Voltairine De Cleyre - Relation Of Sex In Humanity

Before proceeding to state my own position on the subject of the relation of sex, I will very briefly restate the principal points of Professor Cope’s argument. He viewed the question from the two standpoints of biology and sociology, beginning with the former which, he declared, furnishes the foundation facts from which sociological conclusions are to be drawn. And having done so, arrived at the conclusion that the natural position of woman in society is that of the type-preserver, the housekeeper, and child-bearer; but never the competitor of man. Under the head of biological facts some points were given regarding the sexual instinct in men and women, and what are called the secondary sexual characteristics; vis: a difference of voice between male and female, in the size and shape of the skull, the pelvis, and in muscular power. There are, of course, a number of others, but I suppose the Professor laid particular stress on those as affecting the relations of sex more than others. In speaking of sexual instinct he stated that the prevalent idea is that women are less amative than men, although his own observations have not led him to so conclude.

In giving my own opinion on that point, I beg at the start, that no one, especially no one who thinks as the Professor does, will prejudge me as having arrived at that opinion by looking through colored spectacles, or, as a member of the “third sex,” as the Professor rather sarcastically designates the female portion of the community who eschew marital relations, and devote themselves to an independent life. I take it for granted that you accept the human race as bi-sexual; that it is ridiculous to be ashamed of a fact; that you have bodies which are sexed, and none the less pure on that account. My own sentiments are summed up by Walt Whitman when he says:

“Without shame the man I like knows and avows his sex;

Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.”

Nor am I irrevocably fixed in my present opinion; because I realize that while I have striven to form it solely from facts, it is a very hard matter to get at those facts, especially from both sides of the case. As a woman, I am, of course, more liable to hear the woman’s side than man’s, just as, I suppose, Professor Cope’s opportunities for investigation have been greater among his own sex than the opposite. But while this is true, it is also true that I do not put unlimited faith in what the women tell me; upon that subject the most truthful women are prone to lie. And the explanation is very simple and natural. The religious and social education of women, (and these I hold are always molded by conditions) has been such as to render sex a subject never to be spoken of in a voice louder than a whisper. A young girl generally feels a burning shame when she first realizes that she does experience an undeniable sexual attraction; she believes it is a torture of the Evil One, a temptation allowed by God, to whom she prays most fervently for strength to resist it. She will not speak of it to anyone; she thinks herself the most guilty and vile of sinners; and imagines that all her friends and companions would despise and shun her, if they suspected it, (as indeed they probably would, by way of showing their own virtue, though each might inwardly be fighting the same battle.) This first feeling of horror might be modified in time; nevertheless the conviction that it is an impure and shameful desire, never on any account to be admitted, remains. I am told that it is not so much the case with young men; that while a large proportion of them do look upon such feelings as impure, they rather accept it as one of the evils incident to being an animal, and are not adverse to admitting its existence among themselves. Still when they marry they prefer, as a rule, just those girls I have mention; i. e., those who are too undeveloped to have experienced such attraction, or having experienced it, deny it, even to themselves. This mental attitude towards women is due to the same religious and social superstitions which foster the ideas of women in regard to the subject, and which are again the direct outcome of those material conditions which render women dependent upon men for support. So long, therefore, as marriage shall be, as Professor Cope declared it, “a business arrangement;” so long as it constitutes the chief commercial transaction of women, (which it surely does) do long will this supply of shame-faced women be produced to fill the demand of would-be husbands, that is, proprietors. (I use the word advisedly. Professor Cope himself declared that a man’s wife and children are, in a way, his property—not as his house, or his ox, but still his.)

Women thus educated enter marriage quite ignorant; as as a result of ignorance on both sides, the experiences of marriage are such as to disgust, and eventually kill that passion which, unconsciously to themselves perhaps, first drew man and woman together. I believe that the lack of physical adaptation, and the inconsiderate brutality of experienced husbands to inexperienced wives has spoiled more honeymoons than it would be easy to count, and produced in women a real horror in place of the imaginary one previously existing in regard to the sex-relation. Hence the testimony which I have been able to obtain from women is vitiated, first by religious and social superstition, and second by those deplorable experience of false marriage which destroy natural feelings.

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