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diff --git a/77883-h/77883-h.htm b/77883-h/77883-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3d52b6b --- /dev/null +++ b/77883-h/77883-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5317 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + Is sex necessary? Or why you feel the way you do | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +h1{ + font-size: 2.25em; + word-spacing: .2em; + font-weight: normal; + line-height: 1.1em; + +} +h2{ + font-size: 1.2em; + margin-top: 6em; + font-weight: normal; +} +h3 { + margin-top: 1.5em; + font-weight:normal; + font-size: .9em; + word-spacing: .3em; +} +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} +.p6 {margin-top: 6em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +hr.r20 {width: 20%; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em; 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justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + + p { + text-indent: 1em; + } + + /* to undo start of para indent */ + .noindent {text-indent: 0;} + .center {text-indent: 0;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + + + .p0 {margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: 0em} + .p3 {margin-top: 3em;} + .p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + .pb2 {margin-bottom: 2em;} + .p4 {margin-top: 4em;} + .pb4 {margin-bottom: 4em;} + .p6 {margin-top: 6em;} + + .pad2 {padding-left: 2em;} + + .pad1r {padding-right: 1em;} + + + .fs50 {font-size: 50%;} + .fs120 {font-size: 120%;} + .fs150 {font-size: 150%;} + + .wsp1 {word-spacing: 0.1em;} + .wsp2 {word-spacing: 0.2em;} + .wsp3 {word-spacing: 0.3em;} + .lsp2 {letter-spacing: 0.2em;} + + .hang1 { + text-indent: -1em; + padding-left: 1em; + } + .hang2 { + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 2em; + } + + .lh14 { + line-height: 140%; + } + + .tdrt {text-align: right; + vertical-align: top;} + .tdrb {text-align: right; + vertical-align: bottom;} + + .wd80 {width: 80%;} + + .pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; + color: #A9A9A9 + } /* page numbers */ + + .fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: x-small; + text-decoration: + none; + } + + /* Transcriber's notes */ + .transnote { + background-color: #ffffff; + border: 1px solid; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; + } + + .corr { + text-decoration: none; + border-bottom: thin dashed blue;} + + .x-ebookmaker .corr { + text-decoration: none; + border-bottom: none;} + + + /* Illustration classes */ + .illowp35 {width: 35%; max-width:19em;} + .illowp40 {width: 40%; max-width:20em;} + .illowp50 {width: 50%; max-width:24em;} + .illowp60 {width: 60%; max-width:28em;} + .illowp70 {width: 70%; max-width:32em;} + .illowp80 {width: 80%; max-width:35em;} + .illowp90 {width: 90%; max-width:38em;} + .illowp100 {width: 100%; max-width:40em;} + + /* for non-image large letter dropcaps */ + p.drop-cap {text-indent: -.7em;} + + /* note: margin = top, right, bottom, left (clockwise?)*/ + p.drop-cap:first-letter { + float: left; + margin: 0.1em 0.25em 0em .25em; + font-size: 275%; + line-height:0.7em; + clear: both; + } + + .x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap {text-indent: 0em;} + + .x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap:first-letter { + float: none; + margin: 0; + font-size: 100%;} +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} +.poetry .indent6 {text-indent: 0.0em;} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77883 ***</div> + +<div class="transnote"> +<strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong> +<p class="noindent">Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been +placed at the end of the paragraph.</p> + +<p class="noindent">The new original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p> + +<p class="noindent">Some minor changes to the text are noted at the <a href="#END_NOTE">end of the book</a>.</p> + +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="i_a001" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_a001.jpg" alt="Original Cover"> +</figure> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center wsp1 fs150 p4 pb4"> +IS SEX NECESSARY? +</p> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_b002b" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_b002b.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>“<span class="smcap">New York became the capital of the sexual Revolution.</span>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1> +<span class="wsp3">IS SEX NECESSARY?</span><br> +<span class="fs50">OR<br> +WHY YOU FEEL THE WAY YOU DO</span><br> +</h1> +<p class="p3 center fs120 wsp2"> +<span class="smcap">By</span><br> +<span class="smcap">James Thurber and E. B. White</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_b003" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_b003.jpg" +alt="Sketch of woman seated on the floor"> +</figure> + + +<p class="center fs120 wsp2"> +<i>Harper & Brothers Publishers</i><br> +<span class="allsmcap">NEW YORK AND LONDON</span><br> +<span class="lsp2">1929</span> +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center allsmcap wsp3"> +IS SEX NECESSARY? +</p> +<hr class="r20"> +<p class="allsmcap center wsp3 lh14 pb2"> +COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY HARPER & BROTHERS<br> +FIRST EDITION<br> +I-D +</p> +<figure class="figcenter illowp70" id="i_b004" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_b004.jpg" +alt="Sketch of two guinea pigs touching nose to nose"> +</figure> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="center fs120 p4 pb4 wsp2"> +<span class="smcap">To Daisy and Jeanie</span> +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="i_b007" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_b007.jpg" +alt="Sketch of man kneeling, looking back over his shoulder"> +</figure> + + + <h2 class="nobreak p0" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + </h2> + + +<table class="toc wd80"> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">Foreword</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_xi">xi</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">Preface</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_xvii">xvii</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdrt"> +I +</td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">The Nature of the American Male: A Study of Pedestalism</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_1">1</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdrt"> +II +</td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">How to Tell Love from Passion</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_34">34</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdrt"> +III +</td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">A Discussion of Feminine Types</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_55">55</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdrt"> +IV +</td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">The Sexual Revolution: Being a Rather Complete Survey of the Entire Sexual Scene</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_73">73</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdrt"> +V +</td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">The Lilies-and-Bluebird Delusion</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_92">92</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdrt"> +VI +</td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">What Should Children Tell Parents?</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_112">112</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdrt"> +VII +</td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">Claustrophobia, or What Every Young Wife Should Know</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_133">133</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdrt"> +VIII +</td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">Frigidity in Men</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_160">160</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">Answers to Hard Questions</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_180">180</a> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td class="tdl hang1"> +<span class="smcap">Glossary</span> +</td> +<td class="tdrb"> +<a href="#Page_189">189</a> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"></div> +<div class="poetry-container pb4"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Things look pretty bad right now</i>”</div> + <div class="verse indent6">—<span class="smcap">Maj. Gen. Briggs, at Shiloh</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100 p6" id="i_b009" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_b009.jpg" +alt="Sketch of four men, with downcast posture, in a line."> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<blockquote> +<p class="noindent p4 pb4 wsp1"><span class="smcap fs150">Any</span> reader who has +already begun to be confused +by the drawings in +this book should turn to +<a href="#Page_195">Page 195</a>, where they are +explained.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</span></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="FOREWORD"> + FOREWORD + </h2> +</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">During</span> the past year, two factors in our civilization +have been greatly overemphasized. One +is aviation, the other is sex. Looked at calmly, +neither diversion is entitled to the space it has +been accorded. Each has been deliberately +promoted.</p> + +<p>In the case of aviation, persons interested in +the sport saw that the problem was to simplify +it and make it seem safer. They introduced +stabilizers and emergency landing fields. Even +so, the plain fact remained that very few people +were fitted for flying.</p> + +<p>With sex, the opposite was true. Everybody +was fitted for it, but there was a lack of general +interest. The problem in this case was to make +sex seem more complex and dangerous. This +task was taken up by sociologists, analysts, gynecologists, +psychologists, and authors; they approached +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[xii]</span>it with a good deal of scientific +knowledge and an immense zeal. They joined +forces and made the whole matter of sex complicated +beyond the wildest dreams of our +fathers. The country became flooded with +books. Sex, which had hitherto been a physical +expression, became largely mental. The whole +order of things changed. To prepare for marriage, +young girls no longer assembled a hope +chest—they read books on abnormal psychology. +If they finally did marry, they found themselves +with a large number of sex books on +hand, but almost no pretty underwear. Most +of them, luckily, never married at all—just continued +to read.</p> + +<p>It was because we observed how things were +going with marriage and love that we set out, +ourselves, to prepare a sex book of a different +kind. In this venture we were greatly encouraged +by our many friends of both sexes, +most of whom never thought we could do it. +Our method was the opposite of that used by +other writers on sex: we saw clearly in what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</span>respect they failed, and we profited by their +example. We saw, chiefly, that these writers +expended their entire emotional energy in their +writing and never had time for anything else. +The great length of their books (some of them +ran into two volumes and came in a cardboard +box) testified to their absorption with the sheer +business of writing. <i>They clearly hadn’t been +out much.</i> They had been home writing; and +meanwhile what was sex doing? Not standing +still, you can better believe. So we determined +that our procedure would be to approach sex +bravely, and frequently. “Approach the subject +in a lively spirit,” we told ourselves, “and +the writing will take care of itself.” (It is only +fair to say that the writing <i>didn’t</i> take care of itself; +the writing was a lot of work and gave us +the usual pain in the neck while we were doing +it.)</p> + +<p>At any rate we gathered about us a host of +congenial people of all types, mostly girls. Gay, +somber, petulant, all kinds. We also got a lot +of dogs, mostly Scotch terriers, a breed noted +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</span>for stoicism, bravery, and humor. Thus +equipped, we set about the work with a good +spirit, and by dint of a rather unusual energy +were able to prepare the book for publication +and see it through the press without giving up +any social engagements or isolating ourselves +from the sexual world. Furthermore, all the +time we were writing the book, we continued +to earn our living—in itself no easy matter.</p> + +<p>We early resolved to keep alive our curiosity +about things. Wherever we went we asked +questions. Aware of the tangled sexual thread +running through the pattern of people’s lives, +we continually asked the question: “Why is it +that <i>you</i> never got straightened out?” The +answers we got to this question helped us immeasurably.</p> + +<p>Although most of our research was in life’s +laboratory, so to speak, we wish also to express +our indebtedness to those authors whose writings +on the subject inspired us. How can we +forget, in this connection, such men as Will +Durant, Samuel D. Schmalhausen, Dr. Joseph +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[xv]</span>Collins, Joseph Wood Krutch, and Gardner +Murphy?</p> + +<p>Most particularly are we desirous of acknowledging +a debt to those two remarkable +men, who, more than any others, gave us the +courage to go on; two men without whose example +we never could have found in sex a daily +inspiration; those two geniuses whom it is our +pleasure to call the “deans of American sex,”—Walter +Tithridge and Karl Zaner.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp40" id="i_b015" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_b015.jpg" +alt="Sketch of man seated on bench, with downcast head"> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE"> + PREFACE + </h2> +</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Men</span> and women have always sought, by +one means and another, to be together rather +than apart. At first they were together by the +simple expedient of being unicellular, and there +was no conflict. Later the cell separated, or +began living apart, for reasons which are not +clear even today, although there is considerable +talk. Almost immediately the two halves of +the original cell began experiencing a desire to +unite again—usually with a half of some other +cell. This urge has survived down to our time. +Its commonest manifestations are marriage, divorce, +neuroses, and, a little less frequently, +gun-fire.</p> + +<p>When society decided it would have to set up +laws to govern these polymorphous manifestations +of a once simple urge which had got out +of hand, it did so without a very clear notion +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</span>of sex as we know it today. It did not realize +that direction of the Love Urge by outside +forces of law and order must be subversive of +the complete flowering of the individual—and +is there anything in life more wonderful than +a completely flowered individual, man or +woman?</p> + +<p>Yet under all the weight of social regulation, +the ancient desire to unite and to separate and +to unite again, usually with some one else, has +survived, for the simple reason that it is stronger +than man-made law and because cells, as now +constituted, are more astute than the police. +They have to be. Thus we find men and +women being consistently together even against +the rigorous dictates of a prescribed behaviorism +to whose institutional coldness the warmth +of their emotional natures is irrevocably opposed. +And so on.</p> + +<p>As far as I can make out, the authors of this +remarkable book subscribe to the modern ideal +of freedom in sex, but do not believe that marriage +has yet been proved a failure in every +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xix">[xix]</span>case, nor that sex can profitably be examined +entirely apart from that old institution. In this +viewpoint the authors and myself are at one, +which is probably the reason I was asked to +write an introduction.</p> + +<p>Marriage, as an instrument, is a well-nigh +perfect thing. The trouble is that it cannot be +successfully applied to the present-day emotional +relationships of men and women. It +could much more easily be applied to something +else, possibly professional tennis. As they now +stand, marriage and sex militate against each +other. If marriage is to be retained it must be +perfected to meet the new demands and intricacies +of sex. There is, doubtless, a discoverable +plane on which marriage and sex, the institutional +and the emotional, could meet and, as +who should say, become friends. Not only +marriage, however, but sex as well, would have +to make certain concessions. Tempered by this +balanced viewpoint, one must find it, then, logically +impossible to pose only the question, +“What is wrong with marriage?” It becomes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xx">[xx]</span>necessary also to pose the question, “What is +wrong with sex?” For if it is plausible to +assume that something may be so radically +wrong with a well-nigh perfect institutional +device that it might be well for society to +abandon it, one must, in all fairness, entertain +the suspicion that something may be so +wrong with a well-nigh perfect emotional relationship +that it might be well for society to +abandon it, too.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_b021" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_b021.jpg" +alt="Sketch of naked woman on hands and knees"> + <figcaption> + <p><i>Early Woman.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>People never have been satisfied with marriage. +If the contracting parties are satisfied +with it, some one else isn’t. How often one +hears the expression, “I don’t know what she +sees in him.” As a matter of fact, however, we +hear that expression less frequently today than +we used to, because psychology has enabled us +to know what she does see in him. There is, +however, still considerable doubt as to what he +sees in her. Some authorities claim that no man +can see all there is to see in a woman, because +she is too complicated and mysterious for him. +This notion—that Woman is more incomprehensible +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</span>than Man—has persisted for centuries. +It is of a piece with the legend that Woman is +deserving of a certain form of idolatrous worship, +a legend that grew up in the early ages of +the world. When Man first came into being, +he did not think that the female was extraordinary. +He did not think that anything was +extraordinary. The world was unattractive +physically, and a little dull. There was no vegetation, +and without vegetation there can be no +fancy. Then trees came into existence. It was +trees that first made Man begin to brood. In +pondering their leafy intricacies he got his +first crude concept of beauty. He used to tear +great branches out of trees and take them home +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxii">[xxii]</span>to his cave woman. “Here,” he would say to +her, “lie on these.” The man then reclined in +a corner of the cave and watched the woman’s +hair mingle with the leaves, and her eyes shine +through them, until he fell asleep. His dreams +were troubled. Woman came into his dreams +as a tree, then a tree came into his dreams as a +woman. He also got her eyes, shining through +the leaves, all mixed up with the moon. Out +of this curious and lamentable confusion grew +the tendency in Man’s mind to identify Woman +with the phenomena of the burgeoning earth +and the mysteries of the illimitable heavens. As +time went on Man rather enjoyed cultivating +this idea. It was something to think about. It +wasn’t much, but it was something. Thus was +the subconscious born, with all its strange mixture +of fact and symbol.</p> + +<p>As the vegetation of the earth grew more luxuriant +Man grew more moody. Each new plant +represented something that he could not easily +fit into his practicable scheme of things (the tomato, +for example, wasn’t fitted in until late in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiii">[xxiii]</span>the nineteenth century). For the first wild iris, +Man saw no conceivable use. However, he +plucked it. It had, he noticed, that curious +color, or pigmentation, which he associated +with only two other things—the sky and +Woman’s eyes. He brooded upon this astounding +coincidence overlong. Often he got wet +through, standing in a bog, contemplating a +blue flag. Then he would take it home and +give it to his mate.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="i_b023" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_b023.jpg" +alt="Sketch of four spirals aranged like butterfly wings."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>Early Conference.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>All these things operated to bring about in +Man’s mind an inclination to identify the wonders +of the earth and sky with the physical fact +of his mate’s existence. He decided they must +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiv">[xxiv]</span>have a great deal in common, these wonders and +this woman. What that was he determined to +find out. Too proud at first, too male, to take +his mate into his confidence in the matter of his +uncertainties, he got to tramping the bogs and +woods at night, seeking the answer. He bayed +questions at the moon, he beseeched the trees to +speak, he shouted at the wild iris. There was +no answer. It was then that it occurred to Man +that, since these things could not tell him the +answer to the riddle of the universe, the only +possible source of that information must repose +in the living creature which he identified with +them, the woman with skyey eyes and leafy hair. +Then came that important night when one of +the early men resolutely rose from his knees, +under the moon, and started back to his cave to +demand from his mate an explanation of all +these mysteries. On the way a star fell. Those +ages were notable for falling meteors. This one +frightened the man as it crashed sizzling +through the trees and buried itself with a moan +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxv">[xxv]</span>in the ground. He ran the rest of the way +home, arriving breathless and white.</p> + +<p>“Wha’ was ’at?” he croaked, pointing behind +him. His mate saw nothing but the waving of +fern fronds in the wind, the form of some animal +slinking into the woods.</p> + +<p>“It is nothing,” she said, and smiled, and ran +her hand through his hair.</p> + +<p>Right then and there Man conceived the notion +that Woman was so closely associated, so +inextricably entwined with the wonders and +terrors of the world, that she had no fear of +them. She was in quiet league with the forces +of life. She was an integral part of the stars +and the moon, she was one with the trees and +the iris in the bog. He fell down on his knees, +the pitiable idiot, and grasped her about the +waist.</p> + +<p>It is inconceivable that a myth as strong as +this belief in the ineffability of Woman, as +deeply rooted in the soils of time, can ever be +completely eradicated. However fantastical, +however untrue, crotchet or whim, fancy or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxvi">[xxvi]</span>foible, there it is and there it has always been. +To destroy it would be to put the female +properly in her place, as a plain, unadorned +unit in the senseless but unending pattern of +biological continuity. Romantic love would +disappear. Life would be simplified. Neuroses +would vanish. But Man clings to his ancient +and silly value. What it has done to him is +quite easy to see. It has subordinated him to +Woman, for one thing. The emotional nature +of the male has either been overlooked altogether +or greatly disparaged. “Isn’t that just +like a man?” is an all-too-glib and common expression. +It implies that one can virtually +ascribe to all men the simple reactions which, in +a number of men, inexpertly observed, have +proved <i>likely</i> to take place. (The italic is +mine.)</p> + +<p>Observers have been too prone to hold that +the male is negligible, and to overemphasize the +importance of the female. Thus we find such +keen analysts as Ira S. Wile and Mary Day +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxvii">[xxvii]</span>Winn⁠<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> asserting that “anyone who wishes to +understand modern marriage must center his +attention on woman and find out what she +thinks of it and what she intends to do about +it.” This is the old Bridegroom Fallacy—the +notion, to paraphrase Miss Loos, that the bride +is divine but that the bridegroom is just nothing. +Unless more stress is laid, and pretty +quickly, too, upon the complexity of the male, +and the importance of what he is thinking about +and what he intends to do, or at least what he +would like to do, we are never going to arrive +at a norm. How often do you hear it said that +the little whims and desires of a man should be +cherished, or even listened to? You don’t hear +it said at all. What you do hear is that “the +way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” +A thing like that hardens a man. He may eat +his spinach and say nothing, but he is being +hardened just the same.</p> +<div class="footnotes"> +<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> <i>Marriage in the Modern Manner.</i></p></div> +</div> +<p>The American male, because of the remarkable +stress laid upon women in this country, has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxviii">[xxviii]</span>been understood least of all males. There has +been no completely successful attempt to state +his case until the authors of this extraordinary +book came along. I do not know who they are. +In places they do not seem to be themselves. +But they’ve got something. (A lot of what they +have they seem to have got from Zaner and +Tithridge, which is all right with me.) At any +rate, they state the case for the American man +clearly and plausibly. At the same time they +have by no means neglected the female. It takes +two to make a neurosis, and nobody knows that +any better than White and Thurber, unless it’s +Zaner and Tithridge.