sexual abstinence. Thus Freud, who has carefully studied
angstneurosis, the obsession of anxiety, finds that it is a
result of sexual abstinence, and may indeed be considered as a
vicarious form of such abstinence (Freud, _Sammlung Kleiner
Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, 1906, pp. 76 et seq.).

The whole subject of sexual abstinence has been discussed at
length by Nyström, of Stockholm, in _Das Geschlechtsleben und
seine Gesetze_, Ch. III. He concludes that it is desirable that
continence should be preserved as long as possible in order to
strengthen the physical health and to develop the intelligence
and character. The doctrine of permanent sexual abstinence,
however, he regards as entirely false, except in the case of a
small number of religious or philosophic persons. "Complete
abstinence during a long period of years cannot be borne without
producing serious results both on the body and the mind....
Certainly, a young man should repress his sexual impulses as long
as possible and avoid everything that may artificially act as a
sexual stimulant. If, however, he has done so, and still suffers
from unsatisfied normal sexual desires, and if he sees no
possibility of marriage within a reasonable time, no one should
dare to say that he is committing a sin if, with mutual
understanding, he enters into sexual relations with a woman
friend, or forms temporary sexual relationships, provided, that
is, that he takes the honorable precaution of begetting no
children, unless his partner is entirely willing to become a
mother, and he is prepared to accept all the responsibilities of
fatherhood." In an article of later date ("Die Einwirkung der
Sexuellen Abstinenz auf die Gesundheit," _Sexual-Probleme_, July,
1908) Nyström vigorously sums up his views. He includes among the
results of sexual abstinence orchitis, frequent involuntary
seminal emissions, impotence, neurasthenia, depression, and a
great variety of nervous disturbances of vaguer character,
involving diminished power of work, limited enjoyment of life,
sleeplessness, nervousness, and pre-occupation with sexual
desires and imaginations. More especially there is heightened
sexual irritability with erections, or even seminal emissions on
the slightest occasion, as on gazing at an attractive woman or in
social intercourse with her, or in the presence of works of art
representing naked figures. Nyström has had the opportunity of
investigating and recording ninety cases of persons who have
presented these and similar symptoms as the result, he believes,
of sexual abstinence. He has published some of these cases
(_Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Oct., 1908), but it may be
added that Rohleder ("Die Abstinentia Sexualis," ib., Nov., 1908)
has criticized these cases, and doubts whether any of them are
conclusive. Rohleder believes that the bad results of sexual
abstinence are never permanent, and also that no anatomically
pathological states (such as orchitis) can be thereby produced.
But he considers, nevertheless, that even incomplete and
temporary sexual abstinence may produce fairly serious results,
and especially neurasthenic disturbances of various kinds, such
as nervous irritability, anxiety, depression, disinclination for
work; also diurnal emissions, premature ejaculations, and even a
state approaching satyriasis; and in women hysteria,
hystero-epilepsy, and nymphomaniacal manifestations; all these
symptoms may, however, he believes, be cured when the abstinence
ceases.

Many advocates of sexual abstinence have attached importance to
the fact that men of great genius have apparently been completely
continent throughout life. This is certainly true (see _ante_, p.
173). But this fact can scarcely be invoked as an argument in
favor of the advantages of sexual abstinence among the ordinary
population. J.F. Scott selects Jesus, Newton, Beethoven, and Kant
as "men of vigor and mental acumen who have lived chastely as
bachelors." It cannot, however, be said that Dr. Scott has been
happy in the four figures whom he has been able to select from
the whole history of human genius as examples of life-long sexual
abstinence. We know little with absolute certainty of Jesus, and
even if we reject the diagnosis which Professor Binet-Sanglé (in
his _Folie de Jesus_) has built up from a minute study of the
Gospels, there are many reasons why we should refrain from
emphasizing the example of his sexual abstinence; Newton, apart
from his stupendous genius in a special field, was an incomplete
and unsatisfactory human being who ultimately reached a condition
very like insanity; Beethoven was a thoroughly morbid and
diseased man, who led an intensely unhappy existence; Kant, from
first to last, was a feeble valetudinarian. It would probably be
difficult to find a healthy normal man who would voluntarily
accept the life led by any of these four, even as the price of
their fame. J.A. Godfrey (_Science of Sex_, pp. 139-147)
discusses at length the question whether sexual abstinence is
favorable to ordinary intellectual vigor, deciding that it is
not, and that we cannot argue from the occasional sexual
abstinence of men of genius, who are often abnormally
constituted, and physically below the average, to the normally
developed man. Sexual abstinence, it may be added, is by no means
always a favorable sign, even in men who stand intellectually
above the average. "I have not obtained the impression," remarks
Freud (_Sexual-Probleme_, March, 1908), "that sexual abstinence
is helpful to energetic and independent men of action or original
thinkers, to courageous liberators or reformers. The sexual
conduct of a man is often symbolic of his whole method of
reaction in the world. The man who energetically grasps the
object of his sexual desire may be trusted to show a similarly
relentless energy in the pursuit of other aims."

