Albert Moll

“ For wounds or death he may despise, Who helps his side to win the day. And as the factions join in strife, They shout amid the battle's din; Fighting as if for very life, Each one will do his best to win. Each hopes the victory to gain; Each would the bravest warrior prove. Hurrah! they cry, and each is fain To win bright glances from his love."
As I have previously explained, the existence of sexual perversions may sometimes be traced back into early childhood, although, in individual cases, the experiences of childhood may throw little light on the subsequent sexual life. ”

“ When a young man is being sent to the university, it is wise to instruct him concerning the dangers of venereal infection; but to inform him that human beings come into the world as the result of an act of sexual intercourse would be altogether superfluous. Conversely, if a child asks its parents where its little brother has come from, we do not need to say anything about syphilis and gonorrhoea; but none the less we can give such a child an account suitable for one of its age of the way in which human beings come into the world. ”

“ I refer to the religious education which has an internal reality, and arises spontaneously out of the demands of morality. I do not mean the sort of education which regards it as almost a disgrace that we come naked into the world; not the religious education which regards man as soiled by the fact that he is born from his mother's womb; nor that which considers every sexual act as essentially sinful, and asceticism as man's salvation. It is not religious education of such a kind that will have any good effect in the matter of sexual education ”

“ I have myself on several occasions been asked by parents with a proper care for the future morality and health of their children, to undertake the necessary enlightenment of these latter. I am absolutely convinced that when the child has complete trust in the person who effects the enlightenment, the explanation of everything is fully possible. In this book, I have more than once proved that a description of sexual intercourse, appealing as it does rather to the intellectual side of the child's mind, need have no bad influence at all upon its emotional life ”

“ We must educate children, boys as well as girls, in the belief that to mishandle the genital organs is forbidden alike by divine and by human law. But we must not teach them to regard the sexual act as in itself disgusting; more especially in view of the fact that such an idea conflicts with the lofty ethical significance of the act to which we all owe our existence.
What has been said about nakedness, has bearings also upon the relationships of the education of children to the matter of the nude in art. No intelligent person will deny the importance to art of the representation of the nude. ”

“ I myself do not believe that children are more moral in the country, or that they here remain longer uncorrupted than in towns, whether large or small. Nor is it proved that in former times the country possessed any advantage in these respects, as compared with our own days and with the modern town. The entire fable of rural innocence appears to rest, not upon an actual comparison between town and country, but rather upon the more lively interest felt in town life, and especially in the life of the great towns: in towns, immorality has been more carefully studied and more often described ”

“ We have seen that long-continued and excessive masturbation is dangerous to health; now every voluntary action, and every action that is commonly believed to be voluntary, the effects of which are injurious to body or to mind, is considered to be immoral, unless it is performed in pursuit of some lofty aim—as, for instance, in the case of the doctor who exposes himself to some deadly infection for the sake of his patient's welfare. But these reasons do not suffice to account for the fact that masturbation is commonly regarded as a more immoral act than illegitimate sexual intercourse. ”

“ The grave danger of allowing an unsuitable person to undertake the sexual enlightenment is obvious from the existence of those persons who teach that homosexual inclinations occurring in children indicate that they are permanently homosexual—a view which, as has been shown, is utterly erroneous. But let us suppose that one who holds such a doctrine is the person who has undertaken the sexual enlightenment of a child, and we can hardly doubt what the result will be, namely, to foster homosexuality. ”

“ But, apart from the question of immaturity, we have to recognise that in children the moral sphere also deserves consideration; that notwithstanding the possible recent development of physical maturity, the child as such requires protection, in order to prevent the occurrence of such moral corruption as will render it incapable, when grown-up, of obeying the moral law. No thoughtful person can refuse to admit the child's right to protection. ”

“ But by a true sexual enlightenment, in the sense above defined, it is probable that many a girl may be safeguarded from prostitution; and many a child, boys as well as girls, may be better protected against the attempts of pædophiles. And these considerations apply, not merely to childhood, but also to subsequent life—especially as regards girls. How many girls enter upon marriage quite ignorant and altogether inexperienced. They commit themselves to the keeping of a man of whom they know hardly anything at all. ”

