Mutual Adjustment
"Love worketh no ill to his neighbour."--St. Paul.
In the average man of our race desire knows no season beyond the
slight slackening of the winter months and the heightening of
spring. Some men have observed in themselves a faintly-marked
monthly rhythm; but in the majority of men desire, even if held in
stern check, is merely slumbering. It is always present, ever ready
to wake at the lightest call, and often so spontaneously insistent
as to require perpetual conscious repression.
It would go ill with the men of our race had women retained the wild
animals' infrequent seasonal rhythm, and with it her inviolable
rights in her own body save at the mating season. Woman, too, has
acquired a much more frequent rhythm; but, as it does not equal
man's, he has tended to ignore and over-ride it, coercing her at all
times and seasons, either by force, or by the even more compelling
power of "divine" authority and social tradition.
If man's desire is perpetual and woman's intermittent; if man's
desire naturally wells up every day or every few days, and woman's
only every fortnight or every month, it may appear at first sight
impossible for the unwarped needs of both natures simultaneously to
be satisfied.
The sense that a satisfactory mutual adjustment is not within the
realms of possibility has, indeed, obsessed our race for centuries.
The result has been that the supposed need of one of the partners
has tended to become paramount, and we have established the social
traditions of a husband's "rights" and wifely "duty." As one man
quite frankly said to me: "As things are it is impossible for both
sexes to get what they want. One _must_ be sacrificed. And it is
better for society that it should be the woman."
Nevertheless, the men who consciously sacrifice the women are in
a minority. Most men act in ignorance. Our code, however, has
blindly sacrificed not only the woman, but with her the happiness
of the majority of men, who, in total ignorance of its meaning
and results, have grown up thinking that women should submit to
regularly frequent, or even nightly, intercourse. For the sake of a
few moments of physical pleasure they lose realms of ever-expanding
joy and tenderness; and while men and women may not realise the
existence of an untrodden paradise, they both suffer, if only half
consciously, from being shut out from it.
Before making some suggestions which may help married people to find
not only a _via media_ of mutual endurance, but a _via perfecta_
of mutual joy, it is necessary to consider a few points about the
actual nature of man's "desire." In the innumerable books addressed
to the young which I have read, I have not found one which gives
certain points regarding the meaning of the male sex-phenomena which
must be grasped before it is possible to give rational guidance to
intelligent young men. The general ground plan of our physiology
is told to us in youth because it so obviously is right for us to
know it accurately and in a clean scientific way, rather than to be
perpetually perplexed by fantastic imaginings. But the physiology
of our most profoundly disturbing functions is ignored--in my
opinion, criminally ignored. To describe the essentials, simple,
direct and scientific language is necessary, though it may surprise
those who are accustomed only to the hazy vagueness which has
led to so much misapprehension of the truth. Every mating man and
woman should know the following: The sex organs of a man consist
not only of the tissues which give rise to the living, moving,
ciliated cells, the _sperms_, and of the penis through which they
pass and by means of which they are directed into the proper place
for their deposition, the woman's vagina. Associated with these
primary and essential structures there are other tissues and glands
which have numerous subsidiary but yet very important parts to
play; some of which influence almost every organ in the body. Man's
penis, when unstimulated, is soft, small and drooping. But when
stimulated, either by physical touch which acts through the nerves
and muscles directly, or indirectly through messages from the brain,
it increases greatly in size, and becomes stiff, turgid and erect.
Many men imagine that the turgid condition of an erection is due
to the local accumulation of sperms, and that these can only be
naturally got rid of by an ejaculation. This is entirely wrong. The
enlargement of the penis is not at all due to the presence of actual
sperm, but is due to the effects of the nervous reaction on the
blood-vessels, leading to the filling, principally of the _veins_,
and much less of the arteries. As the blood enters but does not
leave the penis, the venous cavities in it fill up with venous blood
until the whole is rigid. When rigid this organ is able to penetrate
the female entrance, and there the further stimulation of contact
calls out the sperms from their storehouses, the seminal vesicles,
and they pass down the channel (the urethra) and are expelled.
If this is clear, it will be realised that the stiffening and
erection does not _necessarily_ call for relief in the ejaculation
of sperm. If the veins can empty themselves, as they naturally do
when the nervous excitement which restricted them locally passes,
the erection will subside without any loss of sperms, by the mere
passing back of the locally excessive blood into the ordinary
circulatory system. This can happen quite naturally and healthily
when the nerves are soothed, either physically or as a result of a
sense of mental peace and exaltation. When, on the other hand, the
local excitement culminates in the calling up and expulsion of the
sperms, after it has once started the ejaculation becomes quite
involuntary and the sperms and the secretions associated with them
pass out of the system and are entirely lost.
