 3, 1906, I find among the list of confiscated works “Means for the Prevention of Conception”—a separate impression of the Deutsche Medizinische Presse, Berlin, No. 7, April 5, 1899. By the decision of one of the Berlin courts the further issue of this work, and the further use of the stereotype forms from which it was printed, were forbidden.

[780] Eduard Fuchs, “The Erotic Element in Caricature,” p. 10 (Berlin, 1904), Cf. also Paul Leppin, “The Ludicrous in the Erotic,” published in Das Blaubuch, edited by Ilgenstein and Kalthoff, No 4, February 1, 1906, pp. 149-155.

[781] John Milton’s “Areopagitica.”

[782] An exception must be made of the work of Aretino, which in the Italian original is extremely difficult to understand. I, therefore, regard the masterly translation published by the Insel-Verlag as a justifiable undertaking.

[783] To those desirous of obtaining information regarding modern pornography, I can recommend, above all, the work of Ludwig Kemmer, based upon official material, “Die graphische Reklame der Prostitution,” Munich, 1906. Cf. also Heinrich Stümcke, “The Immoral Literature of the Present Day,” published in “Zwischen den Garben,” pp. 100-107 (Leipzig, 1899); same author, “Literary Sins and Affairs of the Heart,” pp. 30-34 (Berlin, 1894); Sebastian Brant, “Prostitution as displayed in the Great Art Exhibition of Berlin, 1895” (second edition, Berlin, 1895). Consult also the chapter concerning erotic literature and art in my “Recent Researches regarding the Marquis de Sade,” 1904 (pp. 237-272), and my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. iii., pp. 235-473.

[784] Cf. G. Hirth, “Ways to Love,” p. 352. This fact has been confirmed to me by Herr F. von Biedermann. When Frauenstädt once said to Schopenhauer that Goethe, when away from the Court, gladly made use of coarse expressions, Schopenhauer replied: “Yes, many contrasts can exist side by side in the same human being,” and he confirmed the fact from his own experience that Goethe was fond of gross phrases. Cf. Sohopenhauer’s “Gespräche und Selbstgespräche,” edited by E. Grisebach, p. 40 (Berlin, 1902). Certain “Secret Epigrams of Goethe” have recently been privately printed (forty copies only were issued). Many similar erotic poems of Goethe’s are still carefully preserved in Goethe-Archives, and withheld from publication.

[785] “Arthur Schopenhauer,” by E. O. Lindner, and “Memorabilia, Letters, and Posthumous Pieces,” edited by Julius Frauenstädt, p. 270 (Berlin, 1862).

[786] Schopenhauer’s “Gespräche und Selbstgespräche,” pp. 42, 53, 106.

[787] Rudolf von Gottschall, “The German National Literature of the Nineteenth Century,” vol. i., p. 255 (fifth edition, Breslau, 1881).

[788] Julius Pascin. Regarding this painter of the perverse, who has recently become more widely known, see Max Ludwig, “Erregungen und Beruhigungen,” published in Welt am Montag, December, 21, 1906.

[789] The name of Hokusai may well be added to this list. There exists a series of outline drawings by this great Japanese artist, in which the beauty of the draughtmanship is only equalled by the ingenuity with which sexual perversions are depicted.—Translator.

[790] Cf., regarding this matter, my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. i., pp. 194-200.

[791] Cf. Paul Dehn, “Modern Hawkers’ Literature” (Stuttgart, 1894); “The Repression of Garbage Literature,” published in the Nationalzeitung, No. 683, December 11, 1906; Johannes Liebert, “Das Indianerbuch und die Backfischerzählung,” published in Der Zeitgeist, No. 51, of December 17, 1906.

[792] The literature dealing with the campaign against pornography is very extensive. I may mention: Francisque Sarcey, “La Presse Pornographique,” published in Le Livre: Bibliographie Moderne, November, 1880, pp. 287-289 (Paris, 1880); Hermann Roeren, “Public Immorality and its Repression” (Cologne, 1903); F. S. Schultze, “Immorality and the Christian Family” (Leipzig, 1892); Jacques Jolowicz, “The Campaign against Immorality” (Leipzig, 1904). Works of an opposite tendency: Karl Frenzel, “Art and the Criminal Law” (Berlin, 1885); rejoinder to this by Max Heinemann, “The Graef Trial and German Art” (Berlin, 1885); “The Moral Salvation Army in Berlin: a Union of Men for the Repression of Public Immorality. A Contemporary Picture by * * *” (Berlin, 1889); “Against Prudery and Lying” (Munich, 1892), contains, inter alia; “The Campaign against Immorality on the Part of the Pietists, and Free Literature,” by Dr. Oskar Panizza; Georg Keben, “The Pons Asinorum of Morality” (Berlin, 1900); Heinrich Schneegans, “Prudery and Science,” published in the Frankfurter Zeitung, No. 123, May 5, 1906; “Punishment and Morality,” published in the Vossische Zeitung, No. 447, September 24, 1903 (condemning the confiscation of Hans von Kahlenberg’s “Nixchen”).

[793] With regard to the extent of this campaign against pornography, consult: “Catalogue des Ecrits, Gravures et Dessins condamnés depuis 1814 jusqu’au 1er Janvier, 1850, suivi de la Liste des Individus condamnés pour délits de Presse” (Paris, 1850); “Catalogue des Ouvrages condamnés comme contraire à la Morale publique et aux bonnes Mœurs du 1er Janvier, 1814, au 31 Decembre, 1873” (Paris, 1874); Fernand Drujon, “Catalogue des Ouvrages, écrits et Dessins de toute Nature poursuivis, supprimés ou condamnés depuis le 21 Octobre, 1814, jusqu’au 31 Juillet, 1877, etc.” (Paris, 1878); Index Librorum Prohibitorum Sanctissimi Domini, Pii IX. Pont. Max. Jussu editus. Editio novissima in qua libri omnes ab Apostolica Sede usque ad annum 1786, proscripti suis locis recensentur (Rom, 1876); Catalogue des Livres défendus par la Commission Impériale et Royale jusqu’à l’année 1786 (Brüssel, 1788); O. Delepierre, “Des Livres condamnés au Feu en Angleterre.” For Germany, see the recorded reports regarding forbidden and confiscated matter contained in the Journal of the German Book-Trade.

CHAPTER XXXI
LOVE IN POLITE (BELLETRISTIC) LITERATURE

“The question arises whether it is not absolutely necessary that art should represent this erotic element forbidden by the culture of our time, because it corresponds to a profound subjective human need, to a yearning for the completion of man’s imperfect existence.”—Konrad Lange.