Cauldwell. Chapter 6
<< Sexual Activities of Children >>
It would seem, at first thought, that we had considered this subject. Our consideration has been relative. We shall now see and understand the relativity of this consideration.
No one person may be regarded as capable of speaking authoritatively upon a subject so broad that its existence depends upon related subjects. My untutored observations began early in life. They were guided, even in my prepubertal days, by broad-minded and tolerant parents. And in one parent I had a seasoned tutor in the person of my surgeon-anatomist father. No effort was ever made to hide a truth from my comprehensive ability. My father's actual patients were few and far between. Much of his work was devoted to experimentation. In this experimentation, he performed delicate surgical operations almost daily upon animals. His fees were high and I do not recall that he ever dealt directly with patients. Rather, he was consulted by them through their personal physicians. His actual work was in orthopedics and surgery of the brain.
I was intrigued by the reproductive faculties of our experimental animals, and under guidance developed an interest in their sexual lives which was in no way morbid. I recall rejoicing when copulation occurred between especially favored pairs of monkeys. And I was always impatient to see what the product of this procreative activity would be. Hence, considering this early, conscious and studied observation, I may say that my observations have extended over a period of more than 40 years. Many of these years have included a vast amount of intensive reading. During these and other years there have been broad contacts with people, and as a practitioner, contacts often reached deeply into the inner lives of patients, yielding knowledge of their most intimate selves. Such knowledge was, and is, confidential insofar as persons involved are concerned. But all knowledge worthwhile belongs to public domain. It is with this in mind that I relate true stories of actual occurrences in some of the pages to follow.
The preceding paragraphs have been written as a prelude to the reports of sexologists who have gained international renown. My reference to the limitations of any one person as being an authoritative source at once becomes clear.
In the “Encyclopedia of Sexual Knowledge” edited by the famous Dr. Norman Haire, we find the following:
“With regard to masturbation in children, it is, as we have said, essentially inoffensive, in any case not more dangerous than finger-sucking. The great majority of experts agree that infantile masturbation has no consequences, either physical or psychological. It is important at all costs, not to smack the hand of the child who masturbates, for since the child does not understand what wrong he has done such punishment might give rise to a trauma and have serious consequences.”
The acclaimed authority, Dr. Wilhelm Stekel, once wrote:
“There exist two types of infant masturbators. The first experience a slight but permanent irritation; with the others masturbation is more pronounced and may be carried so far as to produce an orgasm.”
The opinion I have already expressed regarding a form of climax in children would appear to be quite a modification of this opinion by a man who, during an active lifetime, gained world-wide repute.
Children who have shared a parental bedroom, and who have, therefore, slyly observed the sexual activities of their parents, have been known to seek to imitate the acts of their parents. What part of this has been pure pantomime and what part has been the result of erotic stimulus, one cannot say. Evidence indicates that both pantomime and erotic impulse have been established.
Professor Liepmann's “Youth and Sexuality,” is a book of confessions of his pupils of both sexes. These confessions involve the earliest memories of matters of a sexual nature.
Evidently Professor Liepmann's pupils were taught a certain sexual code and were then brought face to face with sexual practices which were exactly the opposite of the codes they had been taught. I say this for the reason that the various confessions had one point in common. This point has been remarked upon by numerous scientific writers. The point was: The erotic spectacle produced a painful impression.
Many confessions have reached my ears. Others have reached me via the written word. I have weighed the matter of painful impressions carefully and have tested the validity of the results Many who confess, intentionally express the idea of the painful impression. In this they actually are honest because they believe that to confess the opposite (the untarnished truth) would bring condemnation upon their heads. When I have followed up the written word I have managed, subtly, to convey the idea that I did not expect one to have been pure by puritanical standards at any time in life and that, when information or advice was sought, this could be more readily given if nothing was held back and if the actual truth was told without shame. Later, letters have revealed less shock and fewer painful impressions. In the actual consultation it has been much easier to suggest that natural admission was far more helpful than an artificially created air of sanctimonious and painful justification. The idea has taken like vaccine virus and has yielded truthful data from uninhibited sources.
One of Professor Liepmann's pupils wrote:
“Unfortunately, as a result of our economic condition, which did not permit us to have more than one bedroom, and a kitchen at our disposal, I was soon to receive another revelation.
“With my own eyes I saw my parents perform the ‘act.’ For me it was a horrible moment; I pulled the bedclothes over my eyes and stopped my ears ... I wished I was 10 miles away.”
A young woman student confessed:
“We lived in lodgings which generally consisted of one room only. Thus it happened one day, when I was 4 years of age, that I surprised my parents in the act of copulation, and I screamed with terror. The sight made a profound impression on me, and I still seem to have it before my eyes.”
This is the confession of still another young woman:
“We slept in the same room as our parents. Every night I heard the same thing take place, the thing that I had not thought possible, and I was ashamed, yes, I was ashamed of my parents. Suddenly I began to have sensual dreams which greatly excited me, I became pale and my eyes had dark rings around them. I considered myself a degraded creature because I was already familiar with these things. I regarded all other children as pure and myself as unworthy to mix with them.”
Alice Blaint's “Psychology of the Nursery” relates the case of a small girl who shared the parental bedroom. With the exception of the nights during which her mother was menstruating, this child wet the bed every night. The author pointed to the fact that micturition as well as defecation may be an expression of infantile sexuality.
In Professor Liepmann's first pupil we have an example of such a terrible inhibition that the confessor omitted the word sexual and placed the word, act, within quotation marks. In the second pupil we can only imagine that that which she saw brought to her mind horrible pictures her parents or others had painted to her of the “sexual sin.” The third pupil wrote of her present rather than of her past. She doubtlessly told a great deal of truth, but the symptoms were something concerning which she learned at a much later date. Neither her acts nor her observations of the acts of her parents would have caused her to grow pale and to develop dark rings around her eyes. She read these symptoms (the palesness, etc.) at a much later age and then read them into the earlier picture. Such pseudo-symptomatology is reminiscent of fake-medicine and quack-doctor advertisements so popular in the days of my childhood dating from just before the turn the century, and through the first decade of the 20th century.
