§ 8. Hygiene (*Hygiène Sexuelle*)

41. By the various teachings which, prudently collected chiefly but not exclusively with respect to health, we report in this place, we intend in the first place to cut away or refute several errors harmful to morals, and to provide for the moral order by observing it. We hope besides that we shall furnish more than one priest with an abundance of useful counsel.

The conjugal act, when not too frequent and practiced by healthy persons, benefits health more than it harms it. Those, however, whose nerves are badly affected either by illness or by intemperance can suffer harm from it, sometimes grave harm ¹. For love, that is, sexual ardor, has been called a brief epilepsy.

¹ Ellis, in Moll, p. 181. Compare especially Féré, p. 319.

Anthropologists say that it matters greatly for the happiness of life together that the husband begin to approach his wife not fiercely but rather gently, as befits a man, and thereafter use his right discreetly ².

² Moll, pp. 446-447.

The wife, in turn, so that she may please her husband, should be rather yielding and ready in rendering the debt.

But how often, after the fervor of the first weeks, is it expedient for spouses to exercise the conjugal act? Luther established the celebrated rule for men of more vigorous age that intercourse should regularly be had twice or three times in a week. Vigorous age, moreover, is said to flourish between 25 and 40 years. Many physicians still approve Luther's norm.

Others, however, more prudently deny that a general rule can be handed down, and say that one's own experience and one's varying strength must be consulted. Artificial excitations are to be avoided; rather, spontaneous desire is to be obeyed ("to drink according to one's thirst"). But he who from the use of marriage has for a sufficiently long time felt himself weaker and of disturbed health is by that very fact invited to greater moderation ³.

³ Compare Féré, chapter 10.

Physicians and anthropologists are to be read cautiously on these matters. Often ignorant of and unconcerned with principles, deceived by incomplete experience or induction, they sometimes give enormously depraved precepts or counsels with serene countenance, which more accurate observation is later compelled to refute even under a merely scientific aspect. But let us trust more in provident God, so that we may be persuaded that infinite wisdom lies hidden in the natural order, in such a manner that the holy observance of this order must be held of itself most salutary not only for the souls of individuals but also for their bodies, and besides for the family and society.

Thus, while there are some who say it is desirable that a man abstain from his wife when she is pregnant and even when she is nursing ⁴, others think that a moderate use of marriage during the same time is in no way harmful, and indeed is commendable, for healthy persons. "A gentle embrace, from time to time (during pregnancy), will restore calm and gaiety to her (the wife), by proving to her that she is not disdained. It is good to add that gestation, because of the state of irritation in which the genital apparatus finds itself, is not without sometimes provoking erotic desires which it is very legitimate to satisfy.... A man has no greater reason to distance himself from his wife during lactation. Nature so little commands it that she gives a new radiance, a fullness of form, and an increase of freshness to the woman intelligent enough to have the coquetry to nurse.... It is wrongly believed that the excitement produced by sexual union is sufficient to give milk qualities harmful to the child. On the contrary, it is the complete prohibition of venereal pleasure which often has the effect of diminishing the quantity of milk ⁵."

⁴ Indeed, Gemelli, Non moechaberis, p. 65, appears to demand this. Yet that position affords little support to the right use of marriage and to monogamy itself.

⁵ Dr. Bourgas, Le droit à l'amour pour la femme, Paris, n.d.

Finally, this is to be observed: just as the affection of love itself impels one toward the intimate union of copulation, so in turn the use of marriage strengthens and increases the affection of love. Copulation therefore fulfills a threefold office: multiplying human beings, remedying incontinence, and fostering the mutual love of the spouses.

42. That a chaste and continent life of itself harms health in no way is attested by so many who have the greatest name among physicians and physiologists that the few who think otherwise can be disregarded; those, however, who condemn continence in the name of bodily health or give immoral counsel, as happens far too often, must be reproved from true science itself.

It is enough for us to cite two most expert writers whom no religious scruple could have led to less sincerity. They not only state what they think but also report the opinions of learned men: Féré, L'Instinct sexuel, p. 25 ff. and especially p. 315 ff.; and Moll, Handbuch der Sexualwissenschaften, p. 887 ff.

