Frankie: If it’s all as bad as you say, surely if people lived as Religion tells them, all these terrible things wouldn’t happen?
John: That’s exactly what the Church says. “Society must be purified. Men and women must be taught not to sin.” But what they mean by purifying society is simply forcing it back under the old rules; what they mean by Sin is any infringement of those rules. What we say is: it’s the very narrowness of their rules that has made the mess, it’s the reverse side of their mistakenness ... “they make of their bodies a rampart for the protection of respectable families”—that’s what Balzac says of prostitutes. “Sacrifices on the altar of monogamy”—Schopenhauer. Prostitution means disease. You can’t do away with these things by the old rules. The old rules are the cause of them. Practice proves it: the countries with easier divorce laws don’t have more promiscuity; less. You must tackle the business with new ideas—anyhow, it’s happening——
Gwen: What’s happening?
John: Compare the world of to-day and the Christian ideal of morality; a man must love one woman and one woman only; a woman must love one man and one man only; there must be no sex experience of any kind before or after marriage. That’s the ideal. And it’s tremendously important to realise it is the ideal; because either you agree with it and you’ve got to strive ruthlessly towards it, or you don’t agree with it, and you’ve got to find another.
Frankie: Are you so certain decent people don’t live according to it?
John: Yes.
Frankie: I’m not.
John: Take any average collection of people—take any ordinary audience at a theatre! How many men do you suppose have loved only their wives?
Colin: One or two, with luck.
John: How many women do you suppose have loved only their husbands?