H~I 18 E W * Lt5~ P R O P iwr o I t A SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS A I S E WA RD HILTNER Sex Ethics AND The Kinsey Reports ASSOCIATION PRESS, NEW YORK Copyright, 1953, by National Board of Young Men's Christian Associations H.a. /1 /8.U.^~l Printed in the United States of America American Book-Stratford Press, Inc., New York V-4k.".rc. '-A -4I rJ.- }': * I PREFACE IF APPROACHED by a public opinion interviewer, the only adults in the United States today who could probably not identify Alfred C. Kinsey would be the same people who would report the current President of the United States as Roosevelt (Theodore). Kinsey has become a household word, as the principal researcher and author of a monumental series of studies on sex behavior in human beings. It may even be that a large number of people know some of the facts about sexual behavior that the Kinsey studies have disclosed. Yet one wonders how widely known are the scope, the point of view, and the principal findings of the studies. Someone referred to the first report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, as the most unread best-seller of all time. Apparently some persons looked up themselves in the book and let the rest go. Others, wrongly anticipating titillation, seemingly gave up on meeting the first batch of statistical tables. Whatever the reasons, I have met surprisingly few people who have really read and studied these reports. Yet they are scientific and social documents of genuine importance. They contain data never before available in attested form. Whatever their defects, which we shall consider in due course, they provide material that is indispensable for anyone with V V1 PREFACE a serious interest in sexual matters -whether this interest be personal, ethical, legal, medical, or something else. My concern about sex is ethical in nature and Christian in content. After the first report was published, I wrote a review of it and contributed a chapter to a symposium about the report. I felt encouraged to make such evaluation by Kinsey himself, who made it clear that people with different concerns and points of view would want to interpret his findings in the light of their own convictions. I anticipated that many others, with a concern similar to mine, would also present interpretations of that first report. To my surprise, however, there were very few commentaries from an ethical point of view, and especially from that of Christian ethics. The result of this relative absence of other ethical interpretations was to quicken my sense of obligation to make a more comprehensive evaluation. I have confronted, I suppose, the same kinds of inhibitions that others, who have not written evaluations, no doubt faced. These are not easily conquered. The subject of sex is only a part of my professional interest. I am a theologian, especially concerned to explore the personality sciences for the light they contribute to theological understanding and religious practice. Sex has a place in that, but so have many other things. A second source of inhibitions about writing has been the recognition that whatever one might say would be criticized from both the right hand and the left. If the right wants only to protect tradition and stand pat, it will consider my understanding of the Christian view to be radical. If the left wants only to find a kind of freedom that makes sex merely an individual matter, it will not find here the formula for the brave new sexual world. But if everyone could be pleased, there would be no need to write at all. Perhaps like Kinsey himself, I have decided to conform to my own canons and let the bullets go where they may. In almost every sentence PREFACE V.I Vll of this book, the reader should mentally insert a phrase such as, "From the author's point of view." Alfred C. Kinsey has several colleagues, including Clyde E. Martin, Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Paul H. Gebhard. To save space, reference is made here simply to Kinsey, as the senior researcher and author. The omission of "Doctor" and "Professor" and the use of just "Kinsey" is also to save space. I am grateful to Alfred C. Kinsey and his colleagues, and to the W. B. Saunders Company, publisher of Kinsey's two reports, for permission to use the quotations from them. For the sake of brevity, all references to Sexual Behavior in the Human Male are indicated by the Roman numeral I, accompanied by the proper page; while all references to Sexual Behavior in the Human Female are indicated by the Roman II, along with page number. I want to express appreciation to Alfred C. Kinsey for his courtesy in engaging in an extended correspondence with me. I want also to thank some of my colleagues and friends: Bernard M. Loomer, who read the entire first draft and made suggestions that have greatly improved the finished product; J. Coert Rylaarsdam and William B. Oglesby, Jr., who helped on the chapters presenting the biblical views of sex, and Jerald C. Brauer, who read the sections on historical development. My deepest gratitude goes to James Rietmulder and his colleagues at Association Press, who conceived the idea of this book, convinced me I could and should write it, gave me help at every stage of the planning and writing, and produced it with record efficiency. I hope and believe that the book is fair to Kinsey, and to the Christian view of sex. SEWARD HmTNER The University of Chicago September, 1953 CONTENTS PREFACE V 1. CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF SEX 3 Different Views Held by Christians 3 Biblical Views of Sex 7 Views of Sex in Christian History 17 Kinsey's View of the Christian View 25 2. A CONTEMPORARY STATEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 29 The Biblical and Historical Base 29 Modern Contributions to Fulfillment of the Christian Intention 34 A Contemporary Christian View of Sex 39 Conclusion 50 3. THE A AIM ND METHODS OF THE KINSEY STUDIES 53 Kinsey's Aim As He Sees It 54 Kinsey's Thoroughness 57 Kinsey's Interviewing 60 Kinsey's Statistics 63 Kinsey's Evaluation of Other Sex Studies 65 Conclusion 68 ix X CONTENTS 4. SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 70 Premarital Intercourse 75 Masturbation 85 Social Group: Past, Present, and Future 89 Conclusion 93 5. MEN AND WOMEN 98 Similarities 99 Differences 101 Extramarital Relations 107 In Search of a Solution 109 6. THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 115 Heterosexual Petting 120 Homosexuality 123 Sexuality in Children 127 Conclusion 131 ' 7. KINsEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 134 Amount of Sexual Activity 136 Kinsey on the Three Faiths 141 A Jewish-Christian Versus a Biological View of Sex 143 Conclusion 150 8. EXIsTING ArrrruDEs TowARD SEX 154 The Child-of-Nature Attitude 155 The Respectability-Restraint Attitude 159 The Romantic Attitude 162 The No-Harm Attitude 169 The Toleration Attitude 173 The Personal-Interpersonal Attitude 175 9. CRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 179 The Child-of-Nature Attitude 180 The Respectability-Restraint Attitude 182 CONTENTS Xl The Romantic Attitude 185 The No-Harm Attitude 191 The Toleration Attitude 195 Conclusion 200 10. THE CHRISTIAN VIEW IN THE LIGHT OF KINSEY 206 Kinsey's Challenge to the Christian View 209 Making the Christian View Effective in Society 216 11. SOME IMPLICATIONS OF THE CHRSTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY 220 The Relevance of the Christian View 221 Helping Teen-Agers and Young People 226 Sex in Marriage 233 Use and Misuse of Kinsey 236 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS 1. CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF SEX IT IS the purpose of this book to examine the findings and methods of the Kinsey studies in the light of the Christian view of sex. To achieve this end, a good many of the pages will be devoted to Kinsey. But since Kinsey is not being reported here in the simple descriptive sense of journalism, it is necessary that the view from which Kinsey is examined be made clear and explicit. This chapter and the next are devoted to a constructive statement of the Christian view of sex. This chapter begins with a consideration of the differences in views that have been, and are, held by Christians. Then follows an examination of the biblical teaching about sex and the biblical message as it is relevant to sex. The chapter concludes with a summary of the views of sex through Western Christian history. The following chapter will present a constructive and contemporary statement of the Christian view of sex, based explicitly on the biblical message, enlightened by Christian history, and given new tools and insights by modern scientific study and therapeutic practice. DIw ENr VIEWs HeIM BY CHRISLNS If a Christian view of sex is understood as that held by a person or group calling itself Christian, then there have been, 3 4 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS and are, a variety of Christian views of sex. Tertullian, Jerome, and Augustine believed that a holding down of sex impulses was a good thing in itself and pleasing to God, though they recognized that such complete suppression seemed impossible to most people. Martin Luther left the monastery and married to demonstrate that there was no special merit or virtue in suppressing sex. In the sexual as in other realms of life Christians have often failed to live up to what they believed to be right according to the Christian view. But there is more to the differences than a discrepancy between ideal and conduct. Even among persons and groups with a minimum of such discrepancy, there have been wide differences of conviction. In our own land we may think, for instance, of the Mormons whose plural marriage, whatever the complex motivations behind it, insured that every woman was in a responsible family atmosphere and that none was "on the town" of the frontier community. Or we think of the Oneida community, now perpetuated in memory when the silver chest is given to the engaged daughter, but once a brave experiment in sexual matters undertaken on Christian grounds. More significant than the differences of conviction demonstrated by these relatively small groups are those among large groups of Christians: Roman Catholics and Protestants, Italians and English, Greek and Swedish, Oriental and Occidental. Some of the differences between such groups are merely cultural in nature. But the fact is that every such group, explicitly or implicitly, has claimed a basis for its views not only in its culture but also in its interpretation of Christianity. Leaving aside for the moment those views of Christians which even they themselves, at some level of their being, know to be other than Christian, how can we account for the fact that there have been and are so many conscientiously CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF SEX 5 held understandings of the Christian view of sex, differing so widely among themselves? The answer-why such convinced diversities exist-is to be found in three facts of Christian history. The first is that Christianity did not come into being as a rule book. It came, instead, as a way of life, of thought, of salvation, of inner conviction and experience about man's relation to God, the very support of man's being. Through Jesus Christ, Christianity claimed, man's relationship to God was altered; and so, if the man were in Christ, was he himself changed. Although he would still be a sinner, he would nevertheless become a new being in Jesus Christ through the faith given to any believer in Christ. Men should be humble and obedient and joyful before God, as his nature and his love were revealed through Jesus Christ. They should be open to guidance in all their affairs by God's Holy Spirit (not, be it noted, by God's Holy Regulation). But precisely what this should mean in all the detailed relationships of life was something not set forth in final form. The New Testament had no Blackstone or Marquess of Queensbury to indicate what the Christian view should mean for every detail of life, whether about sex or anything else. Because of this, equally devoted and conscientious groups of men have drawn different implications from the Christian view. There has also been a variety of Christian views of sex because there have been different convictions about where the authority in Christianity lies. Some, like the Roman Catholic Church, have held that such authority resides not only in the Bible, and in Christ revealed in the Bible, but in the actual Church as the body of Christ on earth, and in the pope as the vicar of Christ. Some Protestants have held that the authority is in the Bible in such a literal sense that, if the Bible does not give warrant to the use of instrumental music in worship, then instrumental music should be excluded from worship. The view of the great Protestant Reformers was 6 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS less literal and more basic-that the authority is Christ revealed through the Bible, brought by the Holy Spirit into the hearts of men. In so far as there have been differences about the source of Christian authority, equally conscientious Christians have tended to look in different places for the meaning and ground of Christianity, whether in relation to sex or other things. We may note also that Christianity is, and has always been considered by Christians to be, a historical religion. Christianity is not just a body of principles or truths, however important such principles and truths may be to it. Christianity emerged in actual events, Jesus as the Christ (the anointed) of God entering the world to redeem it. Christianity developed, in other words, from something concrete. But a "view of" something, such as sex, is never quite the same as something concrete. A "view of" takes what is basic in one situation and applies it in another situation. One can not transfer the whole concrete original to a new situation. In this translation process, from one concrete situation and one historical era to another, there may indeed be differences of implication among equally devoted Christians. Christians have not been unaware that other Christians held different views of the meaning of Christianity. In the face of the diversity, some churches have simply declared themselves right and others wrong. Especially among the Protestant churches, and notably through the ecumenical movement of our own time, there has been not only the conviction that others too may have facets of the truth but also that both commonness and difference are worthy of continued exploration. From this point of view, each church is less than the full body of Christ, as each Christian is less than a completely successful follower of the will of God. Even together, they are less than the True Church of those who follow Christ; but in constructive and critical co-opera CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF SEX 7 tion with one another, they may be closer to the True Church than they would otherwise be. Where the ecumenical spirit has prevailed, there is a method for dealing with differences of conviction. This does not eliminate those differences. It does show areas of agreement deeper than had been realized. And it provides a means and a motivation for subjecting one's differences of conviction to the judgment of others who, by the grace of God, may have light to shed upon them. The ecumenical spirit does not and should not minimize the significance of one's own conviction. It is likely to send one back to the sources, to what he believes to be the fundamental authorities, to see if he has interpreted aright. It is no accident that Protestantism, with so much of this spirit, has fathered research and education in so many realms. It is in this ecumenical spirit that this understanding of the Christian view of sex is presented. If there should creep into it any arrogance implying that any other interpretation of the Christian view is of necessity wholly wrong, the intention would be defeated. But if the impression should be given that anyone's view is as Christian as any other's, or that the differences are a mere matter of taste, it would be leaning over backward on basic convictions. BIBLICAL VIEWS OF SEX Since the Bible is the medium through which the revelation of Jesus Christ has been transmitted to us as the "word" that "drives Christ," as Luther said, into our hearts, we may first consider the biblical view and views of sex. Modern biblical scholarship immediately warns us that we must accept the fact of differences. The Bible was written over a period of many centuries. Not only did social conditions change, but there was change and development in conceptions of God and his relation to man, and in what flowed from these about man's conduct and man's good. Even the 8 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS most casual reader of the Old Testament knows that it was at one time not considered displeasing to God for a man to have more than one wife or concubine; but he may not realize that adultery related almost entirely to sex acts by married women rather than by married men, or that the divorce problem to which Jesus addressed himself was one in which men could secure divorce from women on virtually no grounds at all. There are certainly differences within the Bible, not alone on details but also on some fairly basic matters. In spite of these differences, one can understand the biblical view of sex only as he looks for threads which run throughout as well as for the undeniable differences. Several strands alter their meaning, and especially their depth, as the biblical account progresses. If one stated these in the most primitive form in which they appeared, he would be doing injustice to the Bible. But if he recognizes no kinship, beneath the differences, between late (e.g., Pauline) and early (e.g., Genesis) interpretations, then he is failing to see the Bible as the account of man's increasing understanding of the nature of his personal relation to God and the consequent social relation to his fellow man. In those parts of the Old Testament that reflect the historically earliest conceptions of the Hebrew people, we find a conception of sex like that of the "mana" of which the anthropologists speak-a kind of mysterious, external, and wholly supernatural force that invades human life and human beings for good or for ill.l Thus one's destiny, sexual and otherwise, is largely under the control of outside forces, frequently acting in what seems to be an arbitrary manner, and against the most demonic invasions of which one does well to erect barriers in the form of rituals, taboos, and sacrifices. Thus the Old Testament proscriptions focused around a menstruating woman are very detailed.2 Scholars believe that in early Israel (pre-Exilic Judaism) there was temple CHRISTIAN VIEWVS OF SEX 9 prostitution, not as a degradation of sex (as is any prostitution today) but as a ritualistic means of sacrifice, linking the "holy" with the "mysterious," and sex with "holiness" as well as with "mystery." This early conception of sex as a mystery undergoes profound changes as the biblical account moves on. But although the crudity and primitivity disappear, the notion of sex as a mystery continues. Through sex one comes to "know" another, and thereby to know something of the secret of his own existence.3 The use of the term "know" as a synonym for sexual intercourse is not a matter of delicacy. Through sex, one discovers something he can explore in no other way. He is a physical being; and through sex he discovers something of another being, and thus also of himself, that he had not, from the inside, "known" before. The riddle of his existence does not lie in the stars. Through his physical existence he has received a gift that transcends the physical existence he shares with animals. How this happens is a mystery. Sex is in some basic sense sacramental, in that a spiritual gift has emerged through a physical act.4 Sex is not apart from God. It is a part of God's creation. Such a conception is far indeed from the early Hebrew conception of sex as mystery, but there is a thread running through the development. Consider what other views this view prevented, right from the beginning. There could be no mere animalism of sex. Willy-nilly, forces of mystery, unknown on a purely biological level, were involved. Similarly, such a view prevented a spiritism. The Hebrews could not say that God created the mind and disembodied spirit (as some of the Greeks said), but that man's ideal existence would shuffle off such things as sex in a physical sense. For to say that God created sex also said that he worked, in some sense, through sex-however much it might be a mystery as to precisely how. And even from the beginning, sex as mystery and as sacra 10 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS mental was related to the Hebrew understanding of God as personal and righteous. This conception also underwent development. From one point of view, the Old Testament can be read as a series of legalistic creations (to appease a righteous God, or to demonstrate change of heart by the people in their attitude toward God), always broken up by the prophetic witness that recalled men to need for true repentance and not merely formal obedience. If God was a personal and righteous God, and men sinned against him and went astray like lost sheep, then no amount of formal or ritualistic obedience by men could bring them back. It was, said the great prophets, God's love which could restore men.5 Only a righteous God could have a will for men, and only a loving God could help them come, despite failures, to follow that will. All this development of the Old Testament was the developing and changing theological base that made possible the increasingly profound insight into the nature of sex as mystery and as sacramental in nature. When the prophets (and Jesus concerning the Pharisees) set forth their criticisms of the legalisms and ritualisms, they did not say that all law (or order or structure) should be done away with because it was something imposed from without.6 They criticized legalism for betraying the function of God's law. Laws had been dealt with as external impositions (or as appeasements). Actually, they said, God's law is, at the same time, the law of man's true being. Legalisms always forget this. As Paul Tillich says in our own time, "theonomy" (literally, God-law) does not contradict "auton_omy" (literally, self-law), but is essential to its fulfillment.7 Thus, God has created man as a sexual being. His sexuality is not reprehensible and not accidental. It is deep and mysterious; but he can not follow God's will about this aspect of his being if he ignores it, or flattens it, or makes it his whole being. In itself it is good. It is up to him to use it as God intended, for the fulfillment of his own being. CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF SEX 11 By the time we reach the four Gospels, there are two main aspects of Jesus' teaching that have special relevance for sex. -eThe first is illustrated in the statement that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it.8 He seemed to have little sympathy for those who, avoiding examination of the basic purpose of God, looked to specific laws and justified or condemned on such bases. His teaching about the sinfulness of one who looks on a woman with adultery in his heart should be read in this light.9 If one 'lusts" after a woman, such a perspective upon people has become so basic a part of one's character that he does not see the whole person who is there. This is the sin, the rejection of a personal relationship, the use of another person (even symbolically) as if she were not a person or child of God. The other teaching in Jesus especially relevant to sex says that it, while good, is not the most important thing in life. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, is the way in which the most important thing is usually stated by Jesus.'0 Some might be "eunuchs" for the sake of the kingdom, he said.ll Basically, this point is closely related to the previous one. It is as if Jesus had said, in modern terms: Whatever is created by God is good; if it is such a value, seek it; but if your seeking it deters you from seeking the most important thing in life, then put it aside, temporarily or permanently. When we consider Paul and the remainder of the New Testament, we need to recall that a profound change had taken place. To Paul, it was not he but Christ who lived in him.l2 A new era had come. Jesus' followers, the early church, were Christ's "body," and they now worked, as he had worked, that the kingdom might come. The old and ordinary era had not wholly disappeared; but in Christ there was a new world. The meaning of anything, therefore, including sex, was then not quite the same as it had been before. All was to be viewed in the light of its work for or against the kingdom. 12 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS In view of Paul's conception of Christ working in him, and of his belief in the imminent and literal end of the world, the amazing thing is that he did not become spiritistic about sex, and simply suggest that true Christians could forget it. He was much tempted to take such a position, not only about sex but about many other things as well. Believing so fully that Christ had made all things new, he could not help constantly envisioning what it would be like if nothing but this were new. Some of his most beautiful passages are those carrying such a vision, like the Corinthians chapter on love.13 But he was too much a Jew, a Christian, and a realist to believe that actual human life could deal with the old era merely by ignoring it. Such statements of Paul as that it is better to marry than to burn, or that the immoral can not enter the kingdom, have often been discussed as if they came from a crusty old bachelor with a moralistic disposition and a busybody temperament.14 Such an interpretation seriously misunderstands Paul. His condemnation in various passages of the "flesh" is not antisexual, for the "flesh" to him represented that kind of use of one's body and mind that served only partial or segmental ends.'5 The body, on the other hand, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, he said, is where sex belongs."' This is another way of saying, mainly, that sex is inevitably, in human beings, a function of one's total being. To see or use it as if it were not, as if it were something set apart not affecting the rest of what we now call our personality, is to follow the "flesh." But man's body is not accidental to him. It is not just something imposed on him in this life from which he will be freed in the next; indeed, as theologians like Reinhold Niebuhr have reminded us, the notion of the resurrection of the body is itself another way of saying that man is not conceivable as man, in this life or the next, except as he is or has a body.7 This realism of Christianity, coming directly out of its Jewish heritage, was one of its CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF SEX 13 most distinctive features in its early years, quite in contrast to the Greek environment to which it soon spread. Paul's longest statement about sex appears in the seventh chapter of I Corinthians. In speaking to the unmarried, Paul is careful to note, "I have no command of the Lord," that is, his comment is merely his own observation.l8 If they marry, he says, this is no sin; but he notes, prudentially, that "those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that." 19 The most astonishing thing in his letter is the way he deals with persons who are married to non-Christians.20 If the unbeliever insists on a separation, Paul will approve; but if not, he recommends remaining together. This is not on prudential grounds, but because "the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife." 21 He adds, "Wife, how do you know whether you will save your husband?" 22 There is a strong implication here that sex itself may be an agent of God to the unbeliever that the believer should not lightly cast aside. Although Paul said a good deal about sex, his total views on sex can not be gained from his explicit comments on the subject. This is because of his literal conviction (in which we now know him to have been mistaken) of the imminent end of the world. In the chapter from which we have quoted, he wrote, "The appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none." 23 In a metaphorical sense, time is always short to the Christian; but the difference between the metaphorical and the literal is very great in a situation like this. Paul's views on other things, perhaps especially on the meaning of human freedom, may therefore be more revealing concerning the underlying attitude on which a view of sex would have been based, had he not expected a literal imminent end of the world. As Luther later discovered, Paul's radical doctrine of freedom had very shortly been watered down by the early church. If one is really a Christian, if it is 14 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS Christ who liveth in the man, then, as a new being in Christ, that man lives a life of liberty and of spontaneity.24 He is free from the control of the "flesh," whatever segmental ends would divert him from the true end, and equally free from the control of law, in the sense of having to conform to formal prescriptions. As a new being in Christ, even man's impulses are transformed, so that they are holy and right, as God intended. Because men are sinful, law is needed. But the Christian is the freest man of all.25 If one truly loves God, he may do as he pleases; because what he freely pleases to do is to follow the will of God. The main thing of course that Paul wanted to do was to demonstrate the spontaneous, uncoerced, unforced, unimposed character of the whole Christian life. The Christian is above the law because he is beyond it. He is not, ordinarily, against it; but in principle, if law stands in the way of the Christian freedom to follow God's will, then he would be against it. Paul was against the inner divisiveness of men that makes law necessary, and for the unity, in Christ, that makes it possible to be free under God. For this he was denounced, even in his own time, as a libertine. But there is no reason to think he excluded sexual dimensions from this conception of human freedom, so long only as it was in Christ. From the second chapter of Genesis through the remainder of the Bible, there is reference to "one-flesh" union; the two shall become one flesh. The best discussion of this, both in terms of the Bible and the relevance for a modern Christian view, is found in The Mystery of Love and Marriage, by D. S. Bailey, an Anglican clergyman.28 The essential meaning of one-flesh union, indicates Bailey, is that it has a radical character, whether one is aware of this or not. It produces an organic rather than an arithmetical kind of union. It is a serious matter, for good or for ill. To be sure, this idea, in the early life of the Hebrew people, was no doubt of the "mana" type. Where Bailey is illuminating is in showing CHRISTIAN VIEWVS OF SEX 15 that the development of the idea within the Bible leads toward the conclusion "that in every case the character of the union will be determined by the character of its constitutive act." 27 In any case, something serious takes place. Whether this is for good or ill depends on many factors. 'There may be "false, invalid" unions, or "defective" unions.28 Authentic unions in "one flesh" occur, he says, through "intercourse following consent between a man and a woman who love one another and who act freely, deliberately, responsibly, and with the knowledge and approval of the community, and in so doing (whether they know it or not) conform to the Divine law." 29 It may appear strange to the reader that this entire discussion of the biblical view and views of sex has not, up to this point, mentioned reproduction. For the idea is very widespread that Christianity "justifies" sex activity only when it has a reproductive end immediately in view. Whatever point there may be to such a notion, it is not that of any part of the Bible. This does not mean that the Bible is against the propagation of the species, or against responsible family life in which children may be reared. Texts such as "Be fruitful and multiply" are expressions of God's favor of his people in particular, and are testimonies to his creatorship in general.80 But after Adam and Eve became "one flesh," they "were both naked, and were not ashamed." 31 The matter is never put in terms of a justification of sex (as if it were otherwise reprehensible) because it leads eventually to reproduction. A purely reproductive notion of the Christian view of sex is not possible if one takes seriously the biblical views on one-flesh union, on sex as a mystery, on sex as the creation of God, on man's body as fundamental and not peripheral to his earthly nature, and on the freedom of the Christian. One of the serious modem students of sex from the biblical point of view, Otto A. Piper, draws certain implications from his understanding of that view with which we must 16 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS emphatically disagree.32 But he has some penetrating things to say about the biblical view, including this excellent summary of the unity within the biblical view: Sex does not represent the animal side of man, nor that of mere nature as distinct from what is spiritual. Such a depreciation is in contradiction to the biblical view of man. God deals with each of us as a unity; both physical and spiritual life therefore have to serve his purposes with equal necessity. Our physical and mental capacities alike are created to reflect God's nature. Hence the real problem of Christian life is not to eradicate sex influence from the higher realms of life; rather it is so to shape and direct sex through the will of the heart which has been sanctified by God, that, just as is the case with every other human quality, it helps to fulfill God's purposes.33 Piper's summary of the biblical view of sex is also worth examination. He holds the following five ideas to be fundamental: 1. In sexual intercourse two persons of different sex become joined in an indissoluble unity. 2. Sex is meaningful in itself, creating a specific kind of personal relationship. It does not require a justification by concomitant features, as, for instance, the possibility of propagation which it offers. 3. In sex life one attains knowledge of the inner secret of one's own physical being. 4. In love sustained by faith sex attains its consummation and perfection. 5. Sex life is necessary and good, but not absolutely essential for a full human life.84 Properly interpreted, these statements are accurate. We should, however, be cautious in the way we interpret the CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF SEX 17 "indissoluble unity," the nature of "personal relationship," the meaning of "specific kind" (which may yet be of miserable quality), the meaning of "consummation and perfection," and the sense in which (and for whom) sex may be "not absolutely essential." Piper's statement does not, for example, mention Paul's doctrine of Christian liberty, nor the point that the "radical" nature of sex may make for good or for ill.L(ut it is clear that sex is created by God, that man's body is not peripheral to his nature, that the revelation of spirit through body is a mystery and a revelation of the depth of human life, that sex life itself is to the glory of God, and that a merely reproductive view of sex is not biblicalj VIEWS OF SEX IN CHRISTIAN HISTORY From the foregoing summary of biblical views of sex, we have seen that these underwent considerable change-that the views actually developed from earlier to later portions of the Bible. Almost from the beginning of Christian history, Christian views continued to change and develop. Some of these developments, as we now see it, actually went against the dominant trends in the biblical views. Others, from our present vantage point, were essential to fulfill the intent of the biblical view under new conditions, and in areas to which the Bible had not paid specific attention. In an excellent historical analysis of what he regards as positive developments in the Christian view of sex through the ages, Roland H. Bainton points to three main strands or aspects of this development.35 The first of these is what Bainton characterizes as the "sacramental," which is shorthand for what we have attempted to describe in terms of the biblical view. This includes the seriousness, the mystery, and, above all, the sense of God working through the material for spiritual ends. This view was radically opposed to any con 18 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS ception of sex or of marriage as merely a convenience, or just a private affair, or solely an affair of state. The next positive development in the Christian view, Bainton notes, was the emergence of a "romantic" notion of relation between the sexes, beginning with the medieval age of chivalry. At first this was a matter of the knight looking from far off at his lovely lady (who was married to someone else), desiring her but giving her up for the sake of romance. This led to actual sex unions outside marriage for romantic reasons, as described in Boccaccio and Chaucer; but later to the conception of romance within marriage that is such a dominant part of our current conception of marriage in the Western world. The third positive development, as Bainton sees it, is the appearance of the notion that marriage, and sex in marriage, are for purposes of companionship, that is, that companionship between the partners through the whole gamut of life's experiences is a normative consideration. As a normative conception, this has developed only, Bainton holds, since the Renaissance and the Reformation. His implication is that a Christian view today requires a merger of the sacramental, the romantic, and the companionable or companionship views of sex and marriage. The seeds of this trinity, he implies, were in the earliest Christian gospel; but the two last could not come to flower until later cultural development made it possible. There were, however, throughout Christian history, other developments in views of sex which, as we now see it, departed, however unwittingly, from the bases of the biblical views, with their emphasis on sex as God's creation, as good, as mystery, and as requiring no justification if used to the glory of God. By the fourth century of our era, the suppression of any sex life was considered to be a positive good in itself, better pleasing to God than the married state, even though the latter was also according to God's will though CHRISTMAN VIEWVS OF SEX 19 inferior to celibacy. From the religious point of view, this meant that, unlike the New Testament, many church leaders after the third or fourth century believed that abstinence from sexual expression was itself a kind of road to salvation. This was, as the Protestant Reformers later pointed out bluntly, one form of trying to achieve salvation by "works," whether the "works" which supposedly bring merit be in the sexual or any other sphere of life. As Protestants see it, the Roman Catholic Church moved, during the Middle Ages, to a position that contradicted important aspects of the biblical view of sex. This was especially because of the way in which the Church became associated with Roman law, and a general legalistic mind-set that resulted. The dominant view of the Roman Catholic Church, even today, has sometimes been called a "social solidarity" view. According to this, in its earlier and cruder form, sex was justified by marriage, and marriage was to found families for state and church. In its more refined and subtle forms, it emphasized sex in marriage for purposes of procreation and the subsequent needed solidarity of family life for the sake of the children, and for the relief of "concupiscence," and in modern times also, for the promotion of love and companionship between the partners. Protestants, obviously, can not be against the "social solidarity" of the family. But a justification of sex mainly by its service to a social institution seems to Protestants to move away from the essential biblical view of sex as God-given, as designed to reveal the person to himself and to another, and to help penetrate the depth and the mystery of life. The Roman Catholic view of sex tends to say less about sex than about the family as a social institution. Thus, Protestant interpreters feel that in spite of the detailed attention that many Roman Catholic moral theologians have given to sex matters, there is not a fundamental and clear-cut view of sex as such within that Church. Roman Catholics of course 20 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS see such Protestant criticisms as signs of individualism, idealism, or "antinomianism" (being against any law to the point of anarchy). One's total Christian experience must be taken into account in such evaluations. But no criticism of the Roman position by a Protestant should neglect to note the immense amount of understanding of the frailties and weaknesses of men and women that a vast multitude of Roman Catholic priests have had down through the ages, and the consequent help given to suffering and torn individuals. The Protestant Reformation attempted a kind of revolution, in the sexual as in many other realms of life. Luther left the monastery, and then married, specifically because he felt that the monastic vows and state were contrary to the Bible. The motivation for this was not sexual, but was a denial of the notion that any special merit attached to renouncing the sexual side of one's human being. Man's salvation could not come by "works," even those works that professed to give special merit in God's eyes by the renunciation of sex and of family responsibilities. As Luther saw it, the New Testament teaching about some becoming eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom might mean that chastity and bachelorhood were personally preferable for some people; but what it could not mean was that these people were better in God's eyes than others. It was the merit or "works" notion that Luther considered dominant in the Roman Church of his time, and against which he rebelled in such a radical way. To Luther what God created was good. But man's sin perverted it all, from top to bottom. There ws no more sin in man's sex life than in his religious life. To think that the saying of so many prayers, or the refraining from sex activity, would be in themselves agents of salvation was to misunderstand the total and organic nature of man's sin, sin being simply man's alienation from God and from what God intended him to be2I'he one path of salvation, then, CHRISTIAN VIEW~S OF SEX 21 said Luther, was through "faith" not meritorious works-j through resting on God and his grace and mercy, and then acting, as a new Christian being, in the full freedom of which Paul had spoken. Man would continue to sin, but God's forgiveness would always be available. If one kept his eye on the main thing, that it was God's initiative through Christ which brought him forgiveness in faith, then the result would be a life of love and good works-but the good would follow faith, not be an illusory and deceptive instrument for avoiding the claims of faith. What keeps man alienated from God is not his natural or biological nature, but something that happens to his total being so that he, as a whole being or spirit, "rebels" against God, or tries to appease God by all manner of legalisms and good works.'As one might say, there can be sin in sex, but there can be sin in prayer or worship too.There is nothing inherently sinful in sex from which a special justification or sanction is needed to free it, as some of the medieval theologians had come to hold. So the Protestant Reformers said that marriage was not a sacrament, partly in order to make it clear that there was not some peculiar form of guilt inherent in sex from which special rites were necessary to free it. They believed that sex and marriage were sacramental in the sense in which that word has been used here, that this realm of life, like others, might reveal the majesty and goodness of God through the things of common human experience. But they were chary about putting it in this way. There were other aspects of the views of Luther and his fellow Reformers that were less close to the biblical view, and closer to the Roman Catholic view, than they thought. Not a little of the "social solidarity" view was taken over intact, with the family as a social institution partly justifying sex by being a school for young Christians. They said little about the mystery of sex; and in their desire to show that marriage was not a "sacrament," they said too little about 22 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS the sacramental meaning of sex and marriage in the biblical sense. They adopted the Roman notion of marriage as intended, in some part, for the relief of "concupiscence." Little was done by Luther and Calvin to domesticate the romantic aspect within sex and marriage, and it was to be some time before the companionship idea as normative made its appearance. In Calvin especially, but also in the other Reformers, the reaction to the "mystery" aspect of sex tended to be in the form of a call for self-control even in marriage. It was this tone that set the stage for some later legalisms and coldness about sex in Protestantism, even though the dominant position of the Protestant Reformers was positive rather than negative in its thrust. The later history of Protestant views of sex and marriage may be seen as a kind of tug of war between, on the one side, the emergence of the romantic and the companionship aspects as normative along with the sacramental, and, on the other side, a tendency to be either cold-bloodedly rationalistic or, through some form of Pietism, to return to legalism and "social solidarity." A marriage service, while still held in most of Protestantism to be not a "sacrament" (as a special act instituted by Jesus Christ), nevertheless tended to become mainly an act of the church as a social institution giving its blessing. This is a kind of "respectability" notion of the function of a marriage ceremony. Any pastor who has been deluged by couples who want a "church wedding," but who have no intention of doing anything otherwise about Christianity or the church, knows how widespread such a notion has become. A marriage ceremony becomes institution-centered rather than God-centered. Piper holds that, in later Protestantism, the immorality of nonconjugal sexual intercourse was seen primarily in the fact that it lacked social sanction.... Therefore it was not the fact itself, but that CHRISTIAN VIEWSr OF SEX 23 it might become known, that made the nonconjugal form of sex life harmful. Virginity and chastity thus came to be matters of purely conventional value, apparently without a factual basis for their necessity...,36 The prudishness that made several generations of Protestant theologians discuss marriage with practically no reference to sex would certainly support such a conception of the distortion of the Christian and Protestant view. We should note, also, in post-Reformation Protestantism, the increasing tendency to avoid specificity about most matters of sex. Whether for good or for ill, the Roman Catholic Church never spared its theologians in the construction of detailed "moral theologies" of a very specific kind. But "moral theology" in Protestantism tended to give way to "Christian ethics," with Christian ethics, especially on sexual matters, tending to confine itself to general precept. It is only in our own day that Christian ethics, originally under the stimulus of persons like Walter Rauschenbusch, has made a determined effort to deal with the concrete problems relevant to our day as the Bible did to its day, on the basis of the biblical and Christian principles. In large measure, this task still remains to be done about sexual matters, although the recent works on marriage, on birth control, on divorce, and on artificial insemination as partial aspects of the sex question have laid the groundwork for more forthright Christian statements on sex. Close to our own time, and even now, we have witnessed some distortions of the Christian view of sex that are especially hard for us to see because they have been so much a part of our own backgrounds. These have tended to take two forms, one for those who regarded themselves as more conservative, and another for those who felt they were in the line of liberalism The first group has tended to rest on a kind of moralism that suspects sex in itself to be sinful, "jus 24 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS tified" by marriage, and that requires that persons not conforming to the approved attitudes or patterns of conduct simply be excluded from the religious community.uch a view accords neither with the biblical view nor with that of the Protestant Reformers. In practice, however unintentionally, it has not been without sadistic consequences. The liberal tradition of the generation just passed, on the contrary, set about to rediscover the meaning of marriage. Boldly taking sex discussion out of the cellar, it advocated sex as a foundation stone of happy marriage, to be sought through right attitudes and some knowledge of techniques. Young people should get to know one another (nonsexually) before marriage, but the actualities of sex should be reserved for the lifelong partner. Far from suppressing sex, more should be made of it, as an instrument to foster happy unions, which would in turn produce happy families, and out of which would come happy children for a new age in which the misuses of sex would doubtless diminish. So far as such a statement goes, there nothingin it that explicitlycontradicts a Christian view. But it is astonishing how much of the Christian view it omits to mention, and how far the conclusion it implies is from the Christian conclusion. In this view, there is little about sacrament and mystery in the Christian sense; by implication finding one's true partner is what counts, and happiness will flow from that. The avoidance of sex partners other than the spouse is mainly prudential; there is little reference to the radical and serious character of sex experience itself. Nothing in particular is said about the problems of living with a spouse or of sex in itself; proper knowledge and technique are rather assumed to take care of all such. Despite the conscious intention, is suerficiald. On a more sophisticated level, sex itself is not the creation of God but something a bit contaminated that requires for its justification not a sacrament of a marriage service but a particular kind of subjective feel CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF SEX 25 \ ing. If that is there, if there is the will to work out the sexual and marital destiny with the partner, and if there is the knowledge of techniques (all the way from sexual techniques to how to manage a budget), then the couple are unlikely to fail. But the fact is that they can fail, and many do. Besides, many other people will not marry. Homosexuals will continue to be produced by poor rearing. Masturbation will continue to trouble youngsters. Sex crimes will still occur. Family quarreling will at times be anything but creative. To speak this way is not fatalism but realism. As far as possible, all such things ought to be prevented, and if they occur, to be alleviated. No possible stone should be left unturned to prevent and to help. But man is still a sinful creature. It may be in his highest aspirations for his marriage, rather than in his weakest sexual moments, that he may sin most grievously. Here pride, which he may not even recognize, may produce his hardest fall, which he may also not recognize. Happy after a fashion in his own marriage, he may totally lose sympathy for those who appear to have more problems than he, or who offend against sex laws, or against the romantic code of decency. A constructive and Christian sex ethic for our day must not overlook the values and Christian truths within such views as this; but it can not remain Christian without subjecting them to careful criticism. The achievements of the romantic interpretation of the Christian view, especially when coupled with the companionship aspect of that view, are very considerable, and we shall lose such gains at our peril. But they alone are inadequate when seen in the light of the total Christian view. KINSEY'S VIEW OF THE CHRISTIAN VIEW Before turning to a constructive contemporary statement of the Christian view of sex, we may look briefly at the way 26 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS Kinsey understands the Christian view. This is not in order to ask to what extent he is for or against the Christian view, but simply to see how he identifies such a view, descriptively speaking. C The answer is clear to him. The Christian (and Jewish) view of sex can be adequately characterized by the word "reproductive."'7 He suggests that there have been, historically speaking, 'Two kinds of social and religious interpretations of sex, one on the hedonistic side in which sex activity is justified for the sake of the pleasure it produces, and the other on the ascetic side in which sexuality is accepted only with reluctance, justified because necessary to procreation, and (perhaps) justified only if every sexual act within marriage is consciously seeking reproduction.88 He considers that Anglo-Saxon sex laws and attitudes came mostly from the Christian view, and more ultimately from the Jewish emphasis on reproduction, from the ascetic aspects of Greek thought and civilization, and from the ascetic element in some early Roman cult groups.39 The attitudes of the churches toward sex follow, he believes, from the singleminded reproductive concern, as illustrated by the attitudes toward abortion and contraception.40 This is also why sex activity is to be confined to marriage, as he sees it.41 Where he finds groups in society that evaluate sex acts as right or wrong, he attributes this to the Jewish-Christian reproductive conception of sex.42 Where he finds groups in society that evaluate sex acts as natural or unnatural, he assigns the origin to the same factors.43 He regards the churches as perhaps more influential than any other factors in setting the overt sex philosophy of a group or community.44 Though the social controls of the church are at times exercised directly, more often they operate indirectly, through the "less tangible concepts of purity, cleanliness, sin, uncleanliness, degradation." 45 So pervasive has been the reproductive conception of sex in our society, CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF SEX 27 Kinsey believes, that even in many persons who have no religious connection but who profess to make sexual judgments on the grounds of plain decency, the religious influence may be discerned in the background.46 As we shall note later, Kinsey points to certain differences in attitude among American Jewish, Protestant, and Roman Catholic people. But common to them all, he believes, is the reproductive philosophy of sex, so dominant that one could, despite minor differences, infer almost everything else from it. Protestants are held to be slightly different, but \not much.47 From the foregoing discussion, it must be clear that Kinsey's understanding of the Christian view of sex is not the biblical view nor the view of the Protestant Reformers. We should also take care to note that it was not Kinsey's job to set forth the Christian (or any other) view of sex as a view. But at a simple descriptive level, he found he had to say something about the Christian view as he encountered it in the people with whom he talkedj. there is such an enormous discrepancy as is now apparent between what he found, and the biblical and Christian view of sex, the main reason is probably not that Kinsey observed incorrectly but that the misunderstanding of the Christian view is widespread.D FOOTNOTES 1. See, e.g., I Samuel 21:1-6 and Exodus 4:24-26. 2. See Leviticus 12, and Leviticus 15:19-30. 3. See, e.g., Genesis 4:17, 25. 4. See Genesis 2:18-25 and The Song of Solomon in its entirety. 5. See Isaiah 40 if. 6. See Matthew 5:17. 7. The Protestant Era (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), Chapter 4. 8. Matthew 5:17. 9. Matthew 5:27-30. o1. Luke 12:31. 11. Matthew 19:12. 12. Galatians 2:30. 13. I Corinthians 13. 14. I Corinthians 7:9 and Galatians 5:19-21. 28 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS 15. See, especially, Galatians 5 and Romans 7. 16. See I Corinthians 6, especially verse 19. 17. Faith and History (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949), p. 149. 18. I Corinthians 7:25. 19. Ibid., 7:28. 20. Ibid., 7:12-16. 21. I Corinthians 7:14. 22. Ibid., 7:16. 23. Ibid., 7:29. 24. See Romans, especially Chapters 1-8. 25. I Corinthians 7:22. 26. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952. 27. Ibid., p. 52. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Genesis 1:22. 31. Genesis 2:25. 32. The Christian Interpretation of Sex (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941). 33. Ibid., pp. 1o5-lo6. 34. Ibid., p. 30. 35. "Christianity and Sex" in Sex and Religion Today, edited by Simon Doniger, Ph.D. (New York: Association Press, 1953). 36. Piper, op. cit., p. 26. 