Marriage and Morals/Chapter VIII

In the attempt to build up a new sexual morality, the first question we have to ask ourselves is not, How should the relations of the sexes be regulated? but, Is it good that men, women and children should be kept in artificial ignorance of facts relating to sexual affairs? My reason for putting this question first is that, as I shall try to persuade the reader in this chapter, ignorance on such matters is extraordinarily harmful to the individual, and therefore no system whose perpetuation demands such ignorance can be desirable. Sexual morality, I should say, must be such as to commend itself to well-informed persons and not to depend upon ignorance for its appeal. This is part of a wider doctrine which, though it has never been held by governments or policemen, appears indubitable in the light of reason. That doctrine is that right conduct can never, except by some rare accident, be promoted by ignorance or hindered by knowledge. It is, of ​course, true that if A desires B to act in a certain manner which is in A’s interest but not in B’s, it may be useful to A to keep B in ignorance of facts which would show B where his true interest lies. This fact is well understood on the Stock Exchange, but is not generally held to belong to the higher departments of ethics. It covers a large part of governmental activity in concealing facts; for example, the desire which every Government feels to prevent all mention of a defeat in war, for the knowledge of a defeat may lead to the downfall of the Government, which, though usually in the national interest, is, of course, not in the interest of the Government. Reticence about sexual facts, though it belongs in the main to a different department, has had its origin, at least in part, in a similar motive. It was at first only females who were to be kept ignorant, and their ignorance was desired as a help towards masculine domination. Gradually, however, women acquiesced in the view that ignorance is essential to virtue, and partly through their influence it came to be thought that children and young people, whether male or female, should be as ignorant as possible on sexual subjects. At this stage the motive ​ceased to be one of domination and passed into the region of irrational taboo. The question whether ignorance is desirable is never examined, and it is even illegal to bring evidence to show that ignorance does harm. I may take, as my text on this subject, the following extract from the Manchester Guardian of April 25, 1929:

“American Liberals are shocked by the outcome of the court trial of Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, who was yesterday found guilty by a Federal jury in Brooklyn of sending obscene literature through the mails. Mrs. Dennett is the author of a highly praised and widely used pamphlet giving in dignified language the elementary facts of sex for children. She is faced with a possible sentence of five years’ imprisonment or a fine of $5,000 or both.

Mrs. Dennett, a well-known social worker, is the mother of two grown-up sons, and originally wrote the pamphlet eleven years ago for their instruction. It was printed in a medical magazine and reprinted in pamphlet form at the request of the editor. It has the endorsement of scores of leading physicians, clergymen, and sociologists, and many thousands of copies have been distributed by the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations. It has even been used in the municipal school system of Bronxville, a fashionable suburb of New York.

The Federal judge, Warren B. Burrows, from New England, who presided, ruled out all the foregoing facts, and refused to let any of the distinguished educators and physicians who were waiting to testify take the stand ​or permit the jury to hear endorsements of Mrs, Dennett’s work by prominent authors. The trial virtually consisted of the reading of the pamphlet aloud to a jury of elderly Brooklyn married men, all of whom had been chosen because they had never read any of the works of H. L. Mencken or Havelock Ellis, a test applied by the prosecuting attorney.

It seems clear that the New York World is correct when it says that if Mrs. Dennett’s work is not permitted to circulate then there is no hope of putting any plain, honest statement of the facts of sex before young people in America. The case will be the subject of an appeal to a higher court, whose decision will be awaited with the greatest interest.”

It happens that this case is American, but it might just as well have been English, since the law in England is practically the same as in America. It will be seen that the law does not allow a person who gives sex information to the young to bring the evidence of experts to show that sex knowledge is desirable for the young. It will be seen also that where a prosecution of this sort is undertaken, it is open to the prosecution to insist that the jury shall consist entirely of ignorant men who have not read anything that will enable them to judge the case rationally. The law declares bluntly that children and young people must not know the facts of sex, and that the question whether ​it is good or bad for them to know these facts is entirely irrelevant. Nevertheless, since we are not in a law-court, and since the present work is not addressed to children, we may be allowed to argue the question whether the traditional practice of keeping children officially in ignorance is desirable or undesirable.

