Sexual morality

“ This confusion of thought is to such an extent one with the feelings, that it may take centuries for new ideas of justice to work a change.
In spite of all, however, it remains a truth that a woman’s morality in other respects is more profoundly connected with her sexual morality than is the case with a man. ”

“ We find in the long list of our present social problems that the sexual question occupies by no means the last place. It agitates men and women who would shake the foundations of sexual morality, and throw off the burden of moral shame which past centuries have heaped upon Eros. ”

“ At puberty, the elements of an unsuperstitious sexual morality, ought to be taught. Boys and girls should be taught that nothing can. justify sexual intercourse unless there is mutual inclination. This is contrary, to the teaching of the Church, which, holds that, provided the parties are married and the man desires another child, sexual intercourse is justified however great may be the reluctance of the wife. Boys and girls should be taught respect for each other’s liberty; ”

“ For the tragic part of the old sexual morality in its bearing on women was that while it made men alone morally responsible for sexual acts in which both a man and a woman took part, women were rendered both socially and legally incapable of availing themselves of the fact of masculine responsibility unless they had fulfilled conditions which men had laid down for them, and yet refrained from imposing upon themselves. The act of sexual intercourse, being the sexual act in which men found chief pleasure, was under all circumstances an act of little social gravity ”

“ But should the woman permit another man to arouse in her a sexual response; should another invade her mind, absorb her thoughts, or engage her heart, the husband is outraged and the woman realizes her unfaithfulness.
All of which goes to show that up to the present time sexual morality has in itself no absolute uniform standard by which it can be measured and satisfactorily and convincingly presented to all persons, as have other phases of morality, such as honesty, justice, mercy, generosity, friendship, fidelity to country, and self-sacrifice to the good of humanity. ”

“ The reason why the gradual evolution of moral ideals, which is always taking place, tends in the sexual sphere, at all events among ourselves, to reach a stage in which there seems to be an opposition between different standards lies in the fact that as yet we really have no specific sexual morality at all. ”

“ Among factors bearing on the causes of sexual intemperance and venereal peril, possibly none stands out as clearly and prominently as the so-called double standard of morals. We all know that society has adopted and hypocritically approved a double code of sexual morality for men and women. ”

“ There is not a stable form of sexual morality for all times and all peoples. Sheer biological necessity, quite apart from ethical ideas, has chiefly determined human sexual relationships throughout all the stages of man's development. ”

“ Even quite primitive races have in some respects extremely strict legislation concerning sexuality. This fact proves that sexual morality in particular is a not-to-be-despised factor in the soul’s higher functions, but deserves to be taken fully into account. In this case it should be added, that the young man—influenced by his friends’ example—somewhat thoughtlessly let himself be guided exclusively by his erotic cravings, unmindful of the fact that man is a morally responsible being and must perforce submit —voluntarily or involuntarily—to a morality that he himself has created. ”

“ To one who looks at sexual morality as a question of right conduct which brings its own rewards, it is a shock to find so many thinking people who accept calmly the traditional views of the relation of the sexes and seem to take no interest in the immorality of men except as it is likely to lead to venereal disease or to illegitimacy which [229] demands forced marriage or monetary payments. ”

“ In spite of this, one of the principal tasks of man's sexual morality will always be to restrain his erotic polygamous desires, for the simple reason that they are especially apt to injure the rights and the welfare of others. ”

“ In the discussion of prostitution it has indeed been easily possible to follow the usual custom of allowing the special sense in which the word was used to be determined by the context. But now, when we are, for the moment, directly concerned with the specific question of the evolution of sexual morality, it is necessary to be more precise in formulating the terms we use. ”

“ We have proved without the least deference, often with a brutal hand, to the misfortune of art and poetry, that we are capable of successfully intermeddling with the machinery of [498] nature, even in what concerns our own persons. I shall not return here to the subject of ethics. In Chapter XV, I have sufficiently shown how false is our present sexual morality, and I have proved in Chapter XIV the absolute necessity of measures to regulate conception in order to realize an efficacious social sexual morality. ”

“ It is therefore not likely that the line we have just touched upon will be that followed by the development of sexual morality, for even now an increasing proportion of mankind shows itself too exacting in erotic questions to allow of the realisation of the above-mentioned ideal of purity. No thought of the end will to their minds sanctify a means which when deprived of love appears to them ugly. ”

“ There is, however, no proof that anything like community of women or unlimited promiscuity exists anywhere. It would be wrong, however, to conclude that moral considerations have led up to this state of things. Of sexual morality, in the everyday sense of the word, there is none. ”

“ And here we must bring into play the moral principle to which I have already referred—namely that the morality of sex is determined by the extent to which love is the motive. Sex inspired by love is moral; sex inspired by any other motive is not. The part which the physical sex-force should alone play is the sacramental expression of pure love; so employed it is a perfect and divine activity. When the love-motive is absent, or is not the dominant incentive, the sex-force becomes comparatively immoral and abused. ”

“ This ought not, however, to prevent the setting up of the strict demands if these were really conducive to a higher existence from the sexual point of view. But only one who disregards life’s reality (and the Christian is often such a one) can at the same time set up personal love as the ground of sexual morality and limit its rights within certain bounds of morality. ”

“ As long as a man is healthy, free from venereal disease, his previous sexual experiences do not constitute a barrier to his marriage. This is what is known as the double or duplex standard of sex morality. ”