An interesting account in her own words of one of Dr. Stekel's patients has been repeated so many times that it seems to have vied with the erudite doctor for fame. The account is lengthy, but I shall give a few brief details. In doing this I should call attention to the fact that some of the best known sexologists have agreed that those involved in the account were in no way perverts. The account first appeared many years ago and the warning that those concerned were not perverts was quite in order. This is in order today only insofar as the inhibited and those who have not kept abreast of the times are concerned. The element, or at least apparent element, of incest cannot be interpreted as nicest per se. Although the idea of incest has been supposed to revolt even children, the truth is that few children realize the meaning, insofar as sexual impulses are concerned, of either blood relationship or incest.
The name of the lady writing the account was given as Anna. Various writers have observed that the account is comparable to the “Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.”
Here is the story, in much less detailed form, than that of the original account:
When Anna was just eight months old she was ugly and underdeveloped. One doctor considered her as a boy and, apparently in her infancy, despaired of her life. She was christened a girl.
One of Anna's early companions was a big collie. She pinched his eyelids and for this was punished (severely, she thought) by her mother. Because she cried a great deal, her father gave her sleeping draughts. She walked at 20 months, learned to say “Oh, ho.” She recalled these as her first words, and because she said the words once when she observed lovers kissing, she was called an enfant terrible.
One incident is hardly worth repeating except for its value in showing something of the possible nature of Anna's personality after she had matured. The account related (she called herself “Anna”) that once she had seen her mother washing herself. Evidently the ablution was of the intimate parts. Anna blurted. “Anna's got hair too, but on her head.”
One of Anna's playmates was a boy of 7. There is no exact indication of Anna's age at the time. Evidently she was left to stay with a great-aunt and a grandfather. She was curious about the difference in the appearance of the sexes and so, on one occasion, while her great-aunt slept and she and the playmate amused themselves, the little boy had an urge to urinate. They could not reach the key to the toilet and she did not dare awaken her aunt. The occasion was made-to-order for her. She urged Richard, the little boy, to use her “chamber-pot.” Finally he consented. She was so surprised when she saw his sexual organ that she cried out that she must have one of those. She grasped it in her hands. The little boy tearfully pleaded that he could not urinate unless she turned him loose and left him alone. She accommodated him thus and turned her back. This innocent little act was caught by the aunt. The little girl (Anna) was severely scolded, was called a good-for-nothing.
Later Anna played with two uncles and on occasion another boy whose name was Rudolf. Rudolf was a large boy, being 14. One day in a summer house, with the shades drawn to keep out the heat, they played at the game called “doctor.” Anna was 9 then. She would raise her clothes and the boys would examine her genitals. One uncle was 8 and the other 9. One day Rudolf — but I'll let Anna tell her own story here. It has appeared m an untold number of publications.
“Rudolf unbuttoned his trousers and wanted to lie down on me or bend down over me — I don't know which. I was panting for breath, I was terrified and began to beg and cry, declaring that he shouldn't do anything to me. 1 wouldn't lie down any more, I wanted to sit up.
I would give him a kiss but insisted that he should not do anything to me, and that he should let me sit up. All in vain. They held me fast. It seemed to me that our genital organs were touching and I became attentive. Finally he let me go but questioned me closely to make me tell him what my parents did when they were married.
I began, in my terror, to tell him all that I could think of and in the end I said that they had also kissed. He laughed at me and said, ‘You have forgotten the chief thing. They also did what I just did to you.’ I was deeply grieved. ‘Oh, no, they didn't do anything so horrible,' I said. ‘That is a sin and God sees everything. My father and mother were not so wicked as that.’ Both the younger boys opened their trousers and said, ‘If you don't let me put my wee-wee in too, I'll tell Auntie and you'll be thrashed.’”
Anna resigned herself to her fate (the word is her own) and the boys remained in contact with her too short a time. With every touch she felt “a delightful experience.”
After that there were many experiences, but principally with the favorite uncle. In time Auntie was told. A severe scolding ensued. But when the aunt told Anna's mother, Anna “didn't fail to notice that my mother, instead of punishing me, turned her head the other way and suppressed a smile. She only said that I was not to do it again, which I solemnly promised.”
I do not recall that I have an account of the reason for Anna's consultation of Dr. Stekel. There is an odd culmination to her story — yet a culmination which appeared to have been satisfying to Anna. She was to be promoted to the fourth class and had to make a confession. She stated: “I was suffering like a martyr. I endured the pains of Hell. How could I tell about it? However, it went off all right. I stood and stammered out: I have acted in an unchaste way, alone and with others.’ It was over! Alter a mild warning I obtained absolution.”
Cases
Several years ago I opened a small sanitarium for summer practice in a secluded village where the soothing shade of friendly, giant cottonwoods was inviting. There were as many patients to begin with as I desired for the summer's practice.
One of my patients had a stalwart little son just past 2. I had known him for months and his governess was there with him. The little rascal quite readily slipped away from her. I learned that he was crossing a street where traffic danger was great. Across the street there lived a little girl nearly two years his elder. The little fellow had always minded me implicitly. I believe he would have given up his attraction across the street had I told him to do so. Instead, I explained that he was always to come to me when he wanted to cross the street and that I would see that he got across safely. I explained further that, when he had played long enough I would come for him and that he was not to cross the street alone. He was obedient. One day, however, some time later, when I went for him, the little girl whispered to him, and following her lead and her suggestion, he sought to run away from me. After that I would not permit him to visit the little girl. A high fence enclosed the grounds of the sanitarium with the exception of a distance of a few feet blocked by a building. The lad had been crawling through a hole in the fence previous to the time when I began seeing him safely across the street. I had the place repaired, and for a time rested in peace, feeling that the boy was safe from dangerous traffic. Then, one day I noticed that he was coming from the building that fenced a section along the street. At first I thought nothing of it, but it suddenly occurred to me that the little fellow might have found another exit and that he might be disobeying me and thus, again, encountering danger. Later I watched him. He went to the building so cautiously that I felt certain he was getting out on the other side and crossing the street alone. I did not follow him immediately. It would have been impossible to have caught him before he reached the street. Presently I crossed the street on a pretext and learned that he was not at the home of the little girl. Nor was the little girl. Tasked no questions and recrossed the street. I found the two children in the old building and to avoid shocking them I kept quiet at some distance from them. Just what sensations either was experiencing I cannot say, but they were engaged in a sexual act that would have passed for genuine.
