The sexual question

VENAL CONCUBINAGE

Venal concubinage occupies an intermediate position between prostitution and concubinage. It is distinguished from the latter by the fact that it is remunerated; but the distinction is very fine.

Lorettes.—This is an old term which may be applied to paid women who are not regular prostitutes. It is hardly possible to distinguish them from clandestine prostitutes (not on the police inscription). They are women who do not practice solicitation or sell themselves to the first comer, but generally keep to one man for a time.

Grisettes.—The Parisian grisette, whose type has become classic, is a higher class of woman who, at any rate in her primitive simplicity, was not wanting in romance. Relations with a grisette may be compared to limited and free marriage, in which there is comparative fidelity.

Like some of the free prostitutes, the grisette does not live only on the support of her lover. She is often a dressmaker or a shop-girl, and makes arrangements with a lover so as to live more comfortably.

When the grisette acts as her lover's housekeeper and lives with him on terms of the closest intimacy, the liaison takes a more serious character and there is a certain degree of affection or even love. However, all these concubinages are generally limited to a few weeks or months, so that the natural love of the woman becomes blunted by successive polyandry. It is always more or less a question of "an accessory business."

There are all kinds of lorettes and grisettes, but as a rule they are generally attached to small tradesmen, students, workingmen, etc., rather than to rich men. It is a kind of contract for a limited period. This system is very widespread in large towns, where the inhabitants do not interfere with each other's affairs; but is difficult to manage in small towns, where every one knows everybody.

Mistresses.—These may be called the aristocrats of the species. Here we see more distinctly the transition from venal love to free concubinage based on mutual love. The hetaira of the ancient Greeks (vide Chapter VI) corresponded more or less to the modern mistresses, especially to the intelligent mistresses of men in high positions. In certain respects we may say that George Sand, for example, was a hetaira from pure love, while among the Greek hetaira money played a great part. Some mistresses are paid; others live on terms of equality with their lovers; others again maintain their lovers. We must also distinguish between mistresses who live with married men, and those who live with bachelors.

The most typical case is that where a bachelor who wishes to remain free takes a mistress, whom he also makes mistress of his house, and who thus becomes an illegitimate wife who may separate from him when it pleases her. Some women contract this kind of union without being actually paid, simply for their maintenance, in return for which they do the housework. Here there is no actual sale of the body. The contract may be indefinite or limited. In such cases the effect of money on the attitude of the man toward his mistress is evident; his tone is generally less respectful toward paid mistresses than toward those who are not paid. The love of the paid mistress is little more durable or more intense than that of the grisette, the situation being almost the same.

Zola's Nana prostituted herself regularly with rich men: secondly, she was the mistress of Fontan, who plays the part of a high-class protector; thirdly, she fell in love with Georges in quite an idyllic fashion. Bordenave, the manager, had good reason in wishing his theater to be called a brothel, as he was more of a pimp than a theatrical manager. This example, a little far-fetched, shows how ideas pass from one to another in this elastic domain.

There are also married mistresses. The position of mistress to a married man is, on the whole, more delicate than that of mistress to a bachelor. We are only concerned here with paid mistresses. They seldom give themselves to married men except when the home life of the latter is more or less disorganized; when the husband is separated from the wife, or when he lives in open warfare with her. A married man, on the contrary, may secretly visit brothels or private prostitutes, often even with his wife's knowledge, because the prostitute can have no influence in family affairs. This reason has even been used for the defense of prostitution. It is true that married men often have connection with other women, and the term mistress has been applied to the women who take part in this intercourse, whether they or their lover, or both of them, are already married. But in this case money is usually only a secondary consideration, when the households concerned are not broken up. It is often only the maneuver of an intriguer who tries to separate a husband from his wife to marry him herself and monopolize his fortune. It is sufficient to show how difficult it often is to distinguish the paid mistress from the woman who does not give herself from interest but from passion, or from the intriguing adventuress who tries to make a good catch.

Lorettes, grisettes and paid mistresses seldom have children. These women are more rarely infected with venereal diseases than prostitutes, but they are better acquainted with the methods of preventing conception.

The fate of the children of venal concubines is generally very sad. They are not the fruits of love but of a sexual union based on idleness and lewdness. If conception occurs in spite of all precautions, artificial abortion is attempted, or if this fails the child is sent to the "baby farmer," who gets rid of it. The women who dispose of their children in this way are often of the better class; common prostitutes often love and take care of their children, while the young ladies of society generally try and get rid of their illegitimate children, because they are much more compromised. Some married women even do not hesitate to perform abortion when a child inconveniences them.

We have only mentioned the fourth group of women with which we are concerned, because of its mercantile nature. Every union in which a human being gives love for money is unnatural. Venal love is not true love, but an improper contract between man and woman, with the object of satisfying the sexual appetite, without any regard to the higher object intended by nature. It sometimes happens that similar contracts are made in the inverse direction, when a nymphomaniacal woman purchases a fine young man, under some pretext or other. Inverts also pay boys to satisfy their perverted appetites.

However unsavory may be the contents of the present chapter, it was necessary to write it in order to give a clear idea of the subject. Under the pretense of virtue venal love has too long been covered with a veil of hypocrisy. Prostitution, marriage for money and venal concubinage are, each in its way, elements of corruption and decadence which, combined with alcohol, gambling, speculation, the greed for money and pleasure in general, threaten our modern culture with ruin. Among these anomalies, the State organization of prostitution being the most monstrous, it is necessary to begin with its suppression.

