Sane s.e.x Life and Sane s.e.x Living.

by H.W. Long.

INTRODUCTION

As we have moved down the ages, now and then, from the religious teacher, the statesman, the inventor, the social worker, or from the doctor, surgeon, or s.e.xologist, there has been a "_vox clamantis in deserto_." Usually these voices have fallen on unheeding ears; but again and again some delver in books, some student of men, some inspired, self-effacing, or altruistic one has taken up the cry; and at last unthinking, unheeding, superficial, self-satisfied humanity has turned to listen.

Aristotle by the sure inductive method learned and taught much, concerning the s.e.x relations of men and women, that it would profit us today to heed. Balzac, Luther, Michelet, Spencer, and later, at our very doors, Krafft-Ebbing, Forel, Bloch, Ellis, Freud, Hall, and scores of others have added their voices. All these have seen whither we were drifting, and have made vigorous protests according to their lights. Many of these protests should have been heard, but were not, and only now are just beginning to be heeded. Such pioneers in the field of proper, healthful, ethical, religious, sane daily s.e.x living, have been Sturgis and Malchow, who talked earnestly to an unheeding profession of these things, and now, I have the honor to write an introductory word to a book in this field, that is sane, wise, practical, entirely truthful, and unspeakably necessary.

I can endorse the teachings in Dr. Long's book more fully because I have, for nearly a quarter of a century, been holding similar views, and dispensing similar, though perhaps less explicit, information.

I know from long observation that the teaching is wholesome and necessary, and that the results are universally uplifting. Such teachings improve health, prolong life, and promote virtue, adding to the happiness and lessening the burdens of men, on the one hand; on the other, reducing their crimes and vices. A book like this would have proved invaluable to me on my entrance to the married state; but had I had it, I might not have been forced to acquire the knowledge which enables me now to state with all solemnity, that I personally know hundreds of couples whose lives were wrecked for lack of such knowledge, and that I more intimately know hundreds of others to whom verbal teaching along the lines he has laid down, has brought happiness, health and goodness.

Dr. Long advances no theories; neither do I. He has found by studying himself and other people, a sane and salutary way of s.e.x living, and fearlessly has prescribed this to a limited circle for a long time. I congratulate him for his perspicacity, temerity, and wisdom. He offers no apology, and there is no occasion for any. He says, "All has been set down in love, by a lover, for the sake of lovers yet to be, in the hope of helping them on toward a divine consummation." That is, he has developed these ideas at home, and then spread them abroad, or, he has found them abroad and brought them home; and they worked.

I also speak somewhat _ex experientia_ and have some intimate personal knowledge of many of these things. Therefore, I advocate his doctrine, the more readily, and maintain that humanity needs these ideas as much today as when M. Jules Lemaitre wrote his late introduction to Michelet's _L'Amour_. He said: "_Il ne parait pas, apres quarante ans pa.s.ses, que les choses aillent mieux, ni que le livre de Michelet ait rien perdu de son a-propos_." Twenty years more have elapsed and things have not yet become much better. Frank s.e.x talks like Dr.

Long's teaching are as a-propos today as was Michelet's book when it was written, or when, after forty years had pa.s.sed M. Lemaitre wrote his introduction.

Idealism is right, and we all approve it; so much so, that many of us cannot see that ultra-idealism, extremism in right, (it is foolish to attempt to attain anything better than the best) may be wrong.

Undoubtedly, entire devotion to the material and physical, is also wrong; but we never must lose sight of the palpable fact that, unless we have a proper, stable, natural, well-regulated physical or material foundation, we must fall short of all ideals. Proper physical adjustments enable the realization of realizable ideals. Unrealizable ideals are chimeras pursued into futurity, while a world that should be human and happy waits in vice and misery. I gather that Dr. Long believes that reducing this vice and misery, and increasing human happiness and improving health are suitable works with which to companion a faith in the Arbiter of our destinies.

If thus he develops his idea of the integrity of the universe, I agree with him fully. His book, since it delineates the numerous details of a normal s.e.x life, can be sold, thanks to our prudish public, only to the profession. I believe it should go to the larger public as it has gone formerly to his smaller community.

In spite of imperfect ideals the Orient has endured, while we of the Occident are fast becoming decadent. We, by learning something of the art of love, and of the natural life of married people, from the Hindoos, may perpetuate our civilization. They, by adopting the best of our transcendentalism, may reach higher development than we yet have attained.

The time has come for a book like this to command the attention of medical men, since now an awakened public demands from them, as the conservers of life and the directors of physiological living, explicit directions in everything pertaining to the physician's calling, not omitting the intimate, intricate, long taboo and disdained details of s.e.x life and procreation.

W.F. ROBIE, M.D.