Many, though not all, who deny that prolonged sexual abstinence is
harmless, include women in this statement. There are some authorities
indeed who believe that, whether or not any conscious sexual desire is
present, sexual abstinence is less easily tolerated by women than by
men.[94]

Cabanis, in his famous and pioneering work, _Rapports du Physique
et du Moral_, said in 1802, that women not only bear sexual
excess more easily than men, but sexual privations with more
difficulty, and a cautious and experienced observer of to-day,
Löwenfeld (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, 1899, p. 53), while
not considering that normal women bear sexual abstinence less
easily than men, adds that this is not the case with women of
neuropathic disposition, who suffer much more from this cause,
and either masturbate when sexual intercourse is impossible or
fall into hystero-neurasthenic states. Busch stated (_Das
Geschlechtsleben des Weibes_, 1839, vol. i, pp. 69, 71) that not
only is the working of the sexual functions in the organism
stronger in women than in men, but that the bad results of sexual
abstinence are more marked in women. Sir Benjamin Brodie said
long ago that the evils of continence to women are perhaps
greater than those of incontinence, and to-day Hammer (_Die
Gesundheitlichen Gefahren der Geschlechtlichen Enthaltsamkeit_,
1904) states that, so far as reasons of health are concerned,
sexual abstinence is no more to be recommended to women than to
men. Nyström is of the same opinion, though he thinks that women
bear sexual abstinence better than men, and has discussed this
special question at length in a section of his _Geschlechtsleben
und seine Gesetze_. He agrees with the experienced Erb that a
large number of completely chaste women of high character, and
possessing distinguished qualities of mind and heart, are more or
less disordered through their sexual abstinence; this is
specially often the case with women married to impotent men,
though it is frequently not until they approach the age of
thirty, Nyström remarks, that women definitely realize their
sexual needs.

A great many women who are healthy, chaste, and modest, feel at
times such powerful sexual desire that they can scarcely resist
the temptation to go into the street and solicit the first man
they meet. Not a few such women, often of good breeding, do
actually offer themselves to men with whom they may have perhaps
only the slightest acquaintance. Routh records such cases
(_British Gynæcological Journal_, Feb., 1887), and most men have
met with them at some time. When a woman of high moral character
and strong passions is subjected for a very long period to the
perpetual strain of such sexual craving, especially if combined
with love for a definite individual, a chain of evil results,
physical and moral, may be set up, and numerous distinguished
physicians have recorded such cases, which terminated at once in
complete recovery as soon as the passion was gratified. Lauvergne
long since described a case. A fairly typical case of this kind
was reported in detail by Brachet (_De l'Hypochondrie_, p. 69)
and embodied by Griesinger in his classic work on "Mental
Pathology." It concerned a healthy married lady, twenty-six years
old, having three children. A visiting acquaintance completely
gained her affections, but she strenuously resisted the seducing
influence, and concealed the violent passion that he had aroused
in her. Various serious symptoms, physical and mental, slowly
began to appear, and she developed what seemed to be signs of
consumption. Six months' stay in the south of France produced no
improvement, either in the bodily or mental symptoms. On
returning home she became still worse. Then she again met the
object of her passion, succumbed, abandoned her husband and
children, and fled with him. Six months later she was scarcely
recognizable; beauty, freshness and plumpness had taken the place
of emaciation; while the symptoms of consumption and all other
troubles had entirely disappeared. A somewhat similar case is
recorded by Camill Lederer, of Vienna (_Monatsschrift für
Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle Hygiene_, 1906, Heft 3). A widow, a
few months after her husband's death, began to cough, with
symptoms of bronchial catarrh, but no definite signs of lung
disease. Treatment and change of climate proved entirely
unavailing to effect a cure. Two years later, as no signs of
disease had appeared in the lungs, though the symptoms continued,
she married again. Within a very few weeks all symptoms had
disappeared, and she was entirely fresh and well.