The traditional course with children was to keep them in as great a degree of ignorance as parents and teachers could achieve. They never saw their parents naked, and after a very early age (provided housing accommodation was sufficient) they did not see their brothers or sisters of the opposite sex naked. They were told never to touch their sexual organs or speak about them; all questions concerning sex were met by the words “Hush, hush” in a shocked tone. They were informed that children were brought by the stork or dug up under a gooseberry bush. Sooner or later they learnt the facts, usually in a more or less garbled form, from other children, who related them secretly, and, as a result of parental teaching, regarded them as “dirty.” The children inferred that their father and mother behaved to each other in a way which was nasty and of which they themselves were ashamed, ​since they took so much trouble to conceal it. They learnt also that they had been systematically deceived by those to whom they had looked for guidance and instruction. Their attitude towards their parents, towards marriage, and towards the opposite sex was thus irrevocably poisoned. Very few men or women who have had a conventional upbringing have learnt to feel decently about sex and marriage. Their education has taught them that deceitfulness and lying are considered virtues by parents and teachers; that sexual relations, even within marriage, are more or less disgusting, and that in propagating the species men are yielding to their animal nature while women are submitting to a painful duty. This attitude has made marriage unsatisfying both to men and to women, and the lack of instinctive satisfaction has turned to cruelty masquerading as morality.

The view of the orthodox moralist^[1] on the question of sex knowledge may, I fancy, be fairly stated as follows:

The sexual impulse is a very powerful one, showing itself in different forms at different ​stages of development. In infancy it takes the form of a desire to touch and play with certain parts of the body; in later childhood it takes the form of curiosity and love of “dirty” talk, while in adolescence it begins to take more mature forms. There is no doubt that sexual misconduct is promoted by sexual thoughts, and that the best road to virtue is to keep the young occupied in mind and body with matters wholly unconnected with sex. They must, therefore, be told nothing whatever about sex; they must as far as possible be prevented from talking about it with each other, and grown-ups must pretend that there is no such topic. It is possible by these means to keep a girl in ignorance until the night of her marriage, when it is to be expected that the facts will so shock her as to produce exactly that attitude towards sex which every sound moralist considers desirable in women. With boys the matter is more difficult, since we cannot hope to keep them completely ignorant beyond the age of 18 or 19 at latest. The proper course with them is to tell them that masturbation invariably leads to insanity, while intercourse with prostitutes invariably leads to venereal disease. Neither of these assertions is ​true, but they are white lies, since they are made in the interests of morality. A boy should also be taught that in no circumstances is conversation on sexual subjects permissible, not even in marriage. This increases the likelihood that when he marries he will give his wife a disgust of sex and thus preserve her from the risk of adultery. Sex outside marriage is sin; sex within marriage is not sin, since it is necessary to the propagation of the human species, but is a disagreeable duty imposed on man as a punishment for the Fall, and to be undertaken in the same spirit in which one submits to a surgical operation. Unfortunately, unless great pains are taken, the sexual act tends to be associated with pleasure, but by sufficient moral care this can be prevented, at any rate in the female. It is illegal in England to state in print that a wife can and should derive sexual pleasure from intercourse. (I have myself heard a pamphlet condemned as obscene in a court of law on this among other grounds.) It is on the above outlook in regard to sex that the attitude of the law, the church, and the old-fashioned educators of the young is based.

Before considering the effect of this attitude in the realm of sex, I should like to say a few ​words about its consequences in other directions. The first and gravest consequence, in my opinion, is the hampering of scientific curiosity in the young. Intelligent children wish to know about everything in the world; they ask questions about trains and motor-cars and airplanes, about what makes rain and about what makes babies. All these curiosities are to the child on exactly the same level; he is merely following what Pavlov calls the “What-is-it?” reflex, which is the source of all scientific knowledge. When the child in pursuit of the desire for knowledge learns that this impulse in certain directions is considered wicked, his whole impulse of scientific curiosity is checked. He does not at first understand what kinds of curiosity are permissible and what kinds are not: if it is wicked to ask how babies are made it may, for aught the child can tell, be equally wicked to ask how airplanes are made. In any case he is driven to the conclusion that scientific curiosity is a dangerous impulse, which must not be allowed to remain unchecked. Before seeking to know anything, one must anxiously enquire whether this is a virtuous or a vicious kind of knowledge. And since sexual curiosity is generally very strong until it has become at ​rophied, the child is led to the conclusion that knowledge which he desires is wicked, while the only virtuous knowledge is such as no human being could possibly desire—for example, the multiplication table. The pursuit of knowledge, which is one of the spontaneous impulses of all healthy children, is thus destroyed, and children are rendered artificially stupid. I do not think it can be denied that women who have had a conventional education are on the average stupider than men, and I believe this to be largely due to the fact that in youth they are more effectively choked off from the pursuit of sex knowledge.