“ For why should certain processes occurring in childhood—for example, a boy's impulse to caress his mother—be regarded as non-sexual; and yet the same processes subsequently be regarded as sexual, merely because they ultimately become associated with the phenomena of detumescence? Take the case of a boy seven years of age; he loves and cuddles his mother; he is drawn also to a girl friend of the same age as himself, and kisses her with equal pleasure. The boy grows older, and after some years begins to have definite erections when he embraces and kisses his friend ”

“ We see girls who appear remarkably virtuous, because, while other girls are rejoicing at having found an admirer, they pass coldly along, in the streets and elsewhere, their eyes directed forwards, and rigidly avoid exchanging glances with any male person. Although this delayed sexual development does not arouse in us the same unsympathetic feelings in the case of young women as it does in the case of young men, it is none the less necessary to recognise the phenomenon in the female sex as well, and this not on medical grounds merely, but also on educational, ethical, and social grounds. ”

“ Of the clergymen in this country who are in real touch with the lives of their charges, there is hardly a one who does not, every so often, have to minister to a mind whose moral and religious distress depends on an unfortunate sex history. Conscientious and observant teachers realize, in a dim way, that they cannot do justice to even the purely intellectual needs of pupils without understanding the natural history of those instinctive impulses, which, concealed and falsified as they are under our traditional taboos, nevertheless retain enormous potency. ”

“ For, in the first place, Groos himself, who regards the games of childhood as a form of training, suitable to the nature of the individual, for its subsequent activities, recognises that games are sexually differentiated. He believes that we have to do, not, as some think, with imitative processes, but with preliminary practice, subserving the purposes of self-development; and he considers that girls naturally turn to games adapted to train them for their subsequent profession of motherhood, whilst boys incline to games corresponding to their predestined activity as men. ”

“ The young woodlark begins to sing as soon as its first moulting is nearly over, and not only does this when perching, but flies aloft like the adult bird in the spring-time, and soars for a long time, singing continually. ”

“ As if potency in intercourse with an experienced prostitute, skilled in all the tricks of her trade, were a proof that the bridegroom will prove sexually potent in intercourse with a chaste woman; or as if, on the other hand, the fact that a man proves impotent when he attempts intercourse with a prostitute whose embraces are repulsive to him, were in any sense whatever a proof that the same man will fail to effect intercourse with the woman he loves. ”

“ The tendency to cruelty appears in early childhood, and it is only subsequently that this tendency becomes definitely associated with the sexual life. But even though this association (of cruelty with the sexual life) is demonstrable in so many instances, we are not for this reason justified in regarding every brutal act, all deliberate cruelty, as manifestations of sadism; and this reservation applies no less to adults than to children. Thus, delight in the sufferings of others, though it may be regarded as analogous with sadism, has no necessary connexion with the sexual impulse. ”

“ In our own experience one accused of such offences rarely escapes conviction. He is hardly ever spared the terrible ordeal of examination and cross-examination. On all hands we hear the loud complaints of such persons, declaring that they have been wrongfully condemned." My own experience in the law courts leads me to accept these statements without reserve, and I regard as one of the gravest scandals of our present penal system the ease with which a girl who makes a pretty curtsy to the court, and who appears to be shamefaced when giving her evidence, is believed by the judge or magistrate. ”

“ From the beautiful Helen, who at the age of seven, according to one story, and at the age of twelve, according to another, was deflowered by Theseus, down to modern times, we find that premature sexual development is frequently adduced as a characteristic of such women. Although it is true that in many cases of the seduction of children there is no question of sexual prematurity, still, for a part of the cases, premature sexual development is responsible. For it can hardly be disputed that the crime of the child-seducer is greatly facilitated, if the child meets the seducer halfway. ”

“ Sexual influences are beginning to become active, and half-unconsciously the girl studies her environment in search of experiences bearing, however remotely, on this sphere. The little interests and amours of the nearer and further environment will be by no one discovered so speedily as by a bright and lively half-grown girl. Every variation in the mutual interest of the pair she has under observation will be noted by such a girl with the keenest sympathy. Long before the two have come to an understanding, she will be aware of their sentiments for one another. ”

“ The presence of the loved one may, in fact, powerfully stimulate ambition and the desire to work. A little girl who has fallen in love with her schoolmistress or governess, will strive to please the latter by hard work and attention; and, similarly, a boy who loves a boy or a girl classmate, very often attempts to make an impression on the feelings of the loved one by his performances at school. Whilst we recognise the dangers attendant on the development of sexuality in the child, we must not overlook the fact that this development may have its good side. ”

