VIRGINITY
I am very sceptical when it comes to drawing a clear line of cleavage
between what is typically masculine and what is typically feminine
in behavior, and I believe that many of the so-called fundamental
differences between the sexes are artificial and temporary ones due
to the economic and social pressure which woman has to bear. Even in
the valuation of virginity, it is difficult to say that there is a
masculine attitude and a feminine attitude.
Broadly speaking, we might state however that women, the world over,
are more indifferent to the prematrimonial past of their future
husbands than men are to the purity of their brides.
=Men Experienced in Matters of Love= wield a definite attraction
over all women, whether the latter are willing to admit it or not.
This is not due to any especially feminine trait but rather to the
difficulties which women encounter when they endeavor to secure
positive information on tabooed sexual topics. They expect, therefore,
their initiators to be conversant with the subject which is kept
carefully shrouded in morbid mystery.
The majority of men, on the other hand, when marrying a woman who is
neither a widow nor a divorcée, expect her to be absolutely pure, that
is, not to have had any sexual relations with any other man.
=Ethical Prostitution.= In certain parts of the world, on the other
hand, males appear rather indifferent to the female's past. In some
parts of Japan and among certain Arab tribes, comely girls may go to
larger centers of the population and devote themselves for a period
of years to prostitution. After which, they return to their native
place sometimes with a dowry they have accumulated thriftily, find a
husband and settle down as wives and mothers, in no way disqualified
by their promiscuous past. In certain parts of Central Europe, "window
courting," as it is sometimes called, leads to unofficial trial
marriages which do not arouse the jealousy of the final winner of a
girl's favours.
Among the Western nations, it is rather the very young, the stupidly
conservative, the unsophisticated and the senile, who consider
virginity as a great attraction and in some cases as a powerful sexual
stimulant.
The reasons for that are to be sought in the egotistical component of
the masculine attitude. The strong and powerful male who has frequently
proved his virility is not obsessed by the fear of defeat in love's
intimacies.
The innocent young man, on the other hand, who is full of misgivings
and of diffidence, the elderly man whose sexual powers are on the wane
and who is no longer sure of himself, prefer a woman who is totally
ignorant of physical love. Their embarrassment or their shortcomings
may escape a virgin but would not escape a woman of the world, a widow
or a divorcée.
There is, therefore, in the search for virginity, a slightly neurotic
factor, the fear of defeat, the line of least effort, the search for
ego safety.
It must be noticed that it was during the great neurotic ages, the
Middle Ages, which witnessed the bursting forth of so many hysterical
epidemics, that both the cult of the Virgin and the belief in witches
spread over Europe.
=The Fear of Woman.= Man has always tried to protect himself against
woman. In his fear of sex equality he has either made her an angel or
a beast. The witch, perverse and filthy, was lowered to the level of
hell. The virgin, on the other hand, unsexed and raised to heaven, was
removed far enough from the world for perfect safety.
=The Will-to-Be-the-First.= In the overemphasis placed by certain
men upon virginity in the woman, and in the anxiety shown by certain
husbands at the thought that their wife may have had sexual relations
with another man previous to her marriage, we see the operation of the
neurotic trait which Adler has called "the will-to-be-the-first" and
which manifests itself, not only in the love life, but in all of life's
situations.
The neurotic of that type, obsessed with a feeling of inferiority is
tortured by the thought that he may not have been the first to caress
his wife. Analysis proves that in early childhood, he had a tendency
(observable in certain breeds of dogs) to try to outrun every waggon,
horse, train, etc.; that in later life he always tries to walk ahead
when in company and hastens his steps whenever anyone threatens to pass
him on the street. That type is given to hero worship, as he likes to
identify himself with his favorite hero, Cæsar, Napoleon, etc. States
of anxiety develop whenever his preeminence in society or business is
threatened.
=Telegony.= In the search for virginity there may also be in the male
an unconscious "intuition" of some scientific facts. The phenomenon of
telegony, explained by Dr. Jules Goldschmidt, of Paris, in the Medical
Review of Reviews for April 1921, would, if confirmed by careful
observations, throw a new light on the meaning of virginity.
The first male, Goldsmith states, leaves an indelible impress on the
female he possesses. Goldsmith believes that sperm plays a twofold part
in the female organism that receives it. It not only fecundates the egg
but modifies the blood of the female. He cannot believe that Nature
would waste millions of spermatozoa in order that one of them should
reach the egg. The millions of spermatozoa which are not needed for
purposes of fecundation are absorbed, he thinks, by the mucous tissues
of the woman's genitals and make her gradually more and more like her
mate. To this factor Goldschmidt attributes the likeness of mates who
have lived together many years.
