Sexuality

“ As already said, sexuality is associated with image models, and changing the structure of basic models, from image to symbolic, has produced strong perturbations in the approach to sex.
In the present technological implementation of humans, the dominant position of the man is evident. This is the source of the present crisis of sexuality. A woman, knowing that she is equal or, many times, even superior to the male partner, will have difficulties in implementing her sexual life. Due to this problem, the number of non-usual sexual behaviour is high. ”

“ The transition to sexuality appears from the psychoanalytical standpoint difficult to understand. If we consider that the development of resistance coincides in every case with the history of the complex we must ask ourselves: Is the complex sexual or not? ”

“ We are learning slowly that sexually exhausted fathers and mothers do not parent superior children. This is causing thousands of thinking people and conscientious parents to inquire for the truth that will bring freedom from sensual slavery.{463}
Sexuality and sensuality.—Sexuality, or the sexual instinct, is one thing, and sensuality, or sexual perversion, is another. One is God-given and God-honored; the other is a human product resulting from bad heredity, a false education and a misuse of the sexual function. ”

“ The social significance of the sexual life of woman is disproportionately greater and farther reaching than the sexuality of the male, as the former is concerned with the fundamental principles of human social life, influencing the constitution of the family, and controlling the good of the coming race. ”

“ Statistics of survival in the past world of limited available resources, of natural catastrophes, of disease, etc., cease to play any role in the illiterate sex encounters. Sexuality becomes a diversified human experience, subject to divisions, mediations, and definitely to the influence of the general dynamics of the world today. ”

“ The normal woman has learned by education to hide her true sexual feelings and was forced by tradition to produce in a quite extraordinary way the impression that she herself is nearly non-sexual, and her sexuality is only a concession to the man. ”

“ And it is the duty of everybody who loves mankind to study the various phases of human sexuality and help to spread sane and humane ideas on the subject of Sex and Love.
The author trusts that Woman: Her Sex and Love Life will help, in some slight degree, in spreading healthy, sane and honest ideas about sex among the men and women of America. ”

“ He described the sexuality of the infantile period as being purely autoerotic in character, the sexual interests of the child being centered in its own body. From this stage the object of interest is gradually transferred to other individuals of the same sex, the normal attraction to the opposite sex being a final development of later years. ”

“ What injuries may follow artificial development of the breasts?—Flabbiness, inability to nurse a child, tumors and cancers.
What effect upon the morals of men has the wearing of low-necked dresses by girls and married women?—All normal adolescent youths and{272} adults possess sexuality. Occasional consciousness of sexual desire is natural. These experiences simply indicate that we are in possession of creative energy. If we keep control of our thoughts about the opposite sex, this energy will be converted into physical strength, mental brilliancy and soul beauty. ”

“ Thus we arrive rather at a biological conception of sexuality, which includes both a series of psychological phenomena as well as a series of physiological functions. If we might be allowed to make use of an old but practical classification, we might identify sexuality with the so-called instinct of the preservation of the species, as opposed in some way to the instinct of self-preservation. ”

“ The component impulses of sexuality as well as the total sexual desire, which represents their aggregate, show a marked ability to change their object, to exchange it, for instance, for one more easily attainable. ”

“ If all married{524} people were normal in their sex natures, unselfish love would reign in the homes and divorce courts would be largely a thing of the past.
Through universal ignorance of the true nature and functions of the God-given, God-honored and sacred sanctuary of reproduction, the youth, by mental and mechanical abuse of these functions, becomes more or less sensual. Sexuality is slowly transformed into sensuality and love into lust. ”

“ The difficulty of drawing distinctions is all the greater in view of the fact that in the case of non-sexual feelings sexuality constantly plays a certain part. Our sentiments are complex, and compounded of many and various elements ”

“ As soon as individuals that are affected with contrary sexuality become acquainted, there is a detailed narration of their experiences, loves, and seductions, as far as the social difference between them allows such entertainment. ”

“ Let us then first consider what Homosexuality is.
Homosexuality means sexual love for one of the same sex. Thus, if a male feels sexual desire for another male, or a female for another female, they are called sexually inverted or homosexual. ”

“ It has been stated that a person normally goes through three stages in the course of his sexual development—which are represented by the following dominant characteristics, in the order given: Autosexuality, Homosexuality, and Heterosexuality. ”

“ The sexual ideal of the invert includes not only traits of former female and male sexual objectives, but also features of one's own beloved self.
(d) Being brought up in surroundings exclusively feminine—the father does not count in such circumstances—fosters homosexuality in the male as well as in the female, for reasons that are not sufficiently clear as yet. Moreover, the urning is usually an only child. ”

“ It was only Christianity which, with its fundamental resentment against life, made something impure out of sexuality: it flung filth at the very basis, the very first condition of our life. ”

“ Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness; ”

“ Has any one made such a confidence to you as to his or her nature, without your returning your confidence for it?
Are you given to ardent friendships with persons of your own sex, which friendships are not tinged with the wish for sexual contact, or love of a bodily sort? Or do your warmer Intimacies seem all to tend to loves?—not stopping at the merely intellectual bond?
Does the sight of the nude human body—of others, or even of your own person, especially the sexual organs—excite you sexually? ”