37. This reference is to Volume I of Kinsey's reports, to Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 487, and to Volume II, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, pp. 17, 168, and 259. Namely, I: 487; 11:17, i68, 259. 38. 1:263. 39- 1:263. 40. I:265. 41. I:263. 42. I:487. 43. I:487; II:314. 44. I:446-447. 45. I:446-447. 46. 1:479; II:314. 47. II:169, 260. The author is grateful for permission to use two excerpts on p. 16 and one on p. 22 (as indicated by footnote references 33, 34, and 36) all of which are from Otto A. Piper's The Christian Interpretation of Sex (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941). A CONTEMPORARY STATEMENT OF ~ THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX IN THE previous chapter we attempted to summarize the biblical view and views of sex, the main strands of Western Christian history in relation to views of sex, and concluded with Protestant views near to and within our own time. We spoke both as reporter and as critic, so that many aspects of our normative understanding of the Christian view were presented, by implication, all along. In the present chapter we present an explicit and contemporary statement of the Christian view, and of the authority and standards upon which this view rests.It will be from this viewpoint that the methods and findings of the Kinsey studies will be examined. THE BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL BASE The principal authority for our understanding of the Christian view of sex as relevant to our situation today is the Bible, accepted for this purpose under two conditions. These conditions are almost self-evident; and yet, since they have at times been overlooked or denied, it is well to state them. The first is that the actual development of views within the Bible, and even within the New Testament, be recognized. It has already been shown that one can speak accurately 29 30 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS both of biblical views of sex, since more than one level of the subject is considered in different parts of the Bible, and of a biblical view of sex, since there are leading themes that recur but in new and higher form following cruder statements in early parts. Union in "one flesh," for example, recurs throughout the Bible, always with some basic meanings in common, but also with differences.l The second condition for using the Bible as the principal base is that we call not only upon its explicit statements about sex but also upon what is said about relations of man to man, and man to God which, in the biblical view, always have direct implications for sex. Thus, we look not only at Paul's statements about sex itself, for instance, but also at his conception of the freedom of the Christian, because it has, among others, also sexual implications. Let us state the principal points about the biblical view of sex that are essential as bases for an adequate contemporary Christian view of sex. The more carefully one considers these points, the more he will see that they "hang together," that they are not a collection of discrete items that happened to find their way together, but that any one, in a sense, implies and presupposes all the others. For purposes of discussion, however, we must obviously take them up one by one. Sex is at oot, a mystery. It is a mystery because it is a g of God, always~poin-ting beyond itself, operating through what appears to be mere biology toward the revelation of our nature as total personal spirit. We expect it to mean merely one thing; but when it fulfills its function, we know it has somehow gone beyond what we anticipated. fGod created men and women as sexual beings, and sex is good, requiring no justification for its existence and expression that any other natural creation by God does not require.] But sex in human life is more than man's "flesh" or impulses A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 31 or undoubted animality; it is, for good or for ill, a part of his "body," his whole person. Sexual union is a serious and radical matter to the person himself and to his relation to God, whether he knows this or notAny flattening out or superficializing of sex is a denial of its human and God-ordained function, whether the flattening be in terms of mere casualness, animality, or trying to spiritize it out of existence. LSexual union reveals to us in the most emphatic (and ecstatic) form the meaning of another person, and consequently something of the unsuspected depth of meaning in our personal existence.Trhis revelation of depth and intensity, and similarity and difference, may be accepted or rejected; but the groundwork for it is in sexual union. CSex may indeed be sinful, and because of the way in which it can gather together various dimensions of personality it may become more sinful than most other realms of human activity.But in itself it is no more sinful than anything else, and requires no special justification for its existence beyond that required by other aspects of life. Propagation is to be understood as a desirable fruit of the function of sex, not as the justification of what would otherwise be reprehensible. CSex is, like any other tangible aspect of human life but more so than most because of its depth and breadth, sacramental in its function.jThrough the mystery of sex, God is revealed in the same process by which the depth of another, and consequently of oneself, is revealed in a new way. Sex is to the glory of God. CPrecisely because sex is serious, a gift of God, affecting one's whole being, and sacramental in nature, we are to watch lest it become, in unwitting idolatry, a kind of substitute for God3Thus sex is not essential for everyone, at all times, in terms of expression; some may be "eunuchs" for the sake of the kingdom; but there is no worth in God's sight in being a eunuch for the sake of demonstrating one's 32 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS eunuchness or his ability to control his biology as others can not. Where sex expression would contradict the highest value, seeking the kingdom, it is a gift of God if one is able to refrain, not a merit for which one seeks praise. Qinally, sex is for love in faith;3As love is not always in sex, so sex is not always related to love. But where sex leads to love, by those who are in the faith, then it reaches its maximum human potentiality under God. Thus, sex is organically related to man's highest potentialities as child of God, man's biology being by no means an inferior aspect of his being if only it be used to the glory of God in organic relation with man's total nature as spirit. All these points are essential to the Christian view of sex. Important as they are, however, it takes only a moment's reflection to see that they do not give us detailed guidance about such sexual questions, for example, as are raised in the Kinsey reports. On the basis of these principles as stated, there are no automatic answers to questions like these: Is divorce ever justified? Can one be a Christian and have sex relations before marriage? Is masturbation bad or is it only childish? How should society treat homosexuals? To be sure, there is some guidance toward answering such questions even in the biblical points as stated. But questions like tjis were not what primarily activated the biblical writers If we want to state the Christian view so that it is plainly relevant to such questions, we must draw the proper impliJ cations from these principles, along with using other resources (such as modern knowledge) that clarify meanings and relationships in a way of which the biblical writers were unawarefJThis same requirement exists in all areas of Christian ethics, and we have become more familiar with its use in relation to political, economic, and racial questions. For Protestants, it is especially important to look for clues not only to the Bible but also to the early Protestant Reformers and to those later eruptive movements in Protestant A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 33 ism that attempted to break up the legalisms which had developed. What most impressed the Protestant Reformers about sex was that the suppression of it had come to be thought of as especially meritorious in the eyes of God, and that such a view distorted equally man's religious and his sexual life. They began, therefore, what even the conservative Otto A. Piper calls a "revolution" in the sexual sphere, strictly on the grounds of their understanding of man's salvation by the Christian faith. Some later Protestantism became legalistic, and some became rather coldly rationalistic. It was against the latter that Pietistic movements arose, which often themselves became legalistic in character. For a very complex series of historical reasons, these later Protestant eruptive movements tended not to be revolutionary in the sexual sphere even though they were sometimes so in some other realms of life. They tended to stand on the gains in the sexual realm won by Luther and Calvin, but to interpret them rather legalistically; while the rationalists took the lifeblood out of them. There were some genuine advances in the consistency of conduct, but little in basic conception. In contrast, some genuine advances were made through the whole strand of development we call liberalism, through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This brought the romantic aspect of sex to fruition-to a fruition, we are tempted to say, that now approaches rottenness; and yet which, in the direction of its movement, was to clear away the last vestiges of arranged marriage, and at least in principle to point to the positive desirability of a sex life linked permanently to a life of affection. If sex is serious, potentially positive, then it must be thrilling; and the anticipation of and preparation for it must also be both serious and thrilling. So far as this goes, it is a gain implementing the intent of the biblical view. The same is true of the associated aspect of companion 34 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS ship through sex. Companionship, or friendship, relations as whole persons through all the dimensions of life, have not normatively been associated with sex or marriage through most of human history. There have been tremendous gains here through the liberal movement, closely associated with the growing emancipation of women, the increase in the father's psychological responsibility in relation to his children, and other factors. The recognition that some aspects of the social roles of men and women, understood in the past to be biologically derived, are simply cultural in origin, has given a fluidity to the relations of men and women in our time which, while sometimes chaotic in result, is indispensable as a base for working out a nonstereotyped companionship. MODERN CONTRIBUTIONS TO FULFILLMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN INTENTION It is asserted here that the modern sciences and therapeutic arts, of a social and psychological kind, have made great resources available to Christianity in relation to sex. These are in the form not only of tools and techniques, but also of insights and understandings of relationships that help to implement the intention inherent in the Christian view. The Christian view as such does not profess to have technical knowledge, whether about chemistry, biology, or anything else. Since sex is so close to the personal center of life, even technical knowledge can affect our understanding of what is involved. It may be, therefore, that such knowledge and wisdom as come to us through scientific investigation and therapeutic observation can help toward a restatement of the Christian view that is more adequate and more relevant to the modem world, and that can implement rather than negate the biblical view. There are a thousand things in the modern studies that have significance for the Christian view of sex. But that one A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 35 standing out above all others is what may be called the developmental understanding of sex. Workers from many fields have contributed to this, including Sigmund Freud. The essence of this is so simple to state that we may wonder why previous ages did not catch on. But like so many profound ideas, its simplicity is based on the gift of hindsight. The fact is that a comprehensive acceptance of human life (including sex) as a developmental phenomenon requires an attitude running against many aspects of the assumptions that have dominated Western civilization. What is developmental understanding? It is that the child noticeably, and the adult definitely but less obviously, develops or grows through a sequence of stages, and that the meaning of an attitude or of behavior at any particular point can not be understood unless it is related to this develop mental sequence. This is true of sex as of other things. For brevity's sake, let us confine illustrations to matters of sex, recognizing that these could be duplicated in all other areas of life. Suppose that a child, aged seven or eight, is found by his mother holding his genital organs or apparently playing with them. In past ages, the tendency would have been for the mother to be disturbed by such behavior, to try to stop it by threats or force if need be, even to scare the wits out of the child by her reaction. That is, the mother would have responded not to this behavior in terms of what it meant to the child, but in terms of what this behavior would mean if the child were an adult operating by adult standards! The reasoning, strangely enough, is abstract; for the mother deals not with the actual child in the world as he sees it, but with a future adult who is at this moment only an expectation and not a reality. Probably such a mother would think like this: if he does this when grown up, he will not be a mature adult; if we do not stop it now, he will get into the habit; therefore, it had best be stopped now, by fair means if possible, by foul if necessary. 36 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS Reasoning of this kind, we now know, represents a distortion and a misunderstanding of what is actually going on. Action taken on the basis of it, therefore, may not only fail to contribute to the desired end in adult life, but also produce otherwise unnecessary obstacles to the child's reaching that desired condition in adulthood. Freud showed convincingly that such incidents, far from freeing the child from attention to his genitals, could produce a "repression"-a seething overinterest and energy within, though concealedthat might later emerge in undesirable and painful though disguised forms. The developmental view is not another way of saying that mother, in such situations, should simply be silent. It is an approach according to which we find out what is actually going on before we decide what to do about it. It is not a final view. It does not in itself say what should be done. It says that nothing that is done will be relevant if we are not alert to what it means. There is nothing in the biblical view of sex, or of anything else, that would concentrate so exclusively upon an "endpoint morality" that all developmentalism should be denied to exist. Indeed, the Bible, with its injunction that we become as little children, is not without an incipient developmentalism.2 Yet an exclusively "end-point morality" has tended to be associated with the Christian view, usually in direct proportion to the extent to which legalistic elements have been at the time in control. In the instance of the mother and small son, "morality" would be equated with the "end-point" of sex life in adulthood. The notion that the obvious similarities (playing with one's own genitals as a child, and masturbating as an adult) might have very little in common would come as a shock to the mother. If that is true, how can you believe your eyes? The whole of modern science has been built around the discovery that you could not believe your eyes in the form of the most striking similarities, but had to search for the probably concealed similari A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 37 ties and differences that revealed the underlying processes at work. An even more striking illustration appears if we consider homosexuality. All Christian views have always held this to be both wrong and unnatural. From the standpoint of fulfilling the human functions of sex in adults, that is from an end-point view, we would agree with this judgment. But what does this say about a couple of twelve-year-old pals who engage once or twice in homosexual exploration? Without asserting that this is of no consequence, we now know that this may mean to these youngsters something quite different from what fixed homosexuality means to an adult. We know that all of us have a kind of latent homosexual component, and that all of us go through a dominant stage of our development when our interests are centered on members of the same sex. We also know something of the kinds of conditions and life relationships that tend to make for fixed homosexuality in adulthood, and that they probably have little to do with the possibility of casual exploration by the twelve-year-olds.8 Fixed adult homosexuality is more likely to arise, in a boy, when there has been a clinging or smothering mother, the absence of a male figure with whom the boy can identify, and similar conditions. If we had an exclusively end-point view of morality, we might wholly misunderstand the meaning of the twelve-year-olds' behavior, and thus unwittingly contribute negatively to the achievement of the very goals we seek. Let it be emphasized that developmental understanding does not say simply to let the twelve-year-olds alone. It says that one can not possibly know what is immoral or moral, now or later, unless he understands the meaning of the behavior now. And this meaning may not be at all what it seems to be, on the basis of superficial comparison of external items. The piling up of masses of evidence contributing to a developmental understanding of human personality has had 38 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS one temporary result which, upon reflection, we should have anticipated. This is that some persons, learning that we can understand a child or adult only if we understand what his behavior means to him, have concluded that it means nothing else except what it means to him. Instead of seeing developmental exploration as an indispensable preliminary, they have tended to assume it is the whole show. A moment's thought will show that this conclusion does not necessarily follow. The developmental understanding can not, in and of itself, be used as a kind of moral whitewash. In fact, the most far-reaching developmental understanding carries within itself proof against whitewashing or mere relativism. The fact that developmental understanding can be distorted as if it implied such conclusions should not prevent us from using it to the full to implement our statement of the Christian view. It is possible that the full significance of developmental understanding might elude us unless we have been engaged in actually counseling with people about personal problems including sexual problems. Normative statements about what life ought to be are of little help at most stages of such counseling. One must actually and inwardly accept the person as he is, and do one's best to see life as he sees and feels it. Our modem studies have shown convincingly why there is no substitute for this understanding. But a relevant Christian ethics ought to be something other than a statement of the end-points that one hopes people may be able to reach. It ought, in itself, to be something that is relevant to people now struggling with these particular problems, just as it would be relevant if they made the grade. There is a "pastoral" or shepherding dimension of Christian ethics itself. Christian ethics must be something more than an end-point statement of what is desirable. If it is a Christian ethics, then God is at work, supporting, sustaining, judging, loving, throughout the process of development. A Christian A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 39 sex ethic must, then, be so stated that it includes the developmental dimension, not as a mere addition or afterthought, but integrally. If this can be done, then the most basic contribution of the modern personality sciences and healing arts will affect directly our statement of the Christian view itself. The following section attempts to demonstrate, in summary form, what this means. This is not to say that there is but one contribution of the sciences of today to a Christian view of sex, in the form of developmental understanding. That is simply the most inclusive way in which we can state what seems to be the focal contribution. Kinsey's own findings, as will be indicated later, are of significance. The comparison of different cultures by the anthropologists is relevant. Freud's contributions to the understanding of sex in children as well as adults, Gesell and Ilg's detailed documenting of developmental stages in children, some of the studies of sexuality in animals, the discovery by the psychotherapists and psychoanalysts of the relation of sex attitudes to other attitudes all these and many other specific findings are relevant to the Christian view of sex. But developmental understanding is as good a brief summary as can be given of what is most significant. A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX An attempt is made here to state a Christian view of sex firmly based in the biblical view, but taking into account the modern knowledge symbolized by developmental understanding as a necessary implementation of the biblical view. Wherever possible, the points are stated in the language of the modern world as well as in the traditional language of Christian theology and ethics. It should be said at the outset that all these points are interrelated, that any one implies and presupposes all the others. Like the biblical view itself, as it has been described, this Christian view of sex is a consistent and coherent whole. 40 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS 1. Since man is a whole or total being, sex is good if it serves the fulfillment of man as a total being, that is, if it serves God's will for man. As a whole or total being, a personal spirit, or a self-transcending organism, man is not essentially something ethereal with body temporarily attached, nor is he an animal with the misfortune of a latelydeveloped brain that complicates an otherwise simple biological existence. Sex for him is neither an unhappy reminder of the link that binds him to an animal ancestry he has surpassed in other respects, nor is it more "real" or "essential" in its biological than in its psychological, social, or theological aspects. Man's sex life, since man is a total personal spirit (spirit, we may recall, includes body), can never be merely animal in nature, even when man tries to make it so. On the other hand, since man's body is man seen from one aspect or perspective, his sex life is not something alien linked to an otherwise free being. Since God seeks the fulfillment and realization of his creatures according to his will for them, he blesses sex that it may be used toward that fulfillment. Man is neither animal nor angel in his essential nature, but personal spirit and self-transcending organism. It is of the utmost importance to recognize that sex in the service of the will of God does not refer to something alien or imposed. It simply provides the necessary objective reference, of which the subjective counterpart is man's fulfillment as a total being. One of the reasons that the sacramental conception of sex has been so largely neglected in the modern world (i.e., that something of the divine is communicated through a biological experience) has been the suspicion that any reference to God means an unpleasant, external, and alien imposition. This is bad Christian theology. We have already noted how the theologian Paul Tillich puts this: man's theonomy (acting according to the revelation of God) is a fulfillment, not a negation, of his A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 41 autonomy (acting to fulfill the total requirements of his own human nature). Even the responsible humanistic views of sex today also hold that sex is for man's fulfillment as a total being, rather than merely as a creature of biology, or a disembodied ghost, or as an unstable combination of the two. In its thrust, the Christian view does not, on the subjective side, differ in principle from the best humanistic views. It doubts, however, that the full dimensions of human fulfillment are likely to be kept in mind if the theological reference is omitted. But any recognition of sex as relevant to the total dimensions of man's existence, and not alone to some part of that existence, is, so far as it goes, implicitly in line with the Christian view. Conversely, any view that confines sex to one or another aspect of man's being, as if it were hermetically sealed from other aspects and dimensions, is, implicitly, a contradiction or foreshortening of the Christian view. 72. Man's total self or being (spiritual or organismic) has its very existence in the community of other selves; and it is the aim of all human interrelationships in all their aspects (including the sexual) to foster the love in which spiritual or organismic selfhood is nurtured. It has never been an easy task for Christianity to find effective ways of stating that we are members one of another, that it is our "membership" in one another which is the source and, in some respects, the end of our selfhood. Many kinds of metaphors and analogies have been used for this purpose. No man is an island, said John Donne. We are members of the body of Christ, said Paul. Our relationships to others are not merely external, as if we were what is inside our skin and other people were to us only as external environment. Some modern tools, discoveries, and concepts have now come to our aid at this point. A "field theory" of personality is developing, according to which each man's individuality is real but is to be seen as the "focus" of a whole "field" or 42 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS network of interrelationships. Without such a network or field, there could not be a focus.4 Our very selfhood is made up of "reflected appraisals" of other people in the course of our development, wrote George Herbert Mead.5 It is equally essential to man as man that he express his "homonomous" needs (for relationship) as that he develop his "autonomous" ones (for personal expression and integrity), writes the psychiatrist, Andras Angyal.6 These modern tools, insights, and concepts are genuinely original, and they provide a technical knowledge of the processes of personality formation never before available. They are immensely valuable in filling in the Christian conviction that men are members one of another. Along with all other types of relationship, contact, and human expressiveness, sex too is to promote the love which is the matrix of human personality itself. Human living is inevitably a matter of relationship. In addition to acknowledging this fact, the Christian view immediately states that what counts about the relationship is its quality. The goal of all relationships is love in the Christian sense; and sexual relationships are no exception. This interpersonal or members-one-of-another conception of human life is not, we should note, a swallowing up of /personhood or individuality in some collectivity. When the relationships operate as intended by God, they sharpen individuality; and genetically speaking, individuality would be without quality and color if it had no such relationships, if, indeed, it could exist at all. There have sometimes been sentimental interpretations of the "one-flesh union" idea of the Bible, as if two persons becoming one cease, in any significant way, to be individuals. This is not the Christian insight. Perhaps peculiarly with sex, one's personhood is "opened up," and individuality is accentuated-albeit, if the experience be what is intended, one looks at all of life with a "new look." A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 43 The Christian view is not sentimental or unrealistic about the conflicts and discrepancies that are bound to arise between our individuality and our interpersonal matrix. Applied to sex, for instance, there is no guarantee, in the Christian view, that the choice of the best possible partner will solve all the needs and wants of either individual who is involved. Ultimately of course, Christianity traces these discrepancies to man's sin; but such a recognition, while liberating, does not automatically change the character of individuality or of relationships to bring them into a magical kind of automatic harmony. Sexual relationships, like other relationships, constantly drive toward the realization of a love quality (although the individual be unaware of this); and yet there are always severe limits to the realization of this (however much the individual or couple be unaware of them). Thus sex, in a peculiar but not isolated way, always has a paradoxical element about it. Though he try to deny it, one receives something more from it than he had anticipated-it is a gift transcending what he had deliberately set out to achieve; at the same time, even his best efforts to make it fulfill its high potentialities reach, inevitably, some level of frustration or alienation. No one can find perfect peace by sinking into some "great All" of sexual relationship with another; and yet he who cannot "let go" and accept the gift transcending his expectations is not moving toward love at all. From the Christian point of view, man is a sinner, but God forgives him, and that forgiveness may be manifested in many ways, including the gift coming to him through sex that he had neither planned nor anticipated. Yet the reception of this gift does not mean an extinction of individuality, nor a complete release from the problems and even the isolation of individuality. Sdren Kierkegaard is a powerful interpreter of the Christian faith on points like this. If the Christian view rests on our being members one of 44 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS another, seeking that quality of relationship that is Christian love, but sharpening rather than qualifying our individuality, then it must be stated and interpreted developmentally if it is not to be an exclusively end-point morality. The little child does not learn the love quality of relationship at once but through very complicated stages of actual relationship and inner self-conception. Many of these stages bear little superficial resemblance to adult love. In addition, people may become "fixated," as Freud said, at various stages of such development; and thus move into chronological adulthood with the base capacity for love greatly impaired. Unless we understand something of what is going on within the person and his relationships (including the sexual), we are not in a position to know to what extent he is or is not moving in the direction of a love quality of relationships. With this insight, the Christian view thus entertains a clinical kind of caution without in any way impairing its basic principle. When is this person so moving, and when is he not? This is a very difficult question, in answering which casual observations and snap judgments have little lace. f). The developmental aim of sex in human life is toward a progressive integration of the several necessary levels of sexual purpose or function. Biologically speaking, sex reduces tension. Psychologically, through sex we find unsuspected aspects of our selfhood. Socially, we discover depth in another and, by implication, the potential depth of all other persons. Ethically, we discover the relation between fulfillment and responsibility. Theologically, we see sex ultimately as a mystery, but a mystery revealed to us in part. Perhaps we can assume that, to God, all these aspects or purposes of sex are one; for from the Christian view, they are all necessary as aspects of the will of God for man in relation to sex. But we come to comprehend them, since we are human, as if they were separate "things." Their A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 45 meaning comes into our experience at different times and seasons. We are forever tempted to isolate one or more of them from the others, or to fail to accept the insight of a new perspective lest it disturb the satisfactions of the old. But the development of human sex life, normatively speaking, is toward an increasing integration of these purposes and perspectives. The end-point of this integration of sexual purposes may be relatively clear-a mature adult whose sexual life releases biological tensions, moves him toward depths of self-discovery, leads him toward ever-deeper love for his partner and beyond to the depth in every person, convinces him increasingly that personal fulfillment and social responsibility go hand in hand, reveals to him the mystery of sex so that it is at the same time radical, serious, and joyful. But who, a sinner, has ever wholly arrived there? And who is not, in fact, wrestling at any stage of his life with one or another aspect that is stoutly resisting appropriate integration? Who has not, at one time or another, confronted such severe obstacles, from within or without, that he has, at least temporarily, given up the battle? And who has not, on some occasion, tried so hard that his very effort made the goal elude him? Who has not felt at times that he had arrived only to realize that he has been equating dependency with mutuality, or possession with fulfillment? This is the sexual corollary of the fact that all men sin and fall short. But it is also more than that. It is a recognition that the Christian life, while lived with the end-point in view, is always an imperfect life in process of development; and that while development can not occur without a vision of its goal, a preoccupation with the goal at the expense of the next step in the process defeats the very chance of ap proaching the goal. The previous chapter emphasized how deeply the biblical view of sex regards it as, ultimately, a mystery, that through 46 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS biology there could emerge new dimensions and realizations of man as total spirit. This is profoundly true. But if a Christian concentrated exclusively on sex as mystery, at the expense of its other legitimate dimensions and perspectives, he might well become so inhibited or so withdrawn as to be incapable of any sex life at all. An adolescent boy who thought only of the mystery of sex would have a difficult time on his date. When he and his girl walk home holding hands, they may indeed have some consciousness of mystery. But the fact that they have, at the same time, some casual banter does not negate sex as a serious business. It may lead developmentally toward the ultimate integration of the several purposes of sex in their lives. In the metaphor used through the Christian ages, the Christian life is a "school" for everyone. Even if one is in the faith and has been "saved" he is still, in the language of the Reformers, a candidate for "sanctification." The words sound foreign to us, but the idea is not. No man wholly arrives, becomes a "saint." The whole of the Christian life is to be a pupil, or a "pilgrim," moving toward a goal but aware that it has not been wholly achieved, that one cannot, therefore, look down arrogantly on other men. The vision of the goal is of the greatest importance; but it is not a substitute for the actual process of development. 4. In its human dimensions, sex requires both intensity and steadfastness, and a proper relationship between them. We may consider first intensity and then steadfastness, and then the relationship between them. That sex is presumed to have intensity implies first, in a negative sense, that the attempt to make it merely casual or flat is to distort its inherent meaning. This means more than the criticism of the notion of sex as a "drink of water," or of sexual promiscuity. It means also that sex "with reservations" is a distortion. In its inherent nature, sex is radical and serious. If one acts sexually, but withholds in one way or another, he is in effect A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 47 denying its radical and serious nature. Flatness, as well as casualness, works against the intensity inherent in sex. Intensity is desirable from each of the relevant perspectives: biologically in the intense pleasure of the encounter and the orgasm; psychologically in the discovery of unsuspected depths in the self; socially in the depth of discovery of another; ethically in the integration of fulfillment and responsibility; and theologically in the deepening sense of the mystery. The arbitrary or permanent exclusion of any aspect of intensity foreshortens the meaning of sex. Steadfastness is also desirable from each of these perspectives: biologically in the form of physical fidelity to another; psychologically in the sense of movement toward depth and not merely toward breadth or thrill; socially in the constant recognition of new depth in the other and, by implication, in all other persons potentially; ethically in the responsibility that, far from destroying fulfillment, goes along with it; and theologically in the growing conviction that true faithfulness is its own reward. But a merely flat, routine, and well-ordered but pleasureless sex life is no more steadfast than it is intense. If steadfastness means only refraining from sex activity with persons other than a spouse, it may have some minimal value from the point of view of social order, but this is very far from the Christian understanding of faithfulness or steadfastness in its full and positive sense. That is not a negative but a very affirmative quality. It is distinguished by what it seeks, much more than by what it refrains from. Implicit in the Christian view is the conviction that in their full human dimensions, intensity and steadfastness are likely to support and enhance each other. A movement toward full human intensity in sex is likely to increase steadfastness; and a movement toward full human steadfastness is likely to increase intensity. Therefore, these should be concomitant characteristics of the sex life. If there is one 48 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS without the other, something is wrong; and if one is so held as to exclude the other, something is still more wrong. When they are exhibited successively rather than contemporaneously, there is wrong conception as well as wrong act. Developmentally speaking, the discovery of intensity and steadfastness in their full dimensions, and relating them contemporaneously, does not occur automatically. Very strong forces, both cultural and biological, attempt to prevent such a union. A roustabout, orgasm-chasing, nothing-but-fun sex life may be represented to us as the most "intense." And an anemic, unimaginative, full-of-restraint sex life may be represented as "fidelity." From the Christian view, these are caricatures. Wherever they appear, they should be exposed. At the same time, something more than and different from condemnation of those who are not fully intense or steadfast is needed. Here, as elsewhere with sex, there will be developmental stages. A vision of the goal is important, but the next steps are essential. 5. The meaning and the good of any sex act or relationship are always dependent, in some measure, upon the inner meaning to the persons involved; but the sole ultimate standard for meaning or good is the judgment and love of God, of which the Christian community may at times be representative. This means, first, that no sex act can be judged entirely in and of itself, without some reference back to the character of the one who acts. A good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and a poor tree bringeth forth poor fruit. What the act means to the person is the index of his character. What appears, on superficial examination, to be the same act in one situation as in another, may not in fact be so if the character reference is made. This statement means, second, however, that the ultimate good or ill of either an act or a character is impossible to know without a reference to God, to that basic creating and A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 49 supporting structure and power that indicates what it is in a man's character to become. The third meaning is that the Christian community in its visible form is likely to have better ideas than most single individuals about what God's judgment and his love imply, but there is no guarantee that this is so. According to Protestants, no visible manifestation of the church is itself without sin; so that the Protestant can never rest convinced that he is right merely because he does, or does not do, what his visible church tells him is right or wrong. Indeed, it is the readiness to bring everything, even the church, under the criticism of God's will that is the distinctive "Protestant principle," says Paul Tillich. This last point is of great significance for the Christian view of sex. Again and again legalisms arise in which blackand-white definiteness is sought, so that all acts of Type A (regardless of their meaning to the person, the community, or God) are called wrong, and all acts of Type B (regardless of ditto) are called right. This invariably leads to more emphasis on calling wrong than pronouncing right until, sometime, the pendulum swings, and libertinism in some form takes over. The fact is that, however convenient it might be to pigeonhole sex acts, with no ambiguities or unclarities, this is very likely to do violence to the meanings and the good involved. To be sure, there are some generalizations that can be made and that are likely to be relevant to most situations of a similar type. But one cannot assume in advance that the mere external facts give him the necessary information about what is in the "heart." This point implies further that, if the good of any sex act rests in part upon its meaning to the person, there is a peculiarly human obligation for that person to consider the meaning to his act, to him as he is, to him as he wishes to become, and to God as he would find fulfillment through following God's will. From the Christian point of view, there can be So SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS no Christian morality that contains no "reflectiveness" in it. Another way to say this is that man's mind and intelligence are a part or aspect of him; and that to fail to use them is to foreshorten his self-discovery as a total human being. The Protestant view of sex demands, then, that the person's attitude be an "inner attitude," involving actual reflection on experience and decision about experience. Still another way to say this is that, in the Christian view, there is no escape from a personal or "existential" decision to be, under God but without an infallible guarantee, a creator and molder of one's own character and selfhood. All this, to be sure, does not come automatically. It emerges in stages through our whole human development. The identification of obvious similarities or differences does not necessarily indicate that one comprehends the real and basic relationships that exist. Clinical caution is again required, although principle and goal are anything but relativistic. Perhaps parenthetically, we may note that any community, church or otherwise, is likely to regard its own view on sex matters as being closer to the will of God than that of any individual member. Against this tendency, which may indeed be oppressive and false, the Christian point may be so interpreted as if the community had no stake in the matter whatever. The Christian view cannot deny the community's stake. But what it must do is to tell the community again and again that its attitude is as much under the judgment of God as is that of any individual. The mere fact of being a community does not make it right. CONCLUSION Our constructive statement of the Christian view of sex has not gone on to demonstrate the implications for the concrete aspects and problems of sex. The main function of this volume, however, is the examination of Kinsey's findings in A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SEX 51 the light of the Christian view of sex. Concrete comments will come chiefly in commentary upon those findings. Whether this constructive statement of the Christian view seems either sufficiently Christian or sufficiently contemporary, must of course be decided by the reader. It may be that some unbiblical moderns will marvel at the modernity of the Bible. Biblically-minded readers may be surprised at how biblical some of the modern findings sound. It may be that our concern to construct a contemporarily adequate and relevant Christian view, fully biblical in its base but thoroughly modern in its statement, may have obscured conflicts and gaps that undoubtedly exist not only in relation to sex but to other things as well. Science is still leery about sin; and the Christian view of sex cannot omit sin from its basic understanding. Science is also a little deferential about God, and sex for the glory of God may sound a bit vague to scientific ears. At the same time, Christian theology is still a bit cautious about developmental understanding, and is at least nostalgic about a conception of personality that did not need to bother with "field theory," developmental tasks, and phenomenological significance. If this statement of the Christian view, or of developmental understanding in the modern sense and the biblical view in the old, is deficient, let it be corrected. In any event, we need continuing attempts to construct such statements. FOOTNOTES 1. See, e.g., Genesis 2:24, as con- of whether one's first sociotrasted with Matthew 19:5. sexual experience is with the 2. See, e.g., Philippians 3:12-16. same or the opposite sex. His 3. In II:447, Kinsey is inclined to point may be more important question this theory, orig- than we have previously inally traceable to Freud. He recognized. emphasizes the possible im- 4. See Gardner Murphy, Personalportance of the "accident" ity: A Biosocial Approach to 52 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS Origins and Structure (New 6. Foundations for a Science of York: Harper and Brothers, Personality (New York: The 1947). Commonwealth Fund, 5. Mind, Self, and Society (Chi- 1941). cago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934). Q THE AIMS AND METHODS OF THE KINSEY STUDIES OUR chief concern in this volume is to examine the findings that Kinsey has revealed, from the point of view of Christian ethics, and to see if there is anything in these findings that suggests alterations in our understanding of Christian ethics as related to sex. We are, therefore, concerned only secondarily here with the Kinsey studies as studies. But we can not be unconcerned with the fact of the studies themselves, one is tempted to say, any more than we can be unconcerned about the processes that led to the atomic bomb-even though our primary concern with the bomb is not its production but its use. How was the Kinsey bomb put together? It should be noted first that the studies are of positive importance; they should be continued and supported. Technical objections that have been made against Kinsey's methods seem either invalid or of minor importance. No one should have qualms about contributing data to the studies. Any attempts to stop the studies or their publication should be combatted. It is desirable and socially significant that responsible people like Kinsey and his colleagues make such studies. Although we may not agree with some of the inferences Kinsey draws from his, data, or with some of the pre53 54 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS suppositions that he brings to the studies (both in content and method), it would be a very weak and wrongly moralistic society that would not make possible the support and publication of such studies as these. If they corrupt anyone, it will be the fault of us as interpreters. And if Kinsey forces enough of us to do some interpretation, perhaps some incorruptibility may be achieved. KINSEY'S AIM As HE SEES IT There is perhaps no more ascetic enterprise in American scientific work today than the Kinsey studies, if by "ascetic" is meant a single-minded, forsaking-all-others, devotion to a hard and laborious climb, from which even unsought fame may bring only a new kind of isolation. It can not be easy to become a symbol, and it must be hard to be a frequently misunderstood symbol. Long a teacher of biology at Indiana University, Kinsey had done extensive research on insects. In such studies, he felt, there was no substitute for a "taxonomic" apr which sufficient masses of data are c tllected to take into acc6if-f n trrfo Taerag ut als the nextent o6fvariationns rnoffoi3&aerages. WSeni he was asked questions about sex inhiuman beings by his students, he discovered that no data had been collected that could be considered remotely adequate from the taxonomic point of view. He did not mean to imply, with insects or with people, that taxonomy is everything. But he felt it an essential ingredient in our understanding of such phenomena. Apparently hibernating over the notion of collecting data about sex activity in humans that would have taxonomic significance, he finally made a small beginning about fifteen years ago. Almost everything was difficult in the early days. WVhere could he get time, funds, and personnel for an adequate job? How could appropriate data be secured from people? How could adequate protection be given to persons THE AIMS AND METHODS OF TIIHE KINSEY STUDIES 55 who supplied data on such an intimate subject? Far-reaching decisions had to be made from the beginning; and although some preliminary studies helped at this point, the element of risk and decision could not be eliminated. It takes a man of courage, and of devotion to science as he understands it, to do all that has been done. One must also salute Indiana University for the encouragement and help it has given, and the Rockefeller Foundation for its no-strings-attached financial support of the project. Kinsey's aim has apparently been precisely the same from the beginning, to find out the facts about sex behavior. The facts, as Kinsey conceives them, include what people do sexually, and "what factors account for differences in sexual behavior among individuals, and among various segments of the population." 1 That is, the "facts" are not bare collections of statistics but also include some constructive interpretation (theory) which accounts for the facts' being as they are. He adds, in Volume II, that he has attempted to find out something about the social results of each kind of sex behavior, as well as about its origin and development.2 Kinsey identifies himself and his aims with science. This means, first, getting "an objectively determined body of fact." By objectivity Kinsey means the common-sense notion that you try to find what is really there instead of selecting out for notice those things that you wish were true. In his view, such objectivity seems possible only when the facts are collected and set forth "completely divorced from questions of moral value and social custom." 4 Being scientific also means to Kinsey using the appropriate methods for getting the data, and of these study methods we shall speak later. But we may note here his concern for large enough "samples" that all the main existing variations may be seen. There is an overtone through his reports that scientific study with large samples is more scientific than work with smaller samples. Many scientists would say that b 56 SEX ETHICS AND THE RINSEY REPORTS this is not necessarily true, the answer depending upon what one is trying to find out. But if what one is trying to discover includes getting at all the variations from a norm, then large samples may indeed be essential. In the third place, being scientific means to Kinsey being able to "think scientifically." 5 By this he seems to mean two things: first, positing and stating those factors that account for the facts as observed (factual interpretation); and second, thinking about a subject only after one is first in command of the facts. To think scientifically is apparently to avoid "loose statements and easy conclusions." 8 Kinsey quotes with disapproval what he calls "a fundamentalist professor of philosophy," who said to him, "There are some things that one innately understands to be right or wrong, and about which there is no need for logical discussion." 7 Such an attitude he regards as antiscientific not only because it does not encourage investigation of the facts but also because it considers the facts in Kinsey's sense as irrelevant to the situation. To Kinsey, there is never justification for perpetuating ignorance.8 There is nothing in the canons of science, according to Kinsey, however, which prevents the scientist from studying material because it is important or has "social significance." ' One does not need to pursue knowledge only for its own sake in order to be a scientist. As a scientist, one can have all the passion he wants on the basis of his social, moral, or other views of the significance of a subject. What he must not do is to permit any content of his own views to affect his reporting of the factual situation as he finds it. The true scientist renounces the right to make moral evaluations, according to Kinsey, but reserves the right to make evaluations of relevance and significance. As we shall see later, this sometimes makes it appear that Kinsey comes close to equating morals with irrelevance because they are inherently incongruous with the actual situation. THE AIMS AND METHODS OF THE KINSEY STUDIES 57 The speciim of the stuawhole is to "report on what people do" i.e., an account of actual lieavlor.