Produced by Mary Wampler, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
MEN, WOMEN, AND GOD
A DISCUSSION OF SEX QUESTIONS FROM THE CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW
BY
THE REV. A. HERBERT GRAY, D. D.
AUTHOR OF
"THE CHRISTIAN ADVENTURE," "AS TOMMY SEES US," ETC.
TO MY WIFE
WHO FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS HAS BEEN MY CHIEF TEACHER AND HAS INTERPRETED
LIFE AND GOD TO ME THROUGH THE CONTENTS OF THE DAILY ROUND
PREFACE
This book has been written at the request of the Student Christian
Movement, and is addressed in the first place to men and women of the
student age. I have undertaken the task with great gladness because my
long and happy contact with men and women through the Student Movement
has taught me how great is the need for a fuller understanding of the
problems of sex, and how possible it is that men and women should find
help through the timely suggestion of right and wholesome thoughts.
My brother, Dr. Charles Gray of London, has contributed a very valuable
appendix dealing with certain facts in a way which is only possible to
a medical man, and I am very greatly indebted to him for thus enriching
this volume.
It will be apparent to all who read it that I also owe a great deal to
many who have shared with me their knowledge and experience. In
particular I owe much gratitude to a number of generous-hearted women
who have enabled me to write the chapters which are more especially
addressed to their sex.
I have deliberately omitted from these pages any reference to disease.
I do that not because I am not impressed by the terrible penalties with
which nature visits certain sins, but because I do not believe in the
power of fear to deliver us. Though there were no such thing as
venereal disease, immorality would still be a way of death, and
morality would still be the way of life and joy. Till we perceive that
we are not on the path of progress.
Books of this sort have generally been addressed specially either to
men or to women. I write to both alike because I am quite sure that
until men and women understand and help each other, there is going to
be no happy solution to the problems of sex. When they do so learn to
co-operate I believe we shall as a race find our way out into that
larger and happier life which can only be ours when we have accepted
the facts of sex and learnt to use them to the enrichment of human life
and the glory of God.
A. HERBERT GRAY.
_Glasgow,_ 1922.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
I. KNOWING THE FACTS
II. COMRADESHIP
III. LOVE
IV. FALLING IN LOVE AND GETTING ENGAGED
V. OUR MORAL STANDARDS
VI. A MAN'S STRUGGLE
VII. PROSTITUTION--A CHAPTER FOR MEN
VIII. A GIRL'S EARLY DAYS
IX. INVOLUNTARY CELIBACY
X. THE ART OF BEING MARRIED
XI. UNHAPPY MARRIAGES
XII. THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS
XIII. FORGETTING THE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND
APPENDIX--SOME OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTS. BY A. CHARLES E. GRAY, M.D.
INTRODUCTION
In the following pages I propose to write simply and plainly about the
social, personal, and bodily relations of men and women, and about the
ways in which their common life may attain to happiness, harmony, and
efficiency.
I shall deal with matters often handled only with much diffidence, and
thought of with uncomfortable reserve. And I address myself to men and
women alike.
I do it all on the basis of one assumption, namely, that a God of love
in designing our human nature cannot have put into it anything which is
incapable of a pure and happy exercise; and in particular that in
making the sex interest so central, permanent, and powerful in human
beings He must have had some great and beautiful purpose. I start, in
fact, with the faith that the sexual elements in our humanity, once
rightly understood and finely handled, make for the enrichment of human
life, for the increase of our health and efficiency, and the
heightening of our joy. I believe that nothing is more necessary for
the world to-day than that we should trace out the ways in which this
tremendous life force that is implanted in us all may be used to
forward the higher aims of our common life, and to help the race on its
upward march. And yet even as I write the word "sexual" I cannot but
remember that the mere word will for many good people produce a
sensation of distaste. Partly because they have a sincere passion for
purity, and partly because this whole subject has been defiled for them
by the excesses and indecencies of mankind, they doubt whether it can
be right or useful to think about it at all. They regard the facts of
sex with a mixture of fear, perplexity, and shame, and take themselves
to task if still some curiosity about them lingers in their minds.