Of what does this loss consist? It is estimated that there are
somewhere between two and five hundred million sperms in a single
average ejaculation.[5] Each single one of these (in healthy men) is
capable of fertilising a woman's egg-cell and giving rise to a new
human being. (Thus by a single ejaculation one man might fertilise
nearly all the marriageable women in the world!) Each single one of
those minute sperms carries countless hereditary traits, and each
consists very largely of nuclear plasm--the most highly-specialised
and richest substance in our bodies. It is not surprising,
therefore, to find that the analysis of the chemical nature of
the ejaculated fluid reveals among other things a remarkably high
percentage of calcium and phosphoric acid--both precious substances
in our organisation.
[5] See Pflügers Archiv., 1891.
It is therefore the greatest mistake to imagine that the semen is
something to be got rid of _frequently_--all the vital energy and
the precious chemical substances which go to its composition can be
better utilised by being transformed into other creative work on
most days of the month. And so mystic and wonderful are the chemical
transformations going on in our bodies that the brain can often
set this alchemy in motion, particularly if the brain is helped by
_knowledge_. A strong will can often calm the nerves which regulate
the blood supply, and order the distended veins of the penis to
retract and subside without wasting the semen in an ejaculation.
But while it is good that a man should be able to do this often, it
is not good to try to do it always. The very restraint which adds
to a man's strength up to a point, taxes his strength when carried
beyond it. It is my belief that just sufficient restraint to carry
him through the ebb-tides of his wife's sex-rhythm is usually the
right amount to give the best strength, vigour, and joy to a man if
both are normal people. If the wife has, as I think the majority of
healthy, well-fed young women will be found to have, a fortnightly
consciousness or unconscious _potentiality_ of desire, then the
two should find a perfect mutual adjustment in having fortnightly
unions; for this need not be confined to only a single union on
such occasion. Many men, who can well practise restraint for twelve
or fourteen days, will find that one union only will not then
thoroughly satisfy them; and if they have the good fortune to have
healthy wives, they will find that the latter, too, have the desire
for several unions in the course of a day or two. If the wave-crests
facing page 32 are studied, it will be seen that they spread over
two or three days and show several small minor crests. This is what
happens when a woman is thoroughly well and vital; her desire
recurs during a day or two, sometimes even every few hours if it
does not, and sometimes even when it does, receive satisfaction.
Expressed in general terms (which, of course, will not fit
everybody) my view may be formulated thus: The mutually best
regulation of intercourse in marriage is to have three or four days
of repeated unions, followed by about ten days without any unions
at all, unless some strong external stimulus has stirred a mutual
desire.
I have been interested to discover that the people known to me who
have accidentally fixed upon this arrangement of their lives are
_happy_: and it should be noted that it fits in with the charts I
give which represent the normal, spontaneous feeling of so many
women.
There are many women, however, who do not feel, or who may not
at first recognise, a second, but have only one time of natural
pleasure in sex in each moon-month. Many men of strong will and
temperate lives will be able so to control themselves that they can
adjust themselves to this more restrained sex-life, as do some with
whom I am acquainted. On the other hand, there will be many who find
this period too long to live through without using a larger amount
of energy in restraining their impulse than is justifiable. It seems
to me never justifiable to spend so much energy and will power on
restraining natural impulses, that valuable work and intellectual
power and poise are made to suffer. If, then, a strongly-sexed
husband, who finds it a real loss to his powers of work to endure
through twenty-six days of abstinence, should find himself married
to a wife whose vitality is so low that she can only take pleasure
in physical union once in her moon-month (in some it will be before,
in some a little time after, her menstrual flow), he should note
carefully the time she is spontaneously happy in their union, and
then at any cost restrain himself through the days immediately
following, and about a fortnight after her time of desire he should
set himself ardently to woo her. Unless she is actually out of
health he is more likely then than at any other time to succeed not
only in winning her compliance, but also in giving her the proper
feeling and attaining mutual ecstasy.
The husband who so restrains himself, even if it is hard to do it,
will generally find that he is a thousand-fold repaid not only
by the increasing health and happiness of his wife, and the much
intenser pleasure he gains from their mutual intercourse, but also
by his own added vitality and sense of self-command. A fortnight is
not too long for a healthy man to restrain himself with advantage.
