Sex From Scratch

A New York Times article this weekend about the “short shelf life” of passionate love pointed to biological and sociological research about how couples’ love changes as they adapt to each other:

“Although we may not realize it, we are biologically hard-wired to crave variety. Variety and novelty affect the brain in much the same way that drugs do — that is, they trigger activity that involves the neurotransmitter dopamine, as do pharmacological highs.

Evolutionary biologists believe that sexual variety is adaptive, and that it evolved to prevent incest and inbreeding in ancestral environments. … 

We may love our partners deeply, idolize them, and even be willing to die for them, but these feelings rarely translate into long-term passion. And studies show that in long-term relationships, women are more likely than men to lose interest in sex, and to lose it sooner. Why? Because women’s idea of passionate sex depends far more centrally on novelty than does men’s. When married couples reach the two-year mark, many mistake the natural shift from passionate love to companionate love for incompatibility and unhappiness. ”

I found this 1946 booklet on “sex hygiene” at Powell’s last night and had to snag it. While the cover promises a digest on “the science of keeping clean, health, and happy!” the 92-page pamphlet is really about the secrets of sex and marriage. It’s interesting to reflect on how much we’ve changed our attitudes toward sex and gender roles in the past 60 years—and how we haven’t. I’ve distilled the booklet’s post-war sex advice here:

1. If you are masturbating too much, stop eating so many pickles. By 1946, the “eminent medical and hygiene authorities of three continents” had moved beyond the idea that masturbation caused blindness and insanity and settled on the consensus that pretty much everybody masturbates but it is “not nice and it might lead to grave results.” They recommend several ways to stave off masturbation including keeping busy, sleeping on your side, and eliminating from your diet “stimulating foods such as tea, coffee, pickles, and candy.”

2. For a happy marriage, read the news and don’t become fat. The chapter titled “For a Happy Marriage” gives plenty of advice, all of it about how a happy marriage hinges on the wife remaining purty and not driving her husband away with her dirty toenails, soiled housedresses, and “unsightly rolls of flesh.” Also, try to keep up as much as possible with the news. “Nothing becomes more tiresome to a man than a woman who knows nothing of what is going on in the world… improve your mind as much as you can in order to remain interesting to your husband.”

3. To determine if you’re pregnant, inject your urine into a frog.In the days before peeing on a stick, there was peeing on a frog. The manual notes an exciting advance in the world of testing for pregnancy: Doctors can inject a woman’s urine under the skin of an African Clawed Frog and, if the woman is pregnant, the frog will produce 100 to 500 eggs within eight hours. That sounds totally gross, but frog-urine-injection seems to have been surprisingly pretty widespread and reliable.

4. Your libido depends on race and social class. The manual actually has a rather forward-thinking attitude to women’s sexuality, tossing out the Victorian belief that most women do not enjoy sex and saying instead that almost all women enjoy sex and couples should frankly discuss their “manner of love making” to find methods that both parties enjoy. BUT, the medical experts also embraced Progressive notions, noting that female “frigidity” varies according to country and “social stratum”: “North America contains the most frigid women and they are much rarer in Latin countries.”

5. Know when to sterilize yourself for the good of society. Another Progressive Era virtue we find horrific today: “Eugenic sterilization is a practical, human and necessary step to prevent race deterioration.” The “feeble minded and insane” should be sterilized by the state, but it’s also the duty of the following individuals to seek sterilization: alcoholics, people unable to learn in school, anyone whose family has a history of cancer, tuberculosis, syphilis, or epilepsy. Yep.

6. Never, ever get an abortion. There’s no discussion in the pamphlet of birth control methods, except an entire chapter on the dangers of abortion. The anti-abortion arguments could be spoken today by anti-abortion groups and actually reads a bit like a Focus on the Family pamphlet: Abortion is murder, doctors who perform the procedure are scam artists, the operation is extremely painful and will likely lead to sterility or death. The pamphlet also notes with surprise that the majority of women who get abortions are married—which is mirrored today in stats that most women seeking abortions already have at least one child.

7. If your husband is cheating, it’s probably your fault.While the sterility section sounds insane today, one thing that hasn’t changed, sadly, is the ingrained idea that men are just cheatin’ machines and wives are probably somehow motivating the affair. From the chapter “Forty and After”:

“A problem of middle age is the ‘errant husband. Suddenly your world tumbles about you. Your devoted husband of twenty years has committed adultery! You can hardly believe it! Honestly, now, have you examined yourself recently? How long has it been since you said anything complimentary to him—flattered his ego? What have you done to make him love you? … But all men have a spirit of adventure and it often crops out at middle ago. What to do when you discover your husband is untrue to you? If you love him, nothing. Ignore it, pretend you don’t know anything about it. Then take stock of yourself, your mannerisms, your appearance, your attitude toward your husband—and see if you cannot find the answer there.”

I was disappointed that the presidential debate on “domestic policy” didn’t include any discussion of domestic policies I care about—namely, gay rights, birth control funding, and gender equality. 

It was a debate devoid of women. In fact, I just looked through the transcript of the debate and the only time the word “woman” or “women” is mentioned is when Romney tells this story:

Ann yesterday was at a rally in Denver and a woman came up to her with a baby in her arms and said, “Ann, my husband has had four jobs in three years, part-time jobs. He’s lost his most recent job and we’ve now just lost our home. Can you help us?” 

So the only woman mentioned in the entire domestic policy debate is depicted as a baby-holding mother, worried about her husband, begging Romney for help. Great.