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Definable?--Raising a Corner of the Veil--Two Opinions of Love--The First Opinion: Sexual Intercourse and Love--The Second Opinion--The Grain of Truth in Each--The Truth Concerning Love--Foundation of Love--Sexual Attraction and Love--The Frigid Woman and Her Husband--Puzzling Cases of Love--The Paradox--Blindness of Love and the Penetrating Vision of Love--Limits of Homeliness--Physical Aversion and Genesis of Love--Mating in the Animal Kingdom--Mating in Low Races--Love in People of High Culture--Difference in Love of Savage and Man of Culture--Distinctions Between Loves--Varieties of Love and Varieties of Men--"Love" Without Sexual Desire--Refraining and Wanting--Cause of Love at First Sight--"Magnetic Forces" and Love at First Sight--The Pathological Side--Differentiation of Phases of Love--Infatuation--Difference Between "Infatuation" and "Being in Love"--Sexual Satisfaction and Infatuation--Sexual Satisfaction and Love--Infatuation Mistaken for Love--Love the Most Mysterious of Human Emotions--Great Love and Supreme Happiness.

Jealousy the Most Painful of Human Emotions--Impairment of Health--Mental Havoc--Jealousy as a Primitive Emotion-- Jealousy in the Advanced Thinker and in the Savage--Jealousy in the Child--Feelings and Environmental Factors--Essential Factors--Vanity--Anger--Pain--Envy--The Impotent Husband's Jealousy--Anti-social Qualities--The Jealous and the Unfaithful Husband--Means of Eradicating the Evil--Iwan Bloch on the Question--Prof. Robert Michels' Statement-- Remark of Prof. Von Ehrenfels--Havelock Ellis on Variation in Sexual Relationships--Advanced Ideas--Woman as Man's Chattel--The Change and the Changer--Teaching the Children-- Casting Epithets at Jealousy--Free Unions and Jealousy-- Feelings, Actions and Public Opinion--The Adulterous Wife of the Present Day--Jealousy Defeating Its Own Object--Jealousy of Inanimate Objects.

Prevention and Cure--Prophylaxis of Jealousy--Fitting Remedy to Circumstances--The Neglectful and Flirtatious Husband--No Question of Love--Advice to the Wife of the Flirtatious Man--An Efficient Though Vulgar Remedy--Jealousy Must Be Experienced to Be Understood--Necessity for Freedom of Association--Lines of Conduct for the Wife--Contempt for a Certain Type of Wife and Husband--The Abandoned Lover--The Effects of Unrequited Love--Sublimated Sexual Desire-- Replacing Unrequited Love--The Attitude of Goethe-- Simultaneous Loves Possible--Successive Loves Possible-- Eternal Loves--When Sex Relationships May Be Beneficial-- Purchasable Sex Relations and Their Value--The Broken Engagement--The Terrible Effects on the Young Man--The Young Streetwalker--Sex Relations with Fianc?--Inundating Sense of Shame--Collapse--Attempts at Suicide--An Active Sex Life--The Results--The Prevention of Jealousy.

WOMAN: HER SEX AND LOVE LIFE

THE PARAMOUNT NEED OF SEX KNOWLEDGE FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN

Why Sex Knowledge is of Paramount Importance to Girls and Women--Reasons Why a Misstep in a Girl Has More Serious Consequences than a Misstep in a Boy--The Place Love Occupies in Woman's Life--Woman's Physical Disabilities.

All are agreed--I mean all who are capable of thinking and have given the subject some thought--that for the welfare of the race and for his own physical and mental welfare it is important that the boy be given some sex instruction. All are not agreed as to the character of the instruction, its extent, the age at which it should be begun and as to who the teacher should be--the father, the family physician, the school teacher or a specially prepared book--but as to the necessity of sex knowledge for the boy there is now substantial agreement--among the conservatives as well as among the radicals.

