sex and marriage

Chapter 26 Sexuality and Personal Happiness
In this chapter, I would like to summarize what has been said in previous chapters about the impact of sex and sexual morality on personal well-being.In this question we are concerned neither with actual sexual periods nor with actual sexual relations.The influence of sexual morality on childhood, youth, and even old age varies widely according to the circumstances.

The first thing traditional morality does is to impose a set of rules and regulations on the lives of children.We often teach children not to touch a certain part of the body in front of adults.We also often teach children to keep their voices as low as possible when expressing their desire to defecate, and not to let others see them when they relieve themselves.Some parts of the body and physiological behavior are not easy for children to understand, which makes children feel mysterious and thus has a strong interest.Certain intellectual questions, such as where children come from, can only be meditated on alone, as the answers from adults are either evasive or fabricated.Some young people I know said that if they were seen fondling a certain part of their body when they were young, they would immediately be scolded very severely: "I would rather see you dead than seeing you like this." ’” I can only say with regret that the moral consequences for the children’s later lives are not always as traditional moralists would like them to be.Intimidation is a common tactic.It may not be common to scare children with words about infertility, but it is considered very appropriate to threaten children with words about insanity.Indeed, in New York it is against the law not to make a child feel that he is doing a dangerous thing unless he is made aware of it.As a result of this education, many children develop from an early age a deep sense of guilt and terror in connection with sexual matters.Sex and crime and horror are so closely integrated that they become partly or completely unconscious.We wish we could conduct a statistical survey among those who are confident that they will not be governed by such fairy tales, and find out whether they dare to commit adultery during thunder as at other times.I believe that 90% of people will think in their hearts that if they commit adultery at this time, they will definitely be struck to death by lightning.

Although sexual sadism and sexual masochism are not abnormal in general, they are related to sexual guilt when they are malignant.The sexual masochist feels deeply about his own sexual wrongdoing.A sadist thinks all women are seductresses.It was shown later in life how deeply the overly harsh moralizing of childhood had had.Those concerned with children's education, especially those responsible for babysitting, have gradually become enlightened about this issue.But unfortunately, there is no sign of the court opening yet.

Mischief, mischief, and transgression of prohibitions are natural, instinctive, and unfussy phenomena in two stages of life, childhood and adolescence.Unless these phenomena are too serious.Adults, however, always take a quite different attitude towards the violation of the sexual prohibition than they do to other violations.As a result, children feel that violations of sexual prohibitions fall into a very different category.You may be annoyed if your child steals fruit from the pantry, and you may yell at him, but you won't feel moral horror, and you won't make the child feel irreparably guilty.On the other hand, if you're a reserved person, and you catch your kid masturbating, you're making noises he's never heard.This sound creates a great sense of terror in the child, and this terror will continue to increase, because the child is likely to find that he cannot escape the behavior that caused you to yell.The child is so impressed by your sincerity that he has no doubt that masturbation is as horrible as you describe it to be.Still, he masturbated as always.The root of his disease was thus planted, and it might stay with him for the rest of his life.From his childhood, he considered himself a sinner.Soon he will learn to commit crimes in secret, and find it comforting that no one will know of his sins.Excruciatingly distressed, he seeks an opportunity to punish those who have concealed such crimes less skillfully than himself; and having acquired a habit of deceit in childhood, he will cheat with impunity in later life.Therefore, although his parents tried to make him a pure person, due to improper methods, the child became a hypocrite and persecution maniac with a sick character.

Children should be lively, cheerful, and innocent.Guilt, shame and terror should not dominate a child's life.They should not be afraid of their impulses; they should not shrink from the dangers of exploring nature; they should not hide their instinctive lives in darkness; they should not bury their irresistible impulses in the unconscious the depths.If they are to be brought up to be men and women of integrity, intellectually sincere and honest, socially selfless and fearless, capable of action, and tolerant of thought, they must be taught from infancy , making these results possible.We've always thought of education as training a bear to dance.We all know how dancing bears are trained.People put bears on the hot ground so that they had to dance.If they stand still, the soles of their feet will be scalded.At the same time, people played music to the bears.After a period of repetition, even if there is no fiery land, as long as there is music, they will dance.The same is true for children.When a child becomes aware of his genitals, adults scold him.Later, the emergence of this kind of consciousness always reminded him of the reprimand of adults.As a result, the possibility of healthy access to a happy sex life is all but destroyed.

The next stage, youth, is much more distressed by traditional approaches to sex than in childhood.When many young men first experience nocturnal emission, they feel terrified because they don't know why.They feel that they are filled with impulses that grown-ups regard as extremely evil.This impulse is so strong that it haunts them day and night.In the more eminent youth there is at the same time an extremely idealistic impulse towards beauty and poetry and ideal love which has nothing to do with sex.Because of the Manichean elements in Christianity, idealistic impulses and fleshly impulses of young people have become irrelevant, even incompatible.On this point I may perhaps quote the confession of a sensible friend of mine, who said: "My youth, I believe, was typical in that it displayed this difference so vividly. Every day I Read Shelley for hours, and get a sentimental feeling:
As moths long for starlight:
Like the night's fantasy of the dawn.

