The Sexual Life of the Child

by Albert Moll

In cases of obstinate inclination to masturbate, all kinds of local measures have been recommended to prevent manipulation and artificial stimulation of the penis or the vulva. But speaking generally, no great reliance can be placed in any of these local measures. Moreover, casual local stimulation, especially towards the end of the second period of childhood, has no very profound etiological significance. The chief stimuli giving rise to reflex excitement of the genital organs are of an organic nature, and are therefore but little influenced by external measures. Besides, the fact that among races who never wear breeches, the boys masturbate freely, and perhaps even more freely than do boys in Europe, proves that such external stimuli as the pressure exercised by breeches on the genital organs play no decisive part in the causation of masturbation.

I purposely refrain from further reference here to such measures as a methodical "hardening" by hydrotherapeutic procedures, and the like. In special text-books, whether upon masturbation, or upon hydrotherapeutics, ample information will be found about these matters.

The suggestion has also been made that from the sexual outlook the diet of children is a matter worthy of the most earnest attention. Nothing should be given to the child which may exert a sexually stimulating effect; especially we must avoid giving heavy foods late in the evening. More detailed directions are also given as to the use of particular kinds of food, some of which may be consecrated by tradition, and yet seem to have but small reasonable foundation. To this category belong the prohibition or limitation of flesh-foods, and the prohibition of asparagus, celery, and other articles of diet. There is no proof that such things have a stimulating influence upon the sexual impulse, either in children or in adults. We might more readily incline to believe that certain spices may have such an influence; but even as regards these, no great anxiety need be felt. As regards alcohol, many maintain it has an exciting influence upon the sexual life, and thus gives rise to all kinds of excesses. This is true of a good many cases, but the rule is by no means so general as is commonly assumed. I recall that in my own student days we often classified the students into two groups, the alcoholic and the sexual; those of the former group spent their money upon alcohol, those of the latter group upon women. My own experience of these days certainly leads me to dispute the assertion that those addicted to alcohol are generally more inclined than others to indiscriminate sexual intercourse. But this reservation is necessary, that at that time actual abstainers were almost unknown among the students, and we classified in the alcoholic group those who consumed very large quantities of alcohol; whilst the members of the sexual group certainly also consumed alcohol, though not very much. Beyond question, the common belief that there is an association between the free use of alcohol and sexual excesses is one which lacks foundation. This view is to too great an extent based upon criminal statistics, and upon the records of the perversions to which the sexual perverts among alcoholics have been inclined. But think of the countless normal persons in whom the enjoyment of alcohol induces no tendency to sexual excesses; and, on the other hand, abstainers from alcohol have been personally known to me whom no one could venture to call moderate in their sexual relations. But although I make all these reservations with regard to the effects of the use of alcohol by adults, I am in full accord with the view that the use of alcohol should be prohibited to children. Alcohol cannot do any good to children, and the possibility that in individual instances it may stimulate the sexual imagination, is one which cannot be denied. But this fact does not justify us in advising against the moderate use of alcohol by adults.[150]

Passing to consider the general mode of life, we certainly agree with Hufeland, who, in his Makrobiotik, recommends vigorous bodily activity. He contends that children who go to bed at night healthily tired out, will not be likely to think of masturbation. In the present age of sports and games it will not be found difficult to fulfil this indication; and we see as a matter of fact that a great deal of trouble is taken to give children every opportunity of keeping in active movement. Even in our large towns, in which, owing to the lack of a sufficiency of open spaces, great difficulties have arisen in this respect, much has of late been done to improve matters. For many years past in England special efforts have been made to provide such playgrounds for children and adults.

I take this opportunity of drawing attention to a method recommended by Féré for the cure of masturbation, which I have myself found of good use in several cases, but which appears to be almost entirely unknown. It is that the child addicted to masturbation during the night hours should be watched by a trustworthy person; every time the child puts its hand to its genital organs, or endeavours to stimulate these organs mechanically in some other way, the attendant must immediately intervene, and draw the hands from beneath the bed-clothing. This plan may be adopted whether the child masturbates while asleep or while awake. But good can be expected from the method above all in those cases in which the child masturbates during sleep, and in which it commonly wakes up directly it is interfered with. In most cases the children treated in this way soon give up the practice of masturbation, even though the evil is of long standing. But it will be advisable to continue to supervise the child for some time after a cure has apparently been effected, lest what may have become a nervous automatism should be resumed after a brief intermission. The chief difficulty in the practical application of this method lies in the choice of a trustworthy person to watch the child. As a rule, the mother will be the most suitable, but now and again we shall find a hired nurse to whom this extremely difficult task may safely be entrusted. In a number of cases with which I have had to deal, I have recommended the mother to undertake the duty herself, because she seemed to me the most trustworthy person available. But it is a very regrettable fact that many mothers are altogether unwilling to make the necessary sacrifice for their child's good; and most of them are quite ready to believe that some woman whom they can hire for a few shillings a night will perform the duty which they themselves as mothers have renounced. Such lack of proper feeling is especially common among those who belong to what are termed the upper classes of society—to the aristocracy whether of birth or of wealth—whereas among the middle classes I have found mothers far more ready to make the necessary sacrifices.

