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Offences
Against One's Self
Edited by Louis Crompton
Contents
OFFENCES AGAINST
ONE'S SELF: PAEDERASTY
To what class of offences shall we refer these irregularities of the venereal appetite which are stiled
unnatural? When hidden from the public eye there could be no colour for placing them any where else: could they find a place
any where it would be here. I have been tormenting myself for years to find if possible a sufficient ground for treating them
with the severity with which they are treated at this time of day by all European nations: but upon the principle utility
I can find none.
Offences of impurity--their varietys
The abominations that
come under this heading have this property in common, in this respect, that they consist in procuring certain sensations by
means of an improper object. The impropriety then may consist either in making use of an object
1. Of the proper species but at an improper time: for instance, after death.
2. Of an object of the proper species and sex, and at a proper time, but in an improper part.
3. Of an object of the proper species but the wrong sex. This is distinguished from the rest by the name of paederasty.
4. Of a wrong species.
5. In procuring this sensation by one's self without the help of any other sensitive object.
Paederasty makes the greatest figure
The third being that
which makes the most figure in the world it will be proper to give that the principal share of our attention. In settling
the nature and tendency of this offence we shall for the most part have settled the nature and tendency of all the other offences
that come under this disgusting catalogue. /
Whether they produce any primary mischief
1. As to any primary mischief, it is evident that it produces no pain in anyone. On the contrary it produces pleasure,
and that a pleasure which, by their perverted taste, is by this supposition preferred to that pleasure which is in general
reputed the greatest. The partners are both willing. If either of them be unwilling, the act is not that which we have here
in view: it is an offence totally different in its nature of effects: it is a personal injury; it is a kind of rape.
As a secondary mischief whether they produce any
alarm in the community
2. As to any secondary mischief, it produces not any pain of apprehension. For what is there in it for any body to be
afraid of? By the supposition, those only are the objects of it who choose to be so, who find a pleasure, for so it seems
they do, in being so.
Whether any danger
3. As to any danger exclusive of pain, the danger, if any, must consist in the tendency of the example. But what is
the tendency of this example? To dispose others to engage in the same practises: but this practise for anything that has yet
appeared produces not pain of any kind to any one.
Reasons that have commonly been assigned
Hitherto we have found
no reason for punishing it at all: much less for punishing it with the degree of severity with which it has been commonly
punished. Let us see what force there is in the reasons that have been commonly assigned for punishing it. /
The whole tribe of writers
on English law, who none of them knows any more what they mean by the word "peace" than they do by many other of the expressions
that are most familiar to them, reckon this among offences against the peace. It is accordingly treated in all respects as
an offence against the peace. They likewise reckon forgery, coining, and all sorts of frauds among offences against the peace.
According to the same writers it is doubted whether adultery be not a breach of the peace. It is certain however that whenever
a gallant accepts an invitation of another man's wife he does it with force and arms. This needs no comment.
Whether against the security of the individual
Sir W. Blackstone is
more particular. According to him it is not only an offence against the peace, but it is of that division of offences against
the peace which are offences against security. According to the same writer, if a man is guilty of this kind of filthiness,
for instance, with a cow, as some men have been known to be, it is an offence / against somebody's security. He does not say
whose security, for the law makes no distinction in its ordinances, so neither does this lawyer or any other English lawyer
in his comments make any distinction between this kind of filthiness when committed with the consent of the patient and the
same kind of filthiness when committed against his consent and by violence. It is just as if a man were to make no distinction
between concubinage and rape.
Whether it debilitates--Montesquieu
The reason that Montesquieu
gives for reprobating it is the weakness which he seems to suppose it to have a tendency to bring upon those who practice
it. (Esp. des Loix, L. 12, ch. 6. "11 faudroit le proscrire quand il ne feroit que donner a un sexe les faiblesses de l'autre
et preparer a une vieillesse infame par une jeunesse honteuse." / "It ought to be proscribed were it only for its giving to
the one sex the weaknesses of the other and paving the way by a scandalous youth for an infamous old age." J.B.) This, if
it be true in fact, is a reason of a very different complexion from any of the preceding and it is on the ground of this reason
as being the most plausible one that I have ranked the offence under its present head. As far as it is true in fact, the act
ought to be regarded in the first place as coming within the list of offences against one's self, of offences of imprudence:
in the next place, as an offence against the state, an offence the tendency of which is to diminish the public force.
If however it tends
to weaken a man it is not any single act that can in any sensible degree have that effect. It can only be the habit: the act
thus will become obnoxious as evidencing the existence, in probability, of the habit. This enervating tendency, be it what
it may, if it is to be taken as a ground for treating the / [192] practise in question with a degree of severity which is
not bestowed upon the regular way of gratifying the venereal appetite, must be greater in the former case than in the latter.
Is it so? If the affirmative can be shewn it must be either by arguments a priori drawn from considerations of the nature
of the human frame or from experience. Are there any such arguments from physiology? I have never heard of any: I can think
of none.
What says history?
