The Rights of Women and the Sexual Relations/Part 1/5. The Active Prostitution of Men
THE ACTIVE PROSTITUTION OF MEN.
Let us begin with the education of men. By education I do not here mean mere domestic and school education, but also the sum of all other influences of life which determine the intellectual and moral development of man to the time of complete independence.
Generally even in the beginning of the period when sexual uneasiness begins to show itself in the boy, he is exposed in schools, institutes, and elsewhere to the temptations of secret vice, which is transmitted from youth to youth like a contagious corruption, and which in thousands destroys the first germs of virility. A countless number of boys is addicted to these vices for years. That they do not in the beginning of nascent puberty proceed to sexual intercourse with women, which would, by the way, be in every respect less injurious, is generally due to youthful timidity, which dares not reveal its desire, or from want of experience for finding opportunities. Only too often this timidity and this want are overcome by chance or by seduction, which is rarely lacking in great cities where prostitution is flourishing, and thus numbers of boys immediately after the transition period of youth, in accordance with the previous secret practice, accustom themselves to the association with prostitutewomen. At the age when European youths are put into the soldier's uniform or are wont to enter the university, this association frequently becomes an object of boasting, and to calm the sexual desires in a pool of filth and, in connection with it, to undermine health by intemperance or disgusting diseases, is generally developed into a fine art in soldier and student life.
Thus prepared, the young man approaches the time when he can seriously think of making the acquaintance of a girl who as his wife is to satisfy his heart and his sexual needs. Most men of the educated classes enter the marriage-bed with the consciousness of leaving behind them a whole army of prostitutes or seduced women in whose arms they cooled their passions and spent the vigor of their youth. But with this past the married man does not at the same time leave behind him its influence on his inclinations. The habit of having a feminine being at his disposal for every rising appetite, and the desire for change inordinately indulged for years, generally make themselves felt again as soon as the honeymoon is over. The satisfaction which an uncorrupted man could find in the arms of his wife for many years is shortened all the more for the man of the common sort, the more he has learned to look upon woman as a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his changeable sexual appetite. For the simple reason, moreover, that women are to be had for the asking, most men do not know how to appreciate them. Thousands of men have before marriage lost the capacity of entering into a sincere or moral relation, and give their wives nothing but their name.
A new epoch now begins for the married man, the epoch of conjugal deception. What he had formerly done almost publicly he now does secretly, and often at an incredible expense of hypocrisy and cunning. Very few women in the least suspect the dissipations of their husbands, and I know not whether it is for their good that they suspect nothing. In Paris, to be sure, women generally know how they stand with their husbands, and they know also how to provide against being pitied.
If all men were to write Rousseauian Confessions concerning their secret sexual doings, the greater part of the educated women would be driven to despair or turn away from the male sex in disgust. Not a few of those married men who formerly associated with courtesans because they had no wives now address themselves to their wives only when they have no courtesans.
Now, although most men are in a certain sense "not worthy to unloose the latchet of the shoes" of the commonest woman, much less to "unfasten her girdle," yet they make the most extravagant demands on the feminine sex. Even the greatest debauchee, who has spent his vigor in the arms of a hundred courtesans, will cry out fraud and treachery if he does not receive his newly married bride as an untouched virgin. Even the most dissolute husband will look on his wife as deserving of death if his daily infidelity is only once reciprocated. And while he demands that his wife should remain faithful because her nature requires it, he will nevertheless involve himself in the contradiction of always suspecting this nature of a tendency to unfaithfulness because he transfers his own experiences and weaknesses to the woman. Thus he not only deceives his wife, he also even punishes her for deceiving her. But, himself always jealous without cause, he will be indignant at the most justifiable jealousy on the part of his wife. A husband who is annoyed by the jealousy of his wife deserves it — and what husband is not annoyed by it? No husband can bring his concessions into any proportion with his demands, and nowhere does this show itself more plainly than in jealousy. While he asks of his wife to take precautions against even the appearance of misdemeanors of which she has never thought, he on his part claims freedom from reproach for all offences of the past and the future.
