This is a question not to be played with. Experimenting in love is costly, and millions have wrecked their lives by it. The sex urge in us is imperious and cruel; it wants nothing less than the whole of us, body, mind and spirit, and ofttimes it behaves like the genii in the bottle--it gets out, and not all the powers in the universe can get it back. I have talked with many men about sex and heard them say that it presents itself to them as an unmitigated torment, something they would give everything they own to be free of. And these, mind you, not men living in monasteries, trying to repress their natural impulses, but men of the world, who have lived freely, seeking pleasure and taking it as it came. The primrose path of dalliance did not lead them to peace, and the pursuit of variety in love brought them only monotony. I stop and think of one after another of these sex-ridden people, and I cannot think of one whom I would envy. I know one who in a frenzy of unhappiness seized a razor and castrated himself. I think of another, a certain classmate in college whom I once stopped in a conversation, remarking: "Did you ever realize what a state you have got your mind into? Everything means sex to you. Every phrase you hear, every idea that is suggested--you try to make some sort of pun, to connect it somehow or other with sex." The man thought and said, "I guess that's true." The idea had never occurred to him before; he had just gone on letting his instincts have their way with him, without ever putting his reason upon the matter. That was a crude kind of sex; but I think of another man, an idealist and champion of human liberty. One of the forms of liberty he maintained was the right to love as many women as he pleased, and although he was a married man, one hardly ever saw him that he was not courting some young girl. As a result, his mental powers declined, and he did little but talk about ideas. I do not know anyone today who respects him--except a few people who live the same sort of life. The thought of him brings to my mind a sentence of Nietzsche--a man who surely stood for freedom of personality: "I pity the lovers who have nothing higher than their love."