~1 But we murs nor1 -6 e u lly that these raw data do not exhaust the purpose of the studies. They are the indispensable preliminaries to an understanding of why people do as they do, and of their attitudes toward sex. One who glances at the many pages of tables and figures may not comprehend adequately the extent to which the studies are seeking to find out people's attitudes rather than merely what they do. But Kinsey has a suspicion about seeking out attitudes directly. Admitting that the facts secured are confined to the overt sexual activity of the individual, Kinsey adds, "This has been because we feel that there is no better evidence of one's attitudes on sex." 11 This may indeed be true, but it would not appear to be very scientific to assume it as invariably true. Whether Kinsey's attitude toward the content of sex behavior and sex attitudes is as neutral as his view of the scientific canons would suggest, we shall consider later on. But from a common-sense point of view, what he is trying to get at is perfectly clear: to get the facts as they are, reasoning from overt acts to attitudes, in order to interpret why the facts and attitudes are as they are, and to set forth these facts and interpretations so that society (i.e., any responsible people except Kinsey and other scientists) may use them as a base for social attitude and social action on sexual matters. KINSEY'S THOROUGHNESS Before considering Kinsey's methods of collecting and handling the data, we should note the care and thoroughness that have gone into the over-all planning of the project. This is unprecedented in relation to other studies about sex in human beings. His care is indicated, first, in the number of people from whom he felt it necessary to get information in order to have 58 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS an adequate sample. The project as a whole is so planned that data will eventually be available from a hundred thousand people. As the project moves on, he is able to see which categories (e.g., white males over seventy, or female Protestants under thirty-five) are not adequately represented, and to proceed to find more of those persons to contribute data. By the time the first report (on men) was published in 1948, information had been collected from twelve thousand people, of whom about 5300 were white males. The first volume was based, therefore, on data from 5300 persons. The second volume (on women) was based on data from about 5940 white women, since a number of additional persons, both men and women, had been consulted in the intervening period. The over-all study is designed to run for many years to come; and all the findings in the earlier reports will be subject to correction when samples are secured that are felt to be adequate in all categories. Kinsey's thoroughness is also shown in his general method of securing information, by personal interview, and using none but the most expert (for this purpose) interviewers. Almost from the beginning, he rejected questionnaire methods. When one considers the tremendous amounts of time required for the interviews, the travel from place to place, and the administrative work needed in order to have people prepared to give interviews, one gets some small impression of the scope of the task itself. Kinsey himself has interviewed far more persons than have any of his five professional associates. The associates were chosen slowly and, apparently, with the utmost care. Even after their selection on bases that included professional competence, personal character, and willingness to devote themselves to this project, each of them had an extraordinarily long period of special training in interviewing for purposes of the study. In the third place, Kinsey's thoroughness is shown in the actual physical handling of the data secured. He developed THE AIMS AND METHODS OF THE KINSEY STUDIES 59 a seemingly intricate code system (known only to himself and professional associates) whereby information could be taken down in a very short shorthand during the interviews, but which would be utterly unintelligible to anyone else. Even if an interview report should be lost, it would be meaningless to anyone. Then he worked out a system of safeguarding these interview cards, and the other cards onto which the information is transferred in the office, which guarantees, as far as human planning can do so, against any possible identification of material, or against any other conceivable use of the material than that planned by the Kinsey group. The precautions as described by Kinsey are almost fantastic in the degree to which they have anticipated all contingencies. To be sure, this is sound. If this fact were not well known, many persons might demur on giving information. But the fact is that it took both courage and high technical skill to devise the precautions and protections that Kinsey uses. Reading somewhat between the lines of his reports, the reader infers that Kinsey anticipated, from the beginning, being criticized on the grounds that he was a biologist (specifically, a zoologist). He went, therefore, to great pains, even before the study began and ever since as well, not only to consult with competent persons in other professions concerned about sex from scientific points of view, but also to include on his staff of professional associates persons from other similar professions. One notes the absence of consultation with persons professionally concerned with ethics and religion; but, granted Kinsey's conception of science and morals, one understands that this exclusion is on principle, not through lack of thoroughness. In the fourth place, we may note Kinsey's attempt to be as comprehensive as possible within the limitations imposed by firsthand dealing with people. If he had included every area or question about sex suggested by various persons whom he 60 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS consulted, each interview might have had to run on for several hours. Some limit had to be set. But within what he feels is the maximum time in which accurate information can be secured, he has included everything possible. We shall indicate shortly the general trend of what he has included and what he has specifically excluded in the gathering of data. There are many other ways in which Kinsey's care and thoroughness manifest themselves that we need not take time to mention in this brief review. But we ought to note briefly the precautions he has taken to see that his data are presented accurately to the public. Responsible journalists were granted free advance access to the book on the female under carefully and fairly specified conditions. Probably any large journal in the country would have been willing to pay considerable sums for such advance information; but despite the continued need of the project for funds, all the advance material was given free. None of the thoroughness has been purchased without cost in time, in money, and probably in anxiety. Kinsey and his colleagues have received only university salaries; and even on the project itself, they have accepted only royalties on the reports, which are far from enough to maintain the studies. Since this volume is on ethics, we should not overlook the point that the planning of the Kinsey studies themselves is obviously rooted in some ethical convictions about the responsibility of the scientist to society. KINSEY'S INTERVIEWING From the point of view of method, two principal objections have been raised to the Kinsey studies. The first has been criticism of the kind of interviews by which data are secured from individuals. The second has to do with the statistical handling of the data once obtained. We shall com THE AIMS AND METHODS OF THE KINSEY STUDIES 6i ment briefly on the interviews first, and then on the statistics. Perhaps the first thing to note is that the purpose of Kinsey's interviews is different from that of most professional persons who do interviewing. He is interested solely, simply, and exclusively in getting information. The interview by social worker, psychiatrist, personnel manager, and others, may in part seek information, but it always has other legitimate goals as well. The client who seeks out the social worker may have to be helped by the agency, or may have to be helped to stand on his own feet so that he will not need help from the agency. There are always possibilities of future relationships, which properly condition the meaning of the interview now. Kinsey's one "future purpose" in interviewing is so to impress the person, while getting the information, that that person will not discourage others from interviewing him. In terms of his information-collecting purpose, Kinsey has no interest in this person as person beyond what is needed to get the data. There is nothing illegitimate about that. If this is not kept in mind, then the description of the interviewing methods (on paper) sounds pretty cold-blooded. Kinsey uses a "rapid fire of questions" as a check upon "fabrication," indicating that this has long been used by "detectives and other law-enforcement officials." 12 And instead of merely asking whether a person has done such and such, Kinsey turns this around, assuming that "everyone has engaged in every type of activity," that is, the person must be assertive enough to say no.13 The discussion, on paper, of "rapport" tends to sound mechanical, in spite of the statement that "something more than cold objectivity is needed in dealing with human subjects." 14 The criticism boils down to this. Kinsey is obviously warm, concerned with his people and their points of view while interviewing them. He is careful not to mystify or shock people.15 He approves them as 62 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS persons while interviewing them, giving no evaluation about their attitudes and behavior. But his interest in them as persons is only temporary and, indeed, partial. Although he says, "One is not likely to win the sort of rapport which brings a full and frank confession from a human subject unless he can convince the subject that he is desperately anxious to comprehend what his experience has meant to him," what his interviews have time to discuss is whether the person did this or that, not what it meant to him, interiorly, while he did it.16 There can be no objection to this interrogating procedure as such. If Kinsey should be convinced that his type of interview has penetrated in depth what the person's experience meant to him, then we would strongly doubt the legitimacy of such a conclusion. What Kinsey does believe about this seems uncertain from the published writings. Various criticisms have been made about the accuracy of the data that people give to Kinsey. Are not some people prone to deny, others to exaggerate, still others to make things up out of whole cloth? A sociologist investigating some sex matters in a high school was approached by an unattractive, fourteen-year-old girl, who presented him with some astonishing stories of orgies in which she was ringleader. There turned out to be not a word of truth in all this. How, the critics ask, can Kinsey know when he is getting truth or fabrication-whatever form the fabrication may assume? The answer Kinsey gives is partly a technical one, asking in effect: How would you do it any better? A long series of tests, repeated interviews, independent investigation of the subject's life and background, and similar proposals are not possible. Another part of Kinsey's answer, however, implicit though it be, is a human rather than a technical one. What he implies is that, having done a good many such interviews, one develops a feeling for the truth, in addition to some techniques for pouncing on anything that remotely smells like fabrication. This human "feel" can not be codified, and THE AIMS AND METHODS OF THE KINSEY STUDIES 63 it is significant for us, as we deal with Kinsey's findings, to know that his deepest convictions about the truth of the information he gets rest upon "subjective" bases. An allied question that has been raised is whether the people themselves know the facts, or remember them accurately. Kinsey knows that if one wanted to find out some such fact as the age of onset of adolescence (ejaculation or menstruation), a large group of youngsters would have to be watched like hawks over quite a period (because of variations in age of onset). Such a fact would be better attested by direct observation than by getting such figures from later recollections. But one simply can not do everything in one study. And on such a point as we have cited, what Kinsey finds seems to be in line with such other studies as have been done. We can, therefore, defend Kinsey's procedure as an information-gathering method. If Kinsey should draw conclusions (there is no evidence that he does) that psychiatrists, personnel managers, and clergymen could do better interviewing if they followed his procedures, that should be challenged. Or if Kinsey should conclude (here his view is uncertain) that what he has got shows the meaning of a person's behavior to him in a deep sense, then he is likely to be wrong. If he should conclude (here too we are uncertain) that his mode of interviewing is more "scientific" than others because concerned exclusively with getting information, then he would be open to criticism in terms of his understanding of science. KINSEY'S STATISTICS The more carefully one reads the Kinsey reports, the more he is impressed with the cautions put around the figures. One finds repeated statements of this kind, "... the calculations given in the present volume still should be taken as approximations which are not to be pushed in detail...." '17 64 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS At a number of places in both published reports, certain figures are given with the warning that the sample is not large enough to make us sure of anything. What should he do in such a circumstance? If he held all figures until the samples were of sufficient size, he might be concealing valuable information. If he presented inadequate samples as if they were adequate, of course he would not be a good scientist. But if he presents what he has and yet states it only gives a "lead," how can he be criticized? None of the statistics seem difficult to understand if one reads and remembers the explanation that goes along with them. In these studies he uses a statistical device which he calls the "accumulative incidence" curve 18 and which tries to answer this type of question: How many people, at any time in their lives, have ever done such and such? This seems a useful device, provided one remembers exactly what it does and does not get at. Kinsey has been criticized for including too much data on some kinds of people and not enough on others. For instance, in his first report for having too many male prostitutes and too few older men, and in his second for having so few women with only grade-school background. Some statistical experts believe that Kinsey makes adequate allowance for these things, although others disagree. There is one aspect of the method that ought to be explicitly noted, the difference between "partial samples," "hundred per cent samples," and individual samples. There are obvious advantages in going to some organized group (a college, a church, etc.) and having interviews with every member of this group. When this is done, one gets a "hundred per cent sample." When one comes to a group but can secure the co-operation of only part of its members, one has a "partial sample." When an individual as individual is interviewed, the situation is still different. Kinsey reports that "the figures derived from the partial samples are consistently THE AIMS AND METHODS OF THE KINSEY STUDIES higher for the total sexual outlet and for all the individual outlets except nocturnal emissions." 19 That is, when material is received from individuals who clearly volunteer, they tend to report higher frequencies of sex behavior than in the groups where every member of the group is interviewed. Kinsey hypothecates several possible reasons for this, including the most obvious one-that the more active and aggressive people, sexually speaking, tend to volunteer to tell about it.20 The question this has raised in some minds is whether Kinsey's figures may be too high all along the line since about 75 per cent of his data came from partial and individual samples rather than from hundred per cent samples. Kinsey himself raises the caution; and the answer will not be known until data have been secured from more hundred per cent groups. KINSEY's EVALUATION OF OTHER SEX STUDIES Kinsey has gone carefully over all the sex studies that have been published, the standard about whether it is a "study" at all being, in a rough and ready way, whether it has any figures in it. Most of the studies (there are surprisingly few of them) were either by questionnaire, or covered such a small group that the findings were not statistically significant, or else studied a selected population without realizing in what sense it was selected. Kinsey is most appreciative of those studies that used interview methods with particular groups, and with awareness that a particular group was being studied. The difficulty with nearly all of them, he writes, is that "they never knew what things were common and what things were rare...." 21 There is certainly nothing in past studies even remotely comparable to Kinsey's. So long as figures, frequencies, and countings are concerned, no one has tried to deny this. But is this the sole type of study that gives insight into sex-sex attitudes and the meaning of sex? It is on this point that 66 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS Kinsey has been accused of some arrogance, illustrated by the criticism of his use, in the titles of his reports, of the terms "human male" and "human female" instead of "American male" or "white American male," "American female," or "white American female." 22 Many cultural anthropologists believe they have discovered facts about attitudes toward sex (and resulting sex behavior) among different peoples that are not adequately considered by Kinsey. For example, suppose that a certain people permit premarital sexual intercourse quite freely but severely punish extramarital intercourse. In that instance, the statistics would show loo per cent premarital intercourse among the population, and ioo per cent of intercourse confined to spouses among the married. But, the anthropologists contend, what is important and even "scientific" is not the figures but understanding the key points around which this people's concept of sex revolves. The first goal of science would be, therefore, discovering the central meaning that sex (in various aspects) has to this people. After that, a study of variations, even of statistics, might indeed be important. But without that, all figures could easily be misleading. In his second volume, Kinsey has discussed anthropological findings to a limited extent, and finds them of some value; but he is critical of most such studies as not having moved beyond the biases of the culture from which the anthropologist came.23 As to the studies of sex by Freud and the psychoanalysts, Kinsey seems to have mixed opinions. On the one side, Kinsey gives Freud credit for suggesting the presence of sexuality in young children,24 for extending the concept of sexuality to suggest that "all tactile stimulation and response are basically sexual," 25 and for the general movement toward a "biologic viewpoint" on sex.26 On the other side, Kinsey sees no evidence for a generalized pregenital sexuality nor for a "latency period," 27 nor for the Oedipus complex,28 and THE AIMS AND METHODS OF THE KINSEY STUDIES 67 most especially not for "sublimation," the Freudian concept suggesting that sexual energy may be translated into other forms of energy.29 The more recent views on sex among psychoanalysts have tended increasingly to stress the meaning of sex to the person or group concerned, and are, therefore, similar to the anthropologists' view mentioned above. That is, they have increasingly emphasized the context in which attitudes toward sex appear, much more than did Freud. These studies have not been quantitative in nature, which presumably accounts for Kinsey's not mentioning them. From a quantitative point of view, he is suspicious of observations that come out of clinical situations as being unrepresentative. Perhaps the bitterest pill that Kinsey has asked the nonquantitative scientists (like cultural anthropologists and psychoanalysts) to swallow is that they are not objective, i.e., they read their own prejudices into the situation, in much the same way as do ethicists, law-enforcement officers, and others with a point of view. Citing several beliefs which are widely held (illustration, "that extramarital intercourse inevitably destroys homes") but which have not "been justified by objective data that would satisfy scientists in any field that did not have a moral (traditional) implication," Kinsey indicates that nearly all the psychiatrists and psychologists who contributed data to the study held one or more of these "prejudices" to be true.30 Among people who try to carry out educational programs on sex matters, he suggests, there seems to be "inevitably" a relation between the rates and types of their own activity and the "positions which these persons take in a public debate." 81 Being put by Kinsey in the same class with clergymen and policemen in regard to objectivity about sex has not endeared him to many social scientists. As an implicit warning to all, even those who call themselves scientists, to re-examine their facts and their presuppositions, Kinsey's critique is certainly in order. But 68 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS as to the charge that everyone "rationalizes" except those who begin with the Kinsey-discovered facts, one may be skeptical. Nor is a starting with these facts by any means a guarantee against rationalization. CONCLUSION This chapter has reviewed Kinsey's aims as he conceives them, and has considered these aims as both legitimate and important although limited in nature. His methods, both in securing data and in the handling of it, have been held as adequate. His attitude toward other studies and types of studies about sex has been examined briefly, and we have indicated that from the "taxonomic" point of view of his own studies, his negative attitude toward other studies may have some justification. At several points questions have been raised about positions that Kinsey takes, implicitly or explicitly. Later we shall attempt to indicate Kinsey's own point of view about sex, and to deal with this critically and constructively. But it is important to remember that, even if we should not agree with Kinsey's point of view about sex, this would not need to lessen the significance of his findings for us-so long as they do what he tries to have them do: present facts and account for their being as they are. From the point of view of sex ethics, his studies are a source book of the greatest possible importance. FOOTNOTES 1. I:3. 8. II:9-1o. 2. II:27. 9. I:397. 3. 1:5. 10. I:7. 4. 1:3. 11.:57. 5. I:3. 12. I:54. 6. I:397. 13. I:53. 7. I:385. 14. I:42. THE AIMS AND METHODS OF THE KINSEY STUDIES 69 15. 11:62. i6. 1:42. 17. I:119. i8. I:il6. 19. 1:99. 20. I:99-102. 21. 1:34. 22. In 11:4, it is stated that the titles should not be taken to imply the authors' ignorance of different patterns else where than in the United States. 23. 11:92 ff. 24. I:i8o. 25. I:163. 26. I:263. 27. I:18o. 28. I:315. 29. I:206. 30. I:21l. 31. I:199. 4. SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE IT IS not the purpose of this chapter, nor of this book, to do a journalistic job of reporting Kinsey's facts. The serious student who wants the facts in detail may and should consult Kinsey's reports. We want to evaluate Kinsey's studies and Kinsey's findings from the point of view of Christian ethics. In order to do this, some of Kinsey's findings should be before us. For this purpose, it is no handicap that these are sample or selected findings, for any finding that seems well attested and has social significance can be examined from an ethical point of view. Those types of findings will be selected for examination that appear to have the most striking import for ethics, although it should be noted that this has nothing to do with selecting only those facts which confirm a set of prejudices. The criterion of selection is obvious relevance. Kinsey makes the task of selection easier than it might otherwise have been. There is a single striking fact emerging in some form on almost every page of the reports, constituting an obvious starting point. This is that the chief influence upon sex behavior and sex attitudes is culture. As Kinsey puts it, "... the mores are the prime forces which produce variation in the sources of sexual outlet in different 70 SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 71 groups." 1 What we learn from other people is more important for our attitude and behavior than any other factors or all other factors combined. It is not so much what people think in the sense of reflective meditation on alternatives followed by conclusions, but what they take for granted because they were taught to take it for granted. Morals and ethics may indeed be much more (we would contend) than mores, or customs, or what is taken for granted. But they can hardly be relevant unless they take the mores and customs into account. To find, the overwhelming importance of cultural and social pressures and influences brought out repeatedly by the Kinsey studies is, at the very least, a kind of preface to morals. To facilitate our discussion, much of which will involve cultural patterns, we should first have an overview of Kinsey's social or cultural or class categories. Kinsey deals with these in two principal ways, according to educational or schooling level attained, and according to type or status of occupation. As to educational or schooling level, he divides all subjects into three main groups (and various subgroups): those who have not gone beyond grade school, those who have gone into or through high school but not beyond, and those who have gone to college for one or more years. These will be referred to hereafter, for convenience, as the "grade-school," "high-school," and "college" groups. The volume on women also distinguishes those who have gone to graduate school. Kinsey does not contend that such a rating is a wholly satisfactory way of determining the social class to which an individual belongs, therefore giving a wholly accurate picture of the kinds of social forces that impinge upon him so that he takes them for granted. But he does contend that "the raw rating of an educational level is the best single indicator of the social stratum to which an individual belongs." 2 It has the obvious methodological advantage of being easy to find out. 72 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS A second way of classifying persons by cultural influences is on the basis of occupational class, specifically "an attempt to designate the social status of an individual by measuring the prestige of the work in which he is engaged." 3 Nine such groups are so distinguished, as follows: dependents, as children; members of the underworld; day laborers; semiskilled laborers; skilled laborers; lower white-collar workers; upper white-collar workers; professional workers; big business executives; and extremely wealthy persons.4 A wife is given the rating of her husband, since this tends to determine her social status. Most clergymen are placed by Kinsey in the upper white-collar group, only "some" being considered in the professional class." Those in "smaller churches" are placed in the lower white-collar group.6 This would seem to be realistic, although possibly discomfiting. Since we shall make much use, in what follows, of these schooling level and occupational status categories, it is important to keep in mind the kind of reality that they attempt to approximate. This is the pressure put upon any individual within the network of his primary social relations. In this sense, securing data from individuals is, at the same time, securing data about the assumptions held by different groups (to the extent that the individual has accepted what the group says is to be taken for granted). The categories are only approximate, but they are certainly useful. Generally speaking, what Kinsey finds is that the overt sexual behavior of males tends to conform to patterns held by the class groups, but that the overt sexual behavior of females tends to be similar regardless of class background. In the report on the male, it is obvious at all points how the assumptions of each group tend to affect the person's attitudes and behavior because, for males, these differ markedly from one group to another. In the report on the female, it is much more difficult to assess these social, moral, and cultural pressure factors. Kinsey is inclined, at most points, SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 73 simply to say that educational and cultural level does not affect female sex behavior as it does the male. But this overlooks the possibility that the content of the class standards for women may be more similar one to another, rather than that different content is required in order to demonstrate class influence. The problem is complicated further in the discussion of women because findings on only a very small group of women with grade-school education are given, only 3 per cent of the total reported on.7 There is a curious paradox in Kinsey's comments about the effect of social factors on women that needs to be resolved at the outset. On the one hand, he indicates several times that "social factors" have less to do with determining the patterns of overt sex behavior in women than in men.8 But on the other side, he notes that "cultural restraints" especially on women have had a remarkably inhibiting effect upon their sexual activity.9 Is this a contradiction? What can it mean to say that women are more affected by "cultural restraints" but less influenced by "social factors"? It would seem that two points need to be made. One is that each cultural or class level may have different content in relation to women from what it holds for men. As a simple illustration, women and girls of the lowest-class groups may be carefully protected against sexual experience at the same time these groups consider it appropriate for boys and young men to have such experience. Sex may be considered a "flood" for men but not a flood for women at least if they can be prevented from starting it at all. The behavior in this group, therefore, at least in overt form, would be similar to that of women in other class groups; but the whole network of class factors conditioning it would be different. The second point is that women, even by common-sense observation, appear to be more sensitive than men to what Kinsey calls the "overt culture," in contrast to the "covert culture," when the overt culture is understood as the dom 74 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS inant stated pattern of our society.10 One thinks of the relative uniformity of women's clothes among all social classes today, or of the fact that there are virtually no magazines for men comparable to those for women. Whatever the reasons, it seems that women incorporate the open and outwardly dominant standards of the culture, especially in earlier years, into their own class patterns much more so than do men. It seems likely, therefore, although Kinsey's report does not demonstrate this, that women are as much affected or influenced by social factors and cultural and class pressures as men, but that it may be a much more subtle task to get at the content of these factors for women than for men. At any rate, it is a hypothesis of this volume that the difference between men and women is not in the degree of social influences upon men or upon women, but in the kind or content of social influences that tend to affect either sex. In emphasizing social and cultural influences as the major determinants of sex attitudes and conduct, it is no part of our intention to deny the tremendous individual variations, nor to negate the biological dimension of sex. Basic sexual capacities seem to differ greatly among individuals; and sexual development in some important respects differs considerably, on the average, among men and women as will be indicated later. But since the overarching influence upon the basic sexual attitudes, and resultant behavior, of both men and women comes from social and cultural forces, major attention will be paid to these in our discussion. We shall now turn to several types of facts set forth in the Kinsey reports, and shall indicate in each instance how Kinsey analyzes the factors that make the facts what they are. We shall then suggest several types of meanings or conclusions that might be drawn from the facts and their interpretation, including that from the point of view of Christian ethics. SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 75 PREMARITAL INTERCOURSE How many people these days are engaging in premarital intercourse, i.e., sex relations with the opposite sex, genital union in which orgasm, at least for the male, results? This question asks how many have had such relations at least once at any time before they marry if they do marry. The answer will say nothing about how frequently, when begun, or with whom. In other words, the answer is in terms of Kinsey's "accumulative incidence" figure. In those terms, the answer is, for males, that 98 per cent who never go beyond grade school engage in premarital intercourse at some time: 84 per cent of those who never go beyond high school; and 67 per cent of those who go into college."l For females, the situation appears to be, on the surface, quite different; for only 30 per cent of the grade-school group had premarital intercourse (coitus) and 47 per cent of the high-school group, while the figure for the college women was 60 per cent.12 A total of nearly 50 per cent of the women had had coitus before marriage.'3 A considerable proportion of these women, however, had such relations only with their fiances just before marriage.l4 Kinsey indicates that the differences among the class groups is entirely due to the fact that marriage tends to occur at lower ages in the less educated groups, that is, that approximately the same proportion of women in the different class groups would apparently have premarital coitus if they all married at the same average ages.15 But the figures above do not in themselves present the most striking differences in pattern and attitude. If we ask how early the intercourse is begun, the answers are very different. For instance, males who go to college do not have their first premarital sex relations, on the average, until five or six years after those who stop at grade school.16 Females of the grade-school group who engage in premarital relations begin, on the average, five or six years before those who go to 76 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS graduate school.17 If we ask how often, there is a large difference among the males, ranging, in the late teens, from three orgasms a week average for the grade-school group to 0.3 for the college group.18 For females, Kinsey's figures are unclear, but there is probably little difference in frequency among the females of all social classes who do engage in premarital coitus at the same average ages. What do these differences indicate? That is, what factors are involved that account for these facts' being, on the average, approximately as the figures indicate? With the college group, Kinsey notes, "the question of premarital intercourse is largely one of morals," 19 by which he means that it is considered "wrong." In contrast, among people who do not get beyond grade school, "They have nothing like this strong taboo against premarital intercourse and, on the contrary, accept it as natural and inevitable and a desirable thing." 20 Most of this last group would "insist that there is no question of right or wrong involved." 21 Kinsey indicates that if a boy whose parents belong to this educational level has not had intercourse by the time he is sixteen or so, the conclusion can be drawn that he himself will not remain at this educational level but will move upward toward another social class.22 For girls of the less educated groups, sex is plainly not considered so "inevitable" as for boys. Many girls are obviously restrained by culture, especially no doubt through their own families; but we note that the girls who break those restraints tend to do so at a relatively very early age. The groups with more education, on the other hand, tend to present the premarital coitus question as one of "right or wrong" for both men and women. Kinsey points out whimsically that "the mother who is afraid to send her boy away to college for fear he will be morally corrupted there, is evidently unaware of the histories of the boys who stay at home." 28 He might have added that the mother who fears to send her daughter to SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 77 college may be more justified, for this is likely to make the girl's marriage occur later and, for this reason, raise the statistical chances of her engaging in premarital intercourse.24 To reason thus from statistics would of course be manifestly absurd. Kinsey notes that the proportion of our population that has gone to college has approximately trebled in the past quarter century or so.25 A generation or more ago, two-thirds of the women never got beyond grade school; whereas now there are only about 20o per cent of the women who do not get at least into high school.26 The college-level standards seem to affect most college-level people, and therefore these standards (they have changed a bit in content, as we shall note later) affect more people than they did a generation ago. In addition, there seems to be evidence, especially for the women, that the college-level standards affect high-school women more than they once did. Perhaps we may also infer that fewer people in our population than before now adhere to a natural-desirable-no-right-or-wrong-involved type of criterion concerning a matter like premarital coitus. It is especially obvious with the men that in examining the grade-school and the college groups, two different basic attitudes are involved toward premarital intercourse. In the grade-school group, as group, it is taken for granted that the impulse toward sexual intercourse is like a flood. It is natural, inevitable, and, fortunately, pleasurable. The girls of this group are considerably less sure on any of these points, and are likely to be subjected to restraints not applied to the boys. After all, unwanted pregnancies and venereal diseases bring more real economic and social problems to girls of this group than to others. But one may hypothecate that these restraints are seldom on a "right or wrong" basis in the same sense in which they are for the college-level women. We recall that if these girls engage in premarital relations at all, they tend to do so at a relatively early age, showing that the 78 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS flood notion is assumed to apply in some sense to them, though not to the degree it does to the boys. With the college group it is taken for granted, even for the men, that questions of right and wrong are involved in premarital intercourse. Even those who have much premarital intercourse tend, in doing so, to "break with the mores of the group." 27 Whatever be the reasons given, some question of "right or wrong" is felt to be involved. The highschool group seems to fall in between these two attitudes, holding some elements like one and others like the other. This brief report on Kinsey's findings in relation to premarital sex relations that include genital union (coitus) necessarily omits reference to many interesting things he has discovered. We may note a few of these briefly, although our principal concern is with the effect of social factors and pressures upon attitude and behavior. One finding is that men tend to reach their peak sexual capacity at about sixteen to eighteen years of age, while women, on the average, do not reach this until the midtwenties or even the thirties.28 This certainly affects at least the inner impulsion toward premarital relations. Another finding-and one sure to arouse much controversial discussion-is that women who had had premarital coitus including orgasm had a much better chance of achieving orgasm early in marriage than those who had not.29 The correlation was not between premarital intercourse as such, when this did not, in women, result in orgasm, but with that intercourse which did result in orgasm. The principal explanation for this advanced by Kinsey ought, however, to be noted carefully. This requires the addition of another fact, moving beyond premarital coitus, that women who have experienced orgasm in some way before marriage (e.g., through petting or masturbation as well as coitus) generally achieve orgasm more rapidly in their marriage relations.80 His principal explanation for the correlation is that a woman who SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 79 has consistently avoided any "physical contacts" or "emotional responses" is likely to be very tense, inhibited in the literal sense of muscle tensing as well as attitude, and therefore may take quite a time in marriage to acquire a different attitude.s1 It should be noted that girls who engaged unsuccessfully in premarital coitus (i.e., without orgasm) had, on the average, a high record of failure in sex relations within marriage.32 We may note, incidentally, that the women who engaged in premarital coitus tended, on the average, to be those who later were more inclined to engage in extramarital coitus.33 From his examination of the literature as well as statements made to him by persons interviewed, Kinsey marshals twenty arguments against premarital intercourse and twelve for it.34 From such facts and figures as have been given, many types of conclusions might be drawn depending upon the point of view of the person who examines them. At this point, we may simply illustrate the types of view that could be brought to the Kinsey facts and analyses. Some sophisticated persons could make (as some do) a kind of back-to-nature interpretation of Kinsey's discussion of premarital intercourse (coitus). They would reason somewhat as follows: "Think of all the worry, guilt, suffering, repression, suppression, and just plain tension that arises in boys and girls when they consider premarital intercourse as inherently wrong. Here is a natural biological function and need, to which society denies expression for years and years. Of course society says that when people marry, intercourse is all right. But if negative feelings have been drilled into them for years and years, we can hardly expect that the mere fact of being married will get them over these long years of inhibition. The grade-school people may be crude about it all, but they do not undergo the suffering, tension, and frustration that the more educated groups do." (We recall that the phrase "grade-school" means that this is the sole 80 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS education such persons have had, and that it does not mean they are now in grade school.) To this kind of argument, we could reply, in summary, as follows. In connection with the less-educated groups, you have managed to avoid entirely reference to such obvious social consequences as venereal disease, unwanted pregnancy, and general irresponsibility. In addition, for the better-educated groups in so far as they engage in premarital intercourse, you have not noted the difficulties that may arise from premature falling in love with unsuitable life partners, or of the suffering coming out of sexual and affectional failure in hole-in-corner sex contacts. You seem to assume that maturity in human beings has nothing to do with deferring of any kind, whereas it obviously has. There can be no genuine human maturity that does not involve some capacity to endure temporary tension for the sake of an eventually superior level of satisfaction. And beyond all this, you have entirely forgotten that the expression of sex may be as compulsive or obsessive as its inhibition. A promiscuous person, for example, may not be, as he believes, mainly interested in sex; instead, he may be chiefly allaying some inner anxiety that he is unable to confront. In any event, you can not use Kinsey to advocate a mere back-to-nature view of premarital intercourse, wholly apart from all personal or social meanings and consequences. Some other people might take a point of view almost opposite to that of back-to-nature. They would argue somewhat as follows: "Those grade-school people are really not much better than animals, but animals can not help it and people can. They are simply indecent. And of course they never amount to much in life, do not get anywhere, have no education, and are uninterested in the finer things of life. Not only are they not respectable, but they are a constant menace because they threaten to corrupt our own boys and girls. In contrast to that kind of pattern, what a fine thing it is when SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 81 a boy and girl keep their eyes on the important things of life, on being decent, on getting the respect of their fellows, and on getting ahead. There is not much chance of this unless they learn self-control from the beginning. Of course not everyone can be successful, but the decent boy and girl will always know they have followed the right." We would have to make a reply to this kind of argument also. You seem to take very lightly the fact that biological sex maturation in both boys and girls occurs several years before they will be, on the average, socially and economically equipped to enter into responsible marriages. It may indeed be very wise for adolescents to learn some self-discipline and self-control during these intervening years, but do we help them at this point if we minimize the difficulties involved? Indeed, do we help them if we appeal mainly to "decency" or "respectability"? Sex in itself is neither indecent nor disrespectable, and do we not court future danger if we associate these qualities with sex? Our argument must be at a more fundamental level than that of mere decency. In addition, you seem preoccupied mainly with success, and your conception of the "finer things of life" appears a bit thin. So far as your view of the people with little education is concerned, you do not seem to realize the pressures under which they have been reared. They may indeed be crude, but this crudity is not simply the result of a choice by the individual in favor of crudity. The fact is that an enormous number of your own fine young people who go to high school become involved in premarital intercourse; so that the way in which you present your case seems lacking in something. A third group of people might take a still different approach to Kinsey's analysis and argue in this way. "What is most important is that we see things from the point of view of the people themselves. The boy whose education is limited to grade school simply assumes that premarital intercourse is the thing to do. The culture surrounding him 82 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS teaches him to take this for granted so that he never questions it. To be sure, there is some crudity about the premarital intercourse of such a person, and also some infidelity in the early years of marriage. But do not forget that, eventually, in later married life, these people are more faithful to their spouses than any other group.35 "If one looks sympathetically at the college-level people, he can understand them as well. What they feel is a kind of generalized moral constraint against premarital intercourse. Even when they engage in it, they feel they are going against the standards of their group. These inhibitions and feelings of guilt may of course be carried over into marriage, so that they lose some of life's satisfactions. But we can not, after all, make people's lives over for them. What we need, whether in relation to the grade-school or the college group, is a willingness to accept them as they are." In replying to this toleration argument, we must begin by conceding that there is more in Kinsey that would tend to support it than is true of the previous two types of interpretation that have been given. For example, Kinsey writes: "Understanding something of their satisfactions and heartaches, and the backgrounds of their lives, has increased our sympathetic acceptance of people as they are." 6 Again: "Each social level is convinced that its pattern is the best of all patterns; but each level rationalizes its behavior in its own way." 87 In so far as this toleration or understanding attitude is preliminary rather than final in nature, then Kinsey would seem to support it. That is, if it simply says that one must understand the people and their patterns before he can draw conclusions about them, the conclusion would be warranted from Kinsey. But if such a toleration view were advocated as a final view, as the one thing needful, then there seems nothing in Kinsey's analysis to support this. Kinsey expresses explicit concern, for example, over venereal disease, illegitimate children, rape, and sex offences on chil SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 83 dren by adults.88 Kinsey can not be interpreted properly as advocating a final toleration view. If we examine the facts and analysis on premarital intercourse from the Christian view of sex, we will find ourselves saying something different from what any of the three other types of views cited have said. We could begin by noting that sex in human life is a total-person phenomenon whether the people realize it or not. In its inherent nature it is personal and interpersonal and not solely biological. In examining any particular form of sex activity, in this instance premarital intercourse, we have to ask: Does it promote the total human growth of the persons involved? And the thing we can say immediately is that nothing promotes such growth if carried on, or not carried on, simply in response to the pressures that the culture puts upon the people, or if carried on, or not carried on, simply in conformity to or rebellion against biological pressures. For in either event, something merely partial and segmental is dictating the whole course of attitude and action, with the person as a total being in relationship left out of account. Total growth as a person is interpersonal growth with an inner dimension; it is never merely going along with pressures or fighting against them. One is not developing toward full human stature if he is obsessed either with cultural or biological pressures. The difficulty with the back-to-nature view of premarital intercourse is that it wants simply to conform to biological pressures as if sex were a flood on which it is easier to row downstream than upstream. The difficulty with the restraint approach is that it wants simply to confonn to certain cult tural pressures. In neither case is there the thought of a free human being, under God, dealing with pressures through some means other than blind conformity or rebellion. And the trouble with the toleration view, except as a preliminary view urging us to understand people, is that it accepts all conformities. Hence, all three of these views essentially evade 84 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS the basic issue, whether total human and interpersonal growth is fostered or decreased by a certain kind of activity and relationship. That may all be very true, someone may ask, but is the Christian view for or against premarital intercourse? In the light of all the factors involved,;he Christian view must plainly throw its weight against any general approval of such activity in so far as it works against movement toward the full human, interpersonal, and responsible social dimensions of man's existence.On the other hand, its disapproval is not — a disapproval of the biological urge itself, nor. of young people's becominiigclosely acquainted with' one another, Since sex is a serious and radical matter, whether the people know it or not, it can not be taken lightly. But if an adolescent girl gets guilt feelings because a young man has held her hand, she is not moving in the direction of appreciating the full human dimensions of sex. The Christian view can not simply engage in indiscriminate condemnation of all encounters among young people on the ground that they may lead to premarital intercourse. But it can not consider this a matter of indifference, or go along with any type of conformity, whether to biological or to cultural pressures. There is no other sexual question on which young people with some education are likely to press so hard for a yes-or-no answer as that in relation to premarital intercourse. When I was once dragooned into leading a discussion on this subject for a group of male college freshmen, I presented the factors involved as I saw them, and stressed the importance of responsible personal decision. After the discussion period, every question and comment for an entire half hour was a variant of the question: But is it, in itself, right or wrong, yes or no? After about twenty minutes or so had passed, I began to despair of making it clear that something more was involved than a yes-or-no answer. So I turned on the rhetoric and analyzed for them what they would do if I said un SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 85 equivocally no or unequivocally yes. If I said no, those who agreed would go down to their own house justified, and those who disagreed would set me aside so as to forget all I had said about the process of considering the question. If I said yes, those who agreed would wonder what claim I had to be a moralist but would probably report me gleefully in the college paper, and those who disagreed would be shocked and unable to think of the problem at all. To my professional pleasure, all this hit home. The remainder of the discussion left the categorical yes-or-no stage, and really discussed the issues, most especially the process of personal decision. This discussion in particular, and others of a similar nature, have convinced me that yielding to the pressure for flat and absolute and unconditioned yes-or-no answers on questions like this succeeds only in distorting the Christian witness. At the time of the meeting mentioned, there were no Kinsey reports to be quoted or misquoted. But the basic question remains the same, in this post-Kinsey era. MASTURBATION Masturbation, as defined by Kinsey, is "deliberate self-stimulation," which is "designed to effect erotic arousal." 39 In males, this leads almost uniformly to orgasm, even when in the prepubertal period an ejaculation of semen is not possible. In females also, masturbation results most of the time in orgasm, Kinsey estimating this at 95 per cent.40 With masturbation so defined, Kinsey finds that, finally and eventually, at least 92 per cent and probably more of all males engage at some time in masturbation,41 and 62 per cent of the females although only 58 per cent of the females had experienced orgasm.42 These are the accumulative incidence figures, telling us nothing about frequency, age of beginning, or meaning. The patterns of masturbation were found to be quite different between the two sexes and among the social classes. 86 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS For men, masturbation tends to begin young, reach its frequency peak in the teens, and decline rather steadily. The number of men who masturbate at almost any age is considerably greater than the number of women, not more than 20 per cent of the women being engaged in masturbation in any particular year of their lives.43 For women, there was proportionately more masturbation among older (beyond the teens) than younger women.44 Instead of the frequencies of masturbation steadily declining from teens to old age, as in men, the women who masturbated (mostly single women) tended to do so about the same at fifty as they did at sixteen.45 In other words, there is masturbation by many more males than females and at all ages except the senile ones, and higher average frequencies by males than females at most ages; but women who continue to masturbate at all do so at about the same rates through most of their adult lives, while men begin in high gear and run down rapidly. As we. shall note later, this phenomenon of the average sexual capacity of women remaining steady through the adult years, while man's tends to run down, seems to be a new and general fact of great significance. There are also striking differences in the masturbation patterns among different social and educational classes, most obviously among the males. For college males there is a strong tendency to masturbate more frequently, and at every age level after age fifteen, than is true of the grade-school or high-school males.46 For females also there are notable differences even in terms of overt behavior; and when the attitudes are taken into account, the differences are even more striking. For women the accumulative incidence figures on masturbation are 34 per cent for the grade-school group, 59 per cent for the high-school, 57 per cent for the college, and 63 per cent for the graduate-school groups.47 The females of the lower educational levels, Kinsey notes, had more often been afraid that masturbation would mean physical SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE \1 87 harm and also that it was abnormal and unnatural.48 We should note, however, that the women of the lower educational levels tend to marry at earlier ages, and that more of them might masturbate eventually if they postponed marriage to later ages. As in relation to premarital intercourse, there are very important differences in attitudes among the several social or educational groups. To the grade-school group, masturbation is unnatural. To the college group, it is less wrong than premarital coitus. To the grade-school male, masturbation may appear unnatural or abnormal, or it may be "an admission that one is incapable of securing heterosexual intercourse," and is therefore socially inadequate.49 Among the college males, masturbation is likely to continue in some measure into married life, although it is not clear to what extent this is considered a poor temporary substitute or a continued choice of sex expression. Kinsey noted in his volume on men that the continuation of masturbation into marriage by college men probably had some relation to the "low degree of erotic responsiveness which exists among many of the collegebred females." 6 It is interesting that this statement, while not withdrawn in the volume on women, is not repeated either. This may be because (as we shall note later) the capacity for sexual response to orgasm in marriage has been increasing among women and especially among college-level women.51 The college-level attitude that masturbation itself does no harm is, Kinsey believes, filtering down to the lower schooling levels, so that more grade-school people masturbate, and do so earlier and more frequently, than was true in the previous generation.62 Pointing to men who have masturbated all their lives but with frequency diminishing nearly to zero by age sixty or so, he writes, "It is about then that the older males are most inclined to warn the adolescent boy that masturbation will certainly harm him if he does it to excess." 