What says historical
experience? The result of this can be measured only upon a large scale or upon a very general survey. Among the modern nations
it is comparatively but rare. In modern Rome it is perhaps not very uncommon; in Paris probably not quite so common; in London
still less frequent; in Edinburgh or Amsterdam you scarce hear of it two or three times in a century. In Athens and in antient
Rome in the most flourishing periods of the history of those capitals, regular intercourse between the sexes was scarcely
much more common. It was upon the same footing throughout Greece: everybody practised it; nobody was ashamed of it. They might
be ashamed of what they looked upon as an excess in it, or they might be ashamed of it as a weakness, as a propensity that
had a tendency to distract men from more worthy and important occupations, / just as a man with us might be ashamed of excess
or weakness in his love for women. In itself one may be sure they were not ashamed of it. Agesilaus, upon somebody's taking
notice of the care he took to avoid taking any familiarities with a youth who passed for being handsome acknowledges it, indeed,
but upon what ground? Not on account of the turpitude but the danger. Xenophon in his retreat of the ten thousand gives an
anecdote of himself in which he mentions himself as particularly addicted to this practise without seeming to entertain the
least suspicion that any apology was necessary. In his account of Socrates's conversation he introduces that philosopher censuring
or rather making merry with a young man for his attachment to the same practise. But in what light does he consider it? As
a weakness unbecoming to a philosopher, not as a turpitude or a crime unbecoming to a man. It is not because an object of
the one sex more than one of the other is improper game: but on account of the time that must be spent and the humiliation
submitted to in the pursuit.
What is remarkable is
that there is scarce a striking character in antiquity, nor one that in other respects men are in use to cite as virtuous,
of whom it does not appear by one circumstance or another, that / he was infected with this inconceivable propensity. It makes
a conspicuous figure in the very opening of Thucydides's history, and by an odd accident it was to the spirit of two young
men kindled and supported by this passion that Athens according to that historian stood indebted on a trying occasion for
the recovery of its liberty. The firmness and spirit of the Theban band--the band of lovers as it was called--is famous in
history; and the principle by which the union among the members of it was commonly supposed to be cemented is /well known.
(Plutarch, in vita Pelopidae. Esp. des Loix, L. 4, ch. 8. J.B.) Many moderns, and among others Mr. Voltaire, dispute the fact,
but that intelligent philosopher sufficiently intimates the ground of his incredulity--if he does not believe it, it is because
he likes not to believe it. What the antients called love in such a case was what we call Platonic, that is, was not love
but friendship. But the Greeks knew the difference between love and friendship as well as we--they had distinct terms to signify
them by: it seems reasonable therefore to suppose that when they say love they mean love, and that when they say friendship
only they mean friendship only. And with regard to Xenophon and his master, Socrates, and his fellow-scholar Plato, it seems
more reasonable to believe them to have been addicted to this taste when they or any of them tell us so in express terms than
to trust to the interpretations, however ingenious and however well-intended, of any men who write at this time of day, when
they tell us it was no such thing. / Not to insist upon Agesilaus and Xenophon, it appears by one circumstance or another
that Themistocles, Aristides, Epaminondus, Alcibiades, Alexander and perhaps the greatest number of the heroes of Greece were
infected with this taste. Not that the historians are at the pains of informing us so expressly, for it was not extraordinary
enough to make it worth their while, but it comes out collaterally in the course of the transactions they have occasion to
relate.
It were hardly worth
while after this to take up much time in proving the same thing with regard to the Romans, in naming distinguished persons
of consequence whom history has mentioned as partakers in this abomination, or in bringing passages to shew that the same
depraved taste prevailed generally among the people. Not to mention notorious profligates such as the Antonies, the Clodius's,
the Pisos, the Gabinius's of the age, Cicero, if we may believe either his enemy Sallust or his admirer Pliny neither avoided
this propensity nor thought proper to dissemble it. That austere philosopher, afler writing books to prove that pleasure was
no good and that pain was no evil and that virtue could make a man happy upon the rack, that affectionate husband, in the
midst of all his tenderness for his wife Terentia, could play at blind man' sbuff with his secretary (i.e. Marcus Tullius
Tiro. Pliny, Letters, VII, 4. Ed.) for pipes and make verses upon this notable exploit of gallantry. / [193]
With regard to the people
in general it may be presumed that if the Gods amused themselves in this way--if Apollo loved Hyacinthus, if Hercules could
be in a frenzy for the loss of Hylas, and the father of Gods and men could solace himself with Ganymede, it was neither an
odious nor an unfrequent thing for mortal men to do so. The Gods we make, it has been well and often said, we make always
after our own image. In times much anterior to those of Cicero and in which according to the common prejudice the morals of
the people are supposed to have been proportionately more pure, when certain festivals were suppressed on account of their
furnishing opportunities for debauchery, irregularities of this kind were observed according to Livy to be more abundant than
ordinary intrigues. This circumstance would scarcely perhaps have been thought worth mentioning, had not the idea of excess
in this, as it is apt to do on all occasions, struck the imagination of the historian as well as of the magistrate whose administration
he is recording.