Numerous distinguished gynæcologists have recorded their belief
that sexual excitement is a remedy for various disorders of the
sexual system in women, and that abstinence is a cause of such
disorders. Matthews Duncan said that sexual excitement is the
only remedy for amenorrhoea; "the only emmenagogue medicine that
I know of," he wrote (_Medical Times_, Feb. 2, 1884), "is not to
be found in the Pharmacopoeia: it is erotic excitement. Of the
value of erotic excitement there is no doubt." Anstie, in his
work on _Neuralgia_, refers to the beneficial effect of sexual
intercourse on dysmenorrhoea, remarking that the necessity of the
full natural exercise of the sexual function is shown by the
great improvement in such cases after marriage, and especially
after childbirth. (It may be remarked that not all authorities
find dysmenorrhoea benefited by marriage, and some consider that
the disease is often thereby aggravated; see, e.g., Wythe Cook,
_American Journal Obstetrics_, Dec., 1893.) The distinguished
gynæcologist, Tilt, at a somewhat earlier date (_On Uterine and
Ovarian Inflammation_, 1862, p. 309), insisted on the evil
results of sexual abstinence in producing ovarian irritation, and
perhaps subacute ovaritis, remarking that this was specially
pronounced in young widows, and in prostitutes placed in
penitentiaries. Intense desire, he pointed out, determines
organic movements resembling those required for the gratification
of the desire. These burning desires, which can only be quenched
by their legitimate satisfaction, are still further heightened by
the erotic influence of thoughts, books, pictures, music, which
are often even more sexually stimulating than social intercourse
with men, but the excitement thus produced is not relieved by
that natural collapse which should follow a state of vital
turgescence. After referring to the biological facts which show
the effect of psychic influences on the formative powers of the
ovario-uterine organs in animals, Tilt continues: "I may fairly
infer that similar incitements on the mind of females may have a
stimulating effect on the organs of ovulation. I have frequently
known menstruation to be irregular, profuse, or abnormal in type
during courtship in women in whom nothing similar had previously
occurred, and that this protracted the treatment of chronic
ovaritis and of uterine inflammation." Bonnifield, of Cincinnati
(_Medical Standard_, Dec., 1896), considers that unsatisfied
sexual desire is an important cause of catarrhal endometritis. It
is well known that uterine fibroids bear a definite relation to
organic sexual activity, and that sexual abstinence, more
especially the long-continued deprivation of pregnancy, is a very
important cause of the disease. This is well shown by an analysis
by A.E. Giles (_Lancet_, March 2, 1907) of one hundred and fifty
cases. As many as fifty-six of these cases, more than a third,
were unmarried women, though nearly all were over thirty years of
age. Of the ninety-four married women, thirty-four had never been
pregnant; of those who had been pregnant, thirty-six had not been
so for at least ten years. Thus eighty-four per cent, had either
not been pregnant at all, or had had no pregnancy for at least
ten years. It is, therefore, evident that deprivation of sexual
function, whether or not involving abstinence from sexual
intercourse, is an important cause of uterine fibroid tumors.
Balls-Headley, of Victoria (_Evolution of the Diseases of Women_,
1894, and "Etiology of Diseases of Female Genital Organs,"
Allbutt and Playfair, _System of Gynæcology_,) believes that
unsatisfied sexual desire is a factor in very many disorders of
the sexual organs in women. "My views," he writes in a private
letter, "are founded on a really special gynæcological practice
of twenty years, during which I have myself taken about seven
thousand most careful records. The normal woman is sexually
well-formed and her sexual feelings require satisfaction in the
direction of the production of the next generation, but under the
restrictive and now especially abnormal conditions of
civilization some women undergo hereditary atrophy, and the
uterus and sexual feelings are feeble; in others of good average
local development the feeling is in restraint; in others the
feelings, as well as the organs, are strong, and if normal use be
withheld evils ensue. Bearing in mind these varieties of
congenital development in relation to the respective condition of
virginity, or sterile or parous married life, the mode of
occurrence and of progress of disease grows on the physician's
mind, and there is no more occasion for bewilderment than to the
mathematician studying conic sections, when his knowledge has
grown from the basis of the science. The problem is suggested:
Has a crowd of unassociated diseases fallen as through a sieve on
woman, or have these affections almost necessarily ensued from
the circumstances of her unnatural environment?" It may be added
that Kisch (_Sexual Life of Woman_), while protesting against any
exaggerated estimate of the effects of sexual abstinence,
considers that in women it may result, not only in numerous local
disorders, but also in nervous disturbance, hysteria, and even
insanity, while in neurasthenic women "regulated sexual
intercourse has an actively beneficial effect which is often
striking."