68 88 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS Although the figures are not so clear as they might be, this filtering down of upper-level masturbation patterns appears also to be relevant to women, especially to women who remain unmarried in the twenties or even later.54 On the other hand, Kinsey states that women have tended to worry more about masturbation than about any other type of sexual activity.55 He does not indicate whether this worry is related, in degree or kind, to the various social or educational groups. Kinsey's finding that women who had masturbated successfully (i.e., to orgasm) before marriage tended to achieve orgasm more quickly within marriage parallels the finding on premarital coitus.56 His principal explanation is the same, that having had some experience of orgasm tends to break down attitudes of generalized inhibition extending even to muscular tensions. There may also be, he notes, a selective factor at work in masturbation as in premarital coitus, in that the women with stronger sexual capacities and drives may tend to express them overtly more than the women with weaker sexual drives, both before and within marriage. It would be possible to draw the same four types of conclusion from the Kinsey analysis of masturbation that we drew for premarital intercourse. A back-to-nature view would consider it pretty childish business beyond mid-adolescence, an admittedly poor substitute for sexual intercourse. A restraint view, if not simply condemning masturbation along with everything except coitus in marriage, might be inclined to make excuses for it because it does not obviously hurt other people. A toleration view would simply leave each group, and each sex, to its own patterns. A Christian view would see the radically different meanings that masturbation may have to different people and groups-to the adolescent boy, to the person who depends on masturbation because he can not set up human social relations, to the wife whose husband is a traveling salesman, to the college student who is anxious the night before an exam/ SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 89 I ination, or to many others. Such a view is developmental, recognizes the social pathology in continued adult reliance on masturbation as a substitute for sexual interpersonal relationships, and is concerned that each person work through his own attitude, not taking the automatic say-yea of the college level on the ground that masturbation does no harm in itself nor the say-nay of the grade-school level because to it masturbation appears abnormal or unnatural. SOCIAL GROUP: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE One of the most intriguing findings of Kinsey relates to persons who move up or down the social or educational class ladder, in comparison with their parents. Kinsey summarizes the point as follows: In general, it will be seen that the sexual history of the individual accords with the pattern of the social group into which he ultimately moves, rather than with the pattern of the social group to which the parent belongs and in which the subject was placed when he lived in the parental home.57 This is truly astonishing. So far, in our discussion of the mores and social pressures, we have more or less assumed, for example, that the child of grade-school parents was taught grade-school patterns. And in most cases, it does work out that way. But in a considerable proportion of cases, it does not. The astonishing thing is not the fact of social mobility in itself; with this we are familiar. It is the development of patterns and attitudes in relation to sex that do not have relevance to one's present group but which anticipate one's eventual membership in a different social group-and this may be long before there is conscious expectation about changing one's social status. Kinsey goes so far as to say, in reference to the boy, that the bigger the move from present class to eventual class, the more strict he is about lining 90 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS up his sexual history with the pattern of the group into which he is going to move." 58 Kinsey presents a few figures to show the significance of the basic fact. For example, suppose we assume a group of boys whose parents are in the lower white-collar worker group. Some of these boys, after growing up, will remain in that group, probably the majority. A few, however, will eventually move into the semiskilled labor class, with lower social prestige; and a few will move up (in social prestige) into the professional group. In this circumstance, Kinsey finds that "there is 122 times as much premarital intercourse among the boys who regress to class 3 as there is among the boys who will ultimately go into the professional group." ' In spite of the fact that these boys were, presumably, subjected to the same kind of social pressures while in the parental home and neighborhood, their responses to these pressures were radically different-and accord with the patterns of the social group into which they will eventually move even though, as boys, they may not know a thing about the eventual groups. Another intriguing fact about the socially mobile people is that they tend either to change their own sex patterns by the early teens, or else to change them hardly at all-even though they may go up or down in the social scale. If a boy has grade-school patterns, let us say, throughout his teens, then he is likely to retain these all his life with little change, even though he may eventually go to college or professional school.60 On the other hand, the boy whose parents are in the skilled-labor or lower white-collar group and who finally achieves the professional class is very likely to have professional-class sex attitudes and patterns by his early teens.61 Is there any chance that the facts might be otherwise than as indicated? This may be more possible than in reference to most of the findings, for the simple reason that all these data are secured retrospectively, and the association by the person SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 91 with his new social group may color his memory for past events. Yet there is no evidence that Kinsey has not guarded against this, here as at other points. Indeed, the basic fact about change in behavior before one has changed social position is, if anything, a thorn in his flesh. It seems likely that the facts are correct as reported. If that is so, then how can these facts be accounted for? On the social mobility itself, Kinsey properly indicates that we can record the fact and the figures and account for them in a general way, but that we have "next to no information" about why one person moves and another does not.62 Still more baffling is the question of how one individual breaks wholly with the sex patterns and attitudes to which he is actually exposed, and instead takes on patterns that only much later will constitute a part of his immediate environment. As to the explanation of this, writes Kinsey, we can now have "only hypotheses." 63 As common-sense hypotheses, Kinsey points to the possibility of a father, or especially a mother, having ambition for the boy or girl to achieve higher status, and the possible effects of contacts by various social institutions like the church.64 Hypotheses of this type are designed to seek out the external source of the idea which, when it becomes dynamic, changes the person's attitude and pattern. But they are not in themselves hypotheses about the dynamics or the energy that effects the change in attitude and pattern. As a hypothesis about the dynamics of the change, we may suggest that there is potentially in every person (although exercised by most in small degree) a capacity for taking in from the environment and reworking in line with the socially possible goals that are most deeply meaningful to him. If these reflective and critical processes operate as something other than mere inhibitions, then the individual becomes more "creative" than most in the sense that he molds himself as much as his environment molds him. If he, genuinely 92 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS and inwardly, accepts an attitude as his own, it does not of course necessarily mean that he moves up in the social scale. He might do so and still accept most of the attitudes and patterns of his parental group. But it is hard to see how he could move up, and anticipate the other patterns before actually knowing them, unless he had developed an inner attitude transcending a mere conformist acceptance of what his present group tells him. To be sure, there must be some other group, or standard, or set of mores mediated through people that catches his imagination. But the fact that this is so sets in motion a kind of self-reflection leading to an inner attitude that is something he has won. The same thing might well be true for those who go "down" in the social scale, for the "down" refers to social prestige rather than to an absolute. Kinsey has much less to say about women who move up or down on the educational or social scale than about men. This is, presumably, because the obviously marked differences in patterns of behavior according to social class proved to relate to the men much more than to the women. But the one significant remark he does make about socially mobile women accords with his discussion of men. He says that a female who moves up in the social scale tends to be more "restrained" sexually than the girl reared in a home of that scale; and attributes this to the insecurity of a newfound social status giving rise to a strong desire to conform to the patterns of that status.65 This is like the truism in the study of religion that a convert tends to be more eager and "orthodox" than a long-time believer. The practical implications of all this would seem, in a general way, to be obvious, although the details may well be difficult and obscure. Our hypothesis would be that if anyone wants to change the sex attitudes and mores of anyone else, these things would seem to be important: that it be done relatively early or not at all; that "guiding image" SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 93 people inside and outside the home (e.g., clergy, teachers, or club leaders) capture the person's imagination about life as a whole and not just about one aspect of it; that explicit reflective thought leading to finding and shaping one's own inner attitudes be encouraged. It seems likely, on the basis of the premises above, that most of the best sex education is concerned with sex in only a minor way (as far as quantity is concerned), but that somewhere along the line serious reflective thought about sex as well as about other things is encouraged. Such a conclusion is hypothetical in relation to Kinsey's findings alone, but it seems a hypothesis worth more exploration. CONCLUSION In this chapter we have concentrated on the effect of social, cultural, and class pressures upon sexual attitudes and behavior. With the men these differences are obvious and overt, and manifest themselves in different actual patterns both of behavior and of attitude. The differences are much less marked in regard to overt behavior among women, but we have indicated that especially in regard to attitudes, we believe them to be greater than Kinsey states. We noted that there is less difference in the content of the attitudes of different social classes toward such sex behavior of women as premarital coitus than is true of men, but that the whole constellation of factors constituting an attitude differs more even for women than the figures on overt behavior alone would suggest. We presented the apparent (though we do not believe actual) contradiction between Kinsey's statements that women are less influenced by "social factors" than men but that they are, as he puts it in one place, "more controllable." 66 We suggested that the taken-for-granted standards of the different social groups about sex behavior differ in content as related to men or to women. We thought it also 94 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS likely to be true that the direct peer-group influences upon men are greater than upon women. In support of this we could cite Kinsey's finding of the very notable difference in peer-group discussions of direct sexual matters between males and females, this being great among males and very slight among females.67 On the other hand, females appear to be more influenced by the dominant "overt culture" on sexual matters, especially in the earlier years. It would not seem an exaggeration to suggest that the social influences that most affect men are the most direct ones, and that those affecting the women are more indirect, that is, from the more generally openly-stated mores of a culture as a whole as against those of the peer group. In at least this one sense, perhaps women could be said to be more imaginative than men, not directly about sex but about capacity to be sensitive to relatively remote social forces and mores. Or perhaps one could say, as much literature has said, that women tend to be more "realistic" about their own basic interests. Through our discussion in this chapter of premarital intercourse (coitus) and of masturbation, we have indicated that the influence of the person's own educational, social, class, or occupational group is likely, in the absence of other strong social or biological factors, to be massive in determining both his attitude and his behavior. Another way to say this is that we can not understand sex attitudes and patterns at all unless we realize how weighty are the pressures toward conformity in all social groups, however subtly they be concealed, or however they may agree or disagree with patterns and attitudes in other groups. But before this chapter was completed, we had considered a somewhat different kind of point, that "ideas and attitudes may be modified long before there are differences in overt behavior...." 68 Although Kinsey's facts in themselves do not render an explanation of this phenomenon, we presented the hypothesis that the potentiality for being alert SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 95 to other social influences than the massive ones, or for "creating" one's own inner attitude in the light of the awareness of difference in social attitudes within the whole environment, is always present even though in most people (especially men) not apparent. Had Kinsey's findings suggested only the first type of conclusion-the massive weight of direct social and class-group influences leading to conformity in attitude and action, varied only by different biological capacities and interests-we might have been tempted to draw a "beehive" type of conclusion, of men and women as automatons, as mere putty in the hands of any social group into which they are born. We should note that the findings suggest just enough truth in this so that it should not be passed over lightly, and that this class conformity is as much in evidence at the upper schooling levels as at the lower and, as we suggested though Kinsey did not, just as much among women as among men. But this is not the whole story. By a minority, but a large enough group to be distinctly noticeable, the patterns and attitudes are changed. The potentiality for creative working out of an inner attitude, perhaps differing from that with which one has been reared, is there whether it is exercised or not. Presumably, we guessed, the whole question of life goals (including sex goals) must be interiorized for this to occur, and interiorized in other than an automatic way. To summarize in very general terms, the most weighty influence is of the immediate culture; but there is always coming into being a self which, in potential, can pass judgment on its immediate culture. The fact that our own culture is very complex and has many strands would, presumably, make this process more likely than in a one-class or one-group type of culture. In connection with our discussion of premarital intercourse and masturbation, we suggested types of conclusions that different people, with different interests and different points 96 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS of view, might draw from the Kinsey facts and factors interpreting why the facts are as they are. t the backto-nature, the restraint, and the mere toleration views as inadeq-catc;- su este9 t hethrisEtian view iB different rom any o these. We did no'6tertthat Kinseys analysis prosrev~ifi ivalidity or invalidity of any of these four views. We were concerned to show that none of the first three views (though none of the three is without elements of truth) could be set forth as resting adequately upon the Kinsey analysis. Neither does the Christian view, of course; but nothing in the Kinsey facts and factors negates the truth of that view.The positive evidence to justify the Christian view must be drawn out of considerations that include but transcend Kinsey's facts and factors3 FOOTNOTES 1. 1:204. 2. 1:77. 3. I:77. 4. 1:77-79 -5. I:79. 6. 1:78. 7. II:31. 8. II:295, 685, 686. 9. II:757. 10. II:7. 11. 1:552. 12. II:293. 13. 1:286. 14. 11:286. 15. II:294. 16. 1:349. 17. II:293. 18. I:553. 19. I:381. 20. I:379. 21. I:381. 22. I:381. 23. I:347. 24. II:293. 25. I:417. 26. 11:203. 27. 1:552. 28. II:125. 29. 1I:328, 387-388. 30. 11:14, 265. 31. II:172, 330. 32. II:387-388. 33. 11:427. 34. II:307-309 -35. I:281. 36. I:16. 37. I:384. 38. 1:578. 39- I:497-498; II:133. 40. II:124. 41. 1:499. 42. II:142. 43. II:143 -44. II:143. SEX PATTERNS AND CULTURE 45. II:144. 46. I:339. 47. II:148, 18o. 48. II:150. 49. I:377 -50. I:377. 51. II:356. 52. I:508-509. 53. I:506. 54. II:50o. 55 I:170. 56. II: 172, 390. 97 57. I:419 -58. I:436. 59. I:351 -60. I:437. 61. I:436. 62. I:440. 63. I:440. 64. I:441. 65. 11:297. 66. I1:322. 67. II: Chapter 16. 68. I:399. 5. MEN AND WOMEN In the previous chapter we presented and discussed some of Kinsey's findings about the effect of culture and social factors upon the patterns of sexual behavior and attitude. In Chapter 6 we shall comment on some of the sex patterns that have, and some that have not, changed from the past to the present generation. In Chapter 7, we shall discuss Kinsey's findings about the influence of religious interests and church activities upon the patterns of sex behavior and attitude. All these, like the present chapter, have particular significance from the point of view of ethics. In this chapter we discuss the similarities and differences of men and women in relation to sexual matters. The title of Kinsey's second report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, does not adequately suggest the extent to which this book is about both men and women. Since the book on men had been previously published, Kinsey took occasion in the female volume, to compare and contrast the two sexes at nearly every point of his discussion. The comparative material presented by him is, therefore, so extensive that the problem of selection is more difficult than at other points. In comparing and contrasting sex attitudes, behavior, ca98 MEN AND WOMEN 99 pacities, interests, and patterns in men and women, it may be well for the author to emulate Kinsey and point out that he too is a man, and that for him as well as Kinsey it may prove difficult to become disentangled from the "centuryold biases" that one sex has had about the other.' But the attempt will be made. SIMILARITIES Kinsey is interested to demonstrate that some of the supposed differences between men and women are not actually so, and that not a few of the generally accepted similarities are also not so. Briefly speaking, he suggests that men and women are much more similar than has been thought in the anatomy and the physiology of sexual activity, but that their patterns of development about sex and what he calls their "psychologic" interest in directly sexual matters differ much more widely than has been previously recognized. We may first give some attention to the factual similarities. In an entire chapter devoted to the anatomy of sexual response, he suggests that the anatomical structures that are most important for sexual activity and response, and for orgasm, are remarkably similar for the two sexes.2 For instance, we have often been misled, by the difference in gross size between the male penis and the female clitoris, to regard this quantitative difference as indicating a basic structural difference. In terms of the inherent capacity of one organ, as contrasted with the other, to respond with sensitivity leading toward orgasm, he sees little difference. Similarly, he finds at a basic level only minor physiological differences in sexual response looking toward orgasm.8 Of course he takes into account the obvious differences, such as that men ejaculate and women do not, or that women have a vagina and men possess no equivalent. But the differentiating anatomical and physiological factors are, he contends, quite subsidiary in re 100 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS lation to all the important factors that make for sexual response leading to orgasm. If this is so, why, then, have the gross and obvious differences usually been assumed to be fundamental? The answer Kinsey gives, largely by implication and indirect statement, lies in the fact that Western culture has been male dominated, that males have tended to "localize" their sexual responses entirely in their genitals not realizing that such responses cover their entire bodies as they cover the entire bodies of females, and have therefore ignored the nongenital elements in their actual sexual experience. Sometimes they have gone further and ignored this fact in women as well. But because of this male misinterpretation, Kinsey believes, there has been a diversion of attention from what happens in the male body during sexual activity, and the consequent delusion that males require only genital stimulation even though females may require other stimulation as well. No doubt there are other factors to account for the false belief in the basic and radical difference in the anatomy and physiology of sex response between the two sexes. In any event, the reason for the false beliefs is clearly cultural and psychological in nature. One of the arguments for the notion that women are basically different from men in their anatomy and physiology of sex response has been the contention that they are inherently less capable of moving rapidly toward orgasm. Kinsey does not deny that in coitus, most women are unable to move toward orgasm with the speed of which most men are capable. But in studying the speed of movement toward orgasm in female masturbation, he finds that most women need less than four minutes to arrive, a figure comparable to men.4 He contends that this is a better index of basic capacity to achieve orgasm, and quickly, than is the time needed to reach orgasm in coitus. The difference in time, between masturbation and coitus, he attributes to the inter MEN AND WOMEN 101 ruption or distraction that the male introduces into the coital relationship, and implies that if a man could stimulate a woman as directly, uninterruptedly, and perceptively as she can stimulate herself, orgasm in coitus could probably be achieved as quickly.5 The other reason for the difference, he suggests, lies in the existence of female inhibitions in relation to coitus.6 We should understand that Kinsey is not, in this discussion, advocating rapid orgasms; he is merely trying to explode the false notion that women are inherently and necessarily slower or less competent in their capacity to reach orgasm. DIFFERENCES When we turn from the usually unrecognized similarities to the usually unrecognized differences between men and women, Kinsey's findings are even more striking. We may note first the differences in developmental patterns about sex, of some aspects of which we have already spoken. The peak of sexual capacity comes, on the average, between ages sixteen and eighteen in men, but not until the latter twenties or early thirties in women.7 This represents an average difference, in peak capacity, of at least ten years. We have also noted that the male sex capacity tends to drop gradually but steadily from the late teens on; while that of the female tends to rise toward its peak, and not drop much below that peak until age fifty or so.8 In women, Kinsey summarizes, "sexual development comes on more gradually than in the male, is often spread over a longer period of time, and does not reach its peak until a good many years after the boy is sexually mature." 9 The significance of these differences for marriage, and especially when they continue to go unrecognized, is not minimized by Kinsey. Many men, he indicates, are disappointed in early married life to find their wives not only responding less often than they would wish but also being less 102 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS often interested.10 The wife too may be disturbed by this."l But as time goes on, Kinsey notes, the woman reaches her peak capacity, discards a good many inhibitions, and continues her interest and capacity; while the capacity of the man is steadily declining.l2 By the time the wife would be both interested in and capable of responding to every invitation by her husband, the chances are that his interest in inviting her has dropped very low or that his capacity is less than hers.'3 There is some indication that these differences in develop mental patterns between the sexes have been more widely understood in recent years, at least in some of their aspects. For instance, there has been a steady rise in the proportion of coitus in marriage that has led to orgasm for the wife, due in part, Kinsey believes, to the increasing number of males of the present generation who are concerned to have their wives reach orgasm.l4 But along with this increase in female orgasm-capacity within marriage has gone, Kinsey believes, some reduction in the frequency of coitus within marriage."' This is at least some indication that there has been more understanding by men of the difference in the way sex patterns develop in their wives, and since married women accept sex in marriage more wholeheartedly they undoubtedly also understand their husbands better. As to whether the basic sexual capacity of men and women, on the average, is different, Kinsey is not clear. On the whole, he seems to argue for a similarity in basic capacity, viewed biologically, with the men being superior in younger days and the women equal or superior in older years. But he notes that many women may go for long periods with little or no sex thought or stimulation,'6 while he considers this very unlikely in a man.7 In his first volume he indicated that many women, especially college-level women, have a "low degree of erotic responsiveness." 18 But he did not there so obviously attribute this, where it occurs, almost entirely to cultural influences as he does in the second volume; and in MEN AND WOMEN 103 the latter, he is evidently more impressed with the number of women who learn to become erotically responsive even after unpromising starts. Only io per cent of married women fail ever to have orgasm in their relations with their husbands.'9 Thus, he seems inclined, in general, to consider that any different average basic capacity women may have is due to psychological and cultural, rather than to biological, factors, provided the differences in the developmental cycle are considered. This leads directly to what Kinsey regards as the most important unrecognized differences between men and women, their respective interest in or capacity for psychological stimulation about sexual matters. His point is that males are so stimulated and females are not, on the average. At a relatively common-sense level, he notes that the average male, when anticipating or thinking of a sexual relationship, becomes sexually aroused through that psychological process, whereas many and perhaps most females do not.20 But his most impressive documentation of the point is the consideration of thirty-three types of directly erotic psychological stimulation which, with but two exceptions, show men, on the average, much influenced by these and women, on the average, very little influenced in a directly erotic sense.21 Here are a few illustrations of the types of data, put in question form. Are women as aroused at seeing nude men as men are at seeing nude women? 22 At seeing nude drawings? 23 At seeing the genitals of the opposite sex? 24 At seeing floor shows? 25 At seeing pornographic pictures? 26 At seeing one's sex partner during intercourse? 27 At hearing erotic stories? 28 The answer to all these, and to all the others but two, is an emphatic no. Some individual women may be as much, or more, stimulated by such things as any man, but there seems to be a marked average difference. The two exceptions are motion pictures and "literary materials," by which is no doubt meant 104 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS romantic novels, short stories, and "true love" stories.29 We shall return in a moment to these distinctions. The third type of evidence that Kinsey adduces to suggest the greater sensitivity of the male to psychological sex stimulation is in connection with dreams during sleep. Sex dreams with orgasm are found among both sexes, but among males more often and with orgasm much more frequently among those males who had them.30 Since Kinsey does not believe that sex dreams to orgasm in men are caused, as is usually thought, by glandular pressures but by psychological sexual interests plus tactile stimulation (such as being touched by pajamas or bedclothes), he concludes that the difference in dream incidence of the two sexes is due to psychological factors, and therefore that women are not, on the average, as open to psychological erotic stimulation as men.31 Kinsey hits males pretty hard, in the volume on the female, for reading into females their own kind of sensitivity to psychological stimulation rather than observing that women are quite different in this regard.32 In this sense, he certainly attempts to understand and appreciate the female point of view. There can certainly be no question of a significant difference between men and women at the point of psychological stimulation, as Kinsey understands that term. And yet there is an apparent contradiction in the way Kinsey puts the matter, and which he does not resolve. We may get into this by recalling that women tend to be stimulated by novels and motion pictures, on the average, much more than by seeing nude men or nude pictures. There seems no good reason for denying the common-sense interpretation of this fact-that the movies and novels present sex indirectly and romantically rather than directly and genitally. Thus, as psychological stimuli, they are equivalent to a sex contact which, instead of beginning with genital stimulation, begins gently in vari MEN AND WOMEN 105 ous parts of the body and only thereafter becomes genital in focus. The crucial factor is not the time but the sequence of events. Kinsey has pointed out, as we noted, that sexual response involves much more than the genitals, in men as well as in women. But if the psychological stimuli do not evoke an immediately genital type of response, he tends to conclude the women are not sensitive to psychological stimulation. This seems to be a contradiction in his own thinking, probably based on his initial decision, when exploring sexual behavior, to define this as genitally focused behavior. There is nothing wrong methodologically with his decision, because any study must be limited in some definite ways. But his general conclusion that women are not capable, on the average, of psychological sexual stimulation to the extent that men are is, in part, an index of the genital orientation of his study-even though, in the second volume, he has gone some distance to correct that as a total conception of sexual response. He is inclined also to suggest that women, for the most part, became sexually stimulated only or chiefly through actual physical stimulation.33 If he means that this is necessary for genital stimulation, or for the sexual response which is to culminate in orgasm, this is true. But if sexual response is not merely genital, then the implication that women do not respond to psychological stimuli represents a misreading of "sexual" where "genital" should appear. Perhaps this statement is oversimplified, but there is at least a paradox here that Kinsey needs to clear up. It would seem that the question is not which sex is more sensitive to psychological stimulation, but what kinds of psychological stimulation are effective in setting in motion a sexually responsive process in each sex-whether that process moves on to become genital or not. Otherwise, a purely genital view of sex (which Kinsey io6 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS regards as a prejudice of male thinking) is in fact stamped on females. It may be that we labor this point unduly. But if "imaginative capacities" of an individual should come to be identified merely with his or her ability to respond erotically and genitally to a wider range of symbols of genital matters, violence could easily be done to the very different conception of the development of imagination about sex which is a part of the thesis of this book.84 We may note two other usually unrecognized differences between men and women. The first is that the range of variation in sexual interest and capacity is much greater among women than among men.35 It is reported that "some" women have had a hundred or more orgasms in an hour by means of masturbation.86 One woman is reported to have averaged almost thirty sexual contacts a week in extramarital relations over a period of five years.87 It is true that Kinsey also mentions an anonymous male lawyer who averaged more than thirty orgasms a week for thirty years.88 But these were not apparently, as in the case of the lady, over and above his marital duties. Kinsey also mentions a ninety-year-old woman who was still having orgasms, the number and kind not being specified.89 To be sure, these things are curiosa, as is the statement that a few males and females can be brought to orgasm by stimulating their ears.40 The serious side of this is, however, that we should not lose sight of the enormous individual variations in the shuffle of considering averages and general tendencies. Finally, among the usually unrecognized differences between the sexes, Kinsey believes there is an elusive biological factor of some kind that helps to account for some of the characteristic differences. The most promising leads for getting at this, he contends, are certain differences within the pituitary and the adrenal secretions of the two sexes, but he considers any conclusions of this kind far from proved.41 MEN AND WOMEN 107 What intrigues him to this kind of search is mainly the fact that some of the characteristic differences between men and women have parallels among the higher nonhuman mammals; and since the differences there can probably not be attributed to psychology and culture, they must be biological; and if they are biological there, they may be biological in human beings as well.42 That may indeed be true; but what strikes the general reader of Kinsey most is not that such biological factors may exist, but that so many possible biological bases for differences between the sexes have been investigated and found fruitless. EXTRAMARITAL RELATIONS There are of course in the Kinsey reports a good many things about men and women that do not challenge general opinion. For example, both widowers and widows tend to have sex relations in pattern and frequency closer to that of married than of single persons, although this is more true of the widowers than of the widows.43 But Kinsey notes, in the case of the widows, that they may often be more interested in the "social aspects" of their relationships than in the sexual.44 This statement, incidentally, is another commentary on the way in which the original Kinsey genital-localized conception of sex tends to creep in at various points, despite the improved and expanded conception of sexual response in the second volume. Also expected is Kinsey's statement that some frustrated persons with no satisfactory sex life tend to do damage to other people through such things as giving sex education to youngsters, campaigning for law enforcement, or fighting juvenile delinquency.4 In his first book he stated that about 30 per cent of the adult females were "more or less sexually unresponsive," and deplored the inability of such women to understand the problems of their young sons.46 Since he reports in the second volume, as we have noted, that only lo o108 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS per cent of married women fail eventually to achieve orgasm, his castigations for meddling in the second volume are directed entirely toward single women without sexual experience or understanding, of whom more than a quarter, he indicates, have never experienced orgasm.47 The differences of a social and psychological kind between men and women seem to have much to do with the patterns of extramarital intercourse, along with certain other factors. The typical or average picture drawn for the grade-school male who marries is an early beginning of premarital intercourse, which then becomes a pattern involving a good many partners and fairly high frequency, eventual marriage that cuts down the contacts with other women than the spouse but does not eliminate it, then a gradual decrease of extramarital intercourse until by some such age as forty intercourse with anyone but the spouse is almost completely eliminated.48 In contrast, the typical picture for the college-level male who marries appears to begin with masturbation, then petting, then a late (contrasted to the grade-school man) beginning of premarital intercourse which remains infrequent; upon marriage, elimination of other heterosexual contacts than with the spouse for a number of years, though a probable occasional continuation of masturbation; then, at about 35 or 40, extramarital intercourse begins; and from then on, a smaller proportion of the total orgasms is had with the spouse. By the age of 55, the average college-level male gets only 62 per cent of his orgasms from intercourse with his wife.49 By this time, the grade-school male is likely to get almost ioo per cent. Kinsey believes that the increase in extramarital intercourse with advancing middle years among college-level men is partly due to the relative sexual unresponsiveness of the college-level women to whom these men are married, as viewed from the genitally-localized point of view of the male MVEN AND WOMEN~E log who wants more frequent contacts and more genital stimulation.50 Many such wives apparently want their husbands to cut down on the frequency of intercourse, at the same time the husbands are complaining that their wives are not sufficiently "interested." 51 Presumably the husbands seek intercourse elsewhere because they are not getting what they regard as enough at home. There is, however, as we see it, another vital factor involved in the extramarital intercourse trends.52 This involves in part an attempt of the college-level men to convince themselves that they are still "virile" in a personality sense by proving it in a sexual sense; and in part an attempt to recreate "romance" of the kind they had in premarital and courting days. It may be that of the women who become involved in extramarital intercourse (this violates the existing mores at all social levels more so than for men), more do so because of the "re-creation of romance" reasons than because of biological sex drive unsatisfied at home. This is because the female equivalent of masculine virility, culturally speaking, is desirability, acceptability or popularity. By the age of forty, about a fourth of the women interviewed had had extramarital coitus.53 Such contacts reached their peak for the women in the thirties and early forties.54 IN SEARCH OF A SOLUTION It is imperative that differences between the sexes (wherever they may be derived from, biology or culture) be taken adequately into account from a point of view such as that which this book represents. Kinsey certainly does not deny the validity of the injunctions made to college-level males to "show skill in sexual approach and technique" in dealing with their wives.55 But it is hiding one's head in sand to believe that such knowledge and consideration would alone make up for the different interests, patterns, rates, and so on 110 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS which, on the average, appear to be the case in American men and women. If we have tended to believe that the sex problem is simply a problem of marriage, then we need to face the fact that "only 45.9 per cent of the total outlet of the total population is derived from marital intercourse." 56 From Kinsey's analysis, and from counseling experience with people having such problems, a small bit of insight emerges on how the sexes can get along sexually in spite of their sexual differences (whether biological or cultural in origin). In order to present this hypothesis, some old ground must be retraced and some new ground explored. If one takes Kinsey's occupational classes (excluding the underworld, the dependents, and the extremely wealthy), there is a kind of discernible movement as one steps up the social-prestige ladder. It is not that the lower-prestige levels have no inhibitions and the upper-prestige levels have them. There are inhibitions at every level, but of different character. To the lower-prestige levels, the inhibitions are against masturbation especially in adults, against nudity in the home or even during intercourse,57 and against extramarital venturing in later years. In the upper-prestige groups, the inhibitions are against premarital intercourse, and against anything unromantic or obviously irresponsible. Between the laboring-class groups at one end, and the upper white-collar or business-executive group at the other, stands the middle-class or lower middle-class group. This group, Kinsey notes, is often assumed by "students of social affairs" to be that which "most rigorously upholds the social traditions." 58 But it is in just this group, Kinsey believes he has found, that there tends to be the greatest discrepancy between what it says and what it does.69 Thus, although there are inhibitions at every prestige-level, the thrust of the lower-level groups is to take the "flood," the "natural" and "inevitable" view, especially of coitus, and to MEN AND WOMEN 111 give explicit consideration to social responsibility only in the light of this "flood" notion. By the time the lower middleclass, middle-prestige, position has been reached, the talk would lead one to believe that social responsibility is dominant; whereas the report of the behavior shows a severe conflict between ideal and behavior. When one gets to the upper-prestige groups (omitting the professional group for the moment), he finds the sense of romance and of social responsibility (however defined) paramount, and without the same degree of discrepancy between ideal and performance that existed at the middle-prestige levels. On the surface, a climb up the social-prestige ladder appears to be a move away from being a "child of nature" in the direction of being a "unit of social obligation." Allowing for all the variations and individualities not noted in the comments above, Kinsey's analysis points this way. But the "professional" group does not fit the scheme. Kinsey's data on the professional group are not large enough to corroborate these suggestions, but they point in this direction for the men. (He does not give separate data on professional women; so we have nothing to go on but speculation there.) This is, roughly, that the professional group takes a less grim or mere "duty" view of social responsibility, and as a result comes closer than any other group to achieving a relevant sense of social responsibility, at the same time it becomes as unabashed as some lower-level groups about the "naturalness" of sex as a biological matter. That is, unlike all other groups, it does not regard a relevant sense of social responsibility, and biological naturalness about sex, as being inherently and necessarily in conflict. In contrast, the lowerlevel groups pay only minor attention to social responsibility; the upper-level nonprofessional groups accord it prime importance; and the middle-level groups are in conflict. Sexual frequency rates of the professional groups are much higher than for other upper-level groups.00 A higher proportion of 112 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS women with graduate-school education had orgasms in coitus during their first year of marriage than with any other group.61 Kinsey speaks of "sophisticates," as those who accept nudity in sexual relations, or those who accept many kinds of positions in sexual intercourse or many types of nongenital stimulation.62 Such people, he says, are "returning to basic mammalian patterns of behavior." 63 Whether or not this is the proper explanation of the fact, it remains that such "sophisticates" do such things without a sense of violating their social responsibility. How can the professional-level person do this-have more biological naturalness and more social responsibility all at the same time, and with relative absence of conflict between the two? We can suggest this hypothesis. The professional person has, merely to fulfill his professional responsibility, to be generally responsible in a social sense. But what this responsibility means, precisely, in specific situations is less a matter of rules of thumb than of examining the nature of the situation in the light of broad and basic principles. What he gets, then, is training in examining what is relevant. If he or she gets into this as a habit of mind, then he is less inclined than most other people to accept the relevance of anything uncritically, automatically, and without examination. He comes to think of his social and professional responsibility as much in terms of what he discards as irrelevant as of what he accepts as relevant. Thus, social responsibility becomes for him a continuing process of inquiry into relevance. However much professional people may fall below this ideal, they can hardly help being infected with it. But in so far as they have developed this capacity as a way of inquiring into everything in life, in addition to their technical activity, they have standards of judgment that make for a reflective and personally decided view on something like sex. So they, men or women, may be able to explore sex with biological MEN AND WOMEN 113 vitality undiminished by social responsibility. This kind of attitude, toward sex or anything else, should emerge from a liberal or general education, as well as from a professional education. In so far as it really does so, one would expect to find such results in others than those of the professional group. This disquisition on the pattern of attitudes within the occupational groups sheds some light on the solution of the men-and-women-difference problem. In so far as there is a significant total view (including biology and social responsibility), as now represented most in the professional group, one can give proper due both to biology and to social responsibility, and take account of variations and differences, without either the extinction or the undue exaltation of sex. Unless this authority has been genuinely internalized, however, one is likely to find himself leaning one way at the expense of the other, as do the lower- and upper-level groups, or caught in conflict between as do the middle-level groups. FOOTNOTES 1. II:567. 2. II: Chapter 14, especially page 593. 3. II:578. 4.I 1:163-164, 626. 5- II:373-374 -6. I:626. 7. II:125, 715. 8. II:144, 145. 9. I:183. 10. II:520. 11. 11:520. 12. I1:353. 13. II:353. 14. I:359 -15. II:358. 6. I1:682. 17. II:14. 18. I:377. 19. II:352. 20. II:627. 21. 11:651-687. 22. I:651. 23. 11:652. 24. II:655. 25. II:66o. 26. II:662. 27. 11:664. 28. 11:670. 29. II:659, 670. 30. II:196. 31. II:195. 32. E.g., II:165. 33. II:627. 114 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS 34. Kinsey's use of this term occurs in II:201. 35. II:146, 537-538. 36. I:146. 37. II:420. 38. I:195. 39. II:542. 40. II:589. 41. II:752. 42. II:669. 43. I:262; II:533, 536. 44. II:526-527; I:223. 45. II:536. 46. I:223. 47. II:526-527. 48. I:355. 49. I:567. 50. II:658. 51. I:571. 52. See Chapter 8 on "Seasoned Sex" in my Self-Understanding (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951). 53. II:416. 54. II:417. 55- I:544 -56. I:568. 57. II:312-313 -58. I:559. 59 I:559 -6o. 1:339. 61. I1:379. 62. I:574. 63. I:574. 6. THE PAST AND THE PRESENT SINCE Kinsey's interviews were held with people in all age groups, and since data have been collected over a period of years, it is possible for him to express some judgments on possible changes in patterns between the past and the present generations. In the nature of his studies, he can not say much about the year-by-year "fads" or "fashions" in sex, and these are not without significance. In the analysis of such changes from the earlier to the later generation, an interesting thing has occurred in Kinsey's two volumes. Heterosexual petting behavior, especially to orgasm, has clearly increased in recent years. But apart from that, Kinsey was inclined, in his book on the male, to minimize most other changes in the generations. In contrast, the second volume is full of material about such changes particularly in women but also to some extent in men. This may be a result of Kinsey's re-examination of his data, as a result of critical comment made concerning his volume on men, as well as of a greater obviousness in regard to changes in female patterns. In the first volume he summarized the changes, as he then understood them, as follows: 115 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS And the sum total of the measurable effects on American sexual behavior are slight changes in attitudes, some increase in the frequency of masturbation among boys of the lower educational levels, more frequent nocturnal emissions, increased frequencies of premarital petting, earlier coitus for a portion of the male population, and the transference of a percentage of the premarital intercourse from prostitutes to girls who are not prostitutes.' With the exception of petting, he then contended, there is nothing in any of these changes "that is deeply fundamental in overt activity." 2 In the second volume, on the other hand, he indicates that almost the sole aspect of female sexual behavior that has not undergone a considerable change in the recent generation is homosexual activity.3 We may summarize what he reports about changes in several types of sexual activity by women. Not much is said about changes in male behavior; but such changes may be at least inferred, even though apparently much less significant than in women. Among women born since 1900, the accumulative incidence figure on masturbation was lo per cent greater than for those born before 1900oo.4 That simply means that lo per cent more women had eventually masturbated in the more recent than in the earlier generation. We should note with this and the subsequent figures that the discussion is not about activity before 1900oo and since 1900oo but about activity by women born before or after 1900. Thus, the younger group are people who came to their legal maturity in the 1920'S or later. Probably the change that shows the greatest numerical difference is in heterosexual petting to orgasm, that is, heterosexual activity with orgasm but without entrance of the male penis into the female vagina. In the group of women born before 1900, only z6 per cent had petted to orgasm by the THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 117 time they were thirty-five years of age.5 Of those who were born between 1900 and 1910o, the figure was 44 per cent; and of those born between 1910 and 1920, it was 53 per cent.6 There was much less change in the number of women who engaged in heterosexual petting (without necessarily proceeding to orgasm), the pre-1goo figure being 80 per cent and the 1910-1929 group figure (the current generation) being almost 99 per cent.7 Similar changes are evident in the proportion of women in the two groups who had premarital intercourse (coitus, i.e., including genital union). Less than half as many of the women born before 1900oo had premarital coitus as did those born later.8 However, in spite of the apparent magnitude of this change, we should recall what was reported earlier, that a considerable number of the women who had premarital coitus apparently had it only with their husbandsto-be shortly before marriage. Since Kinsey does not make a correction for this factor, we can not know how that might alter our understanding of the meaning of the change. Of the married women born before 1900, only 22 per cent had had extramarital intercourse by the age of forty.9 But of the women born between 1900 and 1910, 30 per cent had had such relations by the same age.'~ Kinsey indicates that there has not been a steady increase in extramarital relations since 1910o, from one decade to the next, but that the difference is between those born before 1900 and those thereafter." There proved to be a difference even in the number of women who had erotic dreams among the groups born before or after 1900oo. This was not during the early years of life, but after the early twenties when more of the younger group had such dreams.'2 Since Kinsey regards such dreams as due mainly to sensitivity to psychological stimuli of an erotic kind, one would assume that this mainly accounts for the difference. z18 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS There also proved to be some marked differences about sex in marriage between the group of women born before 1900oo and the subsequent group. Here Kinsey finds a definite increase in the proportion of coitus that results in female orgasm, which is steady in its movement upward from decade to decade.'8 It is difficult to find a summarizing figure in Kinsey's discussion, but he regards the increase as "considerable." 14 There has been a marked decrease in so-called frigidity in females, perhaps especially among the more educated women.'5 As we noted before, however, the improvement in marital sex relationships, as evidenced by a higher proportion of coitus resulting in female orgasm, has been accompanied by a decline in average coital frequencies within marriage."' We suggested that this implied that men born since 1900 were apparently demonstrating more consideration for their wives' sexual patterns and interests than before. In summing up the meaning of such changes, Kinsey repeats that the crucial difference is between the average behavior of those born before 1900oo and those born after 1900oo, not among groups of women born in different decades of the twentieth century.7 Among the factors he cites as having contributed significantly to this change are the following: the first World War bringing many American men into direct contact with other cultures, the work of Havelock Ellis and Sigmund Freud in encouraging the open discussion of sexual matters, the whole movement for the emancipation of women, the improvement and wider use of contraceptive devices, and the general urban movement of the population.l8 This entire discussion brings his conclusions much closer to those of other penetrating social analysts than was true of what he said in his first volume. What about the changes for men? Here it is more difficult to interpret what is said, but at least a few conclusions may be drawn. We have already noted, in connection with female orgasms in marital coitus, that the average frequency of THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 119 coitus in marriage has declined. The conclusion seems warranted that more married men of the recent generation than in the past attempt to take their wives' sexual interests and point of view into account than before. On the other hand, it could be that lesser frequencies of coitus in marriage would lead to more male extramarital relationships, but this does not seem to be true. There is a significant change in relation to prostitution. The actual number of men of the two generations who have had, at some time, some experience with female prostitutes does not seem to have changed very much; but the incidence, that is, the number of times most men go to a prostitute, seems to have decreased very radically.ls Kinsey found a marked tendency for older males to rely more upon prostitutes than do younger males.20 Although quite a number of married men relied at times on prostitutes, he noted that not more than one or two per cent of the total sex activity of married men was with prostitutes.2' So far as male masturbation goes, there seem to be two major changes. First, there is a "more generally verbalized acceptance" of masturbation among the upper-level groups than was true in the earlier generation, even though little difference in such activity.22 Second, the taboo against masturbation among the groups of lesser education has been dropping, so that more grade-school level boys masturbate, do so earlier and more frequently, than the comparable group did in the previous generation.23 As to premarital intercourse (coitus), there is apparently not much difference between the past and the present generation for groups that are otherwise comparable, so far as the number of persons involved and the frequencies are concerned.24 But we should recall what a tremendous change there has been in the number of men as well as women who get higher education, as contrasted with the previous generation, and who tend to follow the upper-level rather than the 120 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS lower-level patterns as a result. We may also infer, in view of the increase in premarital coitus among women of the middle and upper levels of education, that these women must be having such relations with men of comparable educational levels, and that, therefore, more of these men's premarital coitus is probably with girls of their own social group. As to extramarital intercourse (coitus) among men, it is unclear from the Kinsey analysis whether the incidence and patterns of this have altered from the past to the present generation. From the fact that more women engage in such relations (especially women of the group with more education), we may at least infer that the extramarital relations that males have are more likely than before to be with women of their own social group. But there is no apparent change in the basic extramarital intercourse patterns between the grade-school and college men. With the former, this is mainly a matter of the early years of marriage; and with the latter, of the later years.25 These comments seem to be about as much as may be clearly inferred from Kinsey's reports concerning the changes in men's attitudes and behavior from the generation born before lgoo to that born since goo1900, except in relation to heterosexual petting to orgasm, which we shall discuss in the following section. HETEROSEXUAL PETTING Heterosexual petting, as any kind of physical contact between two persons of opposite sex with some degree of erotic intent, has increased somewhat from the past to the present generation, as we noted.26 But there has been a marked increase in the number of persons engaging in such petting who carry it through to orgasm.27 Kinsey states that heterosexual petting, involving "frank and frequent participation in physical stimulation that is openly intended to effect orgasm THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 121 is definitely more abundant now than it was among older generations." 