The Foundations of Personality by Abraham Myerson (sites to read books for free TXT) 📖
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What this is meant to emphasize is the social nature of sexual
modesty. Modesty of other kind rests either on a moderate
self-valuation or a desire to avoid offense by not emphasizing
one’s own value, or it is both. However sexual modesty
originated, practically it consists in the concealing of certain
parts of the body, avoiding certain topics of conversation,
especially in the presence of the other sex, and behaving in such
fashion as to restrict sexual demonstration. There is a natural
coyness in women which has been socially emphasized by
restrictions in dress, conduct and speech to a ridiculous degree.
Thus it was immodest in our civilization for women to show their
legs, and the leg became the symbol of the femaleness of the
woman or girl, as also did the breast.[1] The body became taboo,
and at present, when women are commencing to dress so that the
legs are shown, the arms are bare, and the back and shoulders
visible, the cry of immodesty, immorality and social
demoralization is raised, as if real morality rested in these
ridiculous, barbaric taboos.
[1] All the anthropologists, Tyler, McLennan, Ellis and
especially Frazier, deal at length with this fascinating subject.
The psychopathologists relate the most extraordinary stories of
fetich love.
But no matter how much one emphasizes the arbitrary nature of
modesty, of the restrictions placed on dress, speech and conduct,
it still remains true that their function is at present to act as
inhibitors. Ridiculous as it is to believe that morality resides
in the length of the skirt or in the degree of paint and powder
on the face, the fact is that usually they who depart too widely
from the conventional in these matters are uninhibited and are as
apt to depart from the conventional in deed as they are in
deportment. There are those who say that we would be far more
moral if we went about naked; that clothes suggest more than
nakedness reveals. This is true of some kinds of clothes—the
half nakedness of the stage or the ballroom, or the coquettish
additions to clothes represented by the dangling tassels —but it
is not true of the riding breeches, or the trim sport clothes, or
the walking suit. The dress of men, though ugly, is useful,
convenient and modest, and there is no doubt that a generation of
free women, determined to become human in appearance, could
evolve a modest and yet decorative costume. All of the
present-day extravagance in female attire, with its ever-changing
fashion, is a medley of commercial intrigues, female competition
and sex excitement. Though the modesty restrictions are absurd,
the motive that obscurely prompts it is not, and the
transgressors either seek notice in a risky way, are foolish, to
speak bluntly, or else are inviting actual sexual advances.
Though we may actually restrict the sex life so that some men and
women become pure in the accepted sense, it will always be true
that men and women will be vaguely or definitely attracted to
each other. Like the atmospheric pressure which though fifteen
pounds to the square inch at the sea level is not felt, so there
exists a sex pressure, excited by men and women in each other.
There is a smoldering excitement always ready to leap into flame
whenever the young and attractive of the sexes meet. The
conventions of modesty tend to restrict the excitement, to
neutralize the sex pressure, but they may be swept aside by
immodesty and the suggestive. The explanation of the anger and
condemnation felt by the moral man in the presence of the
“brazen” woman lies in the threat to his purposes of
respectability and faithfulness; he is angered that this creature
can arouse a conflict in him. The bitterness of the “saint”
against the wanton originates in the ease with which she tempts
him, and his natural conclusion is that the fault lies with her
and not with his own passions. The respectable woman inveigles
against her more untrammeled sister, not so much through her
concern for morality, as through the anger felt against an
unscrupulous competitor who is breaking the rules.
In so far as women are concerned, the sex pressure on them is
increased in many ways. For two years I examined, mentally, the
girls who were listed as sex offenders by the various social
agencies of Boston. As a result of that experience, plus that of
a physician and citizen of the world, a few facts of importance
stand out in my mind.
1. There is a group of men whom one may call sex adventurers.
These are not all of one kind in education, social status and
age, but they seek sex experiences wherever they go and are
always alert for signs that indicate a chance to become intimate.
They take advantage of the widespread tendency to flirt and haunt
the places where the young girls tend to parade up and down
(certain streets in every large city), the public dance halls,
the skating resorts, the crowded public beaches, etc. They regard
themselves as connoisseurs in women and think they know when a
girl is “ripe”; they are ready to spend money and utilize
flattery, gifts and bold wooing, according to their nature and
the way they size up their prey.
2. The female sex adventurer is not so common, except in the
higher criminal classes where the effort to ensnare rich men
calls forth the abilities of certain women. In a limited way the
prostitute, professed or clandestine, is a sex adventurer, but
ordinarily she is merely supplying a demand and has only to exert
herself physically, rarely needing to conquer men’s inhibitions.
