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 SANE SEX LIFE AND 
 SANE SEX LIVING 
 
 SOME THINGS THAT ALL SANE PEOPLE OLGH F TO 
 KNOW ABOUT SEX NATURE AND SEX FUNCTION- 
 LNG; ITS PLACE IN THE ECONOMY OF LIFE, ITS 
 PROPER TRAINING AND RIGHTEOUS EXERCISE 
 
 H. W. LONG, M.D 
 
 AUTHORIZED EDITION 
 
 i 
 
 EUGENICS PUBLISHING CO., INC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 I
 
 COPYKIGHT, 1919, 1922, BY 
 EUGEKICS PXTBLISHING COMPANY, InC. 
 
 All ritrhs reserved, includinff that of translation into foreiffn 
 
 lanjiTiaces, including the Scandinavian. The reproduction 
 
 of any or all parts of this book strictly prohibited 
 
 except by written permission of the publisher. 
 
 COPYHIOHT IN GhEAT BRITAIN 
 
 MAT>r IV TTTF TTXITED STATES OF AMFRTCA
 
 NOTE TO THE READER 
 
 IN ORDER TO GAIN A CORRECT IMPRESSION OF THE 
 BOOK, IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT IT BE READ FROM THE 
 BEGINNING TO THE END WITHOUT ANY SKIPPING WHAT- 
 SOEVER. ONCE READ, IT CAN BE REREAD, HERE AND 
 THERE, AS THE READER MAY DESIRE. BUT FOR A FIRST 
 READING, IT IS THE EARNEST WISH OF THE AUTHOR 
 THAT EVERY WORD BE READ^ FOR IN NO OTHER WAY 
 CAN THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK BE REALIZED.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 AS we have moved down the ages now and then, 
 from the religious teacher, the statesman, the 
 inventor, the social worker, or from the doctor, sur- 
 geon, or sexologist, there has been a "vox clamantis 
 in deserto." Usually these voices have fallen on un- 
 heeding ears ; but again and again some delver in 
 books, some student of men, some inspired, self-effac- 
 ing, or altruistic one has taken up the cry; and at 
 last unthinking, unheeding, superficial, self-satisfied 
 humanity has turned to listen. 
 
 Aristotle by the sure inductive method learned 
 and taught much, concerning the sex relations of men 
 and women, that it would profit us today to heed. 
 Balzac, Luther, Michelet, Spencer, and later, at our 
 very doors, Krafft-Ebbing, Forel, Bloch, Ellis, 
 Freud, Hall, and scores of others have added their 
 voices. All these have seen whither we were drifting, 
 and have made vigorous protests according to their 
 lights. Many of these protests should have been 
 heard, but were not, and only now are just beginning 
 to be heeded. Such pioneers in the field of proper, 
 healthful, ethical, religious, sane daily sex living, 
 have been Sturgis and Malchow, who talked earnest- 
 ly to an unheeding profession of these things, and 
 now, I have the honor to write an introductory word 
 to a book in this field, that is sane, wise, practical, 
 entirely truthful and unspeakably necessary. 
 
 7
 
 8 Introduction 
 
 I can endorse the teachings in Dr. Long's book 
 more fully because I have, for nearly a quarter of 
 a century, been holding similar views, and dispens- 
 ing similar, though perhaps less expHcit, informa- 
 tion. I know from long observation that the teach- 
 ing is wholesome and necessary, and that the results 
 are universally uplifting. Such teachings improve 
 health, prolong life, and promote virtue, adding to 
 the happiness and lessening the burdens of men, on 
 die one hand; on the other, reducing their crimes 
 and vices. A book like this would have proved in- 
 valuable to me on my entrance to the married state; 
 but had I had it, I might not have been forced to ac- 
 quire the knowledge which enables me now to state 
 with all solemnity, that I personally know hundreds 
 of couples whose lives were wrecked for lack of such 
 knowledge, and that I more intimately know hun- 
 dreds of others to whom verbal teaching along the 
 lines he has laid down, has brought happiness, health 
 and goodness. 
 
 Dr. Long advances no theories ; neither do L He 
 has found by studying himself and other people, a 
 sane and salutary way of sex living, and fearlessly 
 has prescribed this to a limited circle for a long time. 
 I congratulate him for his perspicacity, temerity, 
 and wisdom. He offers no apology, and there is no 
 occasion for any. He says, "All has been set down 
 in love, by a lover, for the sake of lovers yet to be, 
 in the hope of helping them on toward a divine 
 consummation." That is, he has developed these 
 ideas at home, and then spread them abroad, or he
 
 Introduction 9 
 
 has found them abroad and brought them home; and 
 they worked. 
 
 I also speak somewhat ex experientia and have 
 some intimate personal knowledge of many of these 
 things. Therefore, I advocate his doctrine, the more 
 readily, and maintain that humanity needs these ideas 
 as much today as when M. Jules Lemaitre wrote his 
 late introduction to Michelet's U Amour. He said: 
 "II ne parait pas, apres quarante ans passes, que 
 les choses aiUcnt mieux, ni que le livre de Michelet ait 
 rien perdu de son a-propos." Twenty years more 
 have elapsed and things have not yet become much 
 better. Frank sex talks like Dr. Long's teaching 
 are as a-propos today as was Michelet's book when 
 it was written, or when, after forty years had passed 
 M. Lemaitre wrote his introduction. 
 
 Idealism is right, and we all approve it; so much 
 so, that many of us cannot see that ultra-idealism, 
 extremism in right, (it is foolish to attempt to attain 
 anything better than the best) may be wrong. Un- 
 doubtedly, entire devotion to the material and phys- 
 ical is also wrong; but we never must lose sight of 
 the palpable fact that, unless we have a proper, 
 stable, natural, well-regulated physical or material 
 foundation, we must fall short of all ideals. Proper 
 physical adjustments enable the realization of real- 
 izable ideals. Unrealizable ideals are chimeras pur- 
 sued into futurity, while a world that should be 
 human and happy waits in vice and misery. I gather 
 that Dr. Long believes that reducing this vice and 
 misery, and increasing human happiness and improv-
 
 10 Introduction 
 
 ing health are suitable works with which to com- 
 panion a faith in the Arbiter of our destinies. 
 
 If thus he develops his idea of the integrity of 
 the universe, I agree with him fully. His book, since 
 it delineates the numerous details of a normal sex 
 life, can be sold, thanks to our prudish public, only 
 to the profession. I believe it should go to the larger 
 public as it has gone formerly to his smaller com- 
 munity. 
 
 In spite of imperfect ideals the Orient has en- 
 dured, while we of the Occident are fast becoming 
 decadent. We, by learning something of the art of 
 love, and of the natural life of married people, from 
 the Hindoos, may perpetuate our civilization. They, 
 by adopting the best of our transcendentalism, may 
 reach higher development than we yet have attained. 
 
 The time has come for a book like this to com- 
 mand the attention of medical men, since now an 
 awakened public demands from them, as the con- 
 servers of life and the directors of physiological liv- 
 ing, explicit directions in everything pertaining to 
 the physician's calling, not omitting the intimate, 
 intricate, long taboo and disdained details of sex life 
 and procreation. 
 
 W. F. RoBiE, M. D.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter 
 
 Introduction hy W. F. Rohie 7 
 
 Foreword 13 
 
 I. An Explanatory Introduction 25 
 
 II. The Argument and the Information 31 
 
 III. The Correct Mental Attitude 36 
 
 VI. The Sex Organs 40 
 
 V. The Function of the Sex Organs 44 
 
 VI. The Act of Coitus 68 
 
 VII. The First Union 89 
 
 VIII. The Art of Love 104 
 
 IX. Coitus Reservatus 128 
 
 X. Cleanliness 140 
 
 XI. Pregnancy 144 
 
 XII. Conclusion 150 
 
 11
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 To Members of the Medical Profession into Whose 
 Hands This Book May Come : 
 
 The following pages are more in the nature of 
 a manuscript, or heart-to-heart talk between those 
 who have mutual confidence in each other, than of 
 a technical, or strictly scientific treatise of the sub- 
 ject in hand ; and I cannot do better, for all parties 
 concerned, than to explain, just here in the begin- 
 ning, how this came about, and why I have concluded 
 to leave the copy practically as it was originally 
 written. 
 
 In common with nearly all members of our pro- 
 fession who are engaged in the general practice of 
 medicine, I have had numbers of married men and 
 women, husbands and wives, patients and otherwise, 
 who have come to me for counsel and advice regard- 
 ing matters which pertain to their sex-life, as that 
 problem presented itself to them personally. As 
 we all know, many of the most serious and compli- 
 cated cases we have to deal with have their origins 
 in these delicate relations which so often exist among 
 wedded people, of all classes and varieties, 
 
 13
 
 14 Foreword 
 
 For a number of years I did what I could for 
 these patrons of mine, by way of confidential talks 
 and the like, my experience in this regard probably 
 being about on a par with that of my medical breth- 
 ren who are engaged in the same kind of work. It 
 is needless to say that I found, as you have doubt- 
 less found under the same conditions, many obstacles 
 to prevent satisfactory results, by this method of 
 procedure. I\Iy patients were often so reticent, or 
 timid and shame-faced, that it was frequently diffi- 
 cult to get at the real facts in their cases, and, as 
 we all know, many of these would, for these and 
 other reasons, conceal more than they revealed, 
 thereby keeping out of evidence the most vital and 
 significant items in their individual cases. All these 
 things, of course, tended to make bad matters worse, 
 or resulted in nothing that was really worth while. 
 
 After some years of this sort of experience, and 
 meditating much on the situation, I came to the con- 
 clusion that a very large percentage of all this 
 trouble which I and my patrons had to go up against, 
 was almost entirely the result of ignorance on the 
 part of those who came to consult me; and because 
 knowledge is always the antidote for not knowing, 
 I came to the conclusion that, if it were possible 
 to "put these people wise" where they were now 
 so uninformed, I might at once save them from a 
 deal of harm and myself from much trouble and 
 annoyance. 
 
 Further than this, I remembered once hearing 
 a wi.se man say that often "what cannot be said
 
 Foreword 15 
 
 may be sung"; and I realized that it is equally true 
 that much which would be awkward, or embarrass- 
 ing, if said to a person, face to face, might be got 
 to them in writing with impunity. This I found to 
 be especially true of my women patients, some of 
 whom might become suspicious of a wrong intent 
 from the things said in a private conversation, when 
 they would have no such fears or doubts if they read 
 the same words from a printed page. It was these 
 considerations which first suggested to me the 
 writing of the following pages. 
 
 Still other reasons why I did as I did were as 
 follows: You see, at once, if you stop to think about 
 it, that the writing out of the knowledge I proposed 
 to impart was really a matter of necessity for me, 
 because of the saving of time which would thereby 
 be secured. To get any results that would be worth 
 while in these matters, I would be required to tell 
 about ever so many things concerning which they 
 were totally ignorant ; and to tell about ever so many 
 things, by word of mouth, to each individual patient, 
 takes time — ever so much time, if the work is well 
 done, and it had better not be done at all if it is not 
 well done. So I really was forced to write out what 
 I wanted to teach these patients of mine. 
 
 And let me say further that I was compelled to 
 write these things out for my i>eople as I have written 
 them, because, in all the range of literature on this 
 vital subject, I knew of nothing which would tell 
 them just what it seemed to me they ought to be 
 told, and what they ought to know.
 
 16 Forezvord 
 
 And so it was that I wrote the manuscript which 
 is now printed in the following pages. I did not 
 write it at first just as it now stands, because experi- 
 ence showed me, from time to time, where my first 
 efforts could be modified and improved. So what is 
 here presented is the result of many practical dem- 
 onstrations of the real working value of what the 
 manuscript contains. 
 
 My method of using the copy has been something 
 as follows: As I have already suggested, what I 
 have written has been prepared for the sole and 
 express purpose of helping husbands and wives to 
 live sane and wholesome sex-lives — to give them the 
 requisite knowledge for so doing; knowledge of them- 
 selves and of each other as sexual beings; the cor- 
 rect ideas regarding such right manner of living; 
 to disabuse their minds of wrong sex-teaching, or 
 no teaching at all, of ignorance, or prudery, or care- 
 lessness, or lust — in a word, to get to them the things 
 that all sane married people ought to know, and to 
 help them to practice these things, to the best of their 
 several abilities. 
 
 (Perhaps I ought to say that there is not a line 
 of whai I have written that deals with the subject 
 of venereal diseases, any of them. This field is 
 already so well covered by a literature especially 
 devoted to this subject that it needs no word of mine 
 to make it as satisfactory as possible, as far as dis- 
 coveries regarding the same have progressed. My 
 attempt is toward making marriage more of a success
 
 Foreword 17 
 
 than it now is, under existing conditions ; and we 
 all know that there is a limitless field for exploration 
 and exploitation right there.) 
 
 Speaking somewhat generally, I have found what 
 I have written to be of special value to two classes 
 of my patrons : First, to the "newly-weds" ; and, 
 second, to those who have been married for a longer 
 or shorter period, and who "have not got on well 
 together." A word or two regarding each of these: 
 
 It is a wise old saying that "an ounce of pre- 
 vention is worth a pound of cure," and in no other 
 experience of life is this so true as in the ills to 
 which married people are peculiarly subject. Many 
 a newly wedded couple have wrecked the possibili- 
 ties of happiness of a life time on their "honey-moon 
 trip" ; and it is a matter of common knowledge to 
 the members of our profession that the great ma- 
 jority of brides are practically raped on their en- 
 trance into the married relation. Further than this, 
 we all know that these things are as they are chiefly 
 because of the ignorance of the parties concerned, 
 rather than because they deliberately meant to do 
 wrong. They were left to travel, alone and un- 
 guided, over what was to them an unknown way, 
 one that was beset with pitfalls and precipices, and 
 where dangers lurked in every forward step they 
 took. It is to these that I have found what I have 
 written to be a great help at the time of their ut- 
 most need; and the thanks I have received from such 
 parties have been beyond the power of words to ex- 
 press.
 
 18 Foreword 
 
 As to just when it is best to put this information 
 into the hands of young married people, my experi- 
 ence has varied with the personaHty of the parties 
 concerned. In some cases I have put the copy into 
 their hands some time before their marriage; in 
 others, not till some time thereafter ; but, as a rule, 
 I have got the best results by putting the manu- 
 script into their hands just at the time of their mar- 
 riage, and in most of these cases the greatest suc- 
 cess has come from their reading it together during 
 their honeymoon. However, this is a matter on 
 which I do not care to advise, and regarding which 
 each practitioner must act to the best of his own 
 judgment. 
 
 Once more : Because it is not safe to assume 
 that young married people are already possessed 
 of the details of the essential knowledge which they 
 ought to possess, and because such details are the 
 very heart of the whole matter, I have made these 
 details as simple and explicit as possible, more so 
 than might seem necessary to the professional reader. 
 But my experience has proven that I was wise in 
 this regard, as these very details have saved the day 
 in more than one case, as the parties who have re- 
 ported to me, after having read what I have written, 
 have frequently testified. Sometimes a bride and 
 groom would keep the copy for a few days only, 
 giving it but a single reading; but, as a rule, they 
 have been anxious to retain it for some time, and to 
 read it again and again, especially some parts of it, 
 till they were well posted on all that it contains. I
 
 Foreword 19 
 
 found, too, that those who had received help from 
 the reading of the manuscript were glad to tell 
 others of their friends of the benefits they had re- 
 ceived, and that thus there was a constantly 
 widening circle. 
 
 Of course, not all young married people are cap- 
 able of reading this book with profit to themselves 
 or anyone else ; but many of them are, and these 
 ought to have the privilege of doing so. Your own 
 good sense and experience will determine who these 
 latter are, and these you can favor as they deserve 
 It is because of this situation that tliis book can 
 only be used professionally that it needs the guiding 
 hand of an expert physician to insure its reaching 
 only those who can be benefited by its reading. 
 
 As to the other class of readers, those who have 
 not got on well in the marriage relation (and we all 
 know that the name of these is legion) my experi- 
 ence in getting to them what I have written has been 
 quite varied ; but, on the whole, the results have been 
 good — many times they have been most excellent. 
 Of course, it is harder to correct errors than to pre- 
 vent them ; but as most of the errors I have had to 
 deal with among this class of patients have been 
 made through ignorance rather than otherwise, I 
 have found that the establishment of knowledge in 
 the premises has generally brought relief where 
 before was only sufifering and woe. 
 
 Another way in which I have found the copy to 
 be of the greatest value with these cases of unsatis- 
 factory marital relations is the fact that, often, by
 
 20 Forczi'ord 
 
 the parties reading the copy together they have 
 come to a mutual understanding by so doing, and 
 have established a modus vivendi which could not 
 have been attained in any other way. When such 
 parties see their doctor singly, either of them, a 
 prejudiced view is very apt to result, and they would 
 seldom, if ever, come together to consult a physician 
 regarding their troubles. But the reading of the 
 book together makes a condition of affairs which is 
 very apt to work out for the best interests of all 
 parties concerned. Certainly, this is true, that in 
 no case has the reading of the book made bad mat- 
 ters worse, and in many cases, (indeed in nearly all 
 of them) it has been of untold value and benefit to 
 the readers. 
 
 And because these things are so, because what 
 I have written has proved its worth in so many cases, 
 I have finally concluded to give the copy a larger 
 field in which it may be used by other members of 
 the profession besides myself. I confide it to my 
 fellow-members in the profession feeling sure that 
 they will use it among their patients with wisdom 
 and discretion ; and my hope is that their so doing 
 may yield for them and theirs the most excellent 
 results which have come to me and mine, on these 
 lines, in the years that have gone by. 
 
 Perhaps I ought to say that the somewhat unique 
 typography of the book, the large percentage of 
 italics, and not a few capitalized words that api)ear 
 in the i)ages. comes from a duplication of the copy 
 I have used with my patients. I wrote the original
 
 Forezvord 21 
 
 copy in this way for the sake of giving special em- 
 phasis to special points for my readers, and the 
 results attained I believe were very largely due to the 
 typographically emphatic form of the book. Appear- 
 ing in type in this way, it gives a sort of personal 
 touch to what is thus presented to the eye of the 
 reader, and the tendency of this is to establish a 
 heart-to-heart relation between the author and the 
 reader which could not be attained in any other way. 
 
 All through the copy I have avoided the use of 
 technical words, never using such a term without 
 explaining its meaning in plain English in the words 
 that immediately follow it. I found this an absolute 
 necessity in writing so that the lay reader could 
 understand, in saying things that would produce 
 results. 
 
 I might say, also, that the "Introduction" to the 
 real subject matter of the book, I found necessary 
 to write as it is largely to get my readers into a 
 proper mental attitude for a reasonable recognition 
 and understanding of what follows it. There are 
 so many wrong teachings and biased ideas in the 
 premises that these had to be counteracted or re- 
 moved, to a degree, at least, before the rest of the 
 copy could be rightly read. My experience is, that 
 the preface, as it stands, has been the means of put- 
 ting the readers of the book into a right mental 
 attitude for its successful study and consideration. 
 For the good of the cause it is written to serve, and 
 for help to those who need help in the most sacred
 
 22 Foreword 
 
 and significant affairs of their lives, may the book 
 go on its way, if not rejoicing in itself, yet causing 
 rejoicing in the lives and hearts of all who read what 
 its pages contain. 
 
 H. W. L.
 
 SANE SEX LIFE AND 
 SANE SEX LIVING
 
 SANE SEX LIFE AND 
 SANE SEX LIVING 
 
 I 
 
 AN EXPLANATORY INTRODUCTION 
 
 I 
 
 A PIOUS Christian once said to me: "I find it 
 hard to reconcile sex with the purity of Provi- 
 dence." He never could understand why God 
 arranged for sex anyway. Why something else might 
 not have been done. Why children might not have 
 come in some other fashion. 
 
 Look at the harm sex has involved. Most all 
 the deviltry of history that was not done for money 
 was done for sex. And even the deviltry that was 
 done and is done for money had, and has sex back 
 of it. Take sex out of man and you have something 
 worth while. God must have been short of expedi- 
 ents when God, in sex, conceived sex. It certainly 
 looks as if the Divine fell down this time. As if in- 
 finity was at the end of its tether. As if the adept 
 creator for once was caught napping, or for once 
 botched a job. 
 
 So we had my pious friend. And we had medie- 
 valism. And we had the ascetics. And heaven knows 
 what else. Too much sex some places. Too little 
 sex other places. Some people swearing on and some 
 
 25
 
 26 Sane Sex Life 
 
 swearing off. The prostitute giving away that which 
 was meant to be kept. The virgin keeping that which 
 was meant to be given away. A force contending 
 with a force. Drawing in opposite directions when 
 they should be pulling together. Through it all, 
 motherhood misunderstood. And fatherhood misun- 
 derstood. The body cheapened to the soul. And the 
 soul cheapened to the body. Every child being a 
 slap in the face of virtue. 
 
 Have you ever tried to see what this came from 
 and goes to? This philosophy of vulgar denial? 
 This philosophy of wallowing surrender? 
 
 The Christian stream has been polluted. It has 
 gone dirty in the age of hush. We are supposed to 
 keep our mouths shut. We are not to give sex away. 
 We breed youngsters in fatal ignorance. They are 
 always asking questions. But we don't answer their 
 questions. The church don't answer them. Nor the 
 state. Nor the schools. Not even mothers and 
 fathers. Nobody who could answer answers them. 
 But they don't go unanswered. They get answered. 
 And they get answered wrong instead of right. They 
 get answered, smutched instead of washed. They 
 get answered blasphemously instead of reverently. 
 They get answered so that the body is suspected 
 instead of being trusted. 
 
 A boy who knows nothing asks a boy who knows 
 nothing. A girl who knows nothing asks a girl who 
 knows nothing. From nothing nothing comes. Men 
 who have been such boys know nothing. Women who 
 have been such girls know nothing. From nothing
 
 Sane Sex Living 27 
 
 nothing comes. They have become familiar with 
 sex circumstances. They are parents. They have 
 done the best they knew how. But they never learned 
 sex. They never realized its fundamentals. They 
 never went back to, or forward to it. They were 
 lost in a wilderness. They existed without living. 
 They took sex as they took whiskey. They breathed 
 an atmosphere of hush. They had got past the 
 ascetics. But they had not got to be men and women. 
 They didn't refuse sex. But though embracing its 
 privileges, they still seemed to regard it as something 
 not to be gloried in. The least said about it the 
 soonest mended. Mothers and fathers would say to 
 children : "You'll know about it soon enough." 
 Teachers would say : "Ask your questions at home." 
 Home would say: "What ever started you thinking 
 about such things?" 
 
 The child goes about wondering. What's the 
 matter with sex that everybody's afraid to talk about 
 it? What's the matter with my body that I dare not 
 mention it? My body seems very beautiful to me. 
 I like to look at it. I like to feel it. I like to smell 
 it. But I'm always hurried into my clothes. My 
 body is so mysteriously precious I must take care 
 of it. But how am I to take care of it if I don't get 
 acquainted with it? 
 
 I find that having a body has something to do 
 with being a father and a mother. I want to be a 
 father. I want to be a mother. But how can I 
 be a father or mother if some one who knows doesn't 
 tell me what precedes fatherhood and motherhood?
 
 28 Sane Sex Life 
 
 I should prepare for it. How can I if all the books 
 are closed? How can I if I am blanked every time 
 I express my curiosity? Is there no one anywhere 
 who'll be honest with me ? 
 