28 Such petting is much more prevalent among college-level than among grade-school level groups. To the college-level groups, says Kinsey, "petting has the advantage of being accessible under conditions where coitus would be impossible; it provides a simpler means of achieving both arousal and orgasm; it makes it possible to experience orgasm while avoiding the possibility of a pregnancy; and, above all, it preserves one's 'virginity.' " 29 And as an increasing percentage of the population is going to college and accepting college-level standards, one would expect petting with orgasm to continue to be on the increase. It seems clear from the volume on the female that women of the high-school group in terms of educational level have rapidly adopted the college-level petting-to-orgasm standards, so that petting among that level seems to be increasingly, for men and women, similar to that among the college groups. We should not overlook the significance of Kinsey's remark on virginity. An unmarried man and woman, according to the upper-level code, can be nude, can frankly and openly stimulate each other toward orgasm in every possible way, but they are both still "virgins" if the man's penis has not been placed inside the woman's vagina. Similarly, a married man and woman (not married to each other) may do the same, but it is still not considered "adultery" unless the penis has entered the vagina. This is technically correct of course, but is hairsplitting with a vengeance There is an immense amount of petting that does not proceed to orgasm, the frequencies of nonclimax petting being "many times higher" than those of petting to climax.30 Kinsey writes, "There is, then, considerable evidence that premarital petting experience contributes definitely to the effectiveness of the sexual relations after marriage." 31 He speaks especially of how this may teach the girl with inhibi 122 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS tions "the significance of tactile stimulation and response... " 82 But since he also indicates that "such arousal as petting provides may seriously disturb some individuals, leaving them in a more or less extended nervous state unless the activity has proceeded to the point of orgasm," 83 the implication would appear to be that it may be better to risk petting's going to climax for the sake of learning "the significance of tactile stimulation and response." The same implication appears in both volumes. Heterosexual petting may come in many degrees. But it might be well to note that petting to climax does not necessarily or usually involve the same hazards that many marriage manuals have warned against in speaking of "coitus interruptus." In the latter, there is genital union until the man is ready for orgasm, then withdrawal of the penis which has its ejaculation with or without the partner's manual assistance, and often without regard to orgasm in the partner. In petting to climax, there is usually tactile stimulation and orgasm by both persons. Unless the reports are exaggerated, a pill will soon be made that will prevent conception for stated periods without threat to health or to later conception. One can not help speculating on the possible effects that this pill may have, when perfected, upon heterosexual petting and premarital intercourse. When available, will much of what is now petting to climax become premarital intercourse? The fear of pregnancy, in that instance, would be reduced more than with present contraceptive methods, and so would the trouble. On the other side, in so far as the virginity taboo is itself considered significant by upper-level groups, the change might be small. We should probably take seriously Kinsey's statement that people who have engaged in heterosexual petting are likely to have more satisfactory sex relations in marriage, even if we raise questions about the ethical difference between petting THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 123 and petting to climax. If we consider the opposite, the boy or girl who either disbelieves in any physical contact with the other sex or who is not sufficiently stimulated to desire it, these conditions would appear to be symptoms of fairly deep inhibitions against any contact with the other sex. HOMOSEXUALITY Among all the changes in basic patterns that Kinsey has noted between the past and the present generation, the outstanding exception appears to be homosexual patterns. Since we have not previously discussed homosexuality, we shall do so here not primarily in terms of the reasons for the similarity between the past and present generations, but in terms of its general significance. Probably no other findings set forth by Kinsey have proved as shocking to many people as those on homosexuality, especially in relation to men. In order to understand these, it is first necessary to grasp Kinsey's conception of homosexuality. A sex act is homosexual if engaged in by two persons of the same sex.34 For the sake of accuracy, Kinsey would prefer that the unqualified substantive term "homosexuality" not be used, and that we refer instead to several gradations of heterosexual-homosexual preference from the "exclusively homosexual" at one extreme to the "exclusively heterosexual" at the other.35 He himself notes five intermediate gradations.36 Kinsey has found, for males, that "at least 37 per cent" have some homosexual experience between the beginning of adolescence and old age.37 This figure is of course "accumulative incidence" data, and in itself tells us nothing about whether there was a single homosexual act, an exclusively homosexual pattern, or something in between. Even Kinsey's finding of the number of males, 4 per cent, who are "exclusively homosexual throughout their lives, after the onset of adolescence," has proved startling and beyond nearly all 124 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS other estimates.38 For unmarried females, the comparable figure is only 1 per cent to 3 per cent; and for women as a group, it is clearly much smaller than that.39 But it is the amount of homosexual activity in the lives of males not exclusively homosexual that has proved most surprising. For instance, "30 per cent of all males have at least incidental homosexual experience" during at least a three-year period of their adult lives.40 It is not strange that these facts have proved surprising, since Kinsey himself was "totally unprepared" for them when the studies were planned.41 For this reason, he indicates, he and his colleagues were especially cautious in securing homosexual data, but he reports that the same findings continue to turn up.42 For various reasons, the findings on homosexual experience among women have proved less startling than those about men. This is partly because the incidence figures are markedly lower. The accumulative incidence figure for homosexual relations to orgasm among women was only 13 per cent, as contrasted with 37 per cent among men.43 No doubt it is partly due also to the fact that the public was prepared for Kinsey II but unprepared for Kinsey I. In addition, the social taboo against homosexual activity among women has been considerably less than among men.44 Kinsey presents a long and complex analysis of the factors that are or may be involved in accounting for such unexpectedly high incidences of male homosexual experience. Although cautious in his statements, he seems to be even more impressed here than at most points with the statistical normality of homosexual as well as heterosexual activity in so many parts of the animal kingdom.46 He states explicitly that a tendency to homosexual activity "is an expression of capacities that are basic in the human animal." 46 It is especially on points of this kind that Kinsey's conception of sexuality seems to come closest to that of Sigmund THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 125 Freud. Freud spoke of a "polymorphous perverse" tendency in sexuality, which is another way of saying that its aims, in terms of object choice, are relatively indeterminate in their early stages-and that it is by learning and conditioning that certain kinds of desires and responses are ruled out. In a sense, one might liken the situation to the noise making of the young child. He may make, in his early years, nearly all the sounds of which the human speech-apparatus is capable; but eventually all those will be ruled out that are not used in the parental tongue. It is culture that does the ruling out, but it is "natural" for more to be there than culture brings to fruition. In so far as statements like the ones above are developmental descriptions (e.g., there is a sense in which a person learns to become heterosexual), we must accept them as true. And in so far as this implies that impulses toward homosexual experience at certain earlier stages of development are within a normal and natural pattern of development, this too needs to be accepted. But if this is taken to mean an evaluation of naturalness, normality, or rightness at a human mature and adult interpersonal level, then that is quite different. Using the term "acceptance" in the sense in which we have used "toleration," Kinsey writes: The acceptance of the homosexual in top educational and social levels is the product of a wider understanding of realities, some comprehension of the factors involved, and more concern over the mental qualities and social capacities of an individual than over anything in his sexual history.47 In so far as the "acceptance" means the absence of the aggressive and even sadistic attacks that society often makes on homosexuals (especially and mainly male), one can be for this. But we must also consider such people to have become 126 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS fixated or handicapped in their development toward full human stature, so that acceptance, understanding, and toletion, however necessary (and they are), are not enough. A socially responsible attitude toward homosexuality needs to involve at least four factors. First, it will recognize the difference between flurries or experiments of a homosexual nature in the earlier years of human development and a fixed exclusive homosexual pattern in adulthood. However, we \ should note that Kinsey regards these "accidental" factors as probably more important in determining a fixed homosexual pattern than has usually been thought in recent years.48 Second, it will be concerned that society give all possible help to people with homosexual tendencies that they want to alter. Third, it will make distinctions between those adult exclusive homosexuals who are predatory (especially in relation to children and adolescents) and those who are socially responsible despite their homosexuality. Fourth, although accepting even exclusive homosexuals as persons, it will analyze and challenge the rationalizations of the homosexual community about the nature, meaning, and social significance of homosexuality. There is some evidence that homosexual communities have been using the Kinsey reports as if they supported some of their rationalizations. There has been recently an increase in the number of novels about homosexuality. That homosexuality is inborn, that it is like an allergy or a mere matter of taste, that there would be no predatory acts if society accepted homosexuals, and so on, are rationalizations that should be examined with great care. Kinsey presents no conclusions of this kind. But a more \ Christian, humanitarian, and realistic understanding of homo\exuality does not imply that all this is a matter of indifference to society, nor need it so imply. The homosexual communities would like it very much if the general public got the impression that all fixed homosexuals were superior people in intelligence and social sensi THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 127 tivity. One of the striking findings of Kinsey is that the largest proportion of male homosexual activity is found precisely in that segment of society that is most likely to state its dislike or disgust of such activity under all circumstances -that is, in the group which gets into high school but not beyond, or in the middle-level occupational class group.49 Whatever else this may suggest, it means at least that if we want any diminution of homosexuality in society, we are not likely to achieve this by loud talking against it. Kinsey does not offer hypotheses about why homosexual patterns have changed so little from the past to the present generation, in contrast to so many other aspects of sexual expression.50 Such change as has come has apparently been incident to growing urbanization and the consequent increase in communities of homosexual persons. Perhaps the best guess that can be made is that homosexual activity has been deeply taboo to what Kinsey calls the "overt culture," and the individuals engaging in it, at least beyond sporadic experiments, have had to be motivated by considerable inner pressure against the strong public taboo. Since the nature and strength of the general taboo has altered little if at all, this might account in some measure for the lack of change from the past to the present generation. Whether diminution of the taboo would be likely to result in an increase of homosexual activity and/or of fixed homosexuality, one can not of course know. But the record on changed sexual behavior of other types suggests that this might be true, if the release of the taboo were in the form of a general lessening of social disapproval. Our advocacy of more understanding of homosexual persons is not an invitation to approve homosexual activities. SEXUALITY IN CHILDREN Whether or not sexual activity in children has increased from the past to the present generation, we do not know. 128 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS We do know, however, that there has been a considerable increase in understanding sexual matters in children by adults during the past few years. Therefore, this brief section on understanding sexuality in children is inserted at this point. Because Kinsey's studies have been principally based on interviews, mostly with persons past puberty, they do not bring the same kind of data to bear on sexuality in children that they do for adults. The adult's memory is likely to become more inaccurate the further he goes back into childhood. Consequently, Kinsey has sought data on childhood sexuality from various other sources. Only a few points will be mentioned here. Sexuality in the specific sense of orgasm has, he writes, "been observed in boys of every age from 5 months to adolescence," and in "a female babe of 4 months." 51 Except for the absence of ejaculation in the male, such orgasms are "a striking duplicate" of orgasm in the adult. That is, Kinsey considers it established that specifically genital sexual capacity leading to orgasm ("the development of rhythmic body movements with distinct penis throbs and pelvic thrusts, an obvious change in sensory capacities, a final tension of muscles... a sudden release with convulsions...") is within human beings from early infancy.52 How many infants and young children experience orgasm is not known. One would guess the number to be small. At this stage, Kinsey is simply interested in indicating the fact of this capacity. Before Freud (who defined sexuality in a broader sense than Kinsey), society would have been shocked at the idea of "infantile sexuality." Kinsey's finding about the orgasm-capacity of even small children may also meet with some incredulity. The other striking fact about the prepubertal period relates to boys, and suggests that pre-adolescent (i.e., prior to capacity for ejaculation) boys are, on the average, capable of more orgasms, and of repeated orgasms, in limited periods of time than are boys after puberty.53 Kinsey finds a tendency THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 129 for the pre-adolescent sex play of boys to carry over into adolescence; but for the girls, even when such play exists (which is more rare), he finds that it seldom carries over.54 From the point of view of social and interpersonal development, these two findings about children would seem to carry important implications. If babies and children have sexual capacity even to achieve orgasms, it would hardly seem good parental or educational practice to deal with them as if the very capacity were in itself reprehensible. There is no evidence that the average child spends much of his time, energy, or conscious attention on matters sexual; and if he does, it is probably because other types of satisfaction that he needs have been denied him. If the average child, discovered in an occasional exploration, is dealt with severely, it seems plain that he may become overinterested or underinterested in his sexual capacities as a result. On the other hand, Kinsey's finding about the possible significance of the "accidents" through which especially the boy first has sex experience suggest a caution against a view which would simply tell us to forget the whole business. Perhaps less is known about the period of development immediately before puberty than any other in the developmental cycle up to adulthood. From common observation, we know that this is the stage above all others where bovs play with boys and girls with girls, when gangs and clubs and exclusive attachments to one or two members of the same sex are common. Sexual activity at this age, therefore, is likely to be homosexual in nature unless it is masturbation. With the best intentions, many adults have tried to break up the crushes of this period, motivated by the secret fear that they could lead to exclusive homosexuality. Kinsey suggests that such a fear is not wholly unjustified.55 Certainly more information about this age group is needed. The late Harry Stack Sullivan felt that the primary task of this pre-adolescent period, from a human development point 130 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS of view, was learning to love, in the specific sense of an inner acceptance of the interests of another as being as much my interests as are my own interests.56 In its own way, this is as important a step toward adulthood as is the puberty that comes a bit later. But it is not open, external, or obvious in nature. It is something that comes from inside, that one does not actually see. To find myself feeling for another human being, so that he means as much to me now as I mean to myself, is to make myself vulnerable in a way in which I was not during the previous stages of childhood. After a boy or girl learns to feel at home with this capacity and to hedge it about with some prudence, he or she may extend it more widely and in various degrees. But at first he feels vulnerable, hardly knowing why. The relatively intimate relationship that he has with a friend may be decisively important, Sullivan believes, for his later development. The further implication may be drawn, that by learning how to exercise his new capacity on someone who is more or less like himself he will learn how to exercise it more broadly -and that these crush relationships of the gang stage provide a necessary step toward the possibility of genuinely affectional relationships with the opposite sex after puberty. To return to the Kinsey finding, it could well be the presence or absence of homosexual experience with his best pal would be much less important to his total development than the presence or absence of the developing capacity to love in the sense of having another's interests become inwardly meaningful to him. Yet there is apparently the possibility that such an experience could actually represent a step toward fixed homosexuality in adulthood. If later adult heterosexual relationship is to be anything more than one-night stands and "outlets" for seminal urges, however, it is precisely the capacity for inward appreciation of the interests of another that is prerequisite. THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 131 CONCLUSION In this chapter we have attempted to describe and comment principally upon those aspects of behavior and attitude in regard to sex that have changed most from the past to the present generation. It may be an exaggeration to say that we have had a sexual revolution. But we have certainly had marked changes. These changes have been more striking in terms of the behavior and attitude of women than of men, and Kinsey is more explicit about the female than the male changes. We have attempted to summarize both. We have given particular attention to the increase in heterosexual petting to orgasm, and in the absence of any significant change in pattern of homosexual behavior. We have also commented briefly on sexuality in children, about which we suggested there had been some change in attitude on the part of parents and other adults. On the surface, most of the changes in sexual patterns from the past to the present generation appear to be of the sort that the moralist would ordinarily regret. For instance, more women are engaging in premarital petting to orgasm, in premarital coitus, in extramarital relations, and in masturbation. More men are having coitus and petting to orgasm with women of their own social groups. The restraints put around sexual activity during the previous century, centering especially around the "nice girl," appear to be decreasing rapidly. One might even suggest with some truth that many libertarian elements are evident in the pattern of change. But the matter does not appear to be, from the ethical point of view, so simple as the paragraph above might suggest. A great deal of the change is concomitant with a growing "emancipation" of women, however that be defined. If one regards such a trend toward emancipation as, in itself, a good or desirable thing, because it leads toward the accept 132 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS ance by society of women as persons, then he may have to interpret the apparent rise in libertarianism as a more or less necessary (if undesired) corollary of the emancipating process. If freedom is given, then one must make allowances for the misuse of that freedom which would not have occurred without the granting of the freedom. The misuses may be deplorable, but we may not understand what they mean unless we consider them in the light of the freedom that they have misused. We should note also that the changes in women's sexual patterns are, in general, simply in the direction of patterns already held by men, and in the incidence and frequencies of which men, on the average, still far outrun the women. There is much justification for Kinsey's statement that the double standard is in process of being resolved-not by having the men adopt the standards of the women, but by the women's moving toward the standards of the men.57 But in addition to any viewing with alarm some aspects of the changes, we ought certainly to point with pride to others. These are most obviously notable in regard to sex within marriage relationships, thus relating to both men and women. Not only are more sex relationships in marriage bringing sex satisfaction to women than ever before, but the amount of so-called "frigidity" has decreased markedly and rapidly. In addition, there are strong indications that the patterns of sex activity within marriage are taking women's needs and development into account in a way which was not done in the earlier and more patriarchal generations, with no violence being done to the men as a result. There are other indications that more married couples, beginning with the college-level group but extending now also to parts of the highschool group, are bringing sexual attitudes, interests, and concerns to their sex life in marriage of such a nature that sex is more likely to prove satisfying and helpful to the whole marriage relationship. These are obviously real gains. THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 133 But the author is convinced that the ultimate gains and losses that these changes will bring to individuals and to society can not altogether be evaluated merely from a commonsense point of view. It is in part for this reason that a later chapter is devoted to a further clarification of the existing attitudes toward sex, and a second chapter to a critique of these attitudes from the Christian point of view. FOOTNOTES 1. 1:416. 2. I:415. 3 11I:461. 4. II:151. 5. II:243. 6. II:243. 7. 1I:243. 8. 11:298. 9. 11:422. 1o. 11:422. 11. II:423. 12. 11:202. 13. 11:356. 14. II:357. 15. II:357 -16. II:358. 17. I1:299. 18. II:299-300. 19. II:300. 20. 1:285. 21. I:285. 22. 1:508. 23. I:509. 24. 1:556. 25. 1:587. 26. II:243. 27. II:243. 28. 1:245. 29. I:379; 11:227. 30. I:539. 31. I:546. 32. I:545-546. 33. I:541; 11:263. 34. I:615. 35. 1:638; 11:468 ff. 36. 1:638; II:471-472. 37. I:623. 38. I:651. 39- II:474. 40. I:650. 41. 1:625. 42~ I:625. 43- II:474 -44 11I:484. 45. I:613 ff.; II:448 ff. 46. I:666. 47. I:384. 48. II:447. 49. I:384 -50. 11:462. 51. I:177; II:102. 52. I:177. 53- I:179 -54. 1I:115. 55. II:115. 56. See his Conceptions of Modem Psychiatry (New York: W. W. Norton, 1953). 57. II:324. 87 KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES ONE of the factors that Kinsey has studied to see its possible relationship to sexual behavior is what he calls "religious background." Naturally enough, the simplest way in which any such information could be secured was in terms of church affiliation and relationship. The people were divided into two main groups, active or devout, and inactive or nondevout. Active means "regular attendance and/or active participation in organized church activities, and/or frequent attendance at the Catholic confessional or the Jewish synagogue." 1 In the second volume, he distinguishes an intermediate group of the "moderately religious." 2 Persons were distinguished as being Protestant, Catholic (meaning Roman Catholic), and Jewish. Kinsey is impressed with the degree of similarity between present-day sex codes, as represented in the law, and the religious systems that go back many centuries. "In many details, the proscriptions of the Talmud are nearly identical with those of our present-day legal codes governing sexual behavior." 8 He would, therefore, expect to find that the people who are more "active" as Jews or Christians would tend to conform much more closely, in behavior and attitude, to these codes than would the inactive. And since he regards 134 KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 135 the general tone of the entire Jewish-Christian tradition toward sex to be negative (with the ban against all activity lifted only in marriage, where it is justified for procreative purposes), he would also anticipate that the general level of sexual activity on the part of those active in church would be less than of those inactive.4 He does in fact find such differences, as we shall see; but the differences between those active or inactive in church are not nearly so great, for men, as the differences between various social and occupational classes. For the women, the differences are striking. Some of Kinsey's reasoning at this point is puzzling. If a comparison is made between two groups of men who are homogeneous except that one is active in church and the other not, then his finding is that the "sexual frequencies" (number of sex "outlets") of the group active in church is only about two-thirds that of the inactive group.5 But from this he draws the conclusion that "these social pressures are primarily religious in their origin," that is, the frequencydifferential between otherwise (than church activity) homogeneous groups tends to show ("confirm" is his word) that "these social pressures" are religious.6 By these social pressures he apparently means "the specific laws, and... the attitudes, ideals, esthetic values, physical interferences, and other restraints which the social organization imposes upon the sexual activity of the individual." 7 But what most differentiate the sexual behavior and attitudes of one man from another are the social pressures of the social class group to which he belongs, on whatever basis this be figured-the two bases Kinsey uses being schooling level and occupational-prestige level. It may be that the "social pressures" that "are primarily religious in their origin" are conceived to have nothing to do with the social pressures that make for the class differences. But that would be a strange conclusion. It may be that Kinsey believes the religious pressures to stand in the background behind the dif 136 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS ferent social class pressures. If so, there would appear to be no data to prove this. On the basis of the data, one might more easily contend (we do not do so) that the social pressures on men are primarily educational in their origin, on the ground that the differences in frequency and pattern are most plainly manifested through differences in years of schooling. One might be able to make the case that the people who have studied most are most likely to understand the background of the "laws...attitudes, ideals," and therefore are more inclined than others to follow whatever they believe such laws to be. It may be that Kinsey has underestimated the extent to which education, religion, ethics, law, and esthetics all become integrated into a culture-and the factors that make it advantageous for some groups to assimilate and adopt this dominant culture, as against the factors making it disadvantageous for others, are much more complicated than can be ferreted out by his type of study. Where the average figures turn out, as they do on women, to show marked differences in sexual behavior correlated with degree of church activity, he is on much safer ground in his interpretation. AMOUNT OF SEXUAL ACTIVITY The fact remains that people who are active in church are, in general, sexually less active than people who are not. We might expect this to be true of premarital intercourse and of masturbation. It is more surprising to find it probably true also of married persons. "In practically every instance the religiously active groups engage in marital intercourse less frequently than the religiously inactive groups." 8 Although lower frequency in itself may not be an infallible sign of inhibition in attitude (as we have already indicated, it may represent a greater consideration by married men for the sexual interests and patterns of their wives), this finding might KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 137 support the notion that the net effect of religious teaching is to place an inhibiting hand over all matters sexual. If we ask about the relative influence of Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Judaism in decreasing the total amount of sexual activity, the answer is somewhat difficult to give, partly because the size of Kinsey's samples is not always large enough to make the figures reliable, and partly because there are several equally legitimate ways of calculating. As a whole, Kinsey finds the sexual frequencies among religiously active Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews about the same when the groups compared are homogeneous in other respects.9 Among those who are inactive in their churches, the lowest rates appear to be among Jews at most ages, the highest rates among Roman Catholics, and intermediary figures for the Protestants."0 This seems to be approximately the same for women and for men, but the differences among faith groups tend to be insignificant. The extent to which membership in a social class (at least for men) exceeds the influence of participation in church, or its lack, is evidenced in this finding: that male Protestants of the lower social level who are active in their church have only about two-thirds as much premarital intercourse as do Protestants of the same level who do not participate in church; whereas active Protestants of the lower level tend to have six to eight times as much premarital intercourse as do inactive Protestants of the upper social level."l To be sure, the extremes are not always so great as this, even for men. But knowledge of a man's social or educational level seems to be a much more accurate indicator of some aspects of his sex life than is knowledge of his activity in church. As we shall presently note, the influence of church participation or its absence upon female sex behavior is more obvious and plain. As we have implied about the amount of sex activity in general, so it is true that those more active in the church 138 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS tend to have lower sexual frequencies than the inactive in all the possible forms of sex activity. The difference in homosexual activity in men but not in women (between the religiously active and inactive, when other factors are similar) is comparatively low.12 Kinsey is inclined to attribute this to the fact that "there has not been so frequent or so free discussion of the sinfulness of the homosexual in religious literature as there has been of the sinfulness of masturbation and of premarital intercourse," and therefore many people are "without any clear understanding of the church's attitude on the subject." 18 It could be that, on matters like this, religious groups are paying a price for holding the notion that it is dangerous to discuss such things because otherwise the ideas might not enter people's heads. Roman Catholic moral theology has followed this policy more consciously than other groups, but it has apparently been practiced by all. In women, Kinsey finds that activity in church tends to be correlated notably and even precisely with lesser sexual activity, both incidences and frequencies, in general and for each type of activity (with the possible exception of sex relations in marriage), and among all class groups. In an earlier chapter, we noted that the content of desired sex behavior for women was, at least on the surface, much more similar among the several class groups, than for men; but we added that the class pressures were not to be considered any the less important because of their similarity in the outward aspects of content. We added the hypothesis that women tend to be more sensitive to the "overt culture," to social pressures other than those immediately applied by the peer group; and this should be taken into account in considering the effect of church interest and activity upon the sex life of women. As to masturbation by women, this seems to be engaged in by far fewer of those who are in church activity than by KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 139 those who are not.14 The average woman who once becomes involved in masturbation, however, is likely to continue regardless of her church interest and activity.15 That is, the restraint arising from or going along with the church interest acts mainly as a deterrent against beginning but not against continuing. Among the women who are most devoted to church activity, we note that masturbation accounts for a greater proportion of total sex activity than among those not interested in church.16 This is plainly because the total activity of the devout is so much less than that of the nondevout, to use Kinsey's shorthand phrases. We may note, in passing, a remark of Kinsey's that some women got their first information about masturbation, and were perhaps thus stimulated to try it, from religious lectures intended to be against masturbation.17 Perhaps any frank discussions, including Kinsey's reports and the present book, always run some such dangers. The correlation between lack of church activity and the incidence of petting to orgasm appears to be about the same as that for masturbation. The incidence differences are considerable between the women active or not active in church, where petting to orgasm is concerned; but for petting without proceeding to orgasm, they are much less.l8 Yet, as in masturbation, if a woman active in church once accepts petting to orgasm, she is likely to continue to engage in it about as often as the woman with no church activity.l' In relation to premarital coitus, the church-active women show incidences much lower than those of the inactive, for all faith groups.20 And even those who become involved in premarital relations tend to engage in it less often than do the women inactive in church.2' When Kinsey asked the women he interviewed what factors, in their own judgment, eliminated or restricted their engaging in premarital coitus, 89 per cent of them mentioned "moral considerations." 22 He notes that a considerable number of these women who 140 SEX ETIHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS were not active in church or interested in religion indicated that they had analyzed the matter on rational grounds and were not merely following "codes." Kinsey comments that such women seemed in fact to be following the codes but without ability to state new bases for upholding these codes.23 Women active in church were very much less often involved in extramarital relations than other women.24 There proved to be a similar difference in relation to homosexual relations (in some contrast, we may recall, to the men).25 However, we should not overlook a point Kinsey makesthat some women who found themselves involved in homosexual contacts became so disturbed that they left off church activity, and therefore appeared in the "inactive" religious column.26 Some of these and other women, he believes further, became involved in homosexual relationships primarily because of the severe strictures put against premarital heterosexual relationships of various kinds.27 Such severe restraints, he continues, seem to be major factors in leading to homosexual patterns.28 The age at which women, on the average, experience their first orgasm also seems to be correlated with the presence or absence of church interest. Kinsey reports that the devout Roman Catholic women did not, on the average, experience orgasm until six or seven years after the religiously inactive Roman Catholic women; and for active or inactive Protestant women there was the same kind of gap though not so great in degree.29 Even the presence or absence of sex dreams seemed to correlate with church interest, the most devout females dreaming least of erotic matters.30 Kinsey's explanation of this last point is that such women had little sex experience to dream about.3l Kinsey is not clear on the kind of correlation that may exist between church interest and activity on the one side and sex in marriage on the other. At one point he indicates KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 141 that married women's ability to have orgasms and their engaging more frequently in sexual activity to orgasm is negatively correlated with religious interest.32 At another place he reports that the degree of the husband's church interest affects the rates of coitus in marriage, while the degree of the wife's interest does not.33 This second comment seems to be the proper conclusion. But we may note, as we have.before, that lower frequencies of coitus may not mean less sex interest or more sex inhibition, but may represent better male understanding of female sexual patterns, or, more likely, better mutual understanding and satisfaction. One thing is clear about marital coitus-that as many religiously active as inactive wives engage in it.34 Throughout this discussion of the possible relation between church interest and sex activity in women, we have referred to correlations, as Kinsey usually does. That is, to show that two factors move in the same direction is not necessarily to show that one causes the other. Kinsey tends to imply the direct causal connection, that church interest and activity exercise a direct inhibiting effect upon sex activity with the possible exception of coitus in marriage. We can hardly question his finding that the correlation exists. But his findings in themselves do not prove a direct causal connection. This may or may not exist (the author believes that,in some measure, it does exist, though not so simply as Kinsey puts it); but to prove this would require types of data not available to Kinsey nor, so far, to anyone else. KINSEY ON THE THREE FAITHS We have already indicated that Kinsey's findings show comparatively little difference in amount and type of sexual activity among persons active in the three faith groups. He indicates that he had expected these differences would be greater than they are.35 But he has some comments to make, above his figures, on the attitudes of the three faith groups. 142 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS In his second volume, Kinsey makes some comments about Protestant attitudes which suggest a recognition that these may be less legalistic than those of other faith groups; but at the same time he uses the word "compromise" in relation to such tendencies.88 The fact that the sexual activity of Orthodox Jews is less than that of any other group underscores for Kinsey "the pervading asceticism of Hebrew philosophy." 37 He suggests that he has often found Jewish persons more ready to discuss their sexual histories than most other people, but that this is seldom correlated with a high rate of sexual activity.38 The relatively low sexual activity of active Catholics, and the relatively high activity of inactive Catholics, suggests that, "as the church might well contend, the Catholics who are most active sexually are those who are not good Catholics." 89 Kinsey denies that the high rates among inactive Catholics are due simply to the fact "that many poorly educated and immigrant groups belong to that church," because corrections for those factors have been made.40 He notes that there are great variations among Protestants, in activity and attitude. The "more literal" of the Protestant groups tend to "make sexual appraisals which are close to those of the Talmud and of Catholic natural law." 41 But a "more liberal portion of the Protestant clergy is inclined to reinterpret all types of sexual behavior in terms of the total social adjustment of the individual."42 Recently, he suggests, some Protestant groups have used scientific data.43 Kinsey is impressed with the "indefiniteness" of the teachings of the churches about sex (perhaps especially of Protestant churches although he does not say so specifically), at least in the way they tend to strike the individual. The social control that the church tries to exercise is done mainly through reliance "upon the less tangible concepts of purity, cleanliness, sin, uncleanliness, degradation." 44 When it is done in this way, Kinsey continues, "Each individual cate KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 143 gorizes himself in accordance with the standards that are set up'" and is often "more severe to himself than his fellows would be...." 45 Kinsey says he considers the data on the Protestant groups of particular interest because the various restrictions that have been advocated (e.g., against premarital intercourse) "are justified by the explanation that the whole of one's emotional and overt sex life should be developed around one lifelong partner in marriage." 46 However, he believes the inhibitions that are built up prior to marriage in order to prevent premarriage sex activity in both sexes tend to be "carried over into inhibitions upon coitus with the married partner." 47 This conclusion is apparently based on the lesser frequency of sexual intercourse among Protestants who are active in church as against Protestants who are inactive. It is interesting, however, to note that such a statement does not, so far as we can tell, reappear in the second report. Although he does not use this term, Kinsey is impressed with the influence of a kind of "crypto-religion" among many persons who regard themselves as emancipated from any church. Such a person may defend "the church's system of natural law" or something similar.48 "In so contending, he perpetuates the tradition of the Judaic law and the Christian concept." 49 A JEWISH-CHRISTIAN VERSUS A BIOLOGICAL VIEW OF SEX The more carefully one studies Kinsey's reports, the more it seems that his interpretation of sex as "a normal biologic function" is regarded by him as standing pretty much as a basic view or basic philosophy of sex as against such other views as the Jewish-Christian. It is not that the subject or the problems of sex are exhausted or accounted for entirely by seeing it as "a normal biologic function." Kinsey recognizes of course that society must make various kinds of judgments and decisions about sex, and that these are likely 144 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS to rest upon various kinds of factors. The question is whether Kinsey is "positivistic" in the general sense in which philosophers use that term. In so far as his view is that he, as a scientist, collects and interprets facts, with no overtone that what he is collecting and interpreting is the only thing of any account in relation to the subject, then he would not be positivistic. But if there should be the overtone that anything going beyond these facts and interpretations was unnecessary, and perhaps even inherently contrary to the facts and interpretations, then there would be at least some measure of positivism. In the sense above, Kinsey's view seems to be positivistic in some degree though not flatly nor irremediably so. The implication is that if one accepts the view of sex as "a normal biologic function," he will find this view more or less irreconcilable with the Jewish-Christian view of sex as Kinsey understands that view. Part of the answer to the question this raises must come from examination of the JewishChristian view-is it as Kinsey indicates? Our first two chapters have given some attention to this question, and later chapters will carry that matter further. The other part of the answer must be sought in examination of the nature of Kinsey's view of sex as "a normal biologic function." Does he mean by this something that is a necessary and logical inference from the facts, so that anyone who denied it would be obscurantist, running in the face of proved knowledge? Or does he mean something more than or different from that? Kinsey sees two types of traditional views on sex, the hedonistic and the ascetic.50 According to the hedonistic view, "sexual activity is justifiable for its immediate and pleasurable return." "1 According to the ascetic view, sex is accepted "primarily as the necessary means of procreation, to be enjoyed only in marriage, and then only if reproduction is the goal of the act." 52 The latter is his principal description of KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 145 the Jewish-Christian view in general, and the English-American view in particular.53 Against these two traditional views Kinsey explicitly sets "a third possible interpretation of sex" as "a normal biologic function." 54 To see sex as "a normal biologic function," he adds, is to see it as "acceptable in whatever form it is manifested." 55 The nub of the matter, obviously, is in the meaning to be ascribed to "acceptable." Precisely what Kinsey means and does not mean is not an easy matter to determine. Let us begin with what is clear in Kinsey's view. One thing he wants to prevent is the tendency to use the concepts of "normality" or "abnormality" as if they were biologically derived when the issues to which the concepts point are social rather than biological in character. For example, "There is no scientific reason for considering particular types of sexual activity as intrinsically, in their biologic origins, normal or abnormal." 66 Is it biologically, genetically, or developmentally "abnormal" for a youngster to explore his own genitals or the genitals of a friend of same age and sex? Kinsey's answer in terms of the biological normality of such behavior is chiefly designed to prevent such reasoning as others might make if they said: "Since we do not want masturbation or homosexual activity in adults (for social reasons), we will therefore get at this at the source by indicating that it is biologically abnormal at any stage ever to want or to try such things; for if it were not biologically abnormal, how could we really expect people ever to move away from such practices?" Kinsey implies there is a fallacious element in all such types of reasoning. If social, moral, religious, legal, and other criteria for what is sexually acceptable are to be set up, they should be set up frankly on their own bases. They should not argue against certain types of behavior on the ground that, even with their first emergence, a biological abnormality is evident. Kinsey feels strongly about this for two reasons which he 146 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS notes: first, that the previous classifications by scientists have been almost the same (in terms of normality and abnormality) as what he calls the "theologic" and "moral" classifications;57 and second, because he believes the scientific investigation of sex has been delayed and blocked severely by the dogmatic categorization of types of behavior as normal or abnormal.58 The real difficulty with the introduction of the ideas of normality and abnormality is the "subjective" way in which they are used. As used in "medical pathology," he notes, abnormal refers to "conditions which interfere with the physical well-being of a living body." 69 This he regards as a functional and an objective criterion. If the term "abnormal" is used in a "social sense," however, so as to mean something causing "social maladjustment," there can be no clear-cut determination of what "social maladjustment" is in the same sense as there is about "physical well-being"; and therefore "subjective determinations" are inevitably involved.60 What he is trying to guard against is the use of concepts which he believes to be descriptively and objectively determined in biology in order to support particular subjective views that operate at the social level. In so far as Kinsey is attempting, in his attacks on the common use of terms like "normal" and "abnormal," to prevent the introduction of concealed and unacknowledged premises into the argument, we need to assert it ourselves. For if we do not, we should remember that the knife cuts both ways. To illustrate the one side, consider the young man struggling against a tendency to sink back into a homosexual pattern. If he is simply told flatly that this tendency is abnormal, he is likely to feel more guilty, alienated, and weak than before; and those conditions necessary to help him implement his own objective may not appear. As a matter of fact, there was nothing biologically abnormal in his first childhood sexual exploration with a friend-to imply KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 147 that this is where the issues lie is to deflect him from considering his real problem. Nor is it "abnormal" in the sense of inexplicable or merely perverse that he should now feel this way. The psychiatrists have made it abundantly clear that there have been real factors throughout his growing years that have led him in this direction; the pattern and tendency has not emerged like a bolt from the blue. A mere statement about "abnormality," therefore, as if this accounted for his condition, would be misleading as to the facts, and diverting as to the possibility of his attaining his objectives by facing the real questions. But suppose another young man (to see how the knife cuts the other way also) to have become fixed in exclusively homosexual patterns. Having no desire to change, he wants to avoid any possible criticism of his patterns and action by society. So he is likely to assert that his condition is perfectly "normal," or perfectly normal at least for some people. In these days, he is very likely to quote and misinterpret Kinsey in order to sustain his point. We can of course easily see the fallacies in his argument. To assert the "normality" of childhood homosexual experiments on a descriptive level is one thing; to assert "normality" of an adult fixed-homosexual pattern in an evaluative sense is something quite different. So far as Kinsey's knife makes impossible both these types of reasoning, by exposing the unacknowledged shift in perspective, it can make a very positive contribution to our understanding of sex. But this is not all Kinsey implies under his view of sex as "a normal biologic function, acceptable in whatever form it is manifested." 61 The best clue to the remainder of what is implied is illustrated by the following statement: In many instances variant types of behavior represent the basic mammalian patterns which have been so effectively suppressed by human culture that they persist and 148 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS reappear only among those few individuals who ignore custom and deliberately follow their preferences in sexual techniques.62 This seems to mean that "basic mammalian patterns," the side of man's heritage that he has in common with other mammals, is man himself in a sense that is not true of man's social patterns. To put it in another way, man civilized is man imposed on by culture; man being himself is man following his own (biological) preferences. This seems to be, implicitly, a complete theory of human nature. What is more basic or fundamental is that which does not depend, for its content, upon culture. Thus Kinsey writes: "There is, of course, no part of the individual himself which is social in nature, in quite the way that morphologic, physiologic, or psychologic capacities may be identified and localized in an organism." 63 This is to say that one does not identify a clear and distinct identity as easily with one dimension as with the other, and that is true. But is man's sociality more peripheral than his biology? Because the frontal lobes developed later than did his emotional apparatus, are they to be considered less essential? 64 What Kinsey seems to do is to consider the social dimension of life as wholly external, while the biological dimension is internal and the psychological dimension more internal than external. To put it more technically, this seems to involve rejection of a "field theory" of personality. To the extent that this is true, he could be taken to task on the grounds of scientific theory alone by such students of personality as Gordon W. Allport, Gardner Murphy, Andras Angyal, Talcott Parsons, Lawrence K. Frank, and many others from different professions. At any rate, to the extent that Kinsey's view of sex as "a normal biologic function" considers the channeling principles to be more peripheral than the action urges, to that KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 149 same extent will he be unclear as to whether his comments on various social (cultural, moral, legal, etc.) views of sex are comments about particular content of those views or are, instead, comments on the general fact that the human animal channels its sexuality through patterns internalized from culture. Is it lamentable that there must be social views at all (mores, laws, etc.)? Or is it merely lamentable that some of the existing social views have not caught up with some biological realism? The puzzle comes in that sometimes the one, and sometimes the other, seems to be implied. It is important for us to be clear that we have no right to ask Kinsey to set forth a sex ethic. His own intention is perfectly clear on this point, for "scientists have no special capacities for making such evaluations." 65The question that must be raised strongly, however, is whether evaluations are being made unwittingly, whether the advocacy of sex as "a normal biologic function" is as an important preliminary to the concerns and tasks of culture, morals, and law, or is itself a view that sets such concerns at the periphery. There is some indication that he regards it as more or less inherent in the way that morals and moralists operate that they are unconcerned about the sense in which sex is "a normal biologic function." He writes, for example: "For the individual who is particularly concerned with the moral values of sexual behavior, none of these scientific issues are, of course, of any moment." 