“ The moment one begins to lay the emphasis on the lower levels, the more one becomes correspondingly less pure. Lust, in fact, is the desire only for physical sex experience—the wrong proportion and balance. A man’s stage of moral development is to be discovered by the particular level on which he is most active.
We must not avoid the consequence of this principle. We must be prepared to admit as relatively moral, behaviour which popular philosophy might regard as immoral. We must also be prepared to regard as immoral many marriages in which the physical is the chief incentive. ”

“ And all these people are unconscious of their immorality, which sails under the flag of morality!
What standpoint are we to take in the sexual domain, which is free from prejudice, with regard to true human morality? This is the question which an honest and truly moral man has to put to himself. ”

“ This second useless comparison may be objected to by the people who accept a current opinion that men are more “passionate” than women. This, they believe, is the real cause of the double standard of sexual morality. But all women are potentially, and so are all men, absolutely under the dominance of [70] the erotic motive, and the only difference between men and women is the degree of repression of its outward manifestation, a degree entirely dependent on the circumstances of their upbringing. ”

“ By itself, the sexual appetite is indifferent from the moral point of view. A great confusion of ideas, based on religious misunderstanding, has led to the term morality being more and more identified with that of moral conduct in the sexual domain. In short, ethics has been more or less confounded with sexuality. From this point of view, a sexually anæsthetic individual is regarded as extremely "moral," while he is perhaps in other respects a knave. In reality his sexual indifference has not the least moral value. For the same reason an invert is not virtuous because he does not seduce girls. ”

“ For many it is a biological duty to work for the solution of this question, to discover some sort of practical solution. (Nature, it is well known, does not content herself with theories.) To-day we have no real sexual morality, only a legal attitude towards sexuality; just as the early Middle Ages had no genuine morality for financial transactions, but only prejudices and a legal standpoint. We are not yet sufficiently advanced in the domain of free sexual activity to distinguish between a moral and an immoral relationship. ”

“ Nevertheless, the sexual appetite gives rise to much conflict with human morality, for the simple reason that it looks upon human beings as objects of pleasure. Fetichism, in which the sexual appetite is directed toward inanimate objects, and sodomy, directed to animals, are by themselves almost incapable of entering into conflict with morality as we understand it.
The opinion of many people who consider the employment of anticonceptional measures as immoral, while defending prostitution, shows how much ideas vary on the subject of sexual ethics. ”

“ Eugenics and Prostitution The doctrine that love is the only motive for sex—that physical expression is pure only so far as it is the sacramental accidence of love—leads to important conclusions. There is, for instance, a class of moralist who teach that the sex-act in marriage must only be for the purpose of procreation. It would follow from this that it is immoral for sex intimacies to occur between a man and his wife once she has passed a certain age. ”

“ This kind of morality reverts to dual egoism, and in no way represents the ideal of human happiness. However beautiful conjugal fidelity, its exaggeration is deplorable, when it only results in the idolatrous worship of a single being, living or dead, and regards the rest of the world with indifference, if not with hostility.
We have already shown that the altruistic sentiments of man are the direct or indirect [10] derivatives of the sexual appetite, and especially of sexual love. The true secret of sexual ethics [456] consists, therefore, in a cult of altruism in the sexual domain. ”

“ It is that fact which leads to the greater importance of sexual phenomena among the civilized as compared to savages. The conditions of civilization increase the sexual instinct, which consequently tends to be more intimately connected with moral feelings. Morality is bound up with the development of the sexual instinct. The more casual and periodic character of the impulse in animals, since it involves greater sexual indifference, tends to favor a loose tie between the sexes, and hence is not favorable to the development of morals as we understand morals. ”

“ With the progress of civilization the sexual life of woman comes to exhibit its activities only within the bounds of morality and law, which in human society have replaced the crude rule of nature, and have supplied regulations adapted to the changing phases of sexual vital manifestations. ”

“ Parents would often refrain, on the plea that innocence must not be disturbed, from teaching their children anything about sex. So impure and evil a subject must not be referred to. Such unpleasant problems as venereal disease must be hidden out of sight, although prostitution and venereal disease continue to flourish. The Victorian, in fact, carried out the Puritan doctrine that all sex is evil, by outwardly pretending that, unless married, he possessed no sexual instinct. ”

“ Although I have always honoured, and continue to hold in honour, those young men who avoid illegitimate sexual intercourse on genuinely moral grounds, the persons exhibiting the peculiarities just explained must be regarded as pathological subjects. If our moralists hold up to us as exemplary specimens such young men as these, we have to answer that in that case sexual abstinence, and also chastity and morality, may depend upon a pathological inheritance. ”

“ I have an interest in everything that concerns the well-being of humanity, and in science, art, and industry. With my energy it is comparatively easy to postpone for a time the satisfaction of my desires, which will be described hereafter. Intentionally and consciously, I curse the morality of to-day, which forces those who are abnormal sexually to break laws that are voluntarily established, and regards sexual congress of two persons of the same sex as a matter depending on the choice of the individual, and a matter in which law-makers have a right to interfere. ”

“ The young man and the girl, who has left school, will be ready to receive the whole standard of sex-morality as has been outlined in this manual. The chief trouble now becomes over-sentimentality, the tendency to develop emotionally at the expense of the mind. And it becomes, therefore, essential to remind the pupil that where there are continual [Pg 93] passing and promiscuous sexual or love affairs, the mind is being shut out from its natural functions. ”