It is important to remark that the evil results of sexual
abstinence in women, in the opinion of many of those who insist
upon their importance, are by no means merely due to unsatisfied
sexual desire. They may be pronounced even when the woman herself
has not the slightest consciousness of sexual needs. This was
clearly pointed out forty years ago by the sagacious Anstie (_op.
cit._) In women, especially, he remarks, "a certain restless
hyperactivity of mind, and perhaps of body also, seems to be the
expression of Nature's unconscious resentment of the _neglect of
sexual functions_." Such women, he adds, have kept themselves
free from masturbation "at the expense of a perpetual and almost
fierce activity of mind and muscle." Anstie had found that some
of the worst cases of the form of nervosity and neurasthenia
which he termed "spinal irritation," often accompanied by
irritable stomach and anæmia, get well on marriage. "There can be
no question," he continues, "that a very large proportion of
these cases in single women (who form by far the greater number
of subjects of spinal irritation) are due to this conscious or
unconscious irritation kept up by an unsatisfied sexual want. It
is certain that very many young persons (women more especially)
are tormented by the irritability of the sexual organs without
having the least consciousness of sexual desire, and present the
sad spectacle of a _vie manquée_ without ever knowing the true
source of the misery which incapacitates them for all the active
duties of life. It is a singular fact that in occasional
instances one may even see two sisters, inheriting the same kind
of nervous organization, both tormented with the symptoms of
spinal irritation and both probably suffering from repressed
sexual functions, but of whom one shall be pure-minded and
entirely unconscious of the real source of her troubles, while
the other is a victim to conscious and fruitless sexual
irritation." In this matter Anstie may be regarded as a
forerunner of Freud, who has developed with great subtlety and
analytic power the doctrine of the transformation of repressed
sexual instinct in women into morbid forms. He considers that the
nervosity of to-day is largely due to the injurious action on the
sexual life of that repression of natural instincts on which our
civilization is built up. (Perhaps the clearest brief statement
of Freud's views on the matter is to be found in a very
suggestive article, "Die 'Kulturelle' Sexualmoral und die Moderne
Nervosität," in _Sexual-Probleme_, March, 1908, reprinted in the
second series of Freud's _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur
Neurosenlehre_, 1909). We possess the aptitude, he says, of
sublimating and transforming our sexual activities into other
activities of a psychically related character, but non-sexual.
This process cannot, however, be carried out to an unlimited
extent any more than can the conversion of heat into mechanical
work in our machines. A certain amount of direct sexual
satisfaction is for most organizations indispensable, and the
renunciation of this individually varying amount is punished by
manifestations which we are compelled to regard as morbid. The
process of sublimation, under the influence of civilization,
leads both to sexual perversions and to psycho-neuroses. These
two conditions are closely related, as Freud views the process of
their development; they stand to each other as positive and
negative, sexual perversions being the positive pole and
psycho-neuroses the negative. It often happens, he remarks, that
a brother may be sexually perverse, while his sister, with a
weaker sexual temperament, is a neurotic whose symptoms are a
transformation of her brother's perversion; while in many
families the men are immoral, the women pure and refined but
highly nervous. In the case of women who have no defect of sexual
impulse there is yet the same pressure of civilized morality
pushing them into neurotic states. It is a terribly serious
injustice, Freud remarks, that the civilized standard of sexual
life is the same for all persons, because though some, by their
organization, may easily accept it, for others it involves the
most difficult psychic sacrifices. The unmarried girl, who has
become nervously weak, cannot be advised to seek relief in
marriage, for she must be strong in order to "bear" marriage,
while we urge a man on no account to marry a girl who is not
strong. The married woman who has experienced the deceptions of
marriage has usually no way of relief left but by abandoning her
virtue. "The more strenuously she has been educated, and the more
completely she has been subjected to the demands of civilization,
the more she fears this way of escape, and in the conflict
between her desires and her sense of duty, she also seeks
refuge--in neurosis. Nothing protects her virtue so surely as
disease." Taking a still wider view of the influence of the
narrow "civilized" conception of sexual morality on women, Freud
finds that it is not limited to the production of neurotic
conditions; it affects the whole intellectual aptitude of women.
Their education denies them any occupation with sexual problems,
although such problems are so full of interest to them, for it
inculcates the ancient prejudice that any curiosity in such
matters is unwomanly and a proof of wicked inclinations. They are
thus terrified from thinking, and knowledge is deprived of worth.
The prohibition to think extends, automatically and inevitably,
far beyond the sexual sphere. "I do not believe," Freud
concludes, "that there is any opposition between intellectual
work and sexual activity such as was supposed by Möbius. I am of
opinion that the unquestionable fact of the intellectual
inferiority of so many women is due to the inhibition of thought
imposed upon them for the purpose of sexual repression."

It is only of recent years that this problem has been realized
and faced, though solitary thinkers, like Hinton, have been
keenly conscious of its existence; for "sorrowing virtue," as
Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox puts it, "is more ashamed of its woes
than unhappy sin, because the world has tears for the latter and
only ridicule for the former." "It is an almost cynical trait of
our age," Hellpach wrote a few years ago, "that it is constantly
discussing the theme of prostitution, of police control, of the
age of consent, of the 'white slavery,' and passes over the moral
struggle of woman's soul without an attempt to answer her burning
questions."

On the other hand we find medical writers not only asserting with much
moral fervor that sexual intercourse outside marriage is always and
altogether unnecessary, but declaring, moreover, the harmlessness or even
the advantages of sexual abstinence.

Ribbing, the Swedish professor, in his _Hygiène Sexuelle_,
advocates sexual abstinence outside marriage, and asserts its
harmlessness. Gilles de la Tourette, Féré, and Augagneur in
France agree. In Germany Fürbringer (Senator and Kaminer, _Health
and Disease in Relation to Marriage_, vol. i, p. 228) asserts
that continence is possible and necessary, though admitting that
it may, however, mean serious mischief in exceptional cases.
Eulenburg (_Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 14) doubts whether anyone,
who otherwise lived a reasonable life, ever became ill, or more
precisely neurasthenic, through sexual abstinence. Hegar,
replying to the arguments of Bebel in his well-known book on
women, denies that sexual abstinence can ever produce satyriasis
or nymphomania. Näcke, who has frequently discussed the problem
of sexual abstinence (e.g., _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_,
1903, Heft 1, and _Sexual-Probleme_, June, 1908), maintains that
sexual abstinence can, at most, produce rare and slight
unfavorable results, and that it is no more likely to produce
insanity, even in predisposed individuals, than are the opposite
extremes of sexual excess and masturbation. He adds that, so far
as his own observations are concerned, the patients in asylums
suffer scarcely at all from their compulsory sexual abstinence.

