As the result of the influence of religion other words such as carnal, worldly, have come to be stamped with a meaning which makes people understand much better than would otherwise be the case the real significance of indulgence in bodily or mere earthly pleasure. The words are no longer fashionable, but that is because the deeds which they represent have become quite fashionable, and those who affect them do not want to have the innuendo of decadence and wrongful indulgence which necessarily goes with them applied to their acts. Religion has thus created a state of the public mind that has been extremely helpful against sensual pleasures and their power to ruin health, so long of course as religion held its place of influence over men.
Above all religion has insisted, and it is almost the only agency which continues to do so, that there can be no purity with its power for good for the health of both mind and body if the excitants of sensuality are indulged in. There must not only be no doing of evil, but there must be, as far as possible, no thinking about it, and especially there must be no dwelling on sensual pleasure, for bodily cravings will almost surely be aroused that make temptation almost insuperable. To think of delicate viands when one is hungry causes a flow of saliva, making the mouth water, but we know now that it causes a flow of what are called the appetite juices in the stomach which adds materially to the feeling of hunger and would make it very hard to resist taking food if it were placed before one, even though there might be some rather serious dangers connected with its taking. The thirsty soldier finds it extremely difficult to obey military laws with regard to not drinking any water that has not been examined and declared wholesome by the medical regime [{201}] of the army, and if he should dwell much on his thirst it would make it ever so much harder to restrain if water from outside military sources should be offered to him.
Other pleasures of sense are even more likely to become the subject of almost insuperable temptations if the objects of them are dwelt on. Religion therefore has insisted, and is still insisting, on the necessity of avoiding attendance at such theaters as quite inevitably set up sensual excitation.
Fashion, which is another word for the world—and religion has always pointed out that the three great enemies of the development of the spirit of man are the world, the flesh, and the devil—has always set itself in opposition to religion in the approval of sensual gratification. That conflict is unending. A great many people declare that they would rather be out of the world than out of fashion, and it is surprising what insensate things fashion leads people to. The present fashion for the slow dance with the partners closely wrapped in one another's arms, for that is of course the essence of all the modern dances, no matter what their varying names may be, is only another development of the unending opposition between fashion and religion. Here once more, as with regard to the theater, religion presents the only serious protest. Dame Fashion insists that she sees no harm in it, but that is of course only a fashion of speech. It is quite impossible for a physician to watch the dancing without becoming convinced that human passions must be aroused by such close contact of human bodies of opposite sexes.
In this, however, as in so many other phases of life, only religion can interfere or protest with any hope of success. Her protest remains often unheard; fashion [{202}] may be almost all powerful even against the higher calls of duty as well as against common sense. Certainly religious influence has had more to do with keeping a great many women from following the dictates of fashion in emphasizing their sex and therefore exciting the men with whom they come in contact than any other single factor. It has not been entirely successful, it never will be; the conflict will go on and worldliness will constantly come to the surface in some form or other, often to the detriment of health; and religion when properly vital will continue to be the most important factor in keeping evil from gaining such ascendancy as would be seriously detrimental to the healthy mind in a healthy body.
Religion is the only agency in the modern time that tries to regulate the reading of young folks and indeed of others in this dangerous matter of sex excitation. A great many books seem to be written at the present time for no other purpose than to excite sex feeling,—and thereby to make money. They depend for their sale entirely on the fact that for a great many people there is a distinct physical pleasure in reading about sex subjects. This is particularly true of women. A great many of them, and especially those who have not very much else to do and who therefore have no proper outlet for animal spirits and for the energies that tend to accumulate in them because they feed well and sleep long, are prone to indulge in this sort of luxury. Most of them would resent the suggestion that it was wrong for them to indulge their feelings in this way, but religion has always taken a decided stand and insisted that the fomenting of desire and the toying with alluring thoughts and the inviting of temptation are of themselves actually sinful. As John Boyle O'Reilly said,
"Temptation waits for all, and ills will come;
But some go out and ask the devil home."
Physicians have always insisted that the sexual erethism which is excited by the reading of books on sex subjects, the attending of sex problem plays and of shows of various kinds is the worst possible background for healthy living. Such frequent titillation of delicate nervous mechanisms plays sad havoc with general nervous control. Unfortunately just those who are indoors a great deal, who take very little exercise, and who live on dainties are most likely to indulge in these habits of life with regard to reading and the theater and dancing and the like which are most harmful for them. They are irritable in the nervous sense and excitable, and this erethism increases their nervous instability which responds by craving further excitement. A vicious circle is formed which very often leads to nervous breakdown. Just now we are hearing much about sexual repression as the cause of nervous disorders, but sexual repression is as almost nothing in its tendency to produce neurotic or psycho-neurotic affections compared to the partial tantalizing, sexual indulgence which comes from sensual reading or lascivious shows. The plays that are seen, the jokes that are heard, the sex problems that are dwelt on, the stories that are read must get more and more spicy and contain more and more sex "pep" to afford any satisfaction, and the consequence is a disturbance of delicate parts of the nervous system which react more or less seriously to lessen the control over the whole nervous mechanism of the body.