Human sexuality more than animal.
It is only by frankly recognizing and developing the psychical and æsthetic meanings that are distinctly human and superadded to the merely propagative function of the animals, that people can be led far away from the vulgar outlook on sex and reproduction in human life.
Relation of attitude and morality.
There is no question that wholesome attitude towards sex and reproduction is closely associated with the problems of sexual morality, and especially so far as educational procedure is concerned. It is true that large numbers of moral people hold the vulgar attitude towards sex and reproduction; but for people who do not accept the moral code without question there is probably no better way of teaching sexual morality than by influencing the individual's attitude. There are many people who stand for sexual morality for no other reason than that they have a dignified and æsthetic attitude towards sex.
Sexual vulgarity a stage in evolution.
There is much evidence that the world is rapidly improving in this respect. Sexual vulgarity seems to represent a stage in the evolution of human life from the barbaric to the fully civilized. The sexual vulgarity of primitive peoples, both ancient and modern, has been all too frequently recalled by writers whose pseudo-scientific superficiality leads them to believe that knowledge concerning barbaric and ultra-bestial sensuality will help solve modern sex problems. In the classical days when Venus and Bacchus and other deities of sensuality were worshipped by their devotees, there was sexual vulgarity in action and language such as now exists only among the most ignorant or depraved people in civilized lands. The advent of Christian civilization in Europe left no place for temples and worship of sensuality, but still the age-old tendency towards a crude and barbaric kind of sexual vulgarity and obscenity has continued in folklore, in colloquial language, and in literature. However, there has been a vast change in the attitude of the best people within the last two centuries. Once many English writers, many of them now deservedly obscure, published prose and poetry that would now be criminal. An unexpurgated edition of Shakespeare's "Complete Works," or of Boccaccio's "Decameron," could not be circulated through the United States mails, and there are many good people who are asking how long we shall continue to allow the unexpurgated "Old Testament" the privilege of circulation. It is not simply prose and poetry that has been purified. Scientific literature has shown the influence of the reaction against obscenity. Linnæus and other naturalists of the past were fond of giving scientific names that perpetuated vulgar comparisons with sexual organs, but no naturalist of the present day would dare suggest such designations for unnamed animals and plants. The older medical literature contains abundant obscenities; but scientific dignity, as well as the refinement of modern medical writers, has tended to compel the elimination of vulgarity. However, there are still too many physicians, especially those working with venereal and genito-urinary diseases, who go out of their way to illuminate their conversations, lectures, books, and magazine articles with veiled vulgarity. Even high-class medical journals occasionally contain illustrations of this tendency. However, the medical profession as a class stands for dignified scientific presentation of facts, and obscenity will soon be tabooed in medical and all other reputable literature. Save for occasional emanations privately printed by and for degenerate persons, public obscenity will soon be unknown. Its complete disappearance will have a vast influence upon the problem of sexual attitude.
§ 12. The Seventh Problem for Sex-instruction: Marriage
Physiology and psychology of marriage.
It is the consensus of opinion of numerous physicians, ministers, and lawyers that a very large proportion of matrimonial disharmonies have their foundation in the common misunderstanding of the physiology and especially of the psychology of sex. In the opinion of many students of sexual problems, this is the strongest reason for sex-instruction. It is certainly a line in which limited spread of information has already given some definite and satisfactory results. Many of my friends and former students have helped me accumulate a long list of cases in which scientific knowledge regarding sex has prevented and corrected matrimonial disagreements; and having easily found so much definite influence of sex-science upon marriage, I am forced to believe that sex-instruction specially organized for people of marriageable age is already giving results of tremendous importance to very many individuals. Large numbers of young people are already awake to the need of scientific guidance in marriage, and there is a great demand for helpful information.
Advanced sex-instruction with reference to the problems of marriage need not wait for general establishment of elementary instruction for children of school ages. Lectures and books are already reaching large numbers of adults. Such enlightenment will help in two ways, by the influence on marriage and by preparing adults to teach children.