Living a Sane Sex Life
by William S. Sadler
(Wilcox and Follett, 1946)
This book was a real hoot. It was written before the discovery of DNA in the late-1950s. It’s out of date, for sure, but not obsolete. It was entertaining to read. The language was not obsolete. I think that if I read a nineteenth century book on the same topic then 1) the language would have been too thick to read; 2) the tone would be too preachy; and 3) it would be phallo-centric. These were not the case with this 1946 book, but its age was still apparent. In particular the psychiatrist-author’s endorsement of eugenics was revealing and shocking, although totally normal for its
time.
The whole sexual act is basically the phenomenon of a complex skin reflex.
(page 32)
... it is far more likely that what women most admire in men is strength of mind, body, or character rather than any so-called type of masculine beauty. The female, after all, usually craves the pressure of a strong embrace - security - rather than the visual gratification of masculine comeliness.
(page 37)
No sex performance is to be regarded as a perversion unless it occupies such a prominent position in the experience as completely to replace the normal desire for sex contact with the opposite sex or to exert such an influence as to make such normal relations impossible.
(page 75)
Most often the masochist is masculine and robust while the sadist is frequently of a timid, retiring, and more or less feminine temperament. In general, algolagnic individuals are suffering form under-sexation rather than from over-sexation. They therefore require extraordinary and unusual forms of stimulus for the arousal of their sexual natures.
(pages 84-85)
It is a fact that the majority of exhibitionists are shy and timid, much as are the majority of fetishists ...
(page 89)
Few, if any, human beings are 100 percent male or female, either physically or mentally.
(page 91)
Perfect maleness and femaleness do not exist. All individuals of the male sex have female tendencies to a greater or lesser degree, and vice versa.
(page 94)
The full-fledged homoerotic is not responsible for his condition. The unfortunate individual who is born with a male body and, as far as sex is concerned, with a female attitude of mind and emotion, is powerless to overcome this handicap.
(page 97)
There is little or no therapeutic help for homosexuality. It is a fixed inborn condition.
(page 106)
It is highly probable that the sex urge (libido) of the majority of women is either so latent or so widely diffused throughout the organism that they do not become acutely sex conscious until about the age of thirty. This fact may explain why so many previously circumspect women stray away from the conventional paths of virtue and rectitude between the ages of thirty-five and forty.
(page 118)
Young men should be taught that they are trustees of the stream of life, the germ plasm of the race, and that they should keep themselves fit to pass it on unharmed and untainted to succeeding generations.
(page 128)
Civilized men and women should always associate with the physical sexual contacts of love-making those higher idealistic obligations and pleasures of a paternal, social, and spiritual nature.
(page 133)
The romantic and chivalrous concept of sexual affection is a recent attainment and is manifested most widely among Occidental peoples.
(page 136)
... the male is designed to play the more active part, the female being to some degree, at least in the earlier phases of courtship, more or less passive.
(page 137)
When one reaches maturity, he should bravely face the reality that too much should not be expected of life, that one should be satisfied with a steady flow of moderate pleasures backed up by general contentment.
(page 142)
... one of the most important factors in the reality of sex experience is the unalterable psychological law of diminishing
pleasure ...
(page 143)
... the popular ideal of feminine beauty and personality inclines toward the simple, infantile, irresponsible, and naïve, and in men favors the suave, prepossessing, masterful, and sometimes even the brutish type.
(page 144)
... physical beauty perishes, but the beauty of personality may even improve with age.
(page 147)
...love is not infinite. It is only a finite force of attraction ...
(page 151)
... the woman is usually the subtle and clever manipulator of the whole sex situation.
(page 152)
... it is a fact that many wives are chosen on the basis of functioning, on the one hand, much as a mother would and, on the other, as would a sister.
(page 152)
... the average woman is much more likely to choose a desirable mate than is the average man. Men are more subject to passing fancies and sexual infatuation than are women.
(page 154)
... the average woman is much more likely to choose a desirable mate than is the average man. Men are more subject to passing fancies and sexual infatuation than are women.