</p> + +<p>Herein are examined, therefore, both men +and women, male and female, Man and +Woman—not only in themselves, but in their +curious reactions to each other. The term +“reaction” seems to be used in this book to include +not only those quick, unpremeditated reflexes +which cause so much trouble, but also +those slowly formulated prejudices, doubts, and +suspicions which cause even more trouble. If +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxix">[xxix]</span>this book does anything at all toward straightening +out the lamentable mess that things have +got into in America—and I certainly think it +will—the authors will feel amply repaid for +their pains, which consisted in large part, they +tell me, of insults.</p> + +<p> + <span class="smcap pad2">Lt. Col. H. R. L. Le Boutellier, C.I.E.</span><br> + <span class="smcap">Schlaugenschloss Haus,</span><br> + <span class="smcap">King’s Byway,</span><br> + <span class="smcap">Boissy-le-Doux sur Seine.</span><br> + <i>July 15, 1929</i> +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center p4 pb4 fs150 wsp2"> +IS SEX NECESSARY? +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I"> + CHAPTER I +<br> +<br><span class="smcap">The Nature of the American Male: +<br>A Study of Pedestalism</span> </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap">In no</span> other civilized nation are the biological +aspects of love so distorted and transcended +by emphasis upon its sacredness as they +are in the United States of America. In China +it’s all biology. In France it’s a mixture of biology +and humor. In America it’s half, or two-thirds, +<i>psyche</i>. The Frenchman’s idea, by and +large, is to get the woman interested in him as a +male. The American idea is to point out, first of +all, the great and beautiful part which the stars, +and the infinite generally, play in Man’s relationship +to women. The French, Dutch, Brazilians, +Danes, etc., can proceed in their amours +on a basis entirely divorced from the <i>psyche</i>. +The Chinese give it no thought at all, and never +have given it any thought. The American +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span>would be lost without the <i>psyche</i>, lost and a +little scared.</p> + +<p>As a result of all this there is more confusion +about love in America than in all the other +countries put together. As soon as one gets the +psychical mixed up with the physical—a thing +which is likely to happen quite easily in a composing-room, +but which should not happen anywhere +else at all—one is almost certain to get +appetite mixed up with worship. This is a +whole lot like trying to play golf with a basketball, +and is bound to lead to maladjustments.</p> + +<p>The phenomenon of the American male’s +worship of the female, which is not so pronounced +now as it was, but is still pretty pronounced, +is of fairly recent origin. It developed, +in fact, or reached its apex, anyway, in +the early years of the present century. There +was nothing like it in the preceding century. +Throughout the nineteenth century the American +man’s amatory instincts had been essentially +economic. Marriage was basically a patriotic +concern, the idea being to have children +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>for the sake of the commonwealth. This was +bad enough, but nevertheless it is far less dangerous +to get the commonwealth mixed up with +love than to get the infinite mixed up with love.</p> + +<p>There was not a single case of nervous breakdown, +or neurosis, arising from amatory troubles, +in the whole cycle from 1800 to 1900, barring +a slight flare-up just before the Mexican +and Civil wars. This was because love and +marriage and children stood for progress, and +progress is—or was—a calm, routine business. +“Mrs. Hopkins,” a man would say to the lady +of his choice (she was a widow in this case)—“Mrs. +Hopkins, I am thinking, now that +George⁠<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> has been dead a year, you and I should +get married and have offspring. They are +about to build the Union Pacific, you know, +and they will need men.” Because parents +can’t always have men-children when they want +them, this led to almost as many women as men +working on the Union Pacific, which in turn +led to the greater stature of women in the present +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>Northwest than in any other part of the +nation. But that is somewhat beside the point. +The point is that men and women, husbands +and wives, suitors and sweethearts, in the last +century lived without much sentiment and without +any psycho-physical confusion at all. They +missed a certain amount of fun, but they avoided +an even greater amount of pother (see <a href="#GLOSSARY">Glossary</a>). +They did not worry each other with +emotional didoes. There was no hint of a +Pleasure-Principle. Everything was empiric, almost +somatic.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> +<div class="footnotes"> +<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> The late George Hopkins.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> The word “somatic” has been left out of the glossary because +of the confusion which the dictionary itself seems to be in over the +meaning of the term. “Pertaining to the wall of the body” is as +close as the New International comes to what we have in mind +here, but it goes right on to use “parietal” as a synonym and +parietal means “pertaining to order within the buildings of a +college.” Then again the word goes back to the old Indian, or +East Indian, root <i>Soma</i> which means a god, a liquor, and an asclepiadaceous +climbing shrub (<i lang="la">Sarcostemma acidum</i>). Furthermore, if +your eyes stray even a fraction of an inch, in looking up “somatic,” +you are in “sölvsbergite” which includes the feldspars, ægirite, grorudite, +and tinguaite.</p></div></div> + +<p>This direct evasion of the Love Urge on the +part of Americans of the last century was the +nuclear complex of the psycho-neurosis as we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>know it today, and the basis for that remarkable +reaction against patriotic sex which was to follow +so soon after the Spanish-American war.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_c005" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c005.jpg" +alt="Sketch of person at bat"> + <figcaption> + <p><i>Fig. 1.</i></p> + <p><i>Sex Substitutes (<span lang=de>Übertragung</span> Period): Baseball.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>At the turn of the century, the nation was on +a sound economic basis and men had the opportunity +to direct their attention away from the +mechanics of life to the pleasures of living. No +race can leap lightly, however, from an economic +value to an emotional value. There must +be a long period of <i lang="de">Übertragung</i>, long and tedious. +Men were not aware of this, thirty years +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>ago, because the science of psychology was not +far advanced, but nature came to their aid by +supplying a temporary substitute for an emotional +sex life, to tide them over during the +period of <i lang="de">Übertragung</i>. This substitute took +the form of games. Baseball assumed a +new and enormous importance; prize-fighting +reached its heyday; horse-racing became an absorption, +bicycling a craze.</p> + +<p>Now women, naturally intraverts, could not +easily identify themselves with baseball or prize-fighting +(they admired Christy Mathewson and +Terry McGovern, but that was about all); they +took but slowly to horse-racing; and they giggled +and acted the fool when they first tried to +balance themselves on a bicycle. They drew +away from men and from men’s concerns, therefore—there +was no more of the old Union +Pacific camaraderie—and began to surround +the mere fact of their biological destiny with a +nimbus of ineffability. It got so that in speaking +of birth and other natural phenomena, +women seemed often to be discussing something +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>else, such as the Sistine Madonna or the +aurora borealis. They became mysterious to +themselves and to men; they became suddenly, +in their own eyes, as capable of miracle and as +worthy of worship as Juno and her sisters. This +could not go on. The conflict was ineluctable.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp70" id="i_c007" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c007.jpg" alt="Sketch of person bowling."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>Fig. 2.</i></p> + <p><i>Sex Substitutes (<span lang=de>Übertragung</span> Period): Bowling.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>When men, wearied of games, turned to +women with that urgency so notable in the +American male for its simplicity and directness, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>they found them unprepared for acceptance +and surrender. The process of adjustment in +courtship and in marriage became more involved +than it had ever been before in the history of +the country, if not in the history of the world. +The new outdoors type of American man, with +all his strength and impetuosity, was not easily +to be put off. But the female, equipped with +a Defense far superior in polymorphous ingenuities +to the rather simple Attack of the +male, was prepared. She developed and perfected +the Diversion Subterfuge. Its purpose +was to put Man in his place. Its first manifestation +was fudge-making.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c009" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c009.jpg" alt="Sketch of woman in long dress at kitchen table, pots hand on the wall behind her. Man and dog sit on the floor looking disgruntled."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="center"><i>FUDGE-MAKING</i>.</p> + <p class="noindent">“<i>The female, equipped with a + Defense far superior in polymorphous + ingenuities to the + rather simple Attack of the + male, developed, and perfected, + the Diversion Subterfuge. + The first manifestation + of this remarkable phenomenon + was fudge-making.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The effectiveness of fudge-making in fending +off the male and impressing him with the +female’s divine unapproachability cannot be +overestimated. Neither can its potentiality as +a nuclear complex. The flitting from table to +stove, the constant necessity of stirring the boiling +confection, the running out-of-doors to see +if the candy had cooled and hardened, served +to abort any objective demonstrations at all on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>the part of the male. He met this situation with +a strong Masculine Protest. He began to bring +a box of candy with him when he called, so that +there would not be any more fudge-making. +These years constituted the great Lowney’s era +in this country. Brought back to where she had +started, face to face with the male’s simple desire +to sit down and hold her, the female, still +intent upon avoidance of the tactual, retaliated +by suggesting Indoor Pastimes—one of the +greatest of all Delay Mechanisms. All manner +of parlor games came into being at this period, +notably charades,⁠<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> which called for the presence +of other persons in the room (Numerical Protection). +The American male’s repugnance to +charades, which is equaled, perhaps, by his repugnance +to nothing else at all, goes back to +those years. The Masculine Protest, in this case, +was a counter-suggestion of some games of his +own, in which there was a greater possibility of +personal contact. His first suggestions were +quite primitive, such as that it would be fun to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>count up to a hundred by kissing. The female’s +response was the famous one of Osculatory Justification. +There must be, she decreed, more +elaborate reasons for kissing than a mere exhibition +of purposeless arithmetical virtuosity. Thus +Post Office and Pillow were finally devised, as +a sort of compromise. Neither was satisfactory +to either sex. The situation became considerably +strained and relationships finally trailed +off into the even less satisfactory expedient of +going for long rides on a tandem bicycle, which +has had its serious effects upon the nature of the +American man. He liked, for one thing, to do +tricks on a bicycle. The contraption was new to +him, and he wanted to do tricks on it. One +trick that he liked especially was riding backwards. +But there wasn’t one woman in ten +thousand, riding frontwards on the rear seat of +a tandem wheel, who would permit her consort +to ride backwards on the front seat. The result +of all this was not adjustment, but irritability. +Man became frustrated.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> See <a href="#GLOSSARY">Glossary</a>, definition No. (1).</p></div> +</div> +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c013" > + <img class="illowp60" src="images/i_c013.jpg" alt="Sketch of two people on a bicycle."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="noindent">“<i>There wasn’t one woman in + ten thousand, riding frontwards + on the rear seat of a + tandem wheel, who would + permit her consort to ride + backwards on the front seat. + The result of all this was not + adjustment, but irritability. + Man became frustrated.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> +<p>Frustration wrought its inevitable results. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>Men began to act jumpy and strange. They +were getting nowhere at all with women. The +female gradually assumed, in men’s eyes, as she +had in her own, the proportions of an unattainable +deity, something too precious to be touched. +The seed of Pedestalism was sown. The male, +in a sort of divine discontent, began to draw +apart by himself. This produced that separation +of the physical and the psychic which causes +the adult to remain in a state of suspended love, +as if he were holding a bowl of goldfish and +had nowhere to put it. This condition nowadays +would lead directly to a neurosis, but in +those days men were unable to develop a neurosis +because they didn’t know how. Men +withdrew, therefore, quietly and morosely, to +their “dens.” It was the epoch of the den in +America. Some marvelous ones sprang into +being. Their contents were curiously significant. +Deprived of possessing the female, the male +worked off his Possessive Complex by collecting +all manner of bibelots and bric-à-brac. The +average den contained a paper-weight from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>Lookout Mountain, a jagged shell from <ins class="corr" title="Transcriber's Note—original text: Chickamaugua" id="chicka">Chickamauga</ins>, +a piece of wood from the <i>Maine</i>, pictures +of baseball-players with beards, pictures of +bicycle champions, a yellowing full-page photograph +of Admiral Schley, a letter-opener from +Niagara Falls, a lithograph of Bob Fitzsimmons, +a musket-badge from the G. A. R. parade, a red +tumbler from the state fair, a photograph of +Julia Marlowe, a monk’s head match-holder, a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>Malay kriss, five pipe racks, a shark’s tooth, a +starfish, a snapshot of the owner’s father’s bowling +team, colored pictures of Natural Bridge +and Balanced Rock, a leather table runner with +an Indian chief on it, and the spangled jacket +of a masquerade costume, softly shedding its +sequins.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c016" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c016.jpg" alt="Sketch of two people playing craps."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>Fig. 3.</i></p> + <p><i>Sex Substitutes (<span lang=de>Übertragung</span> Period): Craps.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + + +<p>The den was the beginning of male sublimation +in this country, but the fruits of that sublimation +were slow in ripening. At the start, +in fact, they were in a state of absolute suspension. +Man began to preoccupy himself with +anything, no matter how trivial, which might +help him to “forget,” as the lay expression has +it. He thought up childish diversions, at which +one person can amuse himself, and to justify his +absorption in these futile pastimes he exaggerated +their importance, as we shall see. These +diversions included the diabolo, the jig-saw puzzle, +linked nails and linked keys, which men +took apart and put back together again, and +most important of all, pigs-in-clover.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_c018" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c018.jpg" alt="Sketch of person riding a bicycle."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>Fig. 4.</i></p> + <p><i>Sex Substitutes (<span lang=de>Übertragung</span> Period): Six-day Bicycle Racing.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>During this period almost no achievements +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>of value, in art, science, or engineering, were +forthcoming in the nation. Art, indeed, consisted +chiefly of putting strange devices on boxes +with the aid of a wood-burning set. The commonest +device was the swastika, whose curiously +distorted conformation bears no discernible +relationship to any known phallic symbolism. +Those years were blank, idle, lost years. +Outside affairs of all kinds were neglected. +Men retired to their dens and were not seen for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>days. The panic of 1907 was a direct result. +It might be interesting to examine into a typical +case history of the period.</p> + + +<h3 id="CASE_HISTORY"> + CASE HISTORY +</h3> + +<p>George Smith, aged 32, real estate operator. +Unmarried, lived with mother. No precocious +mother fixation. Had freed his libido without +difficulty from familial objects, and was eager +to marry. Had formed an attachment in 1899, +at the age of 29, with a young virgin. Her Protective +Reactions had been immediate and lasted +over a period of three years, during which he +had never even held her hand. Defense Devices: +usually euchre (four-handed), or pedro. +Definite and frequent fudge-making subterfuge. +Post Office and Pillow, both with low degree of +success.</p> + +<p>Smith’s separation between the physical and +the psychic occurred in 1902, the direct stimuli +presenting themselves on June 6th of that year, +examination (by Dr. Matthiessen) showed. On +that day Smith ran, frightened, from a barber-shop +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>in Indianapolis, where he lived. Inside +the shop, on the floor, a middle-aged man named +Herschel Queeper had thrown a fit. Queeper +had been trying for two days to get three little +balls, under a glass in a tiny round box, to roll +into an opening made for them (common pigs-in-clover +puzzle). But no sooner would he get +the third one in than one, or perhaps both, of +the others would roll out. Mrs. Queeper was +beginning to wonder where he was.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c021" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c021.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="center"><i>UNCONSCIOUS DRAWING: + PLATE I.</i></p> + <p class="noindent"><i>Unconscious drawings, as they + are called in psychoanalytical + terminology, are made by + people when their minds are + a blank. This drawing was + made by Floyd Neumann, of + South Norwalk. It represents + the Male Ego being importuned + by, but refusing to yield + to, Connecticut Beautiful.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Smith withdrew to his den and pondered and +fiddled around and made Unconscious Drawings +(Cf. Plates <a href="#i_c021">I</a>, <a href="#i_c027">II</a>, <a href="#i_c037">III</a> and <a href="#i_c047">IV</a>). He turned +his attention from the object of his amorous +affections to a consideration of the problems of +pigs-in-clover. The usual Justification of Occupation +occurred. It took the form of exaggerating +the importance of finding out whether the +puzzle could possibly be solved, and of working +out a methodology of solving it more readily, +if it could be solved at all. The case procured +one of the little boxes and began to roll the balls +toward the opening. At first he set about it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>quite calmly. There were no immediate signs of +mental deterioration, either malignant or benign. +But although the case got all the balls +into the opening, thus proving that it could be +done, he never got them all in at the same time. +In the second month he threw a brief fit. This, +today, would ordinarily prove the first step toward +a complete physico-psychic breakdown, but +in those days neuroses were staved off longer, +owing to the general ignorance of psychology, +and Smith not only calmly examined the effect of +the fit upon himself, without calling in any +scientists, but determined to go on and examine +the effects of fits upon others. He decided, +however, that it would be difficult to +examine the effects of puzzle-fits upon men, because +men brooked no examination when they +were intent upon puzzles, and so he hit on the +idea of having his dog, an animal named +Dewey, play with the little round box until it +threw a fit. But when he called in his dog he +found, after several experiments, that the dog +could not hold the box in either its right or left +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>paw.⁠<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Furthermore, the animal was profoundly +incurious about the puzzle.⁠<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> This presented a difficulty that has not been overcome to this +day.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> This disinterest held good up until the day of the dog’s death.</p></div> +</div> +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c024" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c024.jpg" alt="Sketch of man offering a treat to a dog."> + <figcaption> + <p>“<i>Furthermore, the animal was profoundly incurious about + the puzzle.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Undismayed, Smith decided that somewhere +in Indianapolis there must be a dog adroit +enough to handle the box and sagacious enough +to grasp the idea behind it, and with a view to +finding such an animal, he determined to get all +the dogs in town, and all the pigs-in-clover puzzles +in town, into one room and see what would +happen. (Apotheosis Complex, with Plurality +Fallacy.)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span></p> + +<p>Smith was able, however, to round up only +about 85 per cent of the dogs of the city, because +there were many who were too busy to get +away at the time. Even so, 85 per cent of the +dogs in Indianapolis was more than had ever +been got together in one room before. The +case attempted to explain the problem to the +dogs in short, one-syllable talks, but the bedlam +was too loud and too prolonged for him to +make himself heard. Fifty or more St. Bernards +and a few dozen Chesapeake spaniels listened, +half-heartedly, but the others made holiday. +Furthermore, eighty-four bulldogs would not +permit themselves to be muzzled, and this added +to Smith’s difficulties. Thus, on the fifth day +of the singular experiment, Smith, hearing a remarkable +hullaballoo belowstairs (he worked +in the attic), descended to the parlor, where he +discovered the bulldogs engaged in a sort of +tug-of-war, using a body Brussels carpet as a +rope. (The case’s mother had several days before +retreated to French Lick, in a rundown condition.)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span></p> + +<p>Smith grasped the carpet firmly, with some +idea of wresting it away from the dogs, whereupon +all of them save three began to pull against +him.⁠<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> The Exaggeration Complex under which +the case was laboring gave him strength enough +to meet with some small success in his first +efforts to take the carpet away from the dogs. +He pulled them as far as the bay window in +the parlor, largely because they had not settled +down seriously to winning. When they did, +however, the total of three hundred and twenty-four +solidly implanted feet and the virtually immeasurable +tugging potentiality were too much +for Smith. He was slowly pulled out into the +hall, through the front door, and into the street. +He stubbornly contested every inch of the way +until a drug store, three blocks away, was +reached. Here some one had the presence of +mind to call out the fire department.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> These three had closed their eyes, to hang on, and did not see +Smith.</p></div></div> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c027" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c027.jpg" alt="Sketch of curled up male form, and smaller, but upright female form with arms reaching upwards."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="center"><i>UNCONSCIOUS DRAWING: + PLATE II.</i></p> + <p class="noindent"><i>This was drawn by Peter Zinsner, + 564 DeKalb Avenue, + Brooklyn, without knowing it. + We here see Sublimation in + conflict with the Libido. Peter + has reached a point in life + where women seem so divine + he doesn’t dare call them up + on the phone. Yet</i> they <i>still + call</i> him.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Dr. Matthiessen, who took the case at about +this period in its development, attempted to reduce +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>the Magnification of Objective, first by +Analytic Reasoning, and then by cold applications. +Neither was successful. Matthiessen +could not divert the libido. Smith declined to +resume his interest in the feminine object of his +affections, and insisted that his experiment with +puzzles was a glorious project for the benefit +of mankind.</p> + +<p>It was sheer accident that saved the patient—not +Dr. Matthiessen. Smith finally refused Dr. +Matthiessen admittance to his house, nor would +he go to the doctor’s office, claiming that he did +not believe in psychology, but one day he +dropped one of the little pigs-in-clover puzzles +and broke the glass in it. He then found that +he did not have to roll the balls into the openings, +<i>but could push them in with his finger</i>. +He got a hammer and broke the glass in all the +thousands of puzzles he had brought to his +home for the dogs, and solved every one of +the puzzles by pushing, not rolling. This instantly +released him from his complex by the +Gordian Knot principle of complex release. He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>thus gained the necessary confidence and sense +of power to feel worthy of the woman with +whom he was in love, and he finally married her. +The marriage was of average success.