Sex and Common-SenseRoyden, A. Maude (Agnes Maude)
Philosophy
Sex and Common-Sense
Royden, A. Maude (Agnes Maude)
Marriage; Sex; Sexual ethics
In what way do they differ? The male, I think, is more liable to sudden
gusts of passion, of violence so great as to be almost uncontrollable--at
least so nearly so as to make it both cruel and stupid to arouse them. A
woman's nature is not (generally) so quickly stirred. She takes longer to
move (hence the universal fact of courtship). Or rather it might be more
accurate to say that he and she may both start at the same time from the
same point, but she takes longer to reach the end, and because this is so,
is more capable of stopping before the end is reached. This she does not
understand, and expects that if _she_ can pause, so can _he_; while he also
misunderstands, and does not know that there is for her, just as much as
for him, a moment when self-control becomes impossible.
I have said so much about the lack of chivalry shown by women to men that
it is only reasonable to point out that the reverse is true, and that men
are often extraordinarily unchivalrous towards women. The cause is, of
course, the same: they do not realize what a strain they are putting on
them. There is still a very general assumption, even by those who really
know better, that women have no passions and are untempted from within. I
have often been assured by "men of the world" that "a woman can always stop
a man if she wants to." No doubt she can--some men. She can "stop them if
she wants to." The trouble is that a time comes when she cannot want to.
The bland assumption that a man has a perfect right to play on a woman's
sex-instincts till they are beyond control, and then call her the
guilty one because they _are_ beyond control, is based on the age-old
determination not to recognize the full humanity of women. They are
"different" from men. So they are. I have admitted it. But the likeness
is much greater than the difference. And neither the likeness nor the
difference makes self-control an easy thing for her. It is easier up to
a certain point, because she is more slowly moved; it is harder when that
point is reached because her whole nature is involved. She has never
learnt to say that she can give her body to one while remaining spiritually
faithful to another, and perhaps she never will learn. I at least suspect
so. She may be as fickle as a man, but it will be in a different way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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