Controlling Factors of Sexual Instinct.
In discussing sexual abstinence and its possible injurious effect on health, some very important facts bearing on the question should be brought out.
First, the popular idea that sex is as much a physical necessity as are other instincts of self-preservation, such as hunger, thirst, or sleep, is fundamentally wrong. Hunger, thirst, etc., are imperative at all ages and under all circumstances. The lack of their satisfaction for a very few days leads to wasting, destruction of the body, and physical suffering. The sexual impulse awakens only at a certain age, lasts a certain period of time, and gradually goes down, leaving the physical welfare of the body undisturbed.
Individual Variations.—Another extremely important difference is that hunger, thirst, sleep, and other bodily instincts are implanted in every human being, and individual natural differences in regard to these instincts are so insignificant as to be negligible. (We wish to emphasize the word “natural” in its true sense, as in actual life many people develop so many different habits as to the quality and quantity of food and drink and in their ignorance call them their “nature.”) How different it is with the sex function. People are so different as to their sexual capacity and preferences, commonly called “temperament,” that no hard or fast rules can be enjoined on the average man or woman, and not even approximate limits can be given in an individual case. There are many so-called frigid natures, particularly among women, who feel not the slightest attraction for the members of the opposite sex, and are able to go for years and even thruout life without any active desire for sexual relationship. On the other hand, there are some individuals who, either thru heredity or thru personal unbridled indulgence, are so obsessed by sexual passion that their mind remains shut off to every refined and moral influence, and they turn into low, beastly slaves of their brutal passions. What is sexually exciting and attractive to one man, leaves another man perfectly indifferent, and may be disgusting and repulsive to a third. Surely an instinct that is so changeable and so widely differs with different people is not a physical necessity of our body, and can be held in abeyance for a long period of time.