Sex-education: A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its relation to human lifeBigelow, Maurice A. (Maurice Alpheus)
Science
Sex-education: A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its relation to human life
Bigelow, Maurice A. (Maurice Alpheus)
Sex instruction
remember that the great majority of physicians and other scientific
investigators who have studied such problems refuse to believe that
repressed sex instincts in either men or women do the harm that a few
extremists have claimed. But even if it were known beyond the shadow of
a doubt that repressed sex instincts may injure people, it would be
unwise to intrust young people to instruction by teachers who have a
hypochondriacal interest in such a doctrine of repression. Such
suggestions can do only harm to the vast majority of persons who
receive them. To say the least, it is unfortunate that the
psychopathology of sex has become so widely circulated among those who
are not well trained in physiology and psychiatry.
[Sidenote: Teachers who emphasize sexual abnormality.]
The third kind of people who should not be intrusted with teaching
sex-hygiene are the men and women who, without a scientific
perspective, have plunged into the literature of sexual abnormality
until they have come to think that knowledge concerning perverted life
is an important part of sex-education for young people, especially for
those of post-adolescent years. I know of teachers and physicians who
advise young people not much over twenty years of age to read such
psychopathological works as those of Krafft-Ebing, Ellis, and Freud,
and various works dealing with commercialized vice. Here is a grave
danger. The less that people without professional use for knowledge of
sexual pathology know concerning it, the better it will be for their
peace of mind and possibly for their morals. Therefore, I urge that he
who enthusiastically studies the abnormalities of sex life without
reference to scientific research or professional demands, is not likely
to be the kind of teacher who will present abnormal life only so far as
is necessary to an understanding of the perfectly normal.
[Sidenote: Pessimistic teachers.]
The fourth kind of people who ought not to instruct the young in
personal problems of sex-hygiene are the men and women whose own
unhappy romances or married life, or whose knowledge of vice
conditions, have made them pessimistic concerning sex-problems. There
are in our schools and colleges to-day some such men and many such
women, and there will be danger for young people when the growing
freedom of expression allows these sexual pessimists to impress their
own hopeless philosophy of sex upon students. The educational world
does not need such teachers, but rather those who can follow the late
Dr. Morrow in seeing a bright side of life that almost dispels the
darkness of sexual errors.
[Sidenote: Teachers not respected by pupils.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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