It is in England, however, that the virtues of sexual abstinence
have been most loudly and emphatically proclaimed, sometimes
indeed with considerable lack of cautious qualification. Acton,
in his _Reproductive Organs_, sets forth the traditional English
view, as well as Beale in his _Morality and the Moral Question_.
A more distinguished representative of the same view was Paget,
who, in his lecture on "Sexual Hypochondriasis," coupled sexual
intercourse with "theft or lying." Sir William Gowers (_Syphilis
and the Nervous System_, 1892, p. 126) also proclaims the
advantages of "unbroken chastity," more especially as a method of
avoiding syphilis. He is not hopeful, however, even as regards
his own remedy, for he adds: "We can trace small ground for hope
that the disease will thus be materially reduced." He would
still, however, preach chastity to the individual, and he does so
with all the ascetic ardor of a mediæval monk. "With all the
force that any knowledge I possess, and any authority I have, can
give, I assert that no man ever yet was in the slightest degree
or way the worse for continence or better for incontinence. From
the latter all are worse morally; a clear majority are worse
physically; and in no small number the result is, and ever will
be, utter physical shipwreck on one of the many rocks, sharp,
jagged-edged, which beset the way, or on one of the many beds of
festering slime which no care can possibly avoid." In America the
same view widely prevails, and Dr. J.F. Scott, in his
_Sexual-Instinct_ (second edition, 1908, Ch. III), argues very
vigorously and at great length in favor of sexual abstinence. He
will not even admit that there are two sides to the question,
though if that were the case, the length and the energy of his
arguments would be unnecessary.

Among medical authorities who have discussed the question of
sexual abstinence at length it is not, indeed, usually possible
to find such unqualified opinions in its favor as those I have
quoted. There can be no doubt, however, that a large proportion
of physicians, not excluding prominent and distinguished
authorities, when casually confronted with the question whether
sexual abstinence is harmless, will at once adopt the obvious
path of least resistance and reply: Yes. In only a few cases will
they even make any qualification of this affirmative answer. This
tendency is very well illustrated by an inquiry made by Dr.
Ludwig Jacobsohn, of St. Petersburgh ("Die Sexuelle
Enthaltsamkeit im Lichte der Medizin," _St. Petersburger
Medicinische Wochenschrift_, March 17, 1907). He wrote to over
two hundred distinguished Russian and German professors of
physiology, neurology, psychiatry, etc., asking them if they
regarded sexual abstinence as harmless. The majority returned no
answer; eleven Russian and twenty-eight Germans replied, but four
of them merely said that "they had no personal experience," etc.;
there thus remained thirty-five. Of these E. Pflüger, of Bonn,
was skeptical of the advantage of any propaganda of abstinence:
"if all the authorities in the world declared the harmlessness of
abstinence that would have no influence on youth. Forces are here
in play that break through all obstacles." The harmlessness of
abstinence was affirmed by Kräpelin, Cramer, Gärtner, Tuczek,
Schottelius, Gaffky, Finkler, Selenew, Lassar, Seifert, Gruber;
the last, however, added that he knew very few abstinent young
men, and himself only considered abstinence good before full
development, and intercourse not dangerous in moderation even
before then. Brieger knew cases of abstinence without harmful
results, but himself thought that no general opinion could be
given. Jürgensen said that abstinence _in itself_ is not harmful,
but that in some cases intercourse exerts a more beneficial
influence. Hoffmann said that abstinence is harmless, adding that
though it certainly leads to masturbation, that is better than
gonorrhoea, to say nothing of syphilis, and is easily kept within
bounds. Strümpell replied that sexual abstinence is harmless, and
indirectly useful as preserving from the risk of venereal
disease, but that sexual intercourse, being normal, is always
more desirable. Hensen said that abstinence is not to be
unconditionally approved. Rumpf replied that abstinence was not
harmful for most before the age of thirty, but after that age
there was a tendency to mental obsessions, and marriage should
take place at twenty-five. Leyden also considered abstinence
harmless until towards thirty, when it leads to psychic
anomalies, especially states of anxiety, and a certain
affectation. Hein replied that abstinence is harmless for most,
but in some leads to hysterical manifestations and indirectly to
bad results from masturbation, while for the normal man
abstinence cannot be directly beneficial, since intercourse is
natural. Grützner thought that abstinence is almost never
harmful. Nescheda said it is harmless in itself, but harmful in
so far as it leads to unnatural modes of gratification. Neisser
believes that more prolonged abstinence than is now usual would
be beneficial, but admitted the sexual excitations of our
civilization; he added that of course he saw no harm for healthy
men in intercourse. Hoche replied that abstinence is quite
harmless in normal persons, but not always so in abnormal
persons. Weber thought it had a useful influence in increasing
will-power. Tarnowsky said it is good in early manhood, but
likely to be unfavorable after twenty-five. Orlow replied that,
especially in youth, it is harmless, and a man should be as
chaste as his wife. Popow said that abstinence is good at all
ages and preserves the energy. Blumenau said that in adult age
abstinence is neither normal nor beneficial, and generally leads
to masturbation, though not generally to nervous disorders; but
that even masturbation is better than syphilis. Tschiriew saw no
harm in abstinence up to thirty, and thought sexual weakness more
likely to follow excess than abstinence. Tschish regarded
abstinence as beneficial rather than harmful up to twenty-five or
twenty-eight, but thought it difficult to decide after that age
when nervous alterations seem to be caused. Darkschewitcz
regarded abstinence as harmless up to twenty-five. Fränkel said
it was harmless for most, but that for a considerable proportion
of people intercourse is a necessity. Erb's opinion is regarded
by Jacobsohn as standing alone; he placed the age below which
abstinence is harmless at twenty; after that age he regarded it
as injurious to health, seriously impeding work and capacity,
while in neurotic persons it leads to still more serious results.
Jacobsohn concludes that the general opinion of those answering
the inquiry may thus be expressed: "Youth should be abstinent.
Abstinence can in no way injure them; on the contrary, it is
beneficial. If our young people will remain abstinent and avoid
extra-conjugal intercourse they will maintain a high ideal of
love and preserve themselves from venereal diseases."