 If I look at sex right out of my own soul, it 
 seems like something which God didn't fail with, but 
 succeeded with. Like something not polluted, but 
 purified. Like something having everything, instead 
 of only an occasional thing, to do with life. But 
 the world shakes its head. The world is nasty. But 
 it puts on airs. The world has eaten. But the world 
 says it's best to starve. Folks will say they've got 
 to be parents. But they say they will regret it. 
 They say sex is here. They say we're up against 
 its mandates or its passions. But let's be as decent 
 as we can with the indecent. Let's not linger on its 
 margins. Let's not overstay our dissipation. Sex 
 is like eating. Who would eat if he didn't have to? 
 To say you enjoy a meal is carnal. To say that 
 you derive some sense of ecstasy from paternal and 
 maternal desires is a confession of depravity. Sex 
 at the best is a sin. 
 
 Sex at the best is like stepping down. That sex 
 might be an ascent. That sex might be the only 
 means of growth and expansion. You never sup- 
 pose that ! You only assume perdition. You are 
 afraid to assume heaven. I may take pride in that 
 which I may abstract from my anatomy. I must 
 not allude to my body as frankly as to my soul. I 
 must withdraw my body from the public eye. From 
 discussion. From its instinctive avowals. Our bodies
 
 Sane Sex Living 29 
 
 must be coffined. Treated as dead before they are 
 born. Regarded as conveniences. Not as essential 
 entities. The body is only for a little while. The 
 soul is forever. But why is that little while not 
 as holy as forever? They don't say. They cavalierly 
 settle the case of the body against itself. 
 
 So it goes. Endless vivid portrayals could be 
 made of the anomalous situation. The more you 
 look at the mess we've got sex into the worse it 
 seems. Someone's got to peach. Someone's got to 
 tell the truth. In a world of liars who are hushers? 
 In a world of hushers who are liars? Someone's 
 got to tell the truth. Someone's got to give sex its 
 due. You can't give spirit its due until you give 
 sex its due. You can't accept one and cast aside 
 one. They go together. They are inseparable. 
 
 You refer to body and soul as if you knew just 
 where one stops and the other commences. Maybe 
 neither stops and neither commences. Maybe they 
 are not two things but two names. Maybe when you 
 put a body into a grave you put a soul there too. 
 And maybe you put neither there. It's not so 
 easy to say. 
 
 I can't see anything in the things you call spir- 
 itual more marvelous than what you call the physical 
 birth of a baby from a mother. Maybe you know 
 all about it. I don't. I know nothing about it. To 
 me it's mysterious. To me it's the supreme demon- 
 stration of the spiritual. 
 
 How that a baby comes from a man and a 
 woman. I want that kept clean. It starts clean.
 
 30 Sane Sex Life 
 
 Why do we corrupt it? You who disparage it corrupt 
 it. You ascetics anywhere. You Hbidinous roues 
 anywhere. You corrupt it. By your excesses. 
 You who never say yes. You who never say no. 
 You corrupt it. 
 
 You parents. You professors. You prudes. This 
 is addressed to you. What have you got to say 
 about it? You have trembUngly closed the question. 
 I would coolly open it. You have rebuked God by 
 silence. I would praise God by speech.
 
 II 
 
 THE ARGUMENT AND THE INFORMATION 
 
 NO apology is offered for what is said in the 
 following pages, but a brief explanation is 
 virtually necessary to make clear, from the outset, 
 the reasons why it has been written. 
 
 It is one of the chief characteristics of the human 
 race that the knowledge acquired by one generation 
 can be passed on to the generations that follow ; 
 and that, in this way, progress in the betterment 
 of life's results and the adaptation of means to ends 
 can make a steady and reliable advance. 
 
 Such a method of evolution and growth is not 
 possible in the vegetable or animal kingdom, where 
 instinct is the only means for the transmission of 
 acquired knowledge. It is this feature that differen- 
 tiates man from all other created beings. 
 
 But here is a curious fact : In one realm of human 
 experiences, in all Christian civilized countries, it 
 has been considered wrong, even in some cases being 
 counted a criminal offense, punishable by fine and 
 imprisonment, for anyone to make any record of, 
 or transmit to anyone else, any knowledge that may 
 have been acquired regarding sex relations in the 
 human family. 
 
 31
 
 32 Sane Sex Life 
 
 To be sure, there has been preserved, from time to 
 time, a body of professional knowledge of this sort, 
 made and prepared by physicians, but confined 
 strictly to that class of people. No attempt has been 
 made to disseminate such knowledge among those 
 who most need it — the common people. On the con- 
 trary, every possible effort is put forth to keep such 
 knowledge from them. This is wholly at variance 
 with the practice regarding all other forms of human 
 knowledge, which is to spread, as widely as possible, 
 all known data that have so far been obtained. 
 
 There is not space, in this small volume, for 
 pointing out the reasons for this anomalous condi- 
 tion of affairs, but the chief cause of its status, past 
 and present, is grounded on two sources : The first 
 of these is a brutal selfishness which has come over to 
 modern times from a savage past ; the second is a 
 sort of pious prudery. 
 
 The result of these causes has been to make the 
 whole subject of sex in the human family, with its 
 functions and mission in human affairs, together 
 with its proper training, discipline and exercise — 
 to make all these things tabu, something to be 
 ashamed of and ignored as much as possible, and 
 all the knowledge regarding them that one genera- 
 tion has been permitted to transmit to those who 
 come after, may be summed up in these words, 
 namely "Thou shall not." 
 
 Now it goes without saying that, in the very 
 nature of things, all this is just as bad as it can
 
 Sane Sex Living 33 
 
 possibly be. For, of all phenomena with which the 
 human race has to do, that of the highest import- 
 ance, so far as the well-being of the race is concerned, 
 is that which has to do with sex in men and women. 
 A large percentage of all the physical ailments in 
 mankind and womankind arise from errors in sexual 
 life, and these are but trifles compared with the 
 mental and spiritual disasters which come upon 
 humanity from the same source. It is probably true 
 that more than one-half of all the crimes that are 
 committed in the civilized world are more or less 
 directly connected wath sex affairs, and there is no 
 so common a cause for insanity as sex aberrations. 
 
 And nearly all these ills, crimes and misfortunes 
 arise because of ignorance in the matter of sex in 
 which the rank and file of the race are forced to 
 live. Few of these ever acquire any positive and 
 definite knowledge in the premises, and if they do 
 learn anything for sure, they keep it to themselves, 
 inspired to do so by a false belief regarding the 
 rightful transmission of such knowledge; or, by a 
 false modesty, or prudery, they are kept from telling 
 to anyone else what they have discovered or found 
 to be the truth in these matters. And so the people 
 stumble along in ignorance of these vital affairs in 
 life, generation after generation, repeating the 
 errors of their predecessors, and no positive progress 
 being made as the years go by. Because of this 
 state of affairs millions of human beings die every 
 ijeneration, and other millions suffer the tortures 
 of the damned while they live, when they should
 
 34 Sane Sex Life 
 
 enjoy the delights of the elect, and would do so if 
 thev only knew the actual facts in the case, and would 
 act in accordance with the knowledge that ought to 
 be made theirs. 
 
 But there are not wanting signs of the times that 
 there will slowly come a change in these conditions. 
 The fact is that the intelligent world is beginning 
 to emerge from a condition of conformity to the 
 say-so of some one supposed to speak with authority, 
 and to come into a realm of obedience only to a law 
 that has a scientific basis of actual knowledge for 
 its foundation. 
 
 For untold ages the sex relations of the human 
 family have been directed and determined by the 
 clergy and by their teachings and pronunciamentos 
 regarding what was fit and right. There is no need 
 of saying hard things about such a fact ; neverthe- 
 less, it is true that, for the most part, all the dicta 
 of these men have originated amongst those who 
 knew nothing of the scientific conditions regarding 
 the subject on which they issue their mandates. So 
 did the l)lind lead the blind, and the ditches of the 
 past years are filled to overflowing with the dead 
 bodies and souls of men and women, who, for this 
 cause, have fallen therein. 
 
 This must not always be ! It is neither wise nor 
 right that the essential matters of human life should 
 always remain a stumbling block and a rock of 
 offense for the children of men. We are coming to 
 see that sex is no more unclean and to be denied a 
 scientific knowledge of, than any other part of the
 
 Sane Sex Living 35 
 
 human body — the eye, the ear or whatsoever. Fur- 
 thermore, the rank and file are beginning to clamor 
 for a knowledge of these matters for themselves. 
 This is shown by the frequency of articles that deal 
 with sex in many of the best newspapers and maga- 
 zines in the civilized world, and by similar discus- 
 sions in the literature, the works and scientific books 
 that now go into the hands of the common people. 
 It also shows in the attempts that are occasionally 
 being made to introduce the subject of sexual hygiene 
 into our public schools and other educational 
 institutions. "The world do move !" 
 
 It is for these reasons — because it is right to 
 transfer to you and to those who come after, the 
 sex knowledge that has been acquired by the author, 
 by reading scientific and professional literature upon 
 the subject, by conference with men and women who 
 know, and by personal and professional experience, 
 that what follows is written.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE CORRECT MENTAL ATTITUDE 
 
 SO much by way of general remarks regarding 
 the subject in hand. It is more the especial 
 purpose of what follows, however, to treat of the 
 matter of marriage in particular, to say something 
 definite to young husbands and wives that shall he of 
 real benefit to them, not only by way of starting them 
 out right in the new and untried way upon which 
 they have entered, but to help them to make that 
 way a realm of perpetual and ever increasing joy 
 to both parties concerned, throughout its entire 
 course, their whole lives long. 
 
 Be it said, then, first, that it is the duty of every 
 bride and groom, before they engage in sexual com- 
 merce with each other, to acquaint themselves thor- 
 oughly with the anatomy and physiology of the 
 sex organs of human beings, both male and female, 
 and to make the acquirement of such knowledge as 
 dispassionate and matter-of-fact an aflfair as though 
 they were studying the nature, construction and 
 functions of the stomach, or the digestive processes 
 entire, or the nature and use of any of the other 
 bodily organs. "Clear and clean am I within and 
 without ; clear and clean is every .scrap and j^art of 
 me, and no part shall be held more sacred or pre- 
 
 36
 
 Sane Sex Living 37 
 
 ferred above another. For divine am 1. and all I am, 
 or contain." 
 
 Now the normal young man or woman would do 
 just this, would pursue a study of sex in this way, 
 were it not for the fact that they have been taught, 
 time out of mind, that to do this is immodest, not 
 to say indecent or positively wicked. They have 
 longed to be possessed of such knowledge, all their 
 lives ; in most cases more than any other form of 
 wisdom that it was possible for them to make their 
 own. But its acquirement has been placed beyond 
 their possible reach, and it is only by the most 
 clandestine and often nasty means that they have 
 attained what little they know. But the quotation 
 made in the last paragraph, sounds the key note of 
 what is right in this matter, and the first effort made 
 by the reader of these pages should be to establish in 
 himself or herself the condition of mind which these 
 lines embody. 
 
 And it had better be said, right here, that for 
 most young people this will be found to be no ca^y 
 thing to do. Nor should the reader feel ashamed 
 or chagrined, or at odds with himself or herself if 
 he or she finds such condition of afifairs existing 
 in his or her case. For it is nothing for which they 
 are to blame. It is a misfortune and not a fault. 
 It is only the result of inherited and inculcated (the 
 word inculcated means kicked in) ideas to which all 
 "well bred" youths have been subjected for cen- 
 turies ; the idea being that the closer they were kept 
 in the realm of innocence, which is only another
 
 38 Sane Sex Life 
 
 name for ignorance, the better "bred" they are. 
 And to pry one's self loose, to break or tear one's 
 self away from such a mental view and condition as 
 heredity and such years of rigorous restraint have 
 developed, is no small task. Indeed, it often takes 
 months, and sometimes years, wholly to rid one's self 
 of these deep seated and powerful, wrong views and 
 prejudices. 
 
 Remember this: that to the pure all things are 
 pure. But do not make the mistake of thinking that 
 this much abused sentence means that purity means 
 emptiness! It does no such thing. On the contrary, 
 it means fullness, to perfection. It means that one 
 should be possessed of the right kind of stuff, and 
 that the stuff should be of supreme quality. So, in 
 studying to obtain a knowledge of sex organs and 
 sex functions, in the human family, the reader should 
 not try to divest himself or herself of all sex-passion 
 and desire ; but, on the contrary, to make these of 
 a sort of which he or she can be proud, rather than 
 ashamed of, rejoice in, rather than suffer from. 
 
 So, then, let the reader of these lines, first, get 
 a correct mental attitude toward what is about to 
 be said. Banish all prurient curiosity, put aside all 
 thought of shame or shock, (these two will be hardest 
 for young women to overcome, because of their 
 training in false modesty and prudishness) and en- 
 deavor to approach the subject in a reverent, open- 
 eyed, conscientious spirit, as one who wishes, above 
 everything else, to know the honest truth in these 
 most essential matters that pertain to human life.
 
 Sane Sex Living 39 
 
 Get into this frame of mind, and keep in it, and what 
 is here written will be read with both pleasure and 
 profit. 
 
 Once more, for we must make haste slowly in 
 these delicate affairs, if the reader should find him- 
 self or herself unduly excited, or perhaps shocked, 
 while reading some parts of what is here written, so 
 that the heart beats too fast, or the hand trembles, 
 it may be well to suspend the reading for a time, 
 divert the mind into other channels for a while 
 and resume the reading after one has regained poise 
 and mastery of one's self. That is, "keep your 
 head" while you read these lessons, and you will be 
 all right.
 
 IV 
 
 THE SEX ORGANS 
 
 AND now, having given these cautionary direc- 
 tions, the way is clear for the making of definite 
 statements and the giving of positive instruction. 
 
 Here, then, is a brief description of the sex organs 
 in man and woman. At first, only the names of 
 the parts will be given, with such slight comments 
 and explanations as are necessary for making this 
 part of the subject clear. A detailed setting forth 
 of the functions and proper exercise of these organs 
 will be given later. 
 
 The sex organs in a male human being consists, 
 broadly speaking, of the penis and the testicles. 
 All these are located at the base of the abdomen, 
 between the thighs and on the forward part of the 
 body. The penis is a fleshy, muscular organ, filled 
 with most sensitive nerves, and blood vessels that are 
 cai)able of extension to a much greater degree than 
 any of their similars in other parts of the body. In 
 a quiescent, or unexcited condition, in the average 
 man, this organ is from three to four inches long 
 and about an inch or more in diameter. It hangs 
 limp and pendent in this state, retired and in evi- 
 dence not at all. In its excited, or tumescent condi- 
 
 40
 
 Sane Sex Living 41 
 
 tion (the word tumescent means swelled, and is the 
 technical word for describing the erect condition of 
 the penis) it becomes enlarged and rigid, its size in 
 this state being, on an average, six or seven inches 
 long, and from an inch-and-a-half to two inches in 
 diameter. It is almost perfectly cylindrical, slightly 
 thicker at the base than at its forward part. 
 
 The testicles are two kidney shaped glands, not 
 far from the size of a large hickory nut, and are 
 contained in a sort of sack, or pocket, called the 
 scrotum, which is made for their comfortable and 
 safe carrying. The scrotum hangs directly between 
 the thighs, at the base of the penis, and in it are 
 the testicles, suspended by vital cords that are sus- 
 pended from the body above. The left testicle hangs 
 a little higher in the sack than the right, so that, 
 in case the thighs are crowded together, one testicle 
 will slip over the other, and so the danger of crush- 
 ing them will be avoided. This is one of the many 
 ways which the Maker of the human body has devised 
 to insure the proper preservation of the vital organs 
 from harm, a fact which should inspire all human 
 beings with profound reverence for this most won- 
 derful of all life forms, the beautiful human body, 
 the "temple of the Holy Spirit." 
 
 The part of the body upon which the sex organs, 
 male and female, are located is known as the pubic 
 region. It is covered with hair, which, in both sexes, 
 extends well up the lower belly. This is known as 
 pubic hair, and in general corresponds in quality 
 and quantity to the hair upon the individual head,
 
 42 Sane Sex Life 
 
 being coarse or fine, soft or bristly, to match the 
 head covering, in each case. This hair is usually 
 more or less curly, and forms a covering an inch or 
 more in depth over the whole pubic region, extending 
 back between the thighs slightly beyond the rectum. 
 In occasional cases this hair is straight and silky 
 and sometimes grows to great length, instances being 
 known, in some women, where it has extended to the 
 knees. A well-grown and abundant supply of fine 
 pubic hair is a possession highly prized by women, 
 of which they are justly proud, though few of them 
 would acknowledge the fact, even to themselves. 
 None the less it is a fact. 
 
 The female sex organs, speaking generally also, 
 are as follows : The vulva, or outward portion of the 
 parts; the vaginal passage; the uterus, or womb, and 
 the ovaries. All but the first named lie within the 
 body of the woman. The vulva is made up of several 
 parts which will be named and described later. The 
 vaginal passage is a tube, or canal leading from the 
 vulva to the womb. In length and diameter it cor- 
 responds almost exactly w4th that of the penis, being 
 six or seven inches in depth, and capable of a lateral 
 extension which will readily admit the entrance of 
 the male organ when the two are brought together. 
 The vaginal passage opens into, and terminates in 
 the uterine, or womb cavity. 
 
 The womb is a pear shaped sack which is sus- 
 pended in the womb cavity by cords and muscles 
 from above. It hangs, neck downwards, and is, in 
 its unimpregnated condition, about two and a half
 
 Sane Sex Living 43 
 
 inches in diameter at its upper, or widest part, taper- 
 ing to a thin neck at its lower end. It is hard and 
 muscular in its quiescent state, filled with delicate 
 and most sensitive nerves and capacious blood ves- 
 sels. At its lower, or neck end, it opens directly into 
 the vaginal passage. 
 
 The ovaries are two in number, and are situated 
 on each side of, and above the womb, in the region 
 of the upper groins. They are small, fan shaped 
 glands, and are connected with the uterus by small 
 ducts which are known as the fallopian tubes. 
 
 As already stated, the exterior parts of the body, 
 in which the female sex organs are located, are 
 covered with hair for their adornment and protection. 
 
 Such in brief, are the male and female sex organs 
 in human beings. A further description of them and 
 their functions and proper use we are now ready to 
 consider.
 
 THE FUNCTION OF THE SEX ORGANS 
 
 IT hardly need be stated here, for it is a matter 
 of common knowledge, that the primary pur- 
 pose of sex in the human family is the reproduction 
 of the race. In this respect, considered merely on 
 its material, or animal side, mankind differs little 
 from all other forms of animate life. As Whitman 
 says, we see "everywhere sex, everywhere the urge 
 of procreation." That flowers are possessed of this 
 quality, and with them all vegetable forms. In the 
 animal kingdom the same is true. Always "male and 
 female" is everything created. 
 
 And the chief facts in reproduction are practic- 
 ally the same wherever the phenomena occur. Here, 
 as everywhere else in the world, when a new life- 
 form appears, it is always the result of the union of 
 two forces, elements, germs or whatsoever. These 
 two elements differ in nature and in function, and 
 each is incomplete and worthless by itself. It is only 
 by the combining of the two that any new result is 
 obtained. It is this fact that has led to the most 
 suggestive and beautiful phrase "The duality of all 
 unity in nature." 
 
 Many centuries ago an old Latin philosopher 
 wrote the now celebrated phrase, Omne ex ovo, 
 
 44
 
 Sane Sex Living 45 
 
 which, translated, means everything is from an egg. 
 This is practically true of all life-forms. Their hegin- 
 ning is always from an ovum, or egg. In this respect, 
 the reproduction of human beings is the same as 
 that of any other life-form. 
 
 Now in this process of producing a new life-form, 
 the female is always the source of the egg, out of 
 which the new creation is to come. This egg, how- 
 ever, is infertile of itself, and must be given life to, 
 by mingling with its germ, an element which only 
 the male can produce and supply. This element is 
 technically known as a sperm, or a spermatozoa. Its 
 function is to fertilize the dormant germ in the egg 
 produced by the female, and thus to start a new 
 and independent life-form. This life-form, thus 
 started, grows according to the laws of its becoming 
 more and more, until, at the expiration of a fixed 
 period, which varies greatly in different animals, it 
 becomes a complete young individual, of the nature 
 and kind of its parents. The fertilization of the 
 ovum in the female is called conception ; its growing 
 state is called gestation, and its birth, on becoming 
 a separate being, is called parturition. In its grow- 
 ing condition, and before its birth, the new young 
 life form is known as the foetus. 
 
 Now it is the fertilization of the ovum in the 
 female (and from now on, it is only of the male and 
 female in the human family that mention will be 
 made) by the male, in the woman, by the man, that 
 is of supreme interest and importance to both the 
 parties concerned in producing this result. How this
 
 46 Sane Sex Life 
 
 is brought about is substantially as follows : 
 
 As already stated, the infertile ovum, or egg, is 
 produced by the woman. Such production begins at 
 what is known as the age of puberty, or when the 
 hair begins to grow upon the pubic parts of the 
 female body. The time of the appearance of this 
 phenomenon in feminine life varies from the age of 
 nine or ten years to fifteen or sixteen. The average, 
 for most girls, is fourteen years of age. At this 
 time the formation of ova, or eggs, in the female 
 body begins, and it continues, in most women, at reg- 
 ular intervals of once in twenty-eight days, except 
 during pregnancy and lactation, for a period of about 
 thirty years. During all this time, under favorable 
 conditions, it is possible for the ovum produced by 
 the woman to become fertilized, if it can meet the 
 sperm of the male. 
 
 In a general way, this meeting of the infertile 
 ovum of the woman with the sperm of the man can 
 be brought about, as follows : 
 
 The ova are produced by the ovaries (the word 
 ovaries means egg producers) where they slowly 
 develop from cells which originate in these glands. 
 When they have reached maturity, or are ready for 
 fertilization, they pass out of the ovaries and down 
 into the womb, by way of the fallopian tubes. As 
 already stated, such passage of the ova from the 
 ovaries into the womb occurs every twenty-eight 
 days, and it is accomplished by a more or less co- 
 pious flow of blood, a sort of hemorrhage, which 
 carries the ova down through the fallopian tubes.
 
 Sane Sex Living 47 
 
 and deposits them in the womb. This blood, after 
 performing its mission of carrying the ova down 
 into the womb, escapes from the body through the 
 vaginal passage and is cared for by the wearing of 
 a bandage between the thighs. This flow of blood 
 continues for about five days, and is known as a 
 menstrual flow ; and this time in a woman's life is 
 known as the menstrual period. It is so named be- 
 cause of the regularity of its recurrence, the word 
 mensa meaning a month. In common parlance, these 
 periods are often spoke of as the "monthlies." 
 
 After the ovum has reached the womb it remains 
 there for a period of about ten days, after which, 
 if it is not fertilized during that time, it passes out 
 of the womb into the vaginal passage, and so out of 
 the body. But if, at any time after it is ripe for 
 fertilization, that is, from the time it begins its 
 journey from the ovaries to the womb, and while it 
 is in the womb, the ovum is met by the male sperm, 
 it is liable to become fertilized — conception is pos- 
 sible. These are facts of the utmost importance, to 
 be thoroughly understood and kept well in mind by 
 all married people who would live happily together, 
 as will be hereafter shown. 
 
 So much regarding the female part of the meet- 
 ing of the ovum and the sperm. The male part of this 
 mutual act is as follows : 
 
 The sperm, or spermatozoa, originate in the tes- 
 ticles. Each sperm is an individual entity and 
 several thousands of them are produced and in readi- 
 ness for use, at each meeting of the male and female
 
 48 Sane Sex Life 
 
 generative organs ; and if any one of the countless 
 number comes in contact with the unfertilized ovum 
 in the womb, conception is liable to result. 
 
