Sex Education

The number of persons who refuse to concede the usefulness of sex education is far greater than we imagine. Most parents and educators consider that the mere scientific explanation of the secret of love threatens to corrupt the imagination of the young and lead it astray. For my part, I hold that ignorance is not purity: it is an error, or at the very least a negligence, which can lead to the gravest of consequences. It is well known that sex education brings great difficulties, but these difficulties must not deter us. And I hasten to say: the scientific explanations that are the basis of all sex education must be undertaken with the same frankness with girls as with boys. The modern girl is no longer the innocent lamb she was in the old days. She enjoys a freedom equal to that of her comrades of the strong sex, and she must be their equal in armament. The concealment of the fundamental facts of sexual life from children is due not only to hypocrisy and cowardice; most often it results from the ignorance of parents and educators. The incompetence of grown-ups in this domain makes the young lose all confidence in them: they avoid them and give up hope of speaking frankly with them — whereas, had they obtained counsel, they would have been enlightened and made safe.

The famous judge Ben Lindsey, one of the great specialists in the analysis of juvenile crime and in sex education, tells us the following story:

... "One day a schoolgirl scarcely fifteen years of age visited him, and confided to him that a man had asked her to be his mistress. She said: I have come to you for advice, for I dare not consult my parents, since they would answer me with nothing but shouting and ill treatment. Yet I want to know... does any of us give up his will to think for himself, by himself? I want to know your opinion, and if your counsels please me I shall follow them."

There is no doubt that the judge found no difficulty in making the girl understand what dangers awaited her from that venture, and what inevitably grave consequences follow from a sexual life entered upon before its time.

The child's sex education must begin at his adolescence, at the time when he begins to receive his first sensations of the world that surrounds him. And whoever would educate a child must, before all else, know him. Perhaps these words are so self-evident as to seem banal. Yet they are far from describing what generally happens. Many parents and many educators do not take the trouble to study the child for whose education they are responsible.

In their eyes a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl, and nothing further. They overlook the fine distinctions and the endless gradations created by heredity, which form the child's sexual personality. I do not know how to draw attention sufficiently to the importance of this "sexual personality." To my mind it is fundamental and of very great importance, for it is, in the end, what directs and determines the future growth of the human being.

Here follow some directives to be observed as rules for the first years of childhood:

1 — Avoid mixing in the sleeping quarters, whatever the cost. 2 — Do not make the clothing markedly different between the two sexes; I think the ancients were right in prescribing the same dress for girls and boys up to the age of adolescence.

3 — Do not try to make of your son of five or six years a ridiculous "little man," or to give him an inflated idea of his own person at the expense of his little sister.

4 — Do not plant in your children's souls the spirit of shame and the fear of nakedness; develop in them, rather, the opposite instinct: namely, that everything natural is pure and beautiful. And if the mere sight of nakedness is not harmful, the sight of sexual relations between grown-ups — should the child chance to see them — can strike his feelings a blow whose effect nothing can undo.

The importance of these directives shows itself especially in the case of children disposed by nature to certain characteristics common to both sexes, or to certain faults of adolescents — the solitary habit, for example. In the latter case above all, the bad inclination should be corrected with patience and gentleness, not with alarm and intimidation, as — alas — so often happens.

We have heard a great deal about "troubled puberty," and I need not dwell long upon its many manifestations and complications. There are endless degrees of what they call "the malady of youth": from excessive states of feeling and acute passing agitation — which in itself is no more than natural — to sexual neurosis (*), that phenomenon of lost balance which threatens to take more dangerous forms later on. This imbalance appears most often in children afflicted with premature adolescence.