Therefore before I go any further I would like to ask such people to
realize that they are denying my initial assumption. They have not yet
come to believe that there is any divine and holy purpose enshrined in
the sexual side of life, although God is responsible for its place in
our humanity; and I would beg them forthwith to think this matter out.
Sex is no accident in our humanity. The function of the sexual elements
in our physical frame is so central that unless they be truly managed
health and strength are impossible. Their relation is no less vital to
our mental and aesthetic life, and they appear to control almost
absolutely our nervous stability. No man or woman attains to fullness
and harmony of life if the sexual nature be either neglected or
mismanaged. No society is strong and happy unless this part of life is
truly adjusted. It may even be said that the evils that come through
the mismanagement of sex relations have beaten every civilization up to
the present. And no doubt it is natural enough to shudder over the
abominations of prostitution and sex vice in general, and so to turn
our minds away from the whole matter. But for all that our emotional
energies would be better employed in trying to understand this titanic
force, and in learning how it may be utilized for our upward progress.
Mere prohibitions have so utterly and entirely failed us that we ought
now to realize that there is no hope in them alone. What we need is a
positive constructive ideal for this part of life which will indicate
the real value of the sexual forces in us, and not leave young men and
women partly perplexed, partly ashamed, and partly annoyed because they
are as the Creator made them.
And so I repeat we must begin with the assumption that, though we have
not yet spelt it out, God must have had some great purpose of love when
He created men and women with a clamant sex instinct at the center of
their personalities.
Hebrew instinct declared that "God saw everything that He had made, and
behold it was very good." Christian instinct must repeat the verdict
with vastly increased conviction, for our humanity is such that the Son
of God could wear it. He was not ashamed to call us brethren, and to be
tempted like as we are. To suggest that in passion and in its exercise
at the bidding of love there need be anything that is not holy, is to
arraign the Creator. Sex love abused and misunderstood has indeed
strewn the world with tragedies and disease. But sex love is going to
remain. Not until we have learnt to make it an instrument for the
perfection of life and the heightening of vitality can we hope to reach
the life which the love of God designed for us; and to that we shall
not attain until we have dared to acquire knowledge and through
knowledge to attain to wisdom.
The ideal which still lingers in many minds, though it is seldom openly
confessed, is that boys and girls, young men and women, should be kept
in complete ignorance of the truth about their sexual natures until
they marry, and that then they should be left to learn all that they
need to know from Mother Nature direct. That at least would seem to be
a fair inference from the fact of the conspiracy of silence in which
ninety per cent of parents have engaged towards the beings they love
best.
Unfortunately in order to carry out the policy thus implied it would be
necessary to keep children from associating with other children, to
forbid them to read the Bible, the great classics of literature, and
the daily papers--to keep them from the theatre, and from the study of
nature--in fact to bring them up in a world which does not exist. For
in all the ways I have suggested do boys and girls now collect garbled,
half-true, and distorted notions about sexual life. And even if it were
possible to carry out the policy it would still not be desirable.
Marriage is not the simple and easy thing which the policy would imply.
Mother Nature does not teach young couples all that they need to know.
Often they make serious mistakes in the first few days. Often they
mishandle and spoil the beautiful relationship on which they have
entered to their own disgust and disappointment. Uncounted couples
to-day have reason for the bitterness with which they complain that
nobody ever taught or helped them. In fact the policy of silence is as
cruel as its assumptions are untrue. Ignorance is an impossibility for
the young. Our choice lies between garbled, distorted, and defiled
knowledge and a knowledge that shall be clean, innocent, and helpful.
It has often happened that men and women brought up on the policy of
silence have first learnt the facts about life through some contact
with vice or sin, and those who know what horrible sufferings sudden
discoveries of that sort may mean for sensitive natures cannot possibly
have any doubts remaining on this point. There are few more cruel
things possible than to bring a girl up in the ignorance which is
mistaken for innocence and then to allow her to go out into the world
to learn the truth by chance, or through some unclean mind.
That is why I gladly address myself to the task of this book, in which
at least some of the truth is told.
