FORGETTING THE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND
I have implied in this book that the very best in sexual experience is
only for those who keep themselves unspotted in early life, and who
come to the sacrament of marriage with no previous and lower experience
of sex intimacy. I am even sure that the very best is spoilt a little
by all previous unworthy thinking, and by all perverse practices.
I know that that will sound a hard saying to very many, for there are
few who have fulfilled these conditions for knowing the best. It must
seem to them that I am practically saying to them, "You can never now
enter into the holy of holies." Yet I cannot alter what I have said,
however acute may be my sympathy with those who have stumbled. I
believe it is true, and no good ever came of hiding the truth. It is
because it is true that I have such confident hope for mankind. Men and
women do in their hearts want the very best, and when they come to know
what are the only terms on which that very best can be had they will, I
believe, accept those terms.
But this would be a cruel book, and a false book too, were I to imply
that there is no way in which the past can be forgotten and forgiven,
and no way into purity and joy even for those who have wandered. Were
that so I could not write at all about this subject, for it would then
be too tragic.
Perhaps the worst consequence of aberrations in thought and conduct is
that they make it very very hard to be perfectly happy and unashamed
when at last love calls them to enter into the inner chambers of
marriage and romance. The shadows that rest at times on that part of
marriage even for some very happy lovers are due to the fact that the
man (or sometimes the woman) was once involved in something else before
that was a little like it, and yet was haunted then by a sense of
wrong-doing and so could not have a perfect experience. It is only to
the pure that _all_ things are pure.
But it is _not_ true that the past need dog and spoil the future. It is
not true that sin is irremediable, nor that its stains remain for ever.
The essential and central thing in Christianity is the assertion that
there is a remedy for the situation that sin creates.
I do not think there is any remedy to be found in simply trying to
ignore the past--or in saying that our aberrations were only those of
ninety per cent. of mankind, and were so natural as to be not worth
bothering about. In such ways we may push the past out of sight, but we
do not deal with it. It remains there though out of sight. For the fact
is that such sayings do not quite convince us, and therefore they
cannot kill the past.
Nor is there any remedy to be found merely in the forgiveness of man or
of woman. Women are proverbially, and perhaps divinely, willing to
forgive. But a woman's forgiveness does not necessarily make a man able
to forgive himself. Nor does it always cleanse an unclean inner life.
To many a man it has been just the fact that his fiancée or wife was so
sublimely willing and able to forgive that has revealed to him his own
unworthiness and made it sting the more.
No! there has got to be something much more drastic in our lives if we
are to get free from shame and remorse. We have got to go down into
that stony valley of humiliation where men and women face the naked
facts before their God, and stop all attempt to hide or to deceive. We
have got to stop the sophistries which are so dear to us, and through
which we try to put the blame on others, or on circumstance, or on
fate. We have got to face the fact that the evil things--whatever they
were, either small or great--happened because we were weak--because we
put pleasure before duty--because we gave in to lust, or evil
suggestion, or a craven longing to please the flesh. Yes! They happened
because we were weak, and that is a horrible thing to have to admit.
Yet admitting it is the only way to regain contact with the truth. And
what next? The next thing is that in that extremity we find God. It
might seem that He would probably be the last one to be found through
humiliation and the open admission of being impure. But in actual
experience that is how He is found. That is His way--to meet the man
who has discovered his own insufficiency--to intervene at the desperate
minute--to reveal to incarnate weakness His eternal strength--to give a
strange assurance that He Himself is about to enfold the man or woman
in His power, and tale charge of the future. And when that has happened
a man knows what to do with his past. He can leave it with God, and
then it loses at once all power to haunt him or put him to shame. It
was unclean, but the cleansing fires of the divine love have taken it
in charge, and its power is broken. That is something very different
from trying to hide it or trample upon it. That is really killing it,
and after that a man both may and can forget.
"If any man be in Christ he is a new creature." That is literally true
even in this connection. Spiritually a man ceases to be the same person
as the one who was once so weak and unclean. He has entered a new
spiritual country.
Experience has proved all this over and over again. Men who in early
youth were wild have by the grace of God become so essentially pure as
to become capable of true and blessed experiences of love and all that
love leads to with a fine woman. But it does need the grace of God.
Those who attempt simply to forget and make light of their early
follies do not escape from them.