66 This comes very close to saying that morals are so traditional that they can learn nothing from new discovery, or that, if they do learn anything, they cease to be morals in the old sense. In so far as he implies the irrelevance of facts to morals, he is mistaken. But in so far as he wants to avoid, as a scientist, being an advocate of any particular moral system, one can support him. The question is as to whether the advocacy of a view of sex as "a normal biologic function, acceptable in whatever form it is 150 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS manifested," is itself a particular content with moral and social implications and dimensions. As Kinsey understands the Jewish-Christian view of sex, the truest thing he says about it is that its tone has usually been more negative than positive. He might have said that sex appears more often under the doctrine of sin than under the doctrine of salvation. This is historically correct. But when he concludes that the one root principle about sex in the Jewish and Christian traditions is the procreative or reproductive one, then he fails to identify the basic principles in both these religious traditions upon which succeeding generations may rest while utilizing to the full new data about something like sex. In so far as a view of sex as "a normal biologic function" should be set against any cultural, ethical, or legal view of sex, then it would have to be rejected. If it is used, instead, to correct the means of their reaching their ultimate intention, then it can be of value. CONCLUSION In this chapter we have reviewed Kinsey's findings on the correlation between sexual activity, or lack of sexual activity, and church activity, or lack of church activity. For the men, there is some correlation between lower rates of sexual activity and higher church interest and activity, but much less marked than for women. For the women, there is a uniform correlation between interest and activity in church, and lower rates of sexual activity, with the possible exception of sex relations in marriage. Kinsey suggests that, throughout, the differences rest upon the degree of devoutness or church interest or their opposite, not upon which faith the people are devout about. The differences among the three faith groups appear to be very small. From the point of view of ethics, it is plain that one of the crucial questions is whether restraints on sex expression in KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 151 the premarital period tend to be carried over into sex life in marriage; and if lower rates and incidences of sexual expression before marriage are correlated with religious interest, would this mean that church interest actually operated, however unintentionally, against satisfactory sex life in marriage? Kinsey seems convinced about two things: first, that persons who experience orgasm before marriage are likely to arrive more quickly at satisfactory sex life within marriage; second, that activity and interest in religion and the church tends to cut down sex activity and interest especially for women. Thus, it might be inferred from these two convictions of his that if one wants to have satisfactory sex life in marriage (or at least to achieve it quickly), one had better go easy on church and religious interest. He does not draw such a conclusion. It would seem to us more accurate to state that persons who manifest no overt sex interest before marriage (as in petting) are likely to have restrained sex interests to such a degree that sex adjustment in marriage may prove slow and difficult, and that persons with a strong religious and church interest are likely to consider more seriously the rightness or wrongness of sex activity in general, and that this may, in terms of behavior, at times be or look like inhibition or restraint. But there is no clear evidence that sex life in marriage is any less satisfactory, even for women, if they have not engaged in premarital coitus, masturbation, or petting to orgasm, although women who have so engaged may learn to achieve the capacity for orgasm in marriage more quickly. But Kinsey himself notes not only that the ability to achieve orgasm (by women) is by no means the "sole criterion" for determining the satisfaction they receive from sex,67 but also that sex factors are not those that most often "determine the fate of a marriage." 88 As to what it means to have a strong, or a weak, religious or church interest, it was manifestly impossible for Kinsey's 152 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS studies to make the kind of distinctions that would immediately occur to our common sense. Some people who are "more religious" or more devoted to the church may be conformists, or legalists; other who are "more religious" may be more open or free. This is the old question of religion as crutch or as prod. Although Kinsey's studies, naturally enough, did not deal with such a distinction, we can not interpret his findings properly without taking it into account. From these larger considerations, there is no evidence which could be used to show that interest in religion as such inhibits interest in sex as such; but the kind of interest there is in religion may have a very considerable influence one way or another. However, there is an implicit warning to those of us who are interested and active in religion and the church that such interest may be of such a kind as to exercise a general inhibition on sex even in marriage, unless we reinterpret our understanding both of religion and of sex to see that this does not occur. The latter part of our chapter has been devoted to exploring Kinsey's point of view about sex in so far as that view states or implies considerations of general meaning or significance. While we are eager not to do him injustice at this philosophical level, since it is his clear intention not to assume any philosophical point of view, we nevertheless have to conclude that he comes close to assuming a point of view that is at war with that of the Jewish-Christian tradition. In so far as biology is presented as biology, then he is dealing with facts that must be taken into account. But in so far as there is the suggestion that biology determines issues at the general or philosophical level, then we would have to stand against such implications. Kinsey's intention, to avoid such implications, is clear. His performance is ambiguous. KINSEY ON RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 153 FOOTNOTES 1. I:468. 2. II:56. 3. 1:465. 4. 11:17, 168, 259, 260. 5. 1:472. 6. I:468. 7. 1:468. 8. I:482. 9. 1:486; 11:522-523. io. 1:485. 11. 1:447 -12. I:483. 13. I:483. 14. II:154. 15. II:157. 16. II:157. 17. II:139. 18. II:248. 19. 11:249. 20. II:304. 21. II:306. 22. II:314. 23. II:314. 24. II:424~ 25. 11:463. 26. II:465. 27. II:460. 28. II:460. 29. II:515. 30. II:205. 31. 1I:205. 32. 11:529. 33. II:360. 34. II:360. 35. 1:485. 36. II:260. 37. I:486. 38. I:486. 39. I:485. 40. 1:485. 41. I:485. 42. I:485; II:169. 43. 11:169. 44- 1:447. 45- 1:447. 46. I:571. 47- I:571. 48. I:487. 49. 1:487. 50. 1:263. 51. 1:263. 52. 1:263. 53. 1:263; II:17, 168, 260. 54. 1:263. 55. I:263. 56. 1:202. 57. I:202. 58. 1:7. 59. I:201. 60. I:201. 61. 1:263. 62. 1:59; II:137. 63. 1:327. 64. 11:708. 65. I:5. 66. I:562. 67. II:371. 68. II:ll. EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD ' SEX THE four previous chapters have considered some of Kinsey's findings about sex behavior, and have attempted to present Kinsey's analysis of those facts especially as they reveal underlying attitudes. This chapter looks directly at the attitudes (confining ourselves to the attitudes of white American men and women, as do Kinsey's two reports), presents virtually no new facts, but attempts to clarify the relationship of factors within each attitude. Chapter 9 will bring the Christian view to bear upon each of the attitudes. The attitudes that are to be identified and discussed in this chapter are my statements not Kinsey's, although the first three of the six to be mentioned correspond in considerable measure to Kinsey's grade-school, high-school and college groups. These will be called the child-of-nature attitude, the respectability-restraint attitude, and the romantic attitude. In addition, three other important (but numerically small) attitudes will be discussed: the toleration attitude, the no-harm attitude, and the personal-interpersonal attitude. It is of course possible that another interpreter might categorize major attitudes toward sex in an entirely different way. But the reader should be warned at the outset of this discussion on attitudes that the categories have not been chosen 154 EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 155 arbitrarily. At least the first three of them (which seem to be the dominant attitudes of the overwhelming majority of the American people) are an attempt to express that which will account for the chief facts and factors that Kinsey finds, respectively, in the behavior of the grade-school, the highschool, and the college groups. After working for some time on these basic attitudes, it suddenly occurred to me that I had previously been overlooking something about each and all of them that Kinsey also, presumably, had failed to see. This is that each of these three attitudes is "organic" in nature. Every item or fact within it is bound dynamically to every other item or fact. Even though we may approve some items and disapprove others, we need to recognize the actual (though not always obvious) connection that exists among them all. This assertion of the organic nature of each attitude is, if true at all, of the very greatest importance for our understanding of sex. Its meaning will become clearer as the discussion proceeds. Whether or not it is true, and if so, to what extent, must be judged by each reader. It seems a hypothesis so strongly probable that it will be used until or unless something more adequate takes its place. THE CHILD-OF-NATURE ATTITUDE By this phrase is meant that attitude which regards the pressure of sex for expression as natural, inevitable, and almost like a flood; so that the problem of sex is merely channeling it with a certain elementary prudence, or else stopping the flood before it starts. This attitude is unsophisticated. It is uninterested in refinements of relationship, or of technique. It can be brutal in effect but is not consciously so in terms of intention. Its interest in sex (for men) is centered almost wholly around genital activity leading to orgasm; and the fact that many people who have such an attitude use much sex language in their ordinary talk does not mean that 156 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS the talk carries an emotional charge for them as it would for groups with different types of attitude. Persons with this type of attitude tend to have strong inhibitions against anything sexual which they regard as unnatural. They are restrained about nudity, both in terms of family nudity in a home with children, and even nudity in sexual intercourse. Apart from prepuberty masturbation in children, they regard masturbation as unnatural and childish, and may be severe about it in dealing with children. Their sexual intercourse ordinarily gets down to genital union with a minimum of preliminaries, and orgasm is usually achieved at least for the male in a minute or two, sometimes in seconds.l They are usually suspicious of any sex stimuli other than directly genital ones as being artificial, the great exception in American culture being, for these and other males, the symbolic value of the female breast in stimulating sexual excitement, rather than of the female genitals.2 This is the kind of attitude found most often among what Kinsey calls, generically, "lower-level" men, whether the criterion is that their education never took them beyond grade school, or the prestige of the occupational group in which they are or were reared. Especially since there will probably be no readers of this book who hold the child-of-nature attitude toward sex in untarnished form, we should note that such persons are by no means necessarily immoral or unsocial by their own standards, and often by other standards as well. Their social responsibility may be shown, for example, in assuming responsibility, social and financial, for offspring of an unmarried mother in such a way that both mother and child receive a minimum of harm from the experience. But their basic attitude is, as Kinsey puts it, that "by and large... nature will triumph over morals." 3 For the girls, there may be strong and successful family efforts to prevent nature from getting started. Persons who look at such an attitude from the perspective EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 157 of higher educational or occupational levels are likely to feel repelled by the crudity that appears to dominate it. From other perspectives, it looks like a dehumanizing of sex. The absence of romance, of a "build-up" to sex relations inside or outside marriage, the brevity of sexual encounters, the lack of complexity in sexual feelings so that nothing excites except genital activity-all these and related characteristics look, from other points of view, like a move back to the monkeys. A closer inspection will, however, qualify such an interpretation. It is not that this attitude dehumanizes sex, in that one goes back on possibilities to which he had almost achieved. It is rather that sex has never been allied in any significant degree with imagination; and if one holds that the growth of imagination is essential to full human development, then the point is that such people have never "humanized" sex. By settling for an attitude toward it that more or less excludes imagination, complexity, symbols, and so on, they have in effect solved their sex problem before sex has much of a chance to become associated with other aspects of human culture. Kinsey observes that lower-level men and women begin sexual intercourse, on the average, several years earlier than higher-level men and women, and in the premarital years and the earlier years of marriage the men are likely to engage in intercourse with various partners, sometimes hundreds. But by the onset of middle age, the great majority of the men as well as women having this attitude tend to confine their sex activity to the married partner if they are married. If not married, the men may have a friend, or go to prostitutes. With this attitude, then, fidelity to a single partner is a phenomenon of the latter half of life, in precise contrast to some other levels especially among men. It may be that the original basic attitude toward sex more or less precludes the 156 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS possibility of its becoming associated with an intense interpersonal relationship. If such close interpersonal relationships exist at all, they are on some base other than sex. But if a person marries, then the actual conditions of marriage and of joint responsibility for child rearing, inevitably bring some kind of closeness in an interpersonal sense; and eventually it is clear that closeness and sex are in some way together in the same partner. Humanization in the interpersonal sense has, so to speak, sneaked up on the couple unawares, and finally acquires a sexual aspect that modifies the basic sex attitude even though not changing it radically. For the men of this group, their sex activity in younger years has been their badge of virility. As the need for proving this declines, their only sex activity may be intercourse with the spouse with decreasing frequency. The erotic stories are relics or conversation pieces, not the symptoms of unresolved sex tension. For the women of this group, there seems to be more of an assumption that sex is a man's concern, with women going along with the men in marriage. The directly genital type of interest may be, among this group, even less than among women of more education. If the aim of getting a spouse who is a good provider has been achieved, then the general life interests will be principally on children or household; 4 and unless there is strong sex desire, as sometimes happens, the pattern of sex relations is likely to be set chiefly by the husband's wishes. Before leaving our comments on the child-of-nature attitude toward sex, it should be noted explicitly that it is not possible for educated or sophisticated persons to hold this view. They may indeed hold a sex-is-natural-so-what's-theproblem view, as we shall indicate later on. But there is always something else present (romantic assumptions, acceptance of nudity, symbolic arousal of sex desire, etc.) that is not found in the real child-of-nature attitude. Perhaps the sophisticates who try to imitate this attitude should be called EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 159 the would-be-back-to-nature people. But such going back is a very different thing from what has been discussed here. THE RESPECTABILITY-RESTRAINT ATTITUDE It is difficult to find terms that will describe or suggest this attitude accurately without appearing to caricature it. The term used in the heading seems most adequate; but others would be the "moralistic-restraint attitude," the "respectability-control attitude," or the "hidden-conflict attitude." The essence of this attitude is that it contain-an-unsta.beomhbinatio.-oflgjntsfrm thlqwer-level attitudes described in the previous section) and hitlppei-level attitudes 6be describ elew). This attitude is not conscious, h6ower,tTi e extent of the conflict within it. It aims at restraint for the sake of Lspabiity, and this is what it iscusses"Tirs- etly fears that its sandbags with which to check the flood arefull of holes. The figures prove its secretefar lus For persons with this attitude, sex is consciously a problem as it never is with the group discussed previously. In fact, acceptance of sex as a problem, as something to be restrained, is for this group a kind of badge that it has advanced beyond the cruder levels of society. As "unnaturalness" was the inhibition of the lower-level group, so "lack of respectability" becomes the negative criterion of this group. Because men and women are both likely to hold this view of the man-woman relationship, we can at least suggest that sex relations in marriage are likely to involve more "powerstruggles" than in most other groups. Because of the intense desire for what is respectable, the loss of virginity, intentional or otherwise, in a woman of this group may in itself cause unusual suffering. In brief, with this attitude, one regards sex secretly as a flood that may be driving in his direction; but he valiantly erects dams, all the while looking in another direction because he doubts the strength of the 160 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS dams. When the dams fail to work, he is inclined to fall back on upbraiding the builder, whether it be himself or another. Kinsey identifies the middle-level group as those who have got into high school but not beyond, or who, in occupational status, are in the lower white-collar groups. It is in these groups that he finds, for instance, the strongest strictures on (and presumably the worst condemnation of) homosexual activity, but the highest actual incidence of such activity among men. It is also in this group, as we know from various sources, that there are likely to be the most severe strictures against the expression of sex interest by children. An interpretation of this group, with its most dogmatic opinions about how sex can and should be controlled, lies in the fact that it defeats achievement of its own stated purposes because it secretly includes in its assumptions the notion that sex is a flood. Thus it is in conflict; and to continue living without great anxiety and a conscious wrestling with the elements of the conflict, it builds its defenses higher and higher and more and more dogmatically. In this group, gossip about a member of the group, especially a woman, who has "fallen" in some way is likely to be more full of hostility (perhaps mixed with secret wish) than in other groups. The tendency demonstrated by Kinsey for a rather high proportion of this group to "fall" in some way or another, far from helping the group to question the shifting bases of its attitude, tends principally to make it rear the defenses higher. Unless some new factor enters (which it often does from the other level groups, both higher and lower), this attitude, therefore, is likely to become more and more of a closed circle. But it is important to note, as suggested especially in Kinsey's second volume, that this whole respectability-restraint attitude seems to be losing ground, especially among the EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 161 women, where it is being replaced by what we shall describe later as the "romantic attitude." Among upper-level groups, it is customary to lash out with vehemence if not venom against the respectability-restraint attitude as it has been described. And there is quite a case against it. It gets no fun, one might say, out of either its expression or its controls. If a control appears to work, it has to turn it on harder lest the pressure become greater and the control fail. If there is expression, it may be so hedged about with inhibitions that either the biological or the interpersonal gains seem slight. The "child of nature" is likely to regard such people as "putting on airs" while being in fact "no better than they should be." The upper-level person is likely to regard them as hypocritical zealots. It is important that we attempt to see this respectabilityrestraint attitude from the inside. The prime fact is that such persons are in conflict but can not admit this to themselves. Now conflict, whatever the nature of the elements involved, is difficult to face. Automatic protective devices go into action, which may or may not be intelligent in view of all the factors involved in the situation. If one believes a flood may be bearing down on him, there is, after all, something more courageous in his working hard with the sandbags in his private battle than there would be if he merely lay down and prepared to drown. He is attempting, in a blind way, to meet what he regards as a threat. We can, then, admire the courage of his intention, even if we see little gain in the results of his performance. There are several ways in which he could proceed, any one of which would modify the vicious-circle character of the defense system as described. If he should become more secure in an economic, social status, or general sense (as many Americans once in this group have done), then the rigidity of the defenses on matters like sex could be decreased. Or if he were brought, by some "fall," personal or within his 162 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS own circle, to increased understanding of the whole problem, the result might be a decline in rigidity and an increase in integrity. Or if any other condition could aid him to see the elements in the conflict, such as seriously and overtly questioning for the first time the extent to which sex is actually a flood, that too could result in change of attitude. Yet the respectability-restraint attitude is especially difficult to accept without wanting to change it, because this is the fellow who uses our own tools (morals and ethics) for purposes which are neither moral nor ethical and often nonsexual to boot! THE ROMANTrIC ATITUDE Under this heading, and the two that are to follow, we discuss attitudes that are held by various groups of "upperlevel" people in our society. In the case of the romantic attitude, this appears to be held increasingly also by the middle-level groups, especially the women of those groups. This is done under three headings rather than one for two reasons: most of the people who will read this book are upper level in some significant sense or other, as Kinsey uses that term; and the number and proportion of upper-level people in our society is increasing because more people are having more schooling, higher income, etc. In this current section, we deal with the dominant attitude toward sex among upper-level groups, whether considered by schooling level or occupational-prestige level. This is theromantic attitude. 1h'hose who have this romantic attitude toward sex assume that the all-important thing is the finding, now or later, of the proper partner or partners. There may indeed be some sex problems other than this; and the physiological pressures of sex are real especially for men. But, they reason, although it is a little childish, one can drain off the pressure a bit by masturbation if necessary; it is a well-known fact that mas EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 163 turbation does not harm you if not done to excess, and if it does not eliminate your interest in the other sex. It isn't much, to be sure; but it may be like having an old jalopy until you can afford a real car. But it's the real car, the proper partner (this attitude continues), that one really looks for. Everyone knows of course that he or she does not fall right out of the blue (though one always hopes); but it's a good thing to meet a lot of them, talk with them, get to know them as persons and as members of the other sex. Naturally, one doesn't want somebody who's just a plain iceberg (or a blast furnace either, for that matter), and some petting along with normal social intercourse is a pretty good way to look around. And then, one has to learn to be himself too, so that he knows his way around enough to know when the partner comes along. Of course there's a lot of talk about sex (this attitude goes on), some boasting about sex with one's fellows (males) and about personal conquests with one's fellows (females). And one, especially if male, does find oneself sexually stimulated by an awful lot of different kinds of things. But down underneath, what one is really looking for is a partner-maybe a temporary one or two, because some say that helps-but, to put it bluntly, one is not so allergic to getting married and settling down as the talk makes out. There's something very comforting in the idea of having someone you really love living right with you day after day. Of course there are bound to be difficulties; no one is perfect. But with somebody who can even quarrel well because he or she loves me, that could be exciting. And someone who would give me a constant hand up in my work (or my house and kids). Nobody is going to tell me whom to pick; that's the nice thing about all this. In spite of all this talk about getting hooked, one can really choose for himself. Why, it gives one a grown-up, responsible, and tingly feeling just to think about it. The 164 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS romantic attitude person implies at least some such statement to himself, / Let it not be denied that the way in which men and women conceive the romantic attitude is different. The interest of the men is much more overtly genital than that of the women. They tend to look forward to marriage with a strong focus of psychological interest on actual sex activity, while the women tend to think of affection, of a home, and of prospective children.5 But the description given would seem to be reasonably fair for both men and women before marriage, granted all sorts of individual variations. If, however, we tune in on some average romantic-attitude people later on, perhaps twenty years after their marriage, we find something that appears to be different. Quite a proportion of the men are having extramarital affairs, which may not be "serious" and may not last long, but the number of which seems a little high in view of that romantic commitment twenty years before. Even the women may be having little affairs; and although these are more likely to be confined to mere talk or nongenital petting with other people's husbands, still one is also a bit surprised. What has happened? Did all these people marry the wrong other people? No doubt Kinsey's later reports will throw additional light on this kind of question. For the moment, we must rely largely on inference drawn from general (and especially counseling) experience as we attempt interpretation. The man of the upper-level romantic-attitude group enters his marriage with a strong desire to make it work, to support his family in increasingly good style, to make sex with his wife part of a total pattern of "sharing" life together, and so on. At first it seems to work that way. If things seem a little slow to him sexually, he realizes this is partly his fault; so he redoubles his efforts to bring his wife satisfaction. And her capacity im EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 165 proves, although he does wish perhaps that she were more, or more often, interested. But he's working hard at the office, and is tired; soon there are children to be played with, cars to wash, and lawns to mow when he is at home; and of course they must keep up with their friends and not get entirely out of touch with the finer things of life. But mainly he has to work. Rewards come slowly, but they do come. He watches plenty of female bosoms on his way to the office every day, flirts mildly at neighborhood parties; but the fact is, he is too busy and still too uncertain of his career to give any sexual attention to any woman but his wife unless one should catch him in a h tel miles from home at a convention. ut as forty approaches, he is doing pretty well. The kids no longer wake up at night; there's at least one good car and maybe two; lawn manicuring can be managed by son on Sunday afternoon; the round of friends has been established; and everything seems pretty much in order. But actually the. sparkle isn't there. He can't complain about his wife; she's a fine woman, good mother to the kids. She'll sleep with him too, if he really requests it. But there isn't much excitement any more (except perhaps the big deal in business). He guesses maybe he is getting old. If he turns, at this point, to extramarital affairs, it is doubtful that this is mainly due to lack of physical sex satisfaction with his wife, although this may sometimes be involved. But he is also seeking a badge which says he is not yet that old. The main thing that the original ideas of romance did not prepare for was dullness and boredom, perhaps plus the fact that his sex powers have, naturally enough, declined, but he hesitates to admit this fact to himself. So the principal motivation for his extramarital affairs is not sexual but romantic, refusing to give up hope that both he and life have not settled into a dull routine, or that he can stay young. The amount of actual sex 166 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS activity involved outside marriage may be very small, but it may keep the romantic attitude alive.,7'What is the female counterpart of the romantic attitude? Like her husband, the woman enters marriage with the strong desire to make it work and, at least in her head, this goes for sex also. She realizes it may take a little time for her to achieve sexual satisfaction, and she counts on her husband's understanding and help in such a situation. Unlike the generation preceding, she may decide to hold a job for a while to help them get started, this no longer being a reflection on her husband as it once was. Sexually speaking, her capacity probably improves slowly. She is most likely to be interested in sex after they have had a pleasant dinner "out," or in some other way her husband has obviously courted her. For the most part, sexual interest arises in her principally as a result of such courting periods, and is therefore a kind of seal of their love after the assurance has been given by the courting. After children arrive, the courting becomes more difficult. They can not often dash off for dinner or a romantic parking spot. Besides, her husband has new business responsibilities and is likely to come home later and more tired. After a full day with young children, she finds herself more fatigued. When her husband, too tired to court, approaches her sexually, she does not really feel much interested. And in the rare periods when he has been able to return to courting, the courting may leave him tired enough so that he is not sexually interested. The frequency of intercourse may be set more by the husband than by the wife; but she, though her capacity may be the same or even increasing, has been losing interest psychically because of the decrease in courting. And after twenty years, how does she look at it? She and her husband have their lives and schedules pretty well laid out, and life is busy for all. Despite all the labor-saving de EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 167 vices, it still takes her some time to take care of her house. She is in some community activities, is ambitious in a generalized way for her children; and a good deal of time is spent on their schedules as well as her own. From her point of view, her sex life is all right, although she would prefer it if it were cut down a bit. But she does miss courting and romance. She buys a good many of the women's magazines chiefly, she may note, for the articles and recipes; but it may be the young love stories that she invariably reads. This may in fact represent a sexual interest in the generalized sense, but not a genital type of sex interest. Statistically speaking, she is not likely to become involved in extramarital sexual affairs (although this is a bit more likely than it used to be); but she does enjoy mixed parties in good part because one or more men may actually pay attention to her as a person, listen to her ideas on things, and in this mild way, treat her romantically. She probably does not realize how much, all along, her apparent acceptance of sex always had a catch to it that even the Great Lover might have a hard time meeting after he became Junior Assistant Vice President and Father of Three. If her husband does become involved in extramarital affairs and she finds it out, her deepest hurt is that he has betrayed their love, that is, their romance together. If she herself becomes involved in extramarital relations, her husband may be drastic, acting, Kinsey believes, like a "true mammal." 6 Both the average man and the average woman with the romantic attitude toward sex continue to cling to certain aspects of their original romantic views, although each to somewhat different points. For the woman, the concentration is on being courted as proof of love, the result being sexual intercourse, which is also, therefore, a reward to her husband for proving his love by courting. For the man, the attention is on the excitement of the sexual experience (and its anticipation), to which his courting and her response are 168 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS t preliminary. One marvels a little that the content of what is considered romantic changes sp little despite the radical alteration in the life situatioVi For most readers, it takes no great imagination to feel "inside" this romantic attitude toward sex. It is the dominant current attitude among persons with much education, and basic elements of it have filtered down to the middle levels of education and even the lower levels (cf. the true-confession magazines instead of the women's slick-paper magazines). The root of this attitude is certainly based on a great achievement of Western civilization, that marriage choice for everyone should rest on personal decision and be rooted in affection. All levels of society enjoy the benefits of lack of coercion on choice, and of the addition of affection as a normative condition, in contrast to many societies of the past and present. The explicit attempt all along the line, in this group, to combine sexual expression with affection and love at least represents an effort to "humanize" sex without necessarily losing spontaneity, biologically speaking. The principal difficulty with the way in which the romantic attitude works out, however, has already been noted -that a romantic core is retained as the ideal, that this tends to be different for men and for women (and that neither understands what the other holds), and that in neither is the content of the romantic attitude altered to meet the realities of changing situations. In addition, sex matters tend to become very much wrapped up with ego-feeling and pride, so that jealousy, hostility, feelings of betrayal or of exploitation (which are ego-feelings), become widespread. Kinsey's later volume on marriage may offer interesting information on this. But if there are difficulties with those who, at least externally, find the romantic attitude works (by having an initially happy marriage), the situation is likely to be much harder for those who do not achieve this sine qua non of the EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 169 romantic attitude. The romantic attitude, with its concealed ego-involvement, is not inclined to be charitable either to those who do not share the attitude or to those who accept it but can not realize it. The bachelor is of course much more socially acceptable than the unattached female; but unless he is obviously just taking his time about picking a mate, there may be a good deal of secret contempt in attitudes even toward him. Probably the greatest psychic suffering that the romantic attitude brings, however, is to women who do not marry, or to widows just old enough to doubt they will ever marry again. One suspects this relative ostracism as being in good measure behind their sometimes going along on sexual affairs with middle-aged married men. THE NO-HARM ATTITUDE Especially among the more sophisticated segments of the educated classes, a kind of "no-harm attitude" toward sex may be on the increase, although there is nothing in Kinsey's figures to tell much about this, one way or the other. The essence of this attitude is that anything goes if it does no harm-if desired by oneself and the sexual partner, if there are no obvious social consequences like venereal disease or unwanted pregnancy, and if what is done is not flaunted publicly against the mores. (/Ihe no-harm attitude includes consideration of what may be done with a partner, as in marriage. According to the romantic attitude, for example, it might sometimes be permissible for the wife to touch the husband's genitals manually, but it might not be considered decent or romantic for her to do so orally. The no-harm attitude would say everything is permissible and desirable if it pleases you and the partner)Some who hold such an attitude may even extend it to the point of beating or being beaten as a part of their sex stimulation, justified either because one partner likes it and the other goes along, or both like it. 170 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS It is of course possible for the no-harm view to extend only to types of sexual activity with an approved partner. But the view may also extend by the same principles toward the choice of partners. Thus, homosexual activity among sophisticates is justified on the ground that the partners want it and it really harms no one else. The same of course goes for heterosexual contacts provided only the conditions are met: both partners agree freely (not necessarily ruling out a bit of seduction to oil the freedom), obvious ill consequences are guarded against (as by contraceptive devices), and nothing is publicly offensive. The application of the no-harm attitude to contacts by older people with younger people apparently varies a good deal. Some exclusive homosexuals, for example, apparently try to stay away from at least younger adolescents, while others have a more expandable concept of free consent. ' In some respects, the no-harm attitude may be considered the sophisticated counterpart of the child-of-nature attitude lof the lower educational and social levels. Kinsey suggests that the upper level, in so far as it has "a considerable sophistication," is attempting to return to "behavior which is biologically natural and basic." 7 That is, it leaves the usual "right or wrong" criterion that does not question the basis of the rightness or the wrongness, and instead asserts a kind of neo-natural criterion. To any social proscription about sex it says: Prove that that is harmful. If both people like it, if there are no obvious ill consequences, and no flagrant violation of public sensibilities, what's wrong with it? And what can not be proved wrong is natural, therefore right. Unlike the child-of-nature attitude, which conforms to the mores of its own social levelhe no-harm attitude recognizes that it is rebelling against important aspects of upper-level mores, and therefore requires a lot of rational activity to justify itself3It differs from the child-of-nature attitude also in that it is indirect, i.e., it places high value on many vari EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 171 eties of emotional stimulation to have a sexual content; and in a sense sexualizes many things not necessarily sexual in character. In contrast, the sex interest of the "child of nature" is pretty well confined to genital union. It is difficult to describe the no-harm attitude toward sex without making it appear, at least by implication, to be invariably a socially irresponsible libertinism. And in some of the forms in which it is practiced (if not often advocated openly), that is no doubt the case. And yet in its basic aspects, it need not be either socially irresponsible nor libertine (in the sense of placing sex expression at the top of one's hierarchy of values, or of feeling justified in acting on one's every whim). Within marriage, for instance, most marriage counselors believe that the fewer inhibitions a couple have upon ways of stimulating each other, and enjoying such stimulation themselves, the richer and less monotonous are their sex relations likely to become. Conversely, the more restricted are the types of sexual stimulation in which a couple feel they can "decently" engage, the more likely are their sexual unions to move toward flatness and dullness. When Kinsey calls this type of behavior a going back to basic "mammalian" patterns, this does not necessarily indicate, therefore, a going back from what is basically "human." It may indeed increase the "human" values as well as the "mammalian" ones. When the no-harm attitude is applied outside marriage, it has obviously tougher sledding. Its positive aspect is its deliberate attempt to analyze the actual factors and results in a particular possible sexual situation. If such an attempt always succeeded, if the factors actually operating were always seen in their proper relationship to one another, then this attitude might turn into an effective "rational ethics." But people being as we are, there is no person and no atti 172 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS tude which is above rationalizing, justifying, and overlooking factors that are actually operative. For instance, suppose a young unmarried couple to be believers in the no-harm attitude. They do not wish to marry, but are fond of each other. With due precautions against disease, pregnancy, and public discovery, they enter into sexual relations. Since both have desired this, what harm can there be? Each could be enriched by this experience, go on to marriage with other partners, and bring more maturity to marriage than might otherwise have been the case. On the other hand, a great many things may prove wrong that their calculations overlooked. She may fall in love with him but not he with her, or vice versa. Result: different kinds of emotional shock for both than they had anticipated. Or, in spite of precautions, there may be pregnancy, disease, or public discovery. Or a certain hard-boiledness of attitude may arise in either or both, which they had not expected. One of Dorothy L. Sayers' delightful stories has the heroine of such an alliance becoming highly indignant and feeling betrayed when her friend finally changes his principles and proposes marriage to her. On the other side, there is at least one kind of situation that is new in human history, and to which the no-harm attitude may possibly have a kind of relevance that would not have been the case in past ages. This has to do with sex in older people, specifically in people who have reared their children to adulthood. Up until 1800 or so, people tended to die, on the average, at about the time their youngest child was grown up enough to leave home. This situation has changed radically. Average life expectancy has not yet doubled, but it is coming close enough to it in America to show us a new phenomenon. The root principle behind the legal codes about sex throughout Western history is the protection of children through protection of the relation of parents to their chil EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 173 dren. In the light of our current knowledge and understanding, many of the details of such codes must be questioned, in part because they were not actually effective in moving toward fulfillment of the central purpose. And throughout these ages there has been no occasion to give attention to a sexual morality for people who had completed their parental duties, since there were so few of them. Since we now know that sexual capacity and interest do not die at forty or with the menopause (in women), here is a whole new factual dimension to which the child-care approach to sex does not apply. It is conceivable that some aspects of the no-harm attitude toward sex may be relevant here, with no possible threat to the social responsibility of unions which can rear children properly. In any event, here is a new dimension of sex that society has yet to consider seriously. THE TOLERATION ATTITUDE The "toleration attitude," of a segment of the upper-level groups which may hold relatively conventional attitudes toward their own sex behavior,Ftends to "tolerate" almost any kind of sex behavior in other people because it considers such behavior capable of being understood) It is clear that anyone whose position and function require him to deal in some professional way with persons whose sex attitudes and practices may differ significantly from his own must have an understanding attitude if his professional responsibility is to be carried out. If a judge, for example, personally holding upper-level romantic attitudes, is to deal effectively with a youngster who holds a child-ofnature attitude toward sex, he does need to understand the understandability of the latter attitude. Otherwise, anything he may decide is directed to irrelevant points. And anyone who counsels with other people about personal problems that sometimes involve sexual aspects, including ministers and priests, soon comes to realize that he 174 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS must make an active effort to get inside the frame of reference of the other person, not viewing the person initially from the outside but, so far as he can, from the inside. If he is unable to be nonjudgmental in this sense, he will rarely have the opportunity to help other people. This is, however, no whitewashing matter. It does not compel me to believe that the other fellow's views, as views, are as good or as true as mine just because he holds them in ways that are understandable in him. Nor does it mean that I am prevented from having any convictions about what might prove better for him, if he is capable of it. Thus, as a counselor, I can be wholly understanding and nonjudgmental about the problems, for example, of a fixed homosexual who consults me; but if he asks me whether I consider a homosexual level of adjustment as "all right" for him, I will have to answer no even though he may not in fact be capable of transcending it. Thus, a toleration or understanding attitude is indispensable to any process of helping people. But held as a final view, complete in itself, it is relativistic, misleading, and inclined to foster self-deception. Judges, probation officers, policemen, social workers, doctors, clergymen, and many others who must represent society in dealing with sex matters of other people on some occasions, can learn from Kinsey and other sources the keys for comprehending attitudes and points of view about sex that are foreign to their own. Such understanding ought to increase tolerance in the sense that one no longer believes these different or foreign types of behavior to be merely the result of perversity. The kind of understanding of the person as a person that is necessary to help may then result. But to achieve this laudable aim, it is not necessary to "accept" anything and everything as if whatever is must be right. Whatever is, requires understanding; and the people as people require acceptance. But values are more than the projections of personal preferences. EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 175 THE PERSONAL-INTERPERSONAL ATTITUDE To speak of a personal-interpersonal attitude toward sex is awkward, and is justified only if such an apparently redundant phrase is needed to convey the reality. The term is used here to suggest that attitude in which sex is always viewed as basically interpersonal or social, but with this social dimension enhancing rather than depressing personal fulfillment. This attitude is, we may say at the outset, the highest and most adequate that is achieved by the humanistic aspect of our civilization; and in its basic social and psychological features it is far closer to the Christian view (although in itself it does not necessarily include the theological dimension that Christianity deems essential) than is any one of the other attitudes described. (According to this view, one would begin from such basic interpersonal values as are represented in the concepts of love, of mutuality, of seeking the good of the other, of finding one's true self instead of a pseudoself. and the like. He would then hold that sex is one factor in human life, among others, and that its emotional power makes it an important potential instrument for moving man and society toward the realization of such social and spiritual ends as love, peace, amity, and the like. The holder of this attitude not only would be seriously concerned with those uses of sex that work against the achievement of these desired ends, but would be equally concerned about the non-uses of sex that could work in this direction but do not work at all. If the holder of this view is also a Christian, he would be as concerned about the place of sex in a doctrine of salvation as in a doctrine of sink Xhe holder of this attitude would accept modern developmental understanding in its full dimensions. The small child exploring his own body, the masturbation struggle of the adolescent, the inner conflict of the person who fears he may 176 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS have homosexual tendencies-all such things would be understood within the sequence of developmental factors that have produced them. They would not of course merely or indiscriminately be condoned; but the people involved would not, as people, be condemned. The personal-interpersonal attitude would not be unaware of the mystery in sex, of the depth it may bring both personally and interpersonally. It would not regard one's own sexuality as a "thing," nor the sexual capacity of another as a "possession." Nor would it be under the illusion that, in relation to the other, it is pure altruism, nor consider it the responsibility of the other to meet every need or mood. In short, this personal-interpersonal attitude would look very much like the Christian view in its purely human dimensions, so that it could easily become a Christian attitude toward sex if it were aware throughout of the theological dimension and rootage of its own nature. The further consideration of the Christian view will come in the two chapters following. At this point, we shall consider only two things about this personal-interpersonal attitude. The first is that the personal-interpersonal attitude may be held by persons who are not explicit adherents of Judaism or Christianity as religions. Such an attitude toward sex seems to be implicit, for example, in Erich Fromm, although he holds himself to be, in a technical sense, a nontheist.8 Fromm bases his convictions about values, including sexual values, upon the "humanistic" tradition of civilization, and attempts to divorce this from any essential connection with the ecclesiastical and the formal theological tradition. But in his attitude toward something like sex, the Christian view would not criticize its social and psychological content but only its conception of theological and historical bases. The second point to be noted here is that Kinsey's studies, at least so far, reveal little or nothing about the existence of such an attitude. The reason for this is, no doubt, mainly EXISTING ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX 177 methodological, that what he set out to study would not tend to reveal whether an attitude like this existed at all or, if so, to what extent. The other possible reason could be that this attitude exists in such small quantity, or in such subordinate relationship to other attitudes that dominate it (especially the romantic) that any study would fail to turn up much of it. It is no doubt clear to the reader that this personal-interpersonal attitude (if supported by and rooted in the Christian theological dimension) is my "ideal" attitude toward sex, as it is no doubt his. And yet this personal-interpersonal attitude is always being threatened by other attitudes that have impinged on our lives. C The personal-interpersonal attitude has enormous virtues. It is not legalistic, nor is it libertarian. It is not biologistic, but it has due regard for man as a biological creature. It is not spiritistic, but it knows that man is not himself unless he is a whole being, a personal spirit. It is not conformist to culture, any culture, without that reflective analysis of the situation of which human intelligence is capable. But it is not rebellious against culture, either, for the mere sake of proving nonconformity. It is not preoccupied with right and wrong as extraneous and imposed factors; but it believes that there is a rightness and wrongness in every situation that deserves study and consideration. It does not consider naturalness or unnaturalness as adequate criteria, for it believes that, in the long run, naturalness in a human being is something freely learned as well as something given; but it does believe that what is, finally, most fulfilling and creative is itself natural. It is not preoccupied with the problems of sex at the expense of its potentialities, nor vice versa. It believes that the ordering of sex by society should be for the realization of personal and interpersonal values, not for the sake of control as such. It believes that the responsible personal-interpersonal expression of sex is as much for the fulfillment of social good 178 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS as for that of the person. It believes in accepting gratefully all facts, knowledge, and understanding, even the newest, provided they are attested, as necessary matters for reflective consideration. It believes also that, in the root principles of our tradition (whether of ethics, religion, or civilization in general), there are criteria and values that no new knowledge will shake. But it believes that a fruitful merger of new knowledge and means with basic and even traditional ends (some of them, anyhow) can improve our chances of achieving the basic ends. Finally, the personal-interpersonal attitude has elements of kinship with every other of the attitudes toward sex that have been considered, but it can not wholly and unqualifiedly approve any of them. This means that none of the widespread existing attitudes can escape the criticism and judgment brought by the personal-interpersonal attitude, and also that no existing attitude is so completely wrong in every particular that contact can not be made with it by the personal-interpersonal attitude. Would that it were a simple matter to hold it and live by it-and would that all who aspire to it understood its Christian rootage! FOOTNOTES 1. 1:580. 7. 1:369. 2. I:575. 8. See his Man for Himself (New 3. I:385. York: Rinehart, 1947) and 4. 11:684. his Psychoanalysis and Re5. 11:684. ligion (New Haven: Yale 6. II:436. University Press, 1951). 9 CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF * EXISTING ATTITUDES IN the first two chapters a Christian view of sex was presented, rooted in the biblical view but taking account of developments both in Christian history and in the understanding of the modern sciences and healing arts. An attempt was made to state the Christian view in terms of maximum relevance for our own day. It is the purpose of this chapter to examine the several types of existing attitudes toward sex, as described in the previous chapter, in the light of the Christian view. The reader may wish, at this point, to review the constructive statement of the Christian view as it was presented in Chapter 2. The highlight, or propositional, statements of the Christian view, without the supporting explanation, are repeated below: i. Since man is a whole or total being, sex is good if it serves the fulfillment of man as a total being, that is, if it serves God's will for man. 2. Man's total self or being (spiritual or organismic) has its very existence in the community of other selves; and it is the aim of all human interrelationships in all their aspects (including the sexual) to foster the love in which spiritual or organismic selfhood is nurtured. 179 180 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS 3. The developmental aim of sex in human life is toward a progressive integration of the several necessary levels of sexual purpose or function. 