No such agreement exists concerning sex knowledge for the girl. Many still are the men and women--and not among the conservatives only--who are strongly opposed to girls receiving any instruction in sex matters. Some say that such instruction--except a few hygienic rules about menstruation--is unnecessary, because the sex instinct awakens in girls comparatively late, and it is time enough for them to learn about such matters after they are married. Others fear that sex knowledge would destroy the mystery and romance of sex, and would rob our maidens of their greatest charms--modesty and innocence. Still others fear that sex instruction would tend to awaken the sex instinct in our girls prematurely; would direct their thoughts to matters about which they would not think otherwise; and they argue that the warnings about venereal disease, prostitution, etc., which are an integral part of sex instruction, tend to create a cynical, inimical attitude towards the male sex, which may even result in hypochondriac ideas and antagonism to marriage.

But if the information to be imparted be sane, honest and truthful, without exaggerating the evils and without laying undue emphasis on the dark shadows of our sex life, then the results can be only beneficent. And the task I have put before myself in this book is to give our girls and women sane, square and honest information about their sex organs and sex nature, information absolutely free from luridness, on the one hand, and maudlin sentimentality, on the other. The female sex is in need of such information, much more so than is the male sex. Yes, if boys, as is now universally agreed, are in need of sex instruction, then girls are much more in need of it. Why? For several important reasons.

The enormous difference in the results of a misstep in a boy and a girl is clearly seen, and for this reason alone, if for no other, sex instruction is of more importance to the girl than it is to the boy.

But there are other important reasons, and one of them is beautifully and truthfully expressed by Byron in his two well-known lines.

Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence.

Yes, love is a woman's whole life.

Some modern women might object to this. They might say that this was true of the woman of the past, who was excluded from all other avenues of human activity. The woman of the present day has other interests besides those of Love. But I claim that this is true of only a small percentage of women; and in even this small minority of women, social, scientific and artistic activities cannot take the place of love; no matter how busy and successful these women may be, they will tell you if you enjoy their confidence that they are unhappy, if their love life is unsatisfactory. Nothing, nothing can fill the void made by the lack of love. The various activities may help to cover up the void, to protect it from strange eyes, they cannot fill it. For essentially woman is made for love. Not exclusively, but essentially, and a woman who has had no love in her life has been a failure. The few exceptions that may be mentioned only emphasize the rule.

But not only psychically is a woman's love and sex life more important than a man's, physically she is also much more cognizant of her sex and much more hampered by the manifestation of her sex nature than man is. To take but one function, menstruation. From the age 13 or 14 to the age of forty-five or fifty it is a monthly reminder to woman that she is a woman, that she is a creature of sex; and, while to many women this periodically recurring function is only a source of some annoyance or discomfort, to a great number it is a cause of pain, headache, suffering, or complete disability. Man has no such phenomenon to annoy him practically his whole life.

But more important are the results of love-union, of sex relations. A man after a sexual relation is just as free as he was before. A woman, if the relation has resulted in a pregnancy, which is generally the case, unless special pains are taken it should not so result, has nine troublesome months before her, months of discomfort if not of actual suffering; she then has an extremely trying and painful ordeal, that of childbirth, and then there is another trying period, the period of lactation or of nursing and of bringing up the baby. The penalty seems almost too great.

And when the woman is on the point of ceasing to menstruate she does not do so smoothly and comfortably. She has to go through a period called the menopause, which may last one or two years and which may bring discomforts and dangers of its own. Man does not have to go through such a distinct period of demarcation separating his sexual from his non-sexual life. Altogether it cannot be denied that woman is much more a slave of her sex nature than man is of his. Yes, Nature has handicapped woman much more heavily than she has man.

In short, both in view of the fact that sexual ignorance with its possible missteps has much more disastrous consequences for the girl than it has for the boy, and in view of the fact that the sex instinct and its physical and psychic manifestations occupy a much more important part in woman's life than they do in the life of man, we consider the necessity of sex instruction much greater in the case of woman than in the case of man. I do not wish to be misunderstood as underestimating the need of sex instruction for the male--only I consider the need even greater in the case of the female.