We are frequently severe towards others only because we have not yet had an opportunity to commit their offences. We are wont to become all the more magnanimous the more cause we have to depend on the magnanimity of others. Of this truth not an iota is corroborated where the views of men with respect to women are concerned. The greater the injustice a husband does to his wife, the less is he willing to submit to from her; the oftener he becomes unfaithful to her, the stricter he is in demanding faithfulness from her. We see that despotism nowhere denies its own nature: the more a despot deceives and abuses his people, the more submissiveness and faithfulness he demands of them.
Who can be astonished at the many unhappy marriages, if he knows how unworthy most men are of their wives! Their virtues they rarely can appreciate, and their vices they generally call out by their own. Thousands of women suffer from the results of a mode of life of which they, having remained pure in their thought, have no conception whatever; and many an unsuspecting wife nurses her husband with tenderest care in sicknesses which are nothing more than the consequences of his amours with other women. And when at last, after long years of delusion and endurance, the scales drop from the eyes of the wife, and revenge or despair drives her into a hostile position towards her lord and master, she is an inhuman criminal, and the hue and cry against the fickleness of women and the falsity of their nature is endless.
On an average, men, married as well as unmarried, are so constituted that they will not easily let slip an opportunity of secretly entering into sexual relations with any woman who can excite their senses. And it generally requires very little to excite their senses. Those that are insatiable are in certain respects as easily to be satisfied as they are insatiable. This sexual inclination of men, be it in consequence of their education or by nature, is so constant and general that most of them view every woman they meet only with the reflection whether she would be likely to enter into relations with them or not. While the sight of a man inspires them with questions after his business, his views, his intellect, etc., that of a woman causes them only, or directly, to speculate on her sexual willingness. There you see a statesman, a clergyman, or an official — all people who in the presence of others distinguish themselves by a serious and severe demeanor which would lead us to suspect almost anything else than an illicit sentiment towards women; personages who inspire respect, living laws, embodied sermons, walking documents. The serious statesman, or clergyman, or official meets a pretty lady or a pretty servant-girl on a promenade where the eyes of the world or of his acquaintances are not upon him. In passing he will look intently and lustfully into her eyes, and if she only half reciprocates his look, or only answers with a humane smile, an object on the way, or a bird in the trees, or the beauty of the surroundings, in short any. thing, will suddenly attract his attention and give him in the eyes of a casual passer-by an excuse for looking round after her. And if she looks round also, he will have forgotten his handkerchief or something else which will necessitate his following her in order to convince himself that he may, in a tête-à-tête, exchange the serious statesman, clergyman, or official for an unmasked member of the male sex. Every look of a woman, caused perhaps only by curiosity or thoughtlessness or good-nature, exposes her at once with common men to the danger of an appearance of common coquetry, or the suspicion of sensual desire. Every pretty or even agreeable-looking woman who travels alone, or crosses the street alone in the evening, will find occasion to ward off importunities. The reputation of many a woman is endangered merely by the fact that she does not regulate her behavior in accordance with an entirely low conception of men, that she does not think she is throwing herself away by being natural, that she has not accustomed herself to see a crime in candor. Thus are most men restlessly pursued by the instinct and fancies of sensuality! Any man will, under safe conditions, put himself at the disposal of any pretty woman, if she desires nothing more than sensual pleasure. There are be few physically healthy men who can give the lie to this sentence.
The habit of regarding the end and aim of woman only from the most vulgar side — not to respect in her the noble human being, but to see in her only the instrument of sensual desire — is carried so far among men that they will allow it to force into the background considerations among themselves which they otherwise pretend to rank very high; for instance the considerations of friendship. There are few men who are so faithful in their friendship that they would scruple to put the fidelity of the pretty wife of their friend to the test. Adultery through so-called friends of the family is the most common of all. Love and horse-trading are two articles in which, among a great many men, deceit appears to be legitimate and seems to be taken into the bargain in "friendship."
From all these hidden parts of our social relations the paint must be washed off. Women must become indignant; and if I had not sufficient confidence in them to think the above will suffice, I could sketch a far more glaring picture, without laying myself open to the charge of exaggeration.
But when the feeling of women has once been driven to indignation with respect to the position which they occupy, it is to be hoped that they will only the more urgently look for a way to attain a worthier position, and to follow that way, when it is found, with persistence.