Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

THE SEXUAL IMPULSE IN YOUTHrepulsion or of disgust.Servants and nurse-maids havefrequently been apt not only to treat sex with reprehensionbut excretion with disgust. The wholesome motherfeels no disgust for her child's excretions, and that attitudeisimportant, for as the organs of sex and of excretionare on the surface so closely adjoined any attitude ofdisgust towards one is likely to embrace the other. It issometimes said that the right attitude to inculcate is thatboth sets of organs alike are neither "disgusting" nor"sacred." But, in one way or another, it has soon to bemade clear that, while both sets of organs are natural andneither disgusting, there is an immense difference in theirultimate significance, and that what proceeds from sexmay be so tragic for the individual and so fateful for t5erace that, even if we reject the word "sacred" for sex, wemust find some other word of equal poignancy.The value of early sex instruction for after life is shownby Dr. Katharine Davis's extensive investigation amongmarried women. When divided into two groups, accordingas they regarded themselves as happily or unhappily married,it was found that 57 per cent, of the happy grouphad received some general sex instruction in early life, butonly 44 per cent, of the unhappy group. Dr. G. V. Hamil-which are based on much smaller data, doton's results,not entirely agree, but he found the significant fact thatthe best source of early sex instruction for girls was themother; 65 perinstruction were in the groupcent, of married women who received suchwhose sexual relations are"adequate," but less than 35 per cent, in the "inadequate"group; when the early information came from contemporariesor obscene talk, the percentage for the adequategroup fell to 54, and the married life of the small groupwho had received instruction from father or brother wasunsatisfactory.1*991