ABSTRACT
The relations between the sexes being social relations, social requirements, that is, our duty to others, impose many restrictions upon those relations. The question is not whether restrictions should or should not be placed on the sexual appetites, but whether they should be imposed on rational or on superstitious grounds. The sexual appetites are the most disturbing factor in human affairs. The sexual appetites are disturbing in regard to all other aims of life because they are more potent and biologically fundamental than any others. The potent biological instinct of sexual gratification, not being adapted to sexual association, less to monogamic and patriarchal sexual association, is profoundly anti-social. It cannot be wondered at that it is a disturbing factor in patriarchal societies. The total suppression, or even the complete control, of sexual appetites which Christian morality contemplated, assuming it to be desirable, can be effective only if it is general.
