the House of
Lords, in the last century, the question of the
exclusion of
Byron's statue from Westminster Abbey was under
discussion, Lord
Brougham "denied that Shakespeare was more moral
than Byron. He
could, on the contrary, point out in a single page
of Shakespeare
more grossness than was to be found in all Lord
Byron's works."
The conclusion Brougham thus reached, that Byron is
an
incomparably more moral writer than Shakespeare,
ought to have
been a sufficient _reductio ad absurdum_ of his
argument, but it
does not appear that anyone pointed out the vulgar
confusion into
which he had fallen.
It may be said that the special attractiveness which
the
nakedness of great literature sometimes possesses
for young minds
is unwholesome. But it must be remembered that the
peculiar
interest of this element is merely due to the fact
that elsewhere
there is an inveterate and abnormal concealment. It
must also be
said that the statements of the great writers about
natural
things are never degrading, nor even erotically
exciting to the
young, and what Emilia Pardo Bazan tells of herself
and her
delight when a child in the historical books of the
Old
Testament, that the crude passages in them failed to
send the
faintest cloud of trouble across her young
imagination, is
equally true of most children. It is necessary,
indeed, that
these naked and serious things should be left
standing, even if
only to counterbalance the lewdly comic efforts to
besmirch love
and sex, which are visible to all in every low-class
bookseller's
shop window.
This point of view was vigorously championed by the
speakers on
sexual education at the Third Congress of the German
Gesellschaft
zur Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten in 1907.
Thus Enderlin,
speaking as a headmaster, protested against the
custom of
bowdlerizing poems and folk-songs for the use of
children, and
thus robbing them of the finest introduction to
purified sexual
impulses and the highest sphere of emotion, while at
the same
time they are recklessly exposed to the "psychic
infection" of
the vulgar comic papers everywhere exposed for sale.
"So long as
children are too young to respond to erotic poetry
it cannot hurt
them; when they are old enough to respond it can
only benefit
them by opening to them the highest and purest
channels of human
emotion" (_Sexualpädagogik_, p. 60). Professor
Schäfenacker (id.,
p. 98) expresses himself in the same sense, and
remarks that "the
method of removing from school-books all those
passages which, in
the opinion of short-sighted and narrow-hearted
schoolmasters,
are unsuited for youth, must be decisively
condemned." Every
healthy boy and girl who has reached the age of
puberty may be
safely allowed to ramble in any good library,
however varied its
contents. So far from needing guidance they will
usually show a
much more refined taste than their elders. At this
age, when the
emotions are still virginal and sensitive, the
things that are
realistic, ugly, or morbid, jar on the young spirit
and are cast
aside, though in adult life, with the coarsening of
mental
texture which comes of years and experience, this
repugnance,
doubtless by an equally sound and natural instinct,
may become
much less acute.
Ellen Key in Ch. VI of her _Century of the Child_
well summarizes
the reasons against the practice of selecting for
children books
that are "suitable" for them, a practice which she considers one
of the follies of modern education. The child should
be free to
read all great literature, and will himself
instinctively put
aside the things he is not yet ripe for. His cooler
senses are
undisturbed by scenes that his elders find too
exciting, while
even at a later stage it is not the nakedness of
great
literature, but much more the method of the modern
novel, which
is likely to stain the imagination, falsify reality
and injure
taste. It is concealment which misleads and
coarsens, producing a
state of mind in which even the Bible becomes a
stimulus to the
senses. The writings of the great masters yield the
imaginative
food which the child craves, and the erotic moment
in them is too
brief to be overheating. It is the more necessary,
Ellen Key
remarks, for children to be introduced to great
literature, since
they often have little opportunity to occupy
themselves with it
in later life. Many years earlier Ruskin, in _Sesame
and Lilies_,
had eloquently urged that even young girls should be
allowed to
range freely in libraries.
What has been said about literature applies equally to art. Art, as well
as literature, and in the same indirect way, can be made a valuable aid in
the task of sexual enlightenment and sexual hygiene.
Modern art may,
indeed, for the most part, be ignored from this point of view, but
children cannot be too early familiarized with the
representations of the
nude in ancient sculpture and in the paintings of the
old masters of the
Italian school. In this way they may be immunized, as
Enderlin expresses
it, against those representations of the nude which make an appeal to the
baser instincts. Early familiarity with nudity in art is at the same time
an aid to the attainment of a proper attitude towards
purity in nature.