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c031" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c031.jpg" alt="Sketch of cat jumping between two chair backs, man looks in from door behind."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="noindent"><i>This drawing was made from + an old 1901 lantern slide + often used by Dr. Karl Zaner + in his illustrated lecture, + “What Can We Learn from + Animals?” Dr. Zaner has always + contended that we can + learn nothing of importance + from animals beyond a few + pointers on the art of relaxation. + “Their general activities + are, as a rule, not only + meaningless to man, but frequently + to themselves as well. + This particular cat, for example, + probably had nothing + special in mind at all.”</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Marriages, however, were frequently delayed +much longer than in the case of George Smith, +and it was not, indeed, until 1909 that the usual +norm was restored. Meanwhile, in between the +time of the first general separation of the physical +and the psychic in this country, and the final +culmination in marriages, a period of sublimation +set in. This followed directly on the heels +of the remarkable and lamentable era of preoccupation +with trivial diversions and was characterized +by an extravert interest in truly important +projects and activities. The airplane +was brought to a high stage of development, +the telephone transmitter was perfected, tungsten +replaced carbon as a filament for incandescent +lamps, better books were written, art +progressed, there was a cultural advance generally +and the birth of a new Æsthetic, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>people began to get at the real facts in the Thaw +case. Nevertheless, Pedestalism has left its +serious effects. It is doubtful if they will fully +wear off for another fifty or seventy-five years.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp70" id="i_c033" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c033.jpg" +alt="Sketch of dog running."> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II"> + CHAPTER II +<br><br><span class="smcap">How to Tell Love from Passion</span> + </h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap">At a</span> certain point in every person’s amours, +the question arises: “Am I in love, or am I +merely inflamed by passion?”</p> + +<p>It is a disturbing question. Usually it arises +at some inopportune moment: at the start of +a letter, in the middle of an embrace, at the +end of a day in the country. If the person could +supply a direct, simple, positive answer—if he +could say convincingly, “I am in love,” or, “This +is not love, this is passion”—he would spare +himself many hours of mental discomfort. Almost +nobody can arrive at so simple a reply. +The conclusion a man commonly arrives at, after +tossing the argument about, is something after +this fashion: “I am in love, all right, but just +the same I don’t like the way I looked at Miriam +last night.” Or, “Mirabel is a tidy little wench, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>and in that case why do I waste time composing +a quatrain for her, to be sent with a crushed +spray of lilac? Why don’t I just go right over?”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c035" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c035.jpg" alt="Sketch of man seated in char, a woman is seated on the floor between his knees, her legs stretch out under the chair."> + <figcaption> + <p>“<i>At a certain point in every person’s amours, the question arises:<br> + ‘Am I in love, or am I merely inflamed by passion?’</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>One reason a man has trouble telling love +from passion is because neither term has been +clearly defined. Even after one has experienced +love, one finds difficulty defining it. Likewise, +one may define it and then have all kinds of +trouble experiencing it, because, once having defined +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>it, one is in too pompous a frame of mind +ever again to submit to its sweet illusion. By +and large, love is easier to experience before it +has been explained—easier and cleaner. The +same holds true of passion. Understanding the +principles of passion is like knowing how to +drive a car; once mastered, all is smoothed out; +no more does one experience the feeling of perilous +adventure, the misgivings, the diverting +little hesitancies, the wrong turns, the false +starts, the glorious insecurity. All is smoothed +out, and all, so to speak, is lost.</p> + +<p>The word “love” is used loosely by writers, +and they know it. Furthermore, the word +“love” is accepted loosely by readers, and <i>they</i> +know it. There are many kinds of love, but +for the purposes of this article I shall confine +my discussion to the usual hazy interpretation: +the strange bewilderment which overtakes one +person on account of another person. Thus, +when I say love in this article, you will take it +to mean <i>the pleasant confusion which we know +exists</i>. When I say passion, I <i>mean</i> passion.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c037" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c037.jpg" alt="Sketch of frowning woman with hands under her chin, small figure of a man stands on one of her arms."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="center"><i>UNCONSCIOUS DRAWING: + PLATE III.</i></p> + <p class="noindent"><i>This is the work of Grace McFadden, + aged 11, of Bucyrus, + Ohio (R. F. D. # 3, Bucyrus + 6021, Ring 3), and was drawn + on the day that Principal K. + L. Mooney, of the Paulding + County Concentration Grade + Schools, was married. Here + the Pleasure-Principle and the + Wish Motive are both overshadowed + by the Bridegroom + Fallacy.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span></p> + +<p>I have mentioned that the question of deciding +whether a feeling be love or passion arises +at inopportune moments, such as at the start of +a letter. Let us say you have sat down to write +a letter to your lady. There has been a normal +amount of preparation for the ordeal, such as +clearing a space on the desk (in doing which +you have become momentarily interested in a +little article in last month’s <i>Scribner’s</i> called, +“Plumbing the Savage,” and have stood for a +minute reading the first page and deciding to let +it go), and the normal amount of false alarms, +such as sitting down and discovering that you +have no cigarettes. (Note: if you think you can +write the letter without cigarettes, it is not love, +it is passion.) Finally you get settled and you +write the words; “Anne darling.” If you like +commas, you put a comma after “darling”; if +you like colons, a colon; if dashes, a dash. If +you don’t care <i>what</i> punctuation mark you put +after “darling,” the chances are you are in love—although +you may just be uneducated, who +knows?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span></p> + +<p>Now, you have written the words “Anne darling” +and have put a punctuation mark there. +You pause for just a second, and in that second +you are lost. “Darling?” you say to yourself. +“Darling? Is she my darling, or isn’t she? +And if she <i>is</i> my darling, as I have so brazenly +set down on this sheet of paper, what caused me +to take such a long, critical look at the girl in +the red-and-brown scarf this morning when I +was breakfasting in the Brevoort? If I can be +all aglow about a girl in a red-and-brown scarf +in the early morning, is Anne my darling, or am +I just kidding myself?”</p> + +<p>Then follows a brief estimate of the comparative +beauty of Anne and the girl in the scarf, +with the girl in the scarf coming out half a +length ahead. This is followed by a short dialogue +which you hold with yourself.</p> + +<p>“What if she <i>was</i> prettier?” you say. “What +does that amount to? I’m not a child. I know +there’s more to the story than mere physical +beauty.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c041" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c041.jpg" alt="Sketch of two men crawling in opposite directions, waving to each other."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="center"><i>AMERICAN MALE + POSTURES: PLATE I.</i></p> + <p class="noindent"><i>American men, more than any + others, permit the complexities + of the psycho-physical world + to get them down. Often, + while down, they will pass + each other going somewhere, + and exchange a small greeting.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p> + +<p>“What more is there?” you quietly demand, +testing yourself out.</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’s quality of mind, and community +of interest, and chemical attraction (chemical attraction +is a term you’ve picked up recently from +reading books on sex and life). When I get +right down to it, if I were to meet that girl in +the scarf, I probably wouldn’t like her.”</p> + +<p>“No, but you want to meet her, all the samey, +don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Well ... I mean ... a man can’t; I +mean....”</p> + +<p>“Yah, you know you want to meet her!”</p> + +<p>“Aw, shut up!”</p> + +<p>Having got nowhere with that theme, you +again bend to the mighty task of writing the +first sentence of the letter. A minute or two +of quiet brooding and the truth comes to you +that you have nothing to say, that you wrote +all the news yesterday, that you consider it pretty +silly to be writing another letter so soon, and +that if anyone were to ask you, you don’t really +want to write Anne a letter at all.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, so that’s the way the wind blows!” +you say to yourself, contemptuously. “So +<i>that’s</i> the way things are between Anne and +you! Not wanting to write her. So it’s come +to that. Well, it’s about time you got wise to +yourself. If you don’t love Anne it’s certainly +high time you found it out, in justice to both +Anne and yourself. In other words, you never +loved Anne at all—you merely gave in to an infatuation. +You were thinking about the physical +side of the affair; yes, sir, you <i>desired</i> Anne, +that’s what you did. You <i>desired</i> her! Why, +you dirty, low-down, two-faced old voluptuary +you....”</p> + +<p>The utter shame of this situation breaks your +spirit and you lay down your pen, light up a +cigarette, and pace up and down the room. +Suddenly you dash to the desk, with a look of +woeful determination, seize the pen, and write +(after the words “Anne darling,” which are +good and dry by this time): “I have been wanting +to tell you something for a long time. We +must look things straight in the face, Anne.” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>You then look things straight in the face for ten +minutes, during which you don’t write a word, +and end by tearing the letter up and quickly +dashing off another, which reads: “Anne, I’m +awfully tired tonight, nervous, etc., and if I +wrote you it would just be a bunch of hooey, so +think I will wait till tomorrow before writing. +Love, Bert.” This you mail at the corner and +spend the rest of the evening trying to read +“Plumbing the Savage,” which results finally in +sleep—sleep troubled by dreams of savages +wearing loin cloths of a familiar red-and-brown +material.</p> + +<p>This vexing disbelief in one’s own illusion of +love is experienced most alarmingly by persons +of literary inclinations. Yet with them the reaction +comes in quite the opposite manner. +Writing is a form of sexual expression (Zaner +goes further: he says writing <i>is</i> sex), and it takes +just as much out of a person. Thus, a person +with a bent for creative literature approaches +the task of writing a love letter with an excitation +of the spirit surpassing anything in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>realm of pure eroticism. He anticipates it for +hours, mulling over in his mind the possible +material, enlarging on anecdotes, rounding off +pledges of affection, sharpening similes, sharpening +pencils; he comes to the writing of it with +immense zeal and a rather nice control of lyrical +prose; he ends on a splendidly poised and +correctly balanced note of tenderness and faith +and love; and then, having signed, sealed, and +posted the missive, is suddenly overcome by the +realization that by the very act of composition he +has annulled the allure of the subject herself—cares +no more about her, for the moment, than +he does for an old piece of butcher’s twine, +which, all in all, is so alarming a discovery that +he usually gets a little bit sick thinking about it, +and has to go out somewhere and hear some +music.</p> + +<p>I have seldom met an individual of literary +tastes or propensities in whom the writing of +love was not directly attributable to the love +of writing.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c047" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c047.jpg" alt="Sketch of the head and arms of a large man, looking down at a dolls sized figure of a woman facing away from him."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="center"><i>UNCONSCIOUS DRAWING: + PLATE IV.</i></p> + <p class="noindent"><i>The mood captured in this + drawing is a rare one indeed, + and Dr. Karl Zaner considers + the sketch the finest in his + collection. Here the masculine + sense of Ironic Detachment + rises superior to the Love + Urge and can take it or let + it alone. The drawing was + sent to Dr. Zaner by Mrs. + Walter L. Mouse (née Kathleen + Schaaf), recently divorced + wife of the author of the + drawing, Walter L. Mouse, of + Columbus, Ohio.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>A person of this sort falls terribly in love, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>but in the end it turns out that he is more bemused +by a sheet of white paper than a sheet +of white bed linen. He would rather leap into +print with his lady than leap into bed with her. +(This first pleases the lady and then annoys her. +She wants him to do both, and with virtually the +same impulse.)</p> + + +<h3 id="UNCERTAINTY_IN_THE_MIDDLE_OF_AN_EMBRACE"> + UNCERTAINTY IN THE MIDDLE OF AN EMBRACE +</h3> + +<p>There is no more disturbing experience in the +rich gamut of life than when a young man discovers, +in the midst of an embrace, that he is +taking the episode quite calmly and is taking +the kiss for what it is worth. His doubts and +fears start from this point and there is no end +to them. He doesn’t know whether it’s love or +passion. In fact, in the confusion of the moment +he’s not quite sure it isn’t something else, +like forgery. He certainly doesn’t see how it +can be love.</p> + +<p>Let us examine this incident. He has been +sitting, we’ll say, on a porch with his beloved. +They have been talking of this and that, with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>the quiet intimacy of lovers. After a bit he +takes her in his arms and kisses her—not once, +but several times. It is not a new experience to +him; he has had other girls, and he has had +plenty of other kisses from this one. This time, +however, something happens. The young man, +instead of losing himself in the kiss, <i>finds</i> himself +in it. What’s more, the girl to him loses her +identity—she becomes just anyone on whom he +is imposing his masculinity. Instead of his soul +being full of the ecstasy which is traditionally +associated with love’s expression, his soul is just +fiddling around. The young man is thinking +to himself:</p> + +<p>“Say, this is pretty nice now!”</p> + +<p>Well, that scares him. Up to this point in +the affair he has been satisfied that his feeling +was that of love. Now he doesn’t know what +to think. In all his life he has never come across +a character in a book or a movie who, embracing +his beloved, was heard to say, “This is +pretty nice,” except that character was a villain. +He becomes a mass of conflicting emotions, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>is so thoroughly skeptical and worried about the +state of his heart that he will probably take to +reading sociological books to find out if it’s +O.K. to go ahead, or whether, as a gentleman, +it’s his duty to step out before he further defames +a sweet girl and soils her womanhood.</p> + +<p>The medical profession recognizes two distinct +types of men: first, the type that believes +that to love a woman is not to desire her; second, +the type that believes that to desire a +woman is not to love her. The medical profession +rests.</p> + +<p>This young man whom I’ve just mentioned +(the rogue who found himself having a good +time in the midst of a kiss) now takes seriously +to books. Matters go from bad to worse. Hoping +to find, in sexology, some explanation for +his conduct which would indicate that, if not +decent, it at least was not without precedent, +he searches relentlessly until he comes upon a +chapter on “The Theory of the Libido.” (Note: +it makes any young man a little mad to discover +that he has a <i>pleasure-principle</i>, but there it is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>just the same.) On page 464 he finds this paragraph:</p> + +<p>“The ideal healthy outcome is to find the child +in whom the process of repression has been accomplished +with no fixations of interest at lower +stages of adaptation, in whom the Œdipus complex +has passed into a ‘normal’ phase of the +castration complex inhibition, and in whom a +free-movable libido is developing sublimation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>in active interests free from paralyzing inhibitions +or anti-social tendencies.”</p> + + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c052" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c052.jpg" alt="Sketch of man sitting with poor posture on the edge of a chair."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>This peculiar posture was discovered by Dr. Tithridge + in a patient who for thirty years, boy and man, had been + unable to tell love from passion and who allowed it to + prey on his mind. Drawing from the Tithridge collection + of American male postures.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>This brings the young man to the point where +he thinks maybe he better lay off altogether. He +just wasn’t cut out for kissing, he guesses. So +he writes his girl a letter apologizing for having +been a beast, breaks the engagement, and goes +out to Oregon, where he raises fruit fairly successfully +and with no anti-social tendencies.</p> + +<p>I have taken up the question of Man’s uncertainty +about love and passion in two different +circumstances—at the start of a letter, and in +the middle of an embrace. It was originally my +intention also to show how this uncertainty overcomes +one <i>at the end of a day in the country</i> +when a man is so tired that he not only can’t +distinguish love from passion, but has all he can +do to distinguish one station on the New Haven +railroad from another and often gets out at +125th Street by mistake. I say this was my intention; +but thus far I have been so unsuccessful +in explaining the difference between love and +passion that to go on would be to lay myself +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>open to criticism. The fact of the matter is, it’s +very difficult to tell love from passion. My advice +to anyone who doesn’t feel sure of the difference +between them is either to give them +both up or quit trying to split hairs.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III"> + CHAPTER III +<br> +<br><span class="smcap">A Discussion of Feminine Types</span> +</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap">In speaking</span> of the weaker sex in this book, +the authors usually confine themselves to the +generalization “Woman,” “women,” and “the +female.” For the larger discussions of sex, these +comprehensive terms suffice. Yet no examination +of the pitiable problem of Man and Woman +would be complete without some effort to define +a few of the more important types of the female. +One cannot say, “Oh, well, you know how +women are,” and let it go at that. Many truths +apply, and many foibles are common, to the +whole sex, but the varieties of the female of the +species are as manifold as the varieties of the +flower called the cineraria.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c056" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c056.jpg" alt="Sketch of a man carrying a woman, face up, slung over his shoulder."> + <figcaption> + <p>“<i>Successfully to deal with a woman, a man must know + what type she is.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Successfully to deal with a woman, a man +must know what type she is. There have been +several methods of classification, none of which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>I hold thoroughly satisfactory, neither the glandular +categories—the gonoid, thyroid, etc.—nor +the astrological—Sagittarius, Virgo, Pisces, and +so on. One must be pretty expert to tell a good +gonoid when he sees one. Personally, I know +but very little about them, nor if I had a vast +knowledge would I know what to do with it. It +is even more difficult, and just as unimportant, +to arrive at a zodiacal classification, because that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>is altogether dependent upon determining the +year the woman was born, and because, even if +you should ascertain her date of birth, the pish-tosh +of analysis and prediction which derives +therefrom is a lot of mediæval guesswork. Or +so it seems to me, and to Zaner, Blifil, Gorley, +Peschkar, Rittenhouse, and Matthiessen.</p> + +<p>Of much greater importance is a classification +of females by actions. It comes out finally, the +nature of a woman, in what she does—her little +bag of tricks, as one might say.</p> + +<p>A type of which one hears a great deal but +which has never been very ably or scientifically +analyzed, for the guidance of men, is the Quiet +Type. How often one hears the warning, “Look +out for the Quiet Type.” Let us see if we +should look out for it, and why.</p> + +<p>The element of menace in the Quiet Type is +commonly considered very great. Yet if one +asks a man who professes knowledge of the +type, why one should look out for it, one gets +but a vague answer. “Just look out, that’s all,” +he usually says. When I began my researches I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>was, in spite of myself, somewhat inhibited by +an involuntary subscription to this legendary +fear. I found it difficult to fight off a baseless +alarm in the presence of a lady of subdued manner. +Believing, however, that the best defense +is an offense, I determined to carry the war, +as it were, into the enemy’s country. The first +Quiet Type, or Q.T., that I isolated was a young +woman whom I encountered at a Sunday tea +party. She sat a little apart from the rest of the +group in a great glazed chintz, I believe it was, +chair. Her hands rested quietly on the chair +arms. She kept her chin rather down than up, +and had a way of lifting her gaze slowly, without +disturbing the set of her chin. She moved +but twice, once to put by a cup of tea and once +to push back a stray lock from her forehead. I +stole glances at her from time to time, trying +to make them appear ingenuous and friendly +rather than bold or suggestive, an achievement +rendered somewhat troublesome by an unfortunate +involuntary winking of the left eyelid +to which I am unhappily subject.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span></p> + +<p>I noted that her eyes, which were brown, had +a demure light in them. She was dressed simply +and was quite pretty. She spoke but once +or twice, and then only when spoken to. In a +chance shifting of the guests to an adjacent room +to examine, I believe, some water colors, I was +left quite alone with her. Steeling myself for +an ordeal to which I am unused—or was at the +time—I moved directly to her side and grasped +her hand. “Hallo, baby! Some fun—hah?” +I said—a method of attack which I had devised +in advance. She was obviously shocked, and instantly +rose from her chair and followed the +others into the next room. I never saw her +again, nor have I been invited to that little home +since. Now for some conclusions.</p> + +<p>Patently, this particular Q.T., probably due +to an individual variation, was not immediately +dangerous in the sense that she would seize an +opportunity, such as I offered her, to break up +the home of, or at least commit some indiscretion +with, a man who was obviously—I believe I +may say—a dependable family man with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>average offhand attractions. Dr. White has +criticized my methodology in this particular +case, a criticism which I may say now, in all +good humor, since the danger is past, once +threatened to interpose insuperable obstacles, of +a temperamental nature, in the way of this collaboration. +It was his feeling that I might just +as well have removed one of the type’s shoes as +approach her the way I did. I cannot hold +with him there. Neither, I am gratified to say, +can Zaner, but in fairness to White it is only +just to add that Tithridge can.</p> + +<p>However, the next Q.T. that I encountered I +placed under observation more gradually. I +used to see her riding on a Fifth Avenue bus, always +at a certain hour. I took to riding on this +bus also, and discreetly managed to sit next her +on several occasions. She eventually noticed +that I appeared to be cultivating her and eyed +me quite candidly, with a look I could not at +once decipher. I could now, but at that time I +couldn’t. I resolved to put the matter to her +quite frankly, to tell her, in fine, that I was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>studying her type and that I wished to place her +under closer observation. Therefore, one evening, +I doffed my hat and began.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="i_c061" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c061.jpg" alt="Sketch of face of woman with short hair."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>The Quiet Type.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“Madam,” I said, “I would greatly appreciate +making a leisurely examination of you, at +your convenience.” She struck me with the +palm of her open hand, got up from her seat, +and descended at the next even-numbered +street—Thirty-sixth, I believe it was.