This much will probably
be thought enough: if more proofs were necessary, it were easy to collect materials enough to fill a huge, a tedious and a
very disgusting volume.
It appears then that
this propensity was universally predominant among the antient Greeks and Romans, among the military as much as any. The antient
Greeks and Romans, however, are commonly reputed as a much stouter as well as a much braver people than the stoutest and bravest
of any of the modern nations of Europe. They appear to have been stouter at least in a very considerable degree than the French
in whom this propensity is not very common and still more than the Scotch in whom it is still less common, and this although
the climate even of Greece was a great deal warmer and in that respect more enervating than that of modern Scotland.
If then this practise
was in those antient warm countries attended with any enervating effects, they were much more than counteracted by the superiority
of [illegible] in the exertions which were then required by the military education over and above those which are now called
forth by ordinary labour. But if there be any ground derived from history for attributing to it any such enervating effects
it is more than I can find.
Whether it enervates the patient more than the
agentMontesquieu
however seems to make a distinction--he seems to suppose these enervating effects to be exerted principally upon the person
who is the patient in such a business. This distinction does not seem very satisfactory in any point of view. Is there any
reason for supposing it to be a fixed one? Between persons of the same age actuated by the same incomprehensible desires would
not the parts they took in the business be convertible? Would not the patient / be the agent in his turn? If it were not so,
the person on whom he supposes these effects to be the greatest is precisely the person with regard to whom it is most difficult
to conceive whence those consequences should result. In the one case there is exhaustion which when carried to excess may
be followed by debility: in the other case there is no such thing.
What says history?
In regard to this point
too in particular, what says history? As the two parts that a man may take in this business are so naturally convertible however
frequently he may have taken a passive part, it will not ordinarily appear. According to the notions of the antients there
was something degrading in the passive part which was not in the active. It was ministring to the pleasure, for so we are
obliged to call it, of another without participation, it was making one's self the property of another man, it was playing
the woman's part: it was therefore unmanly. (Paedicabo vos et irrumabo, Antoni [sic] pathice et cinaede Furi. [Carm. 16] Catullus.
J.B.) On the other hand, to take the active part was to make use of another for one's pleasure, it was making another man
one's property, it was preserving the manly, the commanding character. Accordingly, Solon in his laws prohibits slaves from
bearing an active part where the passive is borne by a freeman. In the few instances in which we happen to hear of a person's
taking the passive part there is nothing to favour / the above-mentioned hypothesis. T he beautiful Alcibiades, who in his
youth, says Cornelius Nepos, after the manner of the Greeks, was beloved by many, was not remarkable either for weakness or
for cowardice: at least, [blank] did not find it so. The Clodius whom Cicero scoffs at for his servile obsequiousness to the
appetite of Curio was one of the most daring and turbulent spirits in all Rome. Julius Caesar was looked upon as a man of
tolerable courage in his day, notwithstanding the complaisance he showed in his youth to the King of Bithynia, Nicomedes.
Aristotle, the inquisitive and observing Aristotle, whose physiological disquisitions are looked upon as some of the best
of his works--Aristotle, who if there had been anything in this notion had every opportunity and inducement to notice and
confirm it--gives no intimation of any such thing. On the contrary he sits down very soberly to distribute the male half of
the species under two classes: one class having a natural propensity, he says, to bear a passive part in such a business,
as the other have to take an active part. (Probl. Sect. 4 art. 27: The former of these propensities he attributes to a peculiarity
of organization, analogous to that of women. The whole passage is abundantly obscure and shows in how imperfect a state of
anatomical knowledge was his time. J.B.) This observation it must be confessed is not much more satisfactory than that other
of the same philosopher when he speaks of two sorts of men--the one born to be masters, the other to be slaves. If however
there had appeared any reason for supposing this practise, either with regard to the passive or the active part of it, to
have had any remarkable effects in the way of debilitation upon those who were addicted to it, he would have hardly said so
much / [194] upon the subject without taking notice of that circumstance.
Whether it hurts population?
A notion more obvious,
but perhaps not much better founded than the former is that of its being prejudicial to population. Mr. Voltaire appears inclined
in one part of his works to give some countenance to this opinion. He speaks of it as a vice which would be destructive to
the human race if it were general. "How did it come about that a vice which would destroy mankind if it were general, that
an infamous outrage against nature...?" (Questions sur l'Encyclop. "Amour Socratique." J.B.)
