The sexual question

by Auguste Forel

A man of high position, and the father of five children, lived in the most happy union. One day he made the acquaintance of a friend of his wife, a very intelligent and well-educated lady. Frequent visits and long conversations led to intimacy which developed into violent reciprocal love. However, the lady refused to abandon herself entirely. The husband confessed everything to his wife, even to the smallest details, and the lady did the same. Instead of becoming jealous, the wife had the good sense and the courage to treat the two lovers not only with indulgence, but a true and profound affection. The loyalty of each of the parties interested greatly facilitated the gradual dénouement of a difficult situation, without the family affections suffering. But the dénouement would have been quite as peaceful if the lady had yielded to sexual connection with the husband. In fact, the wife herself considered this question very seriously and calmly, in case the fire could not be otherwise extinguished.

I ask in all sincerity, if such mild and humane treatment of an unfortunate love affair, in which the three interested parties each strove to avoid all scandal and everything which could damage their mutual reputation, I ask if this good and loyal treatment is not, from the moral standpoint, far superior to scenes of jealousy, duels, divorces and all their consequences, things which are all sanctioned and even sanctified by custom?

I also know many cases where the husbands of women who have fallen in love with other men have conducted themselves in an equally noble and reasonable manner, even when their wives had been completely unfaithful, and the results have always been good. It is needless to say that I do not wish to maintain that a husband should tolerate indefinitely the bad conduct of his wife, nor a woman that of her husband; but this is another thing.

Sexual Braggardism.—Let us pass on to another irradiation of the male sexual appetite—sexual braggardism. This arises from self-exaltation evolved from the sexual power of man. Like jealousy, this sentiment is no doubt inherited from our animal ancestors, and it finds its analogy, or rather its caricature, in the cock, the peacock, the turkey, and in general among the richly adorned males of polygamous species. Although on the whole more innocent, the results of this atavistic instinct are no more elevated than those of jealousy. The sentiment of sexual power induces men, especially those of lower mental caliber, to boast of their sexual conquests and exaggerate them. It is needless to say that success does not go to the unskillful boaster, but to the one who relates his audacious exploits in a casual way. The Don Juan experienced in the art of seduction approaches women with audacity and aplomb, and usually imposes on them considerably, whatever his ignorance of other things. He has instinctively learnt one thing: viz., the weakness of woman in the face of the male form, theatrical effect, uniforms, an audacious act, a fierce mustache, etc. He has learnt that these fireworks hypnotize her and silence her reason, and that she is then capable of enthusiasm for the most doubtful cavalier and delivers herself to him bound hand and foot, provided his self-assurance does not desert him.

I may say here that it is most often men of low intellect, weak in judgment and principles, who think themselves most superior to the feminine sex, and who behave as tyrants to their wives.

Sexual braggardism has, moreover, grave consequences for the man himself, for it urges him to excesses which far exceed his appetites and especially his natural wants. In spite of other advantages, he wishes to shine by these excesses among his fellows and even among the grisettes whose minds are full of sexual matters.

Male sexual braggardism contributes with sexual appetite to entice reserved and high-minded young men toward prostitutes, against their better instincts, their reason and their moral sense. Alcohol especially facilitates the degeneration of sexual life.

The Pornographic Spirit.—The term eroticism is given to the state of excitation of the sexual appetite. When a person cultivates it artificially and abandons himself to purely animal sensuality, without combining it with higher intellectual or moral aspirations, there develop in the mind irradiations which may be designated by the term pornographic spirit. The entire circle of ideas of such individuals is so impregnated with eroticism that all their thoughts and sentiments are colored by it. They see everywhere, even in the most innocent objects, the most lewd allusions. Woman is only regarded by them as an object of sexual enjoyment, and her mind only appears to such satyrs as an ignoble erotic caricature, which is disgusting to every man capable of lofty sentiments.

Owing to its usually sensual and gross nature, male eroticism has succeeded in modeling a whole class of women in whom ideal character in their desires is wanting. Instead of recognizing his own work and the vile image of his own person in these unnatural women, the libertine, as we have already seen, imagines them as the normal type of woman. From the height of his presumption, he then despises woman and does not perceive that it is himself whom he despises; for on the whole, from the sexual point of view, the dependent woman of to-day conforms herself to man and becomes what he makes her. The number of coitus, their details, the size and form of the sexual organs, the pleasure of having cut out other men, and especially the pathological perversions of the sexual appetite, form the chief object of the thoughts and conversations of pornographic minds. Each tries to outdo the others in sexual enormities, and the virtuosity of these gentlemen in this domain is only surpassed by their ignorance and incapacity in all others.

Prostitution and all the modern sexual degeneration which marches under the hypocritical flag of Christianity, civilization and monogamy, have so far developed the pornographic spirit that men living in centers of debauchery, centers which are unfortunately extending more and more from town to country, lose all conception of the noble qualities natural to the feminine sentiment and to true love, or only preserve a few shreds of it which they treat with ridicule. Many men have admitted this to me, after being much astonished when I was obliged to give them quite another conception of love and woman, without introducing the least trace of religion. No doubt certain better individuals, fallen by chance into debauchery, speak respectfully of a mother or a sister, for whom they profess an almost religious worship. They regard these as beings apart, as species of a lost race of demigods, and they do not perceive that they discredit them and drag them in the mud by their contempt and pornographic conception of woman in general, a conception which is moreover often altered to profound pessimism.