 These sperms are so small that they are not visi- 
 ble to the naked eye, but they are readily seen by the 
 use of a microscope. In shape they much resemble 
 tad-poles in their earliest stages. 
 
 At the base of the penis, well up in the man's 
 body, there is a large gland which surrounds the 
 penis like a thick ring, and which is called the pros- 
 tate gland. It secretes a mucous fluid which looks 
 much like, and is about the consistency of the white 
 of an egg. Close to this gland, and almost a part of 
 it, is a sack, or pocket, into which the mucous secre- 
 tion from the prostate gland is poured, and where it 
 is kept, ready for use, in performing its part of the 
 germinal act. 
 
 Now it is the business of this mucous fluid, which 
 comes from the prostate gland, to form a "carrying 
 medium" for the spermatozoa which originate in the 
 testicles. There are small ducts leading from the 
 testicles into the pocket which contains the prostate 
 fluid. These are known as the seminal ducts, and 
 through them the spermatozoa pass from the testicles 
 into the prostate pocket. Here they mingle with 
 the prostate fluid, in which they can move about 
 freely, and by means of which they can be carried 
 wherever this fluid goes. The combination of prostate 
 fluid and spermatozoa is called "semen." 
 
 Seen under a microscope, a single drop of semen 
 reveals a multitude of spermatozoa swimming about
 
 Sane Sex Living 49 
 
 in the prostate-carrying medium. It is in this form 
 that the vitalizing male element meets the female 
 infertile ovum. The mass of live and moving germs 
 is poured all around and about the region in which 
 the ovum lies waiting to be fertilized, and every one 
 of them seems to be "rushing about like mad" to 
 find what it is sent to do, namely, to meet and ferti- 
 lize the ovum. The manner of depositing the semen 
 where it can come in contact with the ovum is as 
 follows : 
 
 In order that this mingling of the male and 
 female sources of life may be possible, it is necessary 
 that there be a union of the male and female gen- 
 erative organs. For such meeting, the penis is filled 
 with blood, all its blood vessels being distended to 
 their utmost capacity, till the organ becomes stout 
 and hard, and several times its dormant size, as has 
 been already told. In this condition it is able to 
 penetrate, to its utmost depths, the vaginal passage 
 of the female, which is of a nature to perfectly con- 
 tain the male organ in this enlarged and rigid con- 
 dition. Under such conditions, the penis is inserted 
 into the widened and distended vaginal passage. 
 Once together, a mutual back and forth, or partly in 
 and out movement, of the organs is begun and carried 
 on by the man and woman, which action further en- 
 larges the parts and raises them to a still higher de- 
 gree of tension and excitement. It is supposed by 
 some that this frictional movement of the parts de- 
 velops an electrical current, which increases in 
 tension as the act is continued ; and that it is the
 
 50 Sane Sex Life 
 
 mission of the pubic hair, which is a non-conductor, 
 to confine these currents to the parts in contact. 
 
 Now there are two other glands in these organs; 
 one in the male and one in the female, which per- 
 forms a most wonderful function in this part of the 
 sexual act. These are the "glans penis" in the male 
 and the "clitoris" in the female. The first is located 
 at the ajiex of the male organ, and the other at the 
 upper-middle and exterior part of the vulva. These 
 glands are covered with a most delicate cuticle, and 
 are filled with highly sensitive nerves. As the act 
 progresses, these glands become more and more sen- 
 sitized, and nervously surcharged, until, as a climax, 
 they finally cause a sort of nervous explosion of the 
 organs involved. This climax is called an "orgasm" 
 in scientific language. Among most men and women 
 it is spoken of as "spending." 
 
 On the part of the man, this orgasm causes the 
 semen, which till this instant has remained in the 
 prostate pocket, to be suddenly driven out of this 
 place of deposit, and thrown in jets, and with spas- 
 modic force, through the entire length of the jjenis, 
 and, as it were, shot into the vaginal passage and 
 the uterine cavity, till the whole region is literally 
 deluged with the life-giving fluid. At the same time, 
 the moutli of the womb opens wide; and into it pours, 
 or rushes, this "father stuff," entirely surrounding 
 and flooding the ovum, if it be in the womb. This 
 is the climax of the sexual act, which is called 
 "coitus." a word which means, going together. 
 
 With the myriads of spermatozoa swarming
 
 Sane Sex Living 51 
 
 about it, if the vital part of the ovum comes in con- 
 tact with some one of them, any one of which, 
 brought into such contact, will fertilize it, concep- 
 tion results. The woman is then pregnant, and the 
 period of gestation is begun. 
 
 This is a brief description of the act of coitus 
 and of the means by which pregnancy takes place. 
 It is, however, only a small part of the story of the 
 sex relations of husbands and wives, and, be it said, 
 a very small part of that, as will now be shown. 
 
 As has already been said, this use of the sex 
 organs, merely to produce progeny, and so insure a 
 continuance of the race, is a quality that mankind 
 shares with all the rest of the animal kingdom. In 
 all essentials, so far as the material parts of the 
 act are concerned, the beginnings of the new life in 
 the human family differ not a whit from that of any 
 other mammals. In each case the ovum is produced 
 by the ovaries of the female, passes into the womb, 
 is there met by the semen from the male, fertilized 
 by the spermatozoa, and so the foetus gets its start. 
 This is the universal means by which the beginnings 
 of all animal reproductive Hfe takes place. 
 
 But there is another phase in the sex life of hu- 
 man beings, which is entirely different from that of 
 all other animals, and which must therefore be consid- 
 ered beyond all that needs to be said regarding the 
 act of coitus for reproductive purposes only. This 
 we are now ready to consider and study. 
 
 Now in all animals, except human beings, the act 
 of coitus is only permitted by the female, (it would
 
 52 Sane Sex Life 
 
 seem is only possible for her) when the ovum is pres- 
 ent in the womb and ready to be fertilized. At all 
 other times, all female animals, except ivoman, arc 
 practically sexless. Their sexual organs are dor- 
 mant, and nothing can arouse them to activity. Not 
 only do they fail to show any desire for coitus, but if 
 an attempt should be made to force it upon them, 
 they would resist it to the utmost of their strength. 
 
 But when the ovum is present in the womb, these 
 same female animals are beside themselves with desire 
 for coitus. They are then spoken of as "in heat." 
 And until they are satisfied, by meeting the male 
 and procuring from him the vitalizing fluid which 
 will fertilize their infertile ovum ; or, failing in this, 
 until the ovum passes away from them, out of the 
 womb, they know no rest. At such times they will 
 run all risks, incur all sorts of danger, do every pos- 
 sible thing to secure pregnancy. The thousand-and- 
 one ways which female animals use to make known 
 to their male mates their sexual desire and needs, 
 when in heat, is a most interesting and wonderful 
 story, a record made up of facts which would be well 
 worth any student's knowing. But as all such knowl- 
 edge can readily be procured from books which are 
 within the reach of all, there is no need of noting the 
 data here. 
 
 But now. in ivoman, all these tilings are different! 
 As a matter of fact, the presence of the ovum in 
 the womb of a normally made woman makes little, 
 and, in many eases, no difference whatever as regards 
 her status concerning the act of coitus ! That is,
 
 Sane Sex Living 53 
 
 women are never "in heat," in the same sense in 
 which other female animals are. To be sure, in some 
 cases, though they are rare, some women are con- 
 scious of a greater desire for coitus just after the 
 ceasing of the menstrual flow ; that is, when the ovum 
 is in the womb. But such cases are so infrequent 
 that they may well be counted atavistic, tliat is, of 
 the nature of a tendency to return to a previous 
 merely animal condition. For the most part, it is 
 true of all normal women that the presence of the 
 ovum in the womb makes little difference, one way 
 or another, in regard to their desire for, or aversion 
 to, the act of coitus. 
 
 Now the fact of this remarkable difference in the 
 sex-status of women and the same quality in all other 
 female animals leads us to a great number of inter- 
 esting, not to say startling, conclusions, some of 
 which are as follows: 
 
 In the first place, the phenomenon clearly estab- 
 lishes the fact that sex in the female human being 
 differs, pronouncedly, from that of all other female 
 life. For, whereas, among all females except woman, 
 coitus is impossible, except at certain times and sea- 
 sons, among women the act can not only be permit- 
 ted, but is as much possible or desired at one time 
 as any other, regardless of the presence or absence 
 of the ovum in the womb. That is (and this point 
 should be noted well by the reader) there is a pos- 
 sibility, on the part of the female humanity, for 
 coitus, under conditions that do not at all obtain in 
 any other female animal life.
 
 54 Sane Sex Life 
 
 This is a conclusion which is of such far-reaching 
 importance that its limits are but dimly recognized, 
 even in the clear thinking of most married people. 
 The fact of such difference is known to them, and 
 their practices in living conform to the conditions ; 
 but what it all means, they are entirely ignorant of, 
 and they never stop to think about it. 
 
 And yet, riglit here is the very center and core of 
 the real success or failure of married life! Around 
 this fact are grouped all the troubles that come to 
 husbands and wives. About it are gathered all the 
 joys and unspeakable delights of the happily mar- 
 ried — the only truly married. It is these items which 
 make a knowledge of the real conditions which exist, 
 regarding this part of married life, of such supreme 
 importance. If these conditions could be rightly 
 understood, and the actions of husbands and wives 
 could be brought to conform to the laws which obtain 
 under them, the divorce courts would go out of busi- 
 ness, their occupation, like Othello's, would be "gone 
 indeed." 
 
 The first conclusion, then, one that is forced upon 
 the thoughtful mind by the fact of this dift'erence in 
 the sex possibilities of women and other female ani- 
 mals, is, as already stated, but which is here repeated 
 for emphasis, that coitus, can be engaged in by zvomen 
 when pregnancy is not its purpose, on her part ; and 
 that this never occurs in any other form of female 
 life! 
 
 In view of this fact, is it too much to raise the 
 question whether or not sex in woman is designed to
 
 Sane Sex Living 55 
 
 fulfill any other purpose than that of the reproduc- 
 tion of the race? True it is, that the only function of 
 sex in all other females is merely that of i)roducing 
 offspring — of perpetuating its kind. Under no cir- 
 cumstances does it ever serve any other end, fulfill 
 any other design. There is no possibility of its 
 doing so! 
 
 But one can help wondering if it is not true that, 
 with the existence of the possibility of engaging in 
 coitus at wiU, rather than at the bidding of instinct 
 alone, there has also come a new and added function 
 for the sex-natures that are capable of engaging in 
 such before-unknown experiences? To a fair-minded 
 person, such conclusion seems not only logical, but 
 irresistible ! That is in view of this conclusion, it 
 naturally follows that sex in the human family is 
 positively designed to fulfill a function that is en- 
 tirely unknown to all other forms of animal life. 
 And from this, it is but a step to the establishment 
 of the fact that sex exercise in the human family 
 serves a purpose other than that of reproduction! 
 
 Now, this fact established, a whole world of new 
 issues arises and demands settlement. Among these, 
 comes the supreme question : What is the nature of 
 this new experience that has been conferred upon 
 human beings, over and above zvhat is vouchsafed to 
 any other form of animal life. What purpose can it 
 serve? Hozv can it be properly exercised? What is 
 right and zvhat is wrong under these nezv possibil- 
 ities? These are some of the issues that force them- 
 selves upon all thoughtful people, those who wish to
 
 56 Sane Sex Life 
 
 do right under any and all circumstances in which 
 they are placed. 
 
 Of course, here as elsewhere, the unthinking, the 
 happy-go-lucky and the "don't-give-a-damn," can 
 blunder along in almost any-old-way. But they can, 
 and will, reap only the reward which always follows 
 blundering and ignorance. In these days of scientific 
 clear-thinking, we have come to understand that 
 salvation from sin comes by the way of positive 
 knowledge and not at the hands of either ignorance 
 or innocence! If husbands and wives ever attain to 
 the highest conditions of married life, it can only 
 be after they know and practice, what is right in all 
 their sex relations, both for reproductive purposes 
 and in all other respects! Note that zuell! 
 
 As things are now, especially in all civilized coun- 
 tries, and particularly among Christian people, this 
 secondary function of sex in the human family, while 
 blindly recognized as a fact, is none the less abused, 
 to a most shameful degree. For ages, the whole sit- 
 uation has been left in a condition of most deplor- 
 able, not to say damnable, ignorance ; and no honest 
 endeavor has been made to find out and act up to the 
 truth in the premises. Husbands and wives have 
 engaged in coitus ad libitum, utterly regardless of 
 whether it was right or wrong for them to do so! 
 They have taken it for granted that marriage con- 
 ferred on them the right to have sexual intercourse 
 whenever they chose, (especially when the man 
 chose) and they have acted accordingly. This is 
 especially true of men, and the practice has been
 
 Sane Sex Living 57 
 
 carried to such length that the right of a man to 
 engage in coitus with his wife has been established by 
 law, and the wife who refuses to yield this "right" 
 to her husband can be divorced by him, if she per- 
 sists in such way of living! It is such a fact as this 
 which caused Mr. Bernard Shaw to write: "Mar- 
 riage is the most licentious institution in all the 
 world." And he might rightfully have added "it is 
 also the most brutal," though it is an insult to the 
 brute to say it that way, for brutes are never guilty 
 of coitus under compulsion. But a husband can 
 force his zmfc to submit to his sexual embraces, and 
 she has no legal right to say him nay! This doesn't 
 seem quite right, does it? 
 
 Now there are several different ways of viewing 
 this new and added sexual possibility in the human 
 family, namely, the act of coitus for other than re- 
 productive purposes. The Catholic church has 
 always counted it as a sin. Popes have issued edicts 
 regarding it, and conclaves of Bishops have discussed 
 it and passed resolutions regarding it. There has 
 always been a difference of opinion upon the subject 
 amongst these dignitaries and authorities, but they 
 all agree in one respect, namely, that it is a sin. 
 The only point of difference has been as to the 
 extent or enormity of the sin! By some it has been 
 reckoned as a "deadly sin," punishable by eternal 
 hell fire, if not duly absolved before death; by others 
 it has been held to be only a "venial sin," one that 
 must always be confessed to the priest when coitus is 
 engaged in, and which can be pardoned by the prac-
 
 58 Sane Sex Life 
 
 tice of due penance. But, akvays, it was a sin! 
 
 The Protestant church has never issued edicts 
 regarding this matter, but, for the most part, it has 
 tacitly held to the Catholic teaching in theory, while 
 universally practicing the reverse, in actual married 
 life. Protestants have looked upon it as a necessity, 
 but have taught that it was regrettable that such 
 was the case. They have held, with Paul, that, "it is 
 better to marry than to burn." And most of them 
 have chosen the marriage horn of the dilemma. 
 
 Among some European nations, attempts have 
 been made to make it impossible for husbands and 
 wives to cohabit except for reproductive purposes. 
 In one of these nations, padlocks were used for pre- 
 venting the act. A slit was made through the fore- 
 skin of the penis, and through this slit the ring of 
 a padlock was passed, much as an ear-ring is passed 
 through the lobe of a lady's ear. The padlock was 
 made so large that it could not be introduced into 
 the vaginal passage, and so coitus was impossible 
 when it was worn. It could only be removed by 
 the magistrate into whose hands the regulation of 
 this part of the citizens' life was given. Specimens of 
 these padlocks are still to be seen in European 
 museums. 
 
 Now the terribly immoral thing in all this way of 
 living has always been the fact that it compelled 
 people to continually violate their consciences, by 
 pretending to believe one thing and constantly prac- 
 ticing the reverse of their proclaimed belief. That 
 is, it lured them into living a continual lie, and such
 
 Sane Sex Living 59 
 
 can never be for the good of the soul! It goes with- 
 out saying that the sooner this abominable way of 
 living can be ended, the better it will be for all 
 parties concerned — the individuals who are the vic- 
 tims of such falsehood, and the communities of which 
 they form a part. 
 
 From all this it follows that the first thing every 
 new husband and wife ought to do is to settle clearly 
 in their own minds the issue as to zvhether it is right 
 or zvrong for them to engage in coitus for any other 
 than procreative purposes. Having settled this 
 point, one way or the other, then let them conscien- 
 tiously act accordingly. For only so can they live 
 righteous lives! 
 
 In settling this point, so far as available author- 
 ities for the young people to study and consider are 
 concerned, these are all against coitus except for 
 begetting of ofif-spring. All the "purity" writers 
 and Purity Societies are ranged together on the 
 negative side. Likewise are all the books of "advice 
 to young wives and husbands," especially those ad- 
 dressed to young wives. 
 
 Now all these "authorities" base their whole ar- 
 gument upon the purely animal facts in the premises. 
 Probably a certain Dr. C. is more largely read for 
 information on these matters than any other author, 
 especially among young women. He has written a 
 large, and from the view-point he takes, a very 
 plausible volume ; and it is very extensively adver- 
 tised, especially in papers which young women read. 
 The result is that it has come to be almost a stand-
 
 60 Sane Sex Life 
 
 ard authority in these affairs. 
 
 Dr. C.'s argument is, baldly, as follows: — (a) 
 Among animals, the universal practice is a single act 
 of coitus for each begetting of off-spring. (b) 
 Human beings are animals, (c) Therefore, human 
 beings should only engage in coitus for reproductive 
 purposes. 
 
 To this syllogism he heads a corollary, v^^hich is, 
 that, therefore, all sexual commerce in the human 
 family, for any other than reproductive purposes, 
 is ivroiig. These are his texts, so to speak, and 
 through several hundred pages he preaches, don't, 
 don't, don't, sermons. The entire volume is one of 
 denial and prohibition. He proclaims the act, even 
 for the one purpose he allows to be right, as low, 
 and in itself degrading, to be engaged in only after 
 "prayer and fasting" and "mortifying the flesh" 
 and even then, in the most passionless, and only 
 done-because-it-has-to-be manner ; as a mere matter 
 of duty ; to be permitted by sufferance ; joyless, 
 disgusting in itself; a something to be avoided, even 
 in thought, other than it is a necessity for the con- 
 tinuance of the race. 
 
 It is from such data as this that thousands of 
 "innocent" brides annually make up their minds as 
 to what is right or ivrong in the matter of sexual 
 intercourse. 
 
 In doing this, most of these young women are 
 perfectly conscientious, and want to do the right 
 thing, and there are two items in the count that 
 naturally lead them to accept Dr. C.'s teachings as
 
 Sane Sex Living 61 
 
 correct. The first is, that it coincides with all they 
 have ever heard about such matters ; the second, that 
 the Doctor flavors all his text with a religious qual- 
 ity, of the alleged most sacred sort. He instances 
 saintly women who have lived the most ascetic lives, 
 and whose religious status was achieved because, and 
 by means of, their perfect chastity. In fact, this 
 word "chastity" which he translates as entire re- 
 nunciation of the whole sex nature) becomes the test 
 word of his whole treatise, and its practice is upheld 
 as the true road to all goodness and virtue. 
 
 Now, nearly all well-bred and cultivated young 
 women are naturally religious (and not a word should 
 be said against their being so) and they are anxious 
 to time their lives to everything that the highest 
 religious demands prescribe. It is, therefore, most 
 natural that, being thus taught by an authority for 
 which they have the highest regard, they enter 
 marriage with the fixed opinion in accordance with 
 their teaching. How could it be otherwise? 
 
 On the other hand, a few young husbands, indeed 
 none but now and then a "goody-good" (who usually 
 turns out to be the worst of the whole lot, in course 
 of time), are willing to "stand for" any such theory 
 much less to live any such life as this theory would 
 impose. These "don't care what the book says," and, 
 from the manner of their bringing up, from all they 
 have learned or heard by hearing men talk about 
 married life, (which is usually of the most vulgar 
 sort) they have come to the conclusion that marriage 
 confers upon the parties the right to engage in sexual
 
 62 Sane Sex Life 
 
 commerce at will : and especially, that the husband 
 has the right to the body of his wife whenever he 
 chooses. For, indeed, does not the law give him that 
 right ! And so long as one "keeps inside the law" 
 what more could be asked ! Yea, verily ! What more 
 could be asked? 
 
 So it is that most brides and bridegrooms go to 
 their marriage bed with the m^ost widely diverse views 
 as to what is right and wrong in the premise — as to 
 the life they will lead in their new estate. The young 
 wife is for "purity" and "chastity." The young hus- 
 band, driven by a passion which he has long held in 
 thrall, in the belief that he can now give the fullest 
 vent to it, when he has got where such relief is pos- 
 sible, is like an excited hound when it seizes its prey, 
 which he fully believes he has the right to deal with 
 as he pleases ! What wonder that, in view of all these 
 circumstances, the most extensive observer of mar- 
 riage-bed phenomena should write: "As a matter of 
 fact, nine young husbands in ten practically rape 
 their brides at their first sexual meeting." Could any- 
 thing be more horrible, or criminally wicked? And it 
 is all so needless ! It is all the result of ignorance, 
 of "innocence," and the worst of false teaching. The 
 pity of it ! 
 
 True, these unfortunate conditions are often 
 modified by "mother nature," who inspires the bride 
 with curiosity, which, in a measure, controls her in 
 spite of her false teachings, and with passion, which, 
 to a degree, will assert itself over and above all false 
 modesty, her religious scruples and her fear of preg-
 
 Sane Sex Living 63 
 
 nancy ; and so she may come through the ordeal of 
 introduction to the act of coitus in a fairly sane 
 condition of mind, even though she may have prac- 
 tically been raped! But, too often, the result of such 
 first contact is a shock to the bride from which she 
 may not recover during all the subsequent years of 
 married life! And "here is where the trouble lies," 
 for untold thousands of married men and women, all 
 over the civilized world, to-day. And it might all be 
 so different ! It ought in every case, to be all so dif- 
 ferent ! But if it ever does become different, knowl- 
 edge has got to take the place of "innocence" on the 
 part of the bride, and of ignorance on the part of the 
 bridegroom, both of whom must be taught to "Know 
 what they are about" before they engage in the sex- 
 ual act, and be able to meet each other sanely, right- 
 eously, lovingly, because they both desire what each 
 has to give to the other ; in a way in which neither 
 claims any rights, or makes any demands of the 
 other — in a word, in perfect concord of agreement 
 and action, of which mutual love is the inspirer, and 
 definite knozvlcdgc the directive agent. 
 
 Such a first meeting of bride and bridegroom will 
 be no raping affair. There will be no shock in it, no 
 dread, no shame or thought of shame ; but as per- 
 fectly as two drops of water flow together and be- 
 come one, the bodies and souls of the parties to the 
 act will mingle in a unity the most perfect and bliss- 
 ful that can ever be experienced by human beings in 
 this world. This is no dream ! It is a most blessed 
 reality, which all normally made husbands and wives
 
 64 Sane Sex Life 
 
 can attain to, if only they are properly taught and 
 educated, if only they will learn how to reach such 
 bHssful condition. 
 
 However, such greatly desired status is not to be 
 had for the asking merely. Instinct can never bring 
 it about; "innocence" will never yield such a result ; 
 and force, or the declaration of a "right" in the 
 premises will forever banish it to the realm of the 
 never-to-be-realized. It can only come as a result 
 of clear-headed thinking, scientific investigation, 
 honest study, wise and righteous action under the 
 given conditions ; and, above all, a love, each for the 
 other, that knozvs no bounds. All these things must 
 obtain, on the part of both parties concerned, or the 
 desired results can never be attained. 
 