The harmlessness of sexual abstinence was likewise affirmed in
America in a resolution passed by the American Medical
Association in 1906. The proposition thus formally accepted was
thus worded: "Continence is not incompatible with health." It
ought to be generally realized that abstract propositions of this
kind are worthless, because they mean nothing. Every sane person,
when confronted by the demand to boldly affirm or deny the
proposition, "Continence is not incompatible with health," is
bound to affirm it. He might firmly believe that continence is
incompatible with the health of most people, and that prolonged
continence is incompatible with anyone's health, and yet, if he
is to be honest in the use of language, it would be impossible
for him to deny the vague and abstract proposition that
"Continence is not incompatible with health." Such propositions
are therefore not only without value, but actually misleading.

It is obvious that the more extreme and unqualified opinions in
favor of sexual abstinence are based not on medical, but on what
the writers regard as moral considerations. Moreover, as the same
writers are usually equally emphatic in regard to the advantages
of sexual intercourse in marriage, it is clear that they have
committed themselves to a contradiction. The same act, as Näcke
rightly points out, cannot become good or bad according as it is
performed in or out of marriage. There is no magic efficacy in a
few words pronounced by a priest or a government official.

Remondino (loc. cit.) remarks that the authorities who have
committed themselves to declarations in favor of the
unconditional advantages of sexual abstinence tend to fall into
three errors: (1) they generalize unduly, instead of considering
each case individually, on its own merits; (2) they fail to
realize that human nature is influenced by highly mixed and
complex motives and cannot be assumed to be amenable only to
motives of abstract morality; (3) they ignore the great army of
masturbators and sexual perverts who make no complaint of sexual
suffering, but by maintaining a rigid sexual abstinence, so far
as normal relationships are concerned, gradually drift into
currents whence there is no return.

Between those who unconditionally affirm or deny the harmlessness of
sexual abstinence we find an intermediate party of authorities whose
opinions are more qualified. Many of those who occupy this more guarded
position are men whose opinions carry much weight, and it is probable that
with them rather than with the more extreme advocates on either side the
greater measure of reason lies. So complex a question as this cannot be
adequately investigated merely in the abstract, and settled by an
unqualified negative or affirmative. It is a matter in which every case
requires its own special and personal consideration.

"Where there is such a marked opposition of opinion truth is not
exclusively on one side," remarks Löwenfeld (_Sexualleben und
Nervenleiden_, second edition, p. 40). Sexual abstinence is
certainly often injurious to neuropathic persons. (This is now
believed by a large number of authorities, and was perhaps first
decisively stated by Krafft-Ebing, "Ueber Neurosen durch
Abstinenz," _Jahrbuch für Psychiatrie_, 1889, p. 1). Löwenfeld
finds no special proclivity to neurasthenia among the Catholic
clergy, and when it does occur, there is no reason to suppose a
sexual causation. "In healthy and not hereditarily neuropathic
men complete abstinence is possible without injury to the nervous
system." Injurious effects, he continues, when they appear,
seldom occur until between twenty-four and thirty-six years of
age, and even then are not usually serious enough to lead to a
visit to a doctor, consisting mainly in frequency of nocturnal
emissions, pain in testes or rectum, hyperæsthesia in the
presence of women or of sexual ideas. If, however, conditions
arise which specially stimulate the sexual emotions, neurasthenia
may be produced. Löwenfeld agrees with Freud and Gattel that the
neurosis of anxiety tends to occur in the abstinent, careful
examination showing that the abstinence is a factor in its
production in both sexes. It is common among young women married
to much older men, often appearing during the first years of
marriage. Under special circumstances, therefore, abstinence can
be injurious, but on the whole the difficulties due to such
abstinence are not severe, and they only exceptionally call forth
actual disturbance in the nervous or psychic spheres. Moll takes
a similar temperate and discriminating view. He regards sexual
abstinence before marriage as the ideal, but points out that we
must avoid any doctrinal extremes in preaching sexual abstinence,
for such preaching will merely lead to hypocrisy. Intercourse
with prostitutes, and the tendency to change a woman like a
garment, induce loss of sensitiveness to the spiritual and
personal element in woman, while the dangers of sexual abstinence
must no more be exaggerated than the dangers of sexual
intercourse (Moll, _Libido Sexualis_, 1898, vol. i, p. 848; id.,
_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, 1899, p. 588). Bloch also (in a
chapter on the question of sexual abstinence in his _Sexualleben
unserer Zeit_, 1908) takes a similar standpoint. He advocates
abstention during early life and temporary abstention in adult
life, such abstention being valuable, not only for the
conservation and transformation of energy, but also to emphasize
the fact that life contains other matters to strive for beyond
the ends of sex. Redlich (_Medizinische Klinik_, 1908, No. 7)
also, in a careful study of the medical aspects of the question,
takes an intermediate standpoint in relation to the relative
advantages and disadvantages of sexual abstinence. "We may say
that sexual abstinence is not a condition which must, under all
circumstances and at any price, be avoided, though it is true
that for the majority of healthy adult persons regular sexual
intercourse is advantageous, and sometimes is even to be
recommended."

