Sex and Religion | Page 3

adopt parts of this old code to suit their arguments.
Secondly, we have in our current codes the influences of the Pauline and Augustine morality (which was possibly a reaction from some of the more obviously crude results of the previous one) which advocates the elimination of sex influence so far as possible. In line with this we have the celibacy of the clergy, of monks, and nuns and the exaltation of virginity above motherhood.
Priests still obey the echo of the early Christian Fathers, who, believing the end of the world was approaching and desirable, urged the cessation of all childbearing and condemned all sex life. Thus in present-day Christianity there still is the conflict of diametrically opposite teachings about our most important function, and quite young people detect the conflict and are disturbed by it.
Thirdly, permeating our code are influences from the religions of the ancient pagan world through Rome, in which the family and its inheritance of property led to relations between the husband and wife often in conflict with that which is best for each of them as individuals.
Fourthly, there is the more modern tenet, referred to by Mr. Aylmer Maude in his Life of Tolstoy, where it is said that in the morality of sex 'what makes for the health, happiness, and efficiency of the present and future generations is good, and what makes in the contrary direction is evil.'
The absence of any clear-cut, nationally accepted basis of sex morality causes not only confusion of thought but lies at the root of much wrong-doing.
It is very important that those in charge of the young should realise this, and by recognising the separate and sometimes conflicting strands in our complex current codes, should warn the young against being carried off their feet when any one of the component parts are pressed on them by ardent but narrow-minded people.
At no period of human life on this earth, even actually before birth, does sex lack significance.
Its manifest workings upon our daily lives, however, are wielded through the invisible supremacy of nerve and gland over our tissues. Though we experience the results of the balanced sex control of our bodies, humanity has not until recently even been aware of the existence of these interactions. Hence no vocabulary for these sex ideas exists other than the scientific language of those who have made the discoveries. And hence the usual national sex-inhibitions do not apply to this aspect of sex life. Strange and illogical as , it seems to one to whom all natural aspects of sex are pure, this particular phase alone has been accepted as a quite legitimate subject for public discussion. In my opinion this desirable openness about some of the inherent mysteries of sex, which is so strikingly in contrast to the reticence and vulgarity of our treatment of other scientific truths about sex, is very largely due to the fact that from the first the ideas had a suitable vocabulary. Hence newspapers do not hesitate to publish reports about the action of hormones, the secretions of the ductless glands, of the pineal or pituitary, nor to accept advertisements about cognate matters of the most intricate and intimate nature in our sex lives quite calmly, reasonably and, in my opinion, properly, although this frankness is in marked contrast to their attitude toward other and equally important aspects of sex physiology. When we turn to consider other facts of sex life, and especially those experienced for centuries, we find a shame-faced dirtiness of mind upon the subject, and that the Press hinders seriou? efforts to enlighten the public. Here 3 see that the absence of an acceptable vocabulary is revealed as having a great influence on the trend of thought. For some of the basic facts or sex life, known since the mists of antiquity, were in those days considered too sacred or too shameful to be spoken of. Hence each generation of fresh young people spontaneously frank with their simple enquiries about these facts (as about all others in this world) are hushed by their elders.
If those who look on sex as sacred will not reveal its mysteries, and in all the centuries which have passed have failed to create a sacred vocabulary in which to initiate youth, we can scarcely be surprised that youth turns to other sources for information. Those to whom sex is a lewd enjoyment naturally snigger with congenial companions, and the result is that young people hear the wanton tattle or its echoes. The children of each generation receive in turn a strong bias, inclining them to think of the well-known facts of sex as shameful and not as sacred.
Nothing will rectify this profound racial rror, nothing will put an end to this hocking irreverence, but a vocabulary.
We must have words to use which