Men, Women, and G.o.d.
by A. Herbert Gray.
PREFACE
This book has been written at the request of the Student Christian Movement, and is addressed in the first place to men and women of the student age. I have undertaken the task with great gladness because my long and happy contact with men and women through the Student Movement has taught me how great is the need for a fuller understanding of the problems of s.e.x, and how possible it is that men and women should find help through the timely suggestion of right and wholesome thoughts.
My brother, Dr. Charles Gray of London, has contributed a very valuable appendix dealing with certain facts in a way which is only possible to a medical man, and I am very greatly indebted to him for thus enriching this volume.
It will be apparent to all who read it that I also owe a great deal to many who have shared with me their knowledge and experience. In particular I owe much grat.i.tude to a number of generous-hearted women who have enabled me to write the chapters which are more especially addressed to their s.e.x.
I have deliberately omitted from these pages any reference to disease.
I do that not because I am not impressed by the terrible penalties with which nature visits certain sins, but because I do not believe in the power of fear to deliver us. Though there were no such thing as venereal disease, immorality would still be a way of death, and morality would still be the way of life and joy. Till we perceive that we are not on the path of progress.
Books of this sort have generally been addressed specially either to men or to women. I write to both alike because I am quite sure that until men and women understand and help each other, there is going to be no happy solution to the problems of s.e.x. When they do so learn to co-operate I believe we shall as a race find our way out into that larger and happier life which can only be ours when we have accepted the facts of s.e.x and learnt to use them to the enrichment of human life and the glory of G.o.d.
A. HERBERT GRAY.
_Glasgow,_ 1922.
INTRODUCTION
In the following pages I propose to write simply and plainly about the social, personal, and bodily relations of men and women, and about the ways in which their common life may attain to happiness, harmony, and efficiency.
I shall deal with matters often handled only with much diffidence, and thought of with uncomfortable reserve. And I address myself to men and women alike.
I do it all on the basis of one a.s.sumption, namely, that a G.o.d of love in designing our human nature cannot have put into it anything which is incapable of a pure and happy exercise; and in particular that in making the s.e.x interest so central, permanent, and powerful in human beings He must have had some great and beautiful purpose. I start, in fact, with the faith that the s.e.xual elements in our humanity, once rightly understood and finely handled, make for the enrichment of human life, for the increase of our health and efficiency, and the heightening of our joy. I believe that nothing is more necessary for the world to-day than that we should trace out the ways in which this tremendous life force that is implanted in us all may be used to forward the higher aims of our common life, and to help the race on its upward march. And yet even as I write the word "s.e.xual" I cannot but remember that the mere word will for many good people produce a sensation of distaste. Partly because they have a sincere pa.s.sion for purity, and partly because this whole subject has been defiled for them by the excesses and indecencies of mankind, they doubt whether it can be right or useful to think about it at all. They regard the facts of s.e.x with a mixture of fear, perplexity, and shame, and take themselves to task if still some curiosity about them lingers in their minds.
Therefore before I go any further I would like to ask such people to realize that they are denying my initial a.s.sumption. They have not yet come to believe that there is any divine and holy purpose enshrined in the s.e.xual side of life, although G.o.d is responsible for its place in our humanity; and I would beg them forthwith to think this matter out.
s.e.x is no accident in our humanity. The function of the s.e.xual elements in our physical frame is so central that unless they be truly managed health and strength are impossible. Their relation is no less vital to our mental and aesthetic life, and they appear to control almost absolutely our nervous stability. No man or woman attains to fullness and harmony of life if the s.e.xual nature be either neglected or mismanaged. No society is strong and happy unless this part of life is truly adjusted. It may even be said that the evils that come through the mismanagement of s.e.x relations have beaten every civilization up to the present. And no doubt it is natural enough to shudder over the abominations of prost.i.tution and s.e.x vice in general, and so to turn our minds away from the whole matter. But for all that our emotional energies would be better employed in trying to understand this t.i.tanic force, and in learning how it may be utilized for our upward progress.