</p> + +<p>I may as well admit here and now that personally +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>I enjoyed at no time any great success +with Q.T’s. I think one may go as far as to say +that any scientific examination of the Quiet +Type, as such, is out of the question. I know +of no psychologist who has ever got one alone +long enough to get anywhere. (Tithridge has +averred that he began too late in life; Zaner +that he does not concur in the major premise.) +The Quiet Type is not amenable to the advances +of scientific men when the advances are of a +scientific nature, and also when they are of any +other nature. Indeed, it is one of the unfortunate +handicaps to psychological experimentation +that many types of women do not lend +themselves readily to purposeful study. As one +woman said to me, “It all seems so mapped out, +kind of.”</p> + +<p>I am a little reluctant to report one other adventure +with the Quiet Type, and that is why +I seem to have summed up in the preceding +paragraph without mentioning it. However, I +now feel that some brief outline of the case I +have alluded to should be set down here—especially +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>after all this allusion. This young lady +was a guest at a week-end party where I was also +a guest. On Saturday evening it began to appear, +quite early, that there was going to be +considerable drinking. And, to be sure, there +was. Among those who became, as the fellow +said, a little bit uncertain of themselves, were +the young Q.T. and myself. It was, in all truth, +largely her fault that I reached a state of abandon +from which, at her further solicitation, it +was but an easy step to a feeling of sheer devil-may-care. +This condition, it is perhaps unnecessary +to say, militates against that fine precision +of mind so essential to the best results in any +scientific investigation.</p> + +<p>I do not remember all that ensued one-half +so clearly as I should like to. I have often +thought deeply on the matter, striving to reconstruct +the complete scene, as it were, but my efforts +have been hampered by the lamentable fact +that I found dwelling upon the more easily +remembered scenes so delightful that I simply +dwelt on them. I remember, for example, that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>I was at the piano, or more exactly, on it—standing +on it. The Quiet Type, fearing that I +might fall, grasped me firmly about the knees, +and I did fall. I was not only uninjured, but I +got to my feet laughing. At this she began to +laugh. I had lost my glasses in the fall, and +began hunting for them. In bending over, however, +I was assailed by a slight touch of vertigo, +which runs in my family, and fell again.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c064" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c064.jpg" alt="Sketch of man and woman embracing in a field with flowers."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>I asked her how I had reached the cliff—if I had walked + there. “Partly,” she said.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span></p> + +<p>The next that I remember is sitting on the +edge of a cliff, or <i lang="fr">falaise</i>, as the French call it, +looking out over a lake. The young lady was +beside me. “Well,” she said, “what shall we do +next?” I asked her how I had reached the cliff—if +I had walked there. “Partly,” she said. +This set me to thinking. “I have lost my +glasses,” I said, and began hunting for them +again. She again seized me by the knees, and I +fell. In falling, both of us became enormously +involved. I instantly arose and was about to +step into the lake, when she grasped me around +the waist. We both sat down. “You have +gone as far as you can,” she said, and tittered. +“I should like to go a little farther,” said I. She +arose. “You’re a funny man,” she said, and +laughed again. I grasped her, much to my surprise, +by one ankle, and she began to topple toward +the lake. I fell heavily backward, pulling +her with me, and this doubtless saved her life. +“You must be more careful,” I told her. We sat +up. “Don’t you think you better take me +home?” she said, in a singular voice—low and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>odd. “Rather,” I responded, and arose. I took +her back to the house, which was some half-mile +distant, we joined the others, and that is all I +remember.</p> + +<p>I shall always regret, of course, that I did not +have full possession of my faculties during the +walk to the cliff’s edge, for there might have +been, in the ten or fifteen minutes it must have +taken, an excellent opportunity to “get at” the +young woman. There is nothing quite so provocative +of pleasant, revelatory talk as a quiet +walk with some one at night. However, the episode +ended as I have said, and a golden opportunity +was lost.</p> + +<p>In my very failures I made, I believe, certain +significant findings in regard to the Quiet +Type. It is not dangerous to men, but to a particular +man. Apparently it lies in wait for some +one individual and gets him. Being got by this +special type, or even being laid in wait for, +would seem to me in some cases not without its +pleasurable compensations. Wherein, exactly, +the menace lies, I have no means of knowing. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>I have my moments when I think I see what it +is, but I have other moments when I think I +don’t.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_c067" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c067.jpg" alt="Sketch of a profile of woman with short, bobbed, hair."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>The Buttonhole-twister Type.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The Buttonhole-twister Type is much easier +to come at. A girl of this persuasion works quite +openly. She has the curious habit of insinuating +a finger, usually the little finger of the right +hand, unless she be left-handed, into the lapel +buttonhole of a gentleman, and twisting it. +Usually, she picks out a man who is taller than +herself and usually she gets him quite publicly, +in parks, on street corners, and the like. Often, +while twisting, she will place the toe of her right +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>shoe on the ground, with the heel elevated, and +will swing the heel slowly through an arc of +about thirty or thirty-five degrees, back and +forth. This manifestation is generally accompanied +by a wistful, far-away look on the +woman’s face, and she but rarely gazes straight +at the man. She invariably goes in for negative +statements during the course of her small writhings, +such as “It is not,” “I am not,” “I don’t +believe you do,” and the like. This type is +demonstrative in her affections and never lies +in wait with any subtlety. She is likely to be +restless and discontented with the married state, +largely because she will want to go somewhere +that her husband does not want to go, or will +not believe he has been to the places that he says +he just came from. It is well to avoid this type.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c069" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c069.jpg" alt="Sketch of man laying on the ground raised up on his arms, a woman sits on his back covering his eyes with her hands."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>I am told that one type has actually been known to get + the man of her choice down and sit, as it were, side-saddle + of him.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>A charming but altogether dangerous type is +the “Don’t, dear” Type. By assuming a middle +of the road, this way and that way, attitude toward +a gentleman’s advances, she will at once +allure and repulse him. The man will thus be +twice allured. He calls on her, and they sit +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>in the porch swing, let us say. When he slips +his arm around her, she will say in a low tone, +“Don’t, dear.” No matter what he does, she +will say, “Don’t, dear.” This type is a homemaker. +Unless the man wants a home made for +him within a very short time, it is better for him +to observe the “don’t” rather than the “dear,” +and depart. The type is common in the Middle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>West, particularly in university towns, or was +some few years ago, at any rate. Any effort to +classify modern university types would be difficult +and confusing. They change from year to +year, and vary with the region. I am told that +one type has actually been known to get the +man of her choice down and sit, as it were, +side-saddle of him. I would not give even this +brief mention, in passing, to college types of +the female, were they not important because they +so frequently divert a man from his career and +tie him down before he has a chance to begin +working, or even to say anything.</p> + +<p>The rest of the types of American women, +such as the Outdoors, the Clinging Vine, and +so on and so on, are too generally known to +need any special comment here. If a man does +not know one when he sees it, or cannot tell +one from another, of these more common types, +there is little that can be done for him. No +man should contemplate marriage, or even +mingle with women, unless he has a certain +measure of intuition about these more obvious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>types. For example, if a man could not tell +instantly that a woman was the sort that would +keep him playing tennis, or riding horseback, +all afternoon, and then expect him to ride back +and forth all night on the ferry, no amount of +description of the Outdoors Type would be of +any avail.</p> + +<p>There is, however, one phenomenal modern +type, a product of these strange post-war years, +which will bear a brief analysis. This is the +type represented by the girl who gets right down +to a discussion of sex on the occasion of her +first meeting with a man, but then goes on to +betray a great deal of alarm and aversion to the +married state. This is the “I-can’t-go-through-with-it” +Type. Many American virgins fall +within this classification. Likewise it contains +women who have had some strange and bitter +experience about which they do a great deal of +hinting but which they never clearly explain. If +involved with, or even merely presented to, a +woman of this type, no man in his right mind +will do anything except reach for his hat. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>Science does not know what is the matter with +these women, or whether anything is the matter. +A lot of reasons have been advanced for girls +acting in this incredible, dismayed manner—eleven +reasons in all, I believe—but no one +really knows very much about it. It may be their +mothers’ teaching, it may have been some early +childhood experience, such as getting caught +under a gate, or suffering a severe jolting up by +being let fall when a boy jumped off the other +end of a teeter-totter, or it may simply be a +whim. We do not know. One thing is sure, +they are never the Quiet Type. They talk your +arm off.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV"> + CHAPTER IV +<br> +<br><span class="smcap">The Sexual Revolution: Being a Rather Complete +Survey of the Entire Sexual Scene</span> + </h2> +</div> +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap">The</span> sexual revolution began with Man’s +discovery that he was not attractive to +Woman, as such. The lion had his mane, the +peacock his gorgeous plumage, but Man found +himself in a three-button sack suit. His masculine +appearance not only failed to excite +Woman, but in many cases it only served to +bore her. The result was that Man found it +necessary to develop attractive personal traits to +offset his dull appearance. He learned to say +funny things. He learned to smoke, and blow +smoke rings. He learned to earn money. This +would have been a solution to his difficulty, but +in the course of making himself attractive to +Woman by developing himself mentally, he inadvertently +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>became so intelligent an animal that +he saw how comical the whole situation was.</p> + +<p>Thus, at the very start of the sexual revolution, +Man faced one very definite problem: in +becoming mentally “aware,” he had become +intellectually critical, and had discovered that +it was increasingly difficult to make up his mind +whether he really desired any one woman, however +capable he was of getting her. It was the +heyday of monogamy, and in order to contemplate +marriage, it was necessary for a man to decide +on One Particular Woman. This he found +next to impossible, for the reason that he had +unconsciously set up so many mental barriers +and hazards.</p> + +<p>Let me mention a few.</p> + +<p>(1) The fear that his fiancée might get fat +inside of a few years. To any mentally alert +man, this thought was a strong deterrent. Quite +often the man met the girl’s parents. He would +quickly size up her mother and make a mental +calculation as to how long it would be before +the daughter was in the same boat. Somehow, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>it took the bloom off the romance. If he was +not fortunate enough to meet the parents of +the young lady, he was quite apt to note things +about her own conformation that seemed prophetic. +A slight thickness in the neck, a trace +of rotundity in the bosom, a touch too much +ankle. In these portents he found much discomfort, +and was quite likely to call the engagement +off.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c075" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c075.jpg" alt="Sketch of man frowning over his shoulder at a crouching lion."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="noindent">“<i>The lion had his mane ... + but man found himself in a + three-button sack suit.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>(2) The use of a word, phrase, or punctuation +mark by his fiancée that annoyed him. In +these early days of the sex awakening, it was +not at all uncommon to find examples of the +girl’s using some slight phrase which had a grating +effect. It was often the case that the man +was literarily inclined—because literary inclinations +were early found to be advantageous in +sex, almost as advantageous, in fact, as the peacock’s +tail—and if this was the case the man was +doubly sensitive to the curious little crudities, +niceties, whimsies, and circumlocutions which +women were afflicted with. I am thinking at the +moment of the case of a young man who, in his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>junior year in college, had found the girl he +believed ideal for him to marry, and then one +day learned, quite by accident, that she was in +the habit of using the word “Howdy” as a +form of salutation. He did not like “Howdy,” +although he did not know why. Days and +nights he spent trying to reconcile himself to the +idea of it, weighing the young lady’s extreme +beauty and affability against her one flaw. In +the end he decided he could not stomach it, and +broke the troth.</p> + +<p>(3) Difference in height. If a man fell in +love with a woman taller than himself (which +sometimes happened), he became morose from +dwelling on the objections to such an alliance. +This particular situation usually had a way of +settling itself automatically: there were so many +reasons, real or imaginary, why the man felt that +the marriage was impossible, that just the mere +business of thinking about them broke him in +health and he died, leaving a margin of several +weeks before the date of the wedding.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c079" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c079.jpg" alt="Sketch of woman seated in chair, man stands looking at her in consideration."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="noindent">“<i>He would quickly size up the + mother and make a mental calculation + as to how long it + would be before the daughter + was in the same boat.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>(4) The suspicion that if he waited twenty-four +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>hours, or possibly less, he would likely find +a lady even more ideally suited to his taste than +his fiancée. Every man entertained such a suspicion. +Entertained it royally. He was greatly +strengthened in his belief by the fact that he +kept catching a fleeting glimpse of this imaginary +person—in restaurants, in stores, in trains. +To deny the possibility of her existence would +be, he felt, to do a grave injustice to her, to himself, +and to his fiancée. Man’s unflinching desire +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>to give himself and everybody else a square +deal was the cause of much of his disturbance. +Man had become, you see, a thinking being. He +had come to know enough about permutations +and combinations to realize that with millions of +Caucasian females to choose from, the chances +of his choosing the ideal mate were almost zero.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c081" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c081.jpg" alt="Sketch of man's head in profile, with glasses and slicked back hair."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>Male Type (eastern seaboard). Definitely interested in, but + uncertain what to do about, the Female. To men of this type + many aspects of the Sexual Revolution never became clear + at all.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>So matters went. Man, we have seen, had +begun to develop himself so that he would be +attractive to Woman, and in doing so had +made Woman of doubtful attraction to <i>him</i>. He +had become independent. He had become +critical. He had become scared. Sex was awakening +and it was all Man could do to keep from +laughing.</p> + +<p>Woman, on her part, saw dimly what was +going on in the world. She saw it through the +sweet haze of Dream. She caught glimpses of +it in the mirror of her Narcissistic soul.⁠<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> +Woman was at the crossroads. She had many +ways open to her, but she chose one: <i>she chose +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>to imitate Man</i>. At a time when sex was in +transition, she had the bad judgment to begin +a career of independence for herself, in direct +imitation of her well-meaning mate. She took +up smoking. She began to earn money (not +much, but some). She drank. She subordinated +domesticity to individuality—of which she had +very little. She attained to a certain independence, +a cringing independence, a wistful, half-regretful +state. Men and women both became +slightly regretful: men regretted that they had +no purple tail to begin with, women that they +had ever been fools enough to go to work. +Women now “understood life,” but life had +been so much more agreeable in its original +mystery.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> This is the first mention in this article of Narcissism. You’ll +hear more about it, don’t worry.</p></div></div> + +<p>And now we come to Sex.⁠<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Woman, observing +that her mate went out of his way to make +himself entertaining, rightly surmised that sex +had something to do with it. From that she +logically concluded that sex was recreational +rather than procreational. (The small, hardy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>band of girls who failed to get this point were +responsible for the popularity of women’s +field hockey in this country, 1911–1921.) As +though in a vision, the “right to be sexual” +came to women. They fell to with a will. For +thousands of years they had been content merely +to be amiable, and now they were going to be +sexual. The transition from amiability to sexuality +was revolutionary.⁠<a id="FNanchor_10_10" href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> It presented a terrific +problem to Woman, because in acquiring and +assuming the habits that tended to give her an +equality with Man, she discovered that she +necessarily became a good deal <i>like</i> Man. The +more she got like him, the less he saw in her. +(Or so he liked to think, anyway.) Just as +soon as she began to put her own sex on an even +basis, she found that he lost interest. Her essential +Narcissism (pleasure of looking in a mirror) +was met by his Begonia-ism (concept of the +potted plant). Things got so that Woman +spent <i>all</i> her time admiring herself in mirrors, +and Man, discouraged, devoted himself quietly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>to raising begonias, which are fairly easy to +raise. Sex atrophied.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a> Are you glad?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_10_10" href="#FNanchor_10_10" class="label">[10]</a> Zaner claims it was also amusing.</p></div> +</div> +<figure class="figcenter illowp70" id="i_c085" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c085.jpg" alt="Simple sktech of man's head, eyes closed."> + <figcaption> + <p>“<i>Sex atrophied.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>But, as I say, sex was in the transition stage. +Woman soon began to outgrow her Narcissism +and was satisfied to snatch quick glances of herself +in make-shift mirrors, such as the backs of +watches, the shiny fenders of automobiles, plateglass +windows, subway weighing machines, and +such. Convinced that sex was not sin, she set +out joyously to study it. How hard she studied +has recently been apparent, even to persons who +read only a few books a year.</p> + +<p>New York became the capital of the sexual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>revolution. It was conveniently located, had +a magnificent harbor,⁠<a id="FNanchor_11_11" href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> a high mortality rate, and +some of the queerest-shaped apartments to be +found anywhere. There are apartments in New +York in which one must step across an open +bathtub in going from the kitchen to the bedroom; +any unusual layout like that arouses sexual +desire and brings people pouring into New +York from other cities. New York became the +Mecca for young ladies from the South and +from the Middle West whose minds were not +quite made up about sexual freedom, but who +thought that if they could once get to New York +and into an irregular apartment, the answer +might come to them.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_11_11" href="#FNanchor_11_11" class="label">[11]</a> New York has one of the finest harbors in the world.</p></div> +</div> +<p>Their mothers were against it.</p> + +<p>“Now what can you get in New York that +you can’t get right here at home?” their mothers +said.</p> + +<p>“Concerts, new plays, and the opera,” the +daughters invariably replied. There has never, +to my knowledge, been a case of a young lady +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>telling her mother that she wanted to go to +New York because she was seeking an outlet +for her erotic eagerness. It was always concerts +that she wanted. Often it turned out to be +concerts that she got.</p> + +<p>When she arrived in New York and secured +her unfurnished apartment (usually in West +Fourth Street), her mental elation was so great +and her activity in making parchment lamp +shades so unabating that for the first couple +of weeks she let sex go. Women are notoriously +apt to get off the track; no man ever was diverted +from the gratification of his desires by +a parchment lamp shade. At any rate, the young +lady was so tired at night she could hardly +keep her eyes open, much less her mind. +Furthermore, she was beginning to have <i lang="de">Schmalhausen</i> +trouble. <i lang="de">Schmalhausen</i> trouble is a common +ailment among girls in their twenties. It +usually attacks girls who have taken a small +apartment (<i lang="de">schmalhausen</i>) and are reading the +behaviorism essays of Samuel D. Schmalhausen. +The effect of sitting within narrow walls and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>absorbing a wide viewpoint breaks down their +health. The pain that they suffer during this +period is caused by their discovery of the lyrical +duality, or two-sidedness, of life—a discovery +that unbalances all sensitive young ladies in +whom sex cries for expression. Even in a New +York apartment there are two sides to everything, +and this particularly applies to a girl’s +potential sexuality.⁠<a id="FNanchor_12_12" href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_12_12" href="#FNanchor_12_12" class="label">[12]</a> Girls with a bad case of Schmalhausen sometimes saw as many +as three sides to sex.</p></div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c088" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c088.jpg" alt="Sketch of man walking towards bed, where woman is lying."> + <figcaption> + <p>“<i>Furthermore, she was beginning to have + <ins class="corr" title="Transcriber's Note—original text: Schmaulhausen" id="Schmaulhausen">Schmalhausen</ins> trouble.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Let me explain this duality.</p> + +<p>The very fact that the young lady had settled +in the vicinity of Sheridan Square indicates +that there was a strong vein of poetry in her. +She saw life (and sex) through a lyrical haze +which tended to accentuate its beauty by softening +its truths. The whole purpose and scheme +of poetry is to heighten the tenderness and essential +goodness of life by a musical elaboration +of its traditional worth.⁠<a id="FNanchor_13_13" href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Well, when the +young lady allowed the lyrical possibilities of +love to work on her mind, it made her mad to +remember how candid she had been the night +before in discussing contraception with the commercial +artist who lived downstairs. It grew to +be a big question in her own mind, just what her +emancipation ought to consist of: whether it +meant having lemon skins and gin stoppers in +the wash-basin and talking freely of exhibitionism +and voyeurism, or whether it meant being +the recipient of some overwhelmingly beautiful +passion which her poetical soul still prescribed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>but which she knew couldn’t exist because +she was so widely read. To stall for time +she would make another lamp shade.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_13_13" href="#FNanchor_13_13" class="label">[13]</a> See Tithridge’s “Poetry,” but don’t read it.