A little further on,
speaking of Sextus Empiricus who would have us believe that this practise was ''recommended'' in Persia by the laws, he insists
that the effect of such a law would be to annihilate the human race if it were literally observed. "No", says he, "it is not
in human nature to make a law that contradicts and outrages nature, a law that would annihilate mankind if it were observed
to the letter." This consequence however is far enough from being a necessary one. For a law of the purport he represents
to be observed, it is sufficient that this unprolific kind of venery be practised; it is not necessary that it should be practised
to the exclusion of that which is prolific. Now that there should ever be wanting such a measure of the regular and ordinary
inclination of desire for the proper object I as is necessary for keeping up the numbers of mankind upon their present footing
is a notion that stands warranted by nothing that I can find in history. To consider the matter a priori [?], if we consult
Mr. Hume and Dr. Smith, we shall find that it is not the strength of the inclination of the one sex for the other that is
the measure of the numbers of mankind, but the quantity of subsistence which they can find or raise upon a given spot. With
regard to the mere object of population, if we consider the time of gestation in the female sex we shall find that much less
than a hundredth part of the activity a man is capable of exerting in this way is sufficient to produce all the effect that
can be produced by ever so much more. Population therefore cannot suffer till the inclination of the male sex for the female
be considerably less than a hundredth part as strong as for their own. Is there the least probability that [this] should ever
be the case? I must confess I see not any thing that should lead us to suppose it. Before this can happen the nature of the
human composition must receive a total change and that propensity which is commonly regarded as the only one of the two that
is natural must have become altogether an unnatural one.
I have already observed
that I can find nothing in history to countenance the notion I am examining. On the contrary the country in which the prevalence
of this practise I is most conspicuous happens to have been remarkable for its populousness. The bent of popular prejudice
has been to exaggerate this populousness: but after all deductions [are] made, still it will appear to have been remarkable.
It was such as, notwithstanding the drain of continual wars in a country parcelled out into paltry states as to be all of
it frontier, gave occasion to the continued necessity of emigration.
This reason however
well grounded soever it were in itself could not with any degree of consistency be urged in a country where celibacy was permitted,
much less where it was encouraged. The proposition which (as will be shewn more fully by and by) is not at all true with respect
to paederasty, I mean that were it to prevail universally it would put an end to the human race, is most evidently and strictly
true with regard to celibacy. If then merely out of regard to population it were right that paederasts should be burnt alive
monks ought to be roasted alive by a slow fire. If a paederast, according to the monkish canonist Bermondus, destroys the
whole human race Bermondus destroyed it I don't know how many thousand times over. The crime of Bermondus is I don't know
how many times worse than paederasty. /
That there should be
the least colour for supposing of this practise that in any situation of things whatever it could have the least possible
tendency to favour population is what nobody I suppose would easily have suspected. Since, however, we are embarked on this
discussion, it is fit that everything that can contribute to our forming a right judgment on the question should be mentioned.
Women who submit to promiscuous embraces are almost universally unprolific. In all great towns a great multitude of women
will always be in this case. In Paris, for instance, the number of these women has been computed to amount to at least 10,000.
These women, were no more than a certain quantity of prolific vigour to be applied to them, might all of them stand in as
good a way of being prolific as other women: they would have indeed rather a better chance since the women who came to be
reduced to the necessity of embracing this profession are always those who by their beauty are more apt than an equal number
of women taken at random to engage the attention of the other sex. If then all the vigour that is over and above this quantity
were to be diverted into another channel, it is evident that in the case above supposed the state would be a gainer to the
amount of all the population that could be expected from 40,000 women, and in proportion as any woman was less prolific by
the diverting of any part of this superfluous / [195] vigour, in the same proportion would population be promoted.
No one I hope will take
occasion to suppose that from any thing here said I mean to infer the propriety of affording any encouragement to this miserable
taste for the sake of population. Such an inference would be as ill founded as it would be cruel. (I leave anyone to imagine
what such a writer as Swift, for instance, might make upon this theme, "A project for promoting population by the encouragement
of paederasty." J.B.) The truth is, the sovereign, if he will but conduct himself with tolerable attention with respect to
the happiness of his subjects need never be in any pain about the number of them. He has no need to be ever at the expense
of any efforts levelled in a direct line at the purpose of increasing it. Nature will do her own work fast enough without
his assistance if he will but refrain from giving her disturbance. Such infamous expedients would be improper as any coercive
ones are unnecessary. Even monks in the countries that are most infested with them are not near so pernicious by the deductions
they make from the sum of population, as by the miseries which they produce and suffer, and by the prejudices of all kinds
of which they are the perpetrators and the dupes. /
Whether it robs women
A more serious imputation
for punishing this practise [is] that the effect of it is to produce in the male sex an indifference to the female, and thereby
defraud the latter of their rights. This, as far as it holds good in point of fact, is in truth a serious imputation. The
interest of the female part of the species claim just as much attention, and not a whit more, on the part of the legislator,
as those of the male. A complaint of this sort, it is true, would not come with a very good grace from a modest woman; but
should the women be estopped from making complaint in such a case it is the business of the men to make it for them. This
then as far as it holds good in point of fact is in truth a very serious imputation: how far it does it will be proper to
enquire.
In the first place the
female sex is always able and commonly disposed to receive a greater quantity of venereal tribute than the male sex is able
to bestow. If then the state of manners be such in any country as left the exertion of this faculty entirely unrestrained,
it is evident that (except in particular cases when no object of the female sex happened to be within reach) any effort of
this kind that was exerted by a male upon a male would be so much lost to the community of females. Upon this footing the
business of venereal enjoyment seems actually to stand in some few parts of the world, for instance at Otaheite. It seems
therefore that / at Otaheite paederasty could hardly have footing, but the female part of that community must in proportion
be defrauded of their rights. If then paederasty were to be justified in Otaheite it could only be upon this absurd and improbable
supposition-that the male sex were gainers by such a perversion to a greater amount than the female sex were losers.