Sir Thomas Clouston says ("Before I Wed," 1913, page 84): "Nature
has so arranged matters that the more constantly control is
exercised the more easy and effective it becomes. It becomes a
habit. The less control is exercised the greater tendency there
is for a desire to become a _craving_ of an uncontrollable kind,
which is itself of the nature of disease, and means death sooner or
later." This conclusion is not only the result of the intellectual
and moral experience of our race, but is supported by physiological
experiments.
While a knowledge of the fundamental laws of our being should in the
main regulate our lives, so complex are we, so sensitive to a myriad
impressions, that clock-work regularity can never rule us.
Even where the woman is strongly sexed, with a well-marked
recurrence of desire, which is generally satisfied by fortnightly
unions, it may not infrequently happen that, in between these
periods, there may be additional special occasions when there
springs up a mutual longing to unite. These will generally depend
on some event in the lovers' lives which stirs their emotions; some
memory of past passion, such as an anniversary of their wedding, or
perhaps will be due to a novel, poem, or picture which moves them
deeply. If the man she loves plays the part of tender wooer, even
at times when her passion would not _spontaneously_ arise, a woman
can generally be stirred so fundamentally as to give a passionate
return. But at the times of her ebb-tides the stimulus will have to
be stronger than at the high tides, and it will then generally be
found that the appeal must be made even more through her emotional
and spiritual nature and less through the physical than usual.
The supreme law for husbands is: Remember that each act of union
must be tenderly wooed for and won, and that no union should ever
take place unless the woman also desires it and is made physically
ready for it. (See page 47.)
While in most marriages the husband has to restrain himself to meet
the wife's less frequently recurrent rhythm, there are, on the other
hand, marriages in which the husband is so under-sexed that he
cannot have ordinary union save at very infrequent intervals without
a serious effect on his health. If such a man is married to a woman
who has inherited an unusually strong and over-frequent desire, he
may suffer by union with her, or may cause her suffering by refusing
to unite. It is just possible that for such people the method of
Karezza (see Dr. A. Stockham's book "Karezza"[6] on the subject)
might bring them both the health and peace they need; conserving the
man's vital energy from the loss of which he suffers, and giving the
woman the sense of union and physical nerve-soothing she requires.
But the variations in the sex-needs and the sex-ideas of different
healthy people are immense, far greater than can be suggested in
this book.
[6] This book is now out of print, but can be seen at the British
Museum.
Ellis states that the Queen of Aragon ordained that six times a day
was the proper rule in legitimate marriage! So abnormally sexed
a woman would today probably succeed in killing by exhaustion a
succession of husbands, for the man who could match such a desire is
rare, though perhaps less exceptional than such a woman.
Though the timing and the frequency of union are the points about
which questions are oftenest asked by the ignorant and well-meaning,
and are most misunderstood, yet there are other fundamental facts
concerning coitus about which even medical men seem surprisingly
ignorant. Regarding these, a simple statement of the physiological
facts is essential.
An impersonal and scientific knowledge of the structure of our
bodies is the surest safeguard against prurient curiosity and
lascivious gloating. This knowledge at the back of the minds of the
lovers, though not perhaps remembered as such, may also spare the
unintentioned cruelty of behaviour which so readily injures one
whose lover is ignorant.
What actually happens in an act of union should be known. After
the preliminaries have mutually roused the pair, the stimulated
penis, enlarged and stiffened, is pressed into the woman's vagina.
Ordinarily when a woman is not stimulated, the entrance to this
canal, as well as the exterior lips of soft tissue surrounding it,
are dry and rather crinkled, and the vaginal opening is smaller
than the man's distended penis. But when the woman is what is
physiologically called tumescent (that is, when she is ready for
union and has been profoundly stirred) local parts are flushed by
the internal blood supply and to some extent are turgid like those
of the man, while a secretion of mucus lubricates the opening
of the vagina. In an ardent woman the vaginal orifice may even
spontaneously contract and relax. (So powerful is the influence of
thought upon our bodily structure, that in some people all these
physical results may be brought about by the thought of the loved
one, by the enjoyment of tender words and kisses, and the beautiful
subtleties of wooing.) It can therefore be readily imagined that
when the man tries to enter a woman whom he has _not_ wooed to the
point of stimulating her natural physical reactions of preparation,
he is endeavouring to force his entry through a dry-walled opening
too small for it. He may thus cause the woman actual pain, apart
from the mental revolt and loathing she is likely to feel for a man
who so regardlessly uses her. On the other hand, in the tumescent
woman the opening, already naturally prepared, is lubricated by
mucus, and all the nerves and muscles are ready to react and easily
accept the man's entering organ. This account is of the meeting
of two who have been already married. The first union of a virgin
girl differs, of course, from all others, for on that occasion the
hymen is broken. One would think that every girl who was about
to be married would be told of this necessary rupturing of the
membrane and the temporary pain it would cause her; but even still
large numbers of girls are allowed to marry in complete and cruel
ignorance.