The latter, even in the rarer cases in which, because of the nervous condition of persons, he judges continence to be accidentally harmful, cannot approve a physician who therefore advises an illicit use of venery. For besides the moral consideration, which he admits cannot be neglected in this matter, he affirms that greater harms are to be feared from illicit intercourse. "It can indeed happen that a physician does not too hastily dissuade one from seeking forbidden pleasure and refrains from an untimely admonition; yet such cases are so rare that they cannot establish a rule."

The former, moreover, writes: "In the discussion which took place at the Medical Society of Lyon concerning the book of Dufieux, which made the defense of religious celibacy, his opponents found nothing to object to the denial of the maladies attributed to continence.

"Mantegazza, who is not distinguished among the apostles of continence, nevertheless recognizes no inconvenience in it. Physiologists, on the contrary, have found advantages in it.... Continence realizes a reserve of forces.... It is generally favorable to psychic activity as well as to physical activity.

"Somatic continence can be harmful only if it coincides with psychic excitation. Impotence is not the product of abstinence, but very often of abuse.... It is not necessary to rely upon religions in order to bring to light the moral merits of chastity in general, and, in particular, of chastity outside marriage. It is enough for us to take utilitarian morality exclusively into consideration.... From this point of view one can affirm without hesitation that the lack of chastity is immoral" (p. 116 ff.).

Forel himself (p. 251) has this: "The man who, for one reason or another, cannot procure normal coitus for himself ought to content himself with nocturnal pollutions, and the woman with voluptuous dreams, both abstaining from active and voluntary excitations." Dr. Löwenfeld ⁶ concludes the argument thus: "A normal man who has not diminished his power of resisting libido by sexual abuse, and who leads a sufficiently active and hygienic life, can persevere in abstinence without notable distress; moreover, the more consistently he cultivates it in all circumstances, the more easily he will preserve continence of itself." Finally, he altogether rebukes physicians who, when the opportunity for a useful marriage is lacking, advise fornication with a prostitute in order to prevent or avert the harms of continence. "This cannot suffice for a young man: it will excite libido, far from being able to calm it."

⁶ Sexualleben und Nervenleiden, p. 54.

At another International Conference for the Prophylaxis of Syphilis and Venereal Diseases, Brussels, 1902, physicians of great name approved this conclusion by unanimous vote: "Above all, the male youth must be taught that not only are chastity and continence not harmful, but also that these virtues are among the most commendable from a medical point of view."

Nor is the reason obscure. Spontaneous emissions during sleep sufficiently prevent a chaste man from having organs excessively filled with semen; and experience in turn testifies that it is, as it were, proper to the sexual organs that they preserve their power without use. "From puberty to old age, the testicles continue to secrete sperm without stimulation and no more lose their function than does the ovary, from puberty to menopause, or the uterus, or the breasts, which can remain at rest for long years without losing the faculty of responding to the call. Those who are capable of psychic chastity can preserve continence without having anything to fear for their testicles and their fecundity; and neither do they have anything to fear for their health, which does not depend upon the satisfaction of the sexual instinct. And feeling runs no more risk than do the organs; love never dies of need, it often dies of indigestion.... Beale, professor at the Royal College of London, says that it cannot be repeated too often that abstinence and the most absolute purity are perfectly compatible with physiological and moral laws ⁷."

⁷ Féré, p. 25 ff.

In the female sex alone, concerning which this question is much less accustomed to be raised, a prolonged rest of the uterus can bring this inconvenience, that internal tumors, fibromyomas, are produced more frequently.

Although an honorable life is to be commended to all, the counsel of perfect continence nevertheless is not positively to be given to all. In this matter it must be well noted that, in order to advise marriage to some, psychological or moral powers and tendencies must be considered more than strictly physical ones. Nor is marriage itself to be rashly counseled to the vicious.

43. - 1. In marriages of blood relatives there is this force, that peculiar traits (les caractères propres, "proper characteristics") are confirmed more and more in the offspring. Accordingly, insofar as an entirely healthy family or a family infected with certain defects is in question, such marriages, under this aspect, will have to be held harmless or harmful.