"When we reflect," he writes, "on the deep impress produced by the
action of a single spermatic cell, we at once ask what will be
the fate of the myriads of spermatozoids entering at the moment of
fecundation, and later on into the female organism. Again we have to
insist on the fact that nature works with excessive profusion, and that
to secure success its means of action are multiple. Everywhere in the
living world male generative cells are brought forth in an overwhelming
abundance.
"Their multiplicity guarantees at least the possibility of meeting the
rather far-off ovulum, just as out of the multitude of male bees only
one is chosen to impregnate the queen.
"But it is inconceivable that the uncounted other male cells are
condemned to useless death without any action on the entire female
organism, into which, by reason of their mobility they can easily
penetrate, either into the mucous membrance of the uterus or into
the lymphatic and blood capillaries, and thru them into the whole
circulation.
"Kohlbrugge has demonstrated that in the case of a certain bat, the
spermatozoids do enter in great numbers into the superficial stratum
of the mucous membrance as well as into the glands and the adjacent
tissues. Their fate is, of course, dissolution. We know that blood is
the receptacle of all the products that are created by healthy life or
disease. We know of no other liquid in the whole organic world so rich
in the most heterogeneous chemical substances as blood.
"Certain important substances circulate in it, which we only assume are
there, not having been able to isolate them, but with which we work
when we elaborate preventive or curative serums. All the antigens,
antitoxins, antibodies, introduced into the blood by the living action
of pathogenic bacilli, as those of diphtheria, typhoid, tetanus, after
the happy termination of these diseases, present themselves in such
infinitesimal quantities that we can only designate them by their most
remarkable biological effects. They either confer for a lifetime an
efficient immunity against renewal or, exceptionally, an increased
susceptibility (anaphylaxis) for the bacilli which have created them.
"If nature, in its morbific attacks on the organism, uses great
quantities, extremely small ones answer its purpose for defense. Can we
not by analogy conclude that the dissolved spermatozoids confer on the
blood and thru it on the whole female organism, qualities which it had
not possessed before their invasion?
"From all of these facts we may return to our problem, and infer that
not alone the solitary male cell which fecundates the ovulum is of
importance to the economy of the female organism, but that we must
not disregard the extremely numerous spermatic cells accompanying
fecundation or the further introduction of these elements.
"Just as the bacillary products during and after infectious diseases
represent substances able to confer immunity from any renewed attack
and therefore cause an important transformation of the human system, so
the inference must be allowed that the spermatozoids, too, do exercise
an ultimate lasting effect on the females organism, which will acquire
a greater sensibility for the original and an insensibility for, or
non-susceptibility towards extraneous generative cells, even those able
to fecundate."
This exclusive adaptation of the female organism to the male one is the
phenomenon called telegony.
"A curious example of telegony offers itself when a white woman,
who has at first lived with a negro and afterwards with a man of
her own race, presents her second husband or lover with a more or
less intensely colored child. Such cases have given rise to dramatic
and even tragic scenes when the innocent woman was simply modified
(telegonized) by her first cohabitant.
"All breeders are acquainted with the fact that the bull confers
telegony on the cow. The dark colored bull having fecundated a light
colored cow, the latter being subsequently covered by a red bull will
put down dark and white streaked calves.
"It is quite possible that the biological reaction of the blood in
human and animal impregnation becomes identical in the mother with that
of the first father, and that the influence of another male does not
change sensibly the maternal blood."
If demonstrated beyond the possibility of doubt, thru careful
observation, telegony would be a tremendous fact which would, to all
the egotists and neurotics, enhance tremendously the value of virginity
in the woman. What a joy it would be for the self-centered, narcistic
neurotic to know that he can gradually make his mate like unto himself!
On the other hand, it might lead to most interesting experiments in
eugenics and animal breeding.
Thru deferred impregnation, brought about by special contraceptive
measures, a better human type and better breeds of animals might be
evolved.
It might also sound the death knell of certain contraceptive methods
which prevent the human mates from attaining the physical and mental
oneness which, Goldschmidt says, is the result of life-long sexual
association.
Goldschmidt's thesis is worth investigating. Thus far the unverified
observations and the sayings of more or less scientific breeders do not
allow us to draw positive deductions.