“ When we see a young woman bearing a new life in her womb, owing her position it may be to all the subtle arts of the seducer, and note how cruelly she is treated by the law and what scorn and contempt are poured upon her by society and by the individual, we cannot fail to welcome most heartily the movement for the Protection of Motherhood (Mutterschutzbewegung) which has recently made such progress in Germany. ”

“ Herein we see displayed very clearly those sexual feelings known to us in adults under the names of masochism and sadism; the same feelings are occasionally observed also in childhood; in some cases as manifestations of the undifferentiated sexual impulse, in others as manifestations of developing sexual perversions.
The more intensely passionate the love of the child, the more fantastical is its conduct. The child sometimes endeavours to imitate the beloved person in every detail, often with the most ridiculous results. ”

“ If at a social gathering for which evening dress is the rule, a gentleman turns up in light tweeds, he is guilty of a breach of custom, but not of an immoral action. If an officer in the army, having impregnated a young girl of the working class, marries her, his action is a moral one in the positive sense, but in spite of this he commits an offence against the customs of his class. Moreover, we have to remember that an act which is immoral or opposed to custom at a certain time and among a certain people, may at another time, or among another people, be neither the one nor the other. ”

“ I do not mean to imply that stories of the stork and cabbage-garden variety are to be altogether excluded. It would be as reasonable to prohibit all kinds of fairy tales. Some tell us that we should tell children fairy stories only so long as they regard the whole of life as a fairy tale. But in view of the vivid imagination of childhood, no such sharp distinction is practicable. ”

“ A child may receive the best of instruction without result, if in its own environment it is continually seeing something precisely the opposite of that which it is being told. This applies with equal force to the sexual life, which can be influenced far more readily by example than by good teaching, if the latter, though daily repeated, conflicts with what the child sees every day in the conduct of its relatives and companions. ”

“ Above all, let not those who have the care of children be deceived, either by diligence, or by conduct exemplary in other ways, or indeed by earnest study of the Bible, by pious protestations, or by regular attendance at church. I know a boy of twelve, reputed to be extremely religious, and ostensibly on religious grounds going to church every Sunday; but whose real motive in the church-going was the hope to meet the girl of whom he was enamoured. Extensive experience of the conduct of adults should teach us the necessity for extreme caution in these respects. ”

“ A more serious matter is the extent to which erroneous views about sexual questions still prevail among the populace. A father who starts with the false assumption that his son must inevitably have intercourse with so many prostitutes and must seduce so many girls—in a word, a father who regards sexual abstinence as unmanly, or as necessarily dangerous to health (and fathers who hold such opinions are no rarity) —such a father must himself be sexually enlightened before we give him the right to enlighten his son. ”

“ It will readily be understood that the performance upon children of sexual acts is a very serious matter for the children themselves, especially as affecting their sexual morality. It is true that in many instances pædophilia does not entail any consequences for the child, which completely fails to understand that it has been made use of for perverse purposes. The offender may know how to mask his actions, so that even a third person who is looking on may detect nothing more than tender caresses, and may remain altogether unaware of the existence of any sexual excitement. ”

“ We are not surprised when a woman tells us that as a child her confidence in her mother was seriously shaken from the moment when she was enlightened by others concerning the sexual life, and she recognised that what her mother had told her about the matter was quite untrue. ”

“ Just because the child is so often taught that nakedness is in itself immoral, we are apt also to teach it to experience sexual excitement at the sight of a nude statue; whereas if the child had simply been taught that nakedness at unsuitable times and places was wrong, no such reaction would ensue. I remember the time in which the strong agitation took place which led to the passing of the Lex Heinze;132 and I was acquainted with a gentleman—he was a patient of mine—who was a member of the party by which the new law was so strongly demanded. ”

“ A mother who kept a close watch on her eight-year-old daughter told me that when in play a boy of ten pressed close up against the girl; they kissed one another somewhat passionately, and the boy broke out in the naïve utterance, "You don't know how fond I am of you; I do love you so." Not infrequently, indeed, children are really troublesome to adults in their desire for close physical contact. I have known instances in which young women or girls have been intolerably annoyed by boys eight or nine years of age, who have continually followed them about and pressed up against them ”