Little Blue Book No. =1089= Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius The Common Sense of Sex James Oppenheim HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY GIRARD, KANSAS Copyright, 1926 Haldeman-Julius Company PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE COMMON SENSE OF SEX Perhaps one of the hardest lessons this generation has had to learn is that sex is a natural thing. Christianity has had to admit, of course, that sexuality is necessary if the race is to go on, yet it has always frowned upon it. The holy people didn’t marry; the best people became priests, monks or nuns. And so deep has this puritanism gone that even a modern like Bernard Shaw has said that he was shocked at the conduct of married people--so many of them indulged in love for mere pleasure! A wave of revolt has been sweeping over the western world. We have had poets like Walt Whitman who have celebrated sex as a clean, strong thing; writers like Havelock Ellis who have gathered together a mine of information on the subject; and finally, we have had the great psychologist, Freud, who has made a scientific study of sex and given us a flood of new light on its mysteries. In spite of this new knowledge, however, most people are apparently still in ignorance. The subject is hedged around with fears and taboos. Shame attaches to many phases of it. There are men and women of strong desires who think they are living in sin; and, on the other hand, those without desire who think they are unnatural. It is time for this dark cloud to roll away; and this booklet is simply one more attempt to place the matter not only in the light of science, but also in the light of common sense. ABNORMAL SEXUALITY According to Freud, sexuality begins as something vague, distributed all over the child’s body, and gradually concentrating in the sexual organs. The first vague sexual act is suckling. The child not only experiences the pleasure of food, but also of an act that has rhythm in it, the rhythm of the mouth working with the nipple. It soon discovers that it can produce this rhythm by itself. It works its thumb into its mouth and sucks it. Here begins a pleasure, separated from the food-pleasure, which is dependent on rhythm, and includes the mouth and hand. The hand, having learned this trick, now begins to rub various parts of the body in a rhythmical manner. In a vague sort of way auto-erotism sets in. Along with this comes a growing interest in its own body, and a love of displaying it; the stage of exhibitionism. And naturally this leads to curiosity about other bodies, especially bodies like its own.