Among the ancients, the goddess Venus or Aphrodite was the symbol of beauty and love. Although somewhat sly, she was fecund, full of desire and charm, and embodied not only the natural aspirations of man, but also his artistic ideal. Nowadays, she is dragged in the mire by two false gods—Bacchus, who makes a gross and vulgar brute of her, and Mammon, who transforms her into a venal prostitute—while a hypocritical religious asceticism, endeavors in vain to confine her in a strait-waistcoat. May the progress of science and culture find the power to deliver her from the tyranny of her two infamous companions, deified by human ignorance and bestiality. Then only will the goddess of love appear in all her glory!

CHAPTER XIToC

THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT ON SEXUAL LIFE

However strong may be the hereditary sexual instincts which an individual has inherited by phylogeny from his ancestors, and however violent their internal outbreaks in his ontogeny, it is necessary to recognize that an organism so complicated as that of man is capable of adapting itself to its environment to a remarkable and varied degree, and that consequently external influences react strongly on the sexual appetite. We will now examine these influences, so far as they are not dealt with in other chapters.

Influence of Climate.—Warm climates appear to excite the intensity of sexual life; man matures more quickly and is more disposed to sexual excess. I am not aware of other influences that can be attributed to climate. It is, moreover, possible that the direct influence of heat has been confounded with the indirect action it exerts in the conditions of human existence. In cold countries life is more laborious, and this diminishes the intensity of the sexual appetite. In warm countries man has not so much concern with dwellings, clothes and heating; life is greatly simplified, and this freedom from anxiety inclines him to greater sexual activity.

Town and Country. Isolation. Sociability. Life in Factories.—The social relations of man exert a great influence on sexual life. Hermits and those who live on isolated farms are interesting in this respect. Solitude generally leads man to chronic melancholia and to abnormal peculiarities, unless he has a library in his hermitage, when he may live in the spirit of the intellectual sociability derived from the study of books.

It is quite otherwise with one who has no intellectual occupation, or one who has lived in solitude from infancy. In this case the hermit becomes a kind of savage, without any intellectual development, and reverts more or less to the state of primitive man.

An adult who establishes himself in solitude without providing himself with intellectual capital becomes strongly inclined to depressing psychoses. This is observed among the isolated farmers, according to Professor Seguin, of New York. The man who lives alone, or surrounded only by the members of his family becomes disposed to certain sexual anomalies, such as incest, sodomy and masturbation.

It is among the agricultural population that we meet with the most normal sexual relations and the best hygiene. The French Canadians form a good example, and it is the same generally where agriculture is practiced by independent peasants, not alcoholized, and having divided property. Agricultural families generally procreate more children and healthier ones than urban families. No doubt modern medical hygiene, both public and private, has made so much progress in towns that there may be, at a certain age, proportionally more living children than in the country; but the country children are of stronger constitution and more healthy in every way.

I had the opportunity of confirming this opinion while I was superintendent of a lunatic asylum for many years. I found it was impossible to recruit from the town a good staff of nurses of either sex.

The inhabitant of towns, it is true, learns his work more quickly, but he lacks patience, perseverance and character, and soon shows himself wanting in the accomplishment of his physical and moral duties. The countryman, on the contrary, is at first slow and clumsy, but soon becomes more capable and careful, and more amenable to education. This shows that, on the average, the hereditary dispositions of the country-bred child are better than those of the town-bred child. The latter develops more rapidly and more completely his natural dispositions, owing to social intercourse, while the country-bred child, although he appears at first sight less intelligent, is really better endowed on the average than the town child. The superficial observer is easily deceived, but country life accumulates more reserve force in the organism than urban life.

Sexual excesses in the country are more conformable to nature. Apart from marriage, we meet with concubinage, infidelity, and sometimes prostitution, but these excesses are never widely spread in small places where every one knows each other. An extensive study of the alcohol question has shown me that hereditary degenerations and sexual evils in the country are principally due to alcoholism and its blastophthoria (vide Chapter I). But when factories, mining industries, etc., create unhealthy conditions in the country, the evil influences of urban life are implanted there, often in a still higher degree.

The society of large towns is made up of many different circles, who have little or no relations with each other, do not know each other, and seldom concern themselves about each other. The individual is only known in his own circle. This circumstance favors the increase of vice and depravity. In addition to this, the insanitary dwellings, the life of excitement and innumerable pleasures, all tend to produce a restless and unnatural existence. The best conditions of existence for man are contact with nature, air and light, sufficient physical exercise combined with steady work for the brain, which requires exercise as much as the other organs; this is just what is wanting among the poor, in the town and in the factory. Instead of this they are offered unhealthy nocturnal pleasures and a prostitution which spreads itself everywhere with all the dangerous effects we have described. The result is that they become incapable of nourishing and raising their children properly, often even of procreating them in healthy and natural love.

Such are the conditions of the lower classes in large towns. Along with prostitution, venereal disease and alcohol, the wretched dwellings in many places lead to infamous promiscuity. In factories and mines things are still worse. In these places there is a swarm of people continually engaged in most unhealthy occupations, and only leaving their work to indulge in the most repugnant sexual excesses. The rapacity, frivolity and luxury of society lead to alcoholism, poverty, promiscuity and prostitution among the lower classes and cause complete degeneration of entire industrial populations.