"He who has once learnt," as Höller remarks, "to enjoy peacefully
nakedness in art, will be able to look on nakedness in nature as on a work
of art."
Casts of classic nude statues and reproductions of
the pictures
of the old Venetian and other Italian masters may
fittingly be
used to adorn schoolrooms, not so much as objects of
instruction
as things of beauty with which the child cannot too
early become
familiarized. In Italy it is said to be usual for
school classes
to be taken by their teachers to the art museums
with good
results; such visits form part of the official
scheme of
education.
There can be no doubt that such early familiarity
with the beauty
of nudity in classic art is widely needed among all
social
classes and in many countries. It is to this defect
of our
education that we must attribute the occasional, and
indeed in
America and England frequent, occurrence of such
incidents as
petitions and protests against the exhibition of
nude statuary in
art museums, the display of pictures so inoffensive
as Leighton's
"Bath of Psyche" in shop windows, and the demand for the draping
of the naked personifications of abstract virtues in
architectural street decoration. So imperfect is
still the
education of the multitude that in these matters the
ill-bred
fanatic of pruriency usually gains his will. Such a
state of
things cannot but have an unwholesome reaction on
the moral
atmosphere of the community in which it is possible.
Even from
the religious point of view, prurient prudery is not
justifiable.
Northcote has very temperately and sensibly
discussed the
question of the nude in art from the standpoint of
Christian
morality. He points out that not only is the nude in
art not to
be condemned without qualification, and that the
nude is by no
means necessarily the erotic, but he also adds that
even erotic
art, in its best and purest manifestations, only
arouses emotions
that are the legitimate object of man's aspirations.
It would be
impossible even to represent Biblical stories
adequately on
canvas or in marble if erotic art were to be tabooed
(Rev. H.
Northcote, _Christianity and Sex Problems_, Ch.
XIV).
Early familiarity with the nude in classic and early
Italian art
should be combined at puberty with an equal
familiarity with
photographs of beautiful and naturally developed
nude models. In
former years books containing such pictures in a
suitable and
attractive manner to place before the young were
difficult to
procure. Now this difficulty no longer exists. Dr.
C.H. Stratz,
of The Hague, has been the pioneer in this matter,
and in a
series of beautiful books (notably in _Der Körper
des Kindes, Die
Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_ and _Die
Rassenschönheit des
Weibes_, all published by Enke in Stuttgart), he has
brought
together a large number of admirably selected
photographs of nude
but entirely chaste figures. More recently Dr.
Shufeldt, of
Washington (who dedicates his work to Stratz), has
published his
_Studies of the Human Form_ in which, in the same
spirit, he has
brought together the results of his own studies of
the naked
human form during many years. It is necessary to
correct the
impressions received from classic sources by good
photographic
illustrations on account of the false conventions
prevailing in
classic works, though those conventions were not
necessarily
false for the artists who originated them. The
omission of the
pudendal hair, in representations of the nude was,
for instance,
quite natural for the people of countries still
under Oriental
influence are accustomed to remove the hair from the
body. If,
however, under quite different conditions, we
perpetuate that
artistic convention to-day, we put ourselves into a
perverse
relation to nature. There is ample evidence of this.
"There is
one convention so ancient, so necessary, so
universal," writes
Mr. Frederic Harrison (_Nineteenth Century and
After_, Aug.,
1907), "that its deliberate defiance to-day may
arouse the bile
of the least squeamish of men and should make women
withdraw at
once." If boys and girls were brought up at their mother's knees
in familiarity with pictures of beautiful and
natural nakedness,
it would be impossible for anyone to write such
silly and
shameful words as these.
There can be no doubt that among ourselves the
simple and direct
attitude of the child towards nakedness is so early
crushed out
of him that intelligent education is necessary in
order that he
may be enabled to discern what is and what is not
obscene. To the
plough-boy and the country servant-girl all
nakedness, including
that of Greek statuary, is alike shameful or
lustful. "I have a
picture of women like that," said a countryman with a grin, as he
pointed to a photograph of one of Tintoret's most
beautiful
groups, "smoking cigarettes." And the mass of people in most
northern countries have still passed little beyond
this stage of
discernment; in ability to distinguish between the
beautiful and
the obscene they are still on the level of the
plough-boy and the
servant-girl.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] These manifestations have been dealt with in the
study of Autoerotism
in vol. i of the present _Studies_. It may be added that the sexual life
of the child has been exhaustively investigated by Moll, _Das Sexualleben
des Kindes_, 1909.
