192 SEX 



difference. It is not so much, however, that 

 the sexual desire is not insistent in woman, 

 but that she is so constituted that from wooing 

 to consummation it takes longer for the brain 

 to become eroticised, and for this to relax the 

 control of the centres which normally inhibit 

 response to sexual appeal. Hence, of course, 

 the use of alcohol, which weakens all the 

 control centres, in the devilish art of seduction. 

 But quite as important is the psychical 

 difference, that woman is less self-regarding, 

 that she keeps herself better in hand, that 

 she is more parental, even to her lover. 



What of the common argument that the 

 requirement of chastity should be less stringent 

 in its application to man, because a woman 

 cannot be physically the same again if she has 

 been a mother, and in unchastity she runs this 

 risk, whereas a man is physically unaffected 

 by becoming a father ? It can only be said 

 that this popular apology is at once too 

 abstract and too canine ; it leaves out human 

 considerations in pretending to emphasise 

 them. 



FACING THE FACTS. Never was there such 

 free discussion of sex questions as in these 

 days ; and much there is to alarm the timid, 

 much indeed to repel. But here as every- 

 where the road lies forward, not back. We 

 must grapple with each question, whoever be 

 shocked ; not shirk it, gloss it, retreat from it, 

 in our feeble virtue. We must get at the 

 facts encouraging and disappointing ; under- 

 stand them; and then perchance see how to 

 control them. 



What is the ideal of life ? What but the bios- 