Of course the real issue that stands in the background here is the one
which concerns the nature of true spirituality. We are all agreed that
the essential greatness of man lies in the fact that in him spirit may
rule everything else. And until spirit does thus rule he has not
reached his true life, But the question of the place of the body in the
full life of man still remains to be faced and thought out.
The hermits of the desert assumed that the way of true life lay in the
repression of all bodily desire and as much negation of the body as is
consistent with mere existence. But in fact they often succeeded in
making life disgusting, and generally in making it useless. It may be
doubted whether they contributed anything to the real problem of
civilization. Yet their mistake is still repeated in part by many good
people. Many still think that the way of the higher life consists in
forgetting the body as much as possible in order that the soul may live
in freedom. They admit the body's needs with reluctance, and treat it
as something with no essential relation to their spiritual activities.
Often they willfully neglect the duty of health. Still more often they
believe they ought to regard with disapproval the clamant desires and
cravings of our bodily natures. But in so doing they miss the real
significance of the Incarnation. Our life here is an embodied life, and
it cannot be fine unless the body is finely tempered. That body is
designed as the instrument through which the spirit may find
expression. The first essential no doubt is to submit it to discipline
and so reduce it to the place of a servant. At all costs it must be
brought under control. It must be understood, and kept in good health.
And if these things be neglected the life of the spirit is hampered and
depressed. But still spirit must express itself through body, and all
the wealth of powers with which body is endowed has significance and
worth.
For this reason the attempt to keep spiritual and bodily activities
separate always revenges itself upon its authors. On the one hand it
leads to an impoverishment of the spiritual life, for on these terms
the spirit is left with no fine instrument through which to express
itself in the real world. And on the other hand, bodily activities
divorced from the control of the spirit tend to become mere animal
things and so to produce disgust and degeneration.
But indeed the body cannot without disaster be simply ignored. The
attempt merely to repress its manifold urgencies leads to a state in
which these forces seek out for themselves abnormal channels of
activity, so destroying the harmony and balance of life. The essential
glory of human beings lies in the fact that in them body and spirit may
be so wedded that their activities are woven into one harmonious whole.
It was in a moment of real insight that Robert Browning cried--
"Let us not always say,
'Spite of this flesh to-day,
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole.'
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry, 'All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now, than flesh helps
soul.'"
Now all this is supremely true of the sexual part of life. If mere lust
is the vilest thing on earth, pure love is the most beautiful. And when
pure love dominates a life all the sexual activities of the body may be
transmuted and redeemed until a complete life is attained in which all
the primal forces of our beings find a happy exercise under the control
of a passion that is at once physical, mental, and spiritual. But the
body is not in this process denied. It is accepted, understood, and
made to play its true part. If passion be truly handled it provides the
driving force for a life that is effective, courageous, and joyous. He
is most truly living a spiritual life who has learnt to use all the
powers of his incarnate nature in a life of strenuous activity and
loyal love.
I do not mean of course that there is no place in the highest type of
life for renunciation. Nor do I mean for a moment that only in marriage
can greatness and fullness of life be attained. It is hard to use words
correctly at a time when special meanings have come to be attached to
such words as repression and suppression. What the psychologists have
discovered is that unconscious, or incomplete, or unaccepted repression
of bodily instincts leads to a dangerous condition. He who has not
really surrendered desire, but simply tried to drive it underground,
may indeed reap troubles enough and to spare.
But it needs no psychological training to know that deliberate,
sincere, and courageous renunciation of this or that bodily desire for
the sake of some compelling ideal may lead to the very finest kind of
life. Only in this process the body is not ignored. It is taken into
account. Nor are its forces neglected. Through the process technically
described as sublimation, a way is to be found whereby life force
restrained in one direction finds other and most valuable ways of
expression.
* * * * *
I write this book as one who has learnt to thank God for all the
elements in our normal humanity, and I send it out with the prayer in
my heart that through it some may be helped to a truer understanding
of themselves which will ease their way to success and joy and to that
fullness of human life which is the divine intention for us.
CHAPTER I
KNOWING THE FACTS
The first essential equipment for a right journey through the country
of sexual experience is that we should know the truth about our bodies
--those temples of the Holy Ghost--and should understand the meaning of
the emotions and desires which connect themselves with our physical
constitution.
