Notes about Sexuality and Religion

P148

celebrated Astruc wrote his treatise on female diseases, near the end of the seventeenth century,—who felt compelled by the extreme modesty of the people in this particular—but who, outside of medicine, were about as virtuous as the average Tabby or Tom cats in the midnight hour—to write the chapter touching on nymphomania in Latin, so as not to shock the morbidly sensitive modesty of the French nobility, who then enjoyed Le Droit de cuissage,—down through to Bienville, who wrote the first extended work on nymphomania, and Tissot, who first broached the subject and the danger of Onanism, all have felt that they must stop on the threshold and “apologize.”

P1

they proved conclusively that the Phoenicians had borrowed the rite from the Israelites, as they (the Phoenicians) had practiced the rite on the newborn, whereas, had they followed the Egyptian rite, they would have only circumcised the child after its having passed its thirteenth year,—these being the distinctive differences between the Jewish and Egyptian rites.

P5

… prisoners began to have some intrinsic value. From this a change came about; the warrior instinct, however, still claimed that the vanquished, even if a slave, should still convey or carry some sign of servitude. The original idea of the ablation of the phallus was to emasculate the victim; investigation developed the idea that the same object could be  accomplished by castration, an operation which also finally reached a tolerable state of perfection through different stages of evolution, it first being performed by a complete removal of the whole scrotum and contents. This operation, with the ignorance of the times in regard to stopping hemorrhage, was, however, accompanied by a large mortality, and it finally evolved into the simple removal of the gland, or its obliteration by pressure or violence. Bergmann conveys the idea that circumcision was at one time the indestructible marking and the distinctive feature of the slave, the mind of the period not being able to emancipate itself from the idea that the genitals must in some manner be mutilated, not being able to conceive any other degrading mark of manhood which barbarians felt they must inflict on slaves.

P9

History relates of the existence of circumcision among the Egyptians as far back as the reign of Psammétich, who ruled toward the end of the sixth century B.C. The practice must then have been of a very religious and national nature, as we are told that Psammétich, having admitted some noted strangers, whom he allowed to dwell in Egypt without being circumcised, brought himself into great disfavor among his subjects, and especially by the army, who looked upon an uncircumcised stranger as one undeserving of favors. During the next century Pythagoras visited Egypt, and was compelled to submit to be circumcised before being admitted to the privilege of studying in the Egyptian temples.

P18

by venereal indulgence. The ancient Germans lived a life of chastity until their marriage, and to their observance of a chaste life can be attributed the superior physical development of the race, as both males and females were not only fully developed, but were not enervated by either sexual excess or inclinations before having offspring, which were necessarily robust and healthy. To obtain the same results in a nation given to indolence and luxury, and lax in its morality, some physical restraint was required, and we therefore find the practice of infibulation coming from the warm countries to the East. The ancients not only infibulated their gladiators to restrain them from venery, but they also subjected their chanters and singers to the same ordeal, as it was found to improve the voice; comedians and public dancers were also restrained from ruining their talents by the means of infibulation.

P25

In our age it is hard to conceive why their most masculine men should be deified, and all their gods represented as the most perfect of bodily development, while at the same time the finest physical specimens of manhood were doomed to a life of the most rigorous continence. It is also astonishing that all this should be done not from any principle or  consideration of morality or virtue, but simply as a means subservient in producing at its maximum the highest degree of physical development and endurance.

P101

Jahn, in speaking of the people by whom the early Hebrews were surrounded, mentions their idolatrous practices, and that their peculiar forms of Pagan worship were accompanied by indulgence in fornication, lascivious songs, and unnatural lust. Others of their neighbors worshiped the “hairy he-goat,” with which they also practiced all manner of  abominations. Sodomy, or pederasty, seemed a sort of religious ceremony with some of these heathen nations; from a religion it necessarily became a social practice; this, in connection with the phallic practices and worship, necessitated frequent exposure of the male member. The evil results, to say nothing of the disgusting and demoralizing tendency of these practices of the Pagan, were evidently well known to the Jews.

P144

Dr. C. F. Taylor, of New York, in an article on the “Effect of Imperfect Hygiene of the Sexual Function,” published in the American Journal of Obstetrics for January, 1882, gives us an account of his investigations in this regard, with the following results: “In an asylum for the feeble-minded of both sexes, it was found that the habit was about equal in the two sexes, there being only this difference: that the females began to masturbate one or two years earlier than the males, and that the habit, once established, was found to be more persistent than in the males. It was, further, ascertained that the habit came naturally, without the aid of precept or example to either sex.”

…

—which would involve a thorough inspection of the genitals of all children reported to be either physically or mentally deficient,—such a course would not greatly diminish the number of paralytics, feeble-minded, and generally deficient of both sexes? If the results in private practice are any criterion, it is safe to assert that a strict adherence to the Mosaic law for the males and to some of the African customs for the females would most assuredly relieve all these cases that might come under the caption of results of reflex neuroses.