And why should I not boldly say the same thing--exactly the same thing--
about a woman? It is certainly true. No one seriously believes that
the redeeming grace of God, which is sufficient for all other sins,
fails before this one. No one who has understood Christ doubts that He
can make a new woman, and a pure and noble woman, out of one who has
stumbled. And yet curiously society has never learnt to forgive women.
A man is allowed to forget the things which are behind. Generally a
woman is compelled to remember them till the very end. I shall never
forget being once at a meeting of men in New York where a very great
American woman spoke to us all on this subject. She pointed out to us
that society had never learnt to control the evils of this part of life
because it had never learnt to adopt the method of Jesus, which was
frank and full forgiveness. We have been afraid. We have thought it
would be socially disastrous. But Jesus had no hesitation in His voice
when He said to a penitent Magdalene, "Neither do I condemn thee, go
and sin no more." Of course she sinned no more. There is in all the
universe no constraining force like that combination of forgiveness and
trust.
I am sure we cannot make our standard too high. I am sure we need to
guard against all compromise in thought with its august demands. But I
am equally sure we need to learn to forgive generously if we are ever
to help those who have stumbled. Forgiving sinners does not mean
condoning sin, else could there never be any divine forgiveness. What
it does mean is loving the persons concerned. Till we learn to exercise
that divine art, we do but shut the doors of hope against sinners and
push them farther down.
Of course this means that for a pagan society there is no choice
between a sternly cold and cruel morality on the one hand, and license
on the other. For pagans cannot forgive. They alternate between a moral
indifference in which there is no hope for anybody, and a cold and
callous condemnation of sinners which is both hypocritical and cruel.
We have all seen both policies in action and know how hopeless they
both are. But in exact proportion as we learn to think and feel with
Christ we shall learn to forgive, and so doing shall begin to have
mastery over the evils in sex life that spring from ignorance,
waywardness, want of discipline, and the misunderstanding of love.
History is one long record of how by the force of law and by alternate
severity and carelessness the human race has tried to find for itself
the right path through this special country. But the record is largely
one of failure. There is no way of success for a society that depends
upon such forces. Here as in a dozen other connections the only way to
life is that Christian way which the world has so largely repudiated.
Mankind want to make a success of their life in this world--want to
make the most possible of it--but they want it apart from the
leadership of Christ, and so they miss it. He can show us the way of
life if we will but listen, but no other can.
And His way is always and altogether the way of love--love that can
tame the brute in us and make it a servant--love that can transform
passion into a holy fire--love that makes men patient and women
generous--that takes the common things of life and makes them sacred--
and above all love that can hate sin with fierce sincerity, and yet
love and forgive sinners.
It is after this fashion that God loves us. We must so love one another
if we are to make human life great.
There is another and a larger sense in which there is need that we
should forget the things which are behind. We need as a race to escape
from an evil past. Our greatest danger in this whole connection is the
danger of moral skepticism. "Sex vice has always been common," men say
with truth; and then with fatal unreason they add, "and always will
be." That way lies sheer disaster. The whole situation calls for faith
in man's future--faith in his capacity for purity--faith in love. And
that faith is really but a part of any true faith in God.
In the past even Christian people have tried to evade the problem of
sex. The truth about it has not been openly sought. Its challenge has
not been bravely met. Its possibilities have not been realized. And
therefore fears, sufferings, excesses, cruelties, and injustice to
women have degraded our common life. The whole matter is central for
our civilization. While we think and work for reconstruction we would
do well to remember that there can be no happy and harmonious life for
us till this whole problem has been solved--till we have learnt to
enthrone pure love in our midst and by its passionate and cleansing
power to subdue the brute and exercise our complete humanity to the
glory of God. Love never faileth. It purifies passion and dominates the
flesh. If we believe in God we needs must believe in the triumph of
love; and that means a divine consummation at last to all our
wanderings and struggles in connection with Sex.
APPENDIX
A BRIEF SKETCH OF SOME OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTS
BY
A. CHARLES E. GRAY, M.D. (ED.)
APPENDIX
SOME OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTS
Of all the vital forces with which living things are endowed, the two
most potent are the instinct for self-preservation and the instinct for
race-preservation. This latter gives rise to the reproductive urge. So
deep-seated is this instinctive force, that in many instances in the
vegetable world, the threat of individual death results in a special
effort of reproduction and the individual dies to live in the next
generation. A force which is thus so insistent in the whole animal and
vegetable world is naturally not absent in the human being, and it is
well we should definitely recognize the fundamental power of this, in
every normal man and woman. Not seldom the reproductive instinct is
spoken of as a thing which can be put on one side and ignored. All
experience and history prove that this is impossible, and that the
attempt to do so ends in failure and disaster. But in civilized
communities it is equally impossible to allow such a force to range
unrestrained, hence the laws and customs of modern peoples. But mere
assent to external authority can never achieve more than partial
success. What is needed is whole-hearted agreement with an ideal which
can only be attained by education of every individual in a real
understanding of themselves and their responsibilities in sex matters.