[19] This genital efflorescence in the sexual glands and breasts at birth
or in early infancy has been discussed in a Paris
thesis, by Camille
Renouf (_La Crise Génital et les Manifestations Connexes chez le Foetus et
le Nouveau-né_, 1905); he is unable to offer a
satisfactory explanation of
these phenomena.
[20] Amélineau, _La Morale des Egyptiens_, p. 64.
[21] "The Social Evil in Philadelphia," _Arena_, March, 1896.
[22] Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, p. 592.
[23] This powerlessness of the law and the police is
well recognized by
lawyers familiar with the matter. Thus F. Werthauer
(_Sittlichkeitsdelikte
der Grosstadt_, 1907) insists throughout on the
importance of parents and
teachers imparting to children from their early years a progressively
increasing knowledge of sexual matters.
[24] "Parents must be taught how to impart information,"
remarks E.L.
Keyes ("Education upon Sexual Matters," _New York Medical Journal_, Feb.
10, 1906), "and this teaching of the parent should begin when he is
himself a child."
[25] Moll (op. cit., p. 224) argues well how impossible it is to preserve
children from sights and influence connected with the
sexual life.
[26] Girls are not even prepared, in many cases, for the appearance of the
pubic hair. This unexpected growth of hair frequently
causes young girls
much secret worry, and often they carefully cut it off.
[27] G.S. Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 511. Many
years ago, in 1875,
the late Dr. Clarke, in his _Sex in Education_, advised menstrual rest for
girls, and thereby aroused a violent opposition which
would certainly not
be found nowadays, when the special risks of womanhood are becoming more
clearly understood.
[28] For a summary of the physical and mental phenomena of the menstrual
period, see Havelock Ellis: _Man and Woman_, Ch. XI. The primitive
conception of menstruation is briefly discussed in
Appendix A to the first
volume of these _Studies_, and more elaborately by J.G.
Frazer in _The
Golden Bough_. A large collection of facts with regard to the menstrual
seclusion of women throughout the world will be found in Ploss and
Bartels, _Das Weib_. The pubertal seclusion of girls at Torres Straits has
been especially studied by Seligmann, _Reports
Anthropological Expedition
to Torres Straits_, vol. v, Ch. VI.
[29] Thus Miss Lura Sanborn, Director of Physical
Training at the Chicago
Normal School, found that a bath once a fortnight was
not unusual. At the
menstrual period especially there is still a
superstitious dread of water.
Girls should always be taught that at this period, above all, cleanliness
is imperatively necessary. There should be a tepid hip bath night and
morning, and a vaginal douche (which should never be
cold) is always
advantageous, both for comfort as well as cleanliness.
There is not the
slightest reason to dread water during menstruation.
This point was
discussed a few years ago in the _British Medical
Journal_ with complete
unanimity of opinion. A distinguished American
obstetrician, also, Dr. J.
Clifton Edgar, after a careful study of opinion and
practice in this
matter ("Bathing During the Menstrual Period," _American Journal
Obstetrics_, Sept., 1900), concludes that it is possible and beneficial to
take cold baths (though not sea-baths) during the
period, provided due
precautions are observed, and that there are no sudden changes of habits.
Such a course should not be indiscriminately adopted,
but there can be no
doubt that in sturdy peasant women who are inured to it early in life even
prolonged immersion in the sea in fishing has no evil
results, and is even
beneficial. Houzel (_Annales de Gynécologie_, Dec.,
1894) has published
statistics of the menstrual life of 123 fisherwomen on the French coast.
They were accustomed to shrimp for hours at a time in
the sea, often to
above the waist, and then walk about in their wet
clothes selling the
shrimps. They all insisted that their menstruation was easier when they
were actively at work. Their periods are notably
regular, and their
fertility is high.
[30] J.H. McBride, "The Life and Health of Our Girls in Relation to Their
Future," _Alienist and Neurologist_, Feb., 1904.