It may be added that from the standpoint of Christian religious
morality this same attitude, between the extremes of either
party, recognizing the advantages of sexual abstinence, but not
insisting that they shall be purchased at any price, has also
found representation. Thus, in England, an Anglican clergyman,
the Rev. H. Northcote (_Christianity and Sex Problems_, pp. 58,
60) deals temperately and sympathetically with the difficulties
of sexual abstinence, and is by no means convinced that such
abstinence is always an unmixed advantage; while in Germany a
Catholic priest, Karl Jentsch (_Sexualethik, Sexualjustiz,
Sexualpolizei_, 1900) sets himself to oppose the rigorous and
unqualified assertions of Ribbing in favor of sexual abstinence.
Jentsch thus expresses what he conceives ought to be the attitude
of fathers, of public opinion, of the State and the Church
towards the young man in this matter: "Endeavor to be abstinent
until marriage. Many succeed in this. If you can succeed, it is
good. But, if you cannot succeed, it is unnecessary to cast
reproaches on yourself and to regard yourself as a scoundrel or a
lost sinner. Provided that you do not abandon yourself to mere
enjoyment or wantonness, but are content with what is necessary
to restore your peace of mind, self-possession, and cheerful
capacity for work, and also that you observe the precautions
which physicians or experienced friends impress upon you."

When we thus analyze and investigate the the three main streams of expert
opinions in regard to this question of sexual abstinence--the opinions in
favor of it, the opinions in opposition to it, and the opinions which take
an intermediate course--we can scarcely fail to conclude how
unsatisfactory the whole discussion is. The state of "sexual abstinence"
is a completely vague and indefinite state. The indefinite and even
meaningless character of the expression "sexual abstinence" is shown by
the frequency with which those who argue about it assume that it can, may,
or even must, involve masturbation. That fact alone largely deprives it of
value as morality and altogether as abstinence. At this point, indeed, we
reach the most fundamental criticism to which the conception of "sexual
abstinence" lies open. Rohleder, an experienced physician and a recognized
authority on questions of sexual pathology, has submitted the current
views on "sexual abstinence" to a searching criticism in a lengthy and
important paper.[95] He denies altogether that strict sexual abstinence
exists at all. "Sexual abstinence," he points out, in any strict scenes of
the term, must involve abstinence not merely from sexual intercourse but
from auto-erotic manifestations, from masturbation, from homosexual acts,
from all sexually perverse practices. It must further involve a permanent
abstention from indulgence in erotic imaginations and voluptuous reverie.
When, however, it is possible thus to render the whole psychic field a
_tabula rasa_ so far as sexual activity is concerned--and if it fails to
be so constantly and consistently there is no strict sexual
abstinence--then, Rohleder points out, we have to consider whether we are
not in presence of a case of sexual anæsthesia, of _anaphrodisia
sexualis_. That is a question which is rarely, if ever, faced by those who
discuss sexual abstinence. It is, however, an extremely pertinent
question, because, as Rohleder insists, if sexual anæsthesia exists the
question of sexual abstinence falls to the ground, for we can only
"abstain" from actions that are in our power. Complete sexual anæsthesia
is, however, so rare a state that it may be practically left out of
consideration, and as the sexual impulse, if it exists, must by
physiological necessity sometimes become active in some shape--even if
only, according to Freud's view, by transformation into some morbid
neurotic condition--we reach the conclusion that "sexual abstinence" is
strictly impossible. Rohleder has met with a few cases in which there
seemed to him no escape from the conclusion that sexual abstinence
existed, but in all of these he subsequently found that he was mistaken,
usually owing to the practice of masturbation, which he believes to be
extremely common and very frequently accompanied by a persistent attempt
to deceive the physician concerning its existence. The only kind of
"sexual abstinence" that exists is a partial and temporary abstinence.
Instead of saying, as some say, "Permanent abstinence is unnatural and
cannot exist without physical and mental injury," we ought to say,
Rohleder believes, "Permanent abstinence is unnatural and has never
existed."

