Sex is a great and wonderful thing. The further down we go in the scale
of life, whether animal or vegetable, the more do we perceive the
importance of the evolution of sex. The correctly formed adjective from
this word is sexual, but the term is practically taboo with Mrs. Grundy.
Only with caution and anxiety, indeed, may one venture before a lay
audience to use Darwin's phrase, "sexual selection." The fact is utterly
absurd, but there it is. One of the devices for avoiding its
consequences is the use of sex itself as an adjective, as when we speak
of sex problems; but the special importance of this case is in regard to
the sexual instinct, or, if the term offends the reader, let us say the
sex instinct. Here prudery is greatly concerned, and our silence here
involves much of the price of prudery. Now since the word sexual has
become sinister, we cannot speak to the growing boy or girl about the
sexual instinct, but we may do much better.
For what is this sexual instinct? True, it manifests itself in
connection with the fact of sex, but essentially that is only because
sex is a condition of human reproduction or parenthood. It is this with
which the sexual instinct is really concerned, and perhaps we shall
never learn to look upon it rightly or deal with it rightly until we
indeed perceive what the business of this instinct is, and regard as
somewhat less than worthy of mankind any other attitude towards it.
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