The Social Emergency | Page 7

the earth. Sexual degeneracy is the surest road to race
extinction.
No aspects are more important than those concerning morals and
religion. The restraining influences of the fear of disease may and
probably will be thrown off by science. Whether education in scientific
aspects of the subject will do good or harm in a given case depends on
the extent to which moral and religious ideals control the conduct of the
individual. The inadequacy of mere knowledge in the realm of sex
hygiene is painfully evident. To the knowledge of what is right must be
added the will to do the right. As moral and religious instruction is the
dominant educational need of the present generation, so the moral and
religious aspects of sex problems transcend all others in importance.
These are the most important phases of the social emergency. It is
difficult to see them in all their intricate relationships and to realize that
in any one approach we touch only one side of a many-sided problem.
The great majority of our people see only the superficial aspects, or see
one particular phase in distorted perspective, because that is brought
close to them through a special case of misfortune. Even social workers
are in danger of narrowness of vision because of devoted service in
particular fields. The aim of the following chapters is to consider
successively and in right relationships various aspects of the social
emergency.
CHAPTER III

PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS
By William House
All instruction in the physiology of reproduction as an aid to sexual
hygiene should be so conducted as to give assurance that the wonders
of the origin and development of life in all its millions of forms be
taught in a respectful, even reverent, spirit. Naught in the universe is
more marvelous than the beginnings of life. Naught else compares with
the wonders of growth and development.
Rightly taught, reproduction may be cleansed from the foul
interpretations which have soiled the minds of countless children, and
may be made into a body of wonderful and sacred truths capable of
fortifying youthful minds against the uncleanness and indecencies
which have contributed so largely to sexual impurity. If it be never
forgotten that human ingenuity has been taxed in untold numbers of
unsuccessful experiments to produce life by other than nature's
methods, while the power of reproduction resides in even the lowliest
of living organisms, the mystery and marvel are multiplied a
hundredfold, and the subject of reproduction is invested with a halo of
splendid and inspiring proportions.
* * * * *
The sex organs are the agencies by which every plant and every animal,
each after its kind, brings into the world a succeeding generation. Sex
activity is the result of sex impulse. The imperative need of
reproduction in the scheme of nature is responsible for the presence of
sex impulse as it occurs in every normal adult animal. Were it not for
this impulse the earth would soon become void of life. The human sex
impulse is a powerful one, thought compelling, at times well-nigh
overmastering. Though in the main good, it sometimes produces
harmful results. Among the lower animals the sex function is exercised
without thought or knowledge of consequence, restrained only by the
limitations of physical power,--the power to obtain by might, by
conquest. In fully developed mankind, the mind acts as a constraining
force which may control or even completely subdue physical

manifestations of sex impulse.
In adolescents--those who are approaching maturity, but are in a
transition state, neither man nor child--sex desire may be as strong as in
those of riper years. Many who are passing through this period know
little or nothing of the forces that pulse through their frames and seem
to consume them with unquenchable fires. These forces are the sex
impulses, the beginning of sex life and sex activity. And as every work
of man or nature while in a state of transition is unstable, less firmly
founded, more easily destroyed or injured than at any other time, so it
is that the adolescent finds himself in greater danger than at any other
time of life. Consumed with incomprehensible desire, which he cannot
gratify, he is the victim of circumstances which cause him distress, yet
admit of no relief.
Probably all marriage laws have as their real object the protection of
child life. Without marriage laws there could be no organized society
and the human race would soon sink to the level of the animal world in
general. Under present social conditions marriages are put off longer
and longer. Each succeeding generation is marked by an increase in the
age of those who marry. But the conditions which cause late marriages
in no way lessen the sex impulses or mitigate the distress which these
impulses cause. The impulse to