Investigation disclosed that the little girl was entering the old building through a small window. The climb from the ground was a strenuous one. But by agility she had certainly accomplished it — the wall bore the toe marks of her bare feet. Her feet had accumulated mud from an irrigation ditch which ran parallel with the street. I closed the window securely. Frankly, I saw no harm in the antics of these children. I did fear for the safety of the little girl because she had to negotiate the street traffic. (Highway traffic was being detoured through this one-way street past the building, and the view to the approach was obscured.) Further, I felt a heavy responsibility toward this little boy whose father was at a distance, and was, to add to my sense of responsibility, one of my best friends.
Alter closing the window, I began taking the little boy with me on my various trips. His attraction to the car, the trips, and the treats soon proved of far greater interest than his séances with the little girl.
These children are in the first bloom of youth today and I feel confident that both are developing into worthy citizens.
I cannot know the sentiments of the little girl's parents. I do know that they were a jealous couple and that their marital (especially their sexual) adjustment was poor. The little boy's father would have taken pride in his son. His most probable remark would have been that old familiar, “A chip off the old block.”
It is far better to guard the safety of life and limb of small children than to be too much concerned because they exhibit actual signs of normal sexual endowment. Children who are not scolded for their childish sexual antics rarely grow up with the serious personality complexes that are so often observed in children who have suffered mental trauma and who have thus developed a serious sexual fear fixation.
How a Siren was Subdued
An odd case of outraged feelings came to my attention not long ago. A boy who, at the age of 12, was a regular little man and actually doing a man's work, was suddenly taken into a vastly changed environment. His parents moved from a secluded place in the country to a thriving town of several thousand population. There was nothing for the boy to do but go to school. A year later he had developed a disfunction of the pituitary gland. The disturbance occurred just when the secondary sexual characteristics had begun to appear. These were arrested in their development. The boy put on a vast accumulation of fat. The voice, which had begun to change, became more feminine than ever. His parents merely thought he was getting fat. The fact that the boy found it difficult to learn when he returned to school at the end of the summer vacation did not appear to impress them. Neither parent had been schooled — the third or fourth grade had been their limit. Both parents were working and earning good incomes. The boy drifted about, having left school. He divided his time between two married brothers and three married sisters. His parents seldom had any idea of his whereabouts. They were unconcerned. They had raised five children and their married life had been one of repeated separation and making up.
I saw the boy at intervals and felt concern for him. It was inapropos for me to say anything. But there was an occasion when I happened to be in a group in which the boy was good-naturedly taking a severe teasing. The story I got was that the boy's eldest brother had moved, and the move had resulted in smaller quarters. When he went to stay for a while with his brother (who had been married but a short while), he slept on a bed in the room with his brother and his brother's wife. When the sister of the brother's wife — a girl of about the same age — showed up for a visit, the two were put to share a bed together. The married couple apparently had quite a party in the dark, and did a great deal of teasing about the two little children in the other bed.
Later, when the little girl, apparently excited, believed that the elder couple slept, she enticed the boy who was her bed-partner. The boy was embarrassed and to add to his embarrassment, he learned that his elders were awake. They teased him and taunted him that he'd never be a man. Outraged he dressed and left in the middle of the night.
About a year later an almost unbelievable transformation took place. The pituitary trouble seemed to vanish overnight. Weight was lost, and the secondary sexual characteristics appeared with the completeness of manhood. It was after I had heard the boy being severely teased that transformation came about.
Resentment lurked deep within him. He was working and making his own way. As a friend he asked me (I am no longer in practice) how a man might learn whether he was capable of fatherhood. I explained that he could ask a physician to do a sperm count. Later developments indicated that he was fecund. He now awaited an opportunity. When he learned that the sister of his sister-in-law who had taken a part in creating such discomfiture lor him was at his brother's home, he made his way there during the night. He was welcomed and affected great docility. In a blundering way he was given an apology for the previous. There had been no intention to offend him so that he would stop visiting. But — when it came time for bed, preparations were made for the two brothers to sleep in one bed and the two sisters in the other. The boy was disappointed, but shrewdly explained that he would not be treated that way. He averred that they were merely making such arrangements because they thought he could not take teasing. He would either have the chance to show them he could take it or he would leave again. This would have meant afoot, and into rain and a threatening thunderstorm. He was humored. There was no teasing. There was silence except for an occasional snore from the bed of the married couple. The girl companion was far over on the edge of her side of the bed. Suddenly, after having whispered a suggestion which she refused to accept, he turned her to him and before a lamp could be lit in the confusion and excitement of the occasion, he had gained thorough satisfaction.
The outraged girl sobbed. This had been reality — not teasing. The elders scolded. The boy, unabashed, told them to “Shut up.” He soon simulated sleep, and the girl who had left his bed slept with her sister while his brother came and slept with him. The girl was sullen, bitter and tearful the following morning. This boy really expressed his sentiments by explaining that she should not give what she could not take. He understood now that he had been ill and realized the reason for his previous incompetence.
A few days later, a father of the outraged girl (who had learned of the affair) sought to place criminal charges against the boy. A brother-in-law (one whom I had heard engaged in the first teasing of which I knew) learned of this plan to have the boy arrested. He was on quite friendly terms with the father of the girl and explained the case to him in a thorough manner. The man actually sympathised with the boy. He was partial to this daughter of his, but decided that she simply paid for the teasing she had done — and a price that had not harmed her at all. (He had no idea that pregnancy might have occurred.) Nothing further has come of the matter.