In the Canton of Zurich I have had the opportunity of closely observing the physical and moral effects of this degeneration. The individuals most incapable as hospital attendants were always factory hands. These wretched beings were generally so atrophied in body and mind that they were no use for anything except the weaving of silk and cotton. In the large English towns, such as Liverpool, and among the population of certain mining districts in Belgium, I have met with even worse degeneration of the human species. Modesty, morality and health are destroyed in this swarming human mass—dirty, anæmic, tuberculous, rickety, imbecile, or hysterical—and there is no distinction between the factory girl and the prostitute. In certain Belgian districts which are a prey to alcoholism, one sometimes sees human beings copulating in the streets like animals, or like the drunken Kaffirs in South Africa. What can we expect from the descendants of a population so completely degenerate? Marriage and even concubinage among peasants is golden in comparison!

I will now draw attention to a contemporary phenomenon of the greatest interest. The immense development of means of transport, combined with progress in the sanitation of dwellings, favors the transportation of town to country and country to town. This brings together the two modes of human life, and in this I see the dawn of salvation in the future. The modern towns of North America, thanks to the great extension of their territory, already resemble the country to a great extent, each house being surrounded by a garden. The electric tramways shorten distances and facilitate this manner of building towns. As means of communication become still more simplified and cheapened, the advantages of country life will be joined to those of the town without suffering from the promiscuity of the latter. The disadvantages of country life consist in atrophy of the intellectual dispositions from want of contact; improvement in means of transport will bring this contact to the country. The result of such distribution of the territory of a civilized state, such as I have in view, might be called an Agropolis—an urbanized country or a countrified town. It would then be possible to live a life more ideal in human sentiments, and healthier as regards material and sexual matters.

The state of the countryman or peasant is advantageous for marriage, not only because it does not offer such a suitable soil for prostitution, but because the danger of venereal disease is diminished, and the procreation of healthy offspring favors conjugal happiness and constancy in sexual union. From the religious point of view, the freedom in sexual intercourse which prevails among country people before marriage is looked upon as immoral; but this is a natural phenomenon similar to the "marriage by trial" of certain savage races, or the "hand-fasting" of the Scotch people, of which we have spoken in Chapter VI. People who tolerate and defend prostitution should be ashamed of their hypocrisy and of the manner in which they distort morality, when in the same breath they reproach peasants with their natural but illegitimate unions.

It is needless to say that other causes of degeneration may exist in the country as well as in towns; for instance, certain endemic diseases, such as myxœdema and malaria, the brutish life of certain tribes, perpetuation of degeneracy by consanguineous unions, etc.

The worst state is certainly that of the proletariat of large towns, which is generally associated with crime. In the community of pimps, criminals and decadents in general, is constituted a special social outlook, which regards the greatest scamp in the light of a hero. When a child shows a precocious criminal disposition it is looked upon in these circles as a child of much promise. Honest and virtuous children are considered in this society as imbeciles, or even as traitors and spies, and are consequently despised, hated and ill-treated. The deleterious influences we have mentioned do not act alone, but are often associated with other factors in causing degeneration of the sexual life. When other influences preponderate, we may sometimes observe depravity in the country, and on the contrary, healthy and normal conditions in certain towns. We must always avoid exaggerating the importance of a single factor in making generalizations. Certain country villages, the inhabitants of which have become alcoholized and degraded, may present a much more unhealthy sexual life than certain sober and well-governed towns.

Vagabondage.—In the Archiv für Rassen und Gesellschafts biologie of 1905 (Archives of the biology of races and of society), Doctor Jörger relates the history of the descendants of a couple of vagabonds, which he carefully studied for several generations. Nearly all the members of this family became vagabonds, thieves, prostitutes, and other society pests. Vain attempts were made to give a good education to some of them, but they ran away from school to lead the lives of vagabonds or criminals. In a few of them only, education gave some results, but not at all brilliant. In this family, alcoholism and its blastophthoria played a considerable part.

We can hardly admit that the mnemic phenomena explained in Chapter I could have acted appreciably in two or three hundred years, a period much too short for the human species. No doubt the common ancestor of the above family of vagabonds descended from a family of vagabonds. I do not, however, think I am wrong in attributing to blastophthoria, superposed on the disastrous combinations of germs which is inevitable in the life of vagabonds, the principal cause of this typical degeneration of the family, a degeneration in which sexual degradation strongly predominates. I recommend Doctor Jörger's work to any one interested in this question. It would be useful to draw up genealogical tables, with the medical and psychological descriptions of the whole population of a small town.

Americanism.—By this term I designate an unhealthy feature of sexual life, common among the educated classes of the United States, and apparently originating in the greed for dollars, which is more prevalent in North America than anywhere else. I refer to the unnatural life which Americans lead, and more especially to its sexual aspect.

The true American citizen despises agricultural work and manual labor in general, especially for women. His aim is to centralize labor by means of machinery and commerce, so as to concern himself only with business, intellectual occupations and sport. American women consider muscular work and labor in the country as degrading to their sex. This is a relic of the days of slavery, when all manual labor was left to negroes, and is so to a great extent at the present day.

Desirous of remaining young and fresh as long as possible, fearing the dangers and troubles of childbirth and the bringing-up of children, the American woman has an increasing aversion to pregnancy, childbirth, suckling and the rearing of large families.

Since the emancipation of negroes has caused domestic servants in the United States to become expensive luxuries, family life has been to a great extent replaced by life in hotels and boarding-houses, and this has furnished another reason for avoiding conception and large families.