In addition to this intellectual damage, there is in most cases a very grave moral damage. As Freud first showed, and as every one intimate with children soon discovers, the fables about the stork and the gooseberry bush are usually disbelieved. The child thus comes to the conclusion that parents are apt to lie to him. If they lie in one matter, they may he in another, so that their moral and intellectual authority is destroyed. Moreover, since parents lie where sex is concerned, the children conclude that they themselves also may lie on such topics. They talk with each other about them, ​and very likely they practise masturbation in secret. In this way they learn to acquire habits of deceit and concealment, while owing to their parents’ threats, their lives become clouded with fear. The threats of parents and nurses as to the bad consequences of masturbation have been shown by psycho-analysis to be a very frequent cause of nervous disorders, not only in childhood but in adult life also.

The effects of the conventional treatment of sex in dealing with the young are therefore to make people stupid, deceitful and timorous, and to drive a not inconsiderable percentage over the border line into insanity or something like it.

To a certain extent these facts are now recognized by all intelligent people who have to deal with the young; they have, however, not yet become known to the law and those who administer it, as is evident from the case quoted at the beginning of this chapter. Thus the situation is at present that every well-informed person who has to deal with children is compelled to choose whether he will break the law or whether he will cause the children under his charge irreparable moral and intellectual damage. It is difficult to change the ​law, since very many elderly men are so perverted that their pleasure in sex depends upon the belief that sex is wicked and nasty. I am afraid no reform can be hoped for until those who are now old or middle-aged have died.

So far we have been considering the bad effects of conventional methods outside the sphere of sex; it is time to consider the more definitely sexual aspects of the question. One of the aims of the moralist is undoubtedly to prevent obsession with sexual subjects; such obsession is at present extraordinarily frequent. A former headmaster of Eton recently asserted that the conversation of schoolboys is almost always either dull or obscene, yet the schoolboys of whom he had experience were those brought up on the most conventional lines. The fact that a mystery is made about sex enormously increases the natural curiosity of the young on the subject. If adults treat sex exactly as they treat any other topic, giving the child answers to all his questions and just as much information as he desires or can understand, the child never arrives at the notion of obscenity, for this notion depends upon the belief that certain topics should not be mentioned. Sexual curiosity, like every other kind, ​dies down when it is satisfied. Therefore far the best way to prevent young people from being obsessed with sex is to tell them just as much about it as they care to know.

In saying this I am not arguing a priori, but on a basis of experience. What I have observed among the children in my school has shown conclusively, to my mind, the correctness of the view that nastiness in children is the result of prudery in adults. My own two children (a boy aged 7, and a girl aged 5) have never been taught that there is anything peculiar either about sex or about excretion, and have so far been shielded to the utmost possible extent from all knowledge of the idea of decency, with its correlative indecency. They have shown a natural and healthy interest in the subject of where babies come from, but not so much as in engines and railways. Nor have they shown any tendency to dwell upon such topics either in the absence or in the presence of grown-up people. With regard to the other children in the school, we have found that if they came to us at the age of 2 or 3, or even 4, they developed exactly like our own children; those, however, who came to us at the age of 6 or 7 had already been taught to regard anything ​connected with the sexual organs as improper. They were surprised to find that in the school such matters were spoken of in the same tone of voice as was employed about anything else, and for some time they enjoyed a sense of release in conversations which they felt to be indecent; finding, however, that the grown-ups did nothing to check such conversations, they gradually wearied of them, and became nearly as clean-minded as those who had never been taught decency. They now get merely bored when children new to the school attempt to start conversations which they fondly believe to be improper. Thus by letting fresh air on to the subject, it has become disinfected, and the noxious germs which it breeds when kept in darkness have been dissipated. I do not believe that it is possible by any other method to get a group of children whose attitude towards subjects usually considered improper is so wholesome and decent.

There is one aspect of this question which has, I think, not been sufficiently realized by those who wish to cleanse sex from the filth with which it has been covered by Christian moralists. The subject of sex has been associated by nature with excretory processes, and ​so long as these processes are treated with disgust, it is psychologically natural that some portion of this disgust should attach to sex. It is therefore necessary in dealing with children to be not too fastidious as regards the excretory processes. Certain precautions are, of course, necessary for sanitary reasons, but as soon as children can understand, it should be explained that the reason for these precautions is merely sanitary and not that there is anything inherently disgusting about the natural functions concerned.