FOREWORD

_To Members of the Medical Profession into Whose Hands This Book May Come_:

The following pages are more in the nature of a ma.n.u.script, or heart-to-heart talk between those who have mutual confidence in each other, than of a technical, or strictly scientific treatise of the subject in hand; and I cannot do better, for all parties concerned, than to explain, just here in the beginning, how this came about, and why I have concluded to leave the copy practically as it was originally written.

In common with nearly all members of our profession who are engaged in the general practice of medicine, I have had numbers of married men and women, husbands and wives, patients and otherwise, who have come to me for counsel and advice regarding matters which pertain to their s.e.x-life, as that problem presented itself to them personally. As we all know, many of the most serious and complicated cases we have to deal with have their origins in these delicate relations which so often exist among wedded people, of all cla.s.ses and varieties.

For a number of years I did what I could for these patrons of mine, by way of confidential talks and the like, my experience in this regard probably being about on a par with that of my medical brethren who are engaged in the same kind of work. It is needless to say that I found, as you have doubtless found under the same conditions, many obstacles to prevent satisfactory results, by this method of procedure. My patients were often so reticent, or timid and shame-faced, that it was frequently difficult to get at the real facts in their cases, and, as we all know, many of these would, for these and other reasons, conceal more than they revealed, thereby keeping out of evidence the most vital and significant items in their individual cases. All these things, of course, tended to make bad matters worse, or resulted in nothing that was really worth while.

After some years of this sort of experience, and meditating much on the situation, I came to the conclusion that a very large percentage of all this trouble which I and my patrons had to go up against, was almost entirely the result of ignorance on the part of those who came to consult me; and because knowledge is always the antidote for not knowing, I came to the conclusion that, if it were possible to "put these people wise" where they were now so uninformed, I might at once save them from a deal of harm and myself from much trouble and annoyance.

Further than this, I remembered once hearing a wise man say that often "what cannot be said may be sung"; and I realized that it is equally true that much which would be awkward, or embarra.s.sing, if said to a person, face to face, might be got to them in writing with impunity.

This I found to be especially true of my women patients, some of whom might become suspicious of a wrong intent from the things said in a private conversation, when they would have no such fears or doubts if they read the same words from a printed page. It was these considerations which first suggested to me the writing of the following pages.

Still other reasons why I did as I did were as follows: You see, at once, if you stop to think about it, that the writing out of the knowledge I proposed to impart was really a matter of necessity for me, because of the _saving of time_ which would thereby be secured. To get any results that would be worth while in these matters, I would be required to tell about ever so many things concerning which they were totally ignorant; and to tell about ever so many things, by word of mouth, to each individual patient, _takes time_--ever so much time, if the work is well done, and it had better not be done at all if it is not well done. So I really was forced to write out what I wanted to teach these patients of mine.

And let me say further that I was compelled to write these things out for my people as I have written them, because, in all the range of literature on this vital subject, I knew of nothing which would tell them just what it seemed to me they ought to be told, and what they ought to know.

And so it was that I wrote the ma.n.u.script which is now printed in the following pages. I did not write it at first just as it now stands, because experience showed me, from time to time, where my first efforts could be modified and improved. So what is here presented is the result of many practical demonstrations of the real working value of what the ma.n.u.script contains.

My method of using the copy has been something as follows: As I have already suggested, what I have written has been prepared for the sole and express purpose of helping husbands and wives to live sane and wholesome s.e.x-lives--to give them the requisite knowledge for so doing; knowledge of themselves and of each other as s.e.xual beings; the correct ideas regarding such right manner of living; to disabuse their minds of wrong s.e.x-teaching, or no teaching at all, of ignorance, or prudery, or carelessness, or l.u.s.t--in a word, to get to them the things that all sane married people ought to know, and to help them to practice these things, to the best of their several abilities.

(Perhaps I ought to say that there is not a line of what I have written that deals with the subject of venereal diseases, any of them. This field is already so well covered by a literature especially devoted to this subject that it needs no word of mine to make it as satisfactory as possible, as far as discoveries regarding the same have progressed. My attempt is toward making marriage more of a success than it now is, under existing conditions; and we all know that there is a limitless field for exploration and exploitation right there.)

Speaking somewhat generally, I have found what I have written to be of special value to two cla.s.ses of my patrons: First, to the "newly-weds"; and, second, to those who have been married for a longer or shorter period, and who "have not got on well together." A word or two regarding each of these:

It is a wise old saying that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," and in no other experience of life is this so true as in the ills to which married people are peculiarly subject. Many a newly wedded couple have wrecked the possibilities of happiness of a life time on their "honeymoon trip"; and it is a matter of common knowledge to the members of our profession that the great majority of brides are practically raped on their entrance into the married relation. Further than this, we all know that these things are as they are chiefly because of the ignorance of the parties concerned, rather than because they deliberately meant to do wrong. They were left to travel, alone and unguided, over what was to them an unknown way, one that was beset with pitfalls and precipices, and where dangers lurked in every forward step they took. It is to these that I have found what I have written to be a great help at the time of their utmost need; and the thanks I have received from such parties have been beyond the power of words to express.