Then suddenly I would cast aside the sublime emotion and want to spy on the maid as she was undressing.The latter impulse shames me; but the former is an expression of idleness, for its idealism is opposed to the blind fear of sex. "

We all know that in youth delirium is a very common occurrence.A person who is emotionally stable at other times can easily lose his balance during this period.Ms. Meade said in her book "Samoa's Future Times" that there was so little derangement among young people on the island because of the sexual freedom that prevailed there.Indeed, missionary activity has reduced this sexual freedom considerably.She surveyed girls living in missionary homes who had only masturbated and homosexuality in their youth, while those who lived elsewhere had heterosexual activities.In this respect the situation in most of the prestigious boys' schools in England is much the same as in the Samoan missionary's home, but the situation does no psychological damage to the conduct of the Samoans.For the behavior of British students, it has psychological damage.British students may take those traditional sermons heartily, but Samoans think missionaries are just ridiculous white people with some special hobbies.

Most young people experience unnecessary trouble and pain in their early adult years when it comes to sexuality.If a young man is chaste, the pain he goes through in suppressing his sexuality may make him a timid and melancholy man.By the time he was married, he was still unable to shake off the self-control he had developed over the years, except for sudden sexual urges, which robbed him of his sexual capacity for his wife.If he associates with whores, the disunity between the physical love and the ideal love that springs from his youth remains forever, and as a result his relations with women are either platonic or base in his beliefs. .In addition, he ran the great risk of contracting venereal disease.If he had sex with a woman of his class, the harm would be much less, but the need for secrecy is harmful because it prevents the development of a stable relationship.Some people are snobbish, and some people think that they should have children immediately after marriage, so it is not easy for people to marry early.

In addition, where divorce is very difficult, early marriage has considerable dangers.Because two people who like each other at the age of 20 are very likely to dislike each other at the age of 30.For many people, it is difficult to have a stable relationship until they have gained various experiences.If our ideas about sex are sensible, then we should allow college students to marry temporarily, even without children.In this way, they can get rid of the annoyance of their sexual urges, which are now greatly interfering with their studies.They should get sexual experience from other people, which will prepare them for a holy conjugal life with children.And they should also be free to fall in love without the furtiveness and fear of illness that are leading young people astray.

Traditional morality is painful and in most cases harmful to women who will never marry under the current situation.Like everyone else, I have known unmarried women of conventional morals who are in every way admirable.But I think, on the whole, that's not the case.A woman who has never had sex and who considers it necessary for her morality behaves negatively and tinged with horror, and is therefore cowardly in general.At the same time, an instinctive and unconscious jealousy can make her resentful of normal people, eager to punish those who enjoy what she does not enjoy.Intellectual timidity is a common feature of the long virgin life.I think that the present intellectual impoverishment of women is largely due to the restraint of curiosity imposed by sexual fear.For those women who cannot find a husband, their virgin life is dull and empty.This is so common now that it would not have occurred under the former system of marriage, when the numbers of the sexes were roughly equal.There is no doubt that women now greatly outnumber men in most countries.This fully proves the necessity of reforming traditional morality.

Marriage, which is tacitly regarded as sexual catharsis, suffers greatly from the harsh morality.Childhood perversions, men's experience with whores, sexual aversions built up in women in order to preserve their chastity, all these created obstacles to marital happiness.A girl who has been brought up in a privileged environment, if her sexual drive is strong, will not be able to distinguish true sympathy from mere sexual attraction when she is courted.It is easy for her to marry the man who first awakens her sexual consciousness.And when her sexual desire was satisfied, she realized that she and the man had nothing in common, but it was too late.Previous education has made women too timid about sex and men too abrupt.Both men and women lack proper knowledge on sexual issues. The reason for their initial failure is ignorance, which makes both parties never get sexual satisfaction from marriage.In addition, establishing a physical and spiritual relationship between husband and wife has become a very difficult thing.Women are not used to talking about sex with the opposite sex, and men are no exception unless the person he is talking to is a prostitute.On the most relevant and crucial issues of their life with them, they are always shy and withdrawn, or even completely silent.The wife always feels dissatisfied, but doesn't know what she needs.The husband feels the same way, dimly at first, and then gradually becomes clearer, to the point that a prostitute satisfies him more than his legal wife.Sometimes the wife suffers and the husband does not know how to please her, and as a result his wife's indifference disgusts him.All this is caused by our reticence and seriousness.

All in all, from childhood, adolescence, youth until marriage, traditional morality has been poisoning our love.It fills our love with melancholy, fear, misunderstanding, regret, and nervous tension, divides the physical impulse of sex and the spiritual impulse of ideal love into two distinct regions, makes the former cruel and the latter barren .In fact, life should not be like this.Human animal nature and spiritual nature should not conflict.The two are by no means incompatible, and they can only be perfect when combined with each other.The perfect love between a man and a woman is free and fearless, an equal union of body and spirit.It should not be incapable of being ideal because of the body; nor should the body be feared because the body affects the ideal.

Love is like a tree, its roots are deep in the ground, but its branches are towering.But love cannot flourish if it is bound by taboo fears, reprimanding words, and dreadful silences.The love between a man and a woman and the love between a parent and a child are two important parts of a person's emotional life.While traditional morality weakens one kind of love, it claims to strengthen another.As a matter of fact, the diminished love of parents for their children suffers greatly from the weakening of their love for each other.If children are the product of happiness and mutual satisfaction, the love they receive will be healthy, passionate, natural, unconditional, direct, animalistic, selfless, and fruitful, the kind of love that is empty and longing in Poor children get that nourishment which their parents do not get in marriage.Such parents will keep their children's minds out of the right track and sow the same source of pain for the next generation.Thus, if we are afraid of love, we are afraid of life, and he who is afraid of life is like a dead body.

(End of this chapter)