CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XII
Difference between free love and wild love — The danger of wild love — Forms the bridge to prostitution — Its connexion with the sensual life and with seduction — The peculiarities of modern epicureanism — Restless character of the sensual life — The life of “amusement” — The erotic aim of this life — Sexual excesses of the present day — Heedlessness of wild love — Influence of large towns on the sensual life — Nocturnal life — Character of the pleasures of large towns — Increase of sexual tension — Pursuit of pleasure among the common people — The increasing number of young embezzlers — Public seduction — Professional seduction — History of the art of love — Its gradual spiritualization — Seducer types — Don Juan and Casanova — British Don-Juanism — The domineering erotic, and the erotic genius — Kierkegaarde, “Diary of a Seducer” — Pseudo Don-Juanism — Printed guide-books to the sensual life for the modern man of pleasure — Influence of the mode of life upon the sexual life — Alcohol as the incorporation of evil in this respect — Analysis of its influence on the vita sexualis — Its peculiar duplex influence — Utilization of this influence by prostitutes and seducers — Alcoholism and venereal diseases — Absinthe in France — Share of alcohol in producing offences against morality — Encouragement of wild love by alcohol — Connexion of illegitimate births with alcoholic excess — Increase of wild love at the present day — “Intimacy” (“das Verhältnis”) — Its gradual degeneration — History of the origination of the “intimacy,” and psychological explanations thereof — Increasing similarity between the nature of the “intimacy” and the conditions of prostitution — Causes — Frequent changes of “intimates” — The diffusion of venereal diseases by means of wild love — Rôle of lies, mistrust, and hatred therein — Produces disbelief in love — Wild love and coercive marriage — Causes of sexual corruption — Need for the campaign against wild love and sexual libertinism — Hellmann’s book on sexual libertinism — Attitude of the medical man towards “extra-conjugal” sexual intercourse — Increasing aversion to wild love — The increase in free ideal love unions — Wild love as the transitional stage to prostitution.