Children need love in order to grow strong mentally or physically. I read somewhere a story to the effect that a mediaeval ruler directed that some children be brought up by nurses who would never show them the slightest sign of affection or interest, his aim being, if my memory serves me well, to make extremely virile fighters out of those children, by protecting them against any weakening influence.
As the story goes, all the children died.
I do not vouch for the authenticity of the story but the vital statistics of orphan asylums affirm its plausibility. Children fare better in a poor, unsanitary home, at the hands of a stupid and ignorant but affectionate mother than in an up to date, well appointed, sanitary asylum. They need, in order to develop a strong, serviceable, well balanced autonomic nervous system, the safety which emanates from the breasts, the kisses, the hands, the admiring glances of their mother.
If no doting mother has ever told a child that he is wonderful and the most precious thing on earth, he will never quite consider himself as of much avail and will probably never become wonderful in any respect.
Free Love Plus Birth Control may reduce the actual population of the earth, but when only real lovers deeply attached to each other and only bound to each other by sexual desire and intellectual regard, will live together and decide to rear children as a monument to their love, free love and birth control will cause the population of insane asylums to dwindle to nothing and will save the world from the thousands of morons and neurotics who are the products of married disharmony and married slavery.
CHAPTER XII
Prostitution
Prostitution, as I stated in a previous chapter is one of the results of the overthrowing of sex by the ego. The craving for food and power triumphs over all the sexual cravings and compels one individual to pursue apparently sexual goals which are no longer sexual as far as that individual is concerned. The female prostitute lends her sexual organs to many men for money (food, power), not for her own gratification or to reproduce her species.
That phenomenon is very complex and cannot be dealt with in detail within the limits of this book. I shall confine myself to pointing out some of the psychological problems which have to be elucidated before the causes, nature and results of prostitution can be clearly understood.