It is evident that this form of emancipation of women is absolutely deleterious and that it leads to degeneration, if not to extinction of the race. The mixed Aryan (European) race of North America will diminish and become gradually extinguished, even without emigration, and will soon be replaced by Chinese or negroes. It is necessary for woman to labor as well as man, and she ought not to avoid the fulfillment of her natural position. Every race which does not understand this necessity ends in extinction. A woman's ideal ought not to consist in reading novels and lolling in rocking chairs, nor in working only in offices and shops, so as to preserve her delicate skin and graceful figure. She ought to develop herself strongly and healthily by working along with man in body and mind, and by procreating numerous children, when she is strong, robust and intelligent. But this does not nullify the advantage that may accrue from limiting the number of conceptions, when the bodily and mental qualities are wanting in the procreators.

Saloons and Alcohol.—I desire to draw attention once more to the evil influence of saloons and bars. The drink habit corrupts the whole of sexual life. It is the origin of the most hideous forms of prostitution and proxenetism, and leads to the seduction of girls. I must mention again the barmaids whose business it is to attract customers by exciting their sexual desire, at the same time exploiting themselves by prostitution. These saloons are dens of iniquity in which alcohol and prostitution are inextricably confounded. In Germany they have become a veritable social plague.

Drink makes men and women not only gross and sensual, but also negligent, imprudent and irreflective. The saloon takes men from their homes, and drink directly diminishes the population. This is seen in Russia by comparing the abstainers with the drinkers, the former being much more fecund. The statistics of Doctor Bezzola show that a single drinking bout may have a blastophthoric effect. From this and from other causes result the deplorable consequences of coitus which takes place during drunkenness.[7]

Wealth and Poverty.—While in former civilizations the rich man regarded a multiplicity of wives and children as a condition or cause of his wealth and also as its result, in our modern civilization the number of children diminishes with the increase of prosperity. Children have ceased to be as formerly a source of wealth; on the contrary, they occasion much expense for their education. Again, the higher the social position of woman the more she fears pregnancy. Her life of ease makes her weaker and more delicate, so that she becomes less fit for the procreation of children. This phenomenon is an unhealthy product of culture and reaches a truly pathological degree in America.

We have mentioned marriage for money, which is the prostitution of the rich, and poverty, which is one of the causes of common prostitution, and we have seen how money influences sexual intercourse. We may now state the general principle that a mediocrity living in comfortable circumstances without immediate daily wants, under good hygienic conditions, but requiring a man to work for his living, constitutes the best condition both for a healthy sexual life and for health and happiness in general. This is the aurea mediocritas, or modest competence, the excellence of which was recognized by the ancients.

The sexuality of the rich man degenerates by luxury, comfort, excess and idleness, and by the fact that he is already satiated in his youth. That of the poor man is no less degenerate, owing to bad food, unhealthy dwellings, neglected education, and by vicious example which at the opposite extreme, resembles in many points that of the rich man; the exploiter and the exploited meeting in the dens of vice. Such is the case with gambling hells, with dens for prostitution and sexual anomalies, where the poor blackmail the rich, while the latter in their capacity as social exploiters help to maintain poverty and prostitution.

Money makes sexual intercourse unnatural; in place of letting coitus take its natural course, it makes it an object of amusement and pleasure, and also of speculation, and it debases the bodies of wretched girls by making them objects of commerce.

Unfortunately, the increasing facility of obtaining money without working for it, due to civilization, not only corrupts the sexual life of the wealthy and the poverty stricken, but has the same effect on the middle classes. A healthy and normal sexual life must be associated with honest and arduous work. We have already remarked that the solution of the sexual question depends partly on the suppression of alcoholic drink. We may add that another side of the question depends on the extirpation of the greed for money. If human beings could work for the social welfare without private interest, sexual relations would soon take their natural course. But it must be admitted that it is difficult to find a practical solution for the problem of social economy.

Rank and Social Position.—Class distinction and social position have always played a part in sexual life. This is especially the case where certain class customs and prejudices prescribe a special code for marriage. The consanguinity of the nobility and of royal families, who can only marry among themselves, has resulted in obvious degeneration. Originally there was the desire to preserve the purity of noble blood, and rules formulated with this object at first had some success; but in the long run the exclusiveness of such selection produces degeneration of the group which puts it into practice.

On the other hand, the severe rules which govern marriages among the nobility have resulted in driving the latter to extra-nuptial sexual intercourse. In their sexual excesses, the nobility, and even crowned heads, seldom amuse themselves with honest and virtuous girls of the working classes, but more generally with actresses of loose morals, dancing girls, and hysterical sirens and adventuresses of all kinds, so long as they are pretty. Since the time of the feudal system, the nobility, having lost its real reason for existence, only lives on its traditions. It remains in general in a state of idle depravity, faithful to its old traditions, except when it has succeeded in adapting itself to the work of modern life. It has, in fact, preserved the vices of its ancestors rather than their virtues.

The more than doubtful offspring of extra-nuptial intercourse among the nobility have often been adopted or raised to the nobility. Moreover, kings and princes have often ennobled unworthy persons who had succeeded in pandering to their follies or exciting their sexual passions. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if in the offspring of such unions, the blood of the highest nobility is tainted with that of the worst kinds of heredity.