But in all European
countries and such others on which we bestow the title of civilized, the case is widely different. In these countries this
propensity, which in the male sex is under a considerable degree of restraint, is under an incomparably greater restraint
in the female. While each is alike prohibited from partaking of these enjoyments but on the terms of marriage by the fluctuating
and inefficacious influence of religion, the censure of the world denies it [to] the female part of the species under the
severest penalties while the male sex is left free. (In speaking on this occasion of the precepts of religion I consider not
what they are in themselves but what they may happen to be in the opinion and discourse [?] of those whose office it is to
interpret them. J.B.) No sooner is a woman known to have infringed this prohibition than either she is secluded from all means
of repeating the offence, or upon her escaping from that vigilance she throws herself into that degraded class whom the want
of company of their own sex render unhappy, and the abundance of it on the part of the male sex unprolific. This being the
case, / it appears the contribution which the male part of the species are willing as well as able to bestow is beyond all
comparison greater than what the female part are permitted to receive. If a woman has a husband she is permitted to receive
it only from her husband: if she has no husband she is not permitted to receive it from any man without being degraded into
the class of prostitutes. When she is in that unhappy class she has not indeed less than she would wish, but what is often
as bad to her--she has more.
It appears then that
if the female sex are losers by the prevalence of this practise it can only be on this supposition--that the force with which
it tends to divert men from entering into connection with the other sex is greater than the force with which the censure of
the world tends to prevent those connections by its operation on the women. / [196]
In countries where,
as in Otaheite, no restraint is laid on the gratification of the amorous appetite, whatever part of the activity of that appetite
in the male sex were exercised upon the same sex would be so much loss in point of enjoyment to the female. But in countries
where it is kept under restraint, as in Europe, for example, this is not by any means the case. As long as things are upon
that footing there are many cases in which the women can be no sufferers for the want of sollicitation on the part of the
men. If the institution of the marriage contract be a beneficial one, and if it be expedient that the observance of it should
be maintained inviolate, we must in the first place deduct from the number of the women who would be sufferers by the prevalence
of this taste all married women whose husbands were not infected with it. In the next place, upon the supposition that a state
of prostitution is not a happier state than a state of virginity, we must deduct all those women who by means of this prevalence
would have escaped being debauched. The women who would be sufferers by it ab initio are those only who, were it not for the
prevalence of it, would have got husbands. (I say ab initio for when a woman has been once reduced to take up the trade of
prostitution, she also would be of the number of those who are sufferers by the prevalence of this taste, in case the effect
of it were to deprive her of any quantity of this I commerce beyond that which she would rather be without. It is not in this
business as in most other businesses, where the quantity of the object in demand is in proportion to the demand. The occupations
with respect to which that rule holds good are those only which are engaged in through character, reflection, and upon choice.
But in this profession scarce any woman engages for the[se] purposes. The motive that induces a woman to engage in it is not
any such circumstance as the consideration of the probability of getting custom. She has no intention of engaging in it when
she takes the step that eventually proves a means of her engaging in it. The immediate cause of her engaging in it is the
accident of a discovery which deprives her of every other source of livelihood. Upon the supposition then that a given number
have been debauched there would be the same number ready to comply with sollicitation whenever so little was offered as whenever
so much was offered. It is a conceivable case therefore that upon the increased prevalence of this taste there might be the
same numbers of women debauched as at present, and yet all the prostitutes in the place might be starving for want of customers.
J.B.)
The question then is
reduced to this. What are the number of women who by the prevalence of this taste would, it is probable, be prevented from
getting husbands? These and these only are they who would be sufferers by it. Upon the following considerations it does not
seem likely that the prejudice sustained by the sex in this way could ever rise to any considerable amount. Were the prevalence
of this taste to rise to ever so great a height the most considerable part of the motives to marriage would remain entire.
In the first place, the desire of having children, in the next place the desire of forming alliances between families, thirdly
the convenience of having a domestic companion whose company will continue to be I agreeable throughout life, fourthly the
convenience of gratifying the appetite in question at any time when the want occurs and without the expense and trouble of
concealing it or the danger of a discovery.
Were a man's taste even
so far corrupted as to make him prefer the embraces of a person of his own sex to those of a female, a connection of that
preposterous kind would therefore be far enough from answering to him the purposes of a marriage. A connection with a woman
may by accident be followed with disgust, but a connection of the other kind, a man must know, will for certain come in time
to be followed by disgust. All the documents we have from the antients relative to this matter, and we have a great abundance,
agree in this, that it is only for a very few years of his life that a male continues an object of desire even to those in
whom the infection of this taste is at the strongest. The very name it went by among the Greeks may stand instead of all other
proofs, of which the works of Lucian and Martial alone will furnish any abundance that can be required. Among the Greeks it
was called Paederastia, the love of boys, not Andrerastia, the love of men. Among the Romans the act was called Paedicare
because the object of it was a boy. There was a particular name for those who had past the short period beyond which no man
hoped to be an object of desire to his own sex. They were called exoleti. No male therefore who was passed this short period
of life could expect to find in this way any reciprocity of affection; he must be as odious to the boy from the beginning
as in a short time the boy would be to him. The objects of this kind of sensuality would therefore come only in the place
of common prostitutes; they could never even to a person of this depraved taste answer the / purposes of a virtuous woman.
