Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to SocietyEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to Society
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
Mrs. Ennis Richmond's books, largely addressed to mothers, deal
with these questions in a very sane, direct, and admirable
manner, and Canon Lyttelton's books, discussing such questions
generally, are also excellent. Most of the books now to be
mentioned are intended to be read by boys and girls who have
reached the age of puberty. They refer more or less precisely to
sexual relationships, and they usually touch on masturbation.
_The Story of Life_, written by a very accomplished woman, the
late Ellice Hopkins, is somewhat vague, and introduces too many
exalted religious ideas. Arthur Trewby's _Healthy Boyhood_ is a
little book of wholesome tendency; it deals specially with
masturbation. _A Talk with Boys About Themselves_ and _A Talk
with Girls About Themselves_, both by Edward Bruce Kirk (the
latter book written in conjunction with a lady) deal with general
as well as sexual hygiene. There could be no better book to put
into the hands of a boy or girl at puberty than M.A. Warren's
_Almost Fourteen_, written by an American school teacher in 1892.
It was a most charming and delicately written book, which could
not have offended the innocence of the most sensitive maiden.
Nothing, however, is sacred to prurience, and it was easy for the
prurient to capture the law and obtain (in 1897) legal
condemnation of this book as "obscene." Anything which sexually
excites a prurient mind is, it is true, "obscene" for that mind,
for, as Mr. Theodore Schroeder remarks, obscenity is "the
contribution of the reading mind," but we need such books as this
in order to diminish the number of prurient minds, and the
condemnation of so entirely admirable a book makes, not for
morality, but for immorality. I am told that the book was
subsequently issued anew with most of its best portions omitted,
and it is stated by Schroeder (_Liberty of Speech and Press
Essential to Purity Propaganda_, p. 34) that the author was
compelled to resign his position as a public school principal.
Maria Lischnewska's _Geschlechtliche Belehrung der Kinder_
(reprinted from _Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 4 and 5) is a most
admirable and thorough discussion of the whole question of sexual
education, though the writer is more interested in the teacher's
share in this question than in the mother's. Suggestions to
mothers are contained in Hugo Salus, _Wo kommen die Kinder her?_,
E. Stiehl, _Eine Mutterpflicht_, and many other books. Dr. Alfred
Kind strongly recommends Ludwig Gurlitt's _Der Verkehr mit meinem
Kindern_, more especially in its combination of sexual education
with artistic education. Many similar books are referred to by
Bloch, in his _Sexual Life of Our Time_, Ch. xxvi.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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