“In the development of the ‘intimacy’ during the last thirty years, many details have undergone change, but the picture as a whole has been but little affected. The young shop-girl of to-day does not need a long courting; she enters her business already fully aware that she will soon be ‘intimate’ with some one. At first she will always prefer to choose a man of whom it is possible to assume that he may marry her. A young shopman, a non-commissioned officer, will, therefore, be most in demand. It is not till later, when resignation comes, and the only remaining wish is for amusement, that University students have the preference; they are jollier, more entertaining, and the girl is vain about their position. That has all remained just as it used to be; only thirty years ago there were many shop-girls who, notwithstanding all their desire, remained untouched. For the girl brought up in the atmosphere of the lower middle classes there was a certain ill-odour about free sexual intercourse. This has completely passed away. The girls of this stratum, who, with open eyes, withstand all allurements, might be counted on the fingers. At the present day, these ‘intimacies’ extend deeply into the middle classes of society.
“As regards the men, there has certainly been one marked change. The illusion that sexual intercourse with an ‘intimate’ offered any guarantee against the danger of venereal disease has now long been dispelled. We are to-day confronted with the fact that the intimacy is the focus of venereal infection to a far greater extent[241] than is actual prostitution. In order to understand this, we must glance at the dissolution of the intimacy.
“We have already pointed out that in the German ‘intimacy’ there has never occurred a thorough development of a life like that of the Parisian ‘grisette’; and there will be no change in this respect within a time which we can at present foresee. Even in Berlin there are not many dwellings in which the landlord would tolerate the visits of ladies of doubtful reputation on any account whatever. But even those who let quarters on easy terms, or, as the student calls them, ‘storm-free’ rooms, would never allow their lodger to entertain a woman day after day, and could not do so without running the risk of being suspected by the police of procurement. Thus, the only thing that unites the two parties in the intimacy is in almost all cases sexual intercourse. The characteristic of grisette-love, the prose of the life in common, day after day, is hardly ever experienced in the ‘intimacy.’ In consequence of this, on the man’s side satiety very readily ensues. New impressions enchain and stimulate him. He breaks off the intimacy, and this is not usually done with tenderness. The possibilities are numerous, but the only decent way, the open verbal communication of the fact, is probably the rarest. He breaks off the intimacy without a word, and as far as he is concerned the matter is at an end; he is richer by an agreeable experience, and after a while begins to look round once more.
“The girl also. But for her, this dissolution of the intimacy is very often the first step upon a very steep downward path. At first there perhaps ensues a short period of bitterness, but the sexual impulse makes light of all other activities; a new intimacy begins. And now, gradually, the idea gains ground in her mind that a change in love is, after all, not such a bad thing. The second breach is borne with equanimity; and very soon it is by no means rare for the girl to limit her love associations to a few days, and ultimately, as a matter of daily custom, to seek fresh gratification with a new associate. It is not yet professional prostitution; psychologically also there is still a difference. There is still sensual perception at the root of her actions, and of such a strength, increasing owing to excess in sexual intercourse, that the personality of the partner in the sexual act becomes almost a matter of indifference. But now an economic difficulty commonly intervenes: discharge from her position, expulsion from her parents’ house, either or both being due to her dissipated life, with its heedlessness and the resulting dislike to hard work—and then the avalanche falls. Hunger drives her to do that for payment which hitherto she has done only for the gratification of her own desires. Prostitution has one victim the more.
“But the whole period between the beginning of the second intimacy and her enrolment in the list of prostitutes by the police offers to all her lovers the greatest possible danger of venereal infection. For the majority of girls actually become infected in their very first intimacy. The explanation of this goes back to the time in which the intimacy first began to become fashionable, and in which the control of prostitutes with regard to their condition of health was even more defective, and the safeguarding against the danger of venereal infection was even less understood than at the present day. In the majority of cases the young men of the large towns were infected in their very first experience of love; for it was with prostitutes that they always sought their first sexual gratification, as is still customary at the present day. For the inexperienced youth this course is easier, making, as it does, fewer demands on his adroitness, and none at all on his seductive skill; whereas in the formation of an ‘intimacy’ these qualities are somewhat in demand. Later, when he had had enough of prostitution, he sought an ‘intimate,’ and since at that time the treatment of gonorrhœa was still extremely defective, he promptly infected his partner in the intimacy. In this manner the girls engaged in intimacies, since they first became fashionable, have been systematically infected.”
Next to prostitution, the intimacy is the great focus of sexual infection; and wild love, from the psychological and ethical points of view, involves the same danger as prostitution. The frequent changes, the multiplicity of sexual intercourse in intimacies, allows no deeper spiritual relationships to be formed; thus, the girls are debased to become the simple objects of physical sensuality, and they are forced more and more to depend on the financially stronger men; thus, they rapidly become partial or complete prostitutes. To them now the sensual life, the pursuit of pleasure, is the principal thing, not love. Venereal infection is soon superadded, to deprave them more thoroughly. Still worse is the corruption of the world of men, who transfer to the intimacy the practices they have learned in their association with prostitutes; but, above all, they come finally to seek and to desire the rude sexual act solely for its own sake, without feeling the need for any deeper spiritual association. Hence results the fugitive character of these sexual relationships, the frequent changes on both sides, and the end—lies, mistrust, hatred.
Belief in and hope for true love disappear for ever; there remains only the cold, desolate, unspeakably embittered disillusionment, the distrust of the other sex which is so characteristic of our time. Never before were there so many woman-haters and man-haters on principle. In the intercourse between the sexes, neither believes the other any longer; and on both sides the “intimacy” is entered on without any illusions, the sole aim of both parties being to satisfy in the intensest possible way their desire for enjoyment and their sensual lusts.
Prostitution can destroy no illusions, for its true character is manifest at the first glance; but the modern intimacy has become the grave of love, and has given rise to a new corruption of the sexual life, which appears almost more dangerous than the old corruption dependent on prostitution. It has, moreover, become a second, and not less dangerous, focus of venereal infection, to the diffusion of which it is extraordinarily favourable.
He, therefore, who wishes to take part in the fight against the moral degeneration of our amatory life, and to assist in the campaign against venereal diseases, must attack and endeavour to suppress the modern development of the life of “intimacy” just as energetically as he attacks prostitution.
The wild love of the present day, “extra-conjugal” sexual intercourse (which, as I cannot too often repeat, has nothing whatever to do with “free love”), and coercive marriage, are the true causes of sexual corruption. They are intimately associated one with the other. The social, economic, and spiritual civilization of the present day demands free love, with which neither coercive marriage nor wild love is compatible.