</p></div> +</div> +<p>Days slipped by. Always there was conflict +in her soul. She had plunged into the “candor +régime” whole-heartedly; she could enter +a roomful of people and say almost anything at +all. She also went in for nudity—another outlet +for sex eagerness. She dallied in the bath, +lay around the apartment without any clothes +on, appeared scantily clad at her door when the +laundryman called to collect, and week-ends +went swimming naked in the moonlight with +other young people. (Incidentally, when she +saw what a man looked like without any +clothes on, the old <i lang="de">Schmalhausen</i> trouble came +back stronger than ever.)</p> + +<p>By and by, because of this very uncertainty +of soul, a kind of orderliness of habit crept into +her life. Unable to decide whether sex was the +poem she half believed it to be or the casual +episode she had schooled herself to think it was, +she compromised by practically giving sex the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>air. She now held a good job and was earning +well. Candor and nudity, with an occasional +bit of exhibitionism, began to satisfy her completely. +She was growing older. The apartment +was nicely decorated now and teeming +with lamp shades. She held some good industrial +stocks and had developed an ambition to +write. She became content to be literary rather +than sexual. She became, in other words, that +most dangerous of all by-products of the Sexual +Revolution—a biologico-cultural type. She had +a way of leading young men on into exhilarating +topics, and sitting with them in provocative attitudes, +and then putting on her hat and going +quietly home to bed. In short, New York was +now home to this girl, this biologico-cultural +lady, and she was in a fair way to step placidly +into a good old-fashioned marriage when the +right man came along.</p> + +<p>And he usually did, the poor yap.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V"> + CHAPTER V +<br> +<br> +<span class="smcap">The Lilies-and-Bluebird Delusion</span> + </h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap">The</span> young bridegroom who unexpectedly +discovers that his wife has been brought +up in extreme unawareness of the true facts of +life and believes in some variant of the Birds +and Flowers Delusion (that is, that birds and +flowers have something to do with the emotional +life of persons), is faced with a situation +calling for the greatest tact and tenderness. It +won’t do any good for him to get mad, or to +indulge in self-pity, crying, “Oh, how sorry I +am for me!” and only a coward would go directly +into a psycho-neurosis without first trying +to win his wife over to acceptance of things as +they are.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c093" > + <img class="illowp80" src="images/i_c093.jpg" alt="Sketch of man in suit with cane standing next to a large potted plant. Plant branches hang over his shoulders."> + <figcaption> + <p class="center"><i>DR. WALTER TITHRIDGE</i></p> + <p class="noindent">(<i>after the etching by Veerbluergen</i>).</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>I have in mind the case of a young lady +whose silly mother had taught her to believe +that she would have a little son, three years old, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>named Ronald, as soon as her husband brought +a pair of bluebirds into a room filled with lilies-of-the-valley. +The young woman (to say nothing +of the young man) was thus made the victim +of one of the extremest cases of Birds and +Flowers Fixation which has ever come to my +attention. I shall transcribe, from Dr. Tithridge’s +notes, the first dialogue on the subject +that took place between the young couple. This +dialogue was carefully reconstructed by Tithridge +from the account of the incident as given +by the young husband, who sought his advice +and counsel.</p> + +<p>On the evening of the 25th of June, when +the couple were married, the young husband +entered their hotel suite to find it literally a +garden of lilies-of-the-valley. He was profoundly +touched, but baffled, and asked his wife +who was dead.</p> + +<p>“Where are the bluebirds?” she replied, +coyly.</p> + +<p>“What bluebirds?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“<i>The</i> bluebirds,” she said, blushing.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span></p> + +<p>Unfortunately, but not unnaturally, the bridegroom +did not know what the bride was talking +about. What was of the extremest importance to +her, was to her husband merely an idle whim, +a shadowy fancy. Obviously, the young couple +should have talked such matters over long before, +but they hadn’t, and there they were. He +strove to change the subject, whistled, lighted +cigarettes, for he was nervous enough the way +it was, but she kept recurring to the bluebirds. +His bewilderment became tinged with some +alarm, for during their courtship he had put +forth no great effort to examine into her mental +capacity, and he was now assailed by the excusable +suspicion that she was perhaps not exactly +bright. He talked rapidly, apprehensively, +of many things. Among the things he talked +about were the St. Louis Cardinals (a baseball +club). From there it was but an easy associative +step for his wife to go back to the bluebirds +again.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you going to <i>get</i> any bluebirds?” she +persisted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span></p> + +<p>“I don’t know where the hell I’d get any +bluebirds tonight,” he said, rather irritably, “me +not being Bo-Peep.”</p> + +<p>The nuclear complex was made right then +and there. There was a long tense silence, after +which the bride burst into bitter tears.</p> + +<p>“Now, dear,” said her husband, more reasonably, +“let’s try to get this thing straightened +out. What are you talking about, anyway?”</p> + +<p>“Sex—if you want to know!” she blurted out, +and swooned.</p> + +<p>Instead of getting her a glass of water, he +excitedly phoned the room clerk, but became +embarrassed once he had got him, and merely +asked that a couple of blankets be sent up. It +was, unfortunately, as I have said, June—and +warmish. Thus when the wife revived sufficiently +to become aware of her surroundings, +the husband was standing above her holding a +pair of blankets, and looking pale and warm.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c098" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c098.jpg" alt="Sketch of man leaned forward seated in a chair. His face is turned down, and his arm is around the waist of a woman kneeling infront of him. She has her head tilted back, and her hand over her eyes."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>“Mutual suspicions of mental inadequacy are common during + the first year of any marriage.”</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“What are those for?” she demanded, suspiciously, +for the notion had now formed in her +own mind (Dr. Tithridge feels, and I agree) +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>that she very likely had married a dementia +præcox case. These mutual suspicions of mental +inadequacy are common during the first year +of any marriage, but rarely are they aggravated +by factors so clearly calculated to upset the mental +equilibrium as bluebirds at midnight and +blankets in June. This husband and wife were +drifting farther and farther apart. The solution +to their problem was becoming more and +more remote, what with this setting up of involved +artificial barriers, this almost fantastical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>beclouding of the issue. Dr. Tithridge tells me +that he believes the young man’s reason would +have been permanently dethroned had he (Dr. +Tithridge) tweeted or chirped like a bird⁠<a id="FNanchor_14_14" href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> on +the occasion of the husband’s first visit to him.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_14_14" href="#FNanchor_14_14" class="label">[14]</a> Experiments of this sort, calculated to determine the possible +effects of tweeting, or chirping, in the case of a Birds Fixation, +fall, of course, outside the province of the psycho-analyst, and not +only is the legality of their practice questionable, but the value of +the results obtained is highly doubtful.</p></div> +</div> +<p>When the wife beheld her husband standing +there with the blankets, she demanded, again, +“What are you doing with those blankets?”</p> + +<p>“I get cold,” he mumbled, and he proceeded +to put the blankets on the shelf of a closet +which already held several extra pair. He was, +furthermore, decidedly warm, and kept patting +his brow with a handkerchief.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go out and take a walk,” suggested his +wife, apprehensively. To this her husband very +readily agreed. They were getting afraid to +stay in the same room with each other, than +which there is no other condition in the world +more certain to break up a marriage. Out in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>the street, among people, they both felt safer, +and they wandered to a bench in a fairly +crowded park, and sat down.</p> + +<p>“Where did you get the idea that birds have +anything to do with us?” demanded the bridegroom.</p> + +<p>“My mumsy,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_15_15" href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> she said.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_15_15" href="#FNanchor_15_15" class="label">[15]</a> Young women who allude to their mothers as “mumsy” almost +invariably present difficult problems in adjustment. The word is +a sentimentalization of the more common “mamma” and indicates +a greater dependence upon maternal direction and supervision than +may be expected in the case of young women who use the more +familiar term.</p></div> +</div> +<p>“Well,” he said, “she deceived you.”</p> + +<p>“About what?”</p> + +<p>“About what you’re talking about.”</p> + +<p>“Sex?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“That isn’t sex, honey,” he told her. “Birds +and flowers are simply ... they do not ... +that is, we could live all our life without them.”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t,” she said, and, after a pause, “I +always feared <i>you</i> didn’t want children.”</p> + +<p>“I do want children. I want you. You want +me. Everything is going to be all right.”</p> + +<p>“How is it?” she demanded.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span></p> + +<p>“In the first place,” he began, pulling at his +collar, “it’s this way. Now here’s the way it +is. Now you take me ... or take you, say. +In the first place the girl, that is Woman ... +why, Woman⁠<a id="FNanchor_16_16" href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> ...” He lapsed into a profound +silence.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_16_16" href="#FNanchor_16_16" class="label">[16]</a> Explanations of natural phenomena in terms of the collective +noun, particularly where the noun becomes capitalized in the +mind of the person striving to explain, are almost never successful.</p></div> +</div> +<p>“Well, go on,” she prompted.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said, “you know how women are, +don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“That’s fine,” he said, brightening, “Now +women are that way, then——”</p> + +<p>“What way?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Why, the way you are ... from me ... +than I am, I mean.” He made a vague gesture.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see what you mean,” she said. Her +husband gave a light laugh.</p> + +<p>“Hell’s bells, it’s simple enough,” he cried, +suddenly, giving the light laugh again; “it’s certainly +simple enough. Now, here. We’ll take +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>Adam and Eve. There they were, all alone, +see?”</p> + +<p>“There were two bluebirds,” said his wife.</p> + +<p>“Not till after the flood, there weren’t,” he +corrected her. “Well, he found out that there +were certain essential differences—what you +might call on purpose. I mean there must have +been some reason. You can count on it that +things like that just don’t happen. Well, then, +he simply figured it out—figured out the +reason.”</p> + +<p>“For what?”</p> + +<p>“For all this discrepancy. Obviously it just +didn’t happen. It couldn’t just have happened. +It had to make some sense—nature is like that. +So he—so he finally—ah—what he did was tell +her, see? I mean he asked her.”</p> + +<p>“Asked her what?”</p> + +<p>“He simply asked her,” said her husband in +calm, almost cold tones,—“he simply asked her +why she thought this was. Is there anything +wrong in that? And so gradually they understood +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>why it was. It’s as simple as that!” He +looked at her triumphantly.</p> + +<p>“What <i>are</i> you talking about?” she demanded.</p> + +<p>“Listen,” he said at last, firmly. “Both of +us speak a little French, and we might try it +that way. I think I could explain better in +French. Why, even little children, tiny girls, +sing <i lang="fr">Auprès de ma blonde</i> in France, and think +nothing of it. It’s just a nice, wholesome idea—<i lang="fr">auprès +de ma blonde</i>—and it sounds like +poetry—but take it in English and what do you +get?”</p> + +<p>“‘Quite close to my blonde’ ...” answered +his wife.</p> + +<p>“... ‘<i lang="fr">Qu’il fait bon dormir</i>,’” her husband +hurried on.</p> + +<p>“‘How good it is to sleep,’” she translated.</p> + +<p>“Fine! Now you’re talking.”</p> + +<p>“Go on,” she said, “<i>you’re</i> talking.”</p> + +<p>“Well, all right, but first I wanted you to see +that there is no reason to get embarrassed, because +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>everything is lovely in French. So don’t +mind my frankness.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t,” said the bride.</p> + +<p>“All right,” he began again, “<i lang="fr">Alors</i>, now, <i lang="fr">il y +a quelque chose que vous avez que je n’en ai +pas, n’est-ce pas?</i>”</p> + +<p>“<i lang="fr">Oui</i>,” she said.</p> + +<p>“<i lang="fr">Bon</i>,” he said. “<i lang="fr">Alors, ça c’est naturel—ah—ça +c’est bien naturel....</i>”</p> + +<p>“<i lang="fr">Par exemple</i>,” put in his wife, a little illogically.</p> + +<p>“<i lang="fr">Dites</i>,” he said, and after a great pause, +“<i lang="fr">Dites donc—dites vous</i>——”</p> + +<p>“You should really use ‘tu’ and ‘toi’ and not +‘vous,’” said his wife; “it’s more intimate.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” he responded. “Now, <i lang="fr">tu as quelque +chose, tu as ... toi</i>.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Comment?</i>” she demanded.</p> + +<p>“I just don’t know enough words,” said the +bridegroom, wretchedly. The bride put her +hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>“Let’s try ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ in English,” she +suggested.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c105" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c105.jpg" alt="Sketch of man holding his head in one hand, looking forward."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="center"><i>DR. KARL ZANER.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span></p> + +<p>“That’s not a bad idea,” he said. “Well, all +right. Now thee has——”</p> + +<p>“Hath,” she corrected.</p> + +<p>“Thee hath certain—ah——”</p> + +<p>“Differences,” she supplied. “But isn’t it +‘thou hath’—or is it ‘thee hath’?”</p> + +<p>“To hell with it!” cried her husband. “In all +thy life hast never been around, for Pete’s +sake?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly, and thou—and you have no right +to talk to me like that!”</p> + +<p>“I’m <i>sorry</i>,” said the young man. “<i>I’m</i> sorry.” +He rose to his feet. “Ye gods! to think this had +to happen to me! Ah, well. Listen. I tell +you what, I’ll write it out for you. How about +that? And if you don’t like the idea, why, all +right, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>It was the next day that the young husband, +who had sat up all night in the hotel lobby, +thinking and writing, visited Dr. Tithridge. I +am happy to report that, as not infrequently +happens in such cases, a solution was finally +arrived at. However, in a great number of cases +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>the difficulty is never overcome. The home becomes +a curious sort of hybrid, with overtones +of the botanical garden and the aviary. The +husband grows morose and snappish, the wife +cross and pettish. Very often she takes up +lacrosse and he goes in for raising rabbits. If +allowed to go on, the situation can become so +involved and intricate that not all the analysts +from the time of Joan of Arc down could unravel +it.</p> + +<p>The problem is by no means any simpler +where the wife is cognizant of things as they +are and the husband is ignorant. I know of +one young man who every night tenderly placed, +with much strange clucking, a basket near the +hearth into which he had some expectation that +a baby would be deposited by a stork. (<a href="#i_c109">Plate I.</a>) +Another young husband constructed at considerable +expense a water-lily pond in his back yard +and fondly rowed about in it, twilight after +twilight, searching for infants, laying his finger +to his lip, making “tchk, tchk” noises at his wife, +who watched him in profound amazement.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c109" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c109.jpg" alt="Sketch of man on all fours infront of a fire, facing a woman seated on the floor."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="center"><i>EMOTIONAL CHARADES. + PLATE I.</i></p> + <p class="noindent">“<i>One young man every night + tenderly placed, with much + strange clucking, a basket + near the hearth into which + he had some expectation that + a baby would be deposited by + a stork.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span></p> + +<p>In both these cases the wives were fine women +of strong character, with a background of sturdy +pioneer stock, and they soon put a stop to such +charades, once they divined the curiously entangled +Wish Motives behind them. It may be +said, indeed, that young wives are more candid +and direct in their explanations of natural +phenomena than young husbands, when they +have to be.</p> + +<p>The existence of such deplorable ignorance +is a sad commentary on the sentimentality of a +nation which sets itself up to be frankly sexual. +There is much reason to be hopeful, however. +The future parents of the land will doubtless +come straight to the point in matters of this +sort, when talking with their children. The +children of today will be the parents of tomorrow, +and you know how the children of today +are.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI"> + CHAPTER VI +<br> +<br> +<span class="smcap">What Should Children Tell Parents?</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap">So many</span> children have come to me and +said, “What shall I tell my parents about +sex?” My answer is always the same: “Tell +them the truth. If the subject is approached in +a tactful way, it should be no more embarrassing +to teach a parent about sex than to teach +him about personal pronouns. And it should +be less discouraging.”</p> + +<p>In discussing sex enlightenment for parents, +first of all, definitions are needed. What do +we mean by “parents”? Do we mean all adults +who have had children? Do we mean adults +who have had children, they knew not why? +Or do we mean married people who have given +birth to one or more offspring but have never +gone into the matter very thoroughly? For the +purposes of this article, it will be assumed that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>by “parents” we mean all adult persons permeated +with a strong sense of indecency.</p> + +<p>I have talked with hundreds of children about +the problem of educating their parents along +sex lines. So many of them have told me that +they honestly tried to give their elders the benefit +of their rich experience in life, but that the +parents usually grew flushed and red and would +reply, “Nice people don’t talk about such +things.” It is true that a great gap exists between +generations. The fact that children are +embarrassed to have their parents along when +they are attending certain movies or plays is indicative +of how hard it is to overcome the old +fear of allowing one’s elders to learn anything. +A child never knows at what point in a play +his uninformed old father will start to giggle. +It is hard for children to break through and +really come in touch with their elders. “Nice +people don’t talk about such things!” is the defense +which old people put up against life itself, +when they feel it crowding in all around +their heads. Parents hesitate to discuss things +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>calmly and intelligently with their children for +two reasons: first, they have a kind of dread of +learning something they don’t want to know; +and second, they feel that if they must learn anything +at all they would like to be spared the +humiliation of learning it from their offspring. +Actually, middle age (and even senescence) is +marked by a great curiosity about life. There is +a feeling that life is slipping away quickly, and +that it would be terrible to have the end come +before everything in life has been revealed. The +beauty of life, always apparent, implies a mystery +which is disturbing right up to the bitter +end. The spectacle of old men wistfully attending +sex lectures (as they frequently do) suggests +that the strong suspicion exists in them that +somewhere they will hear the magic word by +which human affairs will become clarified, somewhere +they will glimpse the ultimate ecstasy. +Children who allow their fathers and mothers, +to whom they owe their very existence, to go on +wondering about sex, are derelicts to duty.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c115" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c115.jpg" alt="Sketch of man seated in a chair, a small boy stands on a chair in front of him talking."> + <figcaption> + <p>“<i>One’s father and mother are never too old to be told + facts.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>If young folks lack the tact or intelligence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>requisite to enlightening their parents, the task +should be intrusted to some one else. Yet it +is hard to say to whom. A child should think +twice before sending his father around to public +school to secure sex information from his +teacher. Women teachers, to borrow a phrase, +are apt to be “emotionally illiterate.” Many +teachers have had no sex life and are just waiting +for somebody like your father to show up.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span></p> + +<p>One’s father and mother are never too old +to be told facts. Indeed, it is most unkind to +keep them in ignorance and allow them to +nourish the doubts and horrors of their imagination. +The majority of parents pick up their +knowledge of the facts of life from smoking-car +conversations, bridge-club teas, and after-dinner +speakers. They receive it from their vicious +adult companions who are only slightly less +ignorant than they are and who give them a +hopelessly garbled version. They pick it up, +too, from the gutter.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c117" > + <img class="illowp100" src="images/i_c117.jpg" alt="Sketch of a weather map."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="noindent"><i>Fig. 7. It is customary to illustrate sexology chapters with + a cross section of the human body. The authors have + chosen to substitute in its place a chart of the North + Atlantic, showing airplane routes. The authors realize that + this will be of no help to the sex novice, but neither is a + cross section of the human body.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>This matter of picking up information from +the gutter is an interesting topic in itself. Quite +the most remarkable case history that has come +to my notice is that of François Delamater, a +parent thirty years of age, who went deliberately +to the gutter for his sex education. He had +heard, as all people do hear some time or other, +that sex can be learned from the gutter, so he +set out to make a comprehensive survey of the +gutters of eighteen large American cities. For +a long time he found out nothing, although he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>was a very curious man. By a peculiar piece of +fortune, however, he happened to be walking +in Cincinnati one day and met a man who was +leading a tame stork. The man was in the +gutter. The stork carried in its bill a live baby, +in swaddling clothes. Smelling a rat, Mr. Delamater +stopped the man and inquired where the +baby came from. The man replied that he +didn’t know.</p> + +<p>“For that matter,” continued Mr. Delamater, +“where does <i>any</i> baby come from?”</p> + +<p>The man shook his head. Then he relented +and told Mr. Delamater that he had merely +been hired to lead the stork around the streets +to advertise a moving picture called “Her Husband’s +First-born.” The whole incident so confused +the mind of the thirty-year-old parent that +he eventually evolved the strange theory that +babies are born within the father, an erroneous +notion that dwarfed his emotions and modified +his character.</p> + +<p>It is of the utmost importance, in imparting +sex knowledge to one’s parents that it be done +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>in such a way as not to engender fear or anxiety. +The phraseology should be chosen carefully, and +efforts should be made to explain everything +clearly but without the use of words which have +a tendency to make old people nervous. The +word “erotic” is such a word. When it is necessary +to speak of Man’s erotic tendencies, it is +best to substitute another word. In the first +place, an overwhelming majority of parents do +not know the exact meaning of the word +“erotic,” and to know an <i>in</i>exact meaning is +worse than nothing. Many are apt to confuse +it vaguely with “exotic.” I have known parents +to go through whole books by authors like Havelock +Ellis or Mary Ware Dennett without understanding +a single paragraph, because they +thought Man’s “eroticism” referred to his desire +to be in some foreign place like Spain. Those +parents that actually do detect the difference between +the sound of the two words will immediately +become nervous, inattentive, and +dispirited. They will make some excuse to leave +the room, and will wander out, probably to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>the ice-box to get themselves a cold snack, which +they will eat while in a sulky frame of mind. +Later they will look up the word in the dictionary, +but will forget it by the time they hear it +again in conversation or read it in print. Furthermore, +all their taste for sex will be gone.