The sexual question

by Auguste Forel

The sexuality of the rich man degenerates by luxury, comfort, excess and idleness, and by the fact that he is already satiated in his youth. That of the poor man is no less degenerate, owing to bad food, unhealthy dwellings, neglected education, and by vicious example which at the opposite extreme, resembles in many points that of the rich man; the exploiter and the exploited meeting in the dens of vice. Such is the case with gambling hells, with dens for prostitution and sexual anomalies, where the poor blackmail the rich, while the latter in their capacity as social exploiters help to maintain poverty and prostitution.

Money makes sexual intercourse unnatural; in place of letting coitus take its natural course, it makes it an object of amusement and pleasure, and also of speculation, and it debases the bodies of wretched girls by making them objects of commerce.

Unfortunately, the increasing facility of obtaining money without working for it, due to civilization, not only corrupts the sexual life of the wealthy and the poverty stricken, but has the same effect on the middle classes. A healthy and normal sexual life must be associated with honest and arduous work. We have already remarked that the solution of the sexual question depends partly on the suppression of alcoholic drink. We may add that another side of the question depends on the extirpation of the greed for money. If human beings could work for the social welfare without private interest, sexual relations would soon take their natural course. But it must be admitted that it is difficult to find a practical solution for the problem of social economy.

Rank and Social Position.—Class distinction and social position have always played a part in sexual life. This is especially the case where certain class customs and prejudices prescribe a special code for marriage. The consanguinity of the nobility and of royal families, who can only marry among themselves, has resulted in obvious degeneration. Originally there was the desire to preserve the purity of noble blood, and rules formulated with this object at first had some success; but in the long run the exclusiveness of such selection produces degeneration of the group which puts it into practice.

On the other hand, the severe rules which govern marriages among the nobility have resulted in driving the latter to extra-nuptial sexual intercourse. In their sexual excesses, the nobility, and even crowned heads, seldom amuse themselves with honest and virtuous girls of the working classes, but more generally with actresses of loose morals, dancing girls, and hysterical sirens and adventuresses of all kinds, so long as they are pretty. Since the time of the feudal system, the nobility, having lost its real reason for existence, only lives on its traditions. It remains in general in a state of idle depravity, faithful to its old traditions, except when it has succeeded in adapting itself to the work of modern life. It has, in fact, preserved the vices of its ancestors rather than their virtues.

The more than doubtful offspring of extra-nuptial intercourse among the nobility have often been adopted or raised to the nobility. Moreover, kings and princes have often ennobled unworthy persons who had succeeded in pandering to their follies or exciting their sexual passions. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if in the offspring of such unions, the blood of the highest nobility is tainted with that of the worst kinds of heredity.

Another sign or effect of the degeneration of the nobility is found in the marriages they so often contract with wealthy heiresses, often of mediocre quality, in order to repair their escutcheon. In the Middle Ages, the nobility regarded it as degrading to work for their living, and this prejudice accelerated their degeneration; for nowadays the heroic and chivalrous deeds of the Middle Ages have little opportunity for their performance.

Other social classes present certain sexual peculiarities; for example the disastrous consequences of celibacy among the Catholic priests. This excludes an important and intelligent portion of the species from reproduction, and also favors clandestine debauchery.

The army and navy also exert a detrimental action on sexual life. First of all they foster one of the lowest forms of prostitution; soldiers' women are proverbial, and one of them alone may infect a whole regiment. In the second place, the absence of normal sexual intercourse favors all kinds of perversion, such as pederasty, masturbation, etc. The abominable sexual life of soldiers and sailors corrupts them to such an extent that when they marry later on they come to their wives with filthy habits, to say nothing of syphilis and gonorrhea. The result is the procreation of offspring who are more or less tainted in body and mind by the effects of venereal disease combined with alcohol. We have already mentioned the rules which forbid German officers to marry a woman unless she possesses a certain fortune.

In the Norwegian mercantile marine the customs contrast happily with those we have just mentioned, and permit officers to live on board with their wives. In all respects the Norwegian serves as a model in the sexual question; does he not favor conjugal life by only charging half-price on the boats for women who travel with their husbands!