Certainly, if for several generations marriages were celebrated only among blood relatives, the danger of degenerate offspring could not be denied; but foreign elements are assumed sufficiently and more than sufficiently that this inconvenience need not be feared (Bushan, in Moll, pp. 908-915; Forel, pp. 179-180).

2. They say it is desirable that spouses not be separated by an excessive difference. Hence marriages between persons of the same skin and color are physiologically preferable to mixed marriages.

3. By marriages between persons of the same race, the national type will be strengthened; by marriages between various races, defects or faults proper to a certain race can be corrected.

44. Masturbation, or solitary onanism, which is a very frequent defect common to both sexes, can be procured by exterior touch or contact, friction, compression of the legs, suspect flagellations, for example upon excitable parts by means of nettles, and finally by obscene phantasms themselves. Manual masturbation, therefore, which is obtained by an exterior action, can be distinguished from spiritual or mental masturbation, which is obtained by the power of the imagination.

Not so rarely, those who indulge in this vice, especially women, introduce into the body various things suited to assisting their intention; likewise, some masturbators injure the penis with a needle or knife.

This vice is often practiced to supply the pleasure of the normal act; sometimes it also discloses or induces an inverted sexual appetite; and not so rarely it can be of doubtful signification. In estimating the intimate character of the vice, we can be assisted by the fantastic image which is accustomed to accompany the act.

Although far lesser harms are customarily imputed to that vice today than formerly, it can nevertheless never be despised as a thing of small importance.

For since the moral satisfaction of mutual love is lacking, the solitary use of venery, taken in itself, exhausts the powers of the body more than normal copulation ⁸. Furthermore, from acts which are very easily repeated there arises a habit and an ever-growing propensity, which prepares excesses harmful to the nerves. These harms can be immense in a subject whose nerves are badly affected; and they sometimes so disturb the sexual appetite that physical arousal is separated from the affection of love, and one has a man who is easily aroused and at the same time impotent for normal copulation.

⁸ Forel himself admits this, p. 250. On the harms of incontinence compare also Gemelli, Non moechaberis, pp. 85-91.

In some habitual practitioners, mental debilitation is also observed, especially in memory.

Mental or psychological masturbation is especially harmful as being exhaustive.

Moreover, these psychological effects more frequently accompany or follow this vice: arrogance, melancholy, affectation of solitude, and finally and especially neurasthenia.

To the production of these effects there contribute not a little: consciousness of the injury inflicted upon the will; the mark of turpitude with which the habitual practitioner is branded in the common estimation ⁹; remorse of conscience; religious anxieties; and the subjective persuasion or fear of a life diminished and exhausted before its time.

⁹ Gemelli, Non moechaberis, p. 93, thus beautifully describes the moral diminution of an adolescent after his first sin: "He thinks his guilt known to everyone; he imagines that his father and mother, while kissing and embracing him in their accustomed manner, perceive something new and read the truth, as it were, upon his forehead."

In sum, the pathological harms are more of the psychic than of the strictly bodily order.

Moreover, the causes of the harms are: native infirmity of body, excessive frequency of the excess, humiliation of the will after a fruitless struggle, human respect, religious consciousness of sin, and subjective fear of injuries.

45. The Neo-Malthusian arts ¹⁰ are the various manners by which spouses endeavor to procure for themselves a sterile conjugal act.

¹⁰ The theory is treated below, in the treatise itself.

The principal arts are:

1. Interrupted intercourse.

2. Mechanical arts of preventing the male semen from being able to penetrate the uterus.

The instrument which a man employs for this end is called a condom, by which either the whole male member or only the glans is covered. It is made from elastic gum (caoutchouc), from a fish bladder, or from the intestine of an animal, for example a sheep (peau de baudruche, "goldbeater's skin"). Since, however, people complain that pleasure itself is diminished because of the interposed covering, human ingenuity endeavors so to perfect the instruments that they permit the sense of pleasure to be almost full.

3. An interior vaginal washing, by which, after copulation, the semen is expelled from the washed vagina. A washing done for the purpose of sterility is not rarely rendered more effective by antiseptic substances.