Further, because the problem of sex can only be solved by the
cooperation of the sexes working together in mutual understanding it is
right that men should know a good deal about women's bodies and vice
versa. Such knowledge almost always begets sympathy and a certain
intelligent tenderness. The lack of it has often led to unconscious
cruelties, to misunderstandings, and even to serious mistakes. To
mention one instance only, how can men be expected to treat the other
sex with true consideration if they do not know that once a month for a
period women ought to be saved from fatigue and strain? And yet there
are many adult men in that position of ignorance.
But though the detailed facts are all clean, and really easy to be
understood, the manner in which they are conveyed into our minds is of
vital importance. I do not think they can be fully conveyed through any
printed page. They are too delicate for such handling. They are not
truly conveyed unless behind the mere words which express them there is
a reverent soul that can impart the right tone and emphasis to them. I
would quite gladly attempt to put them all down here could I only be
assured that my words would only be read by men or women when alone and
in a reverent mood. That being impossible I can only begin by insisting
that they ought to be known. And this I can also do--I can assure all
young people who read these pages that there is nothing whatever in the
facts of the case to be afraid of--nothing that they cannot know with
perfectly clean minds. There are no terrible mysteries in the matter.
There are no horrors in normal sex life. The truth even about the
ultimate intimacies of body between men and women is that when truly
achieved they are beautiful, and holy, and happy.
But how are young people to get the right knowledge? The worst possible
way in which to get it is to pick it up bit by bit in connection with
evil stories, the reports of divorce cases, and the hints of vice which
lurk in life's shadowy corners. Yet that has been the most common way
in the past. Quite little boys have passed on mysterious stories from
mouth to mouth defiling the whole matter. Many girls have first begun
to wonder and to ask questions when they first heard of an illegitimate
child. Words in the Bible, such as "lasciviousness" and so on, have
started mere school children asking questions to which probably they
only got distorted answers from other school children. Just because
their parents did not tell them anything, they have assumed that there
must be something to be ashamed of in the truth. And so ninety per cent
of boys, and I know not what proportion of girls, have the subject of
sex spoiled for them even before adolescence. Sex, sexual experience,
passion, and so on are things they think half unclean and yet
annoyingly interesting. They are half ashamed, and yet remain curious.
Some are half afraid. Some rather more than half disgusted. Some indeed
try to banish the whole subject from their minds. This may seem to be a
refined thing to do; but, as we know with a new definiteness since the
psychologists have explored the matter, it is really a disastrous thing
to do. For to adapt ourselves to sex is one of the problems that cannot
be escaped. In this world we cannot live the disembodied life. What we
may do is to live a clean and happy bodily life, but only if we build
our house of life on knowledge.
Wherefore to all young men and women I would say--Get to know the real
truth from someone you can trust. Go to some older man or woman with a
clean mind and a large heart, and learn about yourself. Of course the
best people in the world to go to are your own parents; but if for any
reason that resource is not open to you, go to a doctor or a minister
or some senior friend. It is worth while to take a lot of trouble to
find the right person, and it is still more worth while to take trouble
to avoid the wrong person. Find someone who has seen the hand of God in
the facts of sex and who can therefore talk about them without
embarrassment. And do not let yourself be deterred by the fact that you
may have made mistakes already of which you are ashamed. Most of us
made mistakes in our early years just because of the same ignorance
which has been your fate. And therefore we are not shocked. We are just
sorry, and would like to help. It is not true that mistakes inevitably
spoil the future. Forgiveness, recovery, and new life are possibilities
for us all. And if you have already made mistakes through ignorance,
that is but one reason more why you should know the truth without
delay. When you are told the truth you will be learning something about
God as well as about yourself, for He made you.
Nor is it only for your own sake that you ought to know. If you want to
achieve helpful relations to men or women, and ultimately to achieve a
right relation to husband or wife, you need to know the plain facts
about our incarnate life. Men and women often make the right way of
life more difficult for each other by mere ignorance. You need to know
if you are to be really kind.