(page 154)
.. the woman who marries beneath her social and cultural plane is likely to elevate the man to her level. On the other hand, the man who marries a woman beneath his level seldom, if ever, succeeds in lifting her up to his own plane of existence.
(page 156)
... women seek for men they deem to be intellectually superior. Therefore the more education a girl has the narrower the field for choosing and securing a mate.
(page 157)
The successful role of the female follows the technic of being seductive, alluring, and captivating.
(page 158)
... the young husband must remember that his b ride has been taught all her life to resist the sexual embraces of all men, to maintain her chastity at all costs.
(pages 163-164)
Marriage almost requires a different definition for each couple.
(page 169)
In the case of the wife, the experiencing of sex gratification is much more a mental than a physical matter, which makes it important that every young wife bear this in mind, thus making sure that she maintains the proper attitude toward sex relations.
(page 179)
Men are taught from boyhood to be courageous, stoical, adventurous, and overly pugnacious; they learn in the hard school of experience to hold their tongues, give their competitors a reasonably good chance, live up to a strict code of fair-play an good sportsmanship, are trained to yield rather than be yielded to because of sex; they are mechanically inclined, are expected to give sound reasons for their ideas and conduct, look ahead to lives of activity and achievement, are often sobered by the responsibility of making a living in a relentless world, and fear dependence as they do the plague; they hold women in low esteem so far as practical affairs go and in sexual relations are often inclined by training to more or less promiscuity, though their socials surroundings do instill into them a measure of romantic ideals, which ultimately leads them to accept monogamy in principle, at least, and to require a strict chastity of the women of their own class.
Until the last quarter-century, women, on the other hand, were inclined to be unashamed of their fears or tears or weakness; they knew but little of the rough side of life, were inclined to be conservative, were often spoiled by the special privileges accorded to their sex by chivalry, and often were entirely willing to accomplish their purposes by methods that would be embarrassing to most men; they generally were discouraged from playing with mechanical toys in their early girlhood, were not expected to be rational, usually felt no disgrace because of their dependence, often had no goal greater than the primitive task of housekeeping, with card clubs as a means of escaping form the burden of it all; and as to sex, they were taught to enter into such experiences reluctantly, as was becoming to “ladies.”
(pages 183-184)
The preference of the wife for social diversions and the preference of the husband for old clothes and a fishing trip to a boring stay in a fashionable resort, are but illustration of these natural, almost biologic, differences.
(page 184)
When they exist, woman’s cowardice, poor sportsmanship, love of display, gossiping, economic irresponsibility, and sexual prudery originated in the harem; while man’s arrogance, conceit, and monopoly of the power and the interesting work of the world are just as much a relic of patriarchal society.
(page 185)
... it should be understood that the days of large families are over among civilized peoples.
(page 196)
... the vast majority of women reach the sexual climax much more slowly than men do, and it is exceedingly harmful to the highly organized and irritable nervous system of a normally sexed wife to be sexually stimulated and then suddenly to experience a complete ending of the process of gratification.
(page 198)
... the female approach to the sex experience is much more indirect than, and entirely different from, the businesslike approach of the thoughtless male. Except with a very few strongly sexed women, the wife always expects the sex act to be preceded by a wooing and winning, a love making, courtship attitude on the part of the husband.
(page 209)
... the man who is a stranger to sexual relations has the best chance of developing a satisfactory relation with his wife.
(pages 216-2117)
An active sexual life before marriage is a handicap because the husband has very likely formed habits which will interfere with success in marriage.
(page 217)
The difference between orientals and occidentals is one of approach. The boys and girls of primitive races are carefully and reverently educated in the intricacies of sex; they are not left to acquire a chance knowledge of it. To them, sex is one of life’s chief mysteries and beauties; it is a social disgrace for a married man to be incapable of awakening and satisfying his wife’s sexual nature.
(page 222)
... a woman’s body must be played upon with knowledge and skill if it is hoped to elicit the depth of limitless beauty of which it is capable.
(page 224)
... the terms “masculine” and “feminine” are only relatively descriptive of men and women, for most people are mixtures of the two.