 Having said which, here shall follow some sug- 
 gestions as to how such estate may be reached by 
 the readers of these pages. 
 
 But first, let us finish Dr. C, and all of his tribe 
 — banish them from all our reckoning in these mat- 
 ters, forever. 
 
 As already shown, this argument has not a leg to 
 stand on. These writers treat the whole situation as 
 though men and women were mere animals! Men and 
 women are far more than mere animals, and God 
 hath made them so! And for these reasons we will 
 have respect for men and women as God has made 
 them, rather than as Dr. C. and the "purity leagues" 
 say God should have made them ! 
 
 As a matter of fact, the secondary function of 
 sex in the human family is something far above mere
 
 Sane Sex Living 65 
 
 animality ; it is something that mere animals know 
 nothing about, that they can never experience, or in 
 any way attain to, and these fundamental differences 
 in the premises remove the whole issue from the realm 
 of comparison with any forms or functions of mere 
 animal life. As well reason that animals never eat 
 cooked food, and so men ought never to eat cooked 
 food (and there are some people who do so reason, 
 strange to say) or that animals do not wear clothes, 
 and so men ought not to wear clothes — as well make 
 these, or a score more of comparisons, between the 
 human race and mere animals, as to try to compare 
 them in the item of their sex functions. 
 
 In only the single fact that, on the physical plane 
 merely, coitus for the purpose of procreation is com- 
 mon to all animal life, mankind included, is there a 
 point of comparison between humanity and the brute 
 creation. Beyond that point there is nothing com- 
 parable betzveen the two! As well say that because 
 beasts can hear, therefore they can comprehend and 
 enjoy a Beethoven Sonata, or because they have eyes 
 they can delight in a picture by Corot ! 
 
 This is only another way of saying that sex has 
 functions and uses in the human family that are 
 entirely apart from the possibilities of all other ani- 
 mal life — functions as much above mere animality as 
 music is above mere physical hearing, as painting 
 above mere physical sight. 
 
 These facts forever upset and overthrow all the 
 theories of Dr. C. and Co., they entirely eliminate 
 the whole bunch from any part or lot in the issue on
 
 66 Sane Sex Life 
 
 which they have essayed to speak with such author- 
 ity, but whose main point, whose essential elements 
 they have entirely misunderstood, and hence have 
 treated in a way that is wholly at variance with the 
 truth in the premises, and it is the truth that we are 
 looking for. 
 
 Once more (for it is well to go to the bottom of 
 this matter while we are about it) the honest truth 
 is that it is the universal practice of the human race 
 for men and zvomcn to cohabit for other purposes 
 than reproduction, and it has always been so, since 
 men and women were men and women ! It is true 
 among the most savage and barbarous tribes of the 
 earth, and it is more emphatically true of the highly 
 civilized people in all lands and climes. And is it 
 reasonable to suppose that such a universal phe- 
 nomenon should not have been intended to be as it is ! 
 As well say that appetite for food is a mistake, one 
 that ought to be eliminated ! 
 
 Again, the experiences of men and women, all 
 over the world, prove that, where this act is engaged 
 in properly, according to the laws that obtain in the 
 premises, it conduces to the highest physical, mental, 
 and spiritual well-being of the parties concerned. 
 Indeed, it is beyond doubt true that the men and 
 women who have never known this most perfect of all 
 human experiences, have never reached the summit of 
 human attainment, have never arrived at the per- 
 fection of manhood and womanhood. Length of life, 
 health of the highest sort, and happiness, the most 
 delectable — all come, these and more, to men and
 
 Sane Sex Living 67 
 
 women by this route, if it is rightly traveled. Hell 
 and damnation result if that road is wrongly trod ! 
 
 And that's what makes the manner of traveling 
 it so important.
 
 VI 
 
 THE ACT OF COITUS 
 
 STRICTLY speaking, the act of coitus should 
 be considered as composed of four parts, or 
 acts, of one common play, or drama. Not that there 
 is a sharp line of demarcation between each act or 
 part, for the four really blend into oyie composite 
 whole, when taken together, seriatim ; but there are 
 four phases of the act which may well be studied 
 separately, in making a detailed review of a sexual 
 meeting of a man and a woman. 
 
 These four parts are: first, the preparation for 
 the act ; second, the union of the organs ; third, the 
 motion of the organs ; fourth, the orgasm. 
 
 In what immediately follows, these four stages of 
 the act of coitus will be studied and traced in detail, 
 with the utmost care, in the hope that such pursuit 
 may result in the best possible good to the student. 
 
 Regarding the first part of the act, let it be said 
 that here, above all other situations in the world 
 "haste makes zcaste." Put that do2vn as the most 
 fundamental fact in this ivhole affair! Right here 
 is where ninety-nine one-hundredths of all the 
 troubles of married life begin! And the fault, right 
 here, is usually (though not always) with the hus- 
 band ! But he doesn't mean to be bad. Not once in 
 
 68
 
 Sane Sex Living 69 
 
 a thousand times does he deHberately purpose to do 
 wrong. He is simply the victim of undirected and 
 ungoverned passion, and of an ignorance which re- 
 sults in stupid blundering, or carelessness, or 
 thoughtlessness. What such a husband practically 
 does is to rush blindly and furiously along a way he 
 knows nothing of, but which he has been led to 
 think he has a right to travel when and how he will. 
 The ordinary figure of a "bull in a china shop" can 
 but faintly describe the smashing and grinding to 
 powder of the most delicate situation that can occur 
 in all human experiences, that result from such ac- 
 tion as this. Ideals that have touched heaven are 
 tumbled from their lofty places and ruthlessly 
 crushed to atoms ; hopes that were beyond the 
 power of words to express go out in despair ; dreams 
 become a hideous nightmare ; and love, which was 
 as pure as crystal waters, is muddied, befouled, and 
 made into a cesspool ! And all this because of ignor- 
 ance or careless hurrying, of making haste where 
 the utmost of time, caution and intelligent care 
 should have obtained. 
 
 As has already been explained, when the act of 
 coitus is to be engaged in, the sex organs of both 
 the man and the woman undergo great changes. 
 Blood rushes to all these parts, in copious quantities, 
 till they become gorged. The result is that the penis 
 is enlarged to several times its dormant size, and the 
 vulva and vagina should, and will, under right con- 
 ditions, undergo similar changes and transforma- 
 tion.
 
 70 Sane Sex Life 
 
 But there is usually a great difference in the 
 length of time it takes for these changes to take 
 place in men and women. On the part of the man, 
 as soon as his passion is aroused to any considerable 
 extent, the penis at once makes itself ready for 
 action. It "tumesces," or swells itself hard, almost 
 instantly ; and, so far as its mere physical stoutness 
 is concerned, is as ready to enter the vagina then 
 as ever, even if it has to force itself in. 
 
 On the other hand, the tumescence of the parts 
 in women is usually, (especially as girls are reared) 
 not infrequently, a matter of considerable time, not 
 infrequently several minutes, and now and then, of 
 half-an-hour or more! This is not always so, for in 
 some very passionate women they are ready for 
 action almost instantly. Indeed, there are some 
 women whose sex organs tumesce if they (the wo- 
 men) even touch a man — any man — and occasion- 
 ally a case occurs where a woman will experience 
 an orgasm if her clothing brushes against a man! 
 Such cases are, of course, abnormal. But, for the 
 most part, it is true that women are much slozver in 
 making ready for the sexual act than men are. 
 
 Again, as the organs become ready for the act, 
 nature has provided a most wonderful means for 
 bringing about their easy and hapjiy union. Both 
 the male and female organs secrete and emit, or pour 
 out, a sort of lubricating fluid which covers and 
 sometimes almost floods the parts. This is a clear 
 and limpid substance, that looks much like the white 
 of an Qgg, and is much like the saliva that is secreted
 
 Sane Sex Living 71 
 
 in the mouth, only it is a thicker substance. Chemi- 
 cally, it is almost identical with saliva. That gen- 
 erated by the man is called "prostatic flow ;" that 
 produced by the woman "pre-coital secretion." 
 
 Now, if time is given for this fluid to be secreted 
 and exuded, all the parts become covered or satu- 
 rated with it, and they are admirably equipped for 
 easy union. The glans penis is then covered with the 
 .slippery fluid, and the vulva and all the walls of the 
 vagina are laved with the substance. At the same 
 time, the vaginal walls have widened and grown soft, 
 and all the parts of the vulva (which are yet to be 
 named and described in detail) are in like condi- 
 tion. The result is that, though the penis be what 
 might at first seem of such size as to make its 
 entrance into the vagina impossible, as a matter of 
 fact, such entrance is perfectly easy, when the parts 
 are fully ready to be joined. But not before or 
 otherwise. 
 
 So here is where the trouble comes. If the hus- 
 band is in haste, if he does not wait for the wife to 
 become ready to meet him ; if he forces his large, 
 hard penis into the vagina before either is fully 
 ready for such union — when there is no prostatic 
 fluid on its glans, and the vagina is shrunken and its 
 walls are dry — if coitus is engaged in in this way, it 
 is perfectly easy to see that only disaster can result! 
 The woman is hurt, sometimes most cruelly, and the 
 man in reality gets only a beastly gratification from 
 the act. Of all bad things in all the world, such man- 
 ner of coition is the worst!
 
 72 Sane Sex Life 
 
 And so, in this first part of the act, the one fore- 
 most thought to remember and observe is, take 
 plenty of time! 
 
 There is another reason why, on the part of 
 woman, this time should be extended, especially when 
 she is a bride and inexperienced in these matters, and 
 that is, that her "innocence," and all her education, 
 make her feel that she is doing wrong, or at least 
 permitting a wrong thing to be done, and this holds 
 back the proper growth of her passion, hinders the 
 tumescence of her sex organs, delays the flow of 
 the precoital secretion, and so keeps her from be- 
 coming properly prepared for her share of the mu- 
 tual act. 
 
 Again, her fear of pregnancy may still further 
 retard her coming into a proper condition. Indeed, 
 this last is the almost common cause for her failing 
 to be in readiness for meeting her husband. All of 
 which items must be taken into account by both hus- 
 band and wife, and intelligently, lovingly dealt with, 
 if the best results for both parties are attained. 
 
 As regards the item of possible pregnancy, spe- 
 cial note will be made of this feature later on. It is 
 here placed in abeyance for the time being, because 
 its consideration can be better provided for after 
 some other points have been studied. 
 
 Now the one easily understood (and as easily 
 practiced as understood) direction as to what to 
 do by way of preparation for the act of coitus is: 
 do as lovers do zvhen they are "courting." And 
 everybody knows what that is ! And note this — that
 
 Sane Sex Living 73 
 
 nobody ever hurries when they are courting! They 
 delay, they protract, they dilly-dally, they "fool 
 around," they pet each other in all sorts of possible 
 and impossible ways. They kiss each other — "long 
 and passionate kisses, they again and again give and 
 receive" — they hug each other, nestle into each 
 other's arms — in a word, they "play together" in a 
 thousand-and-one ways which the "goody-goods" 
 declare to be wrong, and the cold-blooded call non- 
 sense or foolishness, but which all lovers know is an 
 unspeakable delight ("unspeakable" is the word, for 
 who wants to talk when these blissful experiences are 
 going on ! ) . 
 
 Now, these things, and the likes of these things, in 
 limitless supply, should always precede the act of 
 coitus. It is right there that this part of the first 
 act of this wonderful four-act drama or play should 
 be wrought out, and if they are omitted or disre- 
 garded, the play will end in tragedy, ztnth all the 
 leading actors left dead upon the stage! 
 
 Now the chief, if not the only reason why this 
 part of the supreme act of married life is not always 
 preluded in this way is found in the false view of 
 what the marriage ceremony means, and a wrong im- 
 pression as to what it confers upon the parties who 
 say "yes" to its prescriptions. That is, the common 
 idea is, that the taking of "marriage vows" bestows 
 certain rights and imposes certain duties upon the 
 new husband and wife. It is thought that such cere- 
 mony makes certain acts right which would other- 
 wise be wrong, and that it establishes the right to
 
 74 Sane Sex Life 
 
 engage in such acts, ztnth or mithout any further con- 
 sultation or consent in the premises. It makes love 
 a matter of contract, a something bound by promise 
 and pledge rather than a free and unfettered effusion 
 of the soul. 
 
 The resuh of this is that, whereas, before the 
 marriage ceremony both the man and woman take 
 the utmost care to do everything in their power to 
 increase, magnify, and retain each other's love, after 
 they have been granted a "license," and the minister 
 has put their hands together and prayed over them 
 — after this, they both think they have a "cinch" on 
 each other, that they are bound together by a bond 
 that cannot be broken, a tie so strong that it will 
 need no further looking after, but which will "stay 
 put" of its own accord, and which may therefore be 
 let to shift for itself from the hour of its pronounce- 
 ment ! Nothing could be further from the truth than 
 this is. And yet it is a common feeling and belief 
 among young married people ! 
 
 Nor is it any wonder that this should be so. The 
 very form of the marriage ceremony and contract 
 tends to make it so. The fact that marriage orig- 
 inated as a form of slavery, and that much of its 
 original status yet remains — all these things tend to 
 establish these wrong ideas regarding the estate, in 
 the minds of the parties to it. 
 
 Nor are the evils that come from such wrong view 
 of marriage all confined to one side of the house. 
 On the contrary, they arc about evenly divided be- 
 tween husbands and wives, witness a few illustrations,
 
 Sane Sex Lhnng 75 
 
 as follows : 
 
 A couple had been married about a year. They 
 had no children, nor were there prospects of any. 
 The husband was beginning to spend his evenings 
 away from home, leaving his wife alone. One evening, 
 as he was making ready to go out his wife said: 
 "What makes you go out evenings now, and leave 
 me alone ! You didn't use to do it !" And the hus- 
 band replied : 
 
 "Why, you don't do anything to make it interest- 
 ing for me now ! You used to put on your prettiest 
 clothes when I came to see you, fixed up your hair 
 bewitchingly, had a smile for me that wouldn't come 
 ofT, would sing for me, read to me, sit on my lap and 
 pet me and kiss me, and now you never do anything 
 of the kind." And before he could say more, the 
 wife responded: "Oh, but we are married now, and 
 it's your duty to stay zinth me!" 
 
 What wonder that the husband went out of the 
 house, slamming the door after him ! The wonder is 
 that he ever came back. 
 
 Again : A woman who was a graduate of a famous 
 Eastern College and who had taught for a number 
 of years, who was from one of the "first families" 
 in the east, and was counted as a lady of the highest 
 culture and refinement, finally married a Western 
 business man. On their bridal night, as they were 
 retiring, the man laid his hand on the woman's bare 
 shoulder, and she threw it off, and said: "Don't be 
 disgusting! I married you because I was tired of tak- 
 ing care of myself, or of having my relatives take
 
 76 Sane Sex Life 
 
 care of me. You are worth fifty thousand dollars, and 
 one-third of all that was made mine just as soon 
 as the preacher got through his closing prayer, and 
 you can't help it ! That's the truth, and we are mar- 
 ried, and you can make the best of it !" 
 
 These are both truthful tales, nor are they the 
 only ones of the sort that could be told. 
 
 On the other hand, these are matched with acts 
 of ignorant and careless young husbands, who do 
 dastardly deeds to their brides because they think 
 the law and the contract give them the right ! There 
 is no need to go into details. The whole evil is re- 
 vealed by the words of the woman just quoted: ''Oh, 
 but zve are married now." 
 
 These records, and all like them, lead to the re- 
 mark that marriage confers no rights, to either the 
 bride or the bridegroom, in the highest meaning of 
 the zvord. So far as its outward and formal observ- 
 ance is concerned, marriage is merely a sort of pro- 
 tection for society which has grown up through the 
 years, and which is probably for the best, for the 
 present, things being as they are. But it should be 
 well understood that it can never lead to true hap- 
 piness if it is viewed and utilized merely on its legal 
 and formal side. True marriage is based on mutual 
 love; and mutual love can never be traded upon, or 
 made an item, of formal agreement and contract. 
 Peo])le may contract to live together and to cohabit, 
 and they may faithfully carry out their agreements; 
 but this is not marriage! It is simply legalised pros- 
 titution, bargain and sale, for a consideration. It is
 
 Sane Sex Living 77 
 
 blasphemy to call it by the sacred name of marriage! 
 Truly does Tennyson say : "Free love will not be 
 bound." Indeed it cannot be ! It must remain forever 
 free if it stays at all. And if the parties to it try 
 to bind it, the more chains, fastenings, pledges and 
 agreements they put upon it, the sooner and quicker 
 will it escape from all its holdings and fly away and 
 stay away! 
 
 And so, to come back to where we left off (for 
 we said there should be no hurrying or haste here) 
 let married people understand that the key to mar- 
 ried happiness is to keep on "courting" each other. 
 Indeed, to make courting continually grow to more 
 and more. During the whole extent of married life, 
 never neglect, much less forget to be lovers, and great 
 shall be your reward. Don't ask how to do this ! 
 You know how, well enough. Do it ! 
 
 And be careful not to do anything that a careful 
 lover ought not to do ! This direction should be 
 heeded by both husband and wife. Make yourself 
 beautiful for your husband. Oh, wife, and keep your- 
 self so. As between the public, or your friends, or 
 society, give them what of yourself you can spare, 
 after you have given to your lover all that you can 
 bestow upon him, or he can wish you to bestow. 
 Don't give to everybody and everything else, church, 
 society, work, children, friends, or what-so-ever — 
 don't give all of yourself to these, and let your hus- 
 band "take what there is left." Don't do that, as 
 you value your married success and happiness !
 
 78 Sane Sex Life 
 
 Don't say: "Oh, but we are married now," and let 
 it go at that ! 
 
 The beautiful and delicate flowers of married 
 love need to be watched and tended with the most 
 skillful care, continually, by both husband and wife. 
 Treated in this way, they will not only be fragrant 
 and lovely through all the years of wedded life; but 
 as, one by one, the blossoms shed their petals and 
 change their forms so that luscious fruits may come 
 in turn — as these changes take place, new, more beau- 
 tiful and more fragrant flowers will continue to the 
 very end of the longest married life. Don't ever 
 forget this, or doubt it, as you hope for happiness in 
 the marriage state ! Mind what is here said, and act 
 accordingly all the time — days, nights and Sundays. 
 
 Now if these truths are thoroughly inculcated, 
 "kicked in" so firmly and deeply that they will never 
 "jar loose" or get away, we will move on. 
 
 So, then, the first part of every act of coitus 
 should always be a courting act, in which there 
 should be no haste, but in which the parties should 
 "make delays," as John Burroughs says. 
 
 And this should be added : that, for married 
 lovers, courting has a far wider range of possibilities 
 than it has for the unmarried. Previous to marriage, 
 there are conventionalities and clothes in the way ! 
 After that, neither of these need be in evidence, and 
 this makes a lot of difference, and all in favor of the 
 best results, if rightly used, and made the most of. 
 One hardly need to go into details here, (though this 
 may be done later on in this writing). If the lovers
 
 Sane Sex Living 79 
 
 will be as free with each other unclothed as clothed ; 
 if they will utterly ignore all conventionalities, and 
 do with and for each other anything and everything 
 that their impulses and inclinations suggest, or 
 their desires prompt ; if they will, with the utuiost 
 abandon give themselves up to petting each other in 
 every possible way that mother nature has put with- 
 in their reach ; if they will hug and kiss and "spoon" 
 and "p^'iy ^ith each other" just as they want to do 
 — if they will do this and not hurry about it — then, 
 in due course, they will successfully execute the first 
 act of the great play they are performing ; the sex 
 organs will become fully ready for the union they are 
 both longing for; the prostate flow" will have added 
 to the erect condition of the penis ; the walls of the 
 vagina and all the area of the vulva will be enlarged, 
 soft, flexible and made smooth and slippery by a most 
 generous supply of the pre-coital secretion" and 
 everything will be in perfect readiness for the next 
 part of the performance, namely the union of the 
 organs. 
 
 And here it becomes necessary to say something 
 al)out the position of the parties in making such 
 union. There are a large number of these possible, 
 some of which may be noted later, but here, only the 
 most common one will be considered (it is said there 
 are more than forty diflFerent positions possible in 
 this act). 
 
 The most common position is for the woman to 
 lie flat on her back, with her legs spread wide apart, 
 and her knees drawn up so that the angle made by
 
 80 Sane Sex Life 
 
 the upper and lower part of the leg shall be less than 
 a right angle. Her head should not be too high, 
 there should be no pillow under it. 
 
 Into her arms, and between her spread legs as 
 she lies thus, her lover should come. His body will 
 thus be over and above her, and he should sustain 
 himself on Ins elbows and knees, so that little or none 
 of his weight may rest upon her. In this position, 
 face to face (and it should be noted that only in the 
 human family is this position of coitus possible! 
 Among mere animals, the male is always upon the 
 back of the female. They — mere animals — can never 
 look each other in the eye and kiss each other during 
 the act! This is another marked and very signifi- 
 cant difference between human beings and all other 
 animals in this regard) it is perfectly natural and 
 easy for the organs to go together, when properly 
 made ready, as here-before described. The woman 
 should also place her heels in the knee hollows of her 
 lover's legs, and clasp his body with her arms. 
 
 The entrance of the penis into the vagina should 
 not be too abrupt, unless circumstances are perfectly 
 favorable for such meeting and it is the wish of 
 the wife that it be made in this way. It is only fair 
 to say, though, that such bold and pronounced en- 
 trance is often greatly desired by the woman, if her 
 passion has been fully aroused at this stage of the 
 act. Such union is not infrequently of the greatest 
 delight to her, if everything is favorable for its be- 
 ing so made. But, if there is any pain produced in 
 her by the coming together, the meeting should be
 
 Sane Sex Living 81 
 
 gentle and slow, the penis working its way into the 
 vagina by degrees, till, finally, it is entirely encased 
 therein. Once thus happily together, the vagina and 
 uterine cavity will still further expand, till, in due 
 order, the two organs will be fitted together perfectly, 
 a single unit, one, in the highest sense of unity. 
 
 This is the second act in this wonderful play. 
 
 Once well together, and the organs perfectly set- 
 tled and adapted to each other, the third act begins, 
 namely, the motion of the organs — the sliding of the 
 penis back and forth, partly in and out of the va- 
 gina, though this is not really the best way of de- 
 scribing just what should take place. What should 
 actually be done is, that the two organs should en- 
 gage in this motion, which is common to them both. 
 They should mutually slip a few inches, back and 
 forth, each party to the ^notion doing a fair half. 
 
 It is often supposed, by both an uninitiated hus- 
 band and an "innocent" wife, that all the motion 
 should originate with the husband — that he should 
 slide his penis in and out of the vagina, while the 
 woman should lie still and "let him do it all." This 
 is however a great mistake, and one that has caused 
 an endless amount of ill to untold numbers of hus- 
 bands and wives. And for the following reasons : 
 
 In the position just described, if the wife has 
 her arms around her lover's body and her heels in 
 his knee-pockets, while he supports himself by his 
 elbows and knees over and above her, resting none 
 of his weight upon her, it is perfectly easy for her 
 to lift her hips up and down, or sway them from
 
 82 Sane Sex Life 
 
 side to side, or swing them in a circling "round- 
 and-round" motion, as she may choose to do. She 
 can thus originate her half of the in-and-out motion 
 — a something she will delight to do, if given a fair 
 chance. If, however, the man lies heavily upon her, 
 holding her down with the weight of his body, the 
 possibility of such action on her part is prevented, 
 and this results disastrously to both parties. And 
 so, in this part of the act, the husband should take 
 the utmost care to give his wife the full and com- 
 plete freedom to move her hips as she chooses, and 
 as a successful climax demands that she should. 
 