Mere prohibitions have so utterly and entirely failed us that we ought now to realize that there is no hope in them alone. What we need is a positive constructive ideal for this part of life which will indicate the real value of the s.e.xual forces in us, and not leave young men and women partly perplexed, partly ashamed, and partly annoyed because they are as the Creator made them.
And so I repeat we must begin with the a.s.sumption that, though we have not yet spelt it out, G.o.d must have had some great purpose of love when He created men and women with a clamant s.e.x instinct at the center of their personalities.
Hebrew instinct declared that "G.o.d saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good." Christian instinct must repeat the verdict with vastly increased conviction, for our humanity is such that the Son of G.o.d could wear it. He was not ashamed to call us brethren, and to be tempted like as we are. To suggest that in pa.s.sion and in its exercise at the bidding of love there need be anything that is not holy, is to arraign the Creator. s.e.x love abused and misunderstood has indeed strewn the world with tragedies and disease. But s.e.x love is going to remain. Not until we have learnt to make it an instrument for the perfection of life and the heightening of vitality can we hope to reach the life which the love of G.o.d designed for us; and to that we shall not attain until we have dared to acquire knowledge and through knowledge to attain to wisdom.
The ideal which still lingers in many minds, though it is seldom openly confessed, is that boys and girls, young men and women, should be kept in complete ignorance of the truth about their s.e.xual natures until they marry, and that then they should be left to learn all that they need to know from Mother Nature direct. That at least would seem to be a fair inference from the fact of the conspiracy of silence in which ninety per cent of parents have engaged towards the beings they love best.
Unfortunately in order to carry out the policy thus implied it would be necessary to keep children from a.s.sociating with other children, to forbid them to read the Bible, the great cla.s.sics of literature, and the daily papers--to keep them from the theatre, and from the study of nature--in fact to bring them up in a world which does not exist. For in all the ways I have suggested do boys and girls now collect garbled, half-true, and distorted notions about s.e.xual life. And even if it were possible to carry out the policy it would still not be desirable.
Marriage is not the simple and easy thing which the policy would imply.
Mother Nature does not teach young couples all that they need to know.
Often they make serious mistakes in the first few days. Often they mishandle and spoil the beautiful relationship on which they have entered to their own disgust and disappointment. Uncounted couples to-day have reason for the bitterness with which they complain that n.o.body ever taught or helped them. In fact the policy of silence is as cruel as its a.s.sumptions are untrue. Ignorance is an impossibility for the young. Our choice lies between garbled, distorted, and defiled knowledge and a knowledge that shall be clean, innocent, and helpful.
It has often happened that men and women brought up on the policy of silence have first learnt the facts about life through some contact with vice or sin, and those who know what horrible sufferings sudden discoveries of that sort may mean for sensitive natures cannot possibly have any doubts remaining on this point. There are few more cruel things possible than to bring a girl up in the ignorance which is mistaken for innocence and then to allow her to go out into the world to learn the truth by chance, or through some unclean mind.
That is why I gladly address myself to the task of this book, in which at least some of the truth is told.
Of course the real issue that stands in the background here is the one which concerns the nature of true spirituality. We are all agreed that the essential greatness of man lies in the fact that in him spirit may rule everything else. And until spirit does thus rule he has not reached his true life, But the question of the place of the body in the full life of man still remains to be faced and thought out.
The hermits of the desert a.s.sumed that the way of true life lay in the repression of all bodily desire and as much negation of the body as is consistent with mere existence. But in fact they often succeeded in making life disgusting, and generally in making it useless. It may be doubted whether they contributed anything to the real problem of civilization. Yet their mistake is still repeated in part by many good people. Many still think that the way of the higher life consists in forgetting the body as much as possible in order that the soul may live in freedom. They admit the body"s needs with reluctance, and treat it as something with no essential relation to their spiritual activities.
Often they willfully neglect the duty of health. Still more often they believe they ought to regard with disapproval the clamant desires and cravings of our bodily natures. But in so doing they miss the real significance of the Incarnation. Our life here is an embodied life, and it cannot be fine unless the body is finely tempered. That body is designed as the instrument through which the spirit may find expression. The first essential no doubt is to submit it to discipline and so reduce it to the place of a servant. At all costs it must be brought under control. It must be understood, and kept in good health.