What says history?
Upon this footing stands
the question when considered a priori: the evidence of facts seems to be still more conclusive on the same side. There seems
no reason to doubt, as I have already observed but that population went on altogether as fast and that the men were altogether
as well inclined to marriage among the GreciansOA in whom this vitious propensity was most prevalent as in any modern people
in whom it is least prevalent. In Rome, indeed, about the time of the extinction of liberty we find great complaints of the
decline of population: but the state of it does not appear to have been at all dependent on or at all influenced by the measures
that were taken from time to time to restrain the love of boys: it was with the Romans, as with us, what kept a man from marriage
was not the preferring boys to women but the preferring the convenience of a transient connection to the expense and hazard
of a lasting one. (See Pilati, Traite des Loix Civiles, ch. du marriage. J.B.)
How is it at Otaheite?
To judge how far the
regular intercourse between the sexes is probably affected by this contraband intercourse in countries where, as in Europe,
the gratification of the venereal appetite is kept upon a footing of restraint, it may help us a good deal if we observe in
what degree it is affected by the latter in countries where the gratification of that appetite is under no restraint. If in
those countries paederasty prevailed to so considerable a degree as to occasion a visible diminution of the regard that was
shewn to women, this phaenomenon, unless it / [197] could be accounted for from other causes, would afford a strong argument
to prove that prevalence of it might have the effect of diminishing the regard that might otherwise be paid to them in other
countries and that the prevalence of it in those countries was owing not to the comparative difficulty of getting women but
to a comparative indifference, such as might turn to the prejudice of the women in any state of things: and in short that
what was transferred to boys was so much clear loss to women. But the fact is that in Otaheite it does not appear that this
propensity is at all prevalent.
If it were more frequent than the regular connection
in what sense could it be termed unnatural?
The nature of the question
admits of great latitude of opinion: for my own part I must confess I can not bring myself to entertain so high a notion of
the alluringness of this preposterous propensity as some men appear to entertain. I can not suppose it to [be] possible it
should ever get to such a heighth as that the interests of the female part of the species should be materially affected by
it: or that it could ever happen that were they to contend upon equal ground the eccentric and unnatural propensity should
ever get the better of the regular and natural one. Could we for a moment suppose this to be the case, I would wish it to
be considered what meaning a man would have to annex to the expression, when he I bestows on the propensity under consideration
the epithet of unnatural. If contrary to all appearance the case really were that if all men were left perfectly free to choose,
as many men would make choice of their own sex as of the opposite one, I see not what reason there would be for applying the
word natural to the one rather than to the other. All the difference would be that the one was both natural and necessary
whereas the other was natural but not necessary. If the mere circumstance of its not being necessary were sufficient to warrant
the terming it unnatural it might as well be said that the taste a man has for music is unnatural.
My wonder is how any
man who is at all acquainted with the most amiable part of the species should ever entertain any serious apprehensions of
their yielding the ascendant to such unworthy rivals.
Among the antients--whether it excluded not the
regular taste
A circumstance that
contributes considerably to the alarms entertained by some people on this score is the common prejudice which supposes that
the one propensity is exclusive of the other. This notion is for the most part founded on prejudice as may be seen in the
works of a multitude of antient authors in which we continually see the same person at one time stepping aside in pursuit
of this eccentric kind of pleasure but at other times diverting his inclination to the proper object. Horace, in speaking
of the means of satisfying the venereal appetite, proposes to himself as a / matter of indifference a prostitute of either
sex: and the same poet, who forgetting himself now and then says a little here and there about boys, says a great deal everywhere
about women. The same observation will hold good with respect to every other personage of antiquity who either by his own
account or that of another is represented to us as being infected with this taste. It is so in all the poets who in any of
their works have occasion to say anything about themselves. Some few appear to have had no appetite for boys, as is the case
for instance with Ovid, who takes express notice of it and gives a reason for it. But it is a neverfailing rule wherever you
see any thing about boys, you see a great deal more about women. Virgil has one Alexis, but he has Galateas [blank] in abundance.
Let us be unjust to no man: not even to a paederast. In all antiquity there is not a single instance of an author nor scarce
an explicit account of any other man who was addicted exclusively to this taste. Even in modern times the real womenhaters
are to be found not so much among paederasts, as among monks and catholic priests, such of them, be they more or fewer, who
think and act in consistency with their profession.