In sexual education, the sexual perversions must receive especial attention. I must first of all refer again to two matters, of which some account has previously been given: the influencing of congenital inborn tendencies; and the undifferentiated sexual impulse. As regards the former, we have to take the following data into consideration. The fact that the indications lead us to believe that a particular sexual perversion is inborn, need not induce us to think there is no hope of counteracting this perversion by well-planned educational influences. I have already written at considerable length about the undifferentiated sexual impulse, and have shown that perverse manifestations during the period of the undifferentiated sexual impulse do not prove that a permanent perversion has developed. But everything possible should be done to guard against the further development of any such perverse mode of sexual sensibility, including sexual qualities in the wider sense of the term. We know, for example, that many homosexual men have a tendency to dress in girls' clothing, and many homosexual women to go about in men's clothing, and, in both cases, to adopt the inclinations and occupations of the opposite sex. During the period of the undifferentiated sexual impulse, we must not attach too much importance to the appearance of inclinations of this kind; but it would be equally erroneous to ignore them altogether. Boys who adopt a girlish behaviour, should not be encouraged in doing so by treating the matter as a joke. If a boy frequently dresses up as a girl, or a girl as a boy, and if we observe between two boys, or between two girls, an unduly intimate friendship at an age which corresponds to the period of the undifferentiated sexual impulse, it will be as well to modify the children's education accordingly. A girl with such inclinations should, for example, be thrown as much as possible into the society of lads of an appropriate age. In the case of those who are still quite young, there is no doubt that by the proper measures we can in part check the development of perverse manifestations, and in part completely repress them; notwithstanding the fact that interested agitators, whose principal aim is to secure the repeal of Section 175 of the German Imperial Criminal Code, maintain the contrary, and assert that homosexual tendencies appearing in the child necessarily indicate the future development of permanent homosexuality. Parents, tutors, schoolmasters, and physicians, must not allow themselves to be led astray by these agitators, who falsify the data of science. In the interest of truth, in the interest of the children endangered by these perversions, and in the interest of civilisation, these misstatements must be contradicted.

The chief danger associated with the appearance of sexual perversions lies in the fact that the child thus affected, whether boy or girl, endeavours again and ever again to revive these pleasurably-toned sensations; and above all in the fact that as soon as the genital organs are sufficiently mature, the boy or girl obtains sexual gratification by masturbating simultaneously with the imaginative contemplation of perverse ideas. Such perverse psychical onanism, accompanied or unaccompanied by physical masturbatory acts, is eminently adapted to favour the development of the perversion. Obviously, the actual performance of the corresponding perverse sexual act will be just as dangerous as is perversely associated masturbation. Thus, a boy who is homosexually inclined may masturbate while allowing his imagination to run riot upon homosexual ideas; or he may take to homosexual acts with one or more other male persons. Every sort of gratification that is associated with perverse images, is dangerous; and no less dangerous is the spontaneous cultivation of such perverse sexual images.

A very real and serious danger to children is to be found in my opinion in the risk of the progressive cultivation of homosexuality, if they become victims of a pædophile. The adult homosexual will sometimes conceal a perverse inclination directed towards children under the cloak of friendship or of an educational interest. I have previously referred to the danger that the child, at a time of life when its own sexual impulse is still undifferentiated, may sometimes reciprocate such a feeling. When I recall the light-heartedness with which homosexual males have acknowledged to me their experiences of sexual intercourse with apprentice-boys, and with pupils attending the higher forms of our secondary schools, and when I think of the readiness with which homosexual women seek opportunities of sexual intercourse with immature or partially mature girls, it seems to me that there are good grounds for the utterance of an urgent warning. My experiences in this department further lead me to believe that if Section 175 of the German Imperial Criminal Code is to be repealed, a further alteration in the Code will also be indispensable, namely, that the Age of Protection (Schutzalter—equivalent to the Age of Consent in the English Criminal Law Amendment Act) should be raised to the completion of the eighteenth year, and that the protection should apply, not merely to the actions now specified in Section 175 as "unnatural vice," but to all acts of sexual impropriety in the widest sense of the term. Recently this proposal has been approved by a resolution of the Reichstag.[151]

There are certain additional points about which it is unnecessary to write here, for the reason that these have all been considered in some appropriate connexion earlier in this book. For example, I have insisted upon the importance of anyone who possesses children's confidence taking steps for the removal of corrupted children from the environment of uncorrupted ones.

Where we have reason to believe, in the case of a particular child, that a perverse mode of sexual sensibility is developing, we shall occasionally find it preferable rather to attempt to hinder the growth of the perversion, than to try to check the general manifestations of the sexual impulse. Thus, in the case of a boy of fourteen, who is continually affected with homosexual imaginings, we shall find it far more difficult to repress sexual manifestations altogether, than to divert the homosexual sensibility into heterosexual channels. If a boy affected in this way be thrown much into the society of girls, or conversely, a girl into the society of boys (at dances, games of lawn-tennis, &c.), the subsequent effect is likely to be good, because the sexual pervert, even if his perverse tendency be congenital, can nevertheless be educated out of his perversion. It should hardly be necessary to state expressly, that when I speak of finding for the homosexual associates of the opposite sex, I am not thinking of suggesting intimate sexual intercourse. Apart from moral considerations, we could not, in the cases under consideration, expect any benefit to accrue on medical grounds; my reference was to a purely platonic association.