“ Essai sur l’instinct sexuel, “qui n’est qu’un essai, parce que la matière de son idée est immense, représente pourtant une ambition: on voudrait agrandir la psychologie générale de l’amour, la faire commencer au commencement même de l’activité mâle et femelle, situer la vie sexuelle de l’homme dans le plan unique de la sexualité universelle.” It is a book full of illustration, a vast collection of facts, and throws into another fermenting vat than that of language some sufficiently valuable ideas. ”

“ A musician may, for [Pg 32] example, be drawing on his sex-energy in composing or performing musical works; a humanitarian may be sexual in his diffused love of fellow-men and women. We cannot possibly draw a line and say that here sex begins and there it ends. We can only admit that it carries far beyond those particular physical manifestations which we popularly associate with sex.
If we accept the principle of ascending levels of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual functions, we should expect to find that sex makes its appearance in more than one form. ”

“ It is time that we freed our minds from the artificial and perverted attitude toward this dominant impulse; time to rescue the word "sex" from its implications of grossness and sensuousness, and to recognize the instinct in its true light as one of the necessary and holy forces of life, a force capable of causing great damage, but also holding infinite possibilities for good if wisely directed. ”

“ All that we can say in a general way concerning the complex entanglement of our sentiments and instincts is that, the most deeply rooted characters in human nature are at the same time, phylogenetically speaking, the most ancient.
Among the most profound instincts of sexual life, we find moral and intellectual incongruities. Along with excitement of the sexual appetite in the male by the odor of the female genital organs, or by the sight of erotic pictures, we find the most touching conjugal love, and life-long devotion of one conjoint for the other and for the children. ”

“ Especially you must have high and clean thoughts about sex that you can think about, read about it, talk about all the details without agitation, without grossness of thought, and with as impersonal a state of mind as if you were discussing the circulation of the blood. And you must learn to recognize the educational value of sex attraction in the evolution of humanity from savagery into civilization. Chiefest of all, learn that sex is holy before God and the angels. ”

“ But as the brain and its faculties develop, powerfully aided indeed by the very difficulties of the sexual life, the impulse for sexual union has to traverse ever longer, slower, more painful paths, before it reaches—and sometimes it never reaches—its ultimate object. This means that sex gradually becomes intertwined with all the highest and subtlest human emotions and activities, with the refinements of social intercourse, with high adventure in every sphere, with art, with religion. ”

“ The manifold echoes of that primitive conception of sex, and all the violent reactions that were thus evolved and eventually bound up with the original impulse, compose the streams of tradition that feed our modern world in this matter and determine the ideas of purity that surround us.
At the present day the crude theory of the sexual impulse held on one side, and the ignorant rejection of theory altogether on the other side, are beginning to be seen as both alike unjustified. We begin to find the grounds for a sounder theory. ”

“ Girls of a passionate temperament, those also who from early childhood have been accustomed to mix much with young persons of the opposite sex, and those, finally, in whom from conversation on the subject with female friends or from the perusal of erotic literature, sexual enlightenment has occurred at an early age, experience the awakening of the sexual impulse earlier and with greater force, than phlegmatic girls, than those who have grown up apart from boys, and than those who have been strictly and carefully brought up. ”

“ Does similisexual desire of this sort direct itself strongest to very young boys? (If Uraniad: to very young girls?) To older youthful persons? To individuals in their early or latter teens?—older? or for distinctly mature individuals? In any case as to what type?—that is to say, robust or delicate, blond or dark, refined or unrefined physiques, etc.
Are you greatly excited during sexual intercourse, or in fits of desire?
Are you conscious of a certain contempt or aversion for women as a sex? ”

“ We know, for example, that many homosexual men have a tendency to dress in girls' clothing, and many homosexual women to go about in men's clothing, and, in both cases, to adopt the inclinations and occupations of the opposite sex. During the period of the undifferentiated sexual impulse, we must not attach too much importance to the appearance of inclinations of this kind ”

“ The lower forms are interesting in tracing the steps of biological reproduction up to the higher and more complex forms of life. In sex we find the essential touch of nature that makes the whole world akin, that affords the impetus to the preservation of life and that is, as well, in the higher forms of life, when the consciousness of sex becomes evident, the source of much joy and ecstasy. ”

“ In considering the subject, Sex and Life—the caption of the present chapter—it is not only pertinent, but imperative in an honest discussion of the theme, to indicate the background of mankind's traditions in the realm of sexual interest, as well as to allude to the far-reaching biological implications of sex and life. ”

“ It will thus be seen that in the varieties of degradation of our sexual powers, as well as in their use and ennoblement, it is the predominance of the mental or spiritual element in our nature which is the characteristic fact of human sex. The inventions and abuses of lust, as well as the use and guidance of love, alike prove the striking and important distinction which exists between the sexual organization of man and that of the lower animals. ”

“ Before civilization developed the system of sex inhibitions that are considered an essential part of the ethical habits of our young people, the impulse to function was not repressed and pubescence marked the beginning of the distinctively sexual experience of both sexes. ”

“ Whatever the real benefits, and there is no occasion for questioning them, of the sexual order thus established, it becomes clear that in certain important respects it had an unnatural and repressive influence on the erotic aspect of woman’s sexual life. ”

“ The sex consciousness, as distinct from the unconsciousness, can be awakened in the earliest years of childhood. The young boy or girl often shows an extraordinarily intuitive perception that there is a [Pg 83] sexual design behind even the apparently harmless overtures. ”

“ These crude examples of the result of driving sex into a dark corner exactly represent what one is up against in school, and in the world, when one begins to deal with sex openly and cleanly as a natural and non-repressible instinct. ”