Other classes have a less obvious influence on sexual life. On the whole, however, all sexual isolation of castes has an unfavorable influence. Wherever the prejudices of a caste compel its members to intermarry, certain special degenerations are produced. Good quality in man is not derived from class or position, but from true innate or hereditary nobility of character, and this alone should be the object of positive selection, without any distinction of classes.
Individual Life.—There is no doubt that the mode of life of the individual exerts an influence on his sexual life. High living combined with little bodily exercise generally increases the sexual appetite, while insufficient food combined with severe muscular work diminishes it.
Intellectual work acts in a variable manner. A distinguished psychologist assured me that intense intellectual work excited his sexual appetite; others have said the opposite. As a rule, a sedentary life increases the sexual appetite; a life full of occupation and muscular activity diminishes it. But the question is complicated by other influences.
Alcohol diminishes sexual power, while exalting desire or even perverting it. The artificial excitants of the sexual appetite, cultivated by modern civilization by interested speculation, act in rather a different way. Erotic pictures, obscene novels and dramas, etc., constitute an unhealthy medium in our centers of civilization, which overexcites and corrupts the sexual appetite. The more delicate and poisonous the perfume of this atmosphere and the more æsthetic the refinement by which it titillates the senses, the greater is its destructive action.
The question of the reunion or separation of the sexes plays an important part. Life in common among girls and boys from infancy usually diminishes sexual excitation, in the same way as among brothers and sisters. We find something analogous in different branches of human activity where the two sexes live together; for instance, at college, in the fields, and in general where work and play is common to both sexes.
There are, however, certain exceptions to this rule, which must not be taken too generally. Under certain circumstances, life in common of the two sexes leads to unfavorable and even perverted sexual excitation. This is especially the case when alcohol adds its influence; also among nervous or ill-balanced individuals. In my opinion it is absolutely unreasonable for the superintendent of a lunatic asylum to organize balls at which the insane of both sexes are provided with beer or wine. I have only seen bad results from this, while I have obtained excellent effects from a temporary reunion of the insane of both sexes, by avoiding all alcoholic drinks as well as everything which could excite the sexual appetite, such as dancing, or the bringing together of erotic or perverted individuals. A young female onanist who suffered from sexual excitement complicated with a nervous condition, complained to me of being obliged to work as a telegraphist among young men, as this continually excited her eroticism without the possibility of satisfying it.
This situation, which is a common one in both sexes, gives us a valuable indication. No doubt life in common for the two sexes is normal and natural, but only on the condition that it leads eventually to normal sexual intercourse as the result of love. It is neither healthy nor normal to excite an appetite continually without satisfying it. Any one who wishes to live a continent life, for religious or other reasons, ought not to expose himself to continual excitement by too great intimacy with the opposite sex; he should, on the contrary, avoid everything which tends to excite his sexual appetite and seek everything which tends to pacify it. I am not referring here to individuals of a naturally cold and indifferent nature, who run little or no risk under such circumstances.
Certain occupations, such as those of employees in stores, telegraph offices, etc., in which the two sexes are closely associated in their work, constitute from this point of view a double-edged sword. Other unhealthy and monotonous occupations, combined with bad conditions of food and lodging, and with all kinds of seduction—factory hands for example—have a positively deleterious effect on sexual life, which becomes absolutely depraved when the two sexes work together. The situation is hardly any better when they are only separated during working hours.
Internats.—All internats, i.e., all establishments where individuals of the same sex live in the same dwelling for a long time, exert a peculiar influence on sexual life—schools and convents, for example.
The great inconvenience of all these establishments lies in the danger of contamination from habits of onanism or pederasty. Inverts are strongly attracted towards internats, where they find their heart's desire where they can easily indulge their perverted passions; the dormitory of such an institution having the same effect on them as that of a girl's school would have on a young man. (Vide Chapter VIII.)