 Now if the wife be left free to move, as just 
 described, and the in-and-out motion proceeds as it 
 should, what immediately follows will vary in a great 
 degree. Thus, the time taken to reach the climax, 
 or last act of the performance, may be a few sec- 
 onds, or several minutes, may require a mere half 
 dozen motions, or several hundred! All depends on 
 the intensity of the passions of the husband and 
 wife, especially the latter, and their skill in manipu- 
 lating this part of the act. 
 
 The effect of this motion is to still further excite 
 and still more distend all the organs involved. Nor- 
 mally, the motion grows faster and faster, the strokes 
 becoming as long as the length of the organs will 
 possibly permit without separating them. The flow 
 of the lubricating fluid, from both organs, becomes 
 more and more copious, till, all at once, the orgasm, 
 or fourth stage, is reached ! 
 
 It is difficult to describe what this orgasm is like.
 
 Sane Sex Living 83 
 
 There is no bodily sensation that at all corresponds 
 to it, unless it be a sneeze, and this is only like it in 
 that it is spontaneous, and a sort of nervous spasm 
 (a sneeze is sometimes spoken of as an orgasm). A 
 sexual orgasm is a nervous spasm, or a series of 
 pulsating nervous explosions which defy description. 
 The action is entirely beyond the control of the will, 
 when it finally arrives, and the sensation it produces 
 is delectable beyond telling. It is the topmost pin- 
 nacle of all human experiences. For a husband and 
 wife to reach this climax, at exactly the same in- 
 stant, is a consummation that can never be excelled 
 in human life. It is a goal worthy the endeavor of 
 all husbands and wives, to attain to this supreme 
 height of sexual possibilities. 
 
 On the part of the man, the orgasm throws the 
 semen into, and all about the vaginal-uterine tract. 
 The amount of semen thus discharged at a single 
 climax is about a tablespoonful, enough to entirely 
 flush and flood the area into which it is thrown. Its 
 use and action there have already been described, 
 and so need not be repeated here. 
 
 On the part of the woman, the orgasm causes no 
 corresponding emission of fluid, of any sort, that is 
 jetted forth as is the semen. Yet the spasmodic 
 action of the sexual parts, so far as nervous explo- 
 sions are concerned, is exactly like that of her part- 
 ner. Palpitation follows palpitation, through all the 
 sexual area ; the mouth of the womb opens and closes 
 convulsively, the vagina dilates and contracts again 
 and again, and the vulva undergoes similar actions.
 
 84 Sane Sex Life 
 
 The sensations are all of the most delectable nature, 
 the whole of the woman's body being thrilled, over 
 and over, again and again, with delights inexpressi- 
 ble. This, however, seems to be the entire mission 
 of the orgasm in woman. // has nothing ivhatever 
 to do with conception ; though many people, espe- 
 cially young husbands who know just a little about 
 the phenomenon, believe that it is an essential to 
 pregnancy. But sncJi is by no means the case. All 
 that is needed to bring about conception in a woman 
 is the presence of the ovum in the uterus, and its 
 meeting semen there, and so becoming fertilized. So 
 far as becoming pregnant is concerned, the zvonian 
 need have no pleasure at all in the act of coitus. 
 Indeed, women have been made pregnant by securing 
 fresh semen from some man and injecting it into 
 the vagina with an ordinary female syringe ! 
 
 The false idea, which largely prevails, and which 
 usually takes the form that there is no danger or 
 possibility of conception unless the orgasm is simul- 
 taneous on the part of the man and %voman, has 
 caused many a woman to become pregnant when she 
 thought such a result to be impossible, because she 
 and her lover did not "spend" at the same instant. 
 For the same reason, many a young husband has 
 impregnated his wife when he least expected to do 
 so, thinking that because he alone experienced the 
 orgasm, that therefore conception was impossible. 
 
 Again, there are many married men and women 
 who do noi know that it is possible for a woman to 
 experience an orgasm at all! The writer once knew
 
 Sane Sex Living 85 
 
 a case of this kind, where a husband and wife, most 
 intelligent and well cultivated people, lived together 
 for twenty years, and to whom were born six chil- 
 dren, who. at the end of that time were wholly un- 
 aware of such possibility ! They afterwards dis- 
 covered it by accident, as it were, and after that en- 
 joyed its delights for many years. There are some, 
 yea, many, women who never experience this sensa- 
 tion at all, but of this more will be said later. 
 
 All these phenomena seem to indicate the fact 
 that, so far as women are concerned, the orgasm is 
 entirely for her delectation and delight. It forms no 
 part of the act of conception, and its only possible 
 function, beyond that of pleasure, is that, because 
 of the exceedingly delightful sensations it produces, 
 it may lure women to engage in coitus when, but for 
 this fact, they would not do so, and that it thus in- 
 creases the possibility of women becoming mothers. 
 Indeed, there is no stronger temptation to a woman 
 to run the risk of becoming pregnant than her de- 
 sire to experience an orgasm ! But more of this later. 
 
 As soon as the orgasm is over, a total collapse 
 of the husband and wife takes place. They are truly 
 "spent," a most expressive word, which alone can 
 describe their condition. On the part of the man 
 the up-to-this-moment stout penis, becomes almost 
 instantly limp and shrunken, while all the female 
 organs become quiescent. A most delightful lan- 
 guor steals over them ; ever}' nerve and fibre of the 
 whole body relaxes ; and a desire to fall asleep at
 
 86 Sane Sex Life 
 
 once, comes upon them irresistibly. And the thing 
 for them to do is to avail themselves of such nat- 
 ural impulse, just as soon as possible. They should 
 always have at hand, and within easy reach, a towel, 
 or napkin, with which to care for the surplus of the 
 seminal emission, which, as soon as the organs are 
 separated, will, in greater or less quantity, flow from 
 the vagina. Some of the same fluid will also re- 
 main upon tlie penis when it is withdrawn. The hus- 
 band should absorb this surplus which remains with 
 him with the towel, as soon as the organs are parted, 
 and immediately leave his super-imposed position, 
 leaving his wife perfectly free, to do as she will. She 
 should arrange the towel between her thighs, exactly 
 as she would a sanitary napkin, making no attempt 
 to remove the surplus semen at that time, and turn 
 over and go to sleep immediately. (It is said that 
 if the woman goes to sleep on her hack, after coition, 
 she thereby increases the probability of becoming 
 pregnant. This is a point that women who greatly 
 desire motherhood should note. The writer knew 
 one case where a wife lay on her back for twenty- 
 four hours after coition and so became pregnant 
 after all other means had failed.) 
 
 Now it might seem that such neglect, on the part 
 of the woman, to immediately remove the surplus 
 semen, was uncleanly and unsanitary. But this is 
 not at all true, and for this reason: The semen is 
 a most powerful stimulant to all the female sex- 
 organs, and to the whole body of the woman. The, 
 organs themselves will absorb quantities of semen,
 
 Sane Sex Living 87 
 
 if left in contact with it, and it is most healthful and 
 beneficial to them, and to the woman, to have them 
 do so. It is for this cause that many women in- 
 crease in flesh, and even grow fat after they are mar- 
 ried and so can avail themselves of this healthful 
 food. As a matter of fact, there is no nerve-stim- 
 ulant, or nerve-quieter, that is as potent to woman- 
 kind as semen. There are multitudes of "nervous" 
 women, hysterical even, who are restored to health, 
 and kept in good health, through the stimulative ef- 
 fects of satisfactory coitus and the absorption of 
 semen, when both these items are present in perfec- 
 tion. On the other hand, there are many women 
 who suffer all sorts of ills, when these normally bene- 
 ficial factors are misused or wrongly applied. The 
 results that follow all depend upon the way the act 
 is done, and its products utilized. 
 
 So, after the act of coition is over, let the woman 
 slip a "bandage" into place as soon as possible, and 
 go to sleep. If she sleeps long, so much the better, 
 so much more will she be benefited by the presence 
 of the semen and its absorption. When she natur- 
 ally wakens, she may bathe the vulva region with 
 warm water; but there is no need of, nor is it wise 
 to try to cleanse the vagina and the uterine tract by 
 the use of a vaginal syringe. Above all, never in- 
 ject cold water into the vagina, especially do not do 
 this immediately after coitus. Some women use a 
 cold water injection immediately after coitus. There 
 is no surer way to ill health and ultimate suicide. 
 The parts are congested with blood at such times.
 
 88 Sane Sex Life 
 
 and to pour cold water upon them is as though, when 
 one is dripping with perspiration, he should plunge 
 into a cold bath. Nature has made wise provision 
 for taking care of all the semen that remains in the 
 vagina. Let the parts alone, and they will cleanse 
 and care for themselves. 
 
 Such, then, is a somewhat extended review of the 
 act of coitus at its best estate, and in a general way. 
 Its perfect accomplishment is an art to he cultivated, 
 and one in zuhich expertness can only be attained 
 by wise observation, careful study of all the factors 
 in the problem, skilful manipulation of all the parts 
 involved, and a loving adaptation of the bodies, 
 minds and souls of both the parties to the act. It 
 is no mere animal function. It is a utiion, a unity of 
 "two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that 
 beat as one." There is nothing low or degrading 
 about it, when it is what it ought to be, when it is 
 brought to, and experienced at, its highest and best 
 estate. It is God-designed, God-born, God-bestowed! 
 As such it should be thankfully received and divinely 
 used by all the sons and daughters of men.
 
 VII 
 
 THE FIRST UNION 
 
 AND now, although so much has been said, there 
 is much that remains to be said, and which 
 ought to be said, to do the subject justice. Some 
 of these things are as follows : 
 
 Something more ought to be told about the sec- 
 ond part of the act of coitus, the union of the organs, 
 when this occurs for the first time on the part of the 
 woman. 
 
 At the first meeting of the husband and wife, if 
 the woman be a virgin, there are certain conditions 
 which exist, on her part, that are not present in 
 after-meetings, and these must be understood and 
 rightly dealt with, or the worst of bad results may 
 ensue. 
 
 Of course, at such first meeting, all the prelimi- 
 naries prescribed as forming the first movement of 
 the act should be carried out to the limit. It is not 
 too much to say that these should be prolonged for 
 some days! Do not start, young husband, at this 
 statement! Well did Alexander Dumas, pere, write: 
 "Oh, young husband, have a care in the first over- 
 tures you make toward your bride! She may shrink 
 from what she feels must come ; she may put her 
 hands over her eyes to shut out the sight; but do 
 
 89
 
 90 Sane Sex Life 
 
 not forget that she is a woman, and so is filled with 
 curiosity, under any and all circumstances! And 
 you may set it down as sure, that, though she blinds 
 herself with her hands as she scales the dizzy 
 heights you are leading her over, nevertheless, she 
 unll peek through her fingers! So she will watch 
 you with most critical eyes, and note every show of 
 selfishness or blundering on your part! So have a 
 care! You may think you are aiming your arrow 
 at the sun. See to it that it does not alight in the 
 mud !" Good words these, and to be heeded, come 
 what may ! 
 
 As a rule, if the bride be a virgin, it is well to 
 let plenty of time elapse before engaging in the full 
 act of coitus! Delay here will lead to a possible 
 loving sj>eed, later on. The young people should 
 take time enough to get better acquainted with each 
 other than ever before ; to become, in a measure, ac- 
 customed to the uncovered presence of each other, 
 and to the new possibilities of "courting" and "play- 
 ing together" that their new conditions offer. In 
 any case, full coitus should not be attempted till the 
 bride is at least willing. If she can be brought to 
 become anxious for the meeting, so much the better. 
 
 And so, with plenty of time taken for making 
 ready for the act we come to the first union of the 
 organs for a newly married couple, the bride being 
 a virgin. And here is where an explanation is called 
 for. 
 
 The vulva, or external part of the female sex 
 organs, is a mouth shaped aperture, located later-
 
 Sane Sex Living 91 
 
 ally between the forward part of the thighs. In 
 shape, size and structure, it much resembles the ex- 
 ternal parts of the mouth proper. It begins just 
 in front of the anus, and extends forward above 
 the pubic bone and a little ways up the belly. Its 
 entire lateral length is about four or more inches. 
 
 This organ is made up of several parts, as fol- 
 lows: The lips, or labiae, as they are technically 
 known, the clitoris, and the vaginal opening. The 
 lips are a double row, two on either side, and are 
 known as labiae major and labiae minor, that is, the 
 thicker and thinner or larger and smaller lips. They 
 extend almost the entire length of the vulva, the 
 outer lips folding over the inner ones when the thighs 
 are together. The outer parts of the larger lips 
 are covered with hair. In thickness and quality 
 these labiae are much like the lips of the face of each 
 individual, a large mouth and thick lips indicate a 
 large vulva and thick labiae and vice-versa. The 
 clitoris is a gland that is located forward, on the 
 upper part of the vulva. It corresponds, almost 
 exactly, in make-up and function, with the glans 
 penis of the male organ. The vaginal opening is 
 at the rear, or lower part of the vulva, and leads 
 directly into the vagina proper. 
 
 All these parts are composed of most keenly re- 
 sponsive nerves, and they are covered with a thin, 
 delicate and exceedingly sensitive skin, almost exact- 
 ly such as lines the cheeks and the mouth. Both the 
 clitoris and the lips are filled with expandable blood 
 vessels, and in a state of tumescence they are greatly
 
 92 Sane Sex Life 
 
 enlarged by a flow of blood into the parts. The 
 clitoris, in this condition, undergoes an enlargement, 
 or "erection," which is exactly like that of the glans 
 penis. So much as to the physiology of this part of 
 the female sex organs, all of which should be well 
 understood by every bride and bridegroom, though 
 often it is not. 
 
 Now, in its virgin state, the vulva has another 
 part, not yet named, and this is the hymen, or 
 "maiden-head" as it is commonly known. This is a 
 membrane that grows across the forward, or upper 
 part of the vaginal opening, and so closes up nearly 
 all that part of the vulva. This hymen is not al- 
 ways present, however, even in a state of undoubted 
 virginity. Sometimes it is torn away in childhood 
 by the little girl's fingers, as she "plays with her- 
 self." Sometimes it is ruptured by lifting, again it 
 is broken away by the use of a large-sized female 
 syringe. For all these reasons, it is not right to 
 conclude that a bride is not a virgin because the 
 hymen is not present and in evidence at the first 
 coition. 
 
 Now many young husbands, and some young 
 wives, are wholly ignorant of the existence of the 
 hymen, and of the troubles it may cause at the second 
 part of the sexual act, in a first meeting. This mem- 
 brane is often quite tough and strong. It is grown 
 fast to the lower part of the clitoris and to the inside 
 surfaces of the smaller lips, and it covers so much 
 of the vaginal opening that it is practically impos- 
 sible for the erect penis to enter the vagina so long
 
 Sane Sex Living 93 
 
 as it is present. Now if. under these conditions, the 
 bride and groom (especially the latter) are igno- 
 rant of the real construction 'of the parts, and so 
 should try to make a union of the organs, they would 
 find such union obstructed, if not impossible; and if 
 the man, puzzled, and impatient, and passion-driven, 
 should force a hasty entrance into the vagina, rup- 
 turing the hymen ruthlessly, he would hurt the wo- 
 man cruelly, probably cause her to bleed freely from 
 the wounded parts, and shock her seriously! All 
 of which would be a score against the husband, would 
 brand him as a brute, or a bungler, and so tend to 
 make his ''sun-aimed arrow alight in the mud." 
 
 The thing to do here, is, first of all. to know the 
 situation and to talk it over, and carefully, delicately, 
 do the best that can be done about it. If the con- 
 ditions are fully understood by the bride and groom, 
 they can. in almost every case, by working and mov- 
 ing together carefully, overcome the obstacle, remove 
 the hymen with little or no pain or loss of blood. 
 
 As a matter of fact, when the time for meeting 
 comes, if all the facts are known, and the husband 
 will hold his erect penis still and steady against the 
 hymen, the bride will so press against it, and "wiggle 
 around" it, that hy her own motions, she will break 
 the membrane and so be rid of it. She knows how 
 much pain she can endure, and when the pressure 
 is too hard she can relieve it by her own action ! 
 Anyhow, what is done she docs herself, and so can
 
 94 Sane Sex Life 
 
 never charge up against her husband ! 
 
 It is a rare case in which, by mutual willingness, 
 and desire and mutual effort to remove the obstruc- 
 tion, it cannot be eliminated with satisfaction to 
 both bride and groom. If, however, careful and well- 
 executed efforts fail to remove it, the services of a 
 surgeon should be procured, and he, by a very simple 
 and almost painless operation, can remove the diffi- 
 culty. But never, no never, should it be brutally torn 
 away by the force of the husband, and without the 
 full willingness of the wife. Mark this well. As a 
 matter of fact, the wise and practical thing for 
 every bride to do, would be to go to a surgeon a few 
 days before her wedding, and have him remove the 
 hymen for her. Such operation is nearly painless, 
 and is very easily done. Still, to do this might raise 
 a doubt of virginity on the part of the husband and 
 so this is a point to be careful about ! 
 
 The act of removing the hymen is often spoken of 
 as "defloration" — the tearing to pieces of a flower. 
 The term is not fortunate. Nothing worth while 
 has been taken away by removing the hymen, but 
 much that is useful has been acquired. An organ 
 that has outlived whatever usefulness it might once 
 have had has been removed, and its going has made 
 possible new and beautiful uses in life. If this has 
 been accomplished by the mutual desire and effort 
 of the bride and groom, it is a cause for joy and 
 not of sorrow ; of delight and not of mourning. As 
 well weep over the removal of the vermiform appen- 
 dix as for the destruction of the hymen.
 
 Sane Sex Living 95 
 
 With this obstacle rightly overcome, the second 
 act of coitus offers no situation that calls for further 
 remark or explanation. 
 
 And now a few words about the probabilities of 
 conception resulting from coitus, and some matters 
 which are very closely related thereto. 
 
 In the first place, every healthy and fairly-well- 
 provided-for husband and wife should desire to have 
 children, and should act in accordance with such 
 wish. This is not only in harmony with the primary 
 purpose of sex in the human family, but it is a 
 response to a natural demand of the human soul, 
 in both man and woman. As Bernard Shaw makes 
 Jack Tanner say: "There is a father-heart as well 
 as a mother-heart" and parenthood is the supreme 
 desire of all normal and wholesome-minded men and 
 women. It is not an "instinct," but something far 
 above that quality. 
 
 Parenthood among mere animals is the result of 
 instinct, and of that alone, but not so in the human 
 race. Human beings naturally desire to make a home 
 for themselves, and a home, in the fullest meaning 
 of that word, means children and a "family circle." 
 This is something that animals know nothing about. 
 Animal mothers forget and ignore their progeny 
 as soon as they are weaned; and animal fathers will, 
 in many cases, kill them as soon as they are born, 
 if they get a chance to do so. These facts prove that 
 parenthood, in the human family, is something much 
 more than in the rest of the animal kingdom. In- 
 deed, the whole matter of comparing this quality, as
 
 96 Sane Sex Life 
 
 it exists in humanity, with that of animals merely, 
 is only a continuance of the similar abomination of 
 comparing the sex functions of these two forms of 
 life. In the real essentials of existence, they are in 
 no way comparable ; and to make such is not only 
 folly, but approaches the positively criminal. The 
 results of doing so certainly lead to crime. 
 
 Fundamentally, then, nearly all men and women 
 marry with the purpose and hope of having a family 
 of children. They may not put it that way, may 
 not even acknowledge it, even to each other or to 
 themselves; but if married people find that they can- 
 not produce, it is a source of unspeakable regret to 
 them both. In such cases, the inherent desire for 
 parenthood will "cry aloud and spare not." A "bar- 
 ren" woman greatly mourns her inability, and will 
 shed bitter tears over the fact, if she be truly human ; 
 and an "impotent" man will be practically despised 
 by all who are aware of his incompetence. 
 
 And yet, though all normal men and women desire 
 to have children, it is only right that they should 
 desire to have them, as they zvant them, and ivhen 
 they want them, and not whenever they may happen 
 to come! That is, sensible and thoughtful people, 
 who plan definitely for the future, want to make the 
 coming of children to them an affair of deliberate 
 arrangement, and not of chance. 
 
 This is not only as it should be. but is really the 
 only right way that children should be gotten and 
 born. Which statement calls for a few special words 
 on the right of parents to regulate the production
 
 Sane Sex Living 97 
 
 of progeny. 
 
 There is much talk, in some quarters, about "race 
 suicide," and the wickedness of deliberately limiting 
 the number of children in a family. Such talking and 
 writing arouse anxious questionings in the minds of 
 conscientious young married men and women who 
 are desiring to do the right thing in the premises, 
 but are uncertain as to what the right thing is, and 
 for such are the following words : 
 
 Many years ago, an English philosopher and 
 statesman, Malthus by name, discovered and an- 
 nounced the fact that the rate of natural increase 
 in the human race was several times greater than 
 that of the possible rate of production of food sup- 
 plies for their support. Scientifically phrased, his 
 statement was that "the rate of increase in humanity 
 is in geometrical ratio, while the rate of increase of 
 possible food supply is in arithmetical ratio." And 
 from this basis, he reasoned that, unless the surplus 
 of human production was in some way cut off and 
 destroyed, the whole human race would ultimately 
 demand more food supply than could possibly be 
 produced; and so, in due course of time, the whole 
 race would perish from starvation ! 
 
 Then he proceeded to reason that the purpose of 
 disease, plague, pestilence, famine, poverty and war- 
 fare was to cut off and destroy the surplus of hu- 
 manity, and hence all these alleged evils were in 
 reality blessings in disguise, and that it would he 
 wrong to interfere with their really beneficent work- 
 ings ! Volumes could be written, and they could not
 
 98> Sane Sex Life 
 
 tell the half of the misery and evil that the promul- 
 gation of this doctrine has done for the civilized 
 world, but there is no space here for giving any 
 such details ; nor need this be done, though the state- 
 ment of the doctrine had to be made to make ready 
 for what is to follow. 
 
 Now, is it not far more reasonable to suppose 
 that, since the possibility of determining the number 
 of off-spring a husband and zmfe may produce has 
 been given them; that since such result can be, for 
 them, made a matter of choice, of an exercise of the 
 ivill, and not of blind instinct — under these circum- 
 stances, all of which undoubtedly exist, is it not far 
 more reasonable to believe that it is the purpose of 
 the Creator that the limiting of the number of 
 human beings in the world should be brought about 
 by curbing the birth rate, rather than by killing the 
 surplus after they are born ! 
 
 There can be but one answer made to this ques- 
 tion by any intelligent man or woman. 
 
 These facts, then establish the rightfulness of 
 determining the number and size of a family by every 
 husband and zmfe. But this does not mean that they 
 are to entirely refrain from cohabiting, in order to 
 keep from having children ! This phase of the argu- 
 ment has already been gone over and disposed of. 
 But it does mean that husbands and wives have a 
 right to use such rightful means for the limiting of 
 the numljer of offspring as are conducive to the 
 interests of all parties concerned — themselves, their 
 circumstances, the born or unborn children, the
 
 Sane Sex Living 99 
 
 state, the nation. Let the bride and groom be well 
 convinced and established in their own minds on 
 these points, as early in their relation as possible. 
 They should be so from the very outset — must be so, 
 to reach the best result. 
 
