Taken From "The Egoist: An Individualist Review." Formerly "The New Freewoman."
No. 3, Vol. I, Monday, February 2, 1914.
We have just finished reading Miss Christabel Pankhurst's magnum opus "The Hidden Scourge and how to end it." The scourge is venereal disease and the end of it is Votes for Women as for men, and Chastity for Men as for women: a reasonable attitude of give and take apparently. As throughout the length of her hundred and fifty pages Miss Pankhurst does not once venture the indiscretion of an individual observation, but contents herself with the repetition of the tale of social illnesses such as the maiden of sixteen on the orange-box at the corner has for a long time made us familiar with, alongside generous extracts from various medical works which the reader can consult for himself, we need do no more than summarise the argument and by preference in the manner which Miss Pankhurst herself has chosen- the ingenious manner of the compiler of the rhyme "This is the House that Jack built." Omitting the cumulative renderings and repetitions the tale of "The Hidden Scourge and How to end it" stands on this wise:
These are the Doctors
Who told the Tale
Of the Scrofulous Child
Of the Infected Wife
Of the Lustful Man
Who before his Marriage
Visited the Women
Whom Poverty led
To wander the Streets
To Minister to Fiends
Who contracted the Disease
Which was the Scourge
Which destroyed the " Spiritual Ideals" Of the " Normal Woman who regards the Sex Act as the Final Pledge of her Faith and her Love."
Miss Pankhurst, risking no observations, limits herself to pronouncing judgment, the which is that of the "pure" woman, and runs to the effect that it is all very wicked and has got to be stopped. Thus: First get votes for women, then get chastity for men by grafting them with the sexual habits of women. It sounds simple: though the author is not very explicit as to the manner in which the remedy is to be applied: whether inwardly or outwardly for instance, though she does in one place suggest a "dose."
The manner of application however we may leave, and limit our attention to the remedy: the chastity of women administered to men. The chastity of women is an exceedingly interesting subject. It appears useless to try to define chastity. Chastity is the generalisation and means nothing. We can however arrive at the mental attitude of those who speak of chastity as a virtue relating to themselves and others: who actually think of themselves and others as being chaste: and virtuous on that account. To such, to be chaste means to give an inner intellectual or emotional assent to the absence of an experience which outwardly is indicated by the physical state known under the name of virgin. To be chaste is the inner invisible spiritual side of the outward evident physical state of being a virgin. We need not linger over the fact that though there are many virgins there are but few who are chaste. The flesh is strong and intact, but the spirit is confused and stricken: considering which circumstances it would have been less perplexing had the author in offering the sexual habits of women for the emulation of men spoken of her panacea as "Virginity." Perhaps such was her intention and the distinction is nothing more than a linguistic nicety which Miss Pankhurst does not think it worthwhile to make. That it is to be "virgin" rather than chaste she has in mind is supported by the fact that the word she uses in developing her argument is "untouched," which is speaking enough and might be taken to be conclusive.
Now once the "chastity" argument comes down to the mere virginal, to conditions of being "touched" or "untouched," it shrinks to very measurable dimensions. Its "moral" thunders die away at once or change to cheerful laughter. For the cult of the virginal is on all fours with the cult of many other odd emphases which have made their way into an ancient and sophisticated civilisation. The emphasis which allows of a distinction of importance between the virginal and non-virginal condition entails-or rather it follows from-the quite arbitrary concentration of attention on a fixed point-the question whether it is fixed in repulsion or attraction emotionally being of little importance. Both forms fundamentally are made up of attraction: superficially there may appear to be some qualitative difference, but it would be hard to define: which explains why ordinary fastidious persons feel that an atmosphere turns sniffy immediately a female speaks in terms other than scoffing of the "pure" or the "chaste" or the "virginal." Why it does so they themselves would probably be at a loss to explain. The explanation is that the woman who calls herself-or others-"pure" is objectionable because she appears stupid: stupid in the precise way that the followers of the "unnatural" practices Miss Pankhurst refers to, in speaking of that now famous Piccadilly Flat which figured recently in the Police Courts are stupid. Such practices are due to quite identical psychological vagaries with those which cause women suffragists to concentrate on virginity, the only degree of "unnaturalness" which distinguishes such persons from the suffragists lying in the fact that the former had become bored with the nob of attention which now holds the suffragists, having fixed it in quite as arbitrary a spirit, on other "nobs." To call such persons "foul" is silly-and shirks the question. The explanation appears to be that there are parts of the body more sensitive than other parts, which may be stimulated into sensation by fixing attention on them. The vicious amuse themselves by imagining and thereafter "touching"; the "pure" prolong the excitement by imagining and thereafter refraining. Fundamentally there is nothing to choose between them: but in the sequel, owing to this difference of treatment, the "vicious" put the image to the test of experience and for the time being destroy it: the "pure" "suppress" it and turn it inward where it grows into an atmosphere and a permanent obsession. To compare, for instance, the value of the two methods few people would disallow that the occupants of the Flat in question derived far less feverish excitement out of the stupid exploits than did the "pure" ladies who got wind of the affair and clamoured for their blood. These considerations explain why erotic emotion is a more permanent part of a "pure" woman's life than it ever is or has been of a used-up rake's. He has intermittently his "un-fixed" moments: the "pure" woman has none: it is the essence of her creed of "purity" that her attention should always remain fixed at a point.