This case has been presented because it impresses me that it presents a number of worthwhile observations. Frankly, it may impress me more than it will others. There are reasons for this. First, I know the boy, and I have seen the girl, and have had the opportunity of casually observing her. I am familiar with the environmental background of both.
Had these two children (although large ones) been put to sleep together in a bedroom with two older people, each doubtless would have slept peacefully, had there been no suggestions of any kind. The older couple, new in the ways of marriage, and filled with young passion, doubtless found their sexual urge difficult to control. They probably felt that these mere children would be ashamed to appear mindful of their conduct. But when the little girl (on the border-line of puberty), offered herself and was ordered by the little boy to keep away from him, the situation became ludicrous. A little innocent, if peculiar, fun-making had followed.
During the intervening months, the girl developed and came into a realization of motherhood. The boy was suspected of having changed somewhat. When he protested that he was determined to show that he could take teasing, all involved, somewhat remorseful at having carried a joke too far, believed him still to be the innocent and incapable boy. Although the sex impulse in him was strong, the desire to avenge himself was even stronger. The law, doubtless, would have regarded him as either a juvenile delinquent or a sex criminal. That which he did could have had a serious outcome. The girl might have been traumatized (injured) both mentally and physically. She might have been made pregnant. Publicity might have caused her to be treated as socially undesirable. The whole course of her life could have been changed in an unhappy direction. Fortunately this did not occur. A sensible father, learning the truth, followed a wise course of action. The pride of the boy was avenged and he had no further interest. He regarded his act as far more innocent than the acts of those who had actually persecuted him. He was satisfied. He, definitely, is not the criminal type. Nor is the girl of the actual wayward or promiscuous type.
How Dormant is the Sex Impulse in the Child?
One eminent physician and writer, who is an experienced sexologist with a background rich in observation, has expressed the opinion that children from the ages of eight to 12 are capable of attaining the fullest of sexual satisfaction. His statement is one of scientific observation and does not involve the matter of morals. It does not imply that children, generally, of these ages, indulge in sexual relations, it simply indicates the scientific observation which, in its own way, belies the claims that children are asexual creatures in whom the sex impulse is dormant.
A woman whom I knew years ago developed a sociological hobby. She was neither a reformer nor a social uplifter in the sense of many such hobbyists. To my personal knowledge she did a great deal of good. Her special yen was for improving the sanitary conditions under which many families in her little town persisted in living. The lack of sanitation was not a civic fault. Nor was it dependent upon what we are pleased to speak of as the underprivileged. The heads of the families involved were well-paid railroad workers. This woman taught a higher appreciation of sanitation and better child care by example. She worked with her own hands, often bringing a home out of chaos into a state of orderly cleanliness which was appreciated by those she helped.
She had given birth to a so-called twilight child. This child, a little girl, was just past school age at the time to which I refer. The mother had completed the menopause with the birth of the child. She was my patient, and I was aware that she regarded her sexual life as having ended soon after the birth of the child. She was quite positive that children were asexual. She expounded her theories on the subject at every opportunity.
She had a rude awakening when her little daughter went home in tears and reported that a little boy some two or three years older than herself had “tried to do something naughty” to her. The mother branded the little boy with several sexual epithets which have no value in print. She would have the boy sent to a reform school. It was but natural that she went into a siege of mild hysteria. This meant a call for me. When she was quiet I sought her husband. He was a strong, masculine type who had taught railroad engineering from Alaska to South America.
The man was gruff — yet, there was nothing of real unkindness in his nature. “The Dickens and Tom Walker ” he exploded, “what's the matter with that fool woman? That boy's father and I have been cronies for years. He's saved my job for me time after time and I've returned the favor. We did some hard railroading together. I'll not see his boy sent to reform school. By God, haven't male and female gotten together since Adam and Eve?”
“Before that, in my book,” I reminded him. He laughed gruffly but good-naturedly. “How is the old woman?” he wanted to know. “Asleep,” I informed him. “Well, the child isn't,” he informed me, stating, “I can't talk to her about this. Don't know how. I'm too rough and don't mean it. You talk to the child and see if you can get a straight story. And, by the way, I think I can do more to cure my old woman than you can — if you'll just get her into the notion of sleeping with me again.”
The little girl had regarded me as a pal ever since I had relieved her from some severe suffering. I took her on my knee and asked her simply to tell me what had happened.
This is the story. The little boy had concealed himself in some low bushes on the side of a vacant lot paralleling the street. Lying on his belly he had reached out, caught her foot, and tripped her, while she sauntered homeward from school. The school was within sight of her home. The little boy had lifted her clothing and exposed her genitals. At the sight of them he had started away saying. “Ugh. Just wait till I see my big brother and tell him what a liar he is.”
The child's inhibited mother had accepted the story of “something naughty” without asking further questions.
Mr. K., the child's father, laughed uproariously at my report. He went immediately to find out in what way the little boy's older brother had been such a liar. It developed that this worthy had merely told his younger brother that girls grew penes when they were old enough to go to school. He had taunted him that this little girl, by now, had a larger penis than he (the little brother) had.
In this case the little girl suffered no trauma. I told her the whole truth and she actually felt sorry for the little boy. The case apparently was closed for her by her remark: “Well, he didn't have to catch my foot and trip me like that!”
The little boy was acquainted with the truth and was cautioned concerning the rights of individuals.
The case affords an example worthy of note. Opinions often change quickly when circumstances directly affect us and ours. This was an asexual case. The woman who expounded the theory of the asexuality of children charged the little boy involved with everything but asexuality.
Learning by Investigating
In a subject such as we are studying, one might draw the conclusion from the caption, that children learn by investigating. This would be a frank and true conclusion. What the caption really means is that any of us may learn by investigating. This is what I did, but in a way different from what you are now thinking.