It should be realised that a man does not woo and win a woman
once for all when he marries her: _he must woo her before every
separate act of coitus_, for each act corresponds to a marriage as
other creatures know it. Wild animals are not so foolish as man;
a wild animal does not unite with his female without the wooing
characteristic of his race, whether by stirring her by a display
of his strength in fighting another male, or by exhibiting his
beautiful feathers or song. And we must not forget that the wild
animals are assisted by nature; they generally only woo just at the
season when the female is beginning to feel natural desire. But man,
who wants his mate all out of season as well as in it, has a double
duty to perform, and must himself rouse, charm, and stimulate her to
the local readiness which would have been to some extent naturally
prepared for him had he waited till her own desire welled up.
To render a woman ready before uniting with her is not only the
merest act of humanity to save her pain, but is of value from the
man's point of view, for (unless he is one of those relatively few
abnormal and diseased variants who delight only in rape) the man
gains an immense increase of sensation from the mutuality thus
attained, and the health of both the man and the woman is most
beneficially affected.
Assuming now that the two are in the closest mental and spiritual,
as well as sensory harmony: in what position should the act be
consummated? Men and women, looking into each other's eyes, kissing
tenderly on the mouth, with their arms round each other, meet face
to face. And that position is symbolic of the coming together of the
two who meet together gladly.
It seems incredible that to-day educated men should be found
who--apparently on theological grounds--refuse to countenance any
other position. Yet one wife told me that she was crushed and nearly
suffocated by her husband, so that it took her hours to recover
after each union, but that "on principle" he refused to attempt any
other position than the one he chose to consider normal. Mutual
well-being should be the guide for each pair. (See Addition, p.
114.)
It is perhaps not generally realised how great are the variations
of size, shape, and position of all the sex parts of the body in
different individuals, yet they differ more even than the size
and characters of all the features of the face and hands. It
happens, therefore, that the position which suits most people is
unsatisfactory for others. Some, for instance, can only benefit by
union when both are lying on their sides. Though medically this is
generally considered unfavourable or prohibitive for conception, yet
I know women who have had several children and whose husbands always
used this position. In this matter every couple should find out for
themselves which of the many possible positions best suits them
_both_.
When the two have met and united, the usual result is that, after
a longer or shorter interval, the man's mental and physical
stimulation reaches a climax in sensory intoxication and in the
ejaculation of semen. Where the two are perfectly adjusted, the
woman simultaneously reaches the crisis of nervous and muscular
reactions very similar to his. This mutual orgasm is extremely
important (see also p. 58), but in many cases the man's climax comes
so swiftly that the woman's reactions are not nearly ready, and she
is left without it. Though in some instances the woman may have one
or more crises before the man achieves his, it is, perhaps, hardly
an exaggeration to say that 70 or 80 per cent. of our married women
(in the middle classes) are deprived of the full orgasm through
the excessive speed of the husband's reactions, or through some
mal-adjustment of the relative shapes and positions of the organs.
So deep-seated, so profound, are woman's complex sex-instincts as
well as her organs, that in rousing them the man is rousing her
whole body and soul. And this takes time. More time, indeed, than
the average, uninstructed husband gives to it. Yet woman has at
the surface a small vestigial organ called the clitoris, which
corresponds morphologically to the man's penis, and which, like it,
is extremely sensitive to touch-sensations. This little crest, which
lies anteriorly between the inner lips round the vagina, enlarges
when the woman is really tumescent, and by the stimulation of
movement it is intensely roused and transmits this stimulus to every
nerve in her body. But even after a woman's dormant sex-feeling is
aroused and all the complex reactions of her being have been set in
motion, it may even take as much as from ten to twenty minutes of
actual physical union to consummate her feeling, while two or three
minutes often completes the union for a man who is ignorant of the
need to control his reactions so that both may experience the added
benefit of a mutual crisis to love.