I am not discussing in this chapter what sexual conduct ought to be, but only what ought to be our attitude on the question of sex knowledge. In what has been said hitherto as to the imparting of sex knowledge to the young, I shall, I hope and believe, have had the sympathy of all enlightened modern educators. I come, however, now to a more debatable topic, in which I fear that I may have more difficulty in securing the sympathy of the reader. This is the topic of what is called obscene literature.

In England and America alike the law declares that literature that is deemed obscene may in certain circumstances be destroyed by ​the authorities, and the author and publisher may be punished. In England the law under which this can be done is Lord Campbell’s Act of 1857. This Act states that:

“If upon complaint there is any reason to believe that any obscene books, etc., are kept in any house or other place, for the purpose of sale or distribution, and upon proof that one or more such articles has been sold or distributed in connection with such a place, justices may, upon being satisfied that such articles are of such a character and description that the publication of them would be a misdemeanour and proper to be prosecuted as such, order by special warrant that such articles shall be seized, and after summoning the occupier of the house, the same or other justices may, if they are satisfied that the articles seized are of the character stated in the warrant, and have been kept for the purpose aforesaid, order them to be destroyed.”^[2]

The word “obscene” which occurs in this Act has no precise legal definition. In practice a publication is legally obscene if the magistrate considers it to be so, and he is not obliged to listen to any evidence by experts to show that in this particular case the publication of matter which might otherwise be considered obscene serves some useful purpose. This ​means to say that any person who writes a novel or a sociological treatise, or a suggestion for reform in the law as it relates to sexual matters, is liable to have his work destroyed if some ignorant elderly man happens to find it disagreeable reading. The consequences of this law are extraordinarily harmful. As is well known, the first volume of Havelock Ellis's “Studies in the Psychology of Sex” was condemned under this law, although fortunately America proved in this instance more liberal.^[3] I do not think anybody could suggest that Havelock Ellis's purpose was an immoral one, and it seems extraordinarily unlikely that such a bulky and learned and serious work would have been read by persons who desired merely the thrill of indecency. It is, of course, impossible to treat of such a subject without discussing matters which the ordinary magistrate would not mention before his wife or daughters, but to prohibit the publication of such a book is to say that serious students are not to be allowed to know the facts in this domain. From a conventional standpoint I imagine that one of the most ob​jectionable features in Havelock Ellis’s work is his collection of case histories, which show how extraordinarily unsuccessful existing methods are in producing either virtue or mental health. Such documents provide data for a rational judgment upon existing methods of sex education; the law declares that we are not to be allowed to have such data, and that our judgments in this domain are to continue to be based upon ignorance.

The condemnation of the “Well of Loneliness” (in England, but not in America) has brought into prominence another aspect of the censorship, namely, that any treatment of homosexuality in fiction is illegal. There exists a vast mass of knowledge on homosexuality obtained by students in continental countries, where the law is less obscurantist, but this knowledge is not allowed to be disseminated in England either in a learned form or in the form of imaginative fiction. Homosexuality between men, though not between women, is illegal in England, and it would be very difficult to present any argument for a change of the law in this respect which would not itself be illegal on the ground of obscenity. And yet every person who has taken the trouble to study the subject ​knows that this law is the effect of a barbarous and ignorant superstition, in favour of which no rational argument of any sort or kind can be advanced. Similar considerations apply to incest; not many years ago a new law was passed making certain forms of incest criminal, but it was and is illegal under Lord Campbell’s Act to advance arguments either for or against this law, unless such arguments are framed so abstractly and so carefully as to lose all force.

Another interesting consequence of Lord Campbell’s Act is that many subjects can be discussed in long technical words known only to highly educated people, which cannot be mentioned in any language understanded of the people. It is permissible with certain precautions to speak in print of coitus, but it is not permissible to employ the monosyllabic synonym for this word. This has recently been decided in the case of “Sleeveless Errand.” Sometimes this prohibition of simple language has grave consequences; for example, Mrs. Sanger’s pamphlet on birth control, which is addressed to working women, was declared obscene on the ground that working women could understand it. Dr. Marie Stopes’s books, on the other hand, are not illegal, because their ​language can only be understood by persons with a certain amount of education. The consequence is that, while it is permissible to teach birth control to the well-to-do, it is criminal to teach it to wage-earners and their wives. I commend this fact to the notice of the Eugenic Society, which is perpetually bewailing the fact that wage-earners breed faster than middle-class people, while carefully abstaining from any attempt to change the state of the law which is the cause of this fact.

