There is much in Miss Repplier's paragraphs which will win hearty approval from those who have come to believe, as advocated throughout this series of lectures, in conservative teaching of sex-hygiene and a larger outlook for sex-education.
Current frankness not due to sex-education.
No doubt there has been too great a loss of a certain kind of reticence and a substitution of crude frankness, but it has not been caused by the sex-education movement. On the contrary, there are two evident sources of the plain speech of which Miss Repplier and others have complained: First, the commercializing of sex by novelists, dramatists, theater managers, and publishers—many of whom are reaping a golden harvest and few of whom have any sincere interest in promulgating sexual information to any end except their own pocketbooks. Second, the development of the feminist movement which has its deepest foundation in the age-old sexual misunderstandings of women by men, and which has led on and on into social and political complications of gravest significance. The very nature of the feminist revolt from masculine domination made plain speaking on sex matters inevitable.
Reaction against sensational frankness.
Neither of these sources of plain speech need give us cause for alarm, for a great reaction is already coming. The sensationalism of sexual revelations has had its day, and the intelligent public is recovering its balance. A lurid novel or play resembling "Damaged Goods" or "The House of Bondage" or certain vice-commission reports would not now be accepted by some prominent publishers who recently would not have hesitated to seize a first-class commercial opportunity in this line. The fact is that sexual sensationalism has ceased to pay because the intelligent public knows the main facts and has become disgusted with crude frankness that amounts to lasciviousness. On the side of feminism there is hope in the widespread disgust with Cristabel Pankhurst's "Plain Facts on a Great Evil" as compared with the very general approval of Louise Creighton's polished masterpiece, "The Social Evil and How to Fight It." This represents exactly the present attitude of numerous men and women who calmly discuss together the great problems of life fearlessly and without any elements of lasciviousness such as some people seem to think is necessarily associated with either unsexual or bisexual discussion of sex problems.
Not a typical case.
Miss Repplier's description of her own lack of youthful interest in things sexual is of value simply as applied to a limited number of extra-protected girls. Her experience teaches us nothing regarding boys or even girls under average conditions. We know beyond any doubt that average children in or near adolescence do seek the kind of information that Miss Repplier denies having thought about. It is not "pressed relentlessly upon their attention" by teachers, but by instinct and by environment. Playground and swimming pools and religious influence and work are all helpful in our dealings with young people, but all together they are inadequate without some information concerning sex.
Conclusion.
Finally, Miss Repplier, like so many other critics of sex-instruction, has in mind only the physical consequences of wrong-doing. Here again is the influence of the pioneer sex-hygiene. However, she pleads for the "gradual and harmonious broadening of the field of knowledge and for a more careful consideration of ways and means" for sex-instruction. This makes us believe that she will favor the larger sex-education which gives a place to "the cheerful recreation, the religious teaching, the childish virtues, the youthful virtues, the wholesome preoccupation," as well as essential knowledge of physical facts; and all as factors in preparing young people consciously and unconsciously to face the inevitable problems of sex. On the whole, we must regard Miss Repplier's discussion as a helpful contribution to the saner aspects of sex-education.
§ 45. A Plea for Religious Approach to Sex-instruction