And if these things be neglected the life of the spirit is hampered and depressed. But still spirit must express itself through body, and all the wealth of powers with which body is endowed has significance and worth.
For this reason the attempt to keep spiritual and bodily activities separate always revenges itself upon its authors. On the one hand it leads to an impoverishment of the spiritual life, for on these terms the spirit is left with no fine instrument through which to express itself in the real world. And on the other hand, bodily activities divorced from the control of the spirit tend to become mere animal things and so to produce disgust and degeneration.
But indeed the body cannot without disaster be simply ignored. The attempt merely to repress its manifold urgencies leads to a state in which these forces seek out for themselves abnormal channels of activity, so destroying the harmony and balance of life. The essential glory of human beings lies in the fact that in them body and spirit may be so wedded that their activities are woven into one harmonious whole.
It was in a moment of real insight that Robert Browning cried--
"Let us not always say, "Spite of this flesh to-day, I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole."
As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry, "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now, than flesh helps soul.""
Now all this is supremely true of the s.e.xual part of life. If mere l.u.s.t is the vilest thing on earth, pure love is the most beautiful. And when pure love dominates a life all the s.e.xual activities of the body may be trans.m.u.ted and redeemed until a complete life is attained in which all the primal forces of our beings find a happy exercise under the control of a pa.s.sion that is at once physical, mental, and spiritual. But the body is not in this process denied. It is accepted, understood, and made to play its true part. If pa.s.sion be truly handled it provides the driving force for a life that is effective, courageous, and joyous. He is most truly living a spiritual life who has learnt to use all the powers of his incarnate nature in a life of strenuous activity and loyal love.
I do not mean of course that there is no place in the highest type of life for renunciation. Nor do I mean for a moment that only in marriage can greatness and fullness of life be attained. It is hard to use words correctly at a time when special meanings have come to be attached to such words as repression and suppression. What the psychologists have discovered is that unconscious, or incomplete, or unaccepted repression of bodily instincts leads to a dangerous condition. He who has not really surrendered desire, but simply tried to drive it underground, may indeed reap troubles enough and to spare.
But it needs no psychological training to know that deliberate, sincere, and courageous renunciation of this or that bodily desire for the sake of some compelling ideal may lead to the very finest kind of life. Only in this process the body is not ignored. It is taken into account. Nor are its forces neglected. Through the process technically described as sublimation, a way is to be found whereby life force restrained in one direction finds other and most valuable ways of expression.
I write this book as one who has learnt to thank G.o.d for all the elements in our normal humanity, and I send it out with the prayer in my heart that through it some may be helped to a truer understanding of themselves which will ease their way to success and joy and to that fullness of human life which is the divine intention for us.
CHAPTER I
KNOWING THE FACTS
The first essential equipment for a right journey through the country of s.e.xual experience is that we should know the truth about our bodies --those temples of the Holy Ghost--and should understand the meaning of the emotions and desires which connect themselves with our physical const.i.tution.
Further, because the problem of s.e.x can only be solved by the cooperation of the s.e.xes working together in mutual understanding it is right that men should know a good deal about women"s bodies and vice versa. Such knowledge almost always begets sympathy and a certain intelligent tenderness. The lack of it has often led to unconscious cruelties, to misunderstandings, and even to serious mistakes. To mention one instance only, how can men be expected to treat the other s.e.x with true consideration if they do not know that once a month for a period women ought to be saved from fatigue and strain? And yet there are many adult men in that position of ignorance.
But though the detailed facts are all clean, and really easy to be understood, the manner in which they are conveyed into our minds is of vital importance. I do not think they can be fully conveyed through any printed page. They are too delicate for such handling. They are not truly conveyed unless behind the mere words which express them there is a reverent soul that can impart the right tone and emphasis to them. I would quite gladly attempt to put them all down here could I only be a.s.sured that my words would only be read by men or women when alone and in a reverent mood. That being impossible I can only begin by insisting that they ought to be known. And this I can also do--I can a.s.sure all young people who read these pages that there is nothing whatever in the facts of the case to be afraid of--nothing that they cannot know with perfectly clean minds. There are no terrible mysteries in the matter.