Another sign or effect of the degeneration of the nobility is found in the marriages they so often contract with wealthy heiresses, often of mediocre quality, in order to repair their escutcheon. In the Middle Ages, the nobility regarded it as degrading to work for their living, and this prejudice accelerated their degeneration; for nowadays the heroic and chivalrous deeds of the Middle Ages have little opportunity for their performance.

Other social classes present certain sexual peculiarities; for example the disastrous consequences of celibacy among the Catholic priests. This excludes an important and intelligent portion of the species from reproduction, and also favors clandestine debauchery.

The army and navy also exert a detrimental action on sexual life. First of all they foster one of the lowest forms of prostitution; soldiers' women are proverbial, and one of them alone may infect a whole regiment. In the second place, the absence of normal sexual intercourse favors all kinds of perversion, such as pederasty, masturbation, etc. The abominable sexual life of soldiers and sailors corrupts them to such an extent that when they marry later on they come to their wives with filthy habits, to say nothing of syphilis and gonorrhea. The result is the procreation of offspring who are more or less tainted in body and mind by the effects of venereal disease combined with alcohol. We have already mentioned the rules which forbid German officers to marry a woman unless she possesses a certain fortune.

In the Norwegian mercantile marine the customs contrast happily with those we have just mentioned, and permit officers to live on board with their wives. In all respects the Norwegian serves as a model in the sexual question; does he not favor conjugal life by only charging half-price on the boats for women who travel with their husbands!

Other classes have a less obvious influence on sexual life. On the whole, however, all sexual isolation of castes has an unfavorable influence. Wherever the prejudices of a caste compel its members to intermarry, certain special degenerations are produced. Good quality in man is not derived from class or position, but from true innate or hereditary nobility of character, and this alone should be the object of positive selection, without any distinction of classes.

Individual Life.—There is no doubt that the mode of life of the individual exerts an influence on his sexual life. High living combined with little bodily exercise generally increases the sexual appetite, while insufficient food combined with severe muscular work diminishes it.

Intellectual work acts in a variable manner. A distinguished psychologist assured me that intense intellectual work excited his sexual appetite; others have said the opposite. As a rule, a sedentary life increases the sexual appetite; a life full of occupation and muscular activity diminishes it. But the question is complicated by other influences.

Alcohol diminishes sexual power, while exalting desire or even perverting it. The artificial excitants of the sexual appetite, cultivated by modern civilization by interested speculation, act in rather a different way. Erotic pictures, obscene novels and dramas, etc., constitute an unhealthy medium in our centers of civilization, which overexcites and corrupts the sexual appetite. The more delicate and poisonous the perfume of this atmosphere and the more æsthetic the refinement by which it titillates the senses, the greater is its destructive action.

The question of the reunion or separation of the sexes plays an important part. Life in common among girls and boys from infancy usually diminishes sexual excitation, in the same way as among brothers and sisters. We find something analogous in different branches of human activity where the two sexes live together; for instance, at college, in the fields, and in general where work and play is common to both sexes.

There are, however, certain exceptions to this rule, which must not be taken too generally. Under certain circumstances, life in common of the two sexes leads to unfavorable and even perverted sexual excitation. This is especially the case when alcohol adds its influence; also among nervous or ill-balanced individuals. In my opinion it is absolutely unreasonable for the superintendent of a lunatic asylum to organize balls at which the insane of both sexes are provided with beer or wine. I have only seen bad results from this, while I have obtained excellent effects from a temporary reunion of the insane of both sexes, by avoiding all alcoholic drinks as well as everything which could excite the sexual appetite, such as dancing, or the bringing together of erotic or perverted individuals. A young female onanist who suffered from sexual excitement complicated with a nervous condition, complained to me of being obliged to work as a telegraphist among young men, as this continually excited her eroticism without the possibility of satisfying it.

This situation, which is a common one in both sexes, gives us a valuable indication. No doubt life in common for the two sexes is normal and natural, but only on the condition that it leads eventually to normal sexual intercourse as the result of love. It is neither healthy nor normal to excite an appetite continually without satisfying it. Any one who wishes to live a continent life, for religious or other reasons, ought not to expose himself to continual excitement by too great intimacy with the opposite sex; he should, on the contrary, avoid everything which tends to excite his sexual appetite and seek everything which tends to pacify it. I am not referring here to individuals of a naturally cold and indifferent nature, who run little or no risk under such circumstances.

Certain occupations, such as those of employees in stores, telegraph offices, etc., in which the two sexes are closely associated in their work, constitute from this point of view a double-edged sword. Other unhealthy and monotonous occupations, combined with bad conditions of food and lodging, and with all kinds of seduction—factory hands for example—have a positively deleterious effect on sexual life, which becomes absolutely depraved when the two sexes work together. The situation is hardly any better when they are only separated during working hours.

Internats.—All internats, i.e., all establishments where individuals of the same sex live in the same dwelling for a long time, exert a peculiar influence on sexual life—schools and convents, for example.

The great inconvenience of all these establishments lies in the danger of contamination from habits of onanism or pederasty. Inverts are strongly attracted towards internats, where they find their heart's desire where they can easily indulge their perverted passions; the dormitory of such an institution having the same effect on them as that of a girl's school would have on a young man. (Vide Chapter VIII.)

This is a matter which has not received sufficient attention in organizing boarding-schools for boys and girls, because it was not known that homosexual instincts are hereditary and innate. Such cases were regarded only as acquired bad habits.

Lunatic asylums are especially attractive to sexual inverts, who apply for the positions of attendants or nurse so as to be able to indulge their passions on the insane patients, who are incapable of betraying them.