Reason why it might he expected so to do
I say even in modern
times; for there is one circumstance which should make this taste where it does prevail much more likely to be exclusive at
present than it was formerly. I mean the severity with which it is now treated by the laws and the contempt and abhorrence
with which it is regarded / by the generality of the people. If we may so call it, the persecution they meet with from all
quarters, whether deservedly or not, has the effect in this instance which persecution has and must have more or less in all
instances, the effect of rendering those persons who are the objects of it more attached than they would otherwise be to the
practise it proscribes. It renders them the more attached to one another, sympathy of itself having a powerful tendency, independent
of all other motives, to attach a man to his own companions in misfortune. This sympathy has at the same time a powerful tendency
to beget a proportionable antipathy even towards all such persons as appear to be involuntary, much more to such as appear
to be the voluntary, authors of such misfortune. When a man is made to suffer it is enough on all other occasions to beget
in him a prejudice against those by whose means or even for whose sake he is made to suffer. When the hand of every man is
against a person, his hand, or his heart at least, will naturally be against every man. It would therefore be rather singular
if under the present system of manners these outcasts of society should be altogether so well disposed towards women as in
antient times when they were left unmolested. The Helotes had no great regard, as we may suppose, for the Lacedaemonians;
Negroes, we may suppose, have not now any violent affection for Negro-drivers; the Russian boors for the Boyards that are
their masters; native Peruvians / [198a is blank] / [I98b follows] for Spaniards; Hallashores [?] for Bramins, Bice and Chehterees;
thieves for justices and hangmen; nor insolvent debtors for bum-bailiffs. It would not be wonderful if a miserable paederast
of modern times should look upon every woman as a merciless creditor at whose suit he is in continual danger of being consigned
not to a prison only but either to the gallows or to the flames. The reason which there may be in point of utility or on any
other account for treating these people with such severity makes no difference in the sentiments which such severity is calculated
to inspire; for whatever reason there may be, they, one may be certain, do not see it. Spite of such powerful incentives it
does not appear that the effect of this propensity is in general even under the present system to inspire in those who are
infected with it an aversion or even an indifference to the other sex: a proof how powerful the force of nature is and how
little reason the sex whose dominion is supported by the influence of pleasure have for being apprehensive of any permanent
alienation in the affections of those fugitive vassals, were no harsh measure taken to drive them into rebellion. /
The notion that it does has sometimes operated
by accident in favor of persons under prosecution
The popular notion that
all paederasts are in proportion women haters is the ground of a medium of exculpation which we see commonly adopted in the
few instances that occur in England of a man's being prosecuted for this offence. It is common in any such case for those
who are concerned in behalf of the defendant to produce as many presumptions as they can collect of his propensity to women.
Such evidence may have some weight with those who are under the influence of this prejudice, although the many instances in
which it has been opposed by the clearest positive evidence of the fact are sufficient of themselves to shew the weakness
of it. It may be of use to mention this to the end that, if it should be thought expedient to punish this offence, those who
are to judge it may be put on their guard against a medium of exculpation which appears to be fallacious.
As it excludes not the regular taste, it is liable
to disturb marriage
This circumstance, however,
which in one set of circumstances tends to the exculpation of the practise in question, in another situation of things, and,
in another point of view, operates to the commination of it. I have already given the considerations which seem to render
it probable that this propensity does not in any considerable degree stand in the way of marriage: on that occasion we took
it for granted for the time that if it did not hinder a man from engaging in matrimonial connection, it was of no prejudice
to the I other sex at all. When a man was once lodged within the pale of matrimony, we took no notice of any danger there
might be of his deviating afterwards into such extravagances. This how ever is an event which, from the two propensities not
appearing to be exclusive of one another, we have reason a priori to suppose not to be in itself absolutely improbable, and
which from occasional observation, but particularly from antient history, we find not to be uncommon. The wretches who are
prosecuted for this offence often turn out to be married men. The poet Martial, we find, has a wife with whom he is every
now and then jarring on the score of the complaints she makes of his being unfaithful to her in this way. It is to be considered
however that it is [not] to the amount of the whole sum of the infidelities the husband is guilty of in this way that a wife
is a sufferer by this propensity but only to the surplus, whatever it may be, over and above what, were it not for this propensity,
the same man would be guilty of in the natural way. A woman would not be a sufferer by this propensity any further than as
it betrays her husband into an act of infidelity to which he would not have been betrayed by the allurements of any female
rival. Supposing the degree of infidelity in both cases to be equal, there seems reason to think that a woman would not be
so much hurt by an infidelity of this sort as by an infidelity into / [199] which her husband had been betrayed by a person
of her own sex. An attachment of the former kind could not be lasting, that is confined for any length of time to the same
individual; of the other she might not be satisfied but that it might be lasting. It is for the same reason that a woman's
affection would not be so much wounded, however her pride might, by her husband's intriguing with a servant wench or other
woman of a condition very much her inferior as by his intriguing with a woman of a condition near about the level of her own.