THE FEMALE SEX ORGANS: THEIR ANATOMY

The Internal Sex Organs--The Ovaries--The Fallopian Tubes--The Uterus--The Divisions of the Uterus--Anteversion, Anteflexion, Retroversion, Retroflexion, of the Uterus--Endometritis--The Vagina--The Hymen--Imperforate Hymen--The External Genitals--The Vulva, Labia Majora, Labia Minora, the Mons Veneris, the Clitoris, the Urethra--The Breasts--The Pelvis--The Difference Between the Male and Female Pelvis.

The female sex organs, also called the reproductive or generative organs, are divided into internal and external. The internal are the most important and consist of: the ovaries, Fallopian tubes, uterus or womb, and vagina. The external sex organs of the female are: the vulva, hymen, and clitoris. Among the external organs are also generally included the mons Veneris and the breasts or mammary glands.

THE INTERNAL SEX ORGANS

The Greek name for the Fallopian tube is salpinx . An inflammation of the Fallopian tube is therefore called salpingitis. Salpingectomy is the cutting away of the whole or of a piece of the Fallopian tube .

Near the vaginal entrance are situated two small glands; they are about the size of a pea, and secrete mucus. They are called Bartholin's glands; occasionally they become inflamed and give a good deal of trouble.

The remains of the hymen after it is ruptured shrink and form little elevations which can be easily felt; they are known as caruncles.

THE EXTERNAL GENITALS

Again enumerating the female sex organs, but in the reverse order, from before backward, or from out inward, we have: The mons Veneris and the labia majora, or the external lips of the vulva; these are the plainly visible parts of the female genital organs. When the labia majora are taken apart we see the labia minora; when the labia majora and minora are taken apart we can see or feel the clitoris and the hymen, or the remains of the hymen. We then have the vagina, a large, stretchable musculo-membranous canal, in the upper portion of which the neck of the womb, or the cervix, can be seen , or felt by the finger. Only the cervix, or neck of the womb, can be seen, but the rest of the womb, the broader portion, can be easily felt and examined by one hand in the vagina and the other hand over the abdomen. Continuous with the uterus are the Fallopian tubes, and below the trumpet-shaped ends of the Fallopian tubes are the ovaries, embedded in the broad ligaments, one on each side.

THE PELVIS

Note particularly the differences in the pubic arches: in the male pelvis it is really more of an angle than an arch. Also note how much longer and more solid the sacrum is in the male pelvis. The differences in the pelves of the male and female become fully marked at puberty, but they are present as early as the fourth month of intra-uterine life.

FOOTNOTES:

Mucous membrane--briefly a membrane which secretes mucus or some other fluid.

The coccyx consists of three rudimentary vertebrae; it is the vestige of an organ which we once possessed in common with many other animals, namely--a tail.

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE FEMALE SEX ORGANS

Function of the Ovaries--Internal Secretion of the Ovaries--Function of the Internal Secretion--Number of Ova in the Ovaries--The Graafian Follicles--Ovulation--Corpora Lutea--Function of the Fallopian Tubes--Function of the Vagina--Functions of the Vulva, Clitoris and Mons Veneris--Function of the Breasts--Besides Secreting Milk Breast Has Sexual Function--The Orgasm--Pollutions in Women--Secondary Sex Characters--Differences Between Woman and Man.

FUNCTION OF THE OVARIES

You see the importance of the internal ovarian secretion, and you will readily understand why, when the ovaries are removed by operation, the woman, particularly if she is young, undergoes such marked changes. It is because we recognize now the great importance of the ovaries that we always, when operating on diseased ovaries leave at least a small piece of ovary, if at all possible.

FUNCTION OF THE OTHER GENITAL ORGANS

The uterus or womb is the house of the embryo almost from the moment of conception to the moment of birth. Within the thick warm sheltered walls of the uterus the child grows, develops, eats and breathes, until all its organs and functions have reached such a stage of perfection that it can live by itself and for itself. And this may be said to be the sole function of the uterus, or at least its sole useful function. For the other function of the uterus, menstruation, cannot be said to be a necessary or a useful function. It is a normal function because it occurs regularly in every healthy woman during her child-bearing period, but not every normal function is a necessary or useful function. Not everything that is is right or useful.