Without being homosexual, nor even seduced by inverts, many normal but erotic individuals try to satisfy their sexual appetite on their companions—boys by pederasty, girls by lesbian love, and both sexes by mutual onanism.

The chief danger is that of some sexually perverted individual gaining entry to a boarding-school and contaminating numbers of normal individuals, without anything being discovered; because it is much more difficult to supervise a school than a family. This could be remedied better by confidence between masters and pupils than by supervision.

Varia.—I should never finish if I attempted to describe all the influences of environment. The examples mentioned will suffice to show that, in a natural appetite such as the sexual, the two extremes of asceticism and excess lead to evil and unnatural aberrations, and that the important point is to find or create a healthy environment for a healthy sexual life.

We hear a good deal about good or bad luck or chance in the matter of love. I do not deny that fortuitous circumstances often determine the happiness of an individual in his love affairs. But it is all the more deplorable that what is called the good manners of society make it so difficult to correct Cupid's blunders. There is room for improvement in this direction, and many spoilt lives and much unhappiness might be avoided. The unfavorable influence of environment might often be corrected by separation or change, if this could be done in time.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XIIToC

RELIGION AND SEXUAL LIFE

Transformation of Profane Customs into Religious Dogmas.—Ethnography has taught us that in the course of time human tribes often unconsciously transform profane customs into integral parts of their religion, either by attributing them to a divine origin, or by elevating them to the rank of commandments of the gods, or by connecting them with other dogmas, combining them with worship, etc.

Sexual connection plays an important part in this matter. A great number of religious rites and customs are nothing else than the customs of sexual life (taken in its widest sense) which have been symbolized; inversely, a number of dogmas have for their only motive the application of a religious basis to sexual customs, which gives them more authority.

The religious rites react powerfully on the sexual life and on the way in which the members of the tribe or people understand it. We will give a few striking examples.

We have seen in Chapter VI that polygamy depends first on the idea of ownership, and secondly on marriage by purchase, to which it owes its historic origin. But the fact that Islamism and Mormonism, for example, have made polygamy an integral part of their religious dogmas, has given to the whole organization of the Mahometans and Mormons, as well as to their point of view of existence, a particular direction which cannot be ignored. In reality, we are just as polygamous as they are, but our theoretical and religious sexual morality is monogamous while theirs is polygamous, each based on contradictory "divine commandments."

Among certain Buddhists, the wife is compelled to follow her husband to the grave, which naturally influences sexual life profoundly.

Among many savage races there exists matriarchism, which gives the woman a high social position. This has even been made a religious dogma, while it simply originates from the natural and just idea that the mother is much more intimately connected with the children than the father.

The duty imposed on men to marry the widow of their brother originated from a profane command intended to regulate unions; eventually this was made a religious dogma. In the same way circumcision among the Jews had its origin in a hygienic custom having no relation to religious faith. This did not prevent it becoming later on as important a custom as baptism in Christianity. For the Jewish people it has the advantage of protecting them to a great extent from venereal infection, and against one of the chief causes of masturbation.

Catholicism.—We have already spoken of the celibacy of the Catholic priests and of its lay origin. The Catholic religion also contains a series of detailed precepts concerning sexual connection in general and marriage in particular; precepts which were only gradually transformed into religious dogmas. As they determine to a great extent opinions and manners in the sexual domain, they exert a considerable social influence.

The absolute interdiction of divorce among the Catholics (man has not the right to separate those whom God has joined together) seals forever the most unfortunate unions and leads to misfortunes of all kinds, separation of the married couple, liaisons apart from marriage, etc. According to Liguori, the Catholic Church prescribes a number of details concerning sexual relations in marriage. The woman who, during coitus places herself upon the man instead of under him, commits a sin. The position and manner of performing coitus are prescribed in the most minute details, and the holy fathers make the woman play a part unworthy of her position as wife, while according the man the widest liberty.

In truly Catholic marriage it is prescribed to procreate as many children as possible, and all preventive measures in coitus are severely condemned. Hence, if the woman is very fruitful, the husband has only the choice between complete abstention from coitus (when both conjoints are in agreement) and pregnancies following without interruption. The woman never has the right to refuse coitus to her husband, nor the latter to refuse it to his wife, so long as he is capable of accomplishing it.

It is easy to understand what powerful effects such precepts have had and still have on the conjugal life of the Catholics, particularly on the quantity and quality of their descendants.

Aural Confession.—Confession requires special mention. In his book, "Fifty Years in the Roman Church" (Jeheber, Geneva), on page 151, Father Chiniqui, the celebrated Canadian reformer, who later on became a Protestant, and for many years played an important part in the Canadian Catholic clergy, mentions the points on which the confessor interrogates the penitents of both sexes. One cannot reproach him with being incompetent.

No doubt the Church of to-day would reply that the confessor is not obliged to put all these questions and that the details are left to his tact. We will agree that there is a difference between the Canada of the last century, a new and primitive country, and the Europe of the present day. But I maintain: First, that the confessor does not content himself with listening to what the penitents of both sexes tell him, but that it is his duty to interrogate them; secondly, that a celibate Catholic person, extremely serious and virtuous, to whom I put the question unawares, informed me that not only are sexual matters dealt with at the confessional, but that they play the principal role. And, as it is a question of warning the penitents against so-called sins, mortal or not, or of absolving them, I fail to see how the priest can avoid speaking of them, when the detailed precepts of which we have spoken exist.

