[Sidenote: Agnes Repplier.]
Miss Agnes Repplier, the distinguished essayist, discusses in the
_Atlantic Monthly_ (March, 1914) the plain speech on sex topics that
are before the public to-day. While she holds no brief for "the
conspiracy of silence," which she admits was "a menace in its day," she
maintains that "the breaking of silence need not imply the opening of
the flood-gates of speech." She goes on to say:
[Sidenote: Present frankness.]
"It was never meant by those who first cautiously advised a
clearer understanding of sexual relations and hygienic rules that
everybody should chatter freely respecting these grave issues;
that teachers, lecturers, novelists, story-writers, militants,
dramatists, social workers, and magazine editors should copiously
impart all they know, or assume they know, to the world. The lack
of restraint, the lack of balance, the lack of soberness and
common sense were never more apparent than in the obsession of sex
which has set us all ababbling about matters once excluded from
the amenities of conversation.
"Knowledge is the cry. Crude, undigested knowledge, without limit
and without reserve. Give it to boys, give it to girls, give it to
children. No other force is taken account of by the visionaries
who--in defiance, or in ignorance of history--believe that evil
understood is evil conquered.
"We hear too much about the thirst for knowledge from people keen
to quench it. Dr. Edward L. Keyes, president of the Society of
Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, advocates the teaching of
sex-hygiene to children, because he thinks that it is the kind of
information that children are eagerly seeking. 'What is this
topic,' he asks, 'that all these little ones are questioning over,
mulling over, fidgeting over, worrying over? Ask your own
memories.'
[Sidenote: One child's life.]
"I do ask my memory in vain for the answer Dr. Keyes anticipates.
A child's life is so full, and everything that enters it seems of
supreme importance. I fidgeted over my hair which would not curl.
I worried over my examples which never came out right. I mulled
(though unacquainted with the word) over every piece of sewing put
into my incapable fingers, which could not be trained to hold a
needle. I imagined I was stolen by brigands, and became--by virtue
and intelligence--spouse of a patriotic outlaw in a frontierless
land. I asked artless questions which brought me into discredit
with my teachers, as, for example, who 'massacred' St.
Bartholomew. But vital facts, the great laws of propagation, were
matters of but casual concern crowded out of my life and out of my
companions' lives (in a convent boarding-school) by the more
stirring happenings of every day. How could we fidget over
obstetrics when we were learning to skate, and our very dreams
were a medley of ice and bumps? How could we worry over 'natural
laws' in the face of a tyrannical interdict which lessened our
chances of breaking our necks by forbidding us to coast down a
hill covered with trees? The children to be pitied, the children
whose minds become infected with unwholesome curiosity are those
who lack cheerful recreation, religious teaching, and the fine
corrective of work. A playground or a swimming pool will do more
to keep them mentally and morally sound than scores of lectures on
sex-hygiene.
[Sidenote: Personal teaching approved.]
"The world is wide, and a great deal is happening in it. I do not
plead for ignorance, but for the gradual and harmonious broadening
of the field of knowledge, and for a more careful consideration of
ways and means. There are subjects which may be taught in class,
and subjects which commend themselves to individual teaching.
There are topics which admit of _plein-air_ handling, and topics
which civilized man, as apart from his artless brother of the
jungles, has veiled with reticence. There are truths which may be,
and should be, privately imparted by a father, a mother, family
doctor, or an experienced teacher; but which young people cannot
advantageously acquire from the platform, the stage, the moving
picture gallery, the novel or the ubiquitous monthly magazine."
There is much in Miss Repplier's paragraphs which will win hearty
approval from those who have come to believe, as advocated throughout
this series of lectures, in conservative teaching of sex-hygiene and a
larger outlook for sex-education.
[Sidenote: Current frankness not due to sex-education.]
No doubt there has been too great a loss of a certain kind of reticence
and a substitution of crude frankness, but it has not been caused by
the sex-education movement. On the contrary, there are two evident
sources of the plain speech of which Miss Repplier and others have
complained: First, the commercializing of sex by novelists, dramatists,
theater managers, and publishers--many of whom are reaping a golden
harvest and few of whom have any sincere interest in promulgating
sexual information to any end except their own pocketbooks. Second, the
development of the feminist movement which has its deepest foundation
in the age-old sexual misunderstandings of women by men, and which has
led on and on into social and political complications of gravest
significance. The very nature of the feminist revolt from masculine
domination made plain speaking on sex matters inevitable.
[Sidenote: Reaction against sensational frankness.]
Neither of these sources of plain speech need give us cause for alarm,
for a great reaction is already coming. The sensationalism of sexual
revelations has had its day, and the intelligent public is recovering
its balance. A lurid novel or play resembling "Damaged Goods" or "The
House of Bondage" or certain vice-commission reports would not now be
accepted by some prominent publishers who recently would not have
hesitated to seize a first-class commercial opportunity in this line.
The fact is that sexual sensationalism has ceased to pay because the
intelligent public knows the main facts and has become disgusted with
crude frankness that amounts to lasciviousness. On the side of feminism
there is hope in the widespread disgust with Cristabel Pankhurst's
"Plain Facts on a Great Evil" as compared with the very general
approval of Louise Creighton's polished masterpiece, "The Social Evil
and How to Fight It." This represents exactly the present attitude of
numerous men and women who calmly discuss together the great problems
of life fearlessly and without any elements of lasciviousness such as
some people seem to think is necessarily associated with either
unsexual or bisexual discussion of sex problems.
[Sidenote: Not a typical case.]
Miss Repplier's description of her own lack of youthful interest in
things sexual is of value simply as applied to a limited number of
extra-protected girls. Her experience teaches us nothing regarding boys
or even girls under average conditions. We know beyond any doubt that
average children in or near adolescence do seek the kind of information
that Miss Repplier denies having thought about. It is not "pressed
relentlessly upon their attention" by teachers, but by instinct and by
environment. Playground and swimming pools and religious influence and
work are all helpful in our dealings with young people, but all
together they are inadequate without some information concerning sex.
[Sidenote: Conclusion.]
Finally, Miss Repplier, like so many other critics of sex-instruction,
has in mind only the physical consequences of wrong-doing. Here again
is the influence of the pioneer sex-hygiene. However, she pleads for
the "gradual and harmonious broadening of the field of knowledge and
for a more careful consideration of ways and means" for
sex-instruction. This makes us believe that she will favor the larger
sex-education which gives a place to "the cheerful recreation, the
religious teaching, the childish virtues, the youthful virtues, the
wholesome preoccupation," as well as essential knowledge of physical
facts; and all as factors in preparing young people consciously and
unconsciously to face the inevitable problems of sex. On the whole, we
must regard Miss Repplier's discussion as a helpful contribution to the
saner aspects of sex-education.