THE ORGASM

The culmination of the act of sexual intercourse is called the orgasm. It is the moment at which the pleasurable sensation is at its highest point, the body experiences a thrill, there is a spasmodic contraction in the genital organs, and there is a secretion of fluid from the genital glands and mucous membranes. This fluid in women is not a vital fluid like the semen in man; it is merely mucus, and in some women it is very slight in amount or altogether absent. Adult women who live without sexual relations occasionally have sexual or erotic dreams; that is, they dream that they are in the company of men, playing or having relations with them. Such dreams are usually accompanied by an orgasm or an orgastic feeling, and by a discharge of mucus, the same as in sexual intercourse. Such a discharge of mucus during sleep is called an emission or pollution.

In the male sex pollutions play an important r?le , because the semen is a vital fluid, and if it is lost too frequently the system is put under a heavy drain. In boys and men the pollutions or night losses may occur several times a week or even every night, or several times a night. When they occur with such frequency the man may become a wreck. Not so with women. First, pollutions or night dreams in women are much more rare than they are in men; and second, as just mentioned, the fluid secreted by woman during intercourse or during an erotic dream is not of a vital character, as the semen is in man; it is mucus, and the secretion of a mucous fluid, even if somewhat excessive, does not constitute a drain on the system. For this reason women can stand frequently repeated sex relations and emissions or pollutions much better than men can.

THE SECONDARY SEX CHARACTERS

The sex organs constitute the primary sex characters. It is they that distinguish primarily one sex from another. But there are numerous other sex characters or sex differences which while not so important serve to differentiate the sexes, at the same time forming points of attraction between one sex and another. For instance, the beard and mustache are a distinct male characteristic and constitute one of the secondary male sex characters. The secondary sex characters are very numerous; one might say that each one of the billions of cells in the body bears the impress of the sex to which it belongs.

First, the skeleton. The entire female skeleton differs from the male skeleton; all the bones are smaller and more gracile; the pelvis, as we have seen before, is shallower and wider. Then the muscles are smaller and more rounded. The entire contour of the body is rounded rather than angular as in man. The skin is finer, softer, more delicate. The hair on the head is longer and of a finer texture, while over the body the hair is also finer and less abundant. The voice is finer, more pleasant, and of a higher pitch . The breasts are well developed, and serve an important purpose, while in men they are rudimentary. The breathing is also different; woman breathes principally with the upper part of the chest, man with the lower. The brain is smaller and its convolutions somewhat less complex in woman.

Woman differs considerably from man not only physically, as we have seen, but also mentally and emotionally. But into this phase of the subject we will not enter, except to remark that it is foolish to speak of the superiority or inferiority of one sex to another. In some respects man is greatly superior to woman, in others he is inferior; on the whole the sexes balance one another pretty well, and while the sexes are not and never will be exactly alike, we have no right to speak of the inferiority of one sex to another. We recognize that the sexes are different, but they complement one another, and the claim of the reactionary and of the woman-hater that woman is an inferior creature is just as senseless as is the claim made by some ultra-militant feminists that woman is the superior and man the inferior.

FOOTNOTES:

The ovum is really the fully mature egg ready for fecundation; before maturity it should not be called ovum but o?cyte; and in advanced treatises it is so referred to. But here ovum will do for both the unripe and ripe egg.

THE SEX INSTINCT

Universality of the Sex Instinct--Not Responsible for Our Thoughts and Feelings.

THE sex instinct, which runs all through nature from the lowest animal to the highest, is the inborn impulse, craving or desire which one sex has for the other: the male for the female and the female for the male. This instinct, this desire for the opposite sex, which is born with us and which manifests itself at a very early age, is not anything to be ashamed of. There is nothing disgraceful, nothing sinful in it. It is a normal, natural, healthy instinct, implanted in us by nature for various reasons, and absolutely indispensable for the perpetuation of the race. If there were anything to be ashamed of, it would be the lack of this sex instinct, for without it the race would quickly die out.

I am not preaching to you. But I am not an extremist nor a hypocrite. I am advocating neither asceticism nor licentiousness. One is as bad, or almost as bad, as the other.

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