The mark of the stupid which these share in common with one another is attached to them because they allot an excessive importance pertaining either one way or another to a stimulation roused by excitation of sensitive points of the body from outside. None would hesitate to call a person (well-meaning possibly) who found his pleasure in having the soles of his feet tickled, stupid. Yet the difference between his mode and that of the "pure" and of the "rake" is only a slight difference in degree: none in kind: which explains why the "rakes" demand the "pure." It is the instinctive appreciation of like for like.
It is clear why as long as the "pure" women persist there can be no abatement of "lust." It is not merely that by their very distinction they stand pointer in hand as it were stimulating it first by concentration and then by a refusal which is in itself a further stimulation, a retiring which is flight inviting chase; they make the error, as negative persons, of mistaking for lust love itself when it is offered to them. We have already elsewhere made the distinction between the two and the phrases in which the "pure" refer to their conduct in marriage unmistakably show which of the two they are looking forward to in anticipation. They "give" themselves in marriage: that is, they permit: as negatives they submit themselves to a positive will: they feel in short that a deed is done to them which they, in virtue of the consideration that they are now married, allow. They are the true "womanly"; the attitude they adopt is not that of persons who satisfy their own desires, but of those who in kindness allow others to satisfy theirs. Having held back during the requisite period which serves to keep up their value as saleable goods before marriage, the bargain being struck they allow them selves to be "touched" as Miss Pankhurst would put it, that is, they submit to what to them, is lust. That is why they feel that they in "giving" themselves have given so much: given so much in fact that they have a reasonable claim for a lifetime of devotion: and a sound grievance if they do not get it: quite naturally too, since they have for so long set such unparalleled importance on it. During their fleeing period they have kept themselves in good countenance by imagining a sentimental heaven as an inevitable return to be made for what is so persistently sought. That is why the "pure" women are always disappointed with marriage. They find themselves in the position of the remnants of a dinner after a hungry person has dined; a position which is the Nemesis of the womanly woman: the person who thinks it of more importance to charm than to be charmed: to be the repast rather than the diner. They make the mistake of commiserating too much, and putting too much weight upon the outcry and woes of the person with an appetite: of putting the value of the request and the refusal on the same footing: whereas they are of as wholly differing orders as are the appetite and the dinner, for the latter of which almost anything will serve, provided the appetite can be maintained. However-to get rid of this material metaphor-let us rather say that the temperament which seeks first and foremost to be charmed is of an altogether higher order than that which seeks first and foremost to charm. To have someone who charms us is a matter of infinite importance to us: as to whom we charm, provided we can keep our special magnet sufficiently within our vicinity as to keep hope alive, is of little importance at all- to us. It is the question of what we want, not of what others want-even though it happens to turn out that we are the wanted article-that is of material importance to the positive, dominating selfish master mind. Those who charm us we adore because they mean so much to our own life and growth. It is not their growth or their convenience that matters- the reason that gifts are lavished on them and their conveniences and wishes served as soon as they are spoken, is to keep them fixed where they will be serviceable to us and as token of how much they mean to us. When therefore Miss Pankhurst with a toss of the head speaks thus: "There can be no mating between the spiritually developed women of this new day and the men vho in thought or in conduct with regard to sex affairs are their inferiors," she speaks -true, to the womanly woman-in the terms of one who rebuts the efforts to win her to that which she allows but does not desire. She speaks as one who is administering a rebuff to someone else, not as one who is obstructing the satisfaction of her own needs. Nor is she. Womanly women do not pretend to love: they are loved. Their attitude of pride is strongly illuminating: in love we are humble, in miserably-happy fear of our fate; but the "pure" women having no desire in the matter fear nothing, having nothing at stake. Their pride is the subtle expression of their nothingness: the unconscious expression of self