As to just when it is best to put this information into the hands of young married people, my experience has varied with the personality of the parties concerned. In some cases I have put the copy into their hands some time before their marriage; in others, not till some time thereafter; but, as a rule, I have got the best results by putting the ma.n.u.script into their hands just at the time of their marriage, and in most of these cases the greatest success has come from their reading it together during their honeymoon. However, this is a matter on which I do not care to advise, and regarding which each pract.i.tioner must act to the best of his own judgment.

Once more: Because it is not safe to a.s.sume that young married people are already possessed of the _details_ of the essential knowledge which they ought to possess, and because such _details_ are the _very heart_ of the whole matter, I have made these details as simple and explicit as possible, more so than might seem necessary to the professional reader. But my experience has proven that I was wise in this regard, as these very details have saved the day in more than one case, as the parties who have reported to me, after having read what I have written, have frequently testified. Sometimes a bride and groom would keep the copy for a few days only, giving it but a single reading; but, as a rule, they have been anxious to retain it for some time, and to read it again and again, especially some parts of it, till they were well posted on all that it contains. I found, too, that those who had received help from the reading of the ma.n.u.script were glad to tell others of their friends of the benefits they had received, and that thus there was a constantly widening circle.

Of course, not all young married people are capable of reading this book with profit to themselves or anyone else; but many of them are, and these ought to have the privilege of doing so. Your own good sense and experience will determine who these latter are, and these you can favor as they deserve. It is because of this situation that this book can only be used professionally that it needs the guiding hand of an expert physician to insure its reaching only those who can be benefited by its reading.

As to the other cla.s.s of readers, those who have not got on well in the marriage relation (and we all know that the name of these is legion) my experience in getting to them what I have written has been quite varied; but, on the whole, the results have been good--many times they have been most excellent. Of course, it is harder to correct errors than to prevent them; but as most of the errors I have had to deal with among this cla.s.s of patients have been made through ignorance rather than otherwise, I have found that the establishment of knowledge in the premises has generally brought relief where before was only suffering and woe.

Another way in which I have found the copy to be of the greatest value with these cases of unsatisfactory marital relations is the fact that, often, by the parties _reading the copy together_ they have come to a mutual understanding by so doing, and have established a _modus vivendi_ which could not have been attained in any other way. When such parties see their doctor singly, either of them, a prejudiced view is very apt to result, and they would seldom, if ever, come together to consult a physician regarding their troubles. But the _reading of the book together_ makes a condition of affairs which is very apt to work out for the best interests of all parties concerned.

Certainly, this is true, that in no case has the reading of the book made bad matters worse, and in many cases, (indeed in nearly all of them) it has been of untold value and benefit to the readers.

And because these things are so, because what I have written has proved its worth in so many cases, I have finally concluded to give the copy a larger field in which it may be used by other members of the profession besides myself. I confide it to my fellow-members in the profession feeling sure that they will use it among their patients with wisdom and discretion; and my hope is that their so doing may yield for them and theirs the most excellent results which have come to me and mine, on these lines, in the years that have gone by.

Perhaps I ought to say that the somewhat unique typography of the book, the large percentage of italics, and not a few capitalized words that appear in the pages, comes from a duplication of the copy I have used with my patients. I wrote the original copy in this way for the sake of giving special emphasis to special points for my readers, and the results attained I believe were very largely due to the typographically emphatic form of the book. Appearing in type in this way, it gives a sort of personal touch to what is thus presented to the eye of the reader, and the tendency of this is to establish a heart-to-heart relation between the author and the reader which could not be attained in any other way.

All through the copy I have avoided the use of technical words, never using such a term without explaining its meaning in plain English in the words that immediately follow it. I found this an absolute necessity in writing so that the lay reader could understand, in saying things that would produce results.

I might say, also, that the "Introduction" to the real subject matter of the book, I found necessary to write as it is largely to get my readers into a proper _mental att.i.tude_ for a reasonable recognition and understanding of what follows it. There are so many wrong teachings and biased ideas in the premises that these had to be counteracted or removed, to a degree, at least, before the rest of the copy could be rightly read. My experience is, that the preface, as it stands, has been the means of putting the readers of the book into a right mental att.i.tude for its successful study and consideration. For the good of the cause it is written to serve, and for help to those who need help in the most sacred and significant affairs of their lives, may the book go on its way, if not rejoicing in itself, yet causing rejoicing in the lives and hearts of all who read what its pages contain.

H.W.L.

SANE s.e.x LIFE AND SANE s.e.x LIVING

I

AN EXPLANATORY INTRODUCTION

A pious Christian once said to me: "I find it hard to reconcile s.e.x with the purity of Providence." He never could understand why G.o.d arranged for s.e.x anyway. Why something else might not have been done.

Why children might not have come in some other fashion.