</p> + +<p>Just what to tell parents is, of course, a vital +question, not to be answered dogmatically. Before +a child can conscientiously approach such +subjects as pedestalism, the recessive knee, begonia-ism, +frigidity in men, birth control, +sublimation, and the swastika fixation, he must +clear the boards. The simple phases of sex +should be imparted in a direct manner: it is +best to explain things in a matter-of-fact way, +rather than resort to such cloudy analogies as +birds and flowers. Strange to say, the habits of +birds and flowers have done as little to clarify +the human scene as almost any other two manifestations +in nature. Further, there is always the +danger, in setting up plant or animal life as an +example, that one’s parents will place a literal +interpretation on things. I am thinking particularly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>of the case—which all sociological students +know about—of Nina Sembrich, the fifteen-year-old +high-school girl who attempted to +impart knowledge to her father by telling him +about bees. (Nina’s mother was dead, or she +would have told her too.) She traced, in rather +minute detail, the renascence of earth in spring, +the blossoming of the trees, the activity of the +bees and their function in distributing the pollen, +the fertilization of the seed and its growth +during the warm languorous summer days, +finally the fruition and harvest.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c123" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c123.jpg" alt="Sketch of three figures in various postures in a garden."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="noindent">“<i>Strange to say, the habits of + birds and flowers have done + as little to clarify the human + scene as almost any other two + manifestations in nature.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>It was a beautiful story, redolent of orchards +and sunny hillsides, instinct with life—a story +that had a soporific effect on Mr. Sembrich, lulling +him as the buzz of a bee lulls one in hot +daisy fields. The upshot of it was that he +gathered a rather strange impression from the +narrative and somehow got the idea that to have +babies you had to keep bees. He bought several +hives, installing them in the little sitting-room +on the second floor, where Mrs. Sembrich +had kept her sewing-machine when she was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>alive. The acquisition of the apiary further +complicated matters for Mr. Sembrich by reason +of the fact that bees themselves enjoy a +rather extraordinary sexual scheme—theirs is a +complex society, infinitely more diverting and +harder to understand than our own. Observed +by a slightly nervous person who is trying to +profit by a simple analogy—as Mr. Sembrich +was—bees are capable of causing the utmost +confusion.</p> + +<p>If you will recall what you know about bees, +you will readily understand what I mean. In +a colony of bees, certain individuals have no +sex whatsoever; these are the “workers.” The +male bees are “drones.” The queen (or “mother”) +bee develops her sexual character only after +being arbitrarily chosen for the purpose, walled +up, and fattened on special food. Mr. Sembrich +marveled at these things.</p> + +<p>Basing his hopes entirely on what he had +seen, he made his first overt act, which was to +give up his business (he was a merchant tailor) +on the assumption that to be endowed with masculine +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>characteristics one had to be a drone. In +this, of course, he was justified to some degree; +for it is quite true that very busy men rarely +are fully equipped for a complete or happy sex +life. Business men commonly find a vicarious +gratification for their erotic nature in card index +systems. Often, their satiable appetite for life is +dissipated in the process of dictating a single +sales letter. Only men who devote virtually +their entire attention to love ever glimpse its +full glory or experience its bewildering intensity. +(And <i>they</i> make so little money they might +just as well not.)</p> + +<p>Mr. Sembrich, therefore, was not without justification +in becoming a drone, since life was +what he wanted to find out about. But it was +when he undertook to fatten up a lady of his +acquaintance into a “mother” that he ran into +difficulties. He locked her in the kitchen and +plied her with rich desserts. He even urged +honey on her—a rather literal expedient even +for a man in his mental condition. The lady +not only failed to become a mother, but she +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>took sick and died, surrounded by a group of +Mr. Sembrich’s “workers,” whom he had hired +to help feed her. With a dead woman in the +kitchen and a lot of bees upstairs in the sitting-room, +the household became unbearable as a +place to live and bring up his daughter Nina, +so Mr. Sembrich fled, still ignorant of the essential +knowledge of life.⁠<a id="FNanchor_17_17" href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_17_17" href="#FNanchor_17_17" class="label">[17]</a> Sexually speaking.</p></div> +</div> +<p>Another case, not exactly paralleling the +Sembrich affair, is the case of two parents who +failed to learn something to their advantage because +they happened to be at dinner. It happened +this way. Charles Updegraff had sent his +son, Junior, to spend the summer at a boys’ +camp. There, in addition to learning how to +swim, paddle, and make fires, Junior learned +about sex, so that he returned home fine and +brown and a credit to the Updegraffs. (The +Updegraffs had swum, paddled, made fires, and +so on, for generations.) Now, at Camp Whortleberry +(that was the name of the camp) the +authorities had adopted what is known as the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>“pet method” for imparting sex knowledge to +the boys. Each boy was given charge of a pet +of some kind, and the pets were given <i lang="fr">carte +blanche</i>. Junior Updegraff drew a pair of sunfish. +To augment the actual pet study, the boys +were also given lectures by the camp director, +who knew in a general way what he was talking +about. Thus, when the summer was over +the boys’ minds were full of a strange assortment +of facts and oddments, some of them +rather amusing. Young Junior had hardly been +home an hour when he thought he would do his +old man a good turn by telling him what he +knew about sunfish. The Updegraffs were at +table.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp70" id="i_c128" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c128.jpg" +alt="Rough sketch of a fish, labeled 'Sunfish (mola-mola)'"> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span></p> + +<p>“Pop,” he said, “do you want the low down +on a sunfish?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Updegraff hastily interrupted. “Better +wait till after dinner, son,” she said.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c129" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c129.jpg" +alt="Sketch of an adult seated in a chair, leaned over towards a young person standing in front of them."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p>“<i>Young Junior had hardly been home an hour when he + thought he would do his old man a good turn by telling + him what he knew about sunfish.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>(Note: parents have always been held back +by the superstitious idea that it is wrong to +learn anything while eating.)</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter with right now?” asked +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>Junior. “I was just going to tell Pop about our +pet study course. I know a lot of things.”</p> + +<p>“Wait till we’re through eating,” said Mrs. +Updegraff.</p> + +<p>“Why should I? A mouse is an embryo +twenty days, a lop-sided apple is that way because +it’s been fertilized only on one side, male +animals grow bright colored in the mating +season, and so it goes. Sunfish....”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp70" id="i_c130" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c130.jpg" +alt="Very rough sketch of a fish, labled 'Sea Rover'"> +</figure> + +<p>“Junior!” said Mrs. Updegraff, sharply. “Not +till after dinner. Sunfish can wait!”</p> + +<p>“No they can’t!” cried Junior, warming up to +his subject. “The father sunfish makes the nest, +then....”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span></p> + +<p>“We don’t want to hear about it,” snapped +Junior’s mother. “Tell us about your canoe +trips.”</p> + +<p>“I never went on no canoe trips.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Always was watching the sunfish.”</p> + +<p>The matter was dropped and the meal continued +in silence. After dinner Mr. Updegraff, +secretly very much interested, hung around in +the hope that his son would again open up the +subject of sunfish. The boy never did. He was +only a child and children are easily discouraged.</p> + +<p>I suspect that the church is responsible, in +large measure, for the ideas of life now held +by adults. Sex is still sin to the evangelical +clergy. A kiss is thinkable only when sanctified +by the church. A child who permits his parents +to continue in the belief that the elevation of +the soul depends on the renunciation of the +flesh, is hardly doing his duty by them. Sometimes +it may be advisable to quote to your +parents from standard works on the subject of +sex. Great care must be taken, though, to avoid +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>abruptness, as far as possible. Thus there is +some doubt in my mind whether a child ought +to approach its mother on a hot afternoon when +she is tired and bedraggled, and say to her: +“Ma, under favorable conditions a husband and +wife should remain sexually attractive to each +other during the whole period of their sexual +potency.”</p> + +<p>That’s no way for a child to talk.</p> + +<p>Some children have told me that instead of +quoting from books they have tried leaving the +books lying around, opened at pertinent pages. +Even this failed to work in most cases. The +mothers usually just picked up the book, dusted +it, closed it, and fitted it neatly in some nearby +shelf. They thought it was dusty.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp70" id="i_c132" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c132.jpg" alt="Another rough sketch of a fish, labled 'Sea Rover'"> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII"> + CHAPTER VII +<br><br> +<span class="smcap">Claustrophobia, or What Every Young Wife +Should Know</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap">There</span> is an erroneous impression current +nowadays that sex is everything. It is similar +to the psychological delusion common during +the war years that the war would never end. +Man is inclined to exaggerate the immensity of +his chief preoccupation. Thus when the World +War was in progress, men convinced themselves +that there would never be anything else but war. +Then the war ended, and Man was left, as it +were, stranded. Used to a tremendous preoccupation, +he had to have another. He turned to +sex, out of sheer momentum, and overestimated +its importance as he had magnified the immensity +of war.</p> + +<p>Sex is by no means everything. It varies, as +a matter of fact, from only as high as 78 per +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>cent of everything to as low as 3.10 per cent. +The norm, in a sane, healthy person, should be +between 18 and 24 per cent. In these hectic +days, however, it is not unusual to hear even intelligent +persons say, or imply, that sex is everything. +This, of course, leads to the mistaken +idea that a couple who are, so to speak, emotionally +compatible, are going to be compatible +in every other way. “Take care of sex, and the +details will look after themselves,” is the rule, +in a manner of speaking. Nothing could be +more stupid. A man and woman may be very, +very happy emotionally and not get anywhere +at all. There are many reasons for this, but +none is more important than the inability of +many a husband, otherwise normal, to become +adjusted to a lack of freedom. Freedom is as +essential and as primary an urge with a man +as the loss of it is with a woman. A man grows +up with the desire to be free and unfettered. +The boy of six wants to play outside the house +all the time. He doesn’t even want to come +into the house for his meals. On the other hand, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>little girls like to be in the house as much as +they can. When dusk falls, the little boys are +restless under the urge to be several blocks away, +playing Go, Sheepy, Go, but the little girls want +to be home putting their dolls to bed. Usually +at least one of the dolls is ill and needs constant +attention. Often it is necessary to force little +girls to go outside and get some air and exercise, +just as it is frequently necessary to use +force to get little boys <i>into</i> the house. And even +when girls do go outdoors, they have to be +watched like a hawk or they will be playing +house in the dog box or under the cellar door.</p> + +<p>And yet, in spite of all this, women marry +men without giving the serious chasm between +their essential natures a thought. They think +that a man wants a home. Well, he does, in +a vague sort of way. Not so much a home, +however, as a house. He likes to be able to +say where he lives when he goes to vote, and +things like that. But he doesn’t want a home +in the sense that a woman does, to potter +around in. He has neither the same urge nor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>the same talent for hanging pictures and rearranging +furniture. A woman, no matter how +opposed she may become to housework, still gets +a small thrill out of shifting things. It never +wears off. She may be too tired to cook and +insist on going out to dinner, but before she +goes she would be willing, nay, glad, to put +the Victrola where the davenport is and move +the davenport over in front of the fireplace. +One simple move like that is enough to alarm +a man sufficiently to serve as the onset of a serious +psychological or mental disturbance. Men +don’t stop to reason about individual moves. +As soon as a woman calls on her husband to +help her change the position of a couple of +pieces of furniture, he instantly thinks the house +is going to be torn up, as it was last spring, +with carpets rolled up in the hall, and stepladders +and buckets everywhere. This gives +him a strange “boxed-in” feeling. If that feeling +recurs too often, the husband may get +claustrophobia. Claustrophobia is “a dread of +being in an enclosed space, of living under conditions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>which would interfere with a speedy +escape into the open.”</p> + +<p>Every young wife should know the first +symptoms of claustrophobia, because, if taken in +time, it can be cured, but if allowed to run on, +deterioration sets in and may result in anything +from benign stupor to complete paranoia. Once +a husband gets into the outer rim of the paranoid +and paranoic psychoses, he may easily run +through all of them, and in the end simply be +no good at all. The first symptoms are usually +innocuous enough, and may consist of nothing +more than a mere Amplification of Personality +Without Signs of Conflict. (The symptoms +listed herein are largely selected from Claudé’s +table.) But from there it is an easy step up +to and including Logical Development of Delusions +upon False Premises, Fragmentation of +Personality, Dissimulation of Egocentricity, +Looseness of Systematization, Exaggerated Feelings +of Prejudice, Polymorphic Delusions, Ingenious +Methods of Defense, Reticence, Recourse +to Legal Measures, Apathy, Writing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>Letters to the Newspapers, and, finally, Diminution, +or Total Loss, of Neuro-Vegetative Reflexes. +There is nothing sadder than the spectacle +of a once strong, firm-minded man no +longer master of his neuro-vegetative reflexes, +to say nothing of a hitherto well-integrated fellow +in the throes of Fragmentation.</p> + + +<h3 id="AVOIDING_THIS_SAD_STATE"> + AVOIDING THIS SAD STATE +</h3> + +<p>There are various simple ways to avoid this +sad state of affairs. Of course, where a husband +and wife have plenty of money to begin with, +and servants take care of all the details of household +management, there is very little danger of +claustrophobia. (There is always danger, even +with money and servants, of dual personality, +melancholia, and automatic writing, but not of +claustrophobia.) In wealthy marriages, which +are usually made for either financial or social +reasons, the husband and wife see little, if anything, +of each other, and the husband need have +no fear of being boxed in at all. He is free to +come and go at any time. But I am dealing with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>the typical American marriage, in which the +wife runs her own home—builds it up around +her husband—either because she has to, or because +she wants to. A woman’s desire to potter +about her own home goes back a long way, so +far back that the urge often remains when economic +necessity no longer exists. Women like +to do their own work. They even build up +ingenious excuses for doing it, such as claiming +that the maid or the handy man didn’t do +it right. This desire may not last for longer +than the first three or four weeks of marriage, +but that is ample time for the onset of claustrophobia. +During that period a wife will concentrate +on buying kitchen ware, painting chairs, +selecting silver patterns, building bookshelves, +etc., to the complete exclusion of everything else +in life. The young husband, hearing all this +tinkling and rattling and shoving going on +around him, smelling paint, listening to hammering, +etc., will begin at once to have a fear +of being trapped or “caught.” He will strive +to get out of the house, and his wife should +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>allow him to go. What she almost invariably +does, however, is to stop him and ask him to +hold a piece of chintz or toile de jouy up over +the mantel so that she can see whether she likes +it there. She won’t like it there, and he then +has to hold it, first high, then low, then in between, +over a table in another part of the room. +When this point is settled, he will likely be +asked to hang a few pictures. Now a curious +thing happens to many sensitive husbands when +they are hanging pictures or holding things +against walls. They get the impression that the +walls are being made thicker, for the purpose of +making it harder for them to get out—interfering +with a speedy escape into the open. This is +usually the beginning of the most dangerous of +all hallucinations in claustrophobia cases—the +Persecution Complex. The husband feels that +he is not only being boxed in, but persecuted. +If deterioration is allowed to set in, the delusion +of persecution may attain astounding proportions, +such as that the Masons or the Pianomakers +are against him, or that former Vice President +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>Charles G. Dawes is trying to “get” +him. A case history will show how this happens.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c141" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c141.jpg" alt="Sketch of woman seated in front of fireplace, on the floor behind her a man is crawling on the floor. She is looking over her shoulder at him."> + <figcaption> + <p class="noindent">“<i>He will strive to get out of + the house, and his wife should + allow him to go.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Case No. 22. <i>Personal History.</i> Normal birth +and development. Born June 14, 1894. Had +the usual childhood diseases with no sequelæ. +No serious accidents or operations. Patient began +school at the age of six, got along very +well, graduating from high school at 18. Graduated +from college at 22, and became an architect. +He always held good positions with good +salaries. Considered capable and efficient. +Habits normal. Everything normal. Case +married when he was 29.</p> + +<p><i>General Make-up.</i> Always considered keen, +intelligent, amiable, and trusting. Liked outdoor +activities, something of an athlete, with a +strong urge to “get away by himself.” Began +to be suspicious shortly after his marriage. He +frequently showed this suspicion in his work by +complaining to his associates that his ability was +not recognized, and intimating that he thought +the elevators in the building had purposely quit +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>stopping for him, so that he could not get out. +Nervous. Jumpy.</p> + +<p><i>Mental Examination.</i> Patient was very keen, +alert, but suspicious when brought under observation. +His demeanor was self-assertive, but he +was inclined to be anxious and restless. He +demanded his immediate freedom of the +physicians who were examining him, and was +greatly frightened. “Let’s get out of here!” +he kept repeating to the doctors. He was allowed +to depart, commitment to an institution +not being thought necessary on the occasion of +this first examination. Later the patient became +violent. Would jump up from dinner table and +cry, “Let’s get out of this!”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c145" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c145.jpg" alt="Sketch of man crouched between a table and a chair."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>Onset of the boxed-in feeling.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><i>Causation.</i> When examined for causation, +the patient at first talked guardedly, and then +incoherently. “Look out for the water!” he +would say, and, again, “You can’t get out that +way!” His physicians, unable to correlate his +statements and his apprehensions, called in Dr. +Damon Prill, the eminent New York psycho-analyst. +“What have we here?” said Dr. Prill. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>“Patient,” explained one of the doctors. “Look +out for the water!” cried the patient. “Where +did the water come from?” asked Dr. Prill, +quietly. “From the drip-pan under the refrigerator,” +said the patient. “Ah yes,” said Dr. +Prill. “You can’t get out that way!” cried +the case. “Now, why is it that we can’t get +out that way?” asked Dr. Prill. “Because we +are painted in,” said the patient. “Painted in, +eh?” asked Dr. Prill. “You heard me,” said +the patient. “Painted in, hammered in, pictured +in, davenported in”—here he made a strange +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>twisting gesture with both hands, leaned forward, +and ended, in a confidential whisper—“rolled +up in a rug!”</p> + +<p>The reiteration of these incoherencies was all +that Prill could get out of the patient, but it +was enough to persuade him to question the +man’s wife. He made some interesting discoveries. +It turned out that the wife, one day, had +asked her husband to keep his eye on the pan +under the refrigerator and see that the water +did not overflow, while she went to a bridge tea. +The husband was home, going over some important +plans. He forgot the pan and the place +was flooded. The ceiling in the apartment below +fell. The woman in the apartment below +went all to pieces. The patient’s wife, returning +from her tea, went all to pieces. The patient +went all to pieces. Thus the hallucination +formulated in his mind that being married and +living in a house necessitated going to pieces. +As for being “rolled up in a rug,” that, it transpired, +had actually happened to him also. One +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>day, during a thorough cleaning of the house, +which his wife was superintending, she ordered +two burly men to roll up a rug, without noticing +that her husband was on it at the time. He was +accordingly rolled up in it and had considerable +difficulty getting out. As for being “painted +in,” Prill established that the husband was also +actually painted in on one occasion. He was +in the bathroom shaving, and his wife did not +know it. Thus she had a man paint the floors +outside the bathroom, and when the husband +opened the door to emerge, he couldn’t get out +without stepping on the paint. He was about +to step on the paint, anyway, when his wife saw +him. “Here, here!” she said, “you can’t get +out that way!” There was no other way out. +“You’ll simply have to stay in there till the paint +dries,” his wife told him, and he did.</p> + +<p>Prill explained to the wife what these inhibitions +had done to her husband and that his condition +was precarious. He stressed the importance +of allowing her husband his freedom +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>at all times, paint or no paint. The husband +was then brought back into the home and was +allowed to live a free, unfettered existence, coming +and going as he pleased—always, however, +under the discreet surveillance of Dr. Prill. +With that perspicacity of psycho-mental cases, +however, that almost second sight, the patient +became aware that some one was snooping +around, watching him, and one night he leaped +out of bed, pulled open the door of a little-used +closet, and there was Dr. Prill watching. +The patient, who otherwise might have been +cured, went instantly into the last stages of the +Persecution Complex.⁠<a id="FNanchor_18_18" href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_18_18" href="#FNanchor_18_18" class="label">[18]</a> This discovery of Dr. Prill in the closet is one of the few blots +on the splendid record of psycho-analysis, and is most unfortunate.</p></div> +</div> +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c149" > + <img class="illowp60" src="images/i_c149.jpg" alt="Sketch of a man looking around the back of a chiar."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="noindent"><i>Fig. 14.</i> <i>Here we have that + strange, alert furtiveness + which instantly overtakes a + man when he beholds a + woman doing something which + he does not thoroughly understand.