I cannot forget that when young men and women of sensitive and refined
natures come to this knowledge all at once, when already adults, it may
at first create a sense of repulsion. It does not do so for those who
have learnt the facts bit by bit as they were ready for them. In that
case they are accepted easily and naturally. But with the others it may
well be that just because they have clean and delicate minds, they may
at first experience some real distaste when they come to understand the
creative processes through which they were born. But to any such I
would say that against that possibility they may be forearmed, if they
will but believe that when love takes two people into its charge the
physical consequences all come to seem natural and right and sacred.
You need never know anything of these matters at first hand except when
real love for some man or woman has mastered you, and then the
experiences to which that love will lead you will be found to be pure,
and simple, and happy. If you approach this part of life with
reluctance or in fear, or with some mistaken sense of shame, you may
spoil it, and spoil somebody else's life in addition. But if you will
believe this plain witness, which thousands would unite in offering
you, you may be greatly helped. Ultimately your way to success in this
part of life lies in accepting your nature with its sexual elements--
not in trying to be a sexless person. That is not the way of purity. It
is the way of folly. Therefore again I say--Do not be afraid of the
facts. Those who have traveled that country report to you "There is
nothing here to be afraid of--at least there used to be nothing."
And now in case these pages are read by some young married persons who
still have before them the chance to serve their own children in this
matter, may I insist that a solemn obligation rests on them to see that
their children learn the truth in a simple and natural way from the
lips of their fathers and mothers? The ideal way in this connection is
that children should learn about their own bodies from the same people
who first tell them about God and goodness. When that happens there is
no danger that they will slip into an unclean attitude towards sex, for
children nearly always accept the things their parents tell them as
natural and right things.
Perhaps the first step in the way is to decide never to tell children
anything that is not strictly true. When your little girls or boys ask
how babies come, tell them that they could not understand, but that you
will tell them as soon as they are old enough. And then very early tell
them at least that babies come from the bodies of their mothers. The
first wrong turn that the thoughts of many of us took in connection
with sex was when some older person was made embarrassed or angry by
our natural questions. We made a note then and there that there must be
something queer and wrong about the way babies come, and the impression
sank down into the unconscious part of us to bring forth mischief for
years to come. But if a parent's own attitude to sex is clean and true
he or she will find it quite possible to tell the plain truth to
innocent little minds. The first bit of knowledge imparted, namely that
babies come from the bodies of their mothers, will often beget a new
attitude of regard and chivalry in children towards their own mothers.
I can say with certainty that it is very good for a boy to know that
for his sake his own mother once went through both pain and risk.
And then let the rest all come naturally. It is better to tell your
children in almost any way than not to tell them at all, but the best
way is not to make a solemn occasion of the telling, but to let the
knowledge pass from you to them as incidents and occasions suggest. If
you have contact with nature in common with your children the occasions
will be many for telling them about flower and animal life. And this
will naturally lead on to instruction about human beings. Even if such
contact with nature should be impossible, life in any place and in any
guise will assuredly present you with opportunities for your teaching.
And in any case try to get in _first_. Before the slime of schoolboy
talk or the follies of schoolgirl talk have defiled the
subject tell your children about it, as about something sacred and
beautiful--much too sacred and beautiful for the chatter of idle hours
in playgrounds, etc. You will be surprised, if you have forgotten your
own childhood, how early it is necessary to do all this if you are to
get in first. No general rules about the right age can be laid down.
Children differ enormously in regard to the ages at which they pass
from stage to stage in their development. You will need to watch and to
understand. Above all do not let your telling take the form of mere
prohibitions. Do not let it stand related in the first case to warnings
against sins. You do not want to associate the idea of sin in the first
case with this subject at all. What you can do is to implant a certain
reverence in a child's mind in relation to the whole matter, and if you
succeed in that you will have forearmed your child against sin. I long
to know that children are learning about sex not in association with
scoldings, reproofs, and warnings, but rather as part of the splendid
truth of God. It is the association of the facts of sex with the sins
of men and women that has spoilt this part of life for most minds. Of
course it is only kind to tell boys and girls where it is that they may
go wrong--it _is_ necessary to put them on their guard. But that
should be a secondary matter--a mere addition to your teaching.