(page 227)
... the date of the wedding should correspond pretty closely with the time of the greatest sex desire on the part of the average woman.
(page 228)
Among the various causes of women’s failure to enjoy sex relation, the two most common are
insufficient rest and constipation.
(page 237)
A happy sex life must be thought about and planned for.
(page 237)
There is no question that both overmuch academic training and too strenuous religious education serve to disqualify an otherwise average woman for normal marital sex life.
(page 245)
Man is a victim of psychic impotence in many distracting situations as is shown by the esthetic and idealistic individual who seeks to gratify his lust with prostitutes.
(page 252)
In the majority of cases of male impotence there is probably an element of unrecognized homosexuality.
(page 252)
The average woman must literally be “educated” in acquiring adequate ability to respond to the male sexual advance and satisfactorily to participate in the sex act.
(page 254)
Wifely aggressiveness is occasionally enjoyed by the husband, but this is contrary to the accepted role of the female throughout the animal word, human beings not excepted. The wife’s initiative ordinarily should be seductive, not aggressive. One of the finer phases of wifely love making is to become adept at luring and enchanting the husband but to leave him to play the appropriate aggressive male part.
(pages 255-256)
Because of the very complex character of the seminal fluid, coitus is naturally more trying to men than to women.
(page 261)
The woman simply does not automatically and intuitively learn how to enjoy the sex act as does the man. It requires time to initiate her into the normal enjoyment of sex relations.
(page 263)
... while much of the responsibility for the failure of the wife to respond to the sexual embrace lies with the husband, nevertheless, too many wives fail to prepare themselves psychologically for the sex relationship, and this wrong attitude toward coitus grows out of the failure of the woman to understand, before marriage, not only the importance of the shy and winsome courtship attitude, but also the importance after marriage of active participation in sexual relationships.
(pages 271-272)
We hear much about physical hygiene, mental hygiene, and social hygiene, but very little attention is being paid to race hygiene - eugenics. Sooner or later, the vast expense of caring for the ever-increasing army of the “unfit” will shock the American people into the realization of the
importance of eugenics.
(pages 289-290)
The sex drive is not always clearly recognized in the female consciousness. Men, when they are suffering from sex tension, are perfectly self-conscious of their situation, but very often women are merely highly tense and nervously irritable, not fully realizing that they are suffering form an over suppression of their sex natures.
(page 305)
... animals are in an entirely different situation than men because they lack the imagination of human beings; so the practical elimination of sexual stimuli form an animal’s life causes no mental conflicts.
(page 308)
While continence is desirable before marriage from an ethical standpoint, it is neither the most efficient nor the most healthful state of existence.
(page 310)
... there has been a three-fold influence which has tended to jeopardize the idealism of the civilized races, and this was; the materialism of modern science, the laissez fair philosophy of Omar Khayyam, and the Freudian teaching of the mischief-making potentialities of sexual inhibitions.
(page 313)
We have found it more effective to appeal to young men on the ground tat they are the biologic torch bearers of the race and to ask them to keep their bodies clean and healthy in order to become suitable vehicles for the transmission of the living germ plasm from this generation to the next.
(page 314)
Every young woman who has received a cultural teaching and a moral education, stop and weigh her problem very carefully if she is contemplating the culmination of her premarital pettings and courtings by an all-the-way plunge into sexual relations. Let her remember that her chastity, her sex life, is not something separate and apart. It is irretrievably interwoven with her moral nature, her social life, her nervous system, her temperamental status, and even her physical well-being. Mind, soul, and body are tied in with sex.
(page 318)
More especially must the young woman weight the serious consequences attendant upon premarital sexual experimentation. She may have been told that such experiences can be entered upon lightly, that they are but casual and harmless, and so they are to the majority of young men who thus indulge themselves, but the first premarital sex contact can never be engaged in light-heartedly by the normal and cultured self-respecting young woman.
(page 321)
... we are forced to accept the modern sex problem as a permanent feature of civilized society. There is but one ideal remedy, and that is early marriage.
(page 323)