[31] W.G. Chambers, "The Evolution of Ideals,"
_Pedagogical Seminary_,
March, 1903; Catherine Dodd, "School Children's Ideals,"
_National
Review_, Feb. and Dec., 1900, and June, 1901. No German girls acknowledged
a wish to be men; they said it would be wicked. Among
Flemish girls,
however, Varendonck found at Ghent (_Archives de
Psychologie_, July, 1908)
that 26 per cent. had men as their ideals.
[32] A. Reibmayr, _Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des
Talentes und Genies_,
1908, Bd. i, p. 70.
[33] R. Hellmann, _Ueber Geschlechtsfreiheit_, p. 14.
[34] This belief seems frequent among young girls in
Continental Europe.
It forms the subject of one of Marcel Prevost's _Lettres de Femmes_. In
Austria, according to Freud, it is not uncommon,
exclusively among girls.
[35] Yet, according to English law, rape is a crime
which it is impossible
for a husband to commit on his wife (see, e.g., Nevill Geary, _The Law of
Marriage_, Ch. XV, Sect. V). The performance of the
marriage ceremony,
however, even if it necessarily involved a clear
explanation of marital
privileges, cannot be regarded as adequate justification for an act of
sexual intercourse performed with violence or without
the wife's consent.
[36] Hirschfeld, _Jahrbuch für Sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, 1903, p. 88. It
may be added that a horror of coitus is not necessarily due to bad
education, and may also occur in hereditarily degenerate women, whose
ancestors have shown similar or allied mental
peculiarities. A case of
such "functional impotence" has been reported in a young Italian wife of
twenty-one, who was otherwise healthy, and strongly
attached to her
husband. The marriage was annulled on the ground that
"rudimentary sexual
or emotional paranoia, which renders a wife invincibly refractory to
sexual union, notwithstanding the integrity of the
sexual organs,
constitutes psychic functional impotence" (_Archivio di Psichiatria_,
1906, fasc. vi, p. 806).
[37] The reasonableness of this step is so obvious that it should scarcely
need insistence. "The instruction of school-boys and school-girls is most
adequately effected by an elderly doctor," Näcke
remarks, "sometimes
perhaps the school-doctor." "I strongly advocate," says Clouston (_The
Hygiene of Mind_, p. 249), "that the family doctor, guided by the parent
and the teacher, is by far the best instructor and
monitor." Moll is of
the same opinion.
[38] I have further developed this argument in "Religion and the Child,"
_Nineteenth Century and After_, 1907.
[39] The intimate relation of art and poetry to the
sexual impulse has
been realized in a fragmentary way by many who have not attained to any
wide vision of auto-erotic activity in life. "Poetry is necessarily
related to the sexual function," says Metchnikoff (_Essais Optimistes_, p.
352), who also quotes with approval the statement of
Möbius (previously
made by Ferrero and many others) that "artistic
aptitudes must probably be
considered as secondary sexual characters."
CHAPTER III.
SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NAKEDNESS.
The Greek Attitude Towards Nakedness--How the Romans
Modified That
Attitude--The Influence of Christianity--Nakedness in
Mediæval
Times--Evolution of the Horror of Nakedness--Concomitant Change in the
Conception of Nakedness--Prudery--The Romantic Movement-
-Rise of a New
Feeling in Regard to Nakedness--The Hygienic Aspect of Nakedness--How
Children May Be Accustomed to Nakedness--Nakedness Not Inimical to
Modesty--The Instinct of Physical Pride--The Value of
Nakedness in
Education--The Æsthetic Value of Nakedness--The Human
Body as One of the
Prime Tonics of Life--How Nakedness May Be Cultivated--
The Moral Value of
Nakedness.
The discussion of the value of nakedness in art leads us on to the allied
question of nakedness in nature. What is the
psychological influence of
familiarity with nakedness? How far should children be made familiar with
the naked body? This is a question in regard to which
different opinions
have been held in different ages, and during recent
years a remarkable
change has begun to come over the minds of practical
educationalists in
regard to it.
In Sparta, in Chios, and elsewhere in Greece, women at one time practiced
gymnastic feats and dances in nakedness, together with the men, or in
their presence.[40] Plato in his _Republic_ approved of such customs and
said that the ridicule of those who laughed at them was but "unripe