I reproduce here the original Latin text. It deals with questions which have been treated in Chapter VIII, so that I shall dispense with giving a translation.

The confessor puts the following questions to his penitents:

1. Peccant uxores, quae susceptum viri semen ejiciunt, vel ejicere conantur (Dens, vol. VII, p. 147).

2. Peccant conjuges mortaliter, si, copula incepta, prohibeant seminationem.

3. Si vir jam seminaverit, dubium fit an femina lethaliter peccat, si se retrahat a seminando; aut peccat lethaliter vir non expectando seminationem uxoris (p. 153).

4. Peccant conjuges inter se circa actum conjugalem. Debet servari modus, sive situs; uno ut non servetur debitum vas, sed copula habeatur in vase praepostero, aliquoque non naturali. Si fiat accedendo a postero, a latere, stando, sedendo, vel si vir sit succumbus (p. 166).

5. Impotentia. Est incapacitas perficiendi copulam carnalem perfectam cum seminatione viri in vase se debito, seu, de se, aptam generationi. Vel, ut si mulier sit nimis arcta respectu unius non respectu alterius (p. 273).

6. Notatur quod pollutio, in mulieribus possit perfici, ita ut semen earum non effluat extra membrum genitale. Indicium istius allegat Billuart, si scilicet mulier sensiat seminis resolutionem cum magno voluptatis sensu, qua completa, passio satiatur (vol. IV, p. 168).

7. Uxor se accusans, in confessione, quod negaverit debitum, interrogatur an ex pleno rigore juris sui id petiverit (vol. VII, p. 168).

8. Confessarius poenitentem, qui confitetur se peccasse cum sacerdote, vel solicitatem ab eo ad turpia, potest interrogare utrum ille sacerdos sit ejus confessarius, an in confessione sollicitaverit (vol. VI, p. 297).

In volumes V and VII of Dens may be found many such precepts, impossible to reproduce, on which the pious casuist desires his penitents to be examined.

Let us now pass on to the celebrated Liguori. Among numerous other obscene questions of a refined erotic nature, every confessor is bound to put the two following to his penitents:

1. Quaerat an sit semper mortale, si vir immitat pudenda in os uxoris...?

Verius affirmo, quia in hoc actu, ob calorem oris, adest proximum periculum pollutionis, et videtur nova species luxuriae contra naturam, dicta irruminatio.

2. Eodem modo, Sanchez damnat virum de mortali qui, in actu copulae, immite ret digitum in vas praeposterum uxoris; quia, ut ait, in hoc actu, adest affectus ad-Sodomiam (Liguori, t. VI, p. 935).

Let us now leave the celebrated Liguori and pass on to Burchard, the bishop of Worms. He has written a book on the questions which the priest should put at the confessional. Although this book no longer exists it has been for ages the guide of the Roman Catholic priests at the confessional. Dens, Liguori, Debreyne, etc., have taken from it their most savory passages, to recommend them as a study for our present confessors. We will give a few examples:

(a) To young men:

1. Fecisti solus tecum fornicationem ut quidam facere solent; ita dico ut ipse tuum membrum virile in manum tuam acciperes, et sic duceres praeputium tuum, et manu propria commoveres, ut sic per illam delectationem semen projiceres?

2. Fornicationem fecisti cum masculo intra coxas; ita dico ut tuum virile membrum intra coxas alterius mitteres, et sic agitando semen funderes?

3. Fecisti fornicationem, ut quidam facere solent, ut tuum virile membrum in lignum perforatum aut in aliquod hujus modi mitteres et sic per illam commotionem et delectationem semen projiceres?

4. Fecisti fornicationem contra naturam, id est, cum masculis vel animalibus coire, id est, cum equo, cum vacca vel asina, vel aliquo animali? (vol. I, p. 136).

(b) To young girls or women (same collection, p. 115):

1. Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres solent, quoddam molimen, aut machinamentum in modum virilis membri ad mensuram tuae voluptatis, et illud loco verendorum tuorum aut alterius cum aliquibus ligaturis ut fornicationem faceres cum aliis mulieribus, vel alio eodem instrumento, sive alio tecum?

2. Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, ut jam supra dicto molimine vel alio aliquo machinamento, tu ipsa in te solam faceres fornicationem?

3. Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, quando libidinem se vexantem extinguere volunt, quae se conjugunt quasi coire debeant et possint, et conjungunt invicem puerperio sua, et si fricando pruritum illarum extinguere desiderant?

4. Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, ut cum filio tuo parvulo fornicationem faceres, ita dico ut filium tuum supra turpidinem tuam poneres ut sic imitaberis fornicationem?

5. Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, ut succumberes aliquo jumento et illud jumentum ad coitum qualicumque posses ingenio ut sic coiret tecum?

The celebrated Debreyne has written a whole book on the same subject for the instruction of young confessors, and in it he has enumerated all kinds of debauchery and sexual perversion which he could imagine, "Maechiology," or Treatise on all the Sins against the Sixth (seventh in the Decalogue) and the Ninth (tenth) Commandments, as well as on all questions of married life connected with them.

