In so far as women are concerned, the sex pressure on them is increased in many ways. For two years I examined, mentally, the girls who were listed as sex offenders by the various social agencies of Boston. As a result of that experience, plus that of a physician and citizen of the world, a few facts of importance stand out in my mind.
1. There is a group of men whom one may call sex adventurers.
These are not all of one kind in education, social status and age, but they seek sex experiences wherever they go and are always alert for signs that indicate a chance to become intimate.
They take advantage of the widespread tendency to flirt and haunt the places where the young girls tend to parade up and down (certain streets in every large city), the public dance halls, the skating resorts, the crowded public beaches, etc. They regard themselves as connoisseurs in women and think they know when a girl is "ripe"; they are ready to spend money and utilize flattery, gifts and bold wooing, according to their nature and the way they size up their prey.
2. The female sex adventurer is not so common, except in the higher criminal classes where the effort to ensnare rich men calls forth the abilities of certain women. In a limited way the prostitute, professed or clandestine, is a sex adventurer, but ordinarily she is merely supplying a demand and has only to exert herself physically, rarely needing to conquer men's inhibitions.
We omit here the schemes of conquest of girls and women seeking marriage as too complex for any one but a novelist, and also because the moral code regards them as legitimate. Women who are ready to accept sexual advances are common enough in the uninhibited girl, the dissatisfied married woman, the young widow, the drug habitue; but aside from the woman who has capitalized her sex, the sex adventurer is largely male.
What attracts him? For he rarely pesters the good woman, and ordinarily the average woman is not solicited.
The girl usually "picked up" dresses immodestly or in the extreme of style, even though she is essentially shabby and poorly clad.
To-day business sees to it that fripperies are within the reach of every purse.
She usually corresponds to a type of prettiness favored in the community, often what is nowadays called the chicken type. Plump legs and fairly prominent bosom and hips are symbols of those desired among all grades of men, together with a pretty face. The homely girl finds it much easier to walk unmolested.
If she appears intelligent and firm, the above qualities will only entitle her to glances, respectful and otherwise. The sex adventurer hates to be rebuffed, and he is not desperately in love, so that he will not risk his vanity. If she appears of that port vivacious type just above the moron level--in other words if she is neither bright nor really feeble-minded--then sex pressure is increased. The feeble-minded girl of the moron type, or the over-innocent and unenlightened girl, is always in danger.
There is further the sexually excited or the uninhibited girl. We must differentiate between those who attempt no control, and those whose surge of desire is beyond the normal limits. The uninhibited of both sexes are a large group, and the bulk of the prostitutes are deficient in this respect rather than in intelligence. Sometimes inhibition arrives late, after sexual immorality has commenced. In men this is common, but unfortunately for women, society stands in their way when this occurs with them. "Youth must have its fling" is a masculine privilege denied to feminine offenders.
The desire for a good time plays havoc with the uninhibited girl.
Unable to find interest in her work, which too often is uninteresting, desiring good clothes and excitement, she discovers that these are within her reach if she follows her instincts. What starts out as a flirtation ends in social disaster, and a girl finds out that some men who give good times expect to be paid for them.
Since our study is not a pathological treatise, we must omit further consideration of the offender and dismiss without more comment the whole range of the perverter. It suffices to say that the perverted are often such congenitally, in which case nothing can be done for them, and others are the results of certain environments, which range all the way from girls' boarding-schools to the palaces of kings.
In ancient times, and in many countries to-day, certain perversions were so common as to defy belief, and we are compelled to associate with some of the greatest names, practices[1] that shock us. These same ancients would denounce as unnatural in as hearty terms the increasing practices of child-limitation among us.
[1] I pass over as out of the range of this book the question raised by Freud, whether or not we are all of us homosexual as well as heterosexual.
The sex desires and instincts struggle with, overcome or harmonize with the social instincts. It would be impossible to portray even the simplest sex life from the mental standpoint.
