本文节选自两本美国书,它们是
《Sex-Education》, Maurice A. Bigelow
《Sex Education》, Wile, Ira S. (IraSolomon)
英文原文:
Sex education
Masturbation is almost a universal habit at this age. It is in a sense the expression of a normal curiosity as to the function of the genital organs. The spirit of investigation
gives rise to the initial experience and it is not an evidence of degeneracy or inherent viciousness. The continuance of this practice depends upon the strength of the boy's
will and his understanding that self-abuse is a potent factor in destroying his physical,mental, and moral comfort. To pass from self-abuse to the abuse of one of the
feminine sex is a short step when the pressure of the gang is behind the boy and there is no guiding hand to restrain him. It is regrettable that there are fathers who
at this serious time of indecision feel impelled to tell the boy that sexual intercourse is necessary to his well-being.
Such advice is as pernicious as untrue. The American Medical Association representing the consensus of medical opinion in the United States, has repeatedly
by resolution repudiated the false doctrine that sexual continence is incompatible with health. The father who counsels his son to worship at the shrine of Venus is
assuming a tremendous responsibility for the physical welfare of his boy. He is a greater source of danger to his son and to the community than the timid parent who
does not dare to broach the subject to his child whom he regards most innocent. Oh, the blindness of fathers who do not recall their own boyhood and the extent of their
sex information after the age of thirteen years! As a caution to such men, let it be remembered that ignorance and innocence are not equivalents. The boys of the
cities are for the most part wise in their ignorance before puberty is well under way. Masturbation requires personal attention more during the last years of this age
of chivalry than at any other time. It is the opportunity of preventing the habit that presents itself. Younger boys learn the practice from older boys and loose
companionships at puberty are dangerous. Guidance against this practice may well be anticipatory. By calling attention to the necessity of caring for the genital organs
so as to preserve their health, by encouraging general ideals of cleanliness much may be accomplished. The damage of this solitary vice is visited upon the nervous system
and the psychic centers. The warnings coupled with threats of physical punishment are of little avail. Appeals to self-restraint, self-respect and on the grounds of healthare of far greater value. Calling upon pride, ambition and manliness has more potential power where there is added thereto an intelligent discussion of the interrelation of the general health of the body and the health of all its parts. To cause children to realize that the accomplishment of their desires and ideals depends upon their freedom from selfhandling gives an impetus to self-control that is
otherwise lacking. Some precocious youths secure additional strength in the idea that their potential paternity may be sacrificed through the stimulation of their
sexual selves at this period of immaturity.
While the above refers to the psychical effect of youthful errors, young men should learn that there is also a physical side to the same problem. Eminent
physicians assert that many men have completely and permanently destroyed their sexual functions by extensive dissipations, either by masturbation or by natural
relations ; and that very many more have injured themselves so that perfection of the physical basis of love and marriage is impossible.
The Problem of Self-control for Young Men
The problem of control of the insistent passions of normal young men has been unscientifically minimized by numerous writers and lecturers. It should be noted
that many of these are men who have long since forgotten the storms and stresses of their early manhood, and others are women who do not know the facts indicating
that the sexual instincts of young men are characteristically active, aggressive,spontaneous, and automatic, while those of women as a rule are passive and subject
to awakening by external stimuli, especially in connection with affection. Such forgetful men and uninformed women are prone to regard the lack of control of
many young men as simply due to “original sin,”“innate viciousness,”“bad companions,” or “irresistible temptations”; and they overlook the great fact that
maintaining perfect sexual control in his pre-marital years is for the average healthy young man a problem compared with which all others, including the alcoholic
temptation, are of little significance. Such being the truth about young men, nothing is to be gained and much is to be lost if older people fail to take an understanding
and sympathetic attitude. I question whether any young man has ever been helped through his adolescent crises by such oft-repeated assertions as that “there is no
more reason that a young man should go astray than that his sister should,” or, in other words, that “continence is as easy for a young man as for a girl of similar age.”
An observing young man will doubt such statements, and if he has had access to scientific information, he will feel sure that there has been an attempt to influence
him by the kind of exaggeration commonly adopted by specialists in moral preachments. The plain truth is that there is a physiological “reason” or explanation,
although not a justification for failure of self-control. Even if we accept the improbable statement of some writers that boys and girls are in early adolescence
potentially equal in sexual instincts and assuming that they may be protected equallyagainst vicious habits, we must not forget that every normal boy passes in early
puberty through peculiar physiological changes that arouse his deepest instincts. I refer especially to the frequent occurrence of involuntary sexual tumescence and to
the occasional nocturnal emissions, which processes leave the boy in no doubt whatever as to the nature, source, and desirability of sexual pleasure. Especially is
this true of the automatic emissions that usually follow continence of healthy young men, for in connection with such relief of seminal pressure every nerve center of the
sexual mechanism seems to be involved in the culminating nerve storm of which the awakening individual is often quite pleasurably conscious. In short, as men looking
backward to their early manhood well understand, the physical sensations that come into the normal sexual experience of the adolescent boy are different only in degree
of intensity from those which later are concomitants of sexual union. Such, in brief, is the physiological history of the normal adolescent boy, and one who has fallen into
even most limited masturbation will probably be still more conscious of the fact that the ordinary sequence of events in the activity of the sexual organs leads to intense
excitement that has almost irresistible attractiveness.
Now, most scientifically-trained women seem to agree that there are no corresponding phenomena in the early pubertal life of the normal young woman
who has good health. A limited number of mature women, some of them physicians,report having experienced in the pubertal years localized tumesscence and other
disturbances which made them definitely conscious of sexual instincts. However, it should be noted that most of these are known to have had a personal history
including one or more such abnormalities as dysmenorrhea, uterine displacement, pathological ovaries, leucorrhea, tuberculosis, masturbation, neurasthenia,
nymphomania, or other disturbances which are sufficient to account for local sexual stimulation. In short, such women are not normal. Such facts have led many
physicians to the generalization that the average healthy adolescent girl does not undergo normal spontaneous changes which make her definitely conscious of the
nature, source, and desirability of localized sexual pleasure. On the contrary, such consciousness commonly comes to many only as the result of stimuli arising in
connection with affection. Clearly it is nonsense to claim that the sexual temptations arising within the individual are equal for the two sexes. Potentially, girls may have
passions as strong as boys, but they do not become so definitely and spontaneously conscious of their latent instincts.
In the opinion of some physiologists the greatest harm done to the individual who has long been a victim of masturbation is in the centering of the attention on
imaginary sexual situations. This is especially true of mental masturbation. Hence,the relation of masturbation to the possible establishment of a disordered mental
state should be known by adolescent boys and young men.