Sex problems of man in health and disease

The scourge of the social evil and its baneful and disintegrating influences on the moral and physical structure of modern society has come to be recognized more and more by the public opinion as one of the most burning social problems of to-day.A new battle cry of social purity and conservation of manhood and womanhood has resounded on the battlefield of social endeavor, and a new crusade, under the banner of a young but vigorous movement of eugenics, has been started for a morally pure and physically strong young generation.

The most effective method of waging this campaign against evil forces of vice and moral contamination would be to start an aggressive movement in two different directions of social endeavor. One is the campaign of social legislation and reforms for the purpose of eradicating deeply-lying causes of economic, social, or political character, which originate and foster various manifestations and forms of the social evil, to change gradually the underground from which all evil forces are arising, and to raise the moral tone of society as a whole.

The other way is to attack the monster of social evil by reaching the individual offender and by protecting him from the pitfalls and dangers, through moral persuasion and by arming him with the necessary knowledge of sex life in health and disease.

It is agreed on all sides that the keynote of this educational movement should be a campaign of sex education and moral prophylaxis.The young generation, both boys and girls alike, should be taught from an early age the proper biological and social function of sex, and trained in an open and healthy attitude toward sex problems. The prudish and hypocritical attitude of society is universally regarded as the main cause of all-pervading diffusion of the social evil, furthered by a most flagrant ignorance on one hand and a morbid curiosity produced by this attitude on the other.

A discussion as to which weapon at our command in this propaganda should be considered most effective, and which particular of the stock arguments commonly used in the campaign for sexual morality is to be preferred, seems to the writer perfectly irrelevant and non-essential.Whether we appeal to the nobler and higher instincts of manhood, or to the reason and intelligence of the man by enlightening him on the biological function and significance of sex, or try to instill the fear of the evil consequences of sexual transgression, none of these arguments should be emphasized more than another, but all should be presented with equal force and emphasis.The degree of influence which any of these motives, single or combined, may exert on a man varies not only with the different type of man, but even in the same individual the force of these appeals will vary in different moods and under different circumstances.

One essential condition for the success and effectiveness of the propaganda of sexual hygiene and morality is a concrete, practical, and natural presentation of the subject, without abstract theorizing or ill-disguised sermonizing, which bores and rather repels an unsophisticated and untrained in intellectual reasoning average street man or boy—the real would-be beneficiaries of this crusade.

It is the writer’s firm conviction, based on many years of genito-urinary practice and mingling with men and boys of different classes, that each one of them is only too eager for sex knowledge; but this knowledge has to be presented in a concrete, matter-of-fact fashion, comprising and explaining various problems and facts of sexual life in health and disease as they arise daily in the life of the average man or boy.In this way, and in this way only, in the writer’s opinion, a man of the masses can be reached.