This book is very celebrated and is widely studied in the Roman Church. We only quote from it the two following questions:

To men:

Ad cognoscendum an usque ad pollutionem se tetigerint, quando tempore et quo fine se tetigerint; an tunc quoddam motus in corpore experti fuerint, et per quantum temporis spatium; an cessantibus tactibus nihil insolitum et turpe acciderit; ad non longe majorem in corpore voluptatem perciperint in fine inactum quam in eorum principio; an tum in fine quando magnam delectationem carnalem senserunt, omnes motus corporis cessaverint; an non malefacti fuerint? etc., etc.

To girls:

Quae sese tetigisse fatentur, an non aliquem pruritum extinguere tentaverit, et utrum pruritus ille cessaverit cum magnam senserint voluptatem; an tunc ipsimet tactus cessaverint?

Among a thousand other analogous precepts the reverend Kenrick, bishop of Boston, in the United States, gives the following to his confessors:

Uxor quae, in usu matrimonii, se vertit, ut non recipiat semen, vel statim post illud acceptum surgit, ut expellatur, lethaliter peccat; sed opus non est ut diu resuspina jaceat, quum matrix, brevi semen attrahat, et mox, arctissime claudatur.

Puellae patienti licet se vertere et conari ut non recipiat semen, quod injuria et emittitur; sed, acceptum non licet expellere, quia jam possessionem pacificam habet et haud absque injuria naturae ejiceretur.

Conjuges senes plerumque coeunt absque culpa, licet contingat semen extra vas effundi; id enim per accidens fit ex infirmitati naturae.

Quod si vires adeo sint fractae ut nulla sit seminandi intra vas spes, jam nequeunt jure conjugi uti (vol. III, p. 317).

Such is the teaching of Chiniqui, the man whose courage and powerful individuality succeeded in introducing abstinence from alcohol in Canada. His long life was that of a pioneer and an inflexible champion of social and moral reform in that country, based on Christianity. He died at the age of ninety.

I have quoted the erotic precepts of the confessional from him, as I was anxious to quote from an absolutely reliable source. It was not with a light heart that Chiniqui abandoned the Catholic Church, but only after violent and bitter struggles with conscience, struggles of which he relates the tragic episodes, and which lasted for many years.

He commences the chapter from which we have quoted with the following words: "Let legislators, fathers and husbands read this chapter and ask themselves the question whether the respect which they owe to their mothers, their wives and their daughters does not impose upon them the duty of forbidding auricular confession. How is it possible for a young girl to remain pure in mind after such conversations with an unmarried man? Is she not more prepared for the depths of vice than for conjugal life?" The author of these lines is a man who was obliged for many years to be a confessor himself, and who understood to what extent confession corrupted the sexual life of women and priests. It is true that persons, priests or women, of strong character, and especially those with a cold nature from the sexual point of view, may resist such sexual excitation. But has confession been specially instituted for this type of character? Every one who is not a hypocrite will own that it is exactly the contrary.

Religious Prudery.—The results of such a combination of sexual life with religious prescriptions are a mixture of ridiculous prudery and continual eroticism. In certain convents (those of the nuns of Galicia, for example) the nuns forbid their pupils to wash the sexual organs, because it is improper! In Austria the nuns often cover the crucifix in their bedroom with a handkerchief, "so that Christ cannot see their nakedness"! But the convents of nuns, in the Middle Ages, were often transformed into brothels; and it is not uncommon to see hypocrites or the subjects of erotic hysteria (both men and women) perform sexual orgies of the worst kind under the cloak of religious ecstasy.

Hottentots. Eunuchs.—Among the Hottentots, the lips of the vulva (labia minora) in women are artificially elongated, and among the Orientals eunuchs are made. In themselves these two operations have certainly nothing to do with religion and only originated in profane customs. In the course of time they were made religious precepts, which has deeply rooted them in the customs of the people.

Religious Eroticism.—The examples which we have cited show to what extent man is disposed to clothe his eroticism with the cloak of religion. He then attributes a divine origin to his desires and lays the precepts which he attaches to them on the commandments of his God or gods, so as to sanctify them. Hence, the unnatural influence of a mysticism, which is nothing else than the crystallized product of the fantastic imagination of men, raised to a dogma, imposes itself indirectly on natural sexual life, by entering at the back door under the cloak of religion. It is obvious that grave abuses or even vices often acquire the seal and power of religious precepts; while in the same domain a number of other customs or precepts are based on good hygienic or moral principles, for example, circumcision and conjugal fidelity.

It is perhaps in the domain of pathology that the relations of religion to sexual life are the most striking (see Chapter VIII). We must not forget that the facts of reproduction seem to ignorant people and especially to barbarians, to be of a very mysterious nature. These people have no idea of germinal cells or their conjugation. They see in conception, embryogeny, pregnancy and birth, the miraculous effects of a divine and occult higher power—of the divinity, often even of the devil.

The violent excitement which is associated with the sexual appetite and with love urges man to ecstasy; hence it is not to be wondered at that eroticism is so often complicated by ecstatic religious sentiments.

In his book on Psychopathia sexualis, Krafft-Ebing remarks how easily religion, poetry and eroticism are combined and mingled in the obscure feelings and presentiments of maturing youth. In the life of saints there is always the question of sexual temptations, in which the most elevated and ideal sentiments are mixed with the most repugnant erotic images. On the same basis are developed the sexual orgies of different religious fêtes in the ancient world, as well as in certain modern sects.

Mysticism, religious ecstasy and sexual voluptuousness are often combined in a real trinity, and one often sees unsatisfied sensuality seek compensation in religious exaltation. Krafft-Ebing cites the following cases from Friedreich's "Legal Psychology" (p. 389):