The children's courts — as I noted above — have had to consider crimes and offenses resulting, for the most part, from a maturing swifter than the natural. The imagination of these

(*) Neurosis: a psychological term meaning the abiding psychic malady, as distinct from the passing psychic crisis.

children is overflowing, extravagant, and sensual, and it is reflected in their conduct most of the time. Here are some examples drawn from my long experience:

"The principal of a public school wrote to the parents of a pupil ten years of age, asking them to withdraw their daughter from the school, and gave no explanation whatever for his action. The parents lost themselves in every kind of conjecture, for the girl was very diligent and went to school gladly. They questioned her again and again without learning anything. She had a relative whom curiosity devoured, who asked her whether the principal had attempted some indecency with her when they were alone; but the girl would answer only with weeping. And one day, as her parents were returning from a walk, they found upon the table a note from their daughter, in which she had written: — 'My dear parents, I am going to throw myself into the river, for I cannot live in shame; and what you supposed is true.'

As for the school principal, he defended his innocence before the public examining magistrate and said that the girl had grown attached to him, and that this sudden awakening of her feelings had coincided with a bodily development in advance of its time. The girl had been in the habit of sitting on his knees, throwing her arms about his neck, and lavishing on him many other marks of affection. Since these gestures seemed at first of no consequence, the educator paid them no heed; but they soon took a form that gave cause for alarm, and he resolved at last to send the girl back to her parents. But this story did not save the principal, and he was sentenced to four years' imprisonment — until a learned and very able lawyer succeeded in proving his innocence, and that the case was one of childish hysteria."

Thus the suicides of children — which are, alas, more numerous than we suppose — result most often from a premature and violent awakening of the sensual feelings. The terrified among them, or at least those whom their parents have failed to understand, are liable to "flee into death," in the expression of Freud.

And here is the American Lindsey, one of the world's great men of the law where American youth is concerned, setting before us the consequences of deficient sex education in a form truly painful.

The young women and young men brought up in the American schools undertake, at an early age, the most dangerous sexual experiments. It fell to the Denver juvenile court, over which Judge Lindsey presides, to consider in the course of a single year the cases of 769 girls between 14 and 17 years of age, come for counsel after "offenses" of the sexual kind; of these, nearly a hundred were with child, and had long wavered between two courses: abortion, or the juvenile court?!

"Once there came to consult Lindsey a girl of eleven who had entered into relations with a young man. Lindsey says: The girl was no reckless wanton; but her sexual life had begun early, and she dared not confide in her parents nor in her teachers about it... We did all in our power to set this girl straight, until she became a good and beautiful young woman. But the credit for this happy development belongs in no way to her mother!..."

What, then, is the remedy?!

To this question there is but one answer: that we develop, so far as we are able and with all possible wisdom, the child's awareness on the one hand, and that we support this with fitting bodily education on the other. For the aim is to form a natural human being, living in the open air and the sun, taking his sufficient share of food and sleep, accustomed to sport, and clothed in a simple, sensible fashion. And when the young reach the stage of adolescence, they must be steeped in the principles of protection against the venereal diseases. I consider one of the foundations for directing youth toward that end to be education in common. No doubt this does not erase the sensual feeling from the souls of adolescents of both sexes, but it helps greatly to straighten this instinct and to refine it. Young men and young women who train for life side by side, who study and play together, and who compete with one another in intelligence and ability, know the value of true friendship and of true health; and this is the good soil from which springs, later on, the fountain of true and solid love.

From all this I conclude by saying that the aim of sex education must be the preparation of a natural human being, drawing inspiration in this from the principles of modern morality — those principles which do not rest upon fear and rebuke, but stand upon knowledge and upon the balance established between the powers of body and soul.

O fathers and mothers, undertake your children's sex education yourselves! Do not leave this task to bad tutors, or to servants, or to the companions of chance! And you, educators, beware of ignorance, and devote all your efforts to cultivating and training yourselves from the scientific side. Remember that a man's education begins from his birth, and that what must form the basis of this education is good example and affection. See to it that your children get their fill of air and sun; take care over their sleep and their feeding. Combat mixing in the sleeping quarters, and give your children separate beds and, if possible, separate rooms. You grown-ups, take the little ones into account: answer all their questions, with complete frankness, and in such a way that they understand you. Try to recognize, in the small creatures entrusted to you, their "sexual personality," and to serve it. See to it that an atmosphere of health and confidence prevails between parents and children, between educators and children, and between the children of the two sexes. Free the young from sexual fear.