We omit here the schemes of conquest of girls and women seeking
marriage as too complex for any one but a novelist, and also
because the moral code regards them as legitimate. Women who are
ready to accept sexual advances are common enough in the
uninhibited girl, the dissatisfied married woman, the young
widow, the drug habitue; but aside from the woman who has
capitalized her sex, the sex adventurer is largely male.
What attracts him? For he rarely pesters the good woman, and
ordinarily the average woman is not solicited.
The girl usually “picked up” dresses immodestly or in the extreme
of style, even though she is essentially shabby and poorly clad.
To-day business sees to it that fripperies are within the reach
of every purse.
She usually corresponds to a type of prettiness favored in the
community, often what is nowadays called the chicken type. Plump
legs and fairly prominent bosom and hips are symbols of those
desired among all grades of men, together with a pretty face. The
homely girl finds it much easier to walk unmolested.
If she appears intelligent and firm, the above qualities will
only entitle her to glances, respectful and otherwise. The sex
adventurer hates to be rebuffed, and he is not desperately in
love, so that he will not risk his vanity. If she appears of that
port vivacious type just above the moron level—in other words if
she is neither bright nor really feebleminded—then sex pressure
is increased. The feebleminded girl of the moron type, or the
over-innocent and unenlightened girl, is always in danger.
There is further the sexually excited or the uninhibited girl. We
must differentiate between those who attempt no control, and
those whose surge of desire is beyond the normal limits. The
uninhibited of both sexes are a large group, and the bulk of the
prostitutes are deficient in this respect rather than in
intelligence. Sometimes inhibition arrives late, after sexual
immorality has commenced. In men this is common, but
unfortunately for women, society stands in their way when this
occurs with them. “Youth must have its fling” is a masculine
privilege denied to feminine offenders.
The desire for a good time plays havoc with the uninhibited girl.
Unable to find interest in her work, which too often is
uninteresting, desiring good clothes and excitement, she
discovers that these are within her reach if she follows her
instincts. What starts out as a flirtation ends in social
disaster, and a girl finds out that some men who give good times
expect to be paid for them.
Since our study is not a pathological treatise, we must omit
further consideration of the offender and dismiss without more
comment the whole range of the perverter. It suffices to say that
the perverted are often such congenitally, in which case nothing
can be done for them, and others are the results of certain
environments, which range all the way from girls’
boarding-schools to the palaces of kings.
In ancient times, and in many countries to-day, certain
perversions were so common as to defy belief, and we are
compelled to associate with some of the greatest names,
practices[1] that shock us. These same ancients would denounce as
unnatural in as hearty terms the increasing practices of
child-limitation among us.
[1] I pass over as out of the range of this book the question
raised by Freud, whether or not we are all of us homosexual as
well as heterosexual.
The sex desires and instincts struggle with, overcome or
harmonize with the social instincts. It would be impossible to
portray even the simplest sex life from the mental standpoint.
The chastest woman who is unconscious of sex desire is motivated
by romance and the sex feelings and customs of others in her
ideas of happiness and right behavior. The cynical profligate,
indulging every sensual urge, in so far as he can, must guide
himself by the resistance of society, by the necessity of
camouflage, the fear of public opinion and often the impediment
of his own early training. Men and women start out perhaps as
romantic idealists, enter marriage, and in the course of their
experiences become almost frankly sensual. And in the opposite
direction, men and women wildly passionate in youth develop
counter tendencies that swing them into restraint and serene
self-control. There are those to whom sex is mere appetite, to be
indulged and put out of the way, so as not to interfere with the
great purposes of success; there are those to whom it is a
religion, carried on with ceremonials and rites; there are those
to whom it is an obsession, and their minds are in a sexual stew
at all times. There are the under-inhibited, spoken of above, and
there are the over-inhibited, Puritanical, rebelling at the flesh
as such, disguising all their emotions, reluctant to admit their
humanness and the validity of pleasure.
The romantic ideal, glorifying a sort of asexual love of perfect
men and women, asceticism which permits sex only as a sort of
necessary evil and sensuality which proclaims the pleasure of sex
as the only joy and scoffs at inhibition influence the lives of
us all. The effect of the forbidden, the tantalizing curiosity
aroused and the longing to rise above the level of lust make the
sex adjustment the most difficult of all and produce the queerest
results. Sex is a road to power and to failure, a road to health
and sickness. As in all adjustments, there are some who are
conscious of but few difficulties, who are moral or immoral
without struggle or discontent. Contrasted with these are the
ones who find morality a great burden, and those who, yielding to
desire, find continuous inner conflict and dissatisfaction and
lowered self-valuation as a result.
Our society is organized on chastity and continence prior to
marriage, purity and constancy after marriage. That noble ideal
has never been realized; the stories of Pagan times, of the
Middle Ages and of the present day, as well as everyday human
experience, show that the male certainly has not lived up to his
part of the bargain. Legalized prostitution in
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