Part 42 (1/2)
Again, the doctor may be consulted with regard to certain hereditary taints, or possibly only a bad ancestral history, and whether marriage is advisable under the circ.u.mstances. In some cases there may be some doubt and it is necessary to know the opinion of the other party concerned, and whether this party is also affected in a similar way, etc. The first duty of the doctor is to demand absolute frankness and to say, ”under this or that condition and in such and such circ.u.mstances, you may perhaps marry, but under no pretext have you the right to conceal the truth from your betrothed. It is to your own interest to be frank, for no marriage founded on deceit can be happy.
Give me permission to discuss the matter with your _fiancee_ (or _fiance_). We shall then see what is best to be done.”
In my experience, the person who consults a doctor usually accepts this proposal, and we can thus avoid many misfortunes and do much good.
It is impossible to fix a general rule. According to the degree of hereditary taint or the nature of the infirmity, we allow marriage with or without children, or do not allow it. In such cases it is rarely necessary to have recourse to the threat of denunciation, but this may be required in the case of egoistic or vicious individuals.
On several occasions a betrothed couple have come to me for advice as to their proposed marriage, and have freely disclosed their most intimate relations and antecedents. This is as it always should be, if men were more loyal in s.e.xual matters and understood better their true interests. In this way the doctor's task is greatly facilitated. When the public is more enlightened on the whole question it will become more and more easy to arrive at a just conclusion, even without the doctor's help.
=Artificial Abortion.=--We have already spoken of another question which is often put to doctors--that of artificial abortion. (Vide Chapter XIII.) In every case of this kind all the circ.u.mstances must be carefully weighed. I repeat here, that in the future more attention should be paid to social interests, instead of always requiring the preservation of an embryo for the sole reason that the state of the mother does not contra-indicate pregnancy or accouchement. The question is whether a miserable abortion or an idiot should be allowed to come into the world. If we allow children who are born monsters, idiots or invalids to live, we should at least do what we can to prevent them being born. It will no doubt be objected that it is much easier to recognize the quality of a child after birth than before, and this objection is quite legitimate. But so long as the laws protect the lives of the most miserable monsters we must get out of the difficulty as best we can.
=Treatment of s.e.xual Disorders.=--We cannot enter here into all the details of a purely medical question, and shall only touch on certain special points. Patients with venereal disease are often treated in a very defective manner, because many of them are ashamed to submit to rational treatment. The treatment of venereal diseases should be carried out with more regard for the feelings of the patients; there should be special hospitals for each s.e.x, with separate divisions, so that patients can be treated without betraying their ident.i.ty. The fear of being recognized prevents many better-cla.s.s women from applying for treatment. The idea of being placed in the venereal divisions of a hospital along with common prost.i.tutes is unbearable to them. For this reason I maintain that anonymous treatment should be inst.i.tuted at hospitals in all the chief localities. This humanitarian work would benefit not only the patients, but society in general, by diminis.h.i.+ng the number of venereal infections. Treatment by private pract.i.tioners is too costly for poor people and does not easily remain anonymous. Therefore, the creation of hospitals for venereal disease is very necessary in the public interest, and would benefit public health much more than the regulation of prost.i.tution.
The treatment of s.e.xual perversions is also very important. These disorders are either hereditary, or acquired by auto-suggestion or evil example. By provoking suggestion and good habits in the opposite direction, hypnotic suggestion is alone capable of acting directly against the evil. Other remedies, such as distraction of the mind by work or fatigue, by marriage, electricity, etc., have only an indirect suggestive action. When a perversion has been acquired by auto-suggestion or by habit, especially in the case of onanism, hypnotic suggestion should always be employed. In compensatory masturbation, where normal s.e.xual appet.i.te exists, and where it is only the opportunity of satisfying it that is wanting, marriage or normal s.e.xual intercourse are sufficient to cure the bad habit.
We must not, however, too easily admit the existence of acquired perversions. Apart from compensatory masturbation, which is not a perversion, but only an outlet to a pent-up natural want, true acquired perversions are rather rare, and as we have seen generally auto-suggestive. Pederasts, sodomists, and others, whose perverse habits are truly acquired, have usually taken to them for want of something better, and prefer normal coitus if they have the opportunity and the means of procuring it. It is true, however, that some debauchees contract these perverse habits from desire for change, or from fear of infection or conception, but these individuals seldom consult the doctor.
Thus the individuals who consult a doctor are nearly always more or less pathological, and belong to the domain of hereditary or auto-suggestive perversions. For the first, at least, we avoid recommending marriage. Von Schrenck-Notzing has sometimes succeeded in transforming hereditary inversion into normal s.e.xual appet.i.te for women, by hypnotic suggestion. I have also succeeded myself, two or three times. After a cure of long duration, confirmed by frequent visits to prost.i.tutes, Von Schrenck-Notzing has ventured to recommend marriage; but I have never done this, as I do not consider a cure sufficient to guarantee definite success, in the case of disorders so deeply rooted in the const.i.tution. In such cases I have endeavored, as far as possible, to weaken the s.e.xual appet.i.te and induce the patient to be contented with nocturnal emissions. I have always debarred inverts from marriage, impressing them with the fact that to marry would be a crime, and that they had a hundred times better m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e; or, if they wish to attempt intercourse with women, to be contented with a mistress, avoiding the procreation of children.
Unfortunately, our present laws and customs prevent us from recommending or even allowing inverts to ”marry” their fellows, as they so strongly desire to do. This would be very innocent from the social point of view, and the poor wretches would be content, and would cease to be a menace to normal individuals.
