Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living / Some Things That All Sane People Ought to Know About Sex Nature and Sex Functioning; Its Place in the Economy of Life, Its Proper Training and Righteous Exercise

by H. W. Long

This is a conclusion which is of such far-reaching importance that its limits are but dimly recognized, even in the clear thinking of most married people. The fact of such difference is known to them, and their practices in living conform to the conditions; but what it all means, they are entirely ignorant of, and they never stop to think about it.

And yet, right here is the very center and core of the real success or failure of married life! Around this fact are grouped all the troubles that come to husbands and wives. About it are gathered all the joys and unspeakable delights of the happily married—the only truly married. It is these items which make a knowledge of the real conditions which exist, regarding this part of married life, of such supreme importance. If these conditions could be rightly understood, and the actions of husbands and wives could be brought to conform to the laws which obtain under them, the divorce courts would go out of business, their occupation, like Othello's, would be "gone indeed."

The first conclusion, then, one that is forced upon the thoughtful mind by the fact of this difference in the sex possibilities of women and other female animals, is, as already stated, but which is here repeated for emphasis, that coitus can be engaged in by women when pregnancy is not its purpose, on her part; and that this never occurs in any other form of female life!

In view of this fact, is it too much to raise the question whether or not sex in woman is designed to fulfill any other purpose than that of the reproduction of the race? True it is, that the only function of sex in all other females is merely that of producing offspring—of perpetuating its kind. Under no circumstances does it ever serve any other end, fulfill any other design. There is no possibility of its doing so!

But one can help wondering if it is not true that, with the existence of the possibility of engaging in coitus at will, rather than at the bidding of instinct alone, there has also come a new and added function for the sex-natures that are capable of engaging in such before-unknown experiences? To a fair-minded person, such conclusion seems not only logical, but irresistible! That is in view of this conclusion, it naturally follows that sex in the human family is positively designed to fulfill a function that is entirely unknown to all other forms of animal life. And from this, it is but a step to the establishment of the fact that sex exercise in the human family serves a purpose other than that of reproduction!

Now, this fact established, a whole world of new issues arises and demands settlement. Among these, comes the supreme question: What is the nature of this new experience that has been conferred upon human beings, over and above what is vouchsafed to any other form of animal life? What purpose can it serve? How can it be properly exercised? What is right and what is wrong under these new possibilities? These are some of the issues that force themselves upon all thoughtful people, those who wish to do right under any and all circumstances in which they are placed.

Of course, here as elsewhere, the unthinking, the happy-go-lucky and the "don't-give-a-damn," can blunder along in almost any-old-way. But they can, and will, reap only the reward which always follows blundering and ignorance. In these days of scientific clear-thinking, we have come to understand that salvation from sin comes by the way of positive knowledge and not at the hands of either ignorance or innocence! If husbands and wives ever attain to the highest conditions of married life, it can only be after they know and practice, what is right in all their sex relations, both for reproductive purposes and in all other respects! Note that well!

As things are now, especially in all civilized countries, and particularly among Christian people, this secondary function of sex in the human family, while blindly recognized as a fact, is none the less abused, to a most shameful degree. For ages, the whole situation has been left in a condition of most deplorable, not to say damnable, ignorance; and no honest endeavor has been made to find out and act up to the truth in the premises. Husbands and wives have engaged in coitus ad libitum, utterly regardless of whether it was right or wrong for them to do so! They have taken it for granted that marriage conferred on them the right to have sexual intercourse whenever they chose, (especially when the man chose,) and they have acted accordingly. This is especially true of men, and the practice has been carried to such length that the right of a man to engage in coitus with his wife has been established by law, and the wife who refuses to yield this "right" to her husband can be divorced by him, if she persists in such way of living! It is such a fact as this which caused Mr. Bernard Shaw to write: "Marriage is the most licentious institution in all the world." And he might rightfully have added "it is also the most brutal," though it is an insult to the brute to say it that way, for brutes are never guilty of coitus under compulsion. But a husband can force his wife to submit to his sexual embraces, and she has no legal right to say him nay! This doesn't seem quite right, does it?

Now there are several different ways of viewing this new and added sexual possibility in the human family, namely, the act of coitus for other than reproductive purposes. The Catholic church has always counted it as a sin. Popes have issued edicts regarding it, and conclaves of Bishops have discussed it and passed resolutions regarding it. There has always been a difference of opinion upon the subject amongst these dignitaries and authorities, but they all agree in one respect, namely, that it is a sin. The only point of difference has been as to the extent or enormity of the sin! By some it has been reckoned as a "deadly sin," punishable by eternal hell fire, if not duly absolved before death; by others it has been held to be only a "venial sin," one that must always be confessed to the priest when coitus is engaged in, and which can be pardoned by the practice of due penance. But, always, it was a sin!