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The husband-patient began with the idea that +he was being persecuted by the Detective Bureau +of the Police Department and gradually enlarged +his Apprehension Field until he believed +he was also being persecuted by the Navy, the +towns of Indianapolis and St. Louis, and the +Box Manufacturers’ Association. He whispered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>to doctors that a bearded man,⁠<a id="FNanchor_19_19" href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> representing the +Box Manufacturers, was following him around +with a box and trying to catch him. Partly to +avoid this imaginary menace, and also partly to +stay off imaginary paint, the patient no longer +walked on the floor, but on table tops, mantels, +and so on, leaping around the room like an +oriole. Unless watched, he would jump for +the window-sills, and try to get out. He wrote +to the Department of Justice at Washington, +and finally to the President of the United States, +protesting against the activities of the Order of +the Eastern Star, the Railway Y. M. C. A., a +Rev. W——, and the <cite>New York Times</cite>. The +case was decreed hopeless in 1926. Later, the +wife got a divorce and the husband seemed to +improve. He was permitted to go to a ranch in +Dakota, where he had a horse, a dog, and a pipe +and was allowed to come and go as he liked. +The last time I saw the patient, he was completely +cured.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_19_19" href="#FNanchor_19_19" class="label">[19]</a> Dr. Prill wore a small, black beard.</p></div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="PREVENTION_OF_NUCLEAR_FEARS"> + PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR FEARS +</h3> + +<p>Prevention of the nuclear fears which lead to +such cases of claustrophobia should be quite +simple. A wife should strive at all times to give +her husband at least the <i>illusion</i> that he is free +to come and go. She should remember that it +is the little things that count, that claustrophobia +is brought on by an accumulation of small details, +that it is, in fact, a tragedy of the trivial. +If a husband uses a guest towel, he should be +quietly reprimanded, but under no circumstances +sent to his room. After pointing out, +briefly, that the guest towels are not to be used, +the wife might even give him a piece of bread +and butter with sugar on it, or a kind word. +Too many wives do not consider it important +to explain the facts of the guest towel to their +husbands. A wife expects her husband to pick +up his knowledge in the gutter or from other +husbands, who know as little about the actual +truth as he does himself. If a husband uses a +guest towel, he should be gently reproved and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>then told where guest towels come from, in +clear, simple language. The wife should lead +him to the drawer where she keeps the guest +towels and show him wherein they differ from +ordinary towels—the kind he may use. The +average guest towel can be identified by curious +markings, either elaborate initials or picturesque +designs in one corner or running all the +way around the border. The husband should +also be told that the use of such towels is not +pleasurable, because of the discomfort caused +by the hemstitching, the rough embroidery, and +the like. He should be made to understand that +no man ever uses a guest towel, either in his +own home or when he is a guest somewhere else, +that they are hung up for lady guests to look at +and are not to be disturbed. If he is told these +simple truths in a calm, unexcited way, the +chances are that he will never use a guest towel +again and that he won’t worry unduly over the +consequences of his having used one once or +twice. But as soon as he is given the idea that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>he has done something terrible, that old feeling +of being boxed in comes over him. He begins +to think that he will never do anything right +around the house, and that his home is merely +a laboratory in which he has been trapped for +the purpose of serving as the subject of strange +experiments with towels and furniture.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c153" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c153.jpg" + alt="Sketch of man and woman in front of dresser. +Woman is kneeling with a towel on her outstreched arm."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="noindent"><i>A wife should tell her husband + in clear, simple language + where guest towels come from.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The same rules should apply to husbands +when they leave things lying around, or track +in dirt, or forget to shut the refrigerator door. +None of these faults is, after all, of very great +importance, and they should be lightly dismissed. +If they are presented as heinous crimes, +the husband is going to be liable to the inception +of a Persecution Complex and the slow +deterioration of mind and spirit incident upon +claustrophobia. A wife is forever taking it for +granted that her husband should know as much +about a household as she does. If she would +only realize that things which are easy and uncomplicated +to her are strange and mysterious to +her husband, and explain the mysteries to him, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>adjustments could be arrived at very simply, +and sex would then have a chance to mean something. +As an instance of what I mean take what +happens during the average unpacking. A +couple has just moved from one house to another, +say, and the husband has been asked to +help put things away. (He should not, of +course, be asked, for the danger of that boxed-in +feeling, with all of its awful consequences, +is inherent in such a request.) As the things are +taken out of trunks, the wife knows instantly +where they go, not only the things she is going +to use and wants put where she can get at them, +but the things for which she has no immediate +use and wishes stored away for the winter or +summer, as the case may be. A woman can +tell instantly whether a given article belongs +in the attic or in the basement. All objects fall +into one or the other of these two categories. +For example, while I myself am not an expert +at it, I am aware that anything framed or having +wire attached to it goes to the attic, and that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>most containers and the like, especially those +made of metal, go to the basement. A woman +comes naturally by this ability to discriminate. +She knows most of it by intuition and the rest +she has learned from her mother. But to suppose +that a husband should know, offhand, +whether a chest of drawers with woolens or +dimity in it goes to the attic or the basement +is ridiculous. You might as well expect him +to understand, without long, careful instruction, +why one tea towel is used for the china and +another for the glassware. The thing for a wife +to do, then, is not to upbraid or rebuff her husband +when she finds him tired and worn in the +attic, sitting among a lot of things that should +have been taken to the basement, but simply to +say nothing, or, better yet, compliment him on +his strength and agility and then, next day, hire +a handy man to shift the things to where they +belong. Adherence to a few simple rules of +solicitude and understanding would prevent +nine husbands out of ten, no matter how passionately +dedicated to liberty they may be, from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>falling victims to the dread claustrophobia +which every year takes its heavy toll of male +minds as the result of the carelessness or +stupidity of wives.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c159_2" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c159.jpg" +alt="Sketch of child, man, and woman. Man has a downcast posture."> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII"> + CHAPTER VIII +<br><br> +<span class="smcap">Frigidity in Men</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap">I hesitate</span> to approach the subject of +male unresponsiveness. Frigidity in men +is a theme sociologists have avoided. Frigidity +in women, on the other hand, forms a vast chapter +in the sex research of today; the part it plays +in marital discord is known to students of sociology +as well as to the lay reader, although probably +less well. It has occupied the attention of +many noted writers, and has taken the lives of +such men as Zaner and Tithridge, who carried +some of their experiments too far.⁠<a id="FNanchor_20_20" href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_20_20" href="#FNanchor_20_20" class="label">[20]</a> Tithridge especially.</p></div> +</div> +<p>Any discussion of frigidity in men calls for +an unusual degree of frankness on the part of +the writer, since it entails such factors as the +“recessive knee,” Fuller’s retort, and the declination +of the kiss. Further, before attacking this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>subject, it will be necessary to reëvaluate some +of the more fundamental hypotheses of Man’s +erotic nature, and what a nuisance that is going +to be!</p> + +<p>Let us go back a little way. There are two +fundamental urges in nature: the desire to eat +and the desire to reproduce one’s kind. Which +of these two impulses is the stronger depends +somewhat on the individual and somewhat on +the circumstances surrounding the individual—that +is, it is apt to vary with the quality of the +food and of the women. There are, Zaner +shows, men who would rather eat than reproduce, +and there are isolated cases of men who +would rather reproduce than eat. But it is the +less simple types that provide the important case +histories for the student of masculine frigidity, +and no broad conclusions can be drawn about +the relative merits of eating and reproducing +without a consideration of the contributing +factors.</p> + +<p>Quite regardless of which urge comes first in +Man’s scheme of existence, it is safe to state +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>dogmatically that the second urge (the “sex” +urge) has caused more stir in the last few years +than the first, or “nourishment,” urge. Sex is +less than fifty years old, yet it has upset the +whole Western World. The sublimation of +sex, called Love, is of course much older—although +many purists will question the existence +of Love prior to about 1885 on the grounds that +there can be no sublimation of a non-existent +feeling. What I shall try to show, without carping, +will be that there is a very good reason why +the erotic side of Man has called forth so much +more discussion lately than has his appetite for +food. The reason is this: that while the urge +to eat is a personal matter which concerns no +one but the person hungry (or, as the German +has it, <i lang="de">der <ins class="corr" title="Transcriber's Note—original text: hungrig" id="hungrig">hungrige</ins> Mensch</i>), the sex urge involves, +for its true expression, another individual. +It is this “other individual” that causes +all the trouble.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c163" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c163.jpg" alt="Sketch of two couples, on in doorway sagging against each other, the other fallen on the stairs."> + <figcaption> + <p>“<i>Just the minute another person is drawn into some one’s life, + there begin to arise undreamed-of complexities.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Except in rare instances, all of which have +been dealt with by Sumner, the urge involves +an individual of the opposite sex; that is, for a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>man it involves a woman, and for a woman it +involves a man. I use the word “involve” advisedly. +<i>Just the minute another person is +drawn into some one’s life, there begin to arise +undreamed-of complexities</i>, and from such a +simple beginning as sexual desire we find built +up such alarming yet familiar phenomena as +<i lang="fr">fêtes</i>, <i lang="fr">divertissements</i>, telephone conversations, +arrangements, plans, sacrifices, train arrivals, +meetings, appointments, tardinesses, delays, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>marriages, dinners, small pets and animals, +calumny, children, music lessons, yellow shades +for the windows, evasions, lethargy, cigarettes, +candies, repetition of stories and anecdotes, infidelity, +ineptitude, incompatibility, bronchial +trouble, and many others, all of which are entirely +foreign to the original urge and way off +the subject, and all of which make the person’s +existence so strangely bewildering that if he +could have foreseen these developments his +choice would have been the “eating” urge, and +he would have just gone quietly out somewhere +and ordered himself a steak and some French +fried potatoes as being the easier way out.</p> + +<p>Still, that is just a hypothetical alternative. +Life, as we know, is very insistent; almost daily +people become involved with other people. And +that brings us to our real theme, namely, +frigidity in men.</p> + +<p><i>The Recessive Knee.</i> The first symptom of +frigidity in men is what I call the recessive knee. +To the study of this phenomenon I have given +some of my best years. My laboratory has been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>the laboratory of life itself. Probably I would +never have discovered the recessive knee had I +not noticed it, some ten years ago, in myself. +Questioning my colleagues, I found to my +amazement that they too had had similar experiences +which they were unable to account +for, and this led me to continue my investigations. +Since then I have gone into taxicabs, +terminal lunch rooms, boat liveries, and all other +places where it is possible or usual for a girl to +let her knee rest lightly against that of her companion, +have gained the confidence of the young +men and women whom I was watching, and +have accumulated a mass of data showing that +frigidity in men, instead of being almost a non-existent +characteristic, is one of the commonest +attributes of our national sexual life. Inasmuch +as the juxtaposing of the knee by the female, +which causes the recessive (or “pulled away”) +knee in the male, usually occurs fairly soon after +dinner, my experiments and observations have +had to be made largely in the evening. It has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>been my custom to sleep late mornings to make +up for this.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c166" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c166.jpg" alt="Sketch of man and woman seated next to each other, man has closed body posture, woman looks inquisitively at him, with her knee against his."> + <figcaption> + <p>“<i>Occasions arise sometimes when a girl presses her knee, + ever so gently, against the knee of the young man she is + out with.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Simply stated, the knee phenomenon is this: +occasions arise sometimes when a girl presses +her knee, ever so gently, against the knee of the +young man she is out with. The juxtaposing of +the knee is brought about by any of a thousand +causes. Often the topic of conversation has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>something to do with it: the young people, talking +along pleasantly, will suddenly experience +a sensation of compatibility, or of friendliness, +or of pity, or of community-of-interests. One +of them will make a remark singularly agreeable +to the other person—a chance word or phrase +that seems to establish a bond between them. +Such a remark can cause the knee of the girl +to be placed against the knee of the young man. +Or, if the two people are in a cab, the turning of +a sharp corner will do it. In canoes, the wash +from a larger vessel will bring it about. In +restaurants and dining-rooms it often takes place +under the table, as though by accident. On +divans, sofas, settees, couches, davenports, and +the like, the slight twist of the young lady’s +body incident to receiving a light for her cigarette +will cause it. I could go on indefinitely, +but there is no need. It is not a hard push, you +understand—rather the merest touch of knee to +knee, light as the brush of a falling blossom +against one’s cheek, and just as lovely.</p> + +<p>Now, a normal male in whom there are no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>traces of frigidity will allow his knee to retain +its original position, sometimes even exerting +a very slight counter-pressure. A frigid male, +however, will move his knee away at the first +suggestion of contact, denying himself the electric +stimulus of love’s first stirring. Why? That +is what my research was conducted to discover. +<i>I found that in 93 per cent of all cases, the male +was suspicious; in 4 per cent he was ignorant; +and in 3 per cent he was tired.</i> I have presented +these figures to the American Medical Association +and am awaiting a reply.</p> + +<p>It is the female’s subtlety in her laying-on of +the knee that annoys the male, I found. His +recession is for the purpose of reassuring himself +of his own integrity and perspicacity. If +the female were to juxtapose in a forthright +manner, if she were to preface her gesture with +the remark: “I am thinking of letting my knee +touch yours for the fun of it, Mortimer,” she +might gain an entirely different response from +the male.</p> + +<p>Many men with recessive knees have confided +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>to me that they felt incapable of answering the +pressure because of the effect it might have on +their minds, with the accompanying loss of self-respect. +I have established the fact that no +<i>physical</i> detriment is incurred by answered +pressure—the only harmful effects are psychological. +Some males admitted to an unwillingness +to give any woman the satisfaction of believing +that she was able to take her companion +unaware. Still others told me that they feared +the consequences of such an act: they were +afraid that if ever they let down the bars and +failed to turn away from knee pressure, they +would likewise be unable to resist other juxtapositions +in life and would continually be responding +amiably to other amusing stimuli—sales +talks, stock promotion, and the like.</p> + +<p>It was a young Paterson, N. J., girl by the +name of Lillian Fuller who let drop the remark +that has epitomized, for the sociological and +anthropological world, the phenomenon of the +recessive knee. “Fuller’s retort” is now a common +phrase in the realm of psychotherapy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span></p> + +<p>Miss Fuller was an unusually beautiful +woman—young, accurate, sensitive. She was +greatly attached to a man several years her +senior in the buffing department; wanted to +marry him. To this end she had laid her knee +against his innumerable times without a single +return of pressure. His frigidity, she realized, +was gradually becoming prejudicial to his mental +health, and so one evening, after experiencing +for the hundredth time the withdrawal of +his knee, she simply turned to him with a quiet +smile playing on her face and said, “Say, what +is the matter with you, anyway?”</p> + +<p>Her retort somehow summed up the whole +question of frigidity in men.</p> + +<p><i>The Declination of the Kiss.</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_21_21" href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Many men have +told me that they would not object to sex were +it not for its contactual aspect. That is, they +said they would be perfectly willing to express +their eroticism if it could be done at a reasonable +distance—say fifty paces. These men (the +frigid-<i>plus</i> type) found kissing intolerable.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_21_21" href="#FNanchor_21_21" class="label">[21]</a> Now we’re getting down to business.</p></div> +</div> +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c171"> + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c171.jpg" alt="Sketch of man and woman embracing in park, solitary dejected man looks over at them."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p class="noindent">“<i>Many men have told me + that they would not object + to sex were it not for its contactual + aspect.</i>” (<i>One such + man is shown in the background.</i>)</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span></p> + +<p>When they had an opportunity to kiss a young +lady, they declined. They made it plain that +they would be willing to blow a kiss across +the room from their hand, but not execute it +with their lips.</p> + +<p>I analyzed scores of these cases, questioning +both the women and the men. (The women +were mad as hornets.) I found that a small +number of the kiss-declining men were suffering +from a pathology of the eyes—either astigmatism +or farsightedness—so that when they got +really close to a girl, she blurred on them.⁠<a id="FNanchor_22_22" href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The +vast majority of cases, however, were quite different. +Their unwillingness I traced to a much +subtler feeling than eye-strain. Your true anti-contactual, +or kiss-decliner, is a very subtle individual +indeed.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_22_22" href="#FNanchor_22_22" class="label">[22]</a> Incidentally, I might say that this blurring of the female before +the eyes of the male is not entirely unpleasant. It’s kind of +fun.</p></div></div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c174" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c174.jpg" alt="Sketch of man playing guitar."> + <figcaption> + <p>“<i>Love had a simple directness which was not disturbed + until the arrival, in the land, of the minnesingers.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>In effect, he is a throw-back to another period +in history, specifically to the Middle Ages. He +is a biological sport. (Note: this is very confusing, +calling him a “sport,” because the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>ordinary “sport” is not a kiss-decliner at all—anything +but. Please keep in mind, then, that +when I use the term “sport” I want the strict +biological interpretation put upon the word. I +want it, and I intend to get it. If there are any +of you who think you are going to find the use +of the word “sport” in this connection so confusing +as to make the rest of the chapter unintelligible, +I wish you would drop out. Get +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>something else to read, or, better yet, get some +exercise.)</p> + +<p>No one can quite comprehend the motives +and the successes of a kiss-decliner who does not +recall his counterpart in mediæval history. In +the Middle Ages, when men were lusty and full +of red meat, their women expected as much. A +baronial fellow, finishing his meal, made no ado +about kissing a Middle Age woman. He just +got up from the table and kissed her. Bango, +and she was kissed. Love had a simple directness +which was not disturbed until the arrival, +in the land, of the <i>minnesingers</i>. It got so no +baronial hall of the Middle Ages was free from +these <i>minnesingers</i>. They kept getting in. They +would bring their harps with them, and after +dinner they would twang a couple of notes and +then sing a frail, delicate song to the effect that +women should be worshiped from afar, rather +than possessed. To a baron who had just drunk +a goblet of red wine, this new concept of +womanhood was screamingly funny. While he +was chuckling away to himself and cutting himself +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>another side of beef, his wife, who had +listened attentively to the song, would slip out +into the alley behind the castle and there the +<i>minnesinger</i> would join her.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp90" id="i_c176" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c176.jpg" alt="Sketch of man seated crosslegged, face resting on one hand."> + <figcaption> + <p><i>Mediæval baron, amused at minnesinger’s concept of + Woman.</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“Sing that one again,” she would say.</p> + +<p>“Which one?”</p> + +<p>“That one about worshiping me from a little +distance. I want to hear that one again.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span></p> + +<p>The <i>minnesinger</i> would oblige. Then he +would illustrate the theme by <i>not</i> kissing the +woman, but dancing off lightly down the hill, +throwing his harp up into the air and catching +it again as he went.</p> + +<p>“What a nice young man,” the baron’s wife +would think, as she slowly turned and went +in to bed.</p> + +<p>The kiss-decliner of today is a modern <i>minnesinger</i>. +He is a sport in that he has varied +suddenly from the normal type—which is still +baronial. Of course, the amusing thing about +his conduct is that oftentimes a woman assumes +that she is being worshiped from afar, when as +a matter of fact she is merely being <i>ignored from +afar</i>. That is part of the trick of an anti-contactual +person—he takes a perverse delight in +allowing the woman whose kiss he has declined, +to think of him as more lyrical than other men. +When he leaves her presence, she is apt to think +of him as off somewhere by the bank of a stream, +lying flat on his back, his shaggy head buried in +the tall grasses, dreaming of something or other—probably +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>of her, whereas, if she would take +the trouble to go to the nearest Liggett’s drug +store she would probably find him there, getting +a sundæ.</p> + +<p>By the mere gesture of declining a kiss a man +can still make quite a lot of ground, even in +these depleted days. The woman thinks: “He +would not dream of embracing my body; now +that’s pretty white of him!” Of course, it would +be wrong to ascribe motives of sheer deliberateness +to the frigid male. Often he is not a bad +sort—merely is a fellow who prefers an imagined +kiss to the real kind. An imagined kiss +is more easily controlled, more thoroughly enjoyed, +and less cluttery than an actual kiss. To +kiss in dream is wholly pleasant. First, the +woman is the one of your selection, not just +anyone who happens to be in your arms at the +moment. Second, the deed is garnished with +a little sprig of glamour which the mind, in exquisite +taste, contributes. Third, the lips, +imaginatively, are placed just so, the right hand +is placed just so, the concurrent thoughts arrive, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>just so. Except for the fact that the whole +episode is a little bit stuffy, it is a superior experience +all round. When a kiss becomes actual, +anything is likely to happen. The lips, failing +of the mark, may strike lightly against the end +of the lady’s nose, causing the whole adventure +to crack up; or the right hand may come in contact +with the hard, jagged part of the shoulder +blade; or, worst of all, the man’s thoughts may +not clothe the moment with the proper splendor: +he may be worrying about something.