[CHAPTER XVIII]
THE QUESTION OF ABERRATIONS
Two sorts of sexual aberration.—Sexual aberrations of animals.—Those of men.—Crossing of species.—Chastity.—Modesty.—Varieties and localizations of sexual bashfulness.—Artificial creation of modesty.—Sort of modesty natural to all females.—Cruelty.—Picture of carnage.—The cricket eaten alive.—Habits of carabes.—Every living creature is a prey.—Necessity to kill or to be killed.
Sexual aberrations are of two sorts. The cause of the error is internal, or external. The flower of the arum muscivorum (fly-catching arum) by its cadaverous odour attracts flies in search of rotting flesh in which to lay their eggs. Schopenhauer has supported by this, or analogous, fact a theory just, but somewhat summary, of aberration from external cause. Aberration from internal cause is sometimes explained by the statement that the same arteries irrigate and the same nerves animate the region of the sacrum, anterior and posterior; the excretal canals being always near each other, and sometimes common, at least for part of their length. One has spoken seriously of the drake's sodomy, but anatomy refuses to understand it. Whether a drake frequents another drake or a duck, he addresses himself in both cases to the single door of a vestibule into which all excretions are poured. Doubtless the drake is aberrated, and his accomplice still more so, but nature deserves part of the blame. In general, animal aberrations require very simple explanations. There is a keen desire, and very urgent need, which if unsatisfied produces an inquietude, which may augment until a sort of momentary madness takes hold of the animal, and throws it blindly upon all sorts of illusions. This may go, doubtless, to the point of hallucination. There is also a need, purely muscular, of at least sketching in the sexual act, either passive or active; one sees, by singular inversion, cows in heat mounting each other, perhaps with the idea of exciting the male, or perhaps the visual representation which they make themselves of the desired act, forces them to try an imitation: it is a marvellous example, because it is absurd, of the motor force of images.
There are two parts in the sexual act; that of the specie, and that of the individual; but that of the specie is only given it by means of the individual. In relation to the male in rut, it is a question of a very simple natural need. He must empty his spermatic canals: lacking females they say the stag rubs his prong on trees to provoke ejaculation. Bitches in heat rub their vulva on the ground. Such are the rudiments of onanism, suddenly carried by primates to such a high degree of perfection. One has seen male cantharides, themselves ridden, riding other males; the argule, a small crustacean parasite of fresh-water fish, is so ardent that he often addresses himself to other males, or to gravid or even dead females. From the microscopic beasts to man, aberration is everywhere; but one should, rather, call it, at least among animals, impatience. Animals are by no means mere machines, they, as well as men, are capable of imaginations, they dream, they have illusions, they are subject to desires whose source is in the interior movement of their organism. The sight or odour of a female over-excites the male; but far from any female, the logic of the vital movement suffices perfectly to put them in a state of rut; it is absolutely the same with females. If the state of rut, and if the sensibilization of the genital parts is established far from necessary sex, we have here a natural cause of aberration, for it is this special sensibility which must be used: the first simulacrum, or even the first propitious obstacle will be the adversary against which the exasperated animal exercises the energy by which he is tormented.
One may apply the general principles of this psychology to man, but on condition that we do not forget that man's genital sensibility is apt to be awakened at any moment, and that for him the causes of aberration are multiplied ad infinitum. There would be extremely few aberrated men and women if moral customs permitted a quite simple satisfaction of sexual needs, if it were possible for the two sexes to meet always at the opportune moment. There would remain aberrations of anatomical order; they would be less frequent and less tyrannic, if our customs, instead of contriving ways to make sexual relations very difficult, should favour them. But this easiness is only possible, in promiscuity, which is possibly a worse ill than aberration. Thus all questions are insoluble, and one can only improve nature by disorganizing her. Human order is often a disorder worse than spontaneous disorder, because it is a forced and premature finality, an inopportune turning of the vital river out of its course.
Sexual selection is probably not a source of variation (i. e., of type); its rôle is, on the contrary, to keep the specie in statu quo. The causes of variation are probably changes of climate, the nature of the soil, the general milieu, and also disease, the troubles of blood and nerve circulation—perhaps certain sexual aberrations. I say, "perhaps," for the cross-breeding between individuals of different species, living in liberty, seems difficult, as soon as the species is really something different from a variety in evolution, a form still seeking itself. At that stage anything is possible; but one is speaking of species (i.e., set species). Mules, bardots, leporides are artificial products; one has never found them in free nature. It is very difficult to obtain the copulation of a hare and she-rabbit; the she-rabbit is refractory and the hare lacking enthusiasm. The mare very often refuses the ass; if she turns her head at the moment of his mounting, one has to bandage her eyes to overcome her disgust; it is the same with the she-ass whom one offers a stallion for producing the bardot. As for the product of bull and mare, the celebrated jumart is a chimæra: comparison of the meagre prong of the bull to the massive one of the stallion is enough to convince one that such dissimilar instruments can not replace each other. Nevertheless it would be imprudent wholly to rule out this form of sexual aberration from the causes of variability of species. That is perhaps one of its justifications.
Of all sexual aberrations perhaps the most curious is chastity. Not that it is anti-natural, nothing is anti-natural, but because of the pretexts it obeys. Bees, ants, termites, present examples of perfect chastity, but of chastity that is utilized, social chastity. Involuntary, congenital, the neuter state among insects is a state de facto, equivalent to the sexual state, and the origin of a characterized activity. In humans it is a state, often only apparent or transitory, obtained voluntarily or demanded by necessity, a precarious condition, so difficult to maintain that people have heaped up about it all sorts of moral and religious walls, and even real walls made of stones and mortar. Permanent and voluntary chastity is nearly always a religious practice. Men, in all ages, have been persuaded that perfection of being was only obtainable by such renunciation. This seems absurd; it is, on the contrary, very direct logic. The only means of not being an animal is to abstain from the act to which all animals without exception deliver themselves. It is the same motive that has made people imagine abstinence, fasting; but as one can not live without eating, and as one can live without making love, this second method of perfectionment has remained in the state of outline.
It is true, asceticism, of which humanity alone is capable, is one of the means which may lift us above animality; but by itself it is insufficient to do this; by itself it is good for nothing, save perhaps to excite sterile pride; one must add to it an active exercise of the intelligence. It remains to know whether asceticism, which deprives the sensibility of one of its healthiest and most stimulating nutriments is favourable to the exercise of the intelligence. As it is not the least necessary to answer this question here, we will say nothing save this, provisorily: one need not scorn chastity nor disdain asceticism.