Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2: Sexual InversionEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2: Sexual Inversion
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
"I submit that these three classes should receive quite different
treatment. Expulsion may occasionally be necessary for class (a),
but the few who belong to this class are usually too cunning to
get caught. It used to be notorious at school that it was almost
always the wrong people who got dropped on. I do not think a boy
in the other two classes should ever be expelled, and even when
expulsion is unavoidable, it should, if possible, be deferred
till the end of the term, so as to make it indistinguishable from
an ordinary departure. After all, there is no reason to ruin a
boy's prospects because he is a little beast at sixteen; there
are very few hopeless incorrigibles at that age.
"As regards the other two classes, I should begin by giving boys
very much fuller enlightenment on sexual subjects than is usually
done, before they go to a public school at all. Either a boy is
pitchforked into the place in utter innocence and ignorance, and
yields to temptations to do things which he vaguely, if at all,
realizes are wrong, and that only because a puzzling sort of
instinct tells him so; or else he is given just enough
information to whet his curiosity, usually in the shape of
warnings against certain apparently harmless bodily acts, which
he not unnaturally tries out of curiosity, and finds them very
pleasant. It may be undesirable that a boy should have full
knowledge, at the time he goes to school, but it is more
undesirable that he should go with a burning curiosity, or a
total ignorance on the subject. I am convinced that much might
be done in the way of prevention if boys were told more, and
allowed to be _open_. Much of the pleasure of sexual talk among
boys I believe to be due to the spurious interest aroused by the
fact that it is forbidden fruit, and involves risk if caught. It
seems to me that frankness is far more moral than suggestion. I
would not 'expurgate' school editions of great authors; the frank
obscenity of parts of Shakespeare is far less immoral than the
prurient prudishness which declines to print it, but numbers the
lines in such a way that the boy can go home and look up the
omitted passage in a complete edition, with a distinct sense of
guilt, which is where the harm comes in."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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