</p> + +<p>So you see, frigidity in men has many aspects, +many angles. To me it is vastly more engrossing +than frigidity in women, which is such a +simple phenomenon you wonder anybody +bothers about it at all.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="ANSWERS_TO_HARD_QUESTIONS"> + ANSWERS TO HARD QUESTIONS + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="noindent pb2">[Note: These questions have been selected from +among the many thousand inquiries that were received +by Dr. Karl Zaner during the past year. They +come from people who are sexually inquisitive—people +from every walk of life. The authors wish +to thank Dr. Zaner for allowing them to have access +to his sex files. It is with a sense of high adventure +that we face the task of answering, to the best of +our ability, these perplexing questions that deal so +intimately with human lives.—<span class="smcap">The Authors.</span>]</p> + + +<p class="p2"><i>Q.</i> <i>My youngest boy, age 28, turned against love +because in a book he was reading, where the writer +meant to say, “A woman in love is sacred” there was +a misprint and it came out, “A woman in love is +scared.” How would you go about this?</i></p> + +<p><i>A.</i> We do not regard the case as typical. Presumably +your boy is badly frightened himself, or he +wouldn’t be reading books; he would be out somewhere. +The way to overcome this is to build up his +general health.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span></p> + +<p class="p2"><i>Q.</i> <i> Should a woman live with her husband if they +are separated?</i></p> + +<p><i>A.</i> Yes. There is nothing that brings two people +so close together as separation. In situations of the +sort, the woman’s presence gradually becomes necessary +on account of the condition of the man’s shirts. +On first being separated from his wife, the husband +commonly will be found to neglect his dirty clothes, +from spite and from self-indulgence. Instead of +gathering them into a pile and sending them to a +laundry, he will put on yesterday’s shirt in the morning, +and stop in a gentleman’s furnishing store to +pick up a clean one on the way to the office. This +procedure has a threefold allure for the man. First, +it gets him to the office half an hour late; second, +it takes him into a furnishing store; and third, when +he looks into his shirt drawer in the morning and +finds no shirts it assures him of the disorganized +state of his life. To feel disorganized is to be perfectly +happy.</p> + +<p>Things might go on this way indefinitely were +it not for the economic side of the question. At +three dollars a shirt (which is a conservative figure +for a man separated from his wife) the shirt bill +runs into eighteen dollars a week, plus another six +dollars for underwear and socks. Furthermore, there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>is now a congested condition in the husband’s office, +caused by the accumulation of dirty shirts which he +has tucked into bottom drawers and filing cabinets. +This shows up in his work.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter w100" id="i_c182" > + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_c182.jpg" alt="Sktech of man changing clothes in front of a dresser."> + <figcaption class="captionblock"> + <p>“<i>On first being separated from his wife, the husband commonly + will be found to neglect his dirty clothes, from + spite and from self-indulgence. Instead of gathering them + into a pile and sending them to the laundry, he will put + on yesterday’s shirt in the morning, and stop in a gentlemen’s + furnishing store to pick up a clean one on the + way to the office.</i>”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The impracticability of two people living apart +becomes apparent, too, in the matter of the old 1916 +Cadillac touring car which they own. On separating, +the husband will generously give the car to his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>wife to use, but that doesn’t alter the fact that he, +and he alone, knows what you have to do when the +car “does that funny thing.” Thus, the husband is +apt any time during the day to pick up the phone +and hear his wife’s voice:</p> + +<p>“Dear, I’m on the Merrick Road between Bellport +and Patchogue, and the car is doing that funny +thing again.” This means dropping whatever work +he is doing, taking a cab to the Penn station and a +Long Island train to the scene of the breakdown. +This also shows up in his work. It never could +happen if husband and wife were living together, +because in that case they would never be on cordial +enough terms for him to let her use the car.</p> + +<p>There is another phase of separation that is perhaps +more alarming than those we have mentioned, +namely, the possible effect the news of it might +have on the health of the wife’s parents or the +health of the husband’s parents. I recall the case +of a couple who over a period of years tried to +live apart without telling the wife’s mother—who +had a frail heart and who liked to see young people +together, not apart. (Note: old ladies don’t know +<i>why</i> they like to see young people together—they +can give no reason; yet just the thought of two +young people separating excites them unduly, and, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>when their heart is unreliable, is apt to carry them +off.) So this young pair, out of consideration, although +separated, sent community Christmas presents +to the parents and wrote letters describing +joint experiences, until, after two years and eight +months of struggling along and scheming, they +finally gave up the battle and decided it would be +simpler to take an apartment together somewhere. +Sheer fatigue united them. They are residing, to +this day, in North Pelham, and the wife’s mother is +still alive and well. Getting better every day, doctors +say.</p> + +<p>So our advice to any couple is just this: separate +if you must, but by all means live together—no matter +how your friends and neighbors talk.</p> + +<p class="p2"><i>Q.</i> <i> I have an aquarium and I got a snail for it +because they told me it would keep the water clean, +and the snail unexpectedly bore young, although it +was in there all alone. I mean there weren’t any +other snails in there, only fish. How could it have +young, very well?</i></p> + +<p><i>A.</i> The snail in your aquarium is a mollusc. It is +quite likely an hermaphrodite, even though it came +from a reputable department store. For being +hermaphroditic, nobody can blame a snail. We cannot +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>tell you everything we know about the gastropods +because we know, possibly, more than is good +for us. In the absence of specific information to +the contrary, we would say that the snail in your +aquarium had been going around a good deal with +other snails before you got him (her). Some molluscs +(not many) can have children merely by sitting +around and thinking about it. Others can have +children by living in a state of reciprocity with other +hermaphrodites. Still others are like us, diœcious, +possessed of only one sexual nature but thankful for +small favors.</p> + +<p>The shellfish and the snails are a great group, +though it is a pose with many people to consider +them dull. Usually the people who find molluscs +dull are dull themselves. We have met molluscs in +many parts of the world: in gardens in France, on +the rocks at low tide on Long Island Sound, in household +aquaria, on the sidewalks of suburban towns +in the early mornings, in restaurants, and in forests. +Everywhere we found them to be sensitive creatures, +imaginative and possessed of a lively sense of earth’s +pleasant rhythm. Snails have a kind of nobility. +Zoölogists will tell you that they occupy, in the +animal kingdom, a position of enviable isolation. +They go their own way.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span></p> + +<p>We can understand your curiosity about sex in +snails. Molluscs are infinitely varied in their loves, +their hates, and their predilections. They have a +way of carrying out ideas they get in their head. +They are far from cold, as many people suppose +them; indeed, one of the most fascinating love stories +we ever read was in the <cite>Cambridge Natural History</cite>, +in which was described the tryst kept by a pair of +snails on a garden wall. We have never forgotten +the first sentence of that romantic and idyllic tale, +nor have we forgotten the name of the snail, +L. Maximus. The story started: “L. Maximus has +been observed at midnight to ascend a wall or some +perpendicular surface.” It then went on to relate +how, after some moments spent greeting each other, +crawling round and round, the snails let themselves +down on a little ladder of their own devising, and +there, suspended in the air ten inches or so from +the top of the wall, they found love.</p> + +<p>Often very fecund, molluscs are rarely too busy +to give attention to their children after birth, or to +prepare for their coming. There is, in Algeria, a +kind of mollusc whose young return for shelter to +the body of their mother, somewhat in the manner +of little kangaroos. There is, in the Philippines, a +snail who is so solicitous for her expected babies +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>that she goes to the trouble of climbing, with infinite +pains and no little discomfort, to the top of a tall +tree, and there deposits her eggs in a leaf, folding +the leaf adroitly for protection. Another kind of +mollusc, having laid her eggs upon a stone, amuses +herself by arranging them like the petals of a rose, +and hatches them by holding her foot on them. +Molluscs tend to business.</p> + +<p>Sometimes different species intermarry, but this is +rare. The interesting point about it is that such +unions generally take place when the air is heavily +charged with electricity, as before a storm, or when +great rains have made the earth wet. The Luxembourg +Garden in Paris is a place snails go to for +clandestine matches of this sort. H. Variabilis goes +there, and Pisana. The moisture, the electricity, the +fragrant loveliness of a Paris night, stir them +strangely.</p> + +<p>Probably, if you know so little of the eroticism of +snails, you have not heard of the darts some of them +carry—tiny daggers, hard and sharp, with which +they prick each other for the excitement it affords. +These darts are made of carbonate of lime. The +Germans call them <i lang="de">Liebespfeil</i>, “love shaft.” Many +British molluscs are without them, but that’s the way +it goes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span></p> + +<p>We could tell much more. We could tell about +molluscs that possess the curious property of laying +their eggs on the outside of their own shell, and of +the strange phenomenon of the Cephalopod, who, +when he takes leave of his lady, leaves one of his +arms with her, so that she may never lack for an +embrace. But we feel we have answered your question.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="GLOSSARY"> + GLOSSARY + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="hang2"> +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Aaron’s Disease</span>: Put in here merely because it +might confuse the reader if we started right off +with Admiral Schley.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Admiral Schley</span>: American naval hero in whose +splendid achievements men took an interest +when their absorption in love died down, circa +1900.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Amatory Instincts</span>: Interest in sex.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Apathy</span>: Almost total loss of interest in sex.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Atrophy</span>: Total loss of interest in sex.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Attack</span>: Man’s method of showing interest in +women, so called because of his brusque desire +to get at the matter in hand and have done +with it.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Begonia-ism</span>: Tendency of the male to raise small +potted plants, and not go out.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Benign Stupor</span>: Alarming condition in a husband +or lover which causes him to sit around in his +bathrobe and slippers, brooding, instead of +working or anything.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span></p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Biologico-cultural</span>: A feminine type; one who +expresses her erotic nature verbally.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Bother</span>: Annoyance; frequently confused with +“pother,” which means uncalled-for interest in +something, usually sex.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Boxed-in</span>: Caught, or trapped, as a husband by a +wife, or the delusion of being caught or trapped.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Butcher’s Twine</span>: A kind of stout cord of no particular +interest to anybody.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Causation</span>: The factors back of a male’s doubt or +suspicion.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Charades</span>: (1) Parlor game devised by women to +fend off men (1900–1909); (2) acting up in a +skittish manner about the facts of life, instead +of getting right down to them; twitching, nervous +twitching.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Complex</span>: Mental crack-up caused by an emotional, +or physical, inability to get away from, or wind +things up with, a person of the opposite sex.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Complex, Nuclear</span>: Shock caused by discovery of +a person of the opposite sex in his or her true +colors; beginning of a general breakdown.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Defense</span>: Feminine excuses, tricks, devices, etc.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Delay Mechanism</span>: Pother.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Deterioration</span> (<span class="smcap">Benign</span>): Going quietly to pieces +as the result of marriage or a love affair.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span></p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Deterioration</span> (<span class="smcap">Malignant</span>): Going loudly to +pieces under the same circumstances; fidgeting, +bawling, berating, etc.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Diversion Subterfuge</span>: Trick employed by women +to keep men’s minds on ethereal, rather than +physical, matters.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Empiric</span>: National viewpoint of sex.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Erotic</span>: Of or pertaining to sex, usually in a pretty +far-fetched manner.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Exhibitionism</span>: Going too far, but not really meaning +it.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Exotic</span>: Of an alarming nature, particularly to +parents.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Fixation</span>: Too great dependence on one woman.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Fragmentation of Personality</span>: Inception of +general decline on the part of the male.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Frigidity</span> (in men): Suspicion, ignorance, or fatigue, +mostly suspicion.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Fudge-making</span>: Feminine trick or device.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Fuller’s Retort</span>: A remark made by a Paterson, +N. J., girl one night in Paterson, N. J.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">George Smith</span>: A despondent Indianapolis real-estate +man. Pulling a George Smith: attempting +to find something more important than, and +just as interesting as, women.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Julia Marlowe</span>: Actress.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p> + +<p class="hang2" id="libido"><span class="smcap">Libido</span>: “Pleasure-principle.”</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Looseness of Systematization</span>: The going to +pieces of a husband.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Love</span>: The pleasant confusion which we know exists.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Loving</span>: Being confused by, or confusing some one.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Masculine Protest</span>: Male disdain for things which +he does not understand.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Narcissism</span>: Attempt to be self-sufficient, with overtones.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Neuro-vegetative Reflexes</span>: A male’s, particularly +a husband’s, quick, unpremeditated reactions +to stewed vegetables, especially spinach, +and to certain salads.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Neurosis</span>: The beginning of the end, unless the +husband can go away somewhere.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Neurotic</span>: Wanting something, but she doesn’t +know what; desirous of something she hasn’t +got and probably can’t, or shouldn’t, have.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">1907, Panic of</span>: Result of woman’s inhumanity to +man (1900–1907).</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">No Better Than She Ought to Be</span> (woman’s +definitions): (1) indiscreet; (2) charming; +(3) pretty and vivacious; (4) oversexed; (5) +living in sin.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Norm</span>: All Quiet.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Numerical Protection</span>: Other people in the room.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span></p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Osculatory Justification</span>: Reasons for kissing, +growing out of the early American credo that +kissing for kissing’s sake would send one +straight to hell.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Paranoia</span>: The last stages of what was once a +bridegroom.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Passion</span>: Expression of the sex principle without +so much fuss.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Pedestalism</span>: The American male’s reverence for +the female or, better yet, her insistence on being +revered, which amounts to the same thing.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Physico-Psychic</span>: State in which the physical gets +tangled up with the spiritual, after the manner +of a setter pup throwing a huntsman by getting +between his feet.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Pleasure-principle</span>: See <a href="#libido">Libido</a>.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Possessive Complex</span>: Innocent desire to kiss and +fondle, sometimes to maul or wool.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Pother</span>: Uncalled-for interest in something—almost +always sex.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Protective Reaction</span>: Putting a man in his place.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Psyche</span>: Wings for the feet of clay.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Psycho-neurosis</span>: Same as neurosis, only worse.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Psychosis</span>: State of being beside oneself to such an +extent that it is doubtful if one can pull oneself +together.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span></p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Pulled-away</span>: Refers to the knee of a man who is +suspicious or tired.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Recessive Knee</span>: The outstanding phenomenon of +masculine frigidity; man’s refusal to answer the +pressure.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Schmalhausen, Samuel D.</span>: Student of misbehavior.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap" id="Sch_troub">Schmalhausen Trouble</span>: Illness commonly found +in young ladies who read in cramped quarters.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Smith, George</span>: Same as George Smith.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Swastika</span>: Symbol which distracted American suitors +used to scrawl on desk pads, margins of +books, and so on.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Trouble, Schmalhausen</span>: See <a href="#Sch_troub">Schmalhausen trouble</a>.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap" lang=de>Übertragung</span>: Period of transition during which +the male strives to transmute his ardor for +women into the semblance of ardor for games.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Voyeurism</span>: Sex Kibitzing.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="A_NOTE_ON_THE_DRAWINGS_IN_THIS_BOOK"> + A NOTE ON THE DRAWINGS IN THIS BOOK + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>The inclusion, in this volume, of some fifty-two +drawings by James Thurber, was on the whole intentional. +Because, however, of the strong feeling +of suspicion which they will arouse in certain quarters, +it may not be amiss to offer some explanation. +For this task I feel peculiarly fitted, for it was I who, +during those trying months when the book was in +the making, picked up the drawings night after night +from the floor under Thurber’s desk, picked them +up when I was so tired in body and soul that I could +scarcely stoop; it was I who, by gaining the confidence +of the charwomen, nightly redeemed countless +other thousands of unfinished sketches from the huge +waste baskets; and finally, it was my incredible willingness +to go through with the business of “inking-in” +the drawings (necessitated by the fact that they +were done in such faint strokes of a broken pencil as +to be almost invisible to the naked eye) that at last +brought them to the point where they could be engraved +and reproduced.</p> + +<p>To understand, even vaguely, Thurber’s art, it is +necessary to grasp the two major themes which underlie +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>all his drawings. The first theme is what I +call the “melancholy of sex”; the other is what I can +best describe as the “implausibility of animals.” +These two basic ideas motivate, subconsciously, his +entire creative life. Just how some of the animals +shown in these pages “come in” is not clear even +to me—except in so far as any animal must be +regarded as sexually relevant because of our human +tendency to overestimate what can be learned from +watching it.</p> + +<p>When one studies the drawings, it soon becomes +apparent that a strong undercurrent of grief runs +through them. In almost every instance the <i>man</i> +in the picture is badly frightened, or even hurt. +These “Thurber men” have come to be recognized +as a distinct type in the world of art; they are +frustrated, fugitive beings; at times they seem vaguely +striving to get out of something without being seen +(a room, a situation, a state of mind), at other times +they are merely perplexed and too humble, or weak, +to move. The <i>women</i>, you will notice, are quite +different: temperamentally they are much better adjusted +to their surroundings than are the men, and +mentally they are much less capable of making themselves +uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>It would be foolish to attempt here a comprehensive +appreciation of the fierce sweep, the economy, +and the magnificent obscurity of Thurber’s work, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>nor can I adequately indicate the stark qualities in +the drawings that have earned for him the title of +“the Ugly Artist.” All I, all anybody, can do is to +hint at the uncanny faithfulness with which he has +caught—caught and thrown to the floor—the daily, +indeed the almost momently, severity of life’s mystery, +as well as the charming doubtfulness of its purpose.</p> + +<p class="right"> + <span class="pad1r">E. B. W.</span> +</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp40" id="i_c198" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c198.jpg" alt="House of Harper logo."> + <figcaption> + <p>THE HOUSE OF HARPER</p> + <p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">New York</span></p> + <p>Publishers of BOOKS and of + <span class="smcap">Harper’s Magazine</span></p> + <p><i>Established 1817</i></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<figure class="figright illowp35" id="i_c203" > + <img class="w100" src="images/i_c203.jpg" +alt="Sketch of man holding folded umbrella, hand outstretched to catch water drops from above."> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter transnote" id="END_NOTE"> + <strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong> + + +<p class="noindent">Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs +and outside quotations.</p> + +<p class="noindent">Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been +corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within +the text and consultation of external sources.</p> + +<p class="noindent">Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, +when a predominant preference was found in the original book.</p> + +<p class="noindent">Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, +and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.</p> + +<table class="autotable"> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href="#chicka">Pg 16</a>: +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +“Chickamaugua” replaced with “Chickamauga”. +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href="#Schmaulhausen">89</a>: +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +“Schmaulhausen” replaced with “Schmalhausen”. +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> +<a href="#hungrig">162</a>: +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +“hungrig” replaced with “hungrige”. +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** 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