It is impossible not to feel as we contemplate this chaotic mass of
opinions, that the whole discussion is revolving round a purely negative
idea, and that fundamental fact is responsible for what at first seem to
be startling conflicts of statement. If indeed we were to eliminate what
is commonly regarded as the religious and moral aspect of the matter--an
aspect, be it remembered, which has no bearing on the essential natural
facts of the question--we cannot fail to perceive that these ostentatious
differences of conviction would be reduced within very narrow and trifling
limits.

We cannot strictly coordinate the impulse of reproduction with the impulse
of nutrition. There are very important differences between them, more
especially the fundamental difference that while the satisfaction of the
one impulse is absolutely necessary both to the life of the individual and
of the race, the satisfaction of the other is absolutely necessary only to
the life of the race. But when we reduce this question to one of "sexual
abstinence" we are obviously placing it on the same basis as that of
abstinence from food, that is to say at the very opposite pole to which we
place it when (as in the previous chapter) we consider it from the point
of view of asceticism and chastity. It thus comes about that on this
negative basis there really is an interesting analogy between nutritive
abstinence, though necessarily only maintained incompletely and for a
short time, and sexual abstinence, maintained more completely and for a
longer time. A patient of Janet's seems to bring out clearly this
resemblance. Nadia, whom Janet was able to study during five years, was a
young woman of twenty-seven, healthy and intelligent, not suffering from
hysteria nor from anorexia, for she had a normal appetite. But she had an
idea; she was anxious to be slim and to attain this end she cut down her
meals to the smallest size, merely a little soup and a few eggs. She
suffered much from the abstinence she thus imposed on herself, and was
always hungry, though sometimes her hunger was masked by the inevitable
stomach trouble caused by so long a persistence in this _régime_. At
times, indeed, she had been so hungry that she had devoured greedily
whatever she could lay her hands on, and not infrequently she could not
resist the temptation to eat a few biscuits in secret. Such actions caused
her horrible remorse, but, all the same, she would be guilty of them
again. She realized the great efforts demanded by her way of life, and
indeed looked upon herself as a heroine for resisting so long.
"Sometimes," she told Janet, "I passed whole hours in thinking about food,
I was so hungry. I swallowed my saliva, I bit my handkerchief, I rolled
on the ground, I wanted to eat so badly. I searched books for descriptions
of meals and feasts, I tried to deceive my hunger by imagining that I too
was enjoying all these good things. I was really famished, and in spite of
a few weaknesses for biscuits I know that I showed much courage."[96]
Nadia's motive idea, that she wished to be slim, corresponds to the
abstinent man's idea that he wishes to be "moral," and only differs from
it by having the advantage of being somewhat more positive and personal,
for the idea of the person who wishes to avoid sexual indulgence because
it is "not right" is often not merely negative but impersonal and imposed
by the social and religious environment. Nadia's occasional outbursts of
reckless greediness correspond to the sudden impulses to resort to
prostitution, and her secret weaknesses for biscuits, followed by keen
remorse, to lapses into the habit of masturbation. Her fits of struggling
and rolling on the ground are precisely like the outbursts of futile
desire which occasionally occur to young abstinent men and women in health
and strength. The absorption in thoughts about meals and in literary
descriptions of meals is clearly analogous to the abstinent man's
absorption in wanton thoughts and erotic books. Finally, Nadia's
conviction that she is a heroine corresponds exactly to the attitude of
self-righteousness which often marks the sexually abstinent.

If we turn to Freud's penetrating and suggestive study of the problem of
sexual abstinence in relation to "civilized" sexual morality, we find
that, though he makes no reference to the analogy with abstinence from
food, his words would for the most part have an equal application to both
cases. "The task of subduing so powerful an instinct as the sexual
impulse, otherwise than by giving it satisfaction," he writes, "is one
which may employ the whole strength of a man. Subjugation through
sublimation, by guiding the sexual forces into higher civilizational
paths, may succeed with a minority, and even with these only for a time,
least easily during the years of ardent youthful energy. Most others
become neurotic or otherwise come to grief. Experience shows that the
majority of people constituting our society are constitutionally unequal
to the task of abstinence. We say, indeed, that the struggle with this
powerful impulse and the emphasis the struggle involves on the ethical and
æsthetic forces in the soul's life 'steels' the character, and for a few
favorably organized natures this is true; it must also be acknowledged
that the differentiation of individual character so marked in our time
only becomes possible through sexual limitations. But in by far the
majority of cases the struggle with sensuality uses up the available
energy of character, and this at the very time when the young man needs
all his strength in order to win his place in the world."[97]

When we have put the problem on this negative basis of abstinence it is
difficult to see how we can dispute the justice of Freud's conclusions.
They hold good equally for abstinence from food and abstinence from sexual
love. When we have placed the problem on a more positive basis, and are
able to invoke the more active and fruitful motives of asceticism and
chastity this unfortunate fight against a natural impulse is abolished. If
chastity is an ideal of the harmonious play of all the organic impulses of
the soul and body, if asceticism, properly understood, is the athletic
striving for a worthy object which causes, for the time, an indifference