It is due to the fault of parents and teachers, rather than their own,
that many men and women are to-day paying the penalty of having misused
or abused this divinely implanted instinct.
_The Law of Bi-sexual Reproduction_
It is one of Nature's plans that in the genesis of a new individual two
individuals should take a share. This holds good throughout the whole
range of living things except the lower forms of plant and animal life,
such as fungi and animalcule. But, with one or two individual
exceptions, as plants and animals evolve, the union of two elements,
male and female, is needed to start the amazingly complex process of
building a new individual. Thus in flowers the stamens, the pollen
bearers, provide the male element which, through the intermediary of
the pistils, fertilizes the egg in the vesicle. In the higher animals
the egg or ovum is produced by the female, and is fertilized by the
sperm-cell produced by the male. The necessary union between these two
essential elements is attained in various ways. Thus the female salmon
deposits her eggs on a convenient spot in the bed of a stream and the
attendant male salmon then projects over them the spermatozoa. In the
higher animals there is a further development, and special organs are
evolved to ensure the conjunction of the two elements. I have not space
to describe in detail the effect of this union of the two cells,
generally spoken of as fertilization. It may be found fully recorded
step by step in any biological manual. Very briefly, the sperm-cells,
which are active, freely moving units, swarm round the egg-cell and one
of them eventually enters it. The essential part of the cells, namely
the nuclei, coalesce into one nucleus, and an active process of cell
division and multiplication is at once started. The single cell divides
into two daughter cells, then again into four, and so on. Very early in
development, the cells, which at first appear similar, become
differentiated into different types, but the whole ordered sequence of
the development of an embryo is achieved by this cell division and
multiplication. Each original cell contains a substance which, on
account of its being easily colorable with artificial stains, is called
chromatin, and this chromatin is believed to be the bearer of the
hereditary qualities. The cell division is so arranged that each new
cell receives an equal share of the male and female chromatin, and this
process is continued in every case of cell division, so that
eventually, in every part of our bodies, the dual inheritance remains
complete.
But though both parents have thus an equal share in the cellular
elements of the new life, it is the female whose reproductive organs
provide for its nourishment and protection until birth takes
place.
_The Human Sex Organs_
In the female these consist of the womb or uterus, the ovaries, and a
canal called the vagina which leads from the lower end of the uterus to
an external opening, the vulva. The ovaries, two in number, are
situated one on each side of the uterus. The uterus, which is
pear-shaped, with the apex downwards, has three openings, one at the
apex and one at each side at the upper part. These two upper openings
are provided with a tubule extension, the Fallopian tubes, whose outer
ends are fringed and lie in close relation to the ovaries. The ova or
egg-cells are developed in the ovaries, and through a complex and
elaborate process a single cell comes to maturity from time to time. It
is then discharged into the open end of the Fallopian tube, reaches
thereby the uterus, and if not fertilized is discharged through the
lower opening of the uterus into the vagina. It is not known exactly
when this discharge of ova takes place, but it is believed to coincide
more or less with the monthly period. If, however, fertilization of the
ovum takes place, it is not discharged, but remains in the uterus. The
lining membrane of the uterus grows round and envelops it, and the
wonderful process of cell division and multiplication proceeds which
results in the growth and development of a child.
These various organs are situated in the lower part of the abdomen,
within the protection of the bony pelvis or basin. This pelvis is,
compared with the male pelvis, broad and shallow, to provide for the
passage of the fully developed child at birth. The vagina is the
passage by which, during the birth process, the child reaches the outer
world, and it is also the sex organ by which, in the female, the union
of the male and female elements, of which we have spoken, takes place
in the sex act.