My own experience as a minister has brought to my knowledge several
very pathetic instances of how young girls get into very serious
trouble just through lack of the knowledge their mothers ought to have
given them. It seems possible still for a girl even of seventeen or
eighteen, or even much older, to be almost incredibly ignorant, and no
words are too strong to describe the cruelty of allowing them to face
life in that condition.
In any case let your teaching be, in general terms at least, complete
before adolescence. If you wait till adolescence has begun, the telling
may cause undue excitement. If you finish your general teaching before
that stage it will save your child from much unwholesome curiosity.
And here, though the subject must necessarily be distasteful to many,
as it is to myself, I must put in a word about self-abuse. [Footnote:
Knowing from experience that a good many parents do not even know what
self-abuse means, let me simply say that it consists in such handling
of the genital organs as creates emotional and physical sexual
excitement of a kind that is obviously unnatural.] In recent years a
large number of men have given me their confidence, so that I am not
speaking from hearsay when I state that a percentage of men which
probably approximates to seventy-five are, at least for a time, victims
of this habit.
I know that it is easy to exaggerate the physical and mental evil
effects of it. But what is beyond all question is that it produces bad
psychic consequences, and does so leave men out of conceit with
themselves that when they realize that they have become victims to the
habit their mental sufferings are often pitifully acute. Indeed, it is
because my pity and sympathy have been so drawn out to many men I know
that I cannot forbear to speak on behalf of those who may yet be saved
from it. The facts about it are that the habit is often begun at an
almost inconceivably early age. It is very often begun without any
sense that it is wrong, and certainly without any knowledge of how evil
it is. And once it has been begun, it is horribly hard to abandon.
Uncounted good men have to confess to-day that in their younger days
they never did achieve liberation in spite of constant efforts.
Uncounted men have brought about in this way a certain perversion of
their natures with regard to their sexual functions which clouded their
lives for many years. And yet the cure for this situation is very
simple and almost easy. The men who have completely escaped practically
all testify that they owe their immunity to the kindly and timely
advice of some wise senior. The habit is _not_ natural, and therefore
it is _not_ hard never to begin it. If it has not been begun in boyhood
a very little determination will keep an adult man from falling into
it. And this means that in this case parents can, if they will, save
the rising generation. Perhaps it is mothers chiefly who will have to
render this service just because the habit is begun so very early,
while boys are still in very close association with their mothers. I
may seem to be contradicting what I have just said about mere warnings,
but I would certainly say that any sort of arresting warning is better
than inaction in the matter. Yet even in this matter any kind of harsh
warning is not the best way. A boy can be taught that there is a
certain sanctity about certain parts of his body. He can be taught to
treat them scrupulously and hardily. He can be given positive ideas
which will save him, though I also believe that he ought to be told
with definiteness to avoid this particular snare. I know of no other
case in which a little wise love and timely vigilance may have such
tremendous results in saving a child from future suffering and mistake.
Does anything more need to be said to mothers who really love their
sons!
I have written these things about boys and men because it is in that
connection that I can speak from first-hand knowledge. But several
women doctors have told me of late that there is a very real need that
girls also should be helped in view of the similar danger which lies in
their path. With them the habit is no doubt much less common. But it is
common enough, and has serious enough consequences, to constitute a
call to parents in their case also.
Most of those who read these pages will themselves be young. If they
have troubled to read the paragraphs I have just written a number of
them will, I know, be moved to say to themselves, "We would give
anything if our parents had done these things for us." Yes! it is a
great pity they did not. But do not be hard upon your parents. They
were the victims of a wrong tradition. The conspiracy of silence had in
their day been given almost religious sanctions. Some of them were
themselves embarrassed by the whole subject just because no clean
persuasions about it were current in their youth. That was their
calamity, as it has in part been yours. But no such calamity need
overtake your children. If you can and will cleanse your minds now--if
you will take this whole subject out into the cleansing light of God,
and look at it there till you have seen the divine truth about sex--if
you can escape embarrassment and attain to thankfulness, then you will
be able to keep this whole matter clean for your children. Your
generation has suffered much. The next need not. And remember that
whatever doctors, teachers, and ministers may do for the nation, it
must be parents who will save us in the long run.
You at least can get ready.