4. In its human dimensions, sex requires both intensity and steadfastness, and a proper relationship between them. 5. The meaning and good of any sex act or relationship are always dependent, in some measure, upon the inner meaning to the person or persons involved; but the sole ultimate standard for meaning or good is the judgment and love of God, of which the Christian community may at times be representative. Among the important subpoints presented under the five leading points above were the conception of the mystery in sex, the "sacramental" meaning of sex, sex as belonging to man's whole "body" and not just to his "flesh" (Paul's distinction), the discovery through sex of depth both in another and in oneself, the potentialities within sex leading toward sin and those toward salvation, the conviction that sex is a serious and radical matter in human life, the belief that sex is for love in faith, the conviction that sex life of the Christian, like any other aspect of life, is "free" in the Pauline sense, and the sense that sex life and attitudes properly undergo a course of development and are not given in fixed form at the beginning of life. In the light of this statement of the Christian view of sex, the several basic attitudes already described are brought under examination. THE CHILD-OF-NATURE ATTITUDE One thing of which the child-of-nature attitude can not be accused is spiritism. In the Christian view, sex has its biological and animal aspects, and these too are the creation of God. A frank acceptance of them as "good" is, therefore, CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 18i fully within the meaning of the Christian view. Similarly, the third point in the Christian view includes tension release as one of the values of sex; a frank acceptance that this too may be to the glory of God is within the Christian view. Within the fourth point, the necessary relationship of intensity and steadfastness, there is also something to approve. Intensity of a biologically spontaneous character is sought from the beginning; and greater steadfastness of sexual relationship in the latter half of life is found here more than among any other group. There is, to be sure, little indication of any contemporaneous relationship of intensity and steadfastness within this attitude. Instead, these qualities are exhibited successively. Finally, the Christian view may approve the elementary recognition that sex is in some basic sense an individual matter, even though it can hardly approve the tendency to consider its social implications and relationships as thoroughly secondary in character and significance. The inadequacies of the child-of-nature attitude, in the light of the Christian view, are obvious. Man as a whole being, as spirit, as self-transcending organism, hardly comes into sight, sexually or otherwise. Sex is regarded not as an instrument of spirit, or total being, but of flesh, with a few social implications prudentially attached. Sex is not radical, has no mystery, is under compulsion. That we are members one of another, that our very individuality is of interpersonal origin, is hardly recognized at all in this attitude. Instead, there is a kind of Adam Smith-like, naively free-enterprise assumption that pursuit of my good will best promote the only good of the other that is worth my promoting. There is no sense of depth, in the other, in the self, or in life. Sex is not seen from several perspectives in combination, but almost entirely from only one, release of tension. Psychological and social factors that are actually involved in the operating attitude of this group (e.g., proving virility to oneself and to one's fellows) are not recognized in the conscious 182 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS attitude toward sex. Although intensity of a purely biological kind is found in earlier years, and steadfastness to a partner in later years, not only are these never related contemporaneously, but the intensity is limited in its character and so is the steadfastness. Finally, although there is conformity to the mores of the group, social factors in any other sense are assumed to be impediments to the individual, especially the male. And the tools for developmental understanding of sex are apt to be entirely lacking, although native and folklore common sense may be positively important in such matters as understanding the meaning of masturbation in children. The virtues lie in the acceptance of spontaneity at the biological level, the complete refusal (from its point of view) to "dress up" or "artificialize" sex, and perhaps (the means may be disapproved) the unique attempt in our society to prevent sex from preoccupying one's psychic and social life (through the means of never letting the tension build very high before being released). To these virtues one should certainly add some genuine folk wisdom of the common people. From the Christian point of view, the vices lie principally in that sex is never so conceived as to contribute, consciously and deliberately, to personal and social fulfillment at the distinctively human level of potentiality. The good of the other is naively read as just like one's own good, which is seen as impulsive to release of tension. This is not a dehumanized attitude, but one that has avoided moving toward full humanity by releasing its tensions (educational, prestige, etc., as well as sexual) at once. Its greatest attraction, its spontaneity, is too much generalized, and "wears out," so that in its final stages, its otherwise attractive fidelity is likely to mean mere dullness. THE RESPECTABILITY-RESTRAINT ATrITUDE This attitude recognizes that sex requires some social controls, that man (including males) can not act, sexually or CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 183 otherwise, as if he were merely animal in nature. In its reach for respectability, it is at least trying to see that sex shall not stand in the way of one's earning the respect of his fellows. Its perspective on the function of sex focuses rather heavily on procreation, as justification for otherwise-forbidden activity. It lays great weight on steadfastness, and has a heavily biological definition of what this means. In terms of its intention to use sex responsibly, the Christian view could give approval to these characteristics. In addition, the Christian view could give its qualified approval in another sense. Our earlier discussion of this attitude noted how much it was in conflict, secretly believing the flood notion of sex to be correct and then tending to build ever more severe defenses against it. In so far as this attitude tends toward a recognition of the conflict, the Christian view could approve it; for a direct facing of the elements in the conflict would alter the nature of the view. But in so far as the defenses are merely built higher, or all defenses are torn down (both of which happen with this attitude, as Kinsey points out), then it would be difficult to approve. The vices of this attitude are extreme, most especially so because its defensive character compels it to assert its virtuousness. Like the Pharisee, it lives by thanking God that it is not like other men. Its secret acknowledgment of sex as a flood is in many ways worse than would be an open denial of man's biological sex drives. For with the assumption unadmitted, the secret conviction is in a position either to take over at the most inappropriate occasions, or to compel the erection of more rigid defenses lest the flood be recognized and upset the cart of restraint. Although this attitude has an intention toward social responsibility, it believes (falsely) that a necessary price to be paid for social responsibility is lack of personal fulfillment. This denies personal fulfillment, and puts a "duty" tone around the enhancement of one's fellows so that the enhancement is small indeed. 184 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS Openly denying but covertly believing in sex as tension release, it justifies sex activity either by the potentiality for procreation or, generalizing, because it is permitted in marriage. Because it does not really believe that sex helps self-discovery, it can not believe either that it aids the expansion of mutuality. Its concentration on steadfastness is likely to make it lose intensity of any kind; and its steadfastness may become purely formal and legalistic. There is no feeling for the interrelatedness of intensity and steadfastness. Finally, it is usually scornful of those aspects of folk wisdom upon which the "child of nature" relies, and instead pays attention only to those aspects which are horrendous in nature (e.g., all the conditions under which a woman can die in childbirth). It tends to feel confused when approached with anything about developmental understanding because this seems to "cloud the issues." Let it be clear that in bringing such criticism upon a "respectability-restraint" attitude toward sex in the name of the Christian view, it is not implied that anyone who believes sex requires social channelings and orderings possesses this view, or that anyone who does not strive to be respectable has decided to sink into disreputability. This is, instead, a cluster of convictions and beliefs found especially in certain segments of our population, partially documented by Kinsey (although there are speculative elements in the constructive statement of this attitude). Both respectability and restraint may be fine things, and in some form belong in all attitudes toward sex that are not purely animalistic. But this particular "respectability-restraint" view has a number of characteristics that are organically related one to another. If they appear in this organic form, as they often do, then they require this kind of criticism-perhaps especially because their proponents are likely to speak in the name of virtue, and not infrequently, of Christian virtue. It is especially important that we not confuse some of the CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 185 apparent aspects of the Christian view (e.g., the great potentiality of sex, both personally and socially, in the marriage relationship) with what this attitude actually means and feels about such things. For a long time theologians have been calling pride a great sin because it prevents its own correction. In today's terms, we can see that the pride is built high precisely because one secretly fears the foundations to be of sand. In honesty, one can not admire the edifice if its foundations are rotten and its facade paper thin. THE ROMANTIC ATTITUDE The description of the romantic attitude toward sex was longer than that of any other attitude. This was not because it is inherently harder to describe than the other attitudes, but because most readers, feeling at least some considerable kinship with this attitude, find it not easy to accept as facts some of the things that are inherent in this attitude. The factors involved in the romantic attitude, as in the other attitudes, are organically related; that is, one can not simply say he will settle for the good things and declare the bad ones out of existence. It is especially important that the actual interrelatedness of the factors be understood in relation to the romantic attitude. What can the Christian view approve about the romantic attitude, and what must it disapprove? It can commend the attempt or intention of the romantic attitude to consider man as a whole being, as personal spirit, as self-transcending organism. This attitude explicitly denies that man's sex life is merely animal in nature; and in its ideal of affectional life in marriage, it denies that this can be achieved by ethereal creatures ignoring sexual biology. Whether its intention to integrate biology and affection is actually achieved is of course another question. In a certain way, the romantic attitude does assume that we are members one of another, and that the enhancement 186 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS of selfhood through sex and other things means also at the same time the enhancement of another. The way in which this is understood does not, however, guarantee that the result will not be simply two against the world instead of one. Nor does it guarantee that the desired results will follow unless the procedures go smoothly, which may also indicate some catches in the conception of results desired. Again in terms of intention, if not necessarily of performance, the romantic attitude is concerned that several perspectives upon man, sexually speaking, become integrated. In marriage, or with the loved partner, these include tension release, growing self-discovery, and expansion of mutuality at least with the partner. They also include procreation, although not usually explicitly associated with the sacramental meaning of the Christian view. But there are, as we shall see, some failures in these attempts at integration-failures, in fact, at both ends, biologically and spiritually. Particularly through the early years of marriage, there tends to be a steadfastness toward the partner; and preceding this period, the expectation of a steadfastness of relationship has been strong. Similarly, there is, in the premarriage years, and it is hoped there will be in marriage, also a kind of intensity. This intensity begins to decline both psychically (in both sexes) and physically (in males) not too long after marriage begins. Apparently the romantic attitude believes that steadfastness and intensity, as it understands them, should belong together; but since its conception of steadfastness seems mainly biological, and its conception of intensity mainly psychological, there is generally only a short-lived period when steadfastness and intensity appear to reinforce each other. The Christian view would approve the intention. Finally, and rather obviously because of its education, the romantic attitude would be approved by the Christian view in so far it has any developmental understanding, especially that the meaning and significance of sex should grow in a hu CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 187 man relationship, or in so far as it would not judge children by adult standards. It would also approve in general the assumption of the romantic attitude that the most fulfilling and socially responsible sexual behavior is likely to be within a responsible and permanent marriage union based on mutual affection and including sex. Perhaps one could summarize what of the romantic attitude the Christian view would approve in this way-the intention and hope of the romantic attitude to enhance genuine personal freedom (including sex) in such a way as to expand social responsibility by way of interpersonal mutuality and vice versa. To the extent that this actually works, the Christian view would be for it. But from the Christian point of view, there are serious failures in the romantic attitude, both at the level of delivering on its own intentions, and on the way in which those intentions are conceived. We shall first look at its failures to deliver on its own intentions. First, according to Kinsey a high proportion of the people in the romantic attitude group (men as well as women) never succeed in achieving the spontaneity at the biological level that the attitude calls for. In the upper-level group, "Few males achieve any real freedom in their sexual relations even with their wives."' 1 Kinsey believes that the kind and extent of the inhibitions that the upper-level groups have lived with before marriage carry over into marriage despite the conscious intention of the partners, but this note is greatly diminished in the second volume as against the first, especially because of the large number of married upper-level women who achieve orgasm in most or all of their marital relations. To the extent that this is true, however, it vitiates the intention of the romantic attitude itself. We need to be cautious in our interpretation of the extent to which biological spontaneity is not achieved in marriage. Most of Kinsey's comments are drawn from the frequency of sexual intercourse, which is not 188 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS the sole factor involved in biological spontaneity. But there does exist a reasonable doubt as to the degree to which the "long wait" is followed by the quality of excitement one has anticipated. Similarly, one may question, in the light of the Christian view, how much the romantic attitude achieves its own intention of getting biology together with spirit, with the whole being. As we have already noted, the romantic attitude tends to "justify" sex (that is, to affirm its rightness) only as the fruit of love and affection, and does not really believe that love may grow out of sex as sex fulfillment may grow out of love. This may not mean an acceptance of sex in its own right, so to speak; or it may even mean continuation of a sense of guilt about sex itself that can, however, be alleviated in specific circumstances. The difficulty, where this is the case, is not alone with the possible misconception of the biological dimension of sex. It is also with the misconception of the nature of love and affection. Instead of coming together toward a merger or integration, these may continue to be held apart. That is, a rather spiritistic conception of love or affection may continue despite the conscious intention of merging it with biological sex. Where that happens, as it often seems to do with the romantic attitude, one might say that each new sexual occasion has to find its own justification, thus putting an extra strain both on the sexual occasions and also on the rest of the affectional relationship which in turn holds back genuine integration of biology with affection. Many writers have pointed to the tendency of the romantic attitude to produce a selfishness of the couple before the world. Whether or not this tends to be true in a gross sense, it is certainly true in a subtle sense. If one finds, partly through sex, new dimensions of his own selfhood, and also learns, in effect, something of how to help the selfhood of another to emerge, it seems natural that he would be capable of an expanded mutuality with other people quite apart CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 189 from having sex relations with them. But if the romantic attitude becomes tied up with ego defense feelings of many kinds (such as jealousy, hostility, or betrayal), then an expansion of what one has gained from sex to nonsexual areas of relationship may be inhibited not only by one's partner but by one's own fearful self. This consequence becomes even clearer when we recall what tends to happen to the romantic attitude after forty: with the women seeking to be mildly courted by being listened to, and the men seeking to chase to prove they are still alive and virile. This seems to suggest not only that each has tended to be much more inherently "selfish" in relation to other people than he has realized, but that each has been so to the other. Each has used the other, and now uses other people as well, in some measure in a sexual way to serve ends that are not primarily either sexual or affectional in nature. Not to put too fine a point on it, the romantic attitude in practice shows itself to be exploitative although this is farthest from its conscious intention. It fails to see the nature of its own exploitation because it regards exploitation only in terms which it sees in other sexual attitudes such as the child-of-nature one. The Christian view can hardly approve exploitation, no matter how disguised or rationalized. The Christian view criticizes the romantic attitude in not fulfilling its intention to get the various perspectives on sex together and integrated. This attitude tends to see tension release, self-discovery, procreation, and the expansion of mutuality (limited) as discrete entities. Where the Christian view would say that these really belong together for all are to the glory of God, the romantic attitude tends to be a bit afraid of paying attention to the glory of God. The sacramental aspect of marriage and of sex relationships, which could unite and support and correct the romantic attitude, is simply kept at arm's length. We have noted also that, in the romantic attitude, inten 9go SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS sity is not inclined to extend to its biological dimension, and steadfastness is likely to be limited to a biological definition. The romantic intention of getting the two together (deep in my heart, forever and ever) tends to fail because the full dimensions both of intensity and of steadfastness are not appreciated or cultivated. Because of this, both intensity and steadfastness, in any dimensions, tend to decrease. Finally, in spite of its intention to bring the individual and social, personal growth and social responsibility, together, the romantic attitude often fails in this except in a negative kind of way. The fortyish husband of extramarital affairs does not ordinarily stop supporting his children to let them become public charges. And the fortyish woman who makes googoo eyes at parties, or who gets a divorce, still sees that her children get proper education. But there is a decreasing conviction that what is needed for personal fulfillment is what is most socially responsible, and that the most socially responsive activity is in itself the most personally fulfilling. So, in spite of the extent to which the Christian view would approve many of the intentions of the romantic attitude, it must criticize this attitude severely for the remarkable degree to which it does not fulfill its own intentions. This must mean also that there is something wrong either with the intentions, with the way in which they are conceived, or with what they fail to consider at all. The root fallacy of the romantic attitude toward sex might be called its prudential character, playing it so safe all along to make sure sex will not upset life's values that sex never really has a chance to help release those values. Another way to put it, in old-fashioned moral terms, is that the romantic attitude remains unaware of the extent to which it is motivated by a not-very-realistic form of selfishness. Still another way to say it is that this attitude remains ambivalent about the goodness or badness of sex (on the one side, the pearl of great price; on the other side, something dirty to be justified CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 191 only by true love), and thus tends to be preoccupied with its feelings toward sex at the expense of its feelings of sex. The Christian view would obviously criticize all these statements of the root fallacy. In so far as the romantic attitude includes within itself, or adds to itself, the "companionship" aspect of sex, these difficulties would be greatly alleviated, and this apparently is happening widely. But the Christian view would also question the extent to which the romantic attitude simply sets aside the sacramental aspect of sex as both irrelevant and meaningless. Even the "mystery" is romanticized. Sex to the glory of God sounds like a contradiction in terms to the romantic attitude. In short, the romantic attitude not only fails to do full justice to the human situation, but also denies that any dimensions exist other than those which it considers. Finally, the Christian view can and should be very sharp with the romantic attitude not only for its neglect, but for its intolerance and even persecution, of those who, for one reason or another, do not accept or achieve it. Whatever the reasons for man's inhumanity to man in any form, Christianity can hardly approve the fact of inhumaneness. That much of this flows from the romantic attitude, there can be no doubt. It is not alone that the successful are arrogant to the unsuccessful. It is also that the unsuccessful are taught to be arrogant toward themselves. THE NO-HARM ATTITUDE In considering how the Christian view would look at the no-harm attitude toward sex, it is necessary to make at least a provisional distinction between the two forms of this attitude. The one is where there is no issue about choice of partner, and where the no-harm attitude refers simply to what one does sexually with this partner, how often, and under what conditions. The other form of the no-harm attitude has to do with choice of partner or partners. 192 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS In reference to the first form (what is done, especially in marriage), the Christian view would be mainly approval, provided the "no-harm" form of statement is changed to the "real-help" form. If a variation in modes of sexual stimulation, for example, aids the intensity of a sex relationship in marriage, then it works against dullness and monotony, and tends also to foster a genuine steadfastness. If it extends or deepens the pleasure and meaning of sex to these partners, then there is more integration of the various functions of sex. "Abandon," at a human as well as a biological level, tends to make for our feeling ourselves as whole beings, spiritual creatures, self-transcending organisms. Concomitantly, there may be more discovery of the individuality of each by himself and by the other, yet at the same time a deeper sense of the network of mutuality. This is of course a "sophisticated" view, but it is just this kind of sophistication that the Christian view seeks. The Christian view is not a mere safety view, nor a mere prudential view, nor a legalistic view. If "abandon" or "ecstasy" can deepen the dimensions of human relationships (which are inherently appropriate), then the Christian view will be for it. On the other hand, the no-harm view can be used, even in marriage, to cover many forms of exploitation. Most obviously, one partner can "force" sex frequencies or types of practice on another while having only a kind of passive consent from the other, and the result may be to decrease rather than increase the other's "abandon." Or one can become too sophisticated and other-minded, as when a man concentrates so hard on appropriate stimulation of his wife that he loses the spontaneity in his own responses that is likely, in the long run, to be most stimulating to her. The essentially negative statement of a no-harm criterion can cut both ways, even in marriage. When we consider the other form of the no-harm view, as CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 193 applied to the selection of sexual partners, our suspicion becomes strong. The previous chapter indicated that the commendable intention of the no-harm view is its examination of the actual factors involved in any possible sexual situation. That is, this view is committed in principle to reflective examination of the genuine human values involved in any situation. In principle, it could not accept or reject a particular choice of sex partner merely on the ground that tradition approves or disapproves it, nor on the ground that Kinsey's studies show that a lot of people are or are not doing it. In principle, it stands for a personal and inner decision based on the best possible understanding of all factors involved. Since the Christian view of life (as well as sex) demands the exercise of our best knowledge and intelligence, and the most courageous personal decision of which we are capable, the Christian view would approve this intention of the noharm attitude. Within the intent of the no-harm view, there is of course the prospect of exposing any element of the mores that can not be sustained after analysis of its meaning and significance. But there is also the necessary corollary of reaffirming, on new grounds and with new evidence, any element in the mores that deserves to remain after examination of its meaning and significance. Since the no-harm attitude has to rebel a bit to get going at all, it may be unlikely to emphasize the second possibility as much as the first. Both are necessary. Apart from the many kinds of specific ideas and practices that the no-harm attitude may advocate or reject, the greatest criticism that the Christian view would bring to it is its negative conception of what is involved in analyzing sexual situations. It takes its analogy from formal law, which, upon first glance, protects society negatively, by barring some things and assuming that what is not explicitly barred is permissible. But formal law in fact is more positive than negative. The criteria of the no-harm view (as indicated in the 194 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS previous chapter) are these: the partners want this particular thing, no obvious harm is involved, and there is no public scandal. These criteria have nothing at all positive to say about what sex is for. All that is assumed to be properly and exclusively the concern of the persons involved. Thus, this attitude may carry no guarantees of any kind. It may do nothing to bring biology into the spiritual life of the whole being. It may involve two discrete atomlike persons colliding, and not our being members one of another. It does not necessarily help to integrate our perspectives on sex, but may pull them farther apart. It may be intense, it may be steadfast; but there is no guarantee that it will be either, or that the two will have any relationship. It may be purely selfish or socially irresponsible, while denying this on no-obviousharm grounds. On the other hand, while it contains no inherent guarantees, it could bring positive contributions. Consider, for instance, a young unmarried couple trying to decide whether they will engage in sexual intercourse. From the standpoint of their human (as well as sexual) growth, the issue is not merely whether they will or will not. In terms of long-range significance, the question is mainly about the bases upon which a decision is made. If the decision is made because something is imposed (whether it says green light or red light), there will be no reflective consideration at this point leading to increased capacity for growth, and looking toward the next point of life decision (sexual or otherwise). But if there is capacity to analyze what is actually involved in this situation, then there can be growth in inner ethical capacity. This does not mean that it makes no difference what they decide. It means that the process of deciding is probably as important as the content of the decision. To the extent that the no-harm attitude may foster such honest reflection and decision, it may be positive. The no-harm attitude seems to be on the increase, and CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 195 may be responsible in some measure for such things as the increase in heterosexual petting to orgasm. One can see how the three criteria could be applied in this instance: it could contend that both partners want relationships; that there is no danger of pregnancy, or symbolically no loss of "virginity," and that there is minimal risk of results showing publicly. From the Christian view, the most dangerous aspect of the no-harm attitude is that anyone can put almost any kind of content into it, and justify it on the ground that a fluid and amorphous no-harm attitude is a sufficient ethic. Plainly, it is not enough. THE TOLERATION ATTITUDE In characterizing this attitude in the previous chapter, it was suggested that it could take two forms: a preliminary form (which was approved) and a final form (which was disapproved). In its preliminary form, as a matter of fact, "toleration" is a poor word of description since it carries connotations of superiority. What is most obviously important here is the need for the professional person who works with other people to be prepared to understand their sex attitudes (like their other attitudes) on the terms in which those people see them and not, through ignorance, malice, or a kind of moral imperialism, consider everyone an outcast whose views do not accord with his own. Although this is put in terms of professional persons, where it is most obviously important, there is also need that something of this ability to understand patterns other than one's own (or of one's own group) be held by everyone. Many people act in roles that can vitally affect the inner human development of other people: as board members of welfare and other groups, as members of school boards and parent-teacher associations, as foremen and supervisors in occupational life, and even just as neighbors. There are a 19g6 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS large number of comments in Kinsey's reports that suggest his surprise to the point of astonishment at the relative lack of understanding of attitudes different from one's own even among persons whose professional responsibilities would most obviously seem to require such understanding. The root principle involved here, from the Christian point of view, is what has often been put in terms of the distinction between the sin and the sinner. In modern language, what the person does (including what he feels and thinks, and his attitude) may indeed be of such a character as to violate not only the will of God but also (because of what God does will for his life) the bases upon which his most creative human development may rest. If such a dehumanizing process is going on, it can hardly be realistic to whitewash it, as if the love of God meant that any old thing would do at any time. On the other hand, the person is always more than what he does (and more than his attitudes). There is always something in him calling him back to himself, to fulfill his human potentialities. In Christian terms, the grace of God is at work on his heart through God's Holy Spirit. No man can ever be sure that God's grace will not somehow be able to reach another man. Therefore, the person always transcends both act and attitude. The Christian view, containing no sentimental softness, nevertheless requires that we see our neighbor in these terms. This principle holds also where sex matters are concerned. The Christian understanding of humility is also peculiarly relevant at this point. This is symbolized in the theme "There, but for the grace of God, go I." This is quite different from thanking God that one is not like other men. It suggests that there is in me a little bit of every sin of every man; and if some of the forms of sin have not broken loose, it is, finally, because of the supportive grace of God. In sexual matters, and in modem language, there is a recogni CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 197 tion that there is in me a little bit of the exploiter, of the homosexual, or of the rapist, even though such things may not have captured me as they have others. Since the other's acts and attitudes are not, therefore, wholly foreign to my own (sinful) humanity, I can say, with deepest truth, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." So much for the preliminary toleration attitude,. which is not toleration but understanding. With the final toleration attitude, the story is quite different. Here, it will be recalled, although one's own behavior may be conventional, one accepts and tolerates any other kind of sex behavior in other people on some such ground as that it is, for them, natural. In its extreme form, such an attitude would necessarily betoken an absence of social responsibility. When Kinsey notes, for example, that the social problems "which most often arise out of human sexual activity would give first place to venereal disease, bastardy, rape, and the contribution by adults to the delinquency of minor children," he is putting severe qualifications upon the finality of a toleration attitude.2 The toleration attitude may, however, be carried close to the point of finality. When this is done, the principal Christian criticism of the attitude would be of its implicit denial that we are in any significant sense members one of another. But the Christian view would also criticize it on the ground that its "toleration" denies the unactualized potentiality in other people-that by "accepting" them as they are in a 1oo per cent literalistic sense, it really denies that their aspirations or unfulfilled creativities are an actual part of them. The Christian criticism of a toleration view that pretends to be final would be severe. But it is of the greatest importance to distinguish a final or near-final toleration attitude from the significance of understanding the patterns and attitudes of those who differ from us. 198 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS THE PERSONAL-INTERPERSONAL ATTITUDE As already described, the personal-interpersonal attitude is an effort to state in modern terms, and temporarily minus explicit theological reference, what seems to be the social and psychological attitude toward which the Christian view attempts to lead us. It was not asserted that the personalinterpersonal attitude is the Christian attitude toward sex. The Christian view of sex is more than an attitude, even though it must be implemented by an attitude. It was indicated, further, that the Christian view requires explicit recognition of the Christian and theological dimensions, and that this is not always found in those who hold a personal-interpersonal attitude. We have dealt throughout with a Christian view of sex, which might have been called, instead, a Christian philosophy of sex, or a Christian theology of sex. In contrast to an attitude toward sex, a view or a philosophy or a theology of sex makes explicit the structure that relates it to all of life and existence. By providing such an explicit structure, the view makes it possible to deal critically with any attitude on the grounds of the degree to which that attitude actually implements the view. At the same time, the view must be pursued in those concrete and detailed implications that make it an actual attitude of human beings. A view by itself would not quite be incarnated or embodied in human beings, whereas an attitude by itself would not necessarily contain any basis for self-criticism. Our consistent reference to a Christian view instead of to a Christian attitude has been to suggest that Christianity contains something that transcends, and therefore can criticize, any attitude. Yet it is important to see that the conclusion is not inferred from this that Christianity can simply remain without attitudinal implementation. Thus it is that the personal-interpersonal attitude has been called the best CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 199 visible attitudinal implementation of the Christian view of sex. But this view of sex can still criticize the attitude. If the attitude is held only on the basis of humanistic principles, denying the relevance of the theological dimension, the Christian view criticizes it, even though welcoming it as attitudinally superior to other attitudes. The Christian view would also criticize any vaguely idealistic view that considers it unnecessary to refer to attitude if only the philosophy be correct. So we can and must talk of a Christian view, of the best attitudinal implementation of the Christian view, and of the best attitude as attitude despite the possible absence of explicit relation of the attitude to theological dimensions. Thus the personal-interpersonal attitude, although it is not the Christian attitude, is the best attitudinal implementation of the Christian view. The Christian view welcomes this attitude wherever it appears, believing that it is rooted in the Jewish-Christian view of life as a whole, whether the persons holding the attitude know it or not. The personal-interpersonal attitude does implement the Christian view. Man is a whole being, spirit, self-transcending organism. He is not just ethereal nor just animal. Sex life is never merely animal nor merely spiritistic. The human aims of sex can be pursued only as development makes possible the increasing merger of these aspects. We are members one of another. The qualities of interpersonal relationships are the qualities of personality itself. Enhancement of our selfhood in its deepest sense is also enhancement of our fellows. We have "internal" relations with our fellow humans, not merely external nor accidental ones. We properly see man from various perspectives, in relation to sex as in general; human life moves to integrate these perspectives. Every perspective has its legitimacy, but its full meaning is achieved only through integration. Intensity and steadfastness are qualities applying to the total person in relation 200 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS ship, and are, in their full human dimensions, mutually supportive. Social significance and developmental understanding reinforce each other. This personal-interpersonal attitude, therefore, is the best implementation in attitudinal terms of the Christian view. That fact does not make it easy to achieve. CONCLUSION The major types of existing American attitudes toward sex have been described, and then evaluated in the light of the Christian view of sex. It has been contended repeatedly that these attitudes are "organic," that each attitude hangs together, is all of a piece, that each item within the attitude implies and presupposes the others. Although there are speculative elements in this idea of the organic nature of the attitudes, Kinsey's analysis in some respects supports such a conclusion in relation to the child-of-nature, the respectability-restraint, and the romantic attitudes. The organic nature of these three attitudes is easier to see, for each of these may be produced by conforming to a large body of social pressure or opinion that conveys these attitudes to people by a sort of social osmosis. Little has been said about the possibly organic character of the no-harm attitude, the toleration attitude, and the personal-interpersonal attitude. In the case of the no-harm and toleration attitudes, a distinction was made between their preliminary form (approved as leading to useful variety and to positive understanding of other attitudes) and their more or less final form (viewed with strong suspicion). In their final forms, these two attitudes are probably also "organic" in nature, each item presupposing the others. At present, it is to be doubted whether they are widely held in this final and organic form. But if they increase in social spread, as they appear likely to do, so as to have a sizeable social CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 201 group supporting them, then their organic nature would become clearer. What of the personal-interpersonal attitude? Is it organic? Does every item within it imply and presuppose all the others? Here, too, the answer seems to be yes. If it is deeply rooted in one's attitude, for example, that human sex life is never merely animal nor merely angelic, he will also sense in some degree that sex life is both the discovery of another and of the self in a way not wholly anticipated. If he has in his attitude that which impels him to get more than one perspective linked with another, then he moves at least by implication toward the integration of all relevant perspectives. If his attitude looks toward intensity in its full human dimensions, he can not avoid coming to grips with deeper aspects of steadfastness. Thus, if any basic item of the personal-interpersonal has become internalized, it tends to motivate toward the discovery of the full dimensions of the attitude. As we have indicated, no large existing social group has the personal-interpersonal attitude in a sense and a degree that make it push all the other attitudes aside. Thus, its development in any person does not come easily or automatically. An undue burden is now put on the individual to bring this attitude into his own being. And yet the fact is that it is not a social orphan. It did not emerge out of man's head and his thinking apart from his social and interpersonal experience. There must be aspects of culture that nourish it. Perhaps we have not been sensitive enough to them. In the light of the Christian view, we have been severely critical of the child-of-nature, the respectability-restraint, and the romantic attitudes toward sex, and radically suspicious of the no-harm and toleration attitudes when held as final in nature. But if these are organic, if the items within them are all of a piece, are we, then, merely condemning while professing to understand? 202 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS To answer this question, consider first what tends to happen within an individual person when he moves away from one of these first five attitudes. He tends to "rise" or to "fall" in the social scale, however this scale be calculated. He tends to move from one organic attitude to another. He does not select items from here and there. His attitude will remain organic in character, even though the content of the whole attitude may change, or else he will be a divided soul. Christian criticism of these five existing attitudes, therefore, is not designed to break them up piece by piece so that some pieces may be retained and others discarded. Neither can it be designed merely to urge people to move from a lower social-scale attitude toward a higher one, so long as these standards are merely of schooling, social prestige, and similar class factors. It is designed to lure any of the attitudes, or the persons and groups holding them, toward that organic attitude which best implements the Christian view of sex, the personal-interpersonal attitude. The fact that this attitude, too, is organic in nature makes it possible for persons to move to it from any of the other attitudes. One does not have to move from lower-level to higher-level attitudes before he can begin to approach the personal-interpersonal attitude. This fact is of great practical importance. Christianity is not a one-class religion, nor can Christian ethics afford to be a one-class ethics. The Christian criticism of the existing attitudes is not unreserved condemnation. Each of these attitudes is organic, with the factors dynamically interrelated; but each attitude fails to fulfill its own intentions, and is, therefore, defective in its subsidiary intentions as well as in its performance. Each attitude, however, in its most basic intention, has a deep and dynamic relationship to the personal-interpersonal attitude. It can fulfill this intention only by moving in that direction. The child-of-nature attitude is an organic compound of CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 203 biological "naturalness" and aversion to whatever it regards as artificial or "unnatural," of a "flood" notion of sexual drive with an apparent (though not always actual) failure to cultivate the human love dimensions of sex. To realize itself, it needs to push on to the full human dimensions of sex without getting caught in the antibiological traps of the respectability-restraint attitude or the hidden antirealism of the romantic attitude. Thus, any movement by the child-ofnature attitude toward the personal-interpersonal attitude would fulfill the basic intention; while mere movement up the social scale would not. The respectability-restraint attitude is an organic whole (though a more unstable one than the others) based upon a combination of secret conviction that sex is a flood and the erection of constantly higher defenses against being engulfed, and resulting, therefore, in the widest possible swings of behavior within the group holding this attitude. So long as it sees the elements of the conflict as at present (in typical form), its organic character consists in its unconscious "fence sitting" followed by wild leaps either way. But it can remain organically whole, and stop being neurotic, only by transcending the present "fence sitting" and adopting the personal-interpersonal attitude. With this attitude, under which sex urge is important but not a flood, and restraints are wise but not desperate, the organic relation between biology and culture could be maintained without the present neurosis of the attitude. In contrast, reverting to a child-ofnature attitude is possible only in overt behavior, not in attitude, and social climbing to the romantic attitude will simply exchange one set of troubles for another. The romantic attitude is an organic whole that combines concentrated attention upon the finding of the proper partner with an unwitting selfishness justified by one's renunciation of sexual contacts except for "love." As we noted, there tends to be comparatively little reconception of the content 204 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS of the romantic core despite enormous changes in situation; so that the boredoms and disappointments of later life are organically related to the basic nature of the attitude itself. If this attitude is to come to fruition, it plainly needs whatever will transform the legalistic and selfish elements (earn sex by love and sacrifice) into genuinely and spontaneously interpersonal encounter. This means a movement toward the personal-interpersonal attitude. So far as the no-harm attitude is merely a matter of methods within a marriage relationship, it may represent a step from the romantic attitude toward the personal-interpersonal attitude. So far as the no-harm attitude is more final or generalized, however, it is organic in its resistance to any pattern; that is, its organic nature lies in its rebelliousness. Whether its rebellion is justified on any particular point can not, therefore, be determined by examining only the attitude itself. So far as it takes the right direction as to content, it moves toward the personal-interpersonal attitude. So far as it takes the wrong direction, it is likely to become a pseudo-child-of-nature attitude. So far as the toleration attitude is of a preliminary kind, representing an attempt to understand other people from their own points of view but without having this understanding serve as a substitute for one's own convictions, we can only commend it as a strong move toward the personal-interpersonal attitude. Indeed, as we noted, toleration is a poor word for that. But so far as the toleration attitude is what the philosophers call "positivistic," i.e., nothing but itself is required, it is organic by reason of denying the validity of all constructive attitudes by considering them all of equal validity. As a final view, it sits on the fence as if the fence were a pedestal and it above ordinary mortals. Its proper course is obviously to accept itself as a preliminary attitude, and then to move toward the personal-interpersonal one. It is, therefore, toward the personal-interpersonal attitude CHRISTIAN CRITICISM OF EXISTING ATTITUDES 205 that all existing attitudes tend to move if they are to fulfill their deepest intentions. As the best attitudinal implementation of the Christian view of sex that we can now see, therefore, the personal-interpersonal attitude is not merely an impossible ideal. It is so real that it "lures" or attracts every other existing attitude in its direction as a necessary move toward the fulfillment of the intention of each attitude itself. FOOTNOTES 1. I:545. 2. 1:578. 1 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW IN THE J. LIGHT OF KINSEY Is THERE anything in Kinsey's findings that suggests we put the Christian view of sex on the shelf as irrelevant to modern life? The answer to this is an unqualified no. Is there anything in these findings that brings judgment on what Christians are thinking as well as doing, not thinking or not doing, about sex today? The answer is an unqualified yes. The Christian view of sex begins in the conviction that sex is an important matter, that the whole personality is involved in it for good or for ill whether one knows it or not, and that, therefore, it contains within itself seeds that can make for creation or for destruction. No merely effete view, nor a view concerned only to minimize sex, nor a legalistic view, can avoid criticism by this Christian principle. Once the importance of sex has been established, the Christian view then indicates what it is important for, what is its purpose or function. From the Bible we learn that it brings knowledge of the deepest kind, which is knowledge wrapped in mystery. It is to bring self-discovery in depth as it brings discovery in depth of the other and, by implication, of all others. It can bring a spiritual completion, "in love sustained by faith," as Otto Piper put it, and in parenthood 206 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW IN THE LIGHT OF KINSEY 207 a consummation of personal fulfillment and voluntary social responsibility. Such biblical principles may, as time goes on, be implemented by new insights and instruments. D. S. Bailey acknowledges that "the modern idea of sexual love was virtually unknown to antiquity." 1 The rise of the romantic understanding of sexual love, and then of companionship, can help to fulfill the Christian intention, and warrant inclusion within the statement of the Christian view. "Abandon," to use Kinsey's term, can be an instrument of the Christian aims of sex, helping the biological to become better integrated into the totality of human sex experience. Most especially among the recent insights, our detailed and still growing understanding of the actual processes of human (including sexual) development aids us to implement the Christian view. This includes better understanding of the different developmental patterns within the two sexes. All such things are fulfillments, at least potentially, of the Christian view of sex as an important, God-given function of human personal and interpersonal existence that requires, like anything else important in life, some thought, some understanding, and some direction on our part. Any statement of the Christian view of sex, in biblical times or now, ought to be relevant to the situation it confronts. In New Testament days, Christianity confronted three basic kinds of attitudes. First, there was the more or less libertine trend in Greek society, threatening to infiltrate the church with the notion that it made no difference what your body did if only your heart were right with Christ. Paul showed the fallacy of this by asserting that sex was of the body and the body was of the spirit or the whole man. Second, there was the legalism of Judaism. For the "hardness of their hearts," Jesus indicated, Moses had permitted divorce, that is, had permitted men to divorce their wives although not wives to divorce their husbands.2 Against such legalism, 20o8 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS Jesus implied, one must assert that there is always a personal and interpersonal relationship involved. Third, the New Testament days confronted an ascetic attitude. If the kingdom were coming soon, then everything else should be of no significance, and one should condemn all sex as leading away from the kingdom. Paul respected the religious motives of such people, but considered the attitude itself mistaken as a pattern for all conduct. It was against attitudes like these that the New Testament view asserted sex to be the creation of God, to be important, to be personal and interpersonal in nature, and not in itself to qualify the Christian's freedom in Christ. Today, the existing attitudes confronted by the Christian view seem to us more subtle. But our basic task now is not different from the Christian task then. In the light of the Gospel's revelation of man's true nature, his relation to God, and his consequent relation to his fellow man, what is the truth about sex that will do justice to its full dimensions in a life sustained by God, will properly criticize existing attitude and practice, and will lead men away from worship of life's graven images by the vision of the true and holy God? The specific issues are not quite the same. The basic task is identical. The discussion has attempted all along to bring the most basic Christian understandings about sex into critical relation with the most realistic findings about current sex practice and attitude. Astonishingly enough, however, little has been said about those sexual issues to which Christian moralists and theologians have given most attention in recent years: divorce, contraception, and artificial insemination. This was not because of any intention of avoiding issues, nor because these issues are regarded in any way as unimportant. Yet it is astonishing that a discussion of the Christian view of sex, attempting to deal with what is most basic in that view and its relation to actual attitudes and behavior, should THE CHRISTIAN VIEW IN THE LIGHT OF KINSEY 209 have found it necessary to deal mainly with issues other than those most in the forefront of ethical discussion. It may be that we need to re-examine the criteria of what ought to be discussed about sex, being careful not to confine ourselves to those questions that obtrude themselves because requiring embarrassing administrative decisions. Other questions may equally deserve discussion. We emerged, not long since, from an era in which, especially in Anglo-Saxon lands, serious public discussion of sex was taboo. That this was poor policy, and without biblical precedent, we now know. From the Christian point of view, it is of positive significance that such taboos and euphemisms have been broken through. People like Havelock Ellis and Sigmund Freud and Alfred C. Kinsey deserve our gratitude for helping to break through this barrier. But even though Kinsey's findings threaten in no basic way the nature of the Christian view of sex, it is not possible for Christians to return to a pre-Kinsey sexual era. Having facts about sex behavior, and consequent new insight into existing sex attitudes, there is no possible retreat into an ostrichlike position. It has never been enough to say that sex is taken care of by marriage. The Christian view of sex has to do more than that. For good or for ill, the lid is off. From the Christian view, this is for good if we learn to understand sex that it may fulfill, under God, its full human functions. KINsEY's CHALLENGE TO THE CHRISTIAN VIEW As we saw in Chapter i, Kinsey seems to understand the Christian view of sex as a "reproductive" view, all detailed aspects of the view being implications of the notion that sex is simply and almost solely for reproductive purposes.8 This understanding of the Christian view (as adequately represented in the word "reproductive") is not only superficial, but also likely to obscure the very factors in Christianity that ought to have the most profound implications for 210 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS our understanding of sex. Granted that it was only a most incidental part of Kinsey's purpose to make comments on the Christian view of sex, we noted that he did not get his ideas out of the blue. To be sure, since he is human being as well as scientist, it may be that his general acquaintance or personal experience with Christianity may have aided him in misunderstanding the Christian view. It seems more likely, however, that what he has run into in his reading and his interviews has been mainly responsible for what he believes the Christian view of sex to be. That is to say, as many Christians understand the Christian view of sex, Kinsey is not wrong: in the superficiality, the oversimplification, and the legalism of his understanding of the Christian view. If this is what Kinsey actually sees, he is correct in so reporting it. But if he concludes that what he sees actually is the Christian view, this is mistaken. At the very least, this suggests a failure of Christian interpreters to clarify the Christian view to Christians. At its worst, it may mean a kind of unconscious sabotage of the Christian view in the name of Christianity. In either event, Kinsey offers a challenge. Consider, for example, a few things that Kinsey does not find evidence the Christian forces have done anything about. For example, he makes no comment that they have been impressed by the developmental understanding of sex, as illustrated by the point that sexual exploration in children may mean something quite different from what it means in adults. He does mention that a "liberal portion" of the Protestant clergy is inclined to "reinterpret" sexual behavior in terms of "the total social adjustment of the individual." 