I am, therefore, of the same opinion as those who demand the suppression of all laws which punish or prosecute s.e.xual inversion and pederasty committed between adults and in common agreement. So long as pederasts do not harm normal individuals, and so long as they do not seduce minors, they should be left alone, the same as all other s.e.xually perverted individuals who are not dangerous. But when a patient of this kind wishes to be treated, through shame or nervous excitement, the doctor should hypnotize him and suggest distraction of mind by useful occupations. Psychic treatment is always the most efficacious. It is only in cases where it is certain that the perversion is purely acquired and easily curable that marriage can be allowed, or the procreation of children. I am not referring here to sterile marriages between perverts or psychopaths, which we have mentioned above, and which can always be allowed when the two parties are fully enlightened on the subject.
Frequent emissions, masturbation, s.e.xual hyperaesthesia and impotence may often be improved or even cured by suggestion. In such cases, if the s.e.xual appet.i.te is otherwise normal, marriage need not always be prohibited. Each case must be judged on its merits.
In s.e.xual anaesthesia marriage is an error based on a grave misconception. Even in partial anaesthesia it may have deplorable effects. We are now only speaking of anaesthesia in man. Most young virgins are anaesthetic in the sense that they are not acquainted with the venereal o.r.g.a.s.m and cannot tell how far their hitherto dormant s.e.xual appet.i.te will develop. The s.e.xual instruction which we have recommended for young girls would have the advantage of making those who are absolutely s.e.xually frigid disgusted with marriage and coitus, as soon as they know all about it.
The consequences of s.e.xual anaesthesia are much more innocent in woman than in man, because this anaesthesia neither prevents coitus nor fecundation. A woman who is s.e.xually anaesthetic may marry a man who is affected with the same condition, when both parties are aware of the fact and desire to contract a union which is hardly s.e.xual, but rather a union of minds with a common ideal. This is the true platonic love which is admitted in theory. It is not very common and must not be confounded with h.o.m.os.e.xual inclinations. It has its object of existence, for those affected with anaesthesia may feel the want of affection and of home, as well as sentimental communion. If they desire children they can adopt them.
Unfortunately for themselves, the subjects of s.e.xual anaesthesia have as little idea of s.e.xual sensations as a blind man has of colours; this causes them to commit great blunders, because they do not comprehend the nature of the s.e.xual appet.i.te in others, and often marry an erotic individual without knowing what they are doing.
The special treatment of diseases of the male and female s.e.xual organs is beyond the scope of this book. I may, however, remark that specialists are often wrong in treating the genital organs locally for pathological symptoms which depend on cerebral disorder, which can only yield to psychic treatment and suggestion. This is the case with many disorders of menstruation in women, psychic impotence and frequent seminal emissions in men, masturbation, etc., (except cases due to phimosis, or local irritation caused by worms, etc.) I hasten to add that this remark in no way excuses errors in the opposite direction, viz, neglect of local treatment, when this is indicated after careful examination.
CHAPTER XV
s.e.xUAL MORALITY
=Law and Morality.=--The limits of morality and law are difficult to fix. With the old conception of law and the expiation of crime it was otherwise. Yet it is precisely the old law, based on dogma and religious metaphysics, which has most usurped the domain of morality, by considering as crimes all kinds of acts which, without hurting men in the least degree, were opposed to the ruling ideas and prejudices concerning religion and morality.
=Human and Religious Morality.=--What then const.i.tutes ethics or true human morality? A dogmatic system, of ethics has been built on a collection of commandments supposed to be inspired by G.o.d. Religions have established different duties toward G.o.d, and these duties or commandments are in part very inhuman. This has often resulted in direct contradictions between ethics attributed to divine revelation, and pure human ethics. Moreover, the divine commandments vary in different religions.
The G.o.d of certain Malays commands them to eat the heart of their enemies; Jehovah was vindictive and jealous, ordering Abraham to sacrifice his own son to prove his faith, causing whole tribes to be annihilated, even drowning the whole of humanity by the flood, while the G.o.d of the Christians is milder and more conciliating; Allah rules as a fatalist and orders the ma.s.sacre of the Christians and abstinence from alcohol, while Jesus Christ tells men to love their enemies and allows wine; the G.o.d of the Hindus orders the widow to follow her husband to the grave; a number of other G.o.ds exact human sacrifice; Buddha taught oblivion in the future, others a more or less eternal paradise, h.e.l.l and purgatory, according to the conduct of men.
It will be agreed that it is difficult to obtain anything logical or coherent from the total of different religious moralities. As regards the s.e.xual question, so-called divine commandments, such as those of monogamy and polygamy, directly contradict each other.
For this reason, we will leave the so-called revealed morality to the priests of diverse religions who pretend to have received them directly from G.o.d, and will confine ourselves to the study of purely human morality. This should never be based on any dogmatic formula, like the above on their religious dogmas; it must be evolved from the natural conditions of human life.
=Morality and Hygiene.=--Morality is intimately connected with hygiene, and wherever there appears to be a contradiction between hygiene and ethics this is due to the fact that individual hygiene has only been considered, and not public or social hygiene--that is the hygiene of the race. It is the duty of the medical profession to place social above individual hygiene, to subordinate the hygienic welfare of the individual to that of society. A contradiction may exist between individual morality and hygiene, never between social morality and hygiene.
=Definition of Morality.=--How can we define morality or ethics?