The male sex organs consist of the testicles, in which the sperm-cells
or spermatozoa are evolved, of a coiled duct leading there from, and of
the distinctive male sex organ, the penis. This last serves the double
purpose of providing an exit for the contents of the bladder and for
that emission of the spermatozoa which occurs in the sex act. There are
also certain glands situated in close relation to this duct which
provide a fluid which is emitted at the same time as the spermatozoa,
the whole being termed the seminal fluid. It is thus clear that in both
sexes there are essential reproductive organs, the ovaries in the one
case, the testicles in the other, providing respectively ova and
sperm-cells, and there are also organs for the purpose of securing the
union of these two elements, namely the vagina in the female and the
penis in the male. These two sets of organs form the primary sex
characteristics or actual sex organs.
_The Sex Act_
The special process which secures this union of the male and female
elements is termed copulation or coitus. It takes place in all
warm-blooded animals, as well as many others, but in man, with his
highly developed mental and psychical qualities, it is a truly complex
experience in which body, mind and soul all take their part.
Physically its central fact is the ejaculation of the seminal fluid by
the male and its reception by the female, and this culmination with its
psychical concomitants is spoken of as the orgasm. Before coitus is
feasible, the organs designed for the purpose have to be brought into
an appropriate state for its consummation. The penis and the vulva are
alike furnished with erectile tissue. The penis has to be erected in
order to penetrate into the vagina, while the female organs add their
share in facilitating the act both by the erection of the tissue round
the vulva and by the outpouring of a lubricating secretion which bathes
all the parts. The mechanism of this is a nervous one, and its
originating cause while partly physical is chiefly mental, due to the
emotions aroused by love and courtship, and thus in every act of coitus
properly realized, an essential preliminary is an abbreviated
courtship. This initial stage has been described as the stage of
tumescence, and is succeeded by the introduction of the male organ into
the vagina. A motor nerve discharge follows which produces ejaculation
of the seminal fluid and is for the male the climax of the orgasm. The
female is, however, by no means passive; motor nerve discharges take
place leading to rhythmic contraction of the vagina, and she
experiences, or should experience, a similar orgasm to the male. The
climax is followed in both by a feeling of satisfaction and repose
which generally issues in refreshing sleep. It is to be noted, however,
that in the female the whole process is apt to be slower than in the
male. Her orgasm frequently coincides with the male, but often it comes
later. If this is not realized by her partner, and inconsiderate haste
be practiced, then, in place of satisfaction, a state of nervous
tension may remain, which is not only psychically deleterious, but, if
repeated, may lead to actual illness.
I have spoken of the sex act as it should be, a fine and lofty
emotional experience of two people between whom is the bond of love. It
is true that in the female an entirely passive part is physiologically
possible, and it is also true that in the male, who is biologically the
hunting and pursuing animal, spontaneous desires arise from time to
time which are too often accorded a bodily and disharmonious
satisfaction. Disharmonious because it cannot be too strongly insisted
upon that the completely satisfactory realization of the sex act
involves the participation of every side of human nature, spiritual and
physical, and is the outcome of an intense desire for perfect unity
with the beloved. Hence mere bodily satisfaction of sensuous desire
must have a disharmonious and deteriorating effect, because it ignores
a basal fact of man, namely spirit, and leaves that side of him starved
and unsatisfied. And the same is true of all sexual aberrations and
perversions. Though they may seem at the moment to be unimportant, the
fact remains that they are sins against both the spirit and the flesh,
and are followed inexorably by their own punishment.
It is argued by some that the sexual act should be restricted to
occasions, when there is a definite intention of begetting children.
This does not seem either reasonable or desirable. Nature's plans were
certainly, in the case of human beings, not constructed on that basis.
It would introduce an element of calculation and deliberation into what
is naturally a finely spontaneous thing, and it would put a quite
unnecessary, and in some cases, at least, a harmful, strain upon two
people. As Havelock Ellis has put it: "Even if sexual relationships had
no connection with procreation whatever, they would still be
justifiable, and are, indeed, an indispensable aid to the best moral
development of the individual; for it is only in so intimate a
relationship as that of sex that the finest graces and aptitudes of
life have full scope." This does not imply that married life does not
call for the exercise of self-restraint and continence, in this as in
other respects.
Those who regard marital relations as an opportunity for unbridled
sexual indulgence are not likely to win success in an adventure of
considerable difficulty in which all that is fine in man or woman will
find full scope for development. But it does mean that sexual intimacy
has a value in itself as an expression in the terms of the body of the
love which unites husband and wife, and that, when duly controlled, it
leads to health and general harmony.