 The issue then presents itself : How can such 
 deliberate and wilful determination of the number 
 of children a husband and wife may have, be brought 
 about ? 
 
 And the answer is, that it can never he accom- 
 plished by careless and hap-hazard cohabiting! On 
 the contrary, it can only be compassed by the most 
 careful and watchful processes of engaging in coitus, 
 and by a full knowledge of physiological facts, and 
 by acting, always, in accordance with the same. It 
 is no road for careless travel, but it is a way worth 
 going in, for all that. 
 
 On this point, let it be said that all sane and 
 intelligent men and women agree that anything even 
 approaching infanticide is nothing short of a crime, 
 and that abortion, except for the purpose of saving 
 the life of the mother, is practically murder. 
 
 But, while this is all true, to prevent the contact 
 of two germs which, if permitted to unite, would be 
 liable to result in a living human form, is quite an- 
 other affair. 
 
 It is only this aspect of the situation which will 
 be considered in what follows. 
 
 Now, as has already been shown, the essentials for 
 conception consist of having the ovum present in the 
 womb, and its meeting the semen there. The corol-
 
 100 Sane Sex Life 
 
 lary of this is, that whenever these coincidences take 
 place, there is a possibility for conception. 
 
 But in all normal cases, the ovum only passes 
 into the womb once in every twenty-eight days ; and, 
 as a rule, it only remains in the womb for about half 
 that period of time, that is, for about 14 or 15 days 
 in each month. And so, since the menstrual flow 
 ceases after about five days from its beginning, in 
 about ten days after its stopping, the ovum will 
 have passed out of the womb, and hence that organ 
 contains nothing that is impregnable. Under these 
 conditions, the semen may be deposited in the womb, 
 without danger of impregnation. This is a simple 
 proposition, and easy to understand if once known. 
 
 However, it must be said that these generally 
 common conditions do not always obtain — that is, 
 they are not true in the case of all women. There 
 are women who will conceive at any time in the 
 month, if they are given a chance to do so. The 
 physiological reason for such possibility is said to 
 be this : There are always ova in the ovaries, in 
 varying stages of development. Ordinarily, only 
 once a month do any of these pass down into the 
 womb ; but, in exceptional cases, sometimes these ova 
 are so partially held in the ovaries that, under the 
 excitement of coitus, and because all these parts 
 dilate so much during the act, an ovum may slip 
 its moorings, under such conditions, i:)ass down into 
 the uterus at an untimely season, meet the semen 
 there, and i)regnancy result. Such are the facts 
 in some cases.
 
 Sane Sex Living 101 
 
 How, then, can a husband and wife tell how it 
 is, or will be, in their particular case? 
 
 The answer is that they can only tell by trying, 
 and that should be done as follows : 
 
 The first sexual meeting of the bride and groom 
 should never take place until at least ten days after 
 the ceasing of the menstrual flow in the bride! This 
 is a rule that should never he violated if the parties 
 wish to "test out" the real condition as to whether 
 or not the bride has any "free time." The chances 
 are several to one that she has such leeway ; but the 
 fact can only be established by "proving up" and 
 this can never be done if any chances are taken. Put 
 this down as rule number one. 
 
 For this reason, it is well for the bride to fix the 
 wedding day ; and, if possible, for her to locate it 
 sometime during the probable immune period. And 
 the nearer she can bring this day to the beginning 
 of such period of freedom from danger of pregnancy, 
 the better. For, if it should happen that the first 
 coitus should take place only a day or tivo before the 
 time when another "monthly" was due, such excite- 
 ment might hasten the passage of the nearly-ripe 
 ovum into the uterus, and conception might occur. 
 In which case, "all the fat would be in the fire," 
 nothing would be proved, and the parties would be 
 as ignorant as ever regarding the facts in their case. 
 
 And so, the first sexual meeting of a bride and 
 bridegroom should be not earlier than ten days after 
 the ceasing of the menstrual flozv and not later than
 
 102 Sane Sex Life 
 
 three days before the next monthly is due. Put that 
 down as ride number two, never to be violated. 
 
 And if marriage takes place before this period 
 of probable immunity on the part of the bride ar- 
 rives, the only safe thing to do is to "patiently wait" 
 till such time arrives. This may "require fortitude" 
 on the part of both parties, but it is the only safe 
 thing to do. And to do just that, will amply repay 
 such waiting. The writer knows of a case where 
 the wedding took place just three days before the 
 bride's next monthly was due, and she and her hus- 
 band waited for more than tzvo weeks before they met 
 sexually ! But it paid to wait, for their doing so 
 proved that the bride had two weeks of "free time" 
 in each month, and this was worth all it cost to find 
 out! Take time! 
 
 And now let it be added that it is a great accom- 
 plishment for a husband and wife to be free from a 
 fear of pregnancy as a result of coitus. This is a 
 thousand times truer for the woman than for the 
 man, for it is she who has to bear the burden of what 
 follows, if following there be. The husband can "do 
 the deed" and go about his business. The wife, if 
 "the fertile seed" takes root, has before her months 
 of care and anxiety, and she risks her very life in 
 what may come of it all. For these reasons, she has a 
 right to dictate all the terms which are liable to cause 
 her to become a mother. And yet she should do this 
 with full regard for the husband, in love, in true 
 wifely-womanhood. On this point, do not fail to read
 
 Sane Sex Living 103 
 
 "The Helpmate," by May Sinclair. It is a story that 
 no bride and bridegroom should fail to read and 
 study, carefully. 
 
 The whole subject of how to engage in satisfac- 
 tory coitus and avoid pregnancy may be summed up 
 as follows : — The attainment of such a condition is 
 well worth the most careful, earnest and honestly 
 pains-taking endeavor. For, if such status be not 
 reached, its lack will be a source of endless conten- 
 tions and differences between the husband and wife. 
 It will lead to jealousies, quarrels, and all sorts of 
 marital woes. But, the situation once mastered, by 
 the most loving and accurate of scientific methods of 
 procedure, a happy married life is certain to result. 
 Otherwise, the "married state" will always be in a 
 condition of "unstable equilibrium." So let every 
 bride and bridegroom begin, from the first, to try to 
 establish the greatly to be desired accomplishment. 
 If anything further on this point should be desired, 
 consult a reliable physician.
 
 VIII 
 
 THE ART OF LOVE 
 
 AND Still there is more to be said! Is it not 
 written that "Art is long!" And the Art of 
 Love is the longest of all arts, and the most difficult 
 of all for its complete mastery and attainment! 
 
 It is a matter of misfortune, and yet one of not 
 infrequent occurrence, that the sex organs of hus- 
 band and wife are not zvell matched; and that 
 trouble, sometimes of a most serious nature, results. 
 When this condition is found to exist, it should be 
 treated sanely and wisely, and the chances are many 
 to one that the difficulty can be overcome, to the full 
 satisfaction of both parties concerned. 
 
 In such cases, the mis-matching usually arises 
 from the fact that the penis of the husband is too 
 long for the vagina of the wife. This is very apt 
 to be the case where the wife is of the "dumpy" sort, 
 with a small mouth and short fingers, while the hus- 
 band is "gangling," large mouthed and long fingered. 
 These are facts that ought to be taken into account 
 before marriage, and which should figure in deter- 
 mining whether the parties are "suited" to each 
 other. They zvould be regarded in this way, too, if 
 they were generally known, as they most surely are 
 not. Here is another place where ignorance and "in- 
 
 104
 
 Sane Sex Living 105 
 
 nocence" get in their work, and make trouble in 
 married life! 
 
 In such a case as this, the too-long penis, when 
 fully inserted in the too-short vagina, and especially 
 when, at the orgasm, the two organs are crowded 
 together vigorously, as the impulse of both parties 
 demands they should be at this part of the act, the 
 end of the penis is driven against the rear walls of 
 the vagina, often furiously, thus stretching and 
 straining the vaginal passage longitudinally, press- 
 ing against the womb unnaturally, and not infre- 
 quently pushing it out of place and sometimes rup- 
 turing the uterine tract seriously, hence causing all 
 sorts of unfortunate and greatly-to-be-regretted 
 results. 
 
 Because of such danger, the first meeting of the 
 husband and wife should be accomplished with the 
 utmost care, especially in the second part of the act, 
 the first putting together of the organs. This is the 
 only way of determining, in each case, how the 
 organs will "fit," and happy are the parties thereto 
 if such fit is found to be perfect ! 
 
 But if it should turn out that there is a mis- 
 matching, of the nature just described, the condi- 
 tions can be adjusted if the right means are used. 
 
 (Before telling this, however, it should be stated 
 that the relative size of the sex organs can never be 
 fully judged of by the size of the body of a man or 
 a woman. Many a small man has an abnormally 
 large and long penis, and many a little woman has
 
 106 Sane Sex Life 
 
 a large vulva and a long vagina ; and the reverse of 
 all this is true, in the case of many men and women. 
 These items in the count are among the things that 
 can never be known with certainty except by actual 
 trial, and this is not possible, as things are now.) 
 
 And so, if "mis-matching" is found to exist, in 
 any given case, it can be provided for, in most cases 
 as follows : 
 
 Instead of taking the jx)sition for coitus which 
 has already been described — the woman on her back 
 and the man over and above her — let this be done: 
 Let the man lie on his left side, or partly on his left 
 side and partly on his back, facing the woman, his 
 left leg drawn up so that the thigh makes an angle of 
 45 degrees with the body, and the knee bent at about 
 the same angle. Now let her, lying on her right side, 
 mount into his arms, in this way : Let her place her 
 right hip in the angle made by her husband's left 
 thigh and his body, so that his left leg supports her 
 hips, by being under them ; put her right leg between 
 his leg, throw her left leg over his right leg, put her 
 right arm around his neck, and her left arm should 
 be placed across his body under his right arm. His 
 left arm should be placed around her waist from 
 below, and his right arm left free to move over her 
 body, as he may choose. Now in this position, the 
 man's hips make a sort of saddle into which the 
 woman "vaults" easily, naturally, and with the 
 greatest of comfort ; while the man, with his whole 
 body supported by the bed, as he lies, will be per-
 
 Sane Sex Living 107 
 
 fectly comfortable, and can maintain the position 
 much longer, without tiring, than he could were he 
 over and above the woman, supporting himself by his 
 elbows and knees, and with the woman's arms around 
 his waist, lifting her body thereby, and thus adding 
 her weight to his, all to be sustained by him. A 
 moment's consideration will disclose the fact that 
 this position has many points in its favor, beyond 
 that of the man-superior form. The woman, in this 
 position, is not wholly superior, but she is partly on 
 her right side and partly on her belly. Her whole 
 weight rests on her husband's body, but her weight 
 does not tire him, as the bed below him easily sup- 
 ports them both. 
 
 Now, in this position, the sex organs are brought 
 closely together and their union is easily accom- 
 plished. But see ! It is now the woman, and not the 
 man who has full control of such meeting, and so 
 can regulate it to her liking, or needs. Her hips are 
 perfectly free to move towards, or from, those of 
 the man ; and so she can determine just how w,uch or 
 how little of his penis shall enter her vagina! And 
 if his penis is too long for her, she can accommodate 
 her action to such fact ! 
 
 As for the man, his satisfaction will be fully equal 
 to, if not greater than it would be were he in the 
 other position. The ease afforded to his body, and 
 the fact that he need have no fear of hurting the 
 woman, these things will be a delight to him, that 
 is of real value, and which will make for his delecta-
 
 108 Sane Sex Life 
 
 tion as much as for that of the woman in his arms. 
 The in-and-out motion is as easily performed in this 
 position as in the other ; and at the climax, the 
 organs can be crowded together passionately, and 
 still without hurting the woman. For she, being 
 free to move, can so curve her hips that the pelvic 
 bone, the mons veneris, as it is technically called, 
 will receive the most of the pressure, and at the same 
 time the angle which is thus made by the relative 
 positions of the vagina and the penis will keep the 
 latter from penetrating the vagina too far, and so 
 will protect its rear walls and the womb from all 
 danger of harm. The orgasm is just as perfect in 
 this position as in the other. It is just as natural as 
 the other position, and has only to be tried to be 
 proved worthy. 
 
 And now one other point. (Curious how these 
 details protract themselves. But there is no help for 
 it. We must continue, now that we have begun.) 
 
 A very frequent cause of married unsatisfaction 
 is the fact of the difference of time that it takes for 
 the husband and wife to come to the climax, the 
 orgasm. As has already been noted, the highest 
 delight in the act comes when this climax is simul- 
 taneous, comes at exactly the same instant to both 
 parties. But to bring this about is not easy in all 
 cases, and hence what follows : 
 
 As a rule, women are slower in reaching the 
 orgasm than are men. This is not always so, but it 
 is generally the case. Some wives are so passionate
 
 Sane Sex Living 109 
 
 that they will "spend" several times to their hus- 
 band's once! The author knows of a case where the 
 wife will regularly experience the orgasm four or 
 five times to her husband's once. She is a lovely wife 
 and a highly accomplished woman, in no sense 
 "fleshy" or "worldly minded." The situation is that 
 her sex organs are exceedingly sensitive while those 
 of her husband are the reverse, they are "timed" 
 differently, that is all. The case is rare, and as a 
 rule, women are "timed" slower than men. 
 
 Again, after a man has passed the orgasm it is, 
 in most cases, impossible for him to continue the 
 act, right then and there, and bring the woman 
 to the climax, if she has not yet arrived, from the 
 fact that, with the expulsion of the semen, usually 
 detumescence of the penis at once takes place, and 
 the organ is incapable of exciting the woman when 
 in this condition. And so, if the husband "goes oiT" 
 first, there is no possibility of the wife's reaching the 
 climax at that embrace. This leaves her unsatisfied, 
 all her sex organs congested, and the whole situation 
 is unsatisfactory, in the extreme. On the other hand, 
 if the wife comes to the orgasm first, her vulva and 
 vagina detumesce but little and that very slowly, 
 so that it is perfectly possible for the husband to 
 continue his action, and come to the climax, even if 
 his partner has already "spent." 
 
 Under these conditions it is easy to see that, 
 where the wife is "keyed" or "timed" much slower 
 than her husband, as is quite often the case, coitus is
 
 110 Sane Sex Life 
 
 very liable to be a very one-sided affair, one in which 
 the husband gets all the satisfaction, and the wife lit- 
 tle or NONE — a most unfortunate status for both 
 parties, but especially for the tvife. The writer once 
 knew a case where a husband and wife lived together 
 to celebrate their golden wedding, and the wife never 
 once experienced an orgasm, though the husband 
 cohabited with her several times a month, during the 
 most of their married life. There was no good reason 
 why this should have been so, only that the husband 
 was "quick in action" and the wife somewhat slow, 
 and they had never synchronated their time differ- 
 ences. The dear old lady died at ninety, never having 
 known a joy that, since her bridal night, she had 
 wished for. Both the husband and wife were most 
 excellent people. They simply didn't know! One was 
 ignorant and the other innocent, and there you are 
 again ! 
 
 Now the thing to do, under such circumstances, 
 is for the parties to "get together." And the way 
 to do this is, first, to prolong the FIRST part of the 
 act, till the wife has not only caught up with, but 
 is even ahead of her husband in the state of her 
 passion. To bring about this condition, the husband 
 should use every means to stimulate his wife's sex- 
 nature and increase her desire for coition. Here are 
 some things he can do, which will tend to produce 
 such results: 
 
 A woman's breasts are directly connected with 
 all her reproductive nerves. This is especially true
 
 Sane Sex Living 1 1 1 
 
 of her nipples. To touch them is to directly excite 
 all of her sex organs. The lips and tongue are also 
 thus nervously connected with these vital parts, and 
 so, if the husband will "play" with his wife's breasts, 
 especially with her nipples, manipulating them with 
 his fingers, or better still, with his lips and tongue 
 — at the same time, if he will stroke her vulva with 
 his fingers, especially the clitoris, and if she will en- 
 courage him to do this, by holding her breast with 
 one hand, shaking it about as her nipple is in her 
 lover's lips ; if, lying flat on her back, her husband at 
 her right side, and with his left arm around her 
 waist, she will spread her legs wide apart, thus open- 
 ing the vulva to its utmost, and sway her hips, rais- 
 ing and lowering them betimes ; and, since she has a 
 free hand, if, with this, she will take her husband's 
 penis with it and "play" with it as her lover plays 
 with her vulva — if they will do this, the cases are 
 rare in which passion will not grow in the wife to 
 almost any desirable extent. Under such "courting," 
 the parts will all enlarge, the pre-coital secretion will 
 flow in abundance; and, in due course, all will be 
 ready for the second part of the act. This part of 
 coitus is, really, one of the most enjoyable of the 
 entire performance. 
 
 If, perchance, the pre-coital secretion should be 
 tardy in appearing on the part of the wife, so that 
 the vulva is dry as the husband strokes it, let him 
 moisten the part with saliva from his mouth. To 
 do this, let him moisten his fingers from his mouth.
 
 112 Sane Sex Life 
 
 and transfer this to the vulva, and then proceed with 
 his stroking. This moistening the vulva with saliva 
 may be repeated several times, if necessary, always 
 until the flow of pre-coital fluid from the parts them- 
 selves renders any further moistening needless. The 
 stroking of the dry vulva will do little toward the 
 arousing of passion, or producing the pre-coital 
 flow. But if the parts be moistened, as above di- 
 rected, both these desired results will follow, except 
 in very rare cases. 
 
 And let no one make the mistake of thinking that 
 thus moistening the vulva with saliva is unseemly, or 
 unsanitary. It is neither. On the contrary, it is 
 nature's way of helping to perfection an act which, 
 but for such timely assistance, might never be 
 brought to a successful issue. As has already been 
 noted, chemically, saliva and the pre-coital fluid are 
 almost identical. They are both a natural secretion 
 of a mucous membrane, are alkaline in reaction, their 
 native purpose is lubrication, and, as a matter of 
 fact, the saliva is as natural an application to the 
 lips of the vulva as it is to the interior of the mouth 
 or throat. Truth to tell, the practice of applying 
 saliva to the genitals before coition is very general, 
 so much so that it might almost be counted as in- 
 stinctive. It is mentioned here only to remove any 
 prejudice that might linger in the sophisticated mind 
 
 of the reader. Such use of saliva is no more to be 
 
 deprecated than its application in a hundred other 
 
 ways, such as moistening the fingers to turn a leaf,
 
 Sane Sex Living 113 
 
 of "licking" one's fingers after eating candy. Such 
 use of this fluid from the mouth might be condemned 
 by the "over-nice," but it is quite universally prac- 
 ticed, and it is neither unwholesome nor unsanitary. 
 
 It is sometimes recommended that some form of 
 oil, as sweet oil or vaseline, be used as an unguent for 
 anointing the parts before engaging in coitus, but 
 this practice cannot be recommended. Oil is not a 
 natural product of the parts to which it is applied, 
 it is chemically unlike their secretions, and to smear 
 the delicate organs with a fluid that is foreign to 
 their nature, is unwise, unsanitary, not to say filthy. 
 It is like greasing the mouth to make food slip down 
 easily. And it is easy to understand how such appli- 
 cation of an unguent to the mouth would impair the 
 taste, dull the nerves of sensation, and greatly in- 
 terfere with the native and wholesome uses of the 
 oral cavity. 
 
 So don't be afraid or ashamed to use saliva in 
 preparing the vulva and the vagina for the reception 
 of their natural mate. 
 
 And so, to return to where we left off, if the wife 
 is slower timed than her husband, her passion can be 
 greatly increased by the manipulation just de- 
 scribed. Indeed, it could be very easily carried to 
 such length — the lips and tongue playing with the 
 nipple, and the finger-stroking of the vulva — that 
 the woman could be brought to an orgasm without 
 the union of the organs at all ! This is a form of 
 masturbation (this word has a bad meaning attached
 
 114 Sane Sex Life 
 
 to it, but it is a good word, as will shortly be shown, 
 and it has its legitimate uses) ; but, as a preparation 
 for coition, it should not be carried any further than 
 is essential for bringing the laggard passion of the 
 woman up to an equal tension of that of her lover. 
 A few weeks', or months' practice will enable a wife 
 to determine just how much of this form of "court- 
 ing" will bring her to the desired point of excite- 
 ment; and, when this point is reached, she should 
 invite her husband to "come up over," if the first 
 position is to be adopted for the rest of the act ; or, 
 she should throw herself into her lover's arms, if the 
 second position is used. 
 
 Just a little more — If, after getting into one po- 
 sition or the other, it seems to the wife that she is not 
 yet fairly abreast of her husband in the intensity of 
 her passion, let her still further seek to advance it, 
 as follows : 
 
 If the position with the husband superior is 
 taken, let him, after he has gotten into place and be- 
 fore the organs are united, have his wife take his 
 penis in her hand, and, as he moves his hips up and 
 down, stroke her vulva, especially the clitoris, with 
 the glans penis — not entering the vagina at once, but 
 continuing this form of exterior contact of the 
 organs, for a longer or shorter time — slipping past 
 the wide open vaginal mouth, even when the wife 
 raises her thighs and, as it were, begs for an en- 
 trance ; tantalizing her to the point of distraction — 
 till, finally, she will "take no for an answer" no
 
 Sane Sex Living 115 
 
 longer, but will, in an ecstacy, slip the penis into the 
 vagina, and thus consummate their union. 
 
 If she be far enough abandoned with her passion, 
 such entrance may be made at a single stroke, not 
 to say a furious plunge. But if the vulva and vagina 
 are not yet fully dilated, the entrance should be 
 carefully made, gently made, as she can bear it, as 
 she wishes it to be. 
 
 Sometimes, yes, not infrequently, in this position, 
 the external stroking of the organs may be con- 
 tinued to the very verge of the orgasm, so that, 
 especially if the entrance can be made, as it were, in 
 a frenzy of passionate delight, the organs coming 
 into full length union at a single impulse, or rushing 
 together — then the simultaneous climax may be 
 reached with one or two in-and-out motions — or, 
 perhaps the single master-plunge may win the goal 
 instanter! If so, a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished has been successfully reached ! 
 
 Again, if the wife is slow, and the man is quick, 
 in this play for "getting together," it will enable the 
 man to greatly extend and protract what might be 
 called the time of his possible retention, if he can 
 keep the foreskin over the glans penis. Some men 
 cannot do this. If they have been circumcised, of 
 course they cannot! But if the glans penis can be 
 covered with the foreskin during all this playing 
 together, it will enable the husband to prolong his 
 "retentional time" far beyond what he otherwise 
 could. Some men have the power of "retaining" to
 
 116 Sane Sex Life 
 
 almost any length of time by the exercise of their 
 will power, and so they can zvait for their wives. If 
 the wife is slower timed than the husband, he should 
 carefully cultivate the "art of retaining" and so w^ait 
 for her. To do this succcssfidly will greatly increase 
 married happiness. 
 
 This same remark (keeping the gland covered) 
 applies with equal force to the possibilities of the 
 man's retention after the organs are united, and 
 all through the third part of the act. If the penis 
 can enter the vagina with its "natural cap on," the 
 husband can give his wife the pleasure of many times 
 the amount of in-and-out motion than he could other- 
 wise bestow upon her. And if the wife is the slower 
 of the two (as is generally the case) she will greatly 
 appreciate such a favor, and will repay it a thou- 
 sand FOLD by the responsive, reciprocal motions which 
 she will LAVISH upon her considerate lover. 
 
 This is an item of almost supreme importance — 
 this "keeping the cap on" the penis, during the act, 
 if the wife is slower than the husband — if they need 
 to have a care, to insure their "getting off together." 
 
