There is no need further to illustrate this with regard to such physiological necessities as feeding and excretion. At present the world is much occupied with sex problems because, unfortunately, its attention has been focused on this subject. Physicians, particularly if they are paying attention to nervous patients, are likely to know many individuals who have food problems, diet problems, digestion problems, bowel problems, and many others of similar nature because they have been focusing their attention on these functions of their being.
The most distinguished psychiatrist of our generation, certainly the man whose works have done most to open up new vistas for us in mental diseases and who has added not only new knowledge but new possibilities of development, visited this country not long since and said, "Oh! here in America you are sex mad." He added, "I knew that we were madly following sex problems in Europe, but I thought that in this country, with so many other things to occupy the minds of men and women, you were not bothered so much with sex problems." What he said represents the impression of nearly every thoughtful foreigner who is surprised to find that wealth and luxury have brought to us this same degenerate interest in things sexual that occupies the so-called upper classes and their imitators in Europe.
Livy, the Roman historian, said long ago, "Whenever women become ashamed of the things they should not be ashamed of, it will not be long before they will begin not to be ashamed of the things they should be ashamed of." Whenever in history men and women have occupied themselves, not with the rearing of families, but with the suppression of families to as great an extent as possible, sex problems have always become emphasized. The woman who is a mother, and especially many times a mother, usually has no trouble at all about sex problems and no tendency to have "affinities." With her there is usually no question of sex as the central factor of life nor of any other of the curious nonsense that has been talked about this matter as the result of giving sex a place of importance that it does not deserve. Until there is a reform in this matter we can look for many "neurotic, erotic and tommy-rotic" tendencies, as they have been called, due to over-attention to one set of organs. Any organic system in the body would be disturbed by such attention, but the sexual system is particularly susceptible to suggestion.
The state of affairs thus emphasized is the result of interfering with an animal instinct. It will make itself felt properly and secure the due exercises of function if allowed to pursue the even tenor of its way under reasonable [{481}] control, but if it is fostered, thought about, discussed, excited in various ways, pampered by indulgence and perversion, it runs away with nature. The gourmet who constantly thinks about food, plans new modes of exciting the appetite, studies savors and odors in order to satisfy a palate that has been artificially stimulated, gets a certain animal enjoyment out of his food that other people do not; but he usually overeats, loses his appetite, and with it any real satisfaction in eating, and suffers from indigestion as a consequence of indulgence, so that the suffering much more than compensates for any slight additional pleasure that he has enjoyed. Besides, man is an essentially intellectual being, and occupation with the things of sense, that will manage themselves very well if let alone, takes up just so much of the precious time that should be devoted to other things to attain that satisfaction that makes life well worth living. Sexuality cultivated with the degree of attention that certain people devote to feeding, becomes a pest, ruins intellectual effort, hurts initiative, leads to the most serious disappointments in life and is the most fruitful cause of despondency and suicide that we have besides being the origin of many social evils that still further complicate life.
One great modern nation has debauched its literature to such an extent that probably the major portion of its books treat of sex and sex problems. Practically all of its esthetic expression has been seriously hurt by the same fault. Its painting, its sculpture, its dramatics, its art of all kinds, have all gone the same road. The result is seen in the lowered moral fiber of its people. A recent census report showed that the nation has reduced some 20,000 in numbers and that this was only the beginning of the race suicide. They have been thinking, talking, writing, painting, chiseling, acting sex problems, but in the only phase of life in which sex really counts it has been so pushed into the background or perverted that there it is failing utterly to accomplish its one legitimate purpose. The younger generation as they grow up are given the idea that they are missing the most wonderful thing in life unless they have memorable sex experiences. These experiences must be varied in order to satisfy the artificial appetite that has been created. As a consequence, family life and the real meaning of love and the affection of man for woman rooted in the depths of their nature is spoiled by mere animal passion and its passing expression.
Nature's own attitude with regard to over-attention to sex matters must not be forgotten. The purely sexual organs have been pushed into the background to as great an extent as possible and are intimately associated in both sexes with one of the two ugly excretory functions, urination, and placed in close relationship with the structures which subtend the other—defecation. Evidently nature intended that they should be the subject of as little attention as possible. Unfortunately, the paying of attention to them to any great extent lessens somewhat of the disgust naturally aroused by the excretory functions with which they are associated. Nature has provided as far as possible for deterrence from over-interest. One might expect that cleanliness and the cultivation of the feelings of refinement would serve as auxiliaries in the repression of sex indulgence. The lessons of history are that usually the great bathing nations have been most sexually divagant. Among the Greeks and the Romans the ugliest sex habits and proclivities found a place—among peoples who devoted themselves to the cleanliness of the body. The classes [{482}] who bathe most are often those with the strongest tendency to sexuality. Refinement instead of lessening the tendency to sexual indulgence rather increases it.
Education and the development of intellectuality, far from being a barrier to sexual divagations, seem to predispose to the exaggeration of the significance of sex in life, unless the individual has a well-balanced character or has been thoroughly grounded in ethical principles. The ugly stories of Greek love at a time when the Greeks were at the climax of culture, as well as what we know about the relations of the freedmen to their masters among the Romans during the classical period, is all confirmed by the revelations of corresponding tendencies in recent generations among the intellectual classes even at the universities. Development of mind apparently does not neutralize to any extent these sexual tendencies. Evidently the rule of life for health's sake must be to push sexuality as much into the background of the mind as nature has put the sex organs in the human body. Reason does not protect knowledge but increases suggestion. Only absorbing occupation of mind with other subjects that will bring about neglect of these functions, as of all other physiological functions, leaving them to nature, serves to keep them in their proper place and condition.
CHAPTER III
SEXUAL HABITS
As was emphasized in the preceding chapter, sexual symptoms are usually the subject of so much worry and disturbance of mind and become the center of so much unfavorable suggestion, that the only way to ameliorate the conditions which develop is by securing relaxation of the attention and diversion of mind. Mental influence is much more important than any other remedies that we have at our command in these cases, not only for their relief but for their ultimate cure.
A state of depression of mind similar to that which develops in patients frightened by seminal emissions is often seen in those who have for some time indulged in the habit of self-abuse. Rather frequently a physician, especially if he is known to be interested in nervous diseases, has to listen to the story of a patient who is sure that his health is completely undermined and that his future is the darkest possible, because of this habit in younger days. Usually the patient is a young man who has been reading some of the literature of the advertising "specialists" who distribute reading matter which pictures appalling and almost irretrievable effects from such sexual habits. The consequence is that the patient is in highly nervous condition, has lost his appetite, is not sleeping well, is avoiding society, because he fears that some one may recognize his condition and its cause, and he is really in a pitiable state. Such patients are usually sure that little can be done for them. Sometimes they have already been through the hands of several "specialists," particularly of the mail-order variety, and the literature provided for them and the letters written to them have all helped to make them worse and much more solicitous about themselves.