Double Standard of Morals.
Among factors bearing on the causes of sexual intemperance and venereal peril, possibly none stands out as clearly and prominently as the so-called double standard of morals. We all know that society has adopted and hypocritically approved a double code of sexual morality for men and women. What is considered to be natural and permissible for a man is an offense of morality and a crime punishable by social disgrace for a woman. No man is willing to marry a girl whom he knows or suspects to be of loose sexual morals, and no self-respecting man will tolerate that the fair name and honor of his sister be attacked or ruined even by a word, not to say in fact. And yet the same man, in full sincerity and in accord with his conscience gives to himself a free license of “sowing wild oats” before his marriage. In fact, many men believe that it is not only permissible, but even desirable for a young man to work off a surplus of his physical manhood before he settles down to family life. How a squandering of the best physical and nervous energy in dissipation, how a waste and perversion of the highest spiritual and moral instinct of love by a degrading purchase of the body of a prostitute, how a polluting of the young and pure blood with venereal poisons can make a man a better husband and father is beyond human reason and common sense to comprehend; but the superstitions and barbaric notions of the good old days are dying hard, and thousands of young men sacrifice their manhood to the deep-rooted traditions and to the slavery of established social habits.
How this double code of sexual morality has developed is probably to be explained by a combination of several factors. First, a historically developed subjection of the woman to man naturally has led to the domination of man’s ideas and laws, and to the interpretation of different facts bearing on the relationship between man and woman in favor of the man. To justify his own license of sexual intemperance and deny the same freedom to a woman, it was easy for a man to declare that the sexual necessity for a woman is not as imperative as for a man, and therefore a woman shall be chaste and pure until the marriage, while the man may suit himself in this regard. There is no scientific proof whatsoever that a woman differs in any way from a man in regard to the sexual instinct. It is true that woman, as an average, is purer, more temperate, less attracted by mere animal, brutal passion, and often seeks or tolerates a physical gratification only as the means to get with it a man’s love and affection. On the other hand, a man is more brutal and violent in seeking and satisfying his physical passion, less able to control his sexual impulse, less affectionate and less sentimental in his expression of love. But this comparative moderation, modesty, and better self-control can be more easily explained by woman’s training thru many generations in clean and moral habits of thought and living, by the fewer chances of exposure to evil influences, by less stimulation and intoxication thru liquors and tobacco, and last, but not least, thru fear of public disgrace. The man, being master of the situation, has never tried to develop self-control and will power in subduing his physical passion, and has cloaked his sexual intemperance and indulgence with a fancied natural necessity. The double moral standard as it is practiced to-day has brought untold misery and has ruined lives of millions of young women who were so unfortunate as to make a first misstep and yielded to temptation. While the male seducer goes on unmolested and unnoticed on his gay round of life, the girl, his helpless victim, has to face all the fury of public disgrace and contempt. Many of them commit suicide, others try to hide their disgrace by a criminal operation and die or cripple their health for life. Many more, in despair and revolt against the injustice and hypocrisy of public opinion, enter the gates that swing only one way to slow decay and untimely death, the gates of prostitution.
There is no more miserable existence, no more hopeless, no more body and soul-wrecking life than that of a white slave. It is no accident that practically all of the prostitutes are drinking and smoking, and that the majority of them are also drug fiends. In fact, that should rather be credited in their favor, as it shows that with clear judgment and normal senses they cannot endure this degradation and life-long slavery, and, since they do not see any possibility of breaking their chains and redeeming their lives, they drug themselves to forget their misery. Yet even continual drugging cannot dull the agony of their hopeless existence, and many of them welcome death at their own hands, usually thru poison. There is no other occupation or human walk of life where the suicide rate is as high as among the slaves of prostitution, neither is there any class of population where physical decay and premature death is as common as among the women of the underworld. Let a man or youth who enters a house of prostitution know that by doing so he is not only purchasing a lottery ticket for the prize of a venereal disease, which he seldom misses, but that also with each visit to a fallen woman he drags her down one step lower on the down-grade path of a social abyss. And if he can do this with full knowledge of the social consequences of his act with a clear mind and cool judgment, let him know that he is a man in name only, and that morally he is much more to be despised and branded with social contempt than the painted creature he is ashamed to recognize on the street the morning after.