During the summer I undertook a special project. I had an opportunity to write a book on health for teen-agers. It seemed to me that I had a fair idea of what teen-agers would want in a book of health. As a practitioner I had administered to the health needs of a large group of teen-agers. I had answered a long list of questions many of them had eagerly answered. My last few years of practice had, however been devoted almost entirely to adults or to such teen-agers as were regarded as adults. Did I remember just what health subjects teen-agers were most interested in? Would it not be best to post myself with up-to-the-minute information?
It was the time of the beginning of summer vacation for teen-age school children. I started a doorbell ringing campaign. Everywhere I went I was well received both by teen-agers and their parents. But I didn't finish with the data I expected, and that especial book project still is on the shelf. The publisher had supposed there would have to be a chapter on sex, but cautioned that I could not use the direct approach it was my custom to use in these books written for adults. I found at least 90 out of each 100 teen-agers with whom I talked more capable of understanding the direct approach than were their parents and other elders.
These children were innocently frank. Most of them looked forward to marriage and to parenthood. Some planned marriage before college. One remark was quite frequently repeated. “My GI brother is making it all right. Him and his wife both are in college. Guess I can marry and make it even if I'm not a GI.” This came from boys. Girls pointed to older sisters. “Huh. She waited till she was almost an old maid to get married. Had to get educated first. Now her and her husband constantly battle. It would have been different if they had learned a little more about biology and common animal psychology. They weren't even ready for college, and when they did marry they were past being ready for marriage.”
A 17-year-old girl pointed to the broken marriages of both a brother and a sister. “And they call us juke-boxers and bobby-soxers in a disdainful tone,” she complained. “I plan college, but I want to learn how to hold a husband, be happy, have a husband who'll make me happy, and how to make a home. If I can't learn these things before college then I'm not fit for college anyway.”
What were most of the youngsters I interviewed most interested in? Biology, Facts of Life, Home-making and Tips for Future Husbands and Wives. Said a 13-year-old boy, “Last year I was a member of Future Farmers of America, the Boy Scouts, and several other things. I thought we were doing all right. Then my old man (a 35-year-old father) got to running around with some women. My ma quit him. I didn't blame him. Pa told me that a man wants his women to stay attractive. He said he tried to keep my ma pleased. She didn't want him and she didn't want any other woman to have him. Shucks. Both of them were dumb, but then they didn't even study general science and they'd never taken an animal apart to see how they were made. They just butchered meat to eat. Pa understood. I've got a home here at this dairy. I see both of my parents all along. Pa tells me to have all of the girls friends I want. Ma tells me to stay away from girls. I humor them both. They are the kids — not me. No girl friends for me — just one and a good one.” The lad winked. “We'll be married when we're old enough. Or that's what we think. Why don't you write about Future Farmers?” he asked and then laughed. “Guess I'm nutty. You couldn't do that. Why don't you write about future husbands and wives of America — and, and — their children?”
Many of the parents with whom I talked were furtive in manner. They had questions they'd like to ask. On the Q.T., strictly. One successful man who was a business executive and a business leader told me: “I could learn a lot from my kids. I'm ashamed to ask them. I do not mean that my children are rotten, immoral, anti-social, or anything like that. They've a better psychology than we ever learned. A 15-year-old daughter of mine set me in my place a few months ago. I watched a friendly basketball contest between boys and girls. It was my impression that the boys and girls were too intimate in the way they touched each other here and there about the body. When I spoke to my daughter, and told her that I regarded these familiarities as improprieties, she laughed in a good-natured way and admonished me to live in the present instead of a by-gone day. ‘We think nothing of it. It's entirely immaterial. Your attitude accounts for all the little Nells we hear you used to have.’ Those were her words and they make sense to me.”
The 13-agers were not interested in indirect approaches. One 12-year-old girl told me: “My mother told me all about menstruation. I started one year ago. Mother didn't tell me scarey stories and she didn't pamper me when I menstruated. She taught me cleanliness and a few safeguards. I've never had a severe menstrual cramp. But Peggy B--, my closet school-girl friend, cramps terribly. I read that this was a mental disturbance reacting on the body. And when I asked Peggy, I learned that her mother had told her a lot of scarey stories about menstruation. I showed her the magazine article and she's getting over her cramps.”
Several mature people were willing to write an account of their sexual experiences and impressions from earliest childhood. They couldn't think of everything in an ordinary conversation. These people comprised members of varying intelligence levels. When I received their accounts, I knew at once that some of them were figments of the imagination. Yet even these represented something important. They were expressions of unfulfilled wishes. And such expressions give us an insight into the impulses, normal and abnormal, that were kept in check (repressed), together with reasons. I shall have little space for these, yet I do want to present at least two or three condensations. Before doing this, however, it is my pleasure to present a copy of a document which impresses me as absolute truth. Perhaps I am more impressed because of the personality of the man who wrote the document. He told me that talking freely, for once, to a man who understood, had been helpful to him. I assured him that I felt his story might be useful and helpful to others. The man is a financial executive. He is regarded by all who know him as a man of sterling character. He talked once with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and might have held a post in the Roosevelt administration, but he was not in accord with Rooseveltian fiscal policies. He explained that Roosevelt assured him that he would not be afraid to trust him with the whole U. S Treasury anywhere in the world, at any tune or under any circumstances. This man is now 68, and is virile and vigorous. His wife has been an invalid for 18 years, and his sex life during these years has not been active. He had a background of rich sexual experience early in life and feels that this has sustained him. He spoke of love rather than of sex. The following is his story.
The Love Life of Two Children
I remember Edith for as long as I remember anyone. Our mothers were next-door neighbors. Neither of us knew our fathers. We were infants when they died.
My name is John. My business career has been devoted to the conservation of finance and the principles it involves. In writing of my experiences I think I should continue my policy of conservatism. Trust does not always have a conservative appearance. I think this often is true of our innermost thoughts. I used to think that this was not so. Then as a loan executive, its truth came to me as if through some powerful force. The reason I am saying this is that I want to be truthful and conservative. Some of my early experiences do not impress me as having been too conservative. Not from the moralistic viewpoint held by many fine people. A certain solitude was too conservative. Or can I say that it was? I was happy. Edith was happy. Our mothers (rivals in business and friends otherwise) appeared to be happy.
