This protection of the man from the woman by the state overturns the nature of conditions. It appears as if men were the weaker, and women the stronger sex, as if women were the seducer, and poor, weak man the seduced. The myth of temptation of Adam and Eve in Paradise continues to influence our conceptions and laws and sustains the Christian assumption, that “woman is the great seducer, the source of sin.” Men ought to be ashamed of the pitiable and unworthy part they are playing, but it is pleasing to them to be regarded as “weak” and as “victims of seduction” for ~the more they are protected the more they may sin~. Wherever men come together in great numbers, they do not seem to be able to enjoy themselves without prostitution. That was seen among other instances by the occurrences at the rifle match in Berlin during the summer of 1890. These occurrences caused 2,300 women to sign a petition to the mayor of the German capital, which read as follows: “We beg your honor to permit our quoting what has been reported in regard to this festival by the press and other sources. These reports, which we read with the greatest indignation and disgust, among other things thus described the entertainments provided at the festival: ‘First, German Herold, greatest Café Chantant of the world’; hundred ladies and forty gentlemen; besides small variety shows and rifle ranges from which exceedingly obtrusive women molested the men; furthermore free concerts, where lightly garbed waitresses boldly and unrestrained, with seductive smiles forced their attentions alike on men and youths, on college boys and fathers of families. But the ‘lady’ who was almost nude and who invited them to visit the booths ‘The Secrets of Hamburg, or a Night in St. Pauli,’ might at least have been removed by the police. But the worst, something that plain men and women from the provinces can hardly accredit to the far-famed capital of the empire, was the fact that the committee on arrangements had permitted, that instead of waiters, young women in great numbers were engaged as waitresses and bar-maids without pay. We German women, as mothers, wives and sisters, frequently have occasion to send our brothers, husbands, sons and daughters to Berlin in service of the fatherland, and so we beg your honor, trusting to your influence as chief executive of the national capital to investigate these occurrences and to prevent a repetition of these orgies, especially at the forthcoming celebration of the victory at Sedan.” During all large festivals, including the national ones, when men come together in great numbers, similar scenes occur.[91]