Because vaginal washings are sometimes justified by another cause, we note that the interval after which they can no longer prevent the effect of the preceding copulation is, according to some, six hours and, according to others, twelve hours.

A few years ago these washings were often recommended and were practiced as a kind of cleanliness. Today the popularity of the practice has begun to decline. For it is difficult for them to be done by private persons in such a manner that the rules of perfect asepsis are observed. Hence they often do more harm than they bring relief. Therefore, they are not to be employed without a special cause and the counsel of a physician.

These washings must carefully be distinguished from uterine washings, which for the most part are not done without the assistance of an experienced person, although some women know how to take counsel for themselves even in this matter.

4. The sprinkling through the vagina of a chemical substance by which the sperm is killed.

5. The placement within the vagina of a sufficiently thin membrane like a false vagina, in which the semen is received. This is then drawn out together with the semen. This method is rather recent.

6. Less recent is the use of introducing various things into the vagina to close the mouth of the uterus: for example, a sponge, cotton, or threads of linen. The instrument which a woman employs for an end of this sort is called a pessary.

These various arts are practiced either separately, or several are joined together, by which fertility is more certainly prevented. Thus they advise that, when a pessary is used, the vagina also be washed.

46. Come now, full security from the generation that is feared is obtained by no artifice. Moreover, the gravest authorities all hold that the health of the spouses and their happiness are harmed.

"The risks of sexual relations from the point of view of fertilization cannot be avoided without being compensated by other risks. In reality, there is no sexual reserve which leaves no risk to be incurred; there is no assured means of preventing fertilization." Thus Féré, L'Instinct sexuel, pp. 321-323. "Whenever it appears necessary to abstain from generating offspring, whether for a long or a short time, the physician acts best by recommending true continence. For all precautions by which sexual pleasure is procured while generation is prevented cannot be practiced without more or less grave harm; and most are also not very safe." Thus Gruber, in the work Krankheiten und Ehe. "An art and manner of sexual relation contrary to nature, such as interrupted intercourse, the use of a condom, and similar instruments... do far more harm than the frequent but normal use of marriage." Thus the distinguished American investigators of nervous disturbances, Beard and Rockwell. (Cited in Moll, pp. 954-955.)

The injuries which this condemnable excess brings with it are set forth fully and excellently in Antonelli, Medicina pastoralis, II, nos. 236-237. Compare also Capellmann, p. 303.

The harms which the nerves suffer are explained both by the incomplete satisfaction which these arts procure for one or both spouses together with burning libido; by the useless orgasm which, when concern for offspring has been laid aside, is procured with excessive frequency; and by the diminution of mutual esteem because of consciousness of the sin and of the impure egoism to which one yields.

"Fraudulent relations leave those devoted to them sad; they do not proceed without a shadow of remorse; whereas relations honestly effected maintain good humor. The man... gives... the measure of himself with respect to morality.... The woman, constrained to participate in fraudulent acts contrary to nature, feels herself gravely wounded in her dignity.... Love is killed by disgust, and adultery is near" (Bourgas, Le droit à l'amour, etc., pp. 107-110).

On the contrary, from fertility itself the harmony of the spouses becomes firmer and more intimate. Compare, in Honnêteté conjugale, the dissertation of Dr. Desplats, p. 39, ss. 65, rendered into Italian by Advocate Marconsini in Matrimonio e Maltusianismo.

Among these arts that must be condemned, interrupted intercourse is pronounced the more harmful ¹¹, and even the condom greatly harms the wife ¹²; washings or chemical arts harm health less directly. The condom appears to afford greater security from offspring.

¹¹ Compare Féré, p. 322.

¹² Compare Antonelli, Medicina pastoralis, no. 237.

The offspring, however, which is born contrary to expectation is often weaker.

But this abuse practiced at the beginning of marriage is especially opposed to the happiness of the spouses.

It sometimes happens that remedies are celebrated for procuring sterility for several days. But such things do not appear to exist: these drugs are either abortifacient, or belong to the frauds of charlatans. Temporary sterility can nevertheless be obtained by ligating the canals of the oviducts.