contempt. If they knew anything of the positive element of love, of being charmed, they would understand that it is the most valuable thing in the world: the one which stimulates growth- from within, increases capacity and stimulates effort. With the verdict of tbe world in general in view, one does work just sufficiently well to escape its active censure for scamping. Our best work we do to satisfy ourselves: but the work which we achieve by a sort of inspiration beyond our best, by the establishing of a new record; we do it under the influence and to please the one or two people in the world who have the power to charm us for the sake of an-"It's rather good" from them. It is not so much that the charm they exert helps to surmount effort it removes the sense of effort: it is a lubricant: or a powerful magnet capable of drawing one up a steep place. Why then this hoity-toity "Spiritual women will not mate with" . . . any whatsoever? The personal value of charm to oneself is such that were a tree or a lamp-post capable of exerting it, women would mate with these. The "health" or "record" of men and women does not enter into the matter: the only question is: whether they can do it; the charming, to wit. It is a question of power, not of an adjunct intellectually considered desirable, and the vision of "suitors" with aspect as wholesome as sound field-turnips each having a doctor's certificate in his pockets is powerfully unalluring: because, one must suppose, the efficiency of one to charm must be proved by the sole fact of charming.
It is the failure to appreciate the fact about life that it is only its positive aspect that matters, which causes such radically different attitudes towards life. All the negative things, fear, hopeless misery, all forms of the thing called "disease" are specific forms of weak vitality. It is more important to heighten vitality than to combat disease: which as a matter of fact can only be over come by increased vitality, and there is more danger to "health" to be awaited from the misery of renunciation and the dull heats of virginity than from the ills of syphilis and gonorrhaea. There can be no disease of "matter": it can be broken but it is incapable of contracting disease. There can only be such a breaking down of the spiritual unitary stream as to render it incapable of penetrating the material which it has assimilated and organised into a body. The sole thing which can be called a "cause" of disease is low vitality and of all the things which tend to lower it, the chief is dulness. (Miss Pankhurst should have referred to the "health" of the virgins as also to our vigorous "virgin" civilisation.) Both the "pure" and the "vicious" are in and to themselves dull and stupid: they are duller still to those associated with them: the obsession in their interests of necessity makes them so. The "pure" moreover add to their lack of interest a pose of virtue which creates the close atmosphere to which we have referred: they assume the pose instinctively for a defence because fundamentally they know they are not genuine. They cannot be truthful and by contrast with their theatricality the frank bargaining of the prostitute is a relief. So the "purity" atmosphere lays a pall of dulness all about: no one escapes it: whatever the role we adopt we are caught in its folds. Dulness is death in life: disease has at least the relative advantage of being discomfort. In disease life is afflicted, but it is petrified by dulness; any form of torture is preferable to it; any small "vice" which offers a trivial variation of sense perception. The seeking after the "vicious" is a small ineffectual wriggle which life makes to escape the boredom of the "pure," but "vice" cannot throw off its "pure" character. The two are one- related to each other as the observe and reverse of a coin: the under and over of the same psychological condition: as the prostitute is the twin-trader of the legally-protected "pure" woman. Where there are excise officials there are smugglers. Let therefore the womanly women abandon the "privileges" which enable them to make a corner in a commodity the demand for which they sedulously stimulate, and the pirate brigs which ply on the outskirts of the trade will become purposeless. The entreaty of the cry "Virginity for men" coming from so favoured a class as those of the "pure" women has a comical sound, and Miss Pankhurst's disease-story is overdone. If seventy-five per cent. of men have one form of venereal disease and twenty per cent. have another and both kinds are contagious and possibly ineradicable, it follows that the number of those who are free from it neither means nor matters: that we are all tainted and presumably all inoculated in fact. If Miss Pinkhurst desires in the interests of a fad successfully to exploit human boredom and the ravages of dirt she will require to call in the aid af a more subtle intenigence than she herself appears to possess.