 And here is a curious fact, which would seem to 
 show that Mother Nature has especially provided a 
 blissful reward for both the husband and wife who 
 will be careful on this point. Thus, if the husband 
 will be careful to have the glans penis covered with 
 the foreskin (and, of course, this can never be, if the 
 organs are united when the vulva and vagina are 
 dry) when it enters the vagina, and will so engage
 
 Sane Sex Living 1 ] 7 
 
 in the in-and-out motion that it will stay covered as 
 the third act progresses — if this is done, when the 
 climax comes, if the two "spend together," the womb 
 will open its mouth as it were, clasp the foreskin, 
 slip it back over the gland so that, when the supreme 
 instant comes, the naked gland will be in the most 
 direct and blissful contact with the most sensitive 
 part of the uterus ! This is a most wonderful pro- 
 vision of nature, and to utilize it, and enjoy it to its 
 utmost, is the maximum of human delight ! 
 
 Again, if after the organs are well together, in the 
 man-superior position, and the in-and-out motion 
 has begun, it should be found that the wife is still 
 behind in the game, she can gain greatly in "catching 
 up," if she is permitted to originate" the larger part of 
 the motion. To enable her to do this, let her hus- 
 band hold his body quite well above her, so that she 
 can have plenty of freedom to move her hips as she 
 may choose to. Added to this, if the husband will, 
 in large measure, "hold still," and keep his penis in 
 such position that it presses against the upper part 
 of the vulva, that is against the clitoris, (as the 
 phrase goes, if he will "ride high") and then permit 
 his zvifc to make "long strokes," sliding the organs 
 together for their full possible length, with the 
 clitoris in constant contact with the penis, during 
 the whole of each stroke — all of this will greatly and 
 rapidly increase her passions and bring her to the 
 climax. 
 
 Or, as a variation from this, if the organs can
 
 118 Sane Sex Life 
 
 be united to their fullest possible limit, so that the 
 base of the penis presses firmly against the Mons 
 Veneris, and the clitoris and labiae almost clasp their 
 mate ; and then, in this position, if the husband will 
 maintain the status quo, while she lifts her hips hard 
 against his, and swings them about, in a sort of cir- 
 cular motion "round and round," as it were — this 
 will also greatly increase her passion, and soon bring 
 her to the climax. 
 
 In both these last described ways of courting, the 
 husband should be extra careful not to permit the 
 weight of his body to press down heavily upon his 
 wife. He should wholly sustain himself on his elbows 
 and knees, and permit her to lift herself, at least her 
 hips, by the help of her arms around his waist. This 
 is no hardship for the husband, if he be a true lover. 
 For is he not strong, and what is his strength for but 
 to delight his sweetheart? A true, devoted, virile and 
 manly lover is always at the service of his sweetheart ! 
 To delight her, is to doubly delight himself. This is 
 another point of which mere animals know nothing. 
 There is nothing in all their nature which responds 
 to the like of this, in any way. The whole experience 
 is human ; it is productive of a joy, of a spiritual ele- 
 vation, which mere animality knows nothing of — can 
 know nothing of. 
 
 Playing thus together, courting each other thus 
 (For, through all these actions, a line of complete 
 mutualncss must run! The husband may seem to be 
 specially accommodating himself, and all he does, to
 
 Sane Sex Living 119 
 
 his wife's whims or necessities; but, even so, this will 
 be more of a delight to him than it is to her, viewed 
 from the spiritual plane, on the principle that "it is 
 more blessed to give than to receive" — and no truer 
 words than these were ever spoken — while, at the 
 same time, the wife, though seeming only to be grat- 
 ifying herself, to be reaching after what she alone 
 desires, yet, as a matter of fact, by her very so doing 
 — and the more perfectly, completely, she does this, 
 the better — she is gratifying and delighting her hus- 
 band to the utmost possible limit) courting each 
 other thus, the lovers will learn to "time" themselves 
 together, perfectly, each knowing just when the 
 other is fully ready, by a sort of spiritual conscious- 
 ness, as it were, and so a perfect climax can be 
 reached. 
 
 Take time, let love rule and direct; banish 
 ALL selfishness; Let the husband keep his head, and 
 
 THE WIFE UTTERLY LOSE HERS, throwing it tO the 
 
 winds, to be wholly swept away by the whirlwind of 
 her passion ; feeling free, delighting, to let it go, go, 
 go, no one cares where 1 Do these things, and married 
 life will be glorious! Of such is the kingdom of 
 heaven, for the truly wedded lovers ! 
 
 This will be "all Greek," or "foolishness" to the 
 selfish and materially-minded ; but to the truly wise, 
 it will be life immeasurable. This is a paradox, but 
 it takes a paradox to tell the greatest truths ! 
 
 So much for the act of coitus in the man-superior 
 position, when the wife is slower timed than the hus-
 
 120 Sane Sex Life 
 
 band and they adopt this method, and the accom- 
 panying means for "getting together." Now, if the 
 other position is taken, that of the wife semi-supe- 
 rior, in the husband's arms, as he lies partly on his 
 back and partly on his left side, etc., here are a few 
 points to be noted to advantage. 
 
 Still assuming that the wife is the slower-timed 
 of the two, it is entirely possible that when she has 
 "come over" and has gotten into position, that she 
 may not yet be fully ready for the union of the 
 organs. The very time that it takes for her to get 
 into position, the changing of the position of her 
 body, from her back to her right side ; the temporary 
 cessation of the stroking of the vulva by her hus- 
 band's fingers ; all these things will have a tendency 
 to retard her passion, for the time being, and all 
 this loss ought to be made good, if not added to, 
 before the second part of the act is entered upon. 
 And, in this position, all this can most happily be 
 brought about, as follows : — 
 
 Ikying in each other's arms in this second de- 
 scribed position, the organs naturally come into con- 
 tact in such a way as to make the further excita- 
 tion of the vulva and clitoris most natural and easy. 
 The spreading of the wife's hips, caused by her 
 throwing her left leg over her husband's right and 
 drawing up of her left knee, opens the vulva wide ; 
 and, at the same time, the penis, from the very nature 
 of its position, will lie at full length in the opening, 
 thus exposed — not entering the vagina, but remaining 
 "without the gate" as yet.
 
 Sane Sex Living 121 
 
 By this time the vulva will have become enlarged 
 and elongated, the lips full and the clitoris erect, all 
 in a state of tumescence, and all covered with the 
 pre-coital fluid ; the lips so distended that, when thus 
 parted, they form the sides of a labial canal, as it 
 were (a delectable, and most delicately smooth-walled 
 channel). Now, in this extended condition, which is 
 fully as long as the penis, from end to end of its path- 
 way of dalliance, every part covered with the most 
 delicatelv sensitive nerve-filaments, and all of these 
 in an ecstasy of keenness to the sense of touch, and 
 in the most perfect of "love's strolling way," — if 
 the penis, as it were, stands up full and strong, in 
 such fashion that it touches the vulva at every point, 
 both inner and outer labiae, the clitoris and all, for 
 a space of five or six inches in length ; while the pro- 
 truded and well-moistened lips of the vulva as it were 
 reach out, and clasp themselves at least half way 
 around their suitor, laving him with their luscious 
 kisses — in this position, the wife being partly above, 
 and so, perfectly free to move her "love way" as she 
 will, she can slide the pathway itself a full six or 
 more inches, up and down, stroking all the area 
 against the penis as she moves ; that, again, by its 
 very position, being held firmly in contact by its 
 stiffness and stoutness ; the glans penis throbbing 
 lustily against the clitoris when the two meet at the 
 extreme of the wife's up-stroke; she, pausing an in- 
 stant, just then, to more perfectly enjoy the sensa- 
 tion; the penis slipping past the now wide open 
 vaginal mouth, which reaches out at every down
 
 122 Sane Sex Life 
 
 stroke to engulf it — dallying, delaying, coquetting, 
 tantalizing, both man and woman; playing the game 
 in almost a swoon of ecstatic delight — under such 
 conditions the wife's passion will rush to its fullest 
 development, till, when she will, she can drop her 
 vagina upon the penis in such a way that the two 
 will be made one, in absolute perfection, on a single 
 move, and from this to the finish it is but a few mo- 
 tions distant. 
 
 In some respects this manner of coitus, and this 
 means of "going off together" is unsurpassed. 
 
 Which leads to the remark that this position is 
 sometimes the best for the full completion of the act. 
 It is the easiest of all positions, the least fatiguing. 
 And if the wife is tired, or not quite "up to grade," 
 she can enjoy an embrace of this sort without fatigue, 
 even to the full. For the organs can be united in this 
 position quite perfectly, though the penis will not 
 penetrate the vagina to as great a length as in the 
 other position. Still, the climax can be perfectly 
 reached in this way, and it is one of the best ways to 
 make sure of perfect "timing," of "spending" ex- 
 actly together, which is greatly in its favor. 
 
 If there is a mis-matching of the organs, the 
 vagina of the wife being too short for her husband's 
 penis, this is a most excellent way for meeting and 
 overcoming that difficulty. 
 
 This naturally leads to another matter, as fol- 
 lows: — It might seeni to the reader that the diflFerent 
 "strokings" of the vulva, with the fingers, or the 
 penis, all the contact being outside the vagina, that
 
 Sane Sex Living 123 
 
 all of these methods of excitation smack of masturba- 
 tion, and so are of doubtful rightness. In reply to 
 which, note the following: 
 
 The entire affair of coition, in humanity, has 
 already been shown to be something wholly above and 
 beyond mere animality. It is the exercise of func- 
 tions that belong only to mankind, and hence is not 
 amenable to any merely animal laws or restrictions ! 
 It is the source of numberless human joys, and any 
 method of engaging in the act of mutual delight, that 
 is of mutually happifying, is legitimate and alto- 
 gether right. And so, if the parties choose to increase 
 their mutual delight, if the husband wishes to arouse 
 and intensify his wife's passion by stroking her vulva 
 with his saliva-moistened fingers, and she wishes him 
 to do so, such act is as right and as wholesome as is 
 coitus in the by-some-supposed-to-be only way of its 
 exercise. Let this never be doubted. 
 
 The fact is, this whole matter of sexual excitation 
 by means of the hand, or in other ways than the union 
 of the organs, has received a black eye at the hands 
 of the would be purists, which it in no way deserves. 
 As already noted, the word masturbation has been 
 fastened to such acts, and then, any and every form 
 of it has been condemned far beyond what the facts 
 warrant, till the minds of the rank and file are wholly 
 misled in the premises ! When one looks at the situa- 
 tion from the point of view which insists that all the 
 sex functions should be under the control of the will, 
 then light is thrown upon the entire subject. Seen in 
 this way, any form of sex stimulation or auto-erotism
 
 124 Sane Sex Life 
 
 even (auto-erotism means self sex-excitation) which 
 is NOT CARRIED TO EXCESS, is right and wholesome! 
 But we have been taught the contrary of this for so 
 long that it is difficult for us to realize that it is true. 
 But it is! 
 
 Hence, if it should sometimes happen that the 
 husband should arrive at the climax before the w\ie 
 does, and he could not bring her to an orgasm by 
 excitation with his spent penis, it would be perfectly 
 right for him to substitute his fingers, and satisfy 
 her in that zvay. Of course, this would not be as sat- 
 isfying to her as it would have been could she have 
 met him simultaneously, but it is far better than for 
 her not to be entirely gratified! Many a woman 
 SUFFERS ALL NIGHT LONG with unsatisfied desire, her 
 organs congested and tumescent, because she has been 
 left UNSATISFIED by a husband zvho has spent before 
 she zvas ready, and then left her ! Such cases 
 might be entirely relieved, if the parties knew the 
 truth, and were not too ignorant, or prejudiced, or 
 ashamed to do what should he done to make the best 
 of a situation. 
 
 Of course, no husband should make a practice of 
 gratifying himself fully, and then bringing his wife 
 to the climax with his fingers. .Such a ])ractice would 
 be selfish and wrong. ^ But as an emergency way of 
 escape, the mctiiod is to be commended. 
 
 Of course, as has already been explained, the hus- 
 band always has the advantage, that he can be 
 brought to the orgasm by the in.sertion of the penis 
 into the vagina, after his wife has spent, if she ar-
 
 Sane Sex Living 125 
 
 rives first, since her organs detumesce slowly, and 
 their distended condition permits such action on his 
 part, for some time after she has passed the climax. 
 But not so with the husband. Once spent, his penis 
 shrinks to limpness, almost immediately, and in this 
 condition it cannot satisfy the wife in the least, much 
 less bring her to an orgasm. 
 
 Again, if for any reason, the wife should be un- 
 able to meet her husband in coitus proper, because of 
 weakness, or slight illness, or perhaps some tempo- 
 rary soreness of the parts, it would help the situation 
 wonderfully if she would take his penis in her hand 
 and "play with it" till he spent. He would love her 
 for it, kiss her for it, give her his soul for it ! 
 
 // a bride and bridegroom knew enough to intro- 
 duce each other to the delights of an orgasm by 
 "spending" each other by external excitation of the 
 organs with their hands a few times before they 
 united the organs at all, it would be to their lasting 
 well being. This is especially true for the bride. If 
 her lover would take her in his arms, even with all 
 her clothes on, as she sat on his lap, in their bridal 
 chamber, alone, and stroke her vulva till she "spent'' 
 the chances are many to one that he would have in- 
 troduced her to such a joy that she would never for- 
 get it, all her life. Surely, such method is infinitely 
 superior to raping a bride, as is so frequently done 
 by the ignorant or goody-good young husband, who 
 "stands upon his rights!" 
 
 Indeed, if a bride to be, who was so innocent or 
 ignorant of her own sex possibilities that she had
 
 126 Sane Sex Life 
 
 \ 
 
 never experienced an orgasm — had never "spent" — >* 
 
 could be "put wise" before her bridal night, if she 
 could be instructed enough to lead her to engage in 
 some form of auto-erotism, bringing herself to an 
 orgasm with her own hand, just for the sake of the 
 experience it would give her, and so that she would 
 have some clear idea of what she really wanted, he- 
 fore she went into the arms of her lover — if she could 
 do this, in the right mental attitude, it would he 
 greatly to her well-heing, a worthy and valuable addi- 
 tion to her stock of knozvledge of herself and of the 
 powers that are latent zvithin her. Her alleged loss 
 of innocence by such act would be as nothing com- 
 pared with the wisdom she would gain by the experi- 
 ence. When innocence leads to harmful results, it 
 is time it was ended, and that knowledge takes its place t 
 
 As for the husband, the chances are not one in a 
 million that he will be ignorant of what an orgasm 
 is like before he marries, since all healthy young men 
 "spend" at least once a week, automatically, if not 
 otherwise ! 
 
 Let it be said further, that auto-erotism, self- 
 spending, may be practiced by both men and women, 
 to their healthful benefit, when sexual exercise can- 
 not be secured in any other way. It is only when 
 carried to excess that such action is in any way harm- 
 ful. The only danger is, that, the individual being 
 alone and having all the means for self-gratification 
 in his or her own hands, so to speak, it is quite pos- 
 sible to indulge in the action too freely, which, of 
 course, leads to bad results. But the act itself is not
 
 Sane Sex Living 127 
 
 bad. On the contrary, when kept within bounds, it 
 is healthful and wholesome. 
 
 There are many unmarried women, maiden ladies, 
 and especially widows, who would greatly improve 
 their health if they practiced some form of auto-ero- 
 tism, occasionally. When husbands and wives are 
 forced to be much away from each other, it is right 
 for them to occasionally satisfy themselves in this 
 way, their souls filled with loving thoughts of the 
 absent one the while. 
 
 There is any amount of nonsense current about 
 auto-erotism. As a matter of fact, all boys mastur- 
 bate, and many girls also. Some authors claim that 
 more than half of all women engage in some form of 
 auto-erotism, at some time in their lives, and the esti- 
 mate is probably too low rather than too high. But 
 unless they carry the act to excess, they are guilty of 
 no wrong. Not infrequently, they may make the act a 
 means of great good to themselves. The sex organs are 
 alive! They constantly secrete fluids that need to be 
 excreted, as all other organs of the body do. They 
 ought to be relieved, as their nature requires they 
 should be. If this cannot be accomplished as the 
 most natural way prescribes, it is only right to do the 
 next best thing. Only, it should not be carried to ex- 
 cess. Be temperate in all things. Gratify yourself, 
 but don't ABUSE yourself. Auto-erotism, or mastur- 
 bation, should never be permitted to become "self- 
 abuse," nor is there any need that it should ever do 
 so. It should be self-upbuilding, not self -degrading. 
 Rightly used it can be thus.
 
 IX 
 
 COITUS RESERVATUS 
 
 THIS brings us to another item in the matter of 
 sexual exercise on the part of the husband and 
 wife, as follows: — 
 
 It should be the constant aim and endeavor of 
 both parties to continually lift all sex affairs above 
 the plane of animality, mere physical gratification, 
 into the realm of mental and spiritual delight. To 
 this end, let it be said at once that such a condition 
 can be reached, in the greatest degree, by the prac- 
 tice of what is known, in scientific terms, as "coitus 
 reservatus," which, translated, means going only part 
 of the way in the act, and not carrying it to its cli- 
 max, the orgasm. Described in terms with which the 
 reader is now familiar, it means, carrying the act 
 only through the first and second stages, the "court- 
 ing" stage, and the union of the organs, and stop- 
 ping there ! This may seem, at first thought, neither 
 right nor wise, but, as a matter of fact, it is both, as 
 thousands of most ha]:)pily married people have 
 proved. 
 
 Going a bit into details, this act of "reservatus" 
 really unites the first two parts of the act into a 
 common whole, making it simply one continuous piece 
 of "courting," merely that, and nothing more. It 
 
 128
 
 Sane Sex Living \29 
 
 is almost entirely a mental and spiritual love-em- 
 brace; and in its perfection, it exalts the husband and 
 wife to the topmost heights of mental and spiritual 
 enjoyment and expression. 
 
 To engage in this form of coitus, not nearly the 
 effort should be made to arouse the sexual passions 
 of either of the parties, as has already been described 
 as fitting for complete coitus. The orgasm is not the 
 desideratum in this case, but it is just a delightful 
 expression of mutual love. It is a sort of prolonged 
 and all-embracing kiss, in which the sex organs are 
 included as well as the lips. They kiss each other, 
 as the lips kiss each other. It is "courting," par 
 excellence, without the hampering of clothes or con- 
 ventionality of any kind. 
 
 In this act. the lovers simply drift, petting each 
 other, chatting with each other, visiting, loving, 
 caressing in any one or all of a thousand ways. The 
 hands "wander idly over the body," the husband's 
 right hand being specially free and in perfect posi- 
 tion to stroke his wife's back, her hips, her legs, and 
 pet her from top to toe. 
 
 As this part of the act continues, it is the most 
 natural thing in the world that the sex organs should 
 tumesce, and that there should be a flow of both pros- 
 tatic and pre-coital fluids. That is, the organs qui- 
 etly and naturally make themselves ready for meet- 
 ing. And when they are duly tumescent, are prop- 
 erly enlarged and lubricated, let the wife come over 
 into her lover's arms, in the second position de- 
 scribed, and the organs be slipped together easily,
 
 130 Sane Sex Life 
 
 delightfully, and then, let them stay so, fully together, 
 btit do not go on tvith the third part of the act, the 
 motion of the organs. Just lie still and enjoy the 
 embrace, kiss. chat, court, love, dream, enjoy ! 
 
 This union can be protracted to almost any length, 
 after the lovers learn how to do it. Sometimes the 
 organs may be together only a few minutes, some- 
 times for an hour, or even longer. If the parties get 
 tired, or sleepy, part the organs, kiss good-night, and 
 go to sleep. Although it is not at all uncommon for 
 such lovers, who have fully learned this art, to go to 
 sleep thus, in each other's arms, their sex organs 
 united; and, in this position, have the organs detu- 
 mesce, the penis grow limp and slip out of the vagina 
 of its own accord, while the vagina also grows small 
 and the clitoris subsides. This experience is most de- 
 lightful, and if once experienced, once well mastered 
 by the husband and wife, it will continually grow in 
 favor, to their mutual benefit. 
 
 This method is of special service during the "un- 
 free time." If rightly used, it will not tend to in- 
 crease the desire for "spending," but it will, on the 
 contrary, allay and satisfy the sexual desires, most 
 perfectly. If. while learning how, sometimes the 
 inexperienced should "get run away with," and feel 
 that it is better to go on and have the climax, all 
 right. But, as time goes on, the practice of carrying 
 the act only to the end of the second part, will grow, 
 and in due time be well established. Those who have 
 mastered this wholesome and loving art will some-
 
 Sane Sex Living 131 
 
 times meet in this way a score of times during a 
 month or so, without once coming to the climax. Such 
 meeting can be as often as the parties choose, and 
 of as long, or as short duration as they elect. It is 
 often an excellent way to say "good-night" ; and if, 
 on waking in the morning, there is time before rising 
 for a "little court," this slipping the organs together, 
 for "just a minute," is a most excellent way to begin 
 the day. The art is worth learning, and most people 
 can learn it, if they try, and are of the right spirit! 
 
 To go back a little: In speaking of mutual mas- 
 turbation on the part of the husband and wife, this 
 method of satisfying the sex nature is of great value, 
 sometimes, especially for use during the unfree time. 
 If, during these two weeks, the parties get "waked 
 up," and feel the need of sex exercise, they can sat- 
 isfy each other with their hands in a way that will 
 be a great relief to each. This is specially true for 
 the husband ; and a wife, who is enough of a woman 
 to thus meet her husband's sex-needs, with her hand, 
 when it is not expedient for him to meet her other- 
 wise, is a wife to worship ! 
 
 Sometimes, during the five days of menstruation, 
 during which time the union of the organs is deemed 
 not best, the wife can thus help her lover with her 
 hand, to the delight and benefit. Let love direct the 
 way here, and all will be well. 
 
 And here is a curious fact: The hand of the 
 opposite sex will produce effects on the genitals of 
 the other which will not be produced in any other 
 way. Thus, a man may hold his penis in his own
 
 132 Sane Sex Life 
 
 hand for a given length of time, longer or shorter, 
 and no result will be effected, no secretion of pros- 
 tate fluid be made, at all. But let his wife take his 
 penis in her hand for the same length of time, and 
 the flow of prostatic fluid will at once take place. 
 This is true whether the penis be erect or detumes- 
 cent. If the wife will hold her husband's Hmp penis 
 in her hand for but a few minutes, even though the 
 organ remains limp, the flow of prostatic fluid will 
 take place! The same is true with regard to the hus- 
 band's putting his hand on his wife's vulva. Should 
 she hold her hand there, no pre-coital fluid would be 
 secreted. With her husband's hand there, the flow 
 would at once begin. 
 
 This is a remarkable physical and psychological 
 phenomenon and it is one especially worthy of note. 
 It is this fact that makes mutual masturbation far 
 superior to auto-erotism. A husband can thus sat- 
 isfy a wife with his fingers, or a wife her husband 
 with her hand, far better than either could bring 
 himself or herself to the climax alone. This point is 
 of great import, in considering many of the sex acts 
 of husband and wife. 
 
 As a rule, let the husband and wife do whatever 
 their desire prompts or suggests, and just as they 
 feel they would like to. Only this, let all be in mod- 
 eration. Carry nothing to excess! 
 
