Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living Some Things That All Sane People Ought to Know About Sex Nature and Sex Functioning; Its Place in the Economy of Life, Its Proper — A Closer Reading

Having said which, here shall follow some suggestions as to how such estate may be reached by the readers of these pages.

But first, let us finish Dr. C., and all of his tribe--banish them from all our reckoning in these matters, forever.

As already shown, this argument has not a leg to stand on. These writers treat the whole situation as though men and women were _mere animals! Men and women are far more than mere animals, and God hath made them so_! And for these reasons we will have respect for men and women as _God has made them_, rather than as Dr. C. and the "purity leagues" say God _should_ have made them!

As a matter of fact, the secondary function of sex in the human family is something _far above_ mere animality; it is something that mere animals know nothing about, that they can never experience, or in any way attain to, and these _fundamental differences_ in the premises remove the whole issue from the realm of comparison with any forms or functions of mere animal life. As well reason that animals never eat cooked food, and so men ought never to eat cooked food (and there are some people who do so reason, strange to say) or that animals do not wear clothes, and so men ought not to wear clothes--as well make these, or a score more of comparisons, between the human race and mere animals, as to try to compare them in the item of their sex functions.

In only the single fact that, on the physical plane merely, coitus for the purpose of procreation is common to all animal life, mankind included, is there a point of comparison between humanity and the brute creation. _Beyond that point there is nothing comparable between the two_! As well say that because beasts can hear, therefore they can comprehend and enjoy a Beethoven Sonata, or because they have eyes they can delight in a picture by Corot!

This is only another way of saying that sex has functions and uses in the human family that are entirely apart from the possibilities of all other animal life--functions as much above mere animality as music is above mere physical hearing, as painting above mere physical sight.

These facts forever upset and overthrow all the theories of Dr. C. and Co., they entirely eliminate the whole bunch from any part or lot in the issue on which they have essayed to speak with such authority, but whose main point, whose essential elements they have _entirely misunderstood_, and hence have treated in a way that is wholly at variance with the truth in the premises, and it is the truth that we are looking for.

Once more (for it is well to go to the bottom of this matter while we are about it) the honest truth is, that _it is the universal practice of the human race for men and women to cohabit for other purposes than reproduction, and it has always been so_, since men and women were men and women! It is true among the most savage and barbarous tribes of the earth, and it is more emphatically true of the highly civilized people in all lands and climes. And is it reasonable to suppose that such a universal phenomenon should _not_ have been intended to be as it is! As well say that appetite for food is a mistake, one that ought to be eliminated!

Again, the experiences of men and women, all over the world, prove that, where this act is engaged in properly, according to the laws that obtain in the premises, _it conduces to the highest physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the parties concerned_. Indeed, it is beyond doubt true that the men and women who have never known this most perfect of all human experiences, have never reached the summit of human attainment, have never arrived at the perfection of manhood and womanhood. Length of life, health of the highest sort, and happiness, the most delectable--all come, these and more, to men and women by this route, _if it is rightly traveled_. Hell and damnation result if that road is wrongly trod!

And that's what makes the manner of traveling it so important.

Strictly speaking, the act of coitus should be considered as composed of four parts, or acts, of one common play, or drama. Not that there is a sharp line of demarcation between each act or part, for the _four_ really blend into _one_ composite whole, when taken together, seriatim; but there are _four phases_ of the act which may well be studied separately, in making a detailed review of a sexual meeting of a man and a woman.