Sex-education. Maurice A. Bigelow
of life, has been intrusted to pairs of individuals which are of the two kinds commonly called the sexes, male and female. Why nature determined that each new life in the vast majority of species should develop from two other lives has long been a biological puzzle, and most satisfactory of the answers given is that bi-parental origin of new individuals allows for new combinations of heritable qualities from two lines of descent. However, such a biological explanation of the relation of the two sexes to double parentage is of relatively little practical significance in present-day human life when compared with the fact that out of the necessity for life's perpetuation by two coöperating individuals there has grown psychical or spiritual love with all its splendid possibilities that are evident in ideal family life. Moreover, the influence of sex in human life has extended far beyond the family (that is, that group of individuals who stand related to one another as husband, wife, parents, and children), for it is a careless observer indeed who does not note in our daily life many social and psychical relationships of men and women who have no mutual interests relating to the biological processes of race perpetuation. Of course, the psychologist recognizes that far back of the platonic contact of the sexes on social and intellectual lines is the suppressed and primal instinct that provides physical unions for race perpetuation. However, this is of no practical interest, for, as a matter of fact, the primal instincts are quite subconscious in the usual social relations between the sexes.
The larger view of sex.
There is grandeur in this view of sex as originally a provision for perpetuation of life by two coöperating individuals, later becoming the basis of conjugal affection of the two individuals for each other and of their parental affection for their offspring, and finally leading to social and intellectual comradeship of men and women meeting on terms which are practically free from the original and biological meaning of sex.
Instead, then, of trying to keep sex, both word and fact, in the background of the new educational movement, I believe it is best to work definitely for a better understanding of the part which sex plays in human life, as outlined in the preceding paragraph. Hence, in these lectures I shall never go aside in order to avoid either the word or the idea of sex; on the contrary, I shall attempt to direct the discussion so as to emphasize the larger and very modern view of the relationship of sex and human life.
The many-sided bearings of sex.
In this first lecture I want to make it clear that the rôle of sex in human life is vastly greater than that directly involved in sexual activity. I shall in several lectures touch the big problems from the standpoint of the sexual instincts as these play an important part in social, psychical, and æsthetic life even if they are rarely exercised, physiologically, or if, as in millions of individuals, they never come to mean more than possibilities of sexual activity for which opportunities in marriage do not come. I am especially anxious to avoid the narrow viewpoint of numerous writers on sex-hygiene who seem to overlook the fact that sexual functioning is only a prominent incident in the cycle of sexual influences in the lives of most people. Human life, and especially marriage, should no longer be regarded from the mere biological point of view as for the sole purpose of reproductive activity. It is a far more uplifting view that the conscious or unconscious existence of the sexual instincts, with or without occasional activity, affords the fundamental physical basis for states of mind that may profoundly affect the whole course of life in every normal man and woman.
Supplementary to this section on the "Misunderstanding of Sex," I suggest the reading of Chapters I-VI of "Sex" by Geddes and Thomson, the "Problems of Sex" by the same authors, and Chapter VI in "The Wonder of Life" by Thomson.
§ 3. The Need of Sex-Instruction
The old silence and the new enlightenment.
The time-honored policy has been one of silence and mystery concerning all things sexual. Everything in that line has long been considered impure and degraded and, therefore, the less said and the less known, the better, especially for young people. Such has been the almost universal attitude of parents until within the present century, when many have awakened to the fact that the policy of silence has been a gigantic failure, because it has not preserved purity and innocence and because it has allowed grave evils, both hygienic and moral, to develop under the cloak of secrecy.
Children will not remain ignorant.
"I don't believe in teaching my boys and girls any facts concerning sex. I prefer to keep them innocent until they have grown up." In these decisive words a prominent woman closed a statement of her firm conviction that the world-wide movement for the sex-instruction of young people is a stupendous mistake. Poor deluded mother! How does she expect to keep her children ignorant of the world of life around them? Is she planning to transplant them to a deserted island where they may grow up innocently? Or is she going to keep the children in some cloister within whose walls there will be immunity from the contamination of the great busy world outside? Or is she going to have them guarded like crown princes, and if so, where are absolutely safe guards to be found? Such are the questions which rush into the minds of those who have studied the problem of keeping children ignorant of the most significant facts of life. It is usually an easy matter to protect children against smallpox and typhoid and some other diseases, but no parent or educator has yet found out how we may be sure to keep real live children ignorant of sex knowledge. They seem to absorb such forbidden facts as naturally and as freely as the air they breathe. Ask any large group of representative men—ministers, or doctors, or teachers, or men of business, or the world's toilers—whether any of them knew the essential facts of sexual life before they were twelve years of age, and ninety-seven in every hundred will answer quickly in the affirmative. Ask any large group of women, excepting those whose girlhood has been guarded with exceptional care, and the overwhelming majority will acknowledge that they knew the essential facts before they were fifteen years old. Once more, ask these same men and women whether their early knowledge of sex came from pure and reliable sources or from vulgar playmates and depraved servants; and with rare exceptions it is found that vulgarity made the strongest impression in the first lessons concerning the great facts of life. Such being the truth, it is nonsense for parents to sit in complacency because they feel sure that their children are safely protected against any vulgar first lessons concerning sex; for no one can know that children are safely guarded from others who may corrupt their innocent minds. As an illustration, a few years ago the mothers of a group of little girls in one of the best-managed private schools felt that with careful supervision both in school and home there was no danger of forbidden knowledge reaching the children. But one day a new pupil innocently exhibited to her mother a miniature notebook with unprintable notes on sexual topics. The resulting investigation revealed a secret club organized by the pupils for the purpose of passing to each member through notebooks all newly acquired information, which had a peculiar value because it must be kept secret from teachers and parents. That club had been in existence during two school years. This is only a sample case of many which have proved that if children are allowed the freedom that developing individuality demands, their mothers must not feel too sure that their darlings are protected against knowledge of life, and perhaps of life in its most degraded aspects.
The vital question for parents.
Here, then, is the fact that every parent should ponder seriously: Normal children are almost certain to get sexual information not later than the early adolescent years, and usually from unreliable and vulgar sources. It is, therefore, not a question whether children of school ages should be taught the important facts of sex, but whether parents and trained teachers rather than playmates and other unreliable persons should be the instructors. Which will parents choose for their own children? Thousands of intelligent parents have already faced this question, and have decided that their children shall have early sex-instruction in home or school or both in order that there will be little danger of vulgar impressions taking a deep hold on child minds.
Granted, then, that children should be given some reliable instruction concerning things sexual, who should be the teacher, what should be taught, and when should the instruction be given? These are the fundamental questions now being considered by the parents and educators who have accepted sex-education as necessary. Upon the final answers to such questions the decision of many parents will depend. I shall attempt to answer them in later lectures.
Sex