A number of well-meaning people demand from men absolute
"continence" save for procreation only. They overlook the
innumerable physiological reactions concerned in the act, as well as
the subtle spiritual alchemy of it, and propound the view that "the
opposition to continence, save for procreation only, has but one
argument to put forward, and that is appetite, selfishness." (_The
Way of God in Marriage._)
I maintain, however, that it should be realised that the complete
act of union is a triple consummation. It symbolises, and at the
same time actually enhances, the spiritual union; there are a myriad
subtleties of soul-structures which are compounded in this alchemy.
At the same time the act gives the most intense physical pleasure
and benefit which the body can experience, and it is a _mutual_,
not a selfish, pleasure and profit, more calculated than anything
else to draw out an unspeakable tenderness and understanding in both
partakers of this sacrament; while, thirdly, it is the act which
gives rise to a new life by rendering possible the fusion of one of
the innumerable male sperms with the female egg-cell.
It often happens nowadays that, dreading the expense and the
physical strain of child-bearing for his wife, the husband practises
what is called _coitus interruptus_--that is, he withdraws just
before the ejaculation, but when he is already so stimulated that
the ejaculation has become involuntary. In this way the semen is
spent, but, as it does not enter the wife's body, fertilisation
and, consequently, procreation cannot take place. This practice,
while it may have saved the woman the anguish of bearing unwanted
children, is yet very harmful to her, and is to be deprecated.
It tends to leave the woman in "mid-air" as it were; to leave
her stimulated and unsatisfied, and therefore it has a very bad
effect on her nerves and general health, particularly if it is done
frequently. The woman, too, loses the advantage (and I am convinced
that it is difficult to overstate the physiological advantage) of
the partial absorption of the man's secretions, which must take
place through the large tract of internal epithelium with which they
come in contact. If, as physiology has already proved is the case,
the internal absorption of secretions from the sex organs plays so
large a part in determining the health and character of remote parts
of the body, it is extremely likely that the highly stimulating
secretion of man's semen can and does penetrate and affect the
woman's whole organism. Actual experiment has shown that iodine
placed in the vagina in solution is so quickly absorbed by the
epithelial walls that in an hour it has penetrated the system and
is even being excreted. It still remains, however, for scientific
experiments to be devised which will enable us to study the effects
of the absorption of substances from the semen. On the other hand,
_coitus interruptus_ is not always harmful for the man, for he has
the complete sex-act, though a good many men think its effects on
them are undesirable, and it may lead to lack of desire or even
impotence toward his wife in a man who practises it with her, or,
on the other hand, to a too swift fresh desire from the lack of
complete resolution of nervous tension. It is certainly bad when its
safety from consequences induces him to frequent indulgence, for
thus wastefully to scatter what should be _creative power_ is to
reduce his own vitality and power of work (see also page 41).
By those who have a high appreciation of the value of their
creative impulse, and who wish to know the mutual pleasure and
enhancement of sex-union without wasting it, this method should not
be practised.
It should never be forgotten that without the discipline of control
there is no lasting delight in erotic feeling. The fullest delight,
even in a purely physical sense, can _only_ be attained by those who
curb and direct their natural impulses.
Dr. Saleeby's words are appropriate in this connection (Introduction
to Forel's "Sexual Ethics," 1908): "Professor Forel speaks of
subduing the sexual instinct. I would rather speak of transmuting
it. The direct method of attack is often futile, always necessitous
of effort, but it is possible for us to transmute our sex-energy
into higher forms in our individual lives, thus justifying the
evolutionary and physiological contention that it is the source
of the higher activities of man, of moral indignation, and of the
'restless energy' which has changed the surface of the earth."
Forel says ("The Sexual Question," 1908): "Before engaging in a
life-long union, a man and woman ought to explain to each other
their sexual feelings so as to avoid deception and incompatibility
later on." This would be admirable advice were it possible for a
virgin girl to know much about the reactions and effects upon her
mind and body of the act of coitus, but she does not. Actually it
often takes several years for eager and intelligent couples fully
to probe themselves and to discover the extent and meaning of the
immensely profound physiological and spiritual results of marriage.
Yet it is true that a noble frankness would save much misery when,
as happens not infrequently, one or other of the pair marry with
the secret determination to have no children.
So various are we all as individuals, so complex all the reactions
and inter-actions of sex relations, that no hard-and-fast rule can
be laid down. Each couple, after marriage, must study themselves,
and the lover and the beloved must do what best serves them both and
gives them the highest degree of mutual joy and power. There are,
however, some laws which should be inviolable. Their details can be
gathered from the preceding pages, and they are summed up in the
words: "Love worketh no ill to the beloved."