 Which suggests the question often asked : How 
 frequently may coitus be engaged in? The answer 
 is, just as often as is desired by both parties, hut 
 never to the point of zvcariness or depletion of the
 
 Sane Sex Living 133 
 
 physical, mental or spiritual body. Use good sense 
 here as elsewhere. We eat when we are hungry, but 
 it is wrong to gorge oneself with food. The same 
 rule holds with regard to sex exercise. Satisfy the 
 calls of nature, but never overdo the matter, be 
 TEMPERATE, MANLY, WOMANLY ! Don't be afraid or 
 ashamed to do what your desire and your best judg- 
 ment say is right. Use common sense, and you will not 
 go wrong. 
 
 And don't wear each other out, either both to- 
 gether, or the one the other. Many men insist on 
 their rights (they have no rights) and greatly 
 debilitate themselves by excess of coition with their 
 wives. Per contra, there are some women who wear 
 the lives out of their husbands by the excessive calls 
 they make upon them for sex-gratification. In the 
 latter case, a man will "go to pieces" much faster 
 than a woman who is over-taxed. To satisfy such a 
 woman, a man must spend at least once every time 
 his wife calls on him. This draws on his vital fluids, at 
 every embrace ; but, as has been stated, there is no 
 escape of vital fluids from the woman, when she 
 spends, and so she can reach and pass the orgasm, 
 time and again, and still not have her vitality taxed. 
 Indeed, in some cases, the oftener a woman spends, 
 the more animated, robust and healthful she becomes. 
 In case unmatched people meet as husband and wife, 
 they should do their best to adjust themselves to 
 each other's condition, keeping always in mind the 
 best welfare, each of the other. 
 
 There are records of women who delight to spend
 
 134 Sane Sex Life 
 
 a dozen times in a single night. One queen made a 
 law that every man should cohabit with his wife at 
 least seven times each night. Of course, she was an 
 abnormal woman, though the author once knew a 
 good orthodox deacon who would have been delighted 
 to live under the rule of such a law, for seven times 
 a night was the limit his wife imposed upon him. He 
 was also abnormal. 
 
 Luther said twice a week was the rule for coitus, 
 and this is a very common practice. No absolute rule 
 can be given, however, except for each couple to act 
 as they feel, keeping always within the bounds of 
 common sense and true temperance. 
 
 There are some men and women so constituted, 
 nervously, or by temperament, that they are obliged 
 to rigorously limit their acts of coition. Some men 
 cannot engage in the act more than once or twice a 
 month and maintain their health. For them, the act 
 draws on their vitality so severely that it quite up- 
 sets them, in almost every case. During the act, they 
 are subjected to nervous shocks, they "see stars," 
 and undergo rigors and nervous sweats which are 
 severely debilitating. Often, too, they will lie awake 
 all night after engaging in the act, and be more or 
 less of a wreck for a day or two afterwards. 
 
 Some women, too, are of a similar nature of or- 
 ganization, and undergo similar experiences. Of 
 course, in all such cases, unusual care should be taken 
 never to reach the \K>mt of excess. 
 
 It is unfortunate if i)eople are married who are 
 ill-matched in this regard, especially so if the dif-
 
 Sane Sex Living 135 
 
 ference between the two is of a pronounced nature, 
 as when the husband or the wife is very amorous and 
 virile, while his or her mate is unable to engage in 
 the act, to any considerable extent, without suflFering 
 therefrom. If such case arises, the best should be 
 made of the situation, the more robust party accom- 
 modating himself or herself to the incompetency or 
 inability of the other, and the weaker one doing all 
 that can rightly be done to strengthen and develop his 
 or her infirmity. If this is done, the chances are many 
 to one that, as time goes on, the parties will grow 
 more and more alike — the strong becoming more 
 docile and the weaker one more robust. Take time, 
 love each other, court and be courted, and only the 
 best results will come of it all. 
 
 Now there are some women who are called "anes- 
 thetic," that is, they have no sex-passion, though the 
 sex parts may be normal. Many physicians declare 
 that as high as forty per cent of the women who are 
 reared in modern social life are thus lacking. These 
 women engage in coitus, though they get no pleasure 
 from the act. They never reach the orgasm, and 
 have no sensation of delight from the act ; they sel- 
 dom secrete the pre-coital fluid, and hence the union 
 of the organs, or their motion, are never easy or 
 pleasurable. They can become mothers, and often 
 such bear many children. Such condition is greatly 
 to be regretted, and many women suffer greatly from 
 this cause. 
 
 It is highly probable, though, that many women 
 who are counted as thus lacking are not, really, so!
 
 136 Sane Sex Life 
 
 Many women will begin married life wholly anes- 
 thetic, and, often, sometime will become normal in 
 this regard. This often Jiappens. The probability 
 is that many wives are not properly "coiirted" by 
 their husbands — the first part of the act is neg- 
 lected, or the husband merely acts on his rights — 
 cohabits like a goat, all in an instant, anxious only 
 to gratify his own lust; and that, under such treat- 
 ment, the wife never gets a fair chance to really know 
 her ozvn powers. Such cases are sad beyond telling. 
 For the most part, they are the result of ignorance on 
 the part of the husband, and innocence and wrong 
 teaching- — zi^rong mental attitude on the part of the 
 
 wife. HENCE THE NEED OF INSTRUCTIONS TO BOTH. 
 
 But if almost any woman will get the right mental 
 attitude toward sex-meeting, and then can be courted, 
 as has been prescribed in these pages, the cases are 
 rare indeed where a womsin can be found who is 
 really anesthetic. If you, wife, or you, husband, are 
 "up against" such a condition, try "courting," as 
 herewith laid down, in a proper mood and spirit, and 
 you zvill come out all right. There is no doubt of it. 
 
 On the contrary, if the man is "impotent" there 
 is small hope of his ever coming out of such condi- 
 tion, and the chances are many to one that he will 
 never be able to satisfy his wife sexually. He may 
 be a "good man," in a way, but he can never be a 
 good husband, in the full meaning of that word. 
 
 On the other hand, if a woman marries for money, 
 or a iiome, or jwisition, or place, or power, or a "meal- 
 ticket" — for anything but love, she will doubtless be
 
 Sane Sex Living 137 
 
 anesthetic and stay so. She deserves to ! She sells 
 herself for a mess of pottage, whoever she is. She 
 may be a "good woman," but she can never be a 
 good wife. 
 
 The question is sometimes asked as to how late in 
 life the sex organs can function pleasurably and 
 wholesomely for the parties concerned. And here, as 
 elsewhere, the reply can only be that it all depends 
 on the individual. But this is true, that, as a rule, 
 the status of the individual during the years of 
 active life will persist, even to old age, if the sex- 
 functions are used and not abused. There is no func- 
 tion of the body, however, which will "go to pieces" 
 quicker, and ever after be a wreck, as will the sex 
 organs, if they are not treated rightly. 
 
 And this works both ways: If too rigorously held 
 in check, if denied all functioning whatever, the parts 
 will atrophy, to the detriment of the whole nature, 
 physical, mental and spiritual. The body will be- 
 come "dried up," the sex organs shriveled, and a 
 corresponding shrinking of the whole man or woman, 
 in all parts of the being, is very apt to follow. 
 
 On the other hand, an excess of sex-functioning 
 will soon deprive the individual of all such power 
 whatsoever. A man will, in his comparatively early 
 life, lose the power of erection, or tumescence entirely 
 as a result of excess, either by masturbation or from 
 too frequent coitus; and on the part of the woman, 
 many unfortunate conditions are liable to arise. How- 
 ever, for reasons that have already been stated, a 
 woman who is strongly sexed, and of a pronounced
 
 138 Sane Sex Life 
 
 amorous nature, can maintain even great excess of 
 sex exercise without suffering such ill results as would 
 befall a man who should so indulge. That is, an ex- 
 cessively passionate wife can far sooner wear the life 
 out of a husband who is only moderately amorous, 
 than can an abnormally passionate husband wear out 
 a moderately amorous wife. 
 
 But if the sex nature of the husband and wife are 
 well cared for during the years of active life, neither 
 too much restrained or too profusely exercised, the 
 functioning power of the sex organs will remain, 
 even to old age, with all their pleasure-giving powers 
 and sensations intact. This is a wonderful physio- 
 logical fact, which leads to a conclusion, as follows : — 
 
 This fact of the staying qualities of the power of 
 sex functioning, even to old age, is the supreme proof 
 of the fact that sex, in the human family, serves a 
 purpose other than reproduction! 
 
 For, see ! A woman loses the power to conceive 
 when she reaches the "turn of life," when her menses 
 cease, that is, when she is between forty and fifty 
 years of age. And if pleasure in coition serves only 
 to induce her to engage in the act for the purpose of 
 increasing the probability of her becoming pregnant, 
 if this is the sole purpose of desire for sex inter- 
 course, such desire, such pleasure, ought to cease at 
 that period of feminine life. But this is by no means 
 the case! If a wife is a nonnal woman, sexually, and 
 has neither abused her sex nature or had it abused, 
 or neglected, and is a well woman, she will enjoy 
 coitus as much after she has passed her three score
 
 Sane Sex Living 139 
 
 and ten date in her life as she did before. She may 
 not care to engage in the act as frequently as in her 
 younger days ; but if she is well courted by her old 
 lover, all the joys of the former days are still hers, 
 to as great a degree as ever. And what is true of her 
 is true of her husband, if he is well preserved, as she 
 is, has never abused himself or been abused. 
 
 This is a reward of virtue, for old lovers, that pays 
 a big premium on righteous sex-action in earlier 
 years ! More than all, it is a proof, beyond all ques- 
 tion, that the purpose of sex in humanity is something 
 m.ore than procreation, that there is such a thing as 
 the Art of Love, and that it ought to be taught and 
 well learned by every husband and wife, in their early 
 married life.
 
 X 
 
 CLEANLINESS 
 
 IT would hardly seem necessary to be said, and yet 
 many experiences of husbands and wives prove 
 that it needs to be said, that both parties should take 
 great pains to keep their bodies, all parts of them, 
 always sweet and clean. Strange as it may seem, 
 many wives are exceedingly careless in this respect! 
 It is a matter of common report among men, that 
 harlots take more pains to make and keep their 
 bodies, and especially their genitals, clean and at- 
 tractive, than many wives do ! Surely, this ought not 
 to be so, and yet it often is. 
 
 And that it is, is only one more unfortunate result 
 that springs from the feeling of "Oh, we are married 
 now." The wife or the husband feels that there is no 
 longer any need of wooing each other. All of which 
 leads to woe, woe, woe! The wife should keep her 
 whole body so sweet and clean that her husband 
 can kiss her from top to toe, if he wants to — and the 
 chances are that he will want to, if she so keeps her- 
 self I In the one case, such a caress is a bit of heaven 
 to a husband, in the other it is a bit of hell! It will 
 
 140
 
 Sane Sex Living 141 
 
 disgust where it ought to delight. And when a wife 
 disgusts her husband, the end of a happy married 
 hfe has come ! 
 
 The wife should always wash her vulva with soap 
 and warm water before retiring, and if reservatus is 
 to be engaged in in the morning, after urination, she 
 should thoroughly cleanse the parts before union 
 takes place. Let her be ever mindful to keep her 
 "love cup" worthy to meet its lover. 
 
 And the husband should be equally careful to 
 keep his body sweet and clean. He should wash the 
 glans penis thoroughly, with soap and water, at least 
 once every day, drawing the foreskin back so as to 
 fully cleanse the indenture above the gland, which 
 secretes a substance that very soon emits an offensive 
 odor unless removed. Both parties should keep their 
 arm pits so that they will not be "smelly," and the 
 feet should likewise be kept inodorous. 
 
 One of the chief objections to smoking or chew- 
 ing tobacco is that it spoils the breath, and so makes 
 it offensive to the wife, whereas it should be most 
 attractive. In a word, both the husband and wife 
 cannot be too careful, in all ways, in making and 
 keeping their bodies mutually attractive. As has 
 already been said, the sole aim of all the sexual .expe- 
 rience of a husband and wife should be to raise the 
 function more and more away from the plane of
 
 142 Sane Sex Life 
 
 physical gratification and elevate it continually 
 towards the realm of mental and spiritual delight. 
 This is a mission of sex in the human family that 
 should be made the most of. It involves the cultiva- 
 tion of the Art of Love, which is truly the art of arts, 
 par excellence. 
 
 The secret of success in establishing righteous and 
 happy sex relations between husband and wife is, on 
 the part of the man, that all his actions should be 
 those of a loving gentleman. This does not mean 
 effeminacy on his part — he must be virile, bold, 
 strong, aggressive, positive, compelling. And yet, all 
 these manly virtues must be expressed in terms of 
 loving and gentle acts. This is a paradox, but it is 
 true! 
 
 On the part of the woman, the chief item on her 
 side is, for her to attain a correct mental and spiritual 
 attitude tozvard her own sex-nature and that of her 
 husband, and toward their common expression. All 
 her training and environment now hinder her from 
 such achievement; but if she be a true woman, her 
 nature will reveal the truth to her, and if she will 
 trust to that — do what that prompts her to do, she 
 will come out all right. It will take time to reach 
 such results; but if she will persist, she will succeed. 
 Let her come to the realization of the fact that sex 
 in men and women is not unclean, vulgar, lowdown, 
 sinful ; but that it is clean, pure, lofty, godborn ! 
 Rightly exercised, it leads to the highest well-being 
 of both the husband and wife; it brings them to their 
 physical, mental and spiritual noblest and best. Let
 
 Sane Sex Living 143 
 
 the wife get this view of the situation, which is the 
 only true view, and then let her act accordingly, and 
 she will have attained. A husband and wife who have 
 reached this modus vivendi have established a heaven 
 on earth.
 
 XI 
 
 PREGNANCY 
 
 AND now just a few words about having children, 
 and this treatise will end. 
 
 As has already been said, every true husband and 
 wife who are well enough and strong enough, and 
 who are reasonably furnished with this world's goods, 
 ought to have and rear at least two children. The 
 world needs at least so many, even if all children lived 
 and grew up, to keep up the constant number of peo- 
 ple on the earth. But, far more than this, the hus- 
 band and wife need children to make a home com- 
 plete, and a complete home is the supreme attainment 
 of human life! 
 
 This does not mean that people should not marry 
 unless they can have children ; there are many women 
 who should never even try to become mothers. But 
 these should not be deprived of all sexual joys for 
 this reason. On the contrary, it is for their best good, 
 in most cases, that they should marry and so live 
 normal sex lives, in all respects except parenthood. 
 
 But, for the most part, husbands and wives can 
 have children, if they so desire, and they should so 
 desire. 
 
 And, so desiring, the question is, how can they 
 
 144
 
 Sane Sex Living 145 
 
 best fulfill such desire? 
 
 As a matter of fact, there is very little that is 
 really known about the begetting of children, and the 
 securing of the best results from such action. The 
 laws of human heredity are, as yet, for the most part, 
 unknown. But common sense would seem to indi- 
 cate a few things that must be best in the premises. 
 
 Thus, it would seem to be for the best that the 
 husband and wife should be in good physical condi- 
 tion when a child is begotten. More than this, it 
 would seem right that the act of begetting should be 
 a deliberate, and not a mere chance begetting. Hence, 
 in general, it is well for the husband and wife to 
 agree upon a time for the begetting of a child, and 
 deliberately accomplish a sex-meeting for such pur- 
 pose. Although, one instinctively feels that such a 
 deliberate meeting might be too matter of fact — too 
 cold and formal, lacking in warm blood and genuine 
 emotion; still, the probabilities are that even this 
 could be overcome, if kept in mind and "provided 
 for." 
 
 Referring to the things that have already been 
 said, of course an embrace which is to result in preg- 
 nancy should be one of the most perfect that can 
 possibly be experienced, one in which, in an ecstasy 
 of love's delight, husband and wife merge their souls 
 and bodies into a perfect oneness — it would seem that 
 from such a meeting the best, and only the best results 
 could come. 
 
 And so, if the husband and wife will agree that,
 
 146 Sane Sex Life 
 
 from a given time on, they will cease to have a care 
 to prevent conception ; and then, sometime immedi- 
 ately following the fifth day after the beginning of 
 the menstrual flozv, they will naturally meet in a per- 
 fect embrace, the probabilities are that they will have 
 done the best possible to secure the highest attain- 
 able results from the act of begetting a child. 
 
 As a rule, the proper time for such begetting is 
 between the fifth and the tenth day after the begin- 
 ning of the menstrual flow. It is sometimes best, how- 
 ever, to make the meeting earlier than this, even be- 
 fore the flow has ceased. Some women will conceive 
 then who cannot do so at any other time. And so, if 
 a wife should be unable to conceive between the f]fth 
 and the tenth day, as noted, let an earlier date be 
 tried. If this should fail, consult a reliable physician. 
 
 It ought to be said, too, that putting off having 
 children too long is very apt to result in the steril- 
 ity of the wife. Many a young wife, who has really 
 wanted to have children sometime, and who would be 
 greatly grieved if she thought she could not bear a 
 child, has kept putting it off, and has done this so 
 often, and for so long, that, when the "convenient 
 day" does come, she finds that she has "sinned away 
 her day of grace." 
 
 Speaking generally, the first baby should be born 
 not much later than two years after marriage. There 
 are, of course, exceptions to this, but it is a good rule 
 to go by. 
 
 Have your children ichen you are young! This
 
 Sane Sex Living 147 
 
 is common sense, it comes out best in the long run, 
 and is the best thing to do, ninety-nine times in a 
 hundred. Then, you are nearer the age of your chil- 
 dren as they grow up than if you waited till you were 
 in the late thirties before the children came. If your 
 son or daughter is only twenty-some years younger 
 than you are, you can be "kids" with them. If you 
 are forty years old when they are born, you will 
 always be "old folks" to them. Have the babies 
 when you are young. It is far better so. 
 
 If no children come from the meeting of husband 
 and wife consult a good doctor. But, in such event, 
 if neither of the parties is to blame — or even other- 
 wise, make the best of the situation, love each other, 
 and make the most of wedded Hfe with what is left. 
 
 Above all, with children or without (and a thou- 
 sand times better with) make a home that is a home. 
 That is what sex in the human family, what married 
 life is for — to make a home. Nearly all that makes a 
 home is centered around sex. No two normal men 
 can make a home. No two normal women can make 
 a home ! It takes a man and a woman to make a home. 
 It takes father, mother and children to make the most 
 perfect home. Make up your minds to have a most 
 perfect home, and do your utmost to reach that goal! 
 
 The query often arises in the minds of conscien- 
 tious husbands and wives whether or not it is right 
 to engage in coitus during pregnancy. On this point 
 authorities differ, though most of them hold against 
 such practice. The reasons they give for such ad-
 
 148 Sane Sex Life 
 
 verse decision are all based on the same old infernal 
 lie, namely, that, sexually, man is a mere animal, and 
 so is subject to the laws and practices of mere ani- 
 mality. This is the worst outrage ever perfected by 
 a false philosophy, which is heralded as the will of 
 God. Out on it, altogether ! 
 
 The simple truth is that if the husband and wife 
 have mastered the Art of Love, so that they mutually 
 desire each other, and both long for sex exercise, dur- 
 ing the gestation period, it is perfectly right and 
 WISE for them to satisfy their natural common wishes. 
 
 Of course, in such exercise, the utmost care should 
 be taken not to press too hard upon the pelvic region 
 of the woman, and in this regard, the word of caution 
 needs to be heeded, as much by the prospective 
 mother as by her mate. For, in the intensity of an 
 orgasm, she may be tempted to crowd her body too 
 violently against her husband, and so i)ossible harm 
 might result. Especially if the husband-superior 
 position is taken during the act. he should be doubly 
 careful not to permit the weight of his body to rest 
 upon the enlarged part of the wife's anatomy, not in 
 the least. 
 
 Indeed, the safest position for coitus, during preg- 
 nancy is, the woman on her back, and the man with 
 his hips on the bed below hers, so that there is no 
 possibility of pressure on her abdomen, which is per- 
 fectly free, in this position. In this position, the act 
 may be engaged in. during i)regnancy, as often as 
 mutually desired, to the benefit of both parties.
 
 Sane Sex Liznng 149 
 
 Many pregnant women are more than usually 
 passionate during the period of gestation. This is 
 especially the case when the wife is happy in her con- 
 dition, when she rejoices with exceeding great joy that 
 she is on the way to experience the divine crown of 
 wifehood — maternity! When such a woman desires 
 her husband in love's embrace, it is cruel to deprive 
 her of her longed-for delight. 
 
 Again, a wife, unpregnant, and when she right- 
 fully wishes to remain so, may be somewhat fearful 
 of becoming pregnant when she meets her husband, 
 and so hesitate to give her passion full play, thereby 
 missing the utmost delights of an embrace — but if 
 she be pregnant, and so has no fear on this score, she 
 can give herself up to utter abandonment to her im- 
 pulses. 
 
 On this point, the final word is, use common sense, 
 in a spirit of absolute mutuality. 
 
 It goes without saying that it would be wicked, 
 not to say a crime, for a husband to compel his wife 
 to engage in coitus during pregnancy, against her 
 will. On the other hand, many a wife has first ex- 
 perienced an orgasm when meeting her husband dur- 
 ing pregnancy. The reason for this is that her fear 
 of becoming pregnant is not then present — a condi- 
 tion which has before kept her from the climax. 
 
 It is further true that many a wife will greatly 
 relieve and delight her husband if, on occasion, and 
 as both may desire, she will relieve him with her 
 hand ; or sometimes, that they engage in mutual relief 
 by this means during pregnancy.
 
 XI I 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 IN closing this volume, the author wishes to say, 
 as in opening, that no apology is offered for what 
 has been written or said herewith. All has been set 
 down in love, by a lover, for the sake of lovers yet to 
 be, in the hope of helping them on towards a divine 
 consummation. 
 
 As a final direction Master the Art of Love, which 
 is the divinest art in all the world; then study, and 
 do your best to master the Science of Procreation. 
 It is these two, the Art of Love and the Science of 
 Procreation, that, together, make married life a suc- 
 cess. Without these, or surely, without the first, 
 there can be no such thing as true marriage. Hence, 
 this is the first to learn, to master. It is worthy of 
 the most careful study, the most faithful experiment. 
 
 It is right for people who never can have children 
 to marry, and to share with each other mutual sex 
 delights. It is far better for a husband and wife, hav- 
 ing learned the Art of Love, to have children — and 
 a home. 
 
 Thrice happy are the married lovers who live in 
 the spirit of this sentiment, exalted to the highest 
 spiritual plane; and if, out of such love exchanges 
 children are begotten and born, and a perfect home 
 
 150
 
 Sane Sex Living 151 
 
 is established, then married life is worth livinj:;^. God 
 
 has joined such together and nothing can put them 
 asunder. 
 
 This volume is not something to be read once, and 
 then put aside and forgotten. It should be studied, 
 experimented upon, read again and again, especially 
 by those who have difficulties in married life to over- 
 come. And for all young married people, it should 
 be a sort of Guide to Happiness that should be fre- 
 quently consulted and its directions "tried out" and 
 followed to the limit. 
 
 The fact is that, in true marriage, neither the 
 husband nor the wife can be selfishly supreme. If 
 selfishness asserts itself, on the part of either husband 
 or wife, hell is sure to follow. There can be no true 
 marriage under such circumstances, because there is 
 no supremacy in true love, and it is only true love 
 that can make an abiding true marriage. In true 
 marriage, such as both God and Nature design should 
 be, there is perfect comradery. equals walking with 
 equals, with the principle of love and mutual help- 
 fulness shared alike by both. Let no reader of this 
 book forget these primal facts, or fail to act in accord- 
 ance with them ! For of such is the Kingdom of 
 Heaven !
 
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