We never had the idea that we were brother and sister. Not Edith and me. It seems we were lovers from the start. We were so sufficient unto ourselves that we were taken from day nursery and left at home. Neither of us remembers our age at the time. Our birthdays were two days apart and we celebrated the day between them.
We were like a narcotic to one another. It just wasn't to be that we must be apart. An hour away from each other as when one was taken to the dentist, or elsewhere, and we were lost. We must have felt completeness only when we were together.
No one told us about sex. We became secretive, but I believe this was because we observed the privacy of person each of our mothers observed. The only reference to anything sexual I remember either of our mothers having said was once when Edith put her hand on my sexual organ. Her mother said, “Don't take hold of John there, Edith — you'll hurt him.”
Before we were in school, we caressed each other's sexual organs. This nearly always occurred before our daytime naps. As to sensations, I only remember that they were pleasant. We caressed one another's whole bodies. The sexual caress lasted longer. That is clear. We often kissed.
When we first entered school, we sought no others as playmates. We were made to play with other children. We came to enjoy that. At home we wanted no company. Our back yards were walled in by high board fences one could hardly peep through. Front doors were locked. Our mothers had keys. We were warned never to answer doorbells. Once in our home domain other children could not reach us.
Our teacher made boys and girls, no matter whether boy and girl, two girls or two boys, who fought or quarreled, apologize by saying “I'm sorry.” They were then required to kiss each other Sometimes Edith and I pretended to quarrel. The kissing there was fun. The teacher thought we quarreled an awful lot.
One day a boy played too roughly and pushed Edith. She would have been his match, or as good a match as I proved to be. I'd never had a fight. And I have never wanted to have another like that one. I only remember that we fought, a large group of schoolchildren watching, until we were about to choke each other to death. Somebody stopped us.
Long before that I was scared. The other boy was scared too. That's why we kept fighting so hard, I think. Each boy believed the other was trying to kill him.
We recovered quickly enough — physically, at least. We must still have been frightened at the awful thing that almost happened. Up in front of the class the teacher commanded us to apologize. This we did. Then she ordered us to kiss. The other boy advanced. I stood back, I recall clearly what I said. “No ma'am. I'm not kissing no boys — only girls.” Every child in that schoolroom must have laughed. The teacher laughed too. “And so-o-o,” she said, measuring her words, “you are a young Romeo, are you? All right, young man. If you ever fight or quarrel with another boy you'll have to kiss me and right here before the whole classroom.” I had not intended to have that fight. It was easy to avoid further fights. I believe every child in that school later understood that we two boys had really and truly tried to kill each other.
The next year Edith and I were 7. We were in a different classroom. We seemed more grown up and played less with each other at school. And we saved our love scenes for home. It was that year that our sexual play made a real impression on my memory. Perhaps we had gotten some ideas from hearing other children talk. To be honest, I can't say. I remember that we were exchanging sexual caresses. This time I felt a powerful urge. My first actual penetration occurred. Edith screamed. I was so frightened my body was limp. I thought I had broken her open and expected her insides to come rushing out at me. But she just put her arms around my body and held me still and close. When I tried to move away she held me and told me to stay still. “You've done it,” she said. But I didn't know what I'd done. We went to sleep.
Edith knew what I had done and she told me after we awoke. We then performed our own marriage ceremony. We had heard a few weddings performed. We knew, it now seems to me, several rituals. We kept on until we used them all.
I've never known greater sexual satisfaction than we experienced until we were 16. Our mothers were married again then, and we were sent away to school. I didn't miss my mother. I missed Edith. We were a long way apart. Getting used to the changed surroundings and conditions was the most difficult thing in my entire life.
I finished a college in business and finance at 20. I hadn't seen Edith for four years. We had corresponded but little. Edith was in one of those prim schools for girls where attention to boys was discouraged.
We met at home. That was the strangest meeting I have ever experienced. Edith offered me a limp hand, held a little high, just the fingers and she took them away quickly. We were not alone.
Later, when we were alone, and I offered love, Edith told me that we must forget our childhood antics — that we were grown. I wanted to ravish her. Her aloofness kept me at a distance. After a few painful days I went away to work. I spent a year in a clearing house and then went to an isolated town in the heart of ranch country to be the cashier of the bank. After a year there I was made manager of one of those A to Z general merchandise stores. The bank was in the store and I kept my cashier's job. We carried a stock worth more than $100,000, and that was a sizeable stock in those days.
I didn't forget Edith. But I did meet a fine girl. I fell genuinely in love with her and we were married. We were the same age — 23. We were happy. Our first and only child was born when we were 40. There must be some explanation for that. We never used contraceptive measures. The boy is my image.
Just after we came here, to my old home town, my wife became an invalid. That was 18 years ago. I'd probably have engaged in illicit sex affairs, but I've seen too many good men ruined by them. If not by diseases, then because of financial involvement. I've helped to get men, and women too, out of a few such entanglements. Now and then there has been a sort of appreciation token from women. Even this relieved a terrible tension.
I can't believe my wife would object. She is not a hard mistress. But business is a hard mistress.
Several weeks ago I learned that Edith, who had been married all these years, and who lost her only two children, had returned to the old home town. I didn't look her up. Our last meeting still was a burning memory. I did wonder about her. It seemed strange that I never caught sight of her anywhere. But I devoted long hours to my work, and spent my evenings with my wife who seems to have overcome loneliness. Perhaps Edith was never on the streets during the same hours I was.
Just the other day I learned that her husband was an invalid. And just after that, she came to the bank on business. She must have known I was there. No one at the bank knew that we knew each other. Her business came under my jurisdiction. She was escorted to my office. A clerk merely opened the door for her and went away.