There are no horrors in normal s.e.x life. The truth even about the ultimate intimacies of body between men and women is that when truly achieved they are beautiful, and holy, and happy.
But how are young people to get the right knowledge? The worst possible way in which to get it is to pick it up bit by bit in connection with evil stories, the reports of divorce cases, and the hints of vice which lurk in life"s shadowy corners. Yet that has been the most common way in the past. Quite little boys have pa.s.sed on mysterious stories from mouth to mouth defiling the whole matter. Many girls have first begun to wonder and to ask questions when they first heard of an illegitimate child. Words in the Bible, such as "lasciviousness" and so on, have started mere school children asking questions to which probably they only got distorted answers from other school children. Just because their parents did not tell them anything, they have a.s.sumed that there must be something to be ashamed of in the truth. And so ninety per cent of boys, and I know not what proportion of girls, have the subject of s.e.x spoiled for them even before adolescence. s.e.x, s.e.xual experience, pa.s.sion, and so on are things they think half unclean and yet annoyingly interesting. They are half ashamed, and yet remain curious.
Some are half afraid. Some rather more than half disgusted. Some indeed try to banish the whole subject from their minds. This may seem to be a refined thing to do; but, as we know with a new definiteness since the psychologists have explored the matter, it is really a disastrous thing to do. For to adapt ourselves to s.e.x is one of the problems that cannot be escaped. In this world we cannot live the disembodied life. What we may do is to live a clean and happy bodily life, but only if we build our house of life on knowledge.
Wherefore to all young men and women I would say--Get to know the real truth from someone you can trust. Go to some older man or woman with a clean mind and a large heart, and learn about yourself. Of course the best people in the world to go to are your own parents; but if for any reason that resource is not open to you, go to a doctor or a minister or some senior friend. It is worth while to take a lot of trouble to find the right person, and it is still more worth while to take trouble to avoid the wrong person. Find someone who has seen the hand of G.o.d in the facts of s.e.x and who can therefore talk about them without embarra.s.sment. And do not let yourself be deterred by the fact that you may have made mistakes already of which you are ashamed. Most of us made mistakes in our early years just because of the same ignorance which has been your fate. And therefore we are not shocked. We are just sorry, and would like to help. It is not true that mistakes inevitably spoil the future. Forgiveness, recovery, and new life are possibilities for us all. And if you have already made mistakes through ignorance, that is but one reason more why you should know the truth without delay. When you are told the truth you will be learning something about G.o.d as well as about yourself, for He made you.
Nor is it only for your own sake that you ought to know. If you want to achieve helpful relations to men or women, and ultimately to achieve a right relation to husband or wife, you need to know the plain facts about our incarnate life. Men and women often make the right way of life more difficult for each other by mere ignorance. You need to know if you are to be really kind.
I cannot forget that when young men and women of sensitive and refined natures come to this knowledge all at once, when already adults, it may at first create a sense of repulsion. It does not do so for those who have learnt the facts bit by bit as they were ready for them. In that case they are accepted easily and naturally. But with the others it may well be that just because they have clean and delicate minds, they may at first experience some real distaste when they come to understand the creative processes through which they were born. But to any such I would say that against that possibility they may be forearmed, if they will but believe that when love takes two people into its charge the physical consequences all come to seem natural and right and sacred.
You need never know anything of these matters at first hand except when real love for some man or woman has mastered you, and then the experiences to which that love will lead you will be found to be pure, and simple, and happy. If you approach this part of life with reluctance or in fear, or with some mistaken sense of shame, you may spoil it, and spoil somebody else"s life in addition. But if you will believe this plain witness, which thousands would unite in offering you, you may be greatly helped. Ultimately your way to success in this part of life lies in accepting your nature with its s.e.xual elements-- not in trying to be a s.e.xless person. That is not the way of purity. It is the way of folly. Therefore again I say--Do not be afraid of the facts. Those who have traveled that country report to you "There is nothing here to be afraid of--at least there used to be nothing."