Many people will agree that these consequences of the law against obscene publications are regrettable, but they will nevertheless hold that such a law is necessary. I do not myself believe that it is possible to frame a law against obscenity which will not have these undesirable consequences, and in view of this fact, I should myself be in favour of having no law whatever upon the subject. The argument in favour of this thesis is twofold: on the one hand, that no law can forbid the bad without forbidding the good also, and on the other hand, that publications which are undoubtedly and frankly pornographic would do very little harm if sex education were rational.

As regards the first of these theses, it is ​abundantly established by the history of the use which has been made of Lord Campbell’s Act in England. Lord Campbell’s Act, as anyone may discover by reading the debates on it, was directed solely to the suppression of pornography, and it was thought at the time that it had been so drafted as to be incapable of use against other types of literature. This belief, however, was based upon an insufficient appreciation of the cleverness of policemen and the stupidity of magistrates. The whole subject of the censorship has been admirably treated in a book by Morris Ernst and William Seagle.^[4] They deal with both British and American experience, and more briefly with what has been done elsewhere. Experience shows, especially in the case of the dramatic censorship in England, that frivolous plays calculated to excite lust easily pass the censor, who does not wish to be thought a prig, while serious plays which raise large issues, such as “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” take many years to get past the censor, while a play of transcendent poetical merit like “The Cenci,” although there is not a word in it that could excite lust even in St. Anthony, required one ​hundred years to overcome the disgust which it raised in the manly bosom of the Lord Chamberlain. In America, in spite of the nonexistence of the censor, the facts in regard to the theatre are substantially as in England. This was shown by the outcome of Horace Liveright’s courageous campaign in connection with “The Captive.”^[5] We may therefore, basing ourselves on a mass of historical evidence, lay it down that the censorship will be used against works of serious artistic or scientific merit, while persons whose purpose is purely salacious will always find ways of slipping through the meshes of the law.

There is, however, a further ground for objecting to censorship, and that is that even frank pornography would do less harm if it were open and unashamed than it does when it is rendered interesting by secrecy and stealth. In spite of the law, nearly every fairly well-to-do man has in adolescence seen indecent photographs, and has been proud of obtaining possession of them because they were difficult to procure. Conventional men are of opinion that such things are extraordinarily in​jurious to others, although hardly one of them will admit that they have been injurious to himself. Undoubtedly they stir a transient feeling of lust, but in any sexually vigorous male such feelings will be stirred in one way if not in another. The frequency with which a man experiences lust depends upon his own physical condition, whereas the occasions which rouse such feelings in him depend upon the social conventions to which he is accustomed. To an early Victorian man a woman’s ankles were sufficient stimulus, whereas a modern man remains unmoved by anything up to the thigh. This is merely a question of fashion in clothing. If nakedness were the fashion, it would cease to excite us, and women would be forced, as they are in certain savage tribes, to adopt clothing as a means of making themselves sexually attractive. Exactly similar considerations apply to literature and pictures: what was exciting in the Victorian Age would leave the men of a franker epoch quite unmoved. The more prudes restrict the permissible degree of sexual appeal, the less is required to make such an appeal effective. Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists ​inculcate in the young; the other tenth is physiological, and will occur in one way or another whatever the state of the law may be. On these grounds, although I fear that few will agree with me, I am firmly persuaded that there ought to be no law whatsoever on the subject of obscene publications.

The taboo against nakedness is an obstacle to a decent attitude on the subject of sex. Where young children are concerned, this is now recognized by many people. It is good for children to see each other and their parents naked whenever it so happens naturally. There will be a short period, probably at about three years old, when the child is interested in the differences between his father and his mother, and compares them with the differences between himself and his sister, but this period is soon over, and after this he takes no more interest in nudity than in clothes. So long as parents are unwilling to be seen naked by their children, the children will necessarily have a sense that there is a mystery, and having that sense they will become prurient and indecent. There is only one way to avoid indecency, and that is to avoid mystery.

There are also many important grounds of ​health in favour of nudity in suitable circumstances, such as out-of-doors in sunny weather. Sunshine on the bare skin has an exceedingly health-giving effect. Moreover any one who has watched children running about in the open-air without their clothes must have been struck by the fact that they hold themselves much better and move more freely and more gracefully than when they are dressed. The same thing is true of grown-up people. The proper place for nudity is out-of-doors in the sunshine and in the water. If our conventions allowed of this, it would soon cease to make any sexual appeal; we should all hold ourselves better, we should be healthier from the contact of air and sun with the skin, and our standards of beauty would more nearly coincide with standards of health, since they would concern themselves with the body and its carriage, not only with the face. In this respect the practice of the Greeks was to be commended.