The mental element in human sex, although as distinctly a part of sexual passion as the physical element, does not necessarily imply good use. The woman who employs the arts of dress to bring the physical peculiarities of sex into prominence, and uses every method of coquetry and flirtation to excite the attention and awaken the physical impulses of men, is abusing her sexual power. The degree in which she employs these arts, measures the extent to which her own nature is dominated by brute sexual instinct, and the unworthiness of the use to which she puts this instinct.
This power of sex in women is strikingly shown in the enormous influence which they exert upon men for evil. It is not the cold beauty of a statue which enthrals and holds so many men in terrible fascination; it is the living, active power of sexual life embodied in its separate overpowering female phase. The immeasurable depth of degradation into which those women fall, whose sex is thoroughly debased, who have intensified the physical instincts of the brute by the mental power for evil possessed by the human being, indicates the mighty character of sexual power over the nature of woman for corruption. It is also a measure of what the ennobling power of passion may be.
Happily, in all civilized countries there is a natural reserve in relation to sexual matters which indicates the reverence with which this high social power of our human nature should be regarded. It is a sign of something wrong in education, or in the social state, when matters which concern the subject of sex are discussed with the same freedom and boldness as other matters. This subject should neither be a topic of idle gossip, of unreserved publicity, nor of cynical display. This natural and beneficial instinct of reserve, springing from unconscious reverence, renders it difficult for one sex to measure and judge the vital power of the other. The independent thought and large observation of each sex is needed in order to arrive at truth. Unhappily, however, women are often falsely instructed by men, for a licentious husband inevitably depraves the sentiment of his wife, because vicious habits have falsified his nature and blinded his perception of the moral law which dominates sexual growth.
Each sex has its own stern battle to fight in resisting temptation, in walking resolutely towards the higher aim of life. It is equally foolish and misleading to attempt to weigh the vital qualities of the sexes, and measure justice and mercy, law and custom, by the supposed results. It is difficult for the child to comprehend that a pound of feathers can weigh as much as a pound of lead. Much of our thought concerning men and women is as rudimentary as the child’s. Vast errors of law and custom have arisen in the slow unfolding of human nature from failure to realize the extent of the injury produced by that abuse of sex—fornication. We have not hitherto perceived that, on account of the moral degradation and physical disease which it inevitably produces, lustful trade in the human body is a grave social crime.
In forming a wiser judgment for future guidance, it must be distinctly recognised that the assertion that sexual passion commands more of the vital force of men than of women is a false assertion, based upon a perverted or superficial view of the facts of human nature. Any custom, law, or religious teaching based upon this superficial and essentially false assertion, must necessarily be swept away with the prevalence of sounder physiological views.
It is a fact that the brain and nervous system are the media of sensation, and that pleasure, physical or mental, in whatever way it may be aroused, must be measured by the keenness of nervous life in both sexes, not by any special act of one sex.
It has also been shown that the secretion of semen does not necessitate a resort to sexual congress, but that there is a distinct and healthy provision for the removal of unneeded secretions in each sex which leaves the individual the power of self-guidance. Physiology condemns fornication by showing the physical arrangements which support the moral law. There is no justification in the physiological structure of humanity for the destructive practice of fornication. We thus see by the light of sound physiology, and the advanced thought of the nineteenth century, the profound insight of the founders of Christianity, who denounced in one equal and awful condemnation the whoremonger and the whore.
CHAPTER V
The Development of the Idea of Chastity
The most fundamental work which rests upon the medical profession is the spread of physiological truth in its practical application to the education of both boys and girls. The sexual instinct, being a primitive elementary instinct, exists alike in men and women. It is the necessary impulse leading to parentage, an impulse which the great Creative Force has laid down as a law of our present human life. But chastity and continence are not primitive instincts in either sex; they are the higher growth of reason, and of the religious and legal guidance by which in every age it has been found indispensable to direct the impulse of sex.
The way in which this instinct may be exercised to the permanent advantage of a progressive community is a gradual discovery of the human race. It is a development or differentiation of the primitive instinct; but the instinct and the wise method of educating or of exercising it are separate facts.