Like a flash of lightning I wondered if this meeting would be like that other one. I was touched by the sight of her, but I determined not to show it. Pour fingers of my right hand went limply together. Yes, I could be aloof. My hand fell more limply at my side for an instant. Edith throw her arms around my neck and rained kisses upon my lips and face. The kisses were flavored with tears. Yes — there were some of my tears there too. My arms were around her and the feeling was like that of so long ago. When we had collected ourselves we just sat and enjoyed the spectacle of seeing an old, sweet love.
We are grown up at 68. Edith does not neglect her husband. I do not neglect my wife. And for all that society may think or may not think, we do not neglect one another. We are again back in that happy childhood state. Every pleasure again is a rich experience.
In business, I am regarded as a steely conservative. In matters of love I may be a sentimental fool. I hope not. I've dissipated but little, but I never was a reformer. I do believe that children should be protected by some form of childhood marriage. And I can but feel that nearly all such marriages would become permanent.
Parents would object to this, for, obviously, some of them would have to give up their children. To an extent, at least. Married children would have to live with one set of parents.
People who know me would regard me as being on the mental seesaw, or as in my second childhood for making such an advocacy. They would refuse to look around them, or even at themselves, and admit the truth. Age does not make adults of all people. A true census of the married children at from 20 to 100 would be disputed — the figure would seem too high.
My own life story may be exceptional. I can't believe that this is so.
Is Early Marriage Advisable?
This question calls for another question — how early? How old should a couple be before they marry? In earlier years couples married young. The boy might be, and probably was, 21 at least. The girl often was but 13 or 14. Child couples have married and have made a success of marriage. Other cases of child marriage have ended in failure. Tragic? No — at least, not so tragic. Children get over many things much more quickly than older people do. There probably would be fewer marriage failures among couples who were married at the age of 15 or 16 or 22 or 23, than there are among couples who are past 30 when they marry for the first time. The chances are that failure and divorce rate would increase in couples marrying at between 25 and 30.
But children can't support themselves, someone may counter. Not all children, and not all adults. Some children have supported their elders. But how can children know what they are doing? Many can find out while they are what we would call real young, better than others have done at a riper age.
But think of a child's health? It's hard on a girl who has not reached full maturity to start bearing children, isn't it? Yes, isn't it? Is a woman, then, to wait until she is 28 to marry? It is claimed that a woman does not reach full maturity until she reaches that age. Yet many women have been warned against having their first babies if they are much past 30. Such a warning is pure hokum. Medical consensus is that, as a rule, it is as safe for a woman in her 30's to have her first baby as it is for a woman at any other age to have her first baby. And back when child-bearing was fraught with a thousand dangers that do not exist in organized civilization today, women bore children at 14 and younger, and survived to bear large families.
The answer as to whether couples should marry young resolves itself into the old familiar: It depends. And that means that it depends on individuals and circumstances, The age levels at which couples may safely marry differ with individuals.
The widely circulated magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, for August, 1947, carried an article entitled. “Let's Help Them Marry Young.” The author of the article, Howard Whitman, did justice to his subject. At one point the article stated:
“The case for making marriage available to hundreds of thousands of the blocked generation is not built on sentiment: it is a serious business of saving young people from frustration, or preserving the American home, of stemming the tidal waves of promiscuity, delinquency and divorce.”
The author explained that boys and girls in their late teens and early 20's are surrounded by ideals of marriages and home buildup. From the biological viewpoint they are mature. They possess compelling urges toward mating and parenthood. Movies, magazines and fiction are lures. Romanticism is played for all it's worth. And then someone tells the girl not to be a fool — she can't afford to marry a boy who makes only so much. The boy is given the same sort of warning. He can't afford to marry until he's out of college and earning money, or as Author Whitman put it: “Ned. You can't marry until you have finished your interneship.”
Said Better Homes and Gardens:
“The result is a sexual dilemma. Psychiatrists' offices teem with men and women suffering from guilt complexes because they indulged in premarital sex relations, and with equal numbers who are frigid or impotent because they were too long repressed.”
My mail teems with letters, each saving essentially the same thing as the other: “I cannot face anyone and tell of the terrible thing I have done. I am afraid it will ruin me for marriage. Can I ever become a father?” Or if from girls: “Can I ever become a mother? How can I quit this evil habit? Is there a drug that helps?”
And what have they done? They have masturbated. One who is brought face to face with this situation day after day, and in mail after mail, wonders if all of the old erroneous literature on the subject will ever get out of circulation, and if so, how long it will take to be rid of the idea that masturbation is evil, a vile habit, and ruinous to life, health, sanctity and sexuality.
Masturbation is not an attractive habit. It centers the attention too much upon self. If one has been misinformed, a mental aberration is created. Under various circumstances it creates a guilt complex. It harms one only to the extent that one worries about it because of false information.
One young wife wrote me that her husband still masturbated, that he had been sly about it at first, but that after she had caught him once, he had come out in the open and masturbated in her presence. She commanded him to stop. Her letter in general corresponded to her attitude as expressed in her statement that she commanded. Her husband probably did what he did to spite her.
The Better Homes and Gardens article recommended early marriage and stressed the financial barrier. It suggested a return to an idea which it compared with the age of America: “Family aid to young married couples.”
This has its drawbacks. Many families cannot adequately take care of themselves. Or to put it another way, many parents cannot properly support themselves. How are they to aid their young married children? There must be a solution — and there is, but I am not an economist.
Numerous articles bearing on the subject have appeared in popular magazines and in the daily press during recent months. Someone will find a solution. No one has attempted to set an exact age as the lowest age level for early marriages. I feel that I have offered a worthwhile suggestion: That this depends on the individuals and upon circumstances.
The trend of public opinion favors early marriage.
Unfulfilled Wishes
In telling about the survey I made, I stated that I would seek to give a number of condensations of the accounts people wrote for me, and which I regarded as mere figments of the imagination representing unfulfilled wishes. The following was greatly condensed from the account written by a woman who now is 40, and who has twice been divorced. She is not married now.
