The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization: Translated from the Sixth German EditionBloch, Iwan
Philosophy
The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization: Translated from the Sixth German Edition
Bloch, Iwan
Sex; Sexual ethics
“2. Such a _menage à trois_ would give rise to brawls and jealousy.
Answer: Such things are already universal; people must learn to behave
themselves.
“3. What is to be done as regards property? Answer: This will have to
be otherwise arranged; absolute _communio bonorum_ will not occur. As
we have already said, Nature has arranged the affair badly. It will,
therefore, be impossible to overcome all disadvantages.
“As matters are at present, Duty and Nature are continually in
conflict. For the man it is impossible from the beginning to the end
of his career to satisfy his sexual impulse in a legal manner. Imagine
his condition if he is widowed quite young. For the woman, to be
limited to a =single= man during the short period of her full bloom
and sexual capacity, is an unnatural condition. She has to preserve
for the use of one individual what he is unable to utilize, and what
many others eagerly desire from her; and she herself, in thus
refusing, must curb her own desires. Just think of it!
“More especially we have to remember that always the number of men
competent for sexual intercourse is double the number of functionally
capable women, for which reason every woman must continually repel
advances; she prepares for defence immediately a man comes near her.”
When we consider this suggestion of tetragamy of Schopenhauer’s from our
own standpoint, we find an accurate exposition of the evils arising from
monogamic coercive marriage, and a clear-sighted presentation of the
physiological disharmonies of the sexual life arising from the
difference between man and woman, upon which recently Metchnikoff also
has laid so much stress. In other respects Schopenhauer’s views are for
us not open to discussion, for, as already pointed out, he regards woman
from the first simply as a chattel, and denies to her any individuality
or soul; and, secondly, because he rejects the principle of the
=only-love=--a principle so intimately associated with the idea of woman
as individual. For the watchword of the future must be: Free love, based
upon the only-love! and, indeed, the only-love manifesting itself
reciprocally in the full struggle for existence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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