4 But he implies, in using the word "reinterpret," that they must fly against their tradition at any time they ask what sex behavior means to a person. It would be possible to get religious books, pamphlets, and church school materials that would suggest to Kinsey that the understanding of sex as a developmental phenome THE CHRISTIAN VIEW IN THE LIGHT OF KINSEY 211 non is more widespread (at least in Protestantism) than he implies. But could we, in fact, really convince him that this is widespread and widely understood? Not a little of the church literature about marriage, for instance, is, if not sentimental, more romantic than Christian. The references to sex in church school literature are few and euphemistic. Except in a portion of the professional literature, the references to a developmental understanding of sex are likely to be unspecific exhortations to parents not to traumatize their children over sexual offenses and experiments. For what there is, we may be thankful; but apparently there was not enough to catch Kinsey's eye. Yet an understanding of the developmental phenomena of sex is essential implementation of the Christian view. Or take, for instance, the fact of the differences in sexual interest and sexual capacity. Kinsey demonstrates that these ranges may be enormous, flowing from a complicated network of causes, not the least of which is a given biological or endocrinological factor in the individual. Where have the Christian forces indicated genuine understanding of how much more difficult it may be for one person to establish human and social control over his biological urges than for another? Where have they admitted that advice given by middle-aged people to young people is likely to have lost inner feeling for the pressures (social as well as biological) with which the young people are trying to deal? Where have they warned that the variation in sexual interest or capacity in two married persons may be so enormous as to require an almost superhuman action on the part of one (or the other) of the partners if sex is not to threaten the marriage? And above all, where have they made it crystal clear that the Christian view is no more to be identified with the attitude of one social or educational class than of another? The answer would of course be that all these things have been admitted, in a measure, in the professional or technical 212 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS religious and ethical literature and practice, although the extent of the variations has only now been documented by Kinsey. But the fact is that very little has been said along this line to the ordinary person. The fact Kinsey sees is that people with more sexual capacity or interest (represented only, we must remember, in the figures on frequency) tend not to go to church. Which is chicken, and which is egg, neither he nor we can profess to know. But if the general public mind tends to believe strong sexual interest or capacity to be in some basic way unchristian, even at times when expressed solely in a responsible marital relationship, then Kinsey has a basis for implying that Christianity (as most people understand it) tends to cast a generalized inhibitory tone around sex. Conversely, if people with relatively less sexual interest or capacity seem to find it easier to be active in the church, Kinsey is justified in wondering if they are not interpreting a biological fact as if it were a moral virtue. Not only is it important that the Christian view take explicitly into account the variations in sexual interest and capacity. It may also be considered essential for the sake of promoting the best possible marriages. We shall have to wait for Kinsey's report on sex in marriage. But he has made at least one fascinating remark thus far about what tends to make marriages succeed: "A preliminary examination of the six thousand marital histories in the present study, and of nearly three thousand divorce histories, suggests that there may be nothing more important in a marriage than a determination that it shall persist."6 This would give no aid or comfort to those who conclude that a recognition of variation in interest or capacity necessarily implies an equal interest or capacity, if the marriage is not to fail. But it also implies that a "determination" is the kind of attitude that does not blink the facts including the fact of variation in interest and capacity. Kinsey sees little evidence that the churches are teaching THE CHRISTIAN VIEW IN THE LIGHT OF KINSEY 213 their people to think about specific sex problems (except contraception and divorce). The impact is more vague, in terms of general ideals of "purity" and "cleanliness." As a result, we find such anomalous facts as that some young people became involved in homosexual relationships with no awareness of the implications, because nothing explicit has ever been said about these. Most clergymen can corroborate this from their own pastoral counseling experience. In so far as church teaching is so vague that many people are unable to make the concrete references, it would certainly seem to require some reconsideration. For when one's personal decisions about sex are left to rest apparently upon one set of factors, the actual standards are likely to be determined almost entirely by the mores of one's particular class level. If sex education remains merely vague, therefore, it tends to reinforce the patterns of the various social groups. We might add that if it tries to transcend vagueness by mere legalism, with no attempt to help the person understand these matters from the "inside," the result is likely to be concentration on either conformity to, or rebellion against, the mores of a particular social group. As another illustration, Kinsey does not seem to see evidence that the Christian forces have done much that is realistic about the laws in relation to sex. He notes that, in relation to males, "at least 85 per cent of the younger male population could be convicted as sex offenders" if the existing laws were strictly enforced.6 Behind the existing laws Kinsey sees the English common law, in turn arising out of medieval law, and this from Roman law, and Roman law from the merger that Christianity made of Hebrew and Greek traditions.7 Whether or not one agrees with Kinsey's implications about what is wrong with sex laws, no one who studies them can avoid the conclusion that they are a patchwork, and that a strict enforcement of all of them would cause a social revolution of no pleasant kind. To be sure, this is a highly tech 214 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS nical subject. But its principles should not be far from the Christian view; and if they are, one wonders why this is not more plainly stated. These four illustrations are examples of the kind of challenge which Kinsey's findings (or lack of findings) present to the Christian forces in terms of what they have neglected to do. There seems to be a corresponding challenge in terms of what they have done that they ought not to have done. The first, and perhaps the most important illustration, is what can be called an unintentional depreciation of the personal-fulfillment potentialities of parenthood. In so far as religious forces have given the impression that propagation is the sole (or the sole important) justification for sex activity, the result has been to help people to misunderstand the relationship that parenthood bears to personal creative fulfillment. This is not what the Christian view of sex says, but if many people receive this impression, they have learned it somewhere. If they think parenthood is simply the price one must pay for the pleasure of sexual intercourse, they misunderstand parenthood and are unlikely to get much pleasure from the intercourse. One of the most astonishing social phenomena since about 1940 has been the way in which the marriage rate (and the birth rate) increased far beyond the predictions of any experts of the nineteen thirties. The obvious occasion for this was World War II, but what made it possible was a changed economic situation. None of the experts had recognized that there was such a widespread latent urge on the part of so many people to get married and have babies as soon as possible. There have been many hasty and unwise marriages, and the divorce rate is alarming. But the fact remains that, whatever the deficiency of our personalities and our mores, the overwhelming majority of young people will enter responsible marriage, and will bring up children responsibly, if given half a chance. If the mores do not teach them that parenthood is THE CHRISTIAN VIEW IN THE LIGHT OF KINSEY 215 only a burden, they are not likely to look at it in that way. We in the churches are not entirely guiltless at this point. As a second illustration, there are a good many indications that the religious forces have not adhered to their own convictions about the necessity of building ethical attitudes from within instead of from without. To be sure, this can not be done without information including sex information, and on that we have tended to vagueness. But no real ethical education is achieved through any mere combination of information on one side and imposed pattern on the other. By varying between a complete neglect of details, on the one hand, and legalistic injunctions and punishments on the other, the religious forces have often tended to play into the hands of one or more of the existing attitudes (recently and increasingly into that of the romantic attitude). While this swingshift of neglect and legalism has been absorbing energies, the essential task of helping people to think it through on the basis of accurate information and Christian principles has been largely undone. As a third example, how can we escape the conclusion that the Christian forces have sometimes put a tone of guilt around sex even when this could not be justified by any possible interpretation of the Christian view? This would be most particularly true when there is a generalized sexual inhibition within marriage. On the other side, one wonders if we have not sometimes neglected to produce a sense of guilt where there should be one, as in a ruthlessly selfish partner of a marriage, or in the person who marries only for economic reasons. As a final example, we can hardly assert that the religious forces have been blamelessly Christian in dealing with people who are sex variants of one kind and degree or another. Kinsey may not realize the quantity of understanding help that has been given to such persons, not only now but through the ages, by wise and understanding representatives 216 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS of the churches. But quite a few aspects of the record, even today, are dark. These illustrations could be multiplied, but that is unnecessary. Here are, in any event, some examples of things the church has done or failed to do which, upon analysis, tend to vitiate its being a clear witness to its own view. In calling our attention to these things, though indirectly, Kinsey performs an important service for us. MAKING THE CHRISTIAN VIEW EFFECTIVE IN SOCIETY From the point of view of Christian ethics, however conceived, the most dramatic finding of the Kinsey studies is the extent to which the Christian view fails to be significantly reflected at any level of the American population. If sin be separation from God, and from God's will for men's lives, then Kinsey is, however unintentionally, the occasion of an altar call to repentance. In the light of all this, what can we do to help make the Christian view more effective in persons and in society? There are, initially, some things we might do that would not make the Christian view more effective. And of these, the first would be to blame Kinsey. If the facts are disconcerting, he did not make them so. And unless we are mere obscurantists, we will welcome the data he makes available to us. Kinsey's facts and interpretations should of course be subjected to the best possible critical evaluations. Second, it is doubtful that any feverish round of new programs of sex education, conceived at headquarters and dedicated to the proposition that the provinces can not think for themselves, is likely to help. To be sure, there is a function here for national church leadership. But unless it has conviction that the "provinces" are really behind it in a matter like this, it is not likely to move with the necessary courage and vision. When I served on the staff of the Federal Council of Churches some years ago, I was instrumental THE CHRISTIAN VIEW IN THE LIGHT OF KINSEY 217 in calling a group of national church leaders together to consider the chances for a better approach to sex education. Although this conference was not without positive values, my final judgment was that it tended to fail because the persons with the most vision lacked the courage to stand up to the persons whose concerns were only traditional and whose advocacy of them was highly vocal. Another unprofitable method of procedure would be to do nothing, especially on the ground that we should wait prudentially to make sure that all the important people agree entirely about the nature of the Christian view of sex. This is unlikely ever to happen. And in any case, it would preclude the possibility of some enlightened, responsible, and unsensational controversy. Such controversy is essential to a better social impact on the part of the Christian view. Finally, among the possible ways not to proceed if we want to make the Christian view effective in society, there should be no compromises of any kind in comprehending and stating the Christian view and its implications. The most basic truth about man can never be stated in statistical terms. What is, is not necessarily what should be. This injunction against compromise is, however, not a legalism, nor an invitation to hardness of heart. The Christian view is a dialectical view. It must always consider together in relationship man (or men and women) as he is, and man as he may, by God's grace, become. To neglect one pole of this in the name of no-compromise would be to treat the Christian view as fit only for angels not for men. On the other side, what, positively, can we do to make the Christian view more effective in our social life? First, we need to study and discuss the situation as we have not done before. This involves in part familiarizing ourselves with the facts about sex attitude and behavior, and with the factors that account for the facts' being as they are. Anyone who professes to apply the Christian view of sex to society 218 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS needs to be thoroughly familiar with Kinsey's findings. But perhaps even more important is the need for more basic, reflective, and broad-gauge study and discussion of the nature and relevance of the Christian view of sex. Some highly constructive rethinking of this kind is now going on in reference especially to marriage and divorce. But such thought and discussion needs to be extended beyond those problems which (like divorce) constitute an administrative embarrassment. Some of the most poignant human problems of sex are of a different order entirely, and it is these that are most likely to be neglected. Study, thought, and discussion are needed on all. If this volume succeeds only in stimulating some responsible discussion of this kind, it will have been worth the effort. In the second place, all of us who have a Christian ethical concern about sex can be more explicit, at all relevant points in our work, about just what we believe the Christian view does and does not mean and imply. Most especially, this means an effort to elucidate the way in which the Bible (and Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible) is related to modern situations and attitudes. If any reader objects to the way in which, in this book, the Bible has been related to the modern world, let him study both aspects of the equation and come forth with his own interpretation. Any form of Christian statement that ignores the Bible, Jesus Christ, or Christian history is not likely to be deeply meaningful; but any view that does not make contact with our modern knowledge is likely to be irrelevant. Whether this book has made the right combination and reinterpretation or not is less important than our common recognition that a combination and reinterpretation be made, in this and in all succeeding generations. In the third place, in all those aspects of our life and work that involve sex, we can make the conscious effort to include something basic that the Christian view implies-at THE CHRISTIAN VIEW IN THE LIGHT OF KINSEY 219 tention to process as well as to result. There is, finally, no good fruit unless it comes from a good tree. Good results, achieved through the wrong processes, are not in fact good. No man's (or woman's) sexual life is going to reach its full human dimensions through response to automatic stimuli, whether this mean conformity to biology or to culture. True personhood involves an increasing capacity to lay hold on the world, creatively, but from within a personal center. This requires learning, and learning requires some trial and error, some mistakes and some victories, some rebellions and some conformities. The Christian view is interested in the overall direction of this process vastly more than it is in the legalistically proper result at every possible stage. Finally, we can and should bring constructive criticism to bear upon all existing basic attitudes toward sex. This has been discussed at length in the preceding chapter, and that discussion is relevant to our action, what we can do about it. There should be no pussyfooting about existing attitudes. No existing attitude toward sex-even our best interpretations of the personal-interpersonal attitude-is above the judgment of God. Nothing is more important for us to do about sex than to make this fact clear. When men know that they stand under a common judgment, though the nature of their faults be different, they can not rise in pride and arrogance against one another. If they have not the whole truth, perhaps they can be open-minded to seek and to hear portions of it from elsewhere. Some of this is in the Bible, and some in Kinsey. Truth may come both ways. FOOTNOTES 1. The Mystery of Love and Mar- 4. 1:485. riage (New York: Harper 5. 1:544; II:11. and Brothers, 1952), p. 3. 6. I:224. 2. Matthew 19:8. 7. 1:465. 3. I:263, 487. 1 1 SOME IMPLICATIONS OF THE. CHRISTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY ONE of the few satisfactions involved in writing a book is that the author not only answers the questions in the way he wants, but that he also asks them in the manner he wishes. This book has been no exception, although we have had help from Kinsey in asking about the Christian view of sex, and have relied on the Christian view of sex in asking questions of Kinsey. For good or for ill, however, many of the questions about sex that are put to Christians today are not "predigested." They come right out of some immediate concern that may or may not be carefully thought out. Such questions are not "dumb." They simply want to know what is what about some particular matter, without any ifs, ands, buts, or abstract principles. Although they can not in fact be answered except by reference to general principles (here, the Christian view of sex), it may be worth while to attempt answers to some questions of this kind-questions that tend to recur in discussions of young people in churches, Y.M.C.A.'s and Y.W.C.A.'s, and on college campuses; or in groups of young married couples; or among others who are seriously concerned to get at the truth but who do not consider themselves experts either about sex or about Christianity. The 220 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY 221 form of many of these questions today is partly shaped by the Kinsey studies-not so much by what the studies report as by the mere fact that they are being made and reported on. With the aid of the publisher, a brief list of such oftenasked questions has been compiled, and this chapter will present them and try to comment on them. No new facts or principles will be presented here that have not been discussed in previous chapters. But whereas other chapters have discussed the author's questions, this one will give the author's answers to others' questions. The reader should note that the answers to questions contained in this chapter should not be read apart from the context of the book as a whole. The answers are, of necessity, brief, and the principles upon which the answers are based are merely mentioned, not explained in detail as they were in previous pages. Even so, there are probably some readers who will regard these answers as loose or nondefinitive, and who would wish for more flat yes-or-no replies. To such criticisms it can only be replied that, apart from the brevity of the comments, the author has made his answers as definite as he believes to be warranted by the whole breadth and depth of the Christian view of sex. THE RELEVANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN VIEW Question: If all the existing attitudes that people have toward sex fail to measure up to the Christian view, doesn't this mean that the Christian view is out of date? Answer: We might begin on this one by using a couple of analogies. Suppose, for example, we ask: If all the efforts we have made to prevent war have failed, doesn't this mean that peace is out of date? The answer to this is that peace is a positive value, whether or not we have succeeded in doing what is necessary to produce it; the fact of war is a commentary on the inadequacy of what we have done to prevent 222 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS it, but it is not an indication that peace is undesirable or out of date. To use a more homely analogy, let us ask: Having tried straight razors, safety razors, and electric razors, we find that none of them prevents five-o'clock shadow; doesn't this mean that clean-shavenness is outdated? The practical answer may be that this tough-bearded character should shave twice a day, or that razor manufacturers should make technological improvements. The basic answer is, however, that the value or relevance of clean-shavenness may be positive even though the tough beard requires more attention than its owner has given it. Sex is more complicated than razors, and at times seems more so than peace. In any event, the fact that existing attitudes toward it fail to fulfill the Christian view does not in itself say anything negative about the truth and value of the Christian view. The Christian view stands for certain values, that is, the kinds and qualities of relationship that should exist among men and between men and God. These are ideal values in the sense that they are the best we can conceive and in that we have not wholly realized them. But they are real values in the sense that man's deepest and most genuine potentialities come into being only as these values are, in some degree, made real. They are not ideal in the sense of being irrelevant and unrealizable in any degree, just as they are not real in the sense that they are statistically dominant. A distinction should also be made, in answering this question about the up-to-dateness of the Christian view, between the Christian view in a normative sense (as this book has attempted to explain it) and the variety of understandings and misunderstandings of the Christian view that actually exist. There are some misconceptions of the Christian view not only that are out of date but that have little warrant in any basic aspect of the Christian tradition. Thus, many of the understandings and statements about the nature of the THE CHRISTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY 223 Christian view of sex are either unchristian or outdated. Christian truth must be restated so as to make contact with the thought forms of each generation; if this is not done, then the statement may be outdated. But the Christian view is always more than any particular statement of it. Question: If the Christian view of sex is so important, can't it be stated in a simple way so that anyone can mold his own attitudes by it? Answer: Two kinds of answers are needed to a question like this. The first is that the essence of the Christian view can be stated simply. The second is that more is required than the essence of a view if it is to become incarnated (take on flesh) as a personal attitude. This book has presented many of the subtle implications of the Christian view of sex, so much so that some readers may have lost the core or essence in the shuffle of implications. The essence of the Christian view is that sex is inevitably radical and serious, that it is a function of the whole human person including biology but also more than biology, that it leads toward deeper self-discovery and to the awareness of greater depth in the other, that it is a mystery in that total spiritual meanings are conveyed through biological means. Put still more simply, the Christian view of sex is that sex is the creation of God and is, therefore, good when used according to the will of God for life in human beings. That statement can hardly be called complicated. It is also true, however, that the distance between a grasping of the simple core of the Christian view, and getting that view firmly rooted in our actual attitudes, may be great. This is because the core statement, to achieve simplicity, has relied partly on abstraction. Such a statement does not in itself tell us what, concretely, is the will of God for human beings; to discover that, we must study many things and not rely on a simple statement by itself without attempting to see just what it means in concrete life. Another reason that there 224 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS is a distance between the simple statement and the attitude, is that many forces and pressures in life work against the implications of the Christian view. Christianity does not deny the reality of evil nor its power. At the same time, this book has tried to show that no major existing attitude fails to make some contact with the Christian view, although for some this is closer than for others. Question: If so few people practice what the churches preach, don't we simply encourage a vicious hypocrisy? Wouldn't it be better to say nothing than to advocate what we know people will not follow? Answer: In honesty, the first thing we must comment on is whether what the churches preach or teach about sex actually is the Christian view of sex. Regardless of what is responsible for the condition, the fact seems to be that a number of conscientious Christians have grave misunderstandings of the Christian view of sex. To the extent that this is true, then it is necessary for both pulpit and pew to study the nature of the Christian view. Where the Christian view, of sex or anything else, is being preached, however, where is the hypocrisy? The Christian view is not addressed to angels but to men and women, who sin and fall short, and who come to God through Christ to receive forgiveness and to be lifted again by God's grace. As some of the old theologians liked to say, God forbid that this should mean: Sin more that grace may much more abound! But the church is more a fellowship of repentant sinners than of triumphant saints. The crucial question is not whether one is a sinner, but whether he is repentant. If he is or if, in psychological terms, he is open to a change in life direction, then he is not a hypocrite but a penitent. If he does not hear or heed the message, then he is "closed," and his "shut-upness," as Kierkegaard called it, is both the mark of his impenitence and the telltale evidence of his hypocrisy. But one can be a hypocrite only by not hearing the Christian THE CHRISTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY 225 view. To hear it, and fail to follow it, is the mark of sin but not of hypocrisy. The Christian faith speaks to those in need. The last part of the question asks if it would not be better to say nothing than to advocate what people will not follow. This question suggests some misunderstanding of the nature of the Christian view. It assumes that Christianity is, if not a legal code, at least a specific course of action more or less regardless of all motives, conditions, circumstances, and context. Christianity does of course have a relation to our actions and behavior. But it is not a completely fixed code; it cannot dissociate action from the character of him who acts. Further, in its message about the life of the Christian, it asserts that the most complete fulfillment of human life is at the same time the best reception of God's grace and consequent living by God's will. What is "advocated," therefore, far from being an extraneous or imposed irrelevancy, is the spirit that giveth life. If the seed fall upon stony ground and not take root, this is regrettable; but the seed must always be sown, for only God can know which ground is thorny and which is ready to promote growth. Question: What evidence, if any, do the Kinsey studies produce that supports the rightness of the Christian view of sex? Answer: So far as one can tell from the reports published thus far, the Kinsey studies are not so conceived and executed as to be directly relevant to this question. VWhat they report, factually, is what people do, with some added insights into which people do it and why. At these points of fact, and interpretation of fact, they are valuable to the Christian view which, as a view or perspective, does not profess to have some independent body of facts of its own about actual sex behavior. The Kinsey studies are (properly enough) unconcerned about precisely those normative considerations that are basic to the Christian view. In a subtle sense, some implications can be drawn from 226 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS the Kinsey studies that help to attest the realism of the Christian view. Our discussion of attitudes toward sex, suggested by Kinsey's findings although frankly going beyond those findings, concluded with the statement that no major existing attitude could even fulfill its own basic intention unless it moved in the direction of the personal-interpersonal attitude, when the latter is the best attitudinal implementation of the Christian view of sex. There is nothing in Kinsey that contradicts such an assertion, although neither is there anything that proves it conclusively; it is simply suggestive inference. In answering the question as we have, it is important to add this-that the rightness or the relevance of the Christian view is not independent of "facts." The question is, What kinds of facts are we considering? If man's sex life, like other aspects of his life, grows and develops, then accurate knowledge about the course and progress of that development is important for understanding the goals and purposes at any stage. Facts of this order are vitally relevant to the Christian view. Facts that merely report how many people have done some particular thing are not necessarily normative in any sense, however important it may be to have them. Far from being independent of facts, the Christian view is built upon facts-what it regards as the deepest and most penetrating facts about the nature of man's existence, his relationship to his fellow man, and his relationship to God. HELPING TEEN-AGERS AND YOUNG PEOPLE Question: What is the relationship between premarital intercourse and success in marriage? Answer: Even allowing for different ways of judging what success in marriage is, there is no definitive answer to this question, from Kinsey or elsewhere. Not all the people who refrain from premarital intercourse have successful marriages by any standard; nor do all the persons who engage in it. THE CHRISTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY 227 Kinsey is convinced that those who have had no sexual experience before marriage (even petting without orgasm) are likely to enter marriage with many sexual inhibitions which, in turn, may place undue strain upon the sexual side of the marriage relationship. This much at least is confirmed by common sense. He is also convinced that any experience that one has with orgasm before marriage makes it more likely for the person to achieve orgasm in sexual relationships within marriage and more quickly. Yet the women who have engaged in premarital intercourse (coitus), he finds, and who have not experienced orgasm through it, have a high record of failure (measured in orgasm terms) within marriage. For some people, Kinsey indicates, a long or constant building up of sex tension through petting may, if not released by orgasm, cause difficulty. But there is no evidence that some personal discipline has any ill consequences in itself. In answering this question, we need to remember how different are the attitudes toward premarital intercourse among different levels of the population, especially among men. Among the lower (educational and prestige) level groups, it would be the exceptional boy who had not engaged in premarital intercourse; and the girls of this group, when they are so engaged, do so at relatively early ages. The college or highschool level boys or girls, however, go against some basic aspects of their group standards if they engage in premarital coitus, although more of them do so now than formerly especially among the girls. We should also recall that the factors involved in the success of a marriage are very complex, and that even Kinsey indicates that sexual factors are only one set among others. There is probably a high correlation between success in marriage, represented in not getting divorced, and following the general patterns of one's group. If success in marriage is 228 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS measured by more qualitative standards, it may be that a correlation could be found between success in marriage and some forms of restraint in connection with premarital intercourse, i.e., through affectionate concern for the partner. Such a hypothesis is neither denied nor supported by Kinsey. Question: In relation to success in marriage, is there any difference between premarital intercourse and heterosexual petting to orgasm? Answer: Heterosexual petting to orgasm has been mostly a phenomenon of college-level people, although Kinsey believes it is generally on the increase except perhaps among the lower-level groups. He notes that the rational advantages it has over premarital intercourse include the elimination of chances of pregnancy, minimizing the dangers of venereal disease, and the relative ease of making suitable arrangements. These are not, however, the sole or perhaps the main reasons for its use by the college-level group, he believes. It is also necessary, he continues, to consider the symbolic value that this group attaches to virginity in a purely technical sense. The reasonable differences between petting to orgasm and premarital intercourse are real differences, especially if they betoken not only prudence about oneself but consideration for another. It is a little difficult for reason, however, to put a high value on the purely symbolic virginity distinguished only by the fact that one genital organ has never quite entered another. Such reasoning is partly irrational and wholly legalistic in nature. Young people of the less educated groups would rarely consider petting to climax, and do not regard premarital intercourse as a problem of principle, at least for men. The Christian view regards this attitude as mistaken in that the radical and serious nature of sex is not accepted. Premarital intercourse is a problem for better-educated young people, both for rational and irrational reasons as we have noted; THE CHRISTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY 229 and for this reason, petting, instead of being a preliminary to intercourse or a getting acquainted, may become a substitute. The Christian view cannot look lightly on such matters. But it is less concerned with the legalisms than with whether sex capacity is being nurtured and humanized (boys and girls become acquainted with each other, and in affection may kiss and embrace) rather than denied or held back, and with whether sex is accepted in its radical and serious nature. It is aware that there can be compulsive expressions as well as compulsive inhibitions; and its view of the sex life is a movement toward responsible freedom. Question: Since so many people, even in the college groups, are engaged in premarital intercourse or petting with orgasm, and since there is no clear evidence that this is bound to be harmful, isn't one justified in going ahead? Answer: That little word "justified" in the question is intriguing. According to the Christian view, sex itself requires no special justification. The question is whether it is being used to fulfill its basic purposes in human life. This leads to questions of partner, motive, depth, responsibility, and others; but in none of these is the justification of sex in itself the issue. Suppose we rephrase the question so as to include at least some of the factors that are actually involved but not stated above: If a man and a woman accept sex as one dimension of their total human interrelationship, including its radical and serious character, and are prepared to follow through on all the personal, interpersonal, and social consequences of their association including the sexual, are they justified in going ahead with premarital intercourse or petting with orgasm? This certainly alters the original question. And if the original question did not imply what the second states, then it is actually a question about the justification for considering sex in a less than radical way, with interpersonal rela 230 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS tions strictly limited, with merely prudential social considerations, and with no ethical dimension at all. Question: In group discussions, young people continue to press for a yes or no answer on premarital intercourse. Doesn't the Christian view give a clear no on this? Answer: In principle, the Christian view of sex gives a negative answer to what is usually actually meant by premarital intercourse, that is, a relation of such limited giving and receiving, personal and interpersonal responsibility, that the actual nature of sex in human life is thereby distorted. But not every act that is, technically, premarital intercourse (in the sense of pre-wedding) is of this nature. Young people, being human, would like a simple yes or no, to which they might conform or against which they might rebel. Like the rest of us, they resist honest analysis of the complex factors involved and the consequent unmistakably personal character of the decision, for good or for ill. But yes or no can never be a substitute for this process of examination and personal decision. Everyone (regardless of what he decides) is going to make some mistakes, about sex or anything else. The critical question is whether he learns from them, and is open to correct and deepen himself as a result. No legalism and no libertinism will help him to do this. Probably our best help to young people is in aiding them to understand and identify the real nature of both the cultural and biological pressures under which they live. Question: Suppose that a young man or woman has begun to get out of the youthful class and, because of unattractiveness, illness, or similar reasons has neither married nor has any expectations of marriage. Does Christianity simply say he or she should have no sex life? Answer: Traditionally, this is the answer most Christians have given. It seems somewhat abrupt in the light of the circumstances. We recall that the Christian view holds that sex is inherently radical and serious in its nature, whether the THE CHRISTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY 231 people know it or not. Therefore, it is unable to approve sexual activity that rests upon merely casual or nonserious premises. Because of the inherently radical character of sex, people such as those indicated could not secure approval of relationship limited in some way (in time, in affection, or in other ways). Sex itself might break these limits unpredictably at any time. It is this that must be considered most seriously, more than the legal fact of no marriage. If the question is pressed concerning the unmarried man or woman with "honorable" intentions who, nevertheless, cannot find a partner of equally "honorable" intentions, then the answer is a puzzler. Nor is it a small problem numerically, for instance, in the war-torn countries of Europe where the women considerably outnumber the men. Against any possible libertine answer, the Christian view must simply testify to the radical and serious and therefore, in a sense, partly unpredictable nature of sex. But against a legalism that would simply condemn all sex relationships of such people, regardless of context and motive, the Christian view would raise a warning. The general question would be: Under some conditions, may sex limited be better than no sex, provided the radical and serious character of sex is not denied? We need some ethical wrestling with this question. Question: What can we say to youngsters and teen-agers about masturbation? Answer: One is tempted to reply, Say as little as possible unless it becomes a compulsive habit injuring interpersonal relationships and inner self-development. But that is not quite accurate. We need to recall that attitudes toward masturbation differ among different groups. With the less-educated groups, masturbation, if it occurs at all, gives way shortly to premarital intercourse. In contrast, with the moreeducated groups, masturbation is likely to continue until marriage and even, on occasions, especially for men, throughout married life. 232 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS In what we say, we should make contact with the group we are meeting. Therefore, the age and social level of the group would have much to do with how we would actually approach them. For youngsters, one could hardly omit reference, on the one side, to the natural curiosity of exploration about sexual as about other aspects of one's body, and on the other side, the fact that this function, which now appears so individual, is really social and interpersonal in its ultimate intent. When discussing masturbation with older adolescents, it would seem important to discuss the complex motivations that may be involved in it, the nature of compulsion (well illustrated), and the sense in which it may be either an aspect of development or a troublesome fixation. That counseling help may be sought about it is important. Discussions of cold showers and runs around the block are not recommended. Question: Why is it so important to discuss sexual matters as such with young people? If they get some good education about marriage that includes sex material, isn't that enough? Answer: The rise in the number of courses and classes in preparation for marriage has been phenomenal in the past few years, and this is a welcome development needing still more extension. If sex is dealt with effectively as an aspect of preparation for marriage in such courses, the result can be very positive. But it should not be forgotten that some of the people will never marry, others will marry late, and still others will have problems of sex unrelated to marriage. Therefore, unless these people are simply to be left aside as off the main line, they should be helped to think through sex on its own terms. It will be recalled also that, from the Christian point of view, marriage is not a justification of sex, but is rather the best human institution for aiding it to come to personal and interpersonal fulfillment. There is quite a difference between the two ideas. THE CHRISTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY 233 SEX IN MARRIAGE Question: Apparently many married persons are engaged in extramarital intercourse. Isn't this always just plain wrong from the Christian point of view? Answer: Except under unusual circumstances (to be noted below), the Christian view is obviously disapproving of extramarital relations. It is important, however, to note the basis of this disapproval. It is not primarily (as it tends to be in the law) for the protection of the family as a social institution. Instead, it is because extramarital relations tend to contradict the steadfastness that the Christian view sees as linked with intensity and depth, that is, the movement toward full personal and interpersonal humanization of sex. Most extramarital relationships go straight against this conception of sex. We should recall also the difference in patterns of extramarital relationships shown by Kinsey. For the less-educated groups, such relationships tend to occur mainly through the earlier years of marriage, and exist because a fully human interpersonal conception of the function of sex has never been held. With educated persons, in contrast, extramarital relationships are largely a phenomenon of postmiddle life, and are pursued in considerable measure, we have suggested, for unconsciously romantic reasons. There may, however, be instances of extramarital relationship in which the context ought to be examined with great care by the Christian view. A lonely soldier overseas, or his lonely wife back home, may be drawn into some sexual experience of which he or she heartily repents, and that would never have occurred without the enforced separation. A cold or bitter wife or husband of middle years may deny sex relationships to the partner, or make them the occasions for exhibiting coldness or bitterness, at the same time denying the possibility of separation. For the reasons given above, the 234 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS Christian view can hardly give approval to any extramarital relationships as such; but it cannot judge all instances of this in exactly the same light. Question: How many of the serious conflicts in marriages are caused by sex? Answer: This is a difficult question even to state in more precise terms, much less to answer. Kinsey has indicated certain kinds of sex matters that tend to produce conflict within marriage, among them: a tenseness or inhibition especially in women resulting from years of sexual restraint; too exclusively genital an understanding of their own sexual responses in men, reading this into their wives; desire by one partner for oral-genital contacts when the other considers these indecent or wrong; the different developmental patterns of sexual capacity in men and in women; some basic biological differences between the two sexes; and perhaps above all, the degree of misunderstanding that each sex has about the sexuality of the other. We may infer, however, from Kinsey's reports that the largest way in which sex matters affect marital conflict is when there are significant differences in basic attitude, e.g., if a person with the child-of-nature attitude should be married to one with the romantic attitude. In such an instance, what the people would take for granted would be quite different, and conflict would be inevitable. But in this last instance, of difference in basic attitudes, it should be noted that such differences would not be confined to sexual matters; they would apply to many other dimensions of life as well. Even though the conflict erupted most openly around sex, it would probably, at root, involve the whole philosophy of life and not sex attitudes alone. Any conflict in marriage that is serious is an interpersonal conflict, therefore bound to affect nearly all areas of life: the handling of money, dealing with children, contacts outside the home, and many other things. What needs to be THE CHRISTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY 235 done to help the people deal with such conflicts cannot, therefore, be confined to any one area of life, but needs to involve the actual relationship in all its dimensions and areas. Every counselor on marriage problems is familiar with the couple who are having difficulty, but who say their sex life is fine, only to discover later that the basic interpersonal difficulty has decreased potentialities in the sexual realm though less obtrusively than in other areas. Such a counselor is also familiar, on the other side, with couples who assert that their whole problem is sex, only to discover later that the basic conflict is a difference of outlook and values, of which sex was the most obtrusive and troublesome symptom. Question: What can be done to decrease the number and severity of serious marital conflicts? Answer: The most obvious conclusion, from Kinsey as well as from the students of marriage like Ernest W. Burgess, is to encourage marriage between like-minded people and to discourage it among unlike-minded. Where the basic values and goals of life are similar, marriage is more likely to be without the most serious forms of conflict. This is prudential common sense supported by all studies made so far. Related to it is a point stressed by Kinsey in his volume on women, that it is important for each sex to understand the other as it is and not solely as it wishes the other were or "imagines" it to be. The second thing, now beginning to operate in high gear, is explicit preparation of young people for marriage. We should note that this preparation is much more than informational in nature. When it is well done, it helps to prepare a couple to find methods of handling disagreements and differences, in the sexual or other spheres of life. There is, however, another point hinted at by Kinsey when he says that a sheer determination to make a marriage succeed may be more significant than anything else. Implicitly, 236 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS this suggests a "will" to seek depth in the other and in oneself in spite of all the barriers to this pursuit. Such determination may, of course, be merely dogged and dutiful. But it may also be open, alert, and sensitive. Question: Can a marriage be happy or successful if its sex aspect is neither happy nor successful? Answer: The answer to this would depend mainly on the reason that the sex side of the marriage is not happy or successful. On the one side, think of the situation in which one marital partner is stricken with a chronic illness affecting his sexual capacity. If the marriage has previously been rich in sexual as in other aspects, the couple will, following the onset of the illness, experience genuine deprivation; but it is quite possible that they can readjust to the situation in view of the fullness of other continuing aspects of their relationship. Such a situation would be different, for example, from that in which one partner, with less biological sex urge than the other, would attempt to handle this discrepancy through the avoidance of sex and by pointing to other realms of life as substitutes. This would be an attempted solution by imperialism, without a genuine facing of the problem. USE AND MISUSE OF KINSEY Question: How can we prevent Kinsey's reports and findings from being misused by some people to justify their own sex practices and attitudes? Answer: The answer is that we cannot prevent this misuse, but we can help to prevent its being successful through making correct and proper interpretations. We cannot prevent democracy from being distorted by Communists, capitalism from being distorted by privileged reactionaries, ethics from being twisted by the inwardly defensive, or Christianity from being warped by the arrogant. We can do something to correct misinterpretations in all such instances; but our basic THE CHRISTIAN VIEW FOR TODAY 237 witness is by giving the proper interpretations, and living by them. The most obvious misuse of the Kinsey findings is according to the formula: Might makes right, or, Ethics has only a statistical base. This is nonsense. There has been, however, a more subtle misuse of the Kinsey findings that ought especially to be watched for. In order to be specific, and to get countable units, Kinsey has referred to "sexual outlets." The casual or prejudiced reader could draw from this the implication that the only important thing about sex is its "outlets." To do this is, as Margaret Mead once pointed out, to take an "anal" view of sex. Especially in his volume on women, Kinsey makes it clear that his understanding of what sex is, is much broader than was evident in the volume on men. Question: No matter how we look at them, many of Kinsey's findings are disconcerting. Since he does not have an objective check on the information people give him, and since much of the data come from recollection that is notoriously unreliable or even biased, is it not possible that his facts are wrong in a significant degree? Answer: That this is a possibility, Kinsey would be the first to admit. But it is overwhelmingly unlikely to be true in any sense that would comfort the disturbed asker of this question. One thinks of the plea of desperation in the old popular song: "Say it isn't so." It is a wise precaution to ask this question, and to study Kinsey's methods carefully. There is no doubt that methodological purists can find many things to question about them in their details. But any careful study will be likely to suggest that in a massive sense, his findings are accurate, even though, as he himself indicates, his own later studies will correct many details. In short, there can be no escape from facing the implications of the findings, in the large and in general, by clinging to the hope that they aren't so. 238 SEX ETHICS AND THE KINSEY REPORTS Question: Granted that Kinsey's conception of his own purpose as a scientist properly prevents him from taking a stand on many ethical questions, is he not obligated to take ethics and religion more adequately into account than he has done thus far? Answer: The pressures on Kinsey from many quarters are now so extreme that one hesitates to say anything that may add to his burdens. Yet in spite of the strong appreciation this book has expressed to Kinsey for both the methods and the findings of his studies, it has not hesitated to suggest repeatedly that he has, however unintentionally, distorted the Christian understanding of sex. The blame for this has been placed primarily on ourselves, not on him, in that we have not witnessed to the Christian view in such a way that Kinsey could actually see it operating in people's lives. Perhaps this book, or others like it, may aid Kinsey to see the relevance of some things that have not previously concerned him. THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DATE DUE W NOV 2 7 i"-"'. MR3 0! 9 MAR 3 0 ~99 -4e,,a~ I f iI;i A: 4 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Ill l HlhI tIIIII! lli lll 3 9015 00262 5765 I E I I.. -;f 4, *;,,Jfi :7 f,, A, i4, O JAZZ'S n; -PI P -2, tj Z 4k, Cadillac 4K x Pt 2,! 4 "I 4,