First, I want to state that I am a warm-blooded woman with a heart that is full of love and passion. The first time I saw a boy's penis I cried because I didn't have one. We were visiting my mother's sister. My mother gave me a severe thrashing. I had been crying because I thought something terrible had happened to me — that something had been left oft. Alter the thrashing I was heartbroken. I couldn't stop crying. Mother started to thrash me a second time and my aunt stopped her. “You'd better call a doctor instead,” she warned. “This child has a broken heart and whipping won't mend it. She'll be sick.” After a while my aunt told my mother that if she would take a walk she might be able to get me to be quiet. Mother went. My aunt came in to where I was and tried to be funny. I don't remember what it was she did. 1 think she put on a funny face. That made me cry worse. The next thing she did startled me so that I couldn't cry. She lifted her clothes and said: “See? I'm made just like you.” I asked her if it hurt and she laughed. At first, I cried again. Then I must have thought that something was funny or she would not laugh so and I started laughing. My aunt then told me all about why girls and boys were made in a different way. She said it was nice to be a girl.
My curiosity was aroused, and the next day the 6-year-old cousin whose penis I had seen and wanted — and I were left alone. I asked him if he knew all about what my aunt had told me. He said he did, but you didn't have to wait until you were grown to find out even if my aunt had told me that. He said he could show me. I agreed.
Now I know doctors may doubt it, but it does not change the truth. I had just as strong an orgasm right then as I ever have had since, and I think I have had some strong ones. Most gratifying, I had relations with boys from then on. I never believed what I was taught in Sunday school — especially about sin and all of that. When my teachers were talking about sin, I just thought about how many children they had, and I knew how they had got them. So — if what I did was a sin, everyone, almost, sinned too, and they never were able to scare me.
When I started menstruating, an older boy (he was 21 I think, and I was 11) took me to see a nurse. He told her about everything there was to tell. She taught me the best ways she knew to keep from having a baby. When I was 16, I married a man of 24. He was a quiet sort of fellow. We got along fine for several months. I had not been trying to keep from having a baby. He got to wondering why I did not get pregnant. A doctor examined him and told him he was all right. It took me nearly two weeks to finish my examinations, and the doctors said they weren't sure, but it looked as though I couldn't have a baby.
My husband was enough for me, and I hadn't fooled around with other men. Suddenly, one night after we had been talking about my not being able to have a baby, and just at the climax of intercourse, my quiet husband started walking the floor. “How do you know so much?” he demanded. He said that I had shown education all along. He made all sorts of accusations. At first, I was scared of him. Then I got mad.
I sailed at him and got him by the neck and I shook him with all my might till he told me to stop — that I was giving him a headache. During this time I told him my whole sex life. “A boy six years old was as good as I am, eh?” he sneered. Then he got his things and left.
I had had a good job. I have natural talent for sign painting. There wasn't an opening at the old place, so I gave them competition. I rented a little place — it was cheap — and opened my own shop. I didn't have much money, just enough to pay the rent. I solicited some work and believe me I got it. Took it right away from my old boss. People liked my sign work. I got a few jobs big enough to keep me busy for several weeks. One was to paint the names of 500 small businesses (groceries and the like) on the advertising signs of a cigar firm. They gave me a liberal advance. With some other advances I set up my apartment back of the shop.
In my apartment, I entertained men as suited my pleasure. It was about 10 years later that a man whom I liked very much came along and we were married. He had already learned all about me. He didn't mind but said I must stop having anything to do with other men. He was perfect for me and I didn't want other men. I don't know what got the matter with him. He didn't stay married to me but three or four weeks. One morning he went away and was to have bought a lot of supplies for the shop in another town — a large city, not far away. I had a big shop then, with several workers. We sometimes used $2,000 or $3,000 worth of supplies a month. This man had $3,000 he was to spend for supplies. He sent me a special delivery letter. All he said was he could not stay with me. He needed the money and was taking it. He told me to get a divorce when I wanted it. I never heard from him any more. I finally got a divorce. I'm still having my fun with men. I have never taken a cent from any man. And I have never missed a climax since I was three. I don't mind saying that I used to be timid and shy, and I tried to hide things from people. I don't do that now — haven't for a long time. Say I, live and let live, and every fellow to his own notion.
It might appear that this woman is a nymphomaniac. She is not. She has excellent business judgment, she left me sign business some time ago and now is engaged in a different and highly profitable business enterprise. I think, as I told her, that she exaggerated her childhood sensations and her childhood aberrations as well. “I'll stick to my story,” was her rejoinder, a twinkle in her eye. “After all, 40 years is a long time, and the memory plays tricks. If I didn't do everything I think I did I must have warned to mighty bad.”
This woman was kind. She had the reputation of being kind. Her first marriage might have succeeded with a more sensible man. After that she was a marriage failure. Her one great love was love of herself, and her one great passion was the passion of sex. She liked money, which she seemed able to make without effort.
Condensed from a man's account is the following:
I've been the same as a man in a sexual way over since I remember. I never had any trouble having my wishes with girls. It was my practice to make my approaches so carefully that no accusation could be made against me.
When I was 12, I was caught in the sexual act with a little girl behind a big signboard. Caught by the police, I managed for her to slip under the bottom of the signboard and run. They took me to juvenile court, but they couldn't prove anything because they could not find the little girl. The way they treated me scared me though, and I've never had a brush with the law since then.
I'm 50, and I never have married. Just can't see it with one woman. Never could. And you can put it in your pipe and smoke it that Old J — has never attempted to force a woman or struck a woman or been anything but a gentleman to a woman. I'm still going now and then with women I started with in grade school. I left school when I finished eighth. But I've stayed in the same community all my life. I'm supposed to have some feeling of guilt about other men's wives. I don't. Guess if I'm ever caught up with, I may be in trouble, but I'll chance it. If anybody ought to feel guilty it's the women — they married their husbands. They're supposed to love'em. I like them as friends only and I hope they keep on being my friends.
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