It is indeed a general observation that in all cases of rivalry the jealousy is the greater the nearer in all respects the
condition of the rival is to your own. It is on the same principle that in matters of religion Jansenists and Molinists are
often apt to be more averse to one another than either are to Protestants; Methodists and regular Church of England men than
either are to Presbyterians; Protestants and Catholics than either are to Jews; and in general Schismatics in any church than
either are to Heretics or to persons of a different religion.
This at least would
seem likely to have been the case in times in which the propensity was not held in the abhorrence in which it is held at present,
and where consequently the wife would [not] have as at present to add to her other motives of concern the infamy with which
under the present / system it is one effect of such behavior to cast upon any man who is guilty of it.
Causes of this taste
I have already intimated
how little reason there seems to be to apprehend that the preference of the improper to the proper object should ever be constant
or general. A very extraordinary circumstance it undoubtedly is that it should ever have arrived at the heighth at which we
find it to have arrived. The circumstance is already an extraordinary one as it is: it would be much more so if it were common
under equal importunities for the improper object to meet with a decided preference. But such an incident there is every reason,
as I have already observ[ed], for not looking upon as likely to become otherwise than rare. Its prevalence, wherever it prevails
to a considerable degree, seems always to be owing to some circumstance relative to the education of youth. It is the constraint
in which the venereal appetite is kept under the system of manners established in all civilized nations that seems to be the
principal cause of its deviating every now and then into these improper channels. When the desire is importunate and no proper
object is at hand it will sometimes unavoidably seek relief in an improper way. In the antient as well as the modern plans
of education young persons of the male sex are kept as much as possible together: they are kept as much at a distance as possible
from the female. They are in a way to use all sorts of familiarities with each other: they are I kept as much as possible
from using any sorts of familiarities with females. Among the antients they used to be brought together in circumstances favourable
to the giving birth to such desires by the custom of exercising themselves naked. (See Esp. des Loix, L. 8, ch. ii. Plut.
Morals. J.B.) On the present plan they are often forced together under circumstances still more favourable to it by the custom
of lying naked together in feather beds, implements of indulgence and incentives to the venereal appetite with which the antients
were unacquainted. When a propensity of this sort is once acquired it is easier to conceive how it should continue than how
it should be at first acquired. It is no great wonder if the sensation be regarded as if it were naturally connected with
the object, whatever it be, by means of which it came to be first experienced. That this practise is the result not of indifference
to the proper object but of the difficulty of coming at the proper object, the offspring not of wantonness but of necessity,
the consequence I of the want of opportunity with the proper object, and the abundance of opportunity with such as are improper
is a notion that seems warranted by the joint opinions of Montesquieu and Voltaire. ''The crime against nature,'' says the
former, ''will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom, as among
the Greeks, where the youths of that country performed all their exercises naked; as amongst us, where domestic education
is disused; as amongst the Asiatics, where particular persons have a great number of women whom they despise, while others
can have none at all." (Esp. des Loix, L. 12, ch. 6. J.B.)
"When the young males
of our species," says Voltaire, "brought up together, feel the force which nature begins to. unfold in them, and fail to find
the natural object of their instinct, they fall back on what resembles it. Often, for two or three years, a young man resembles
a beautiful girl, with the freshness of his complexion, the brilliance of his coloring, and the sweetness of his eyes; if
he is loved, it's because nature makes a mistake; homage is paid to the fair sex by attachment to one who owns its beauties,
and when the years have made this resemblance disappear, the mistake ends.
And this is the way:
Pluck the brief Spring, the first flowers of youth.
[Ovid,
Metamorphoses, X, 84-85. Ed]
"It is well known that
this mistake of nature is much more common in mild climates than in the icy north, because the blood is more inflamed there
and opportunity more also, what seems only a weakness in young Alcibiades is a disgusting abomination in a Dutch sailor or
a Muscovite subtler." [Philosophical Dictionary. Ed.]
"Pederasty," says Beccaria,
"so severely punished by law and so freely subjected to tortures which triumph over innocence, is based less on man's needs
when he lives in freedom and on his own, than on his passions when he lives with others in slavery. It draws its strength,
not so much from a surfeit of every other pleasure, as from that education which begins by making men useless to themselves
in order to make them useful to others. In those institutions packed with hot-blooded ( youth natural vigour, as it develops,
is faced with insurmountable obstacles to every other kind of relationship and wears itself out in an activity useless to
humanity, and which brings on premature old age." [Of Crimes and Punishments, ch. 36. Ed.] /
Whether, if it robbed women, it ought at all events
to be punished?
The result of the whole
is that there appears not any great reason to conclude that, by the utmost increase of which this vice is susceptible, the
female part of the species could be sufferers to any very material amount. If however there was any danger of their being
sufferers to any amount at all this would of itself be ample reason for wishing to restrain the practise. It would not however
follow absolutely that it were right to make use of punishment for that purpose, much less that it were right to employ any
of those very severe punishments which are commonly in use. It will not be right to employ any punishment, 1. if the mischief
resulting from the punishment be equal or superior to the mischief of the offence, nor 2. if there be any means of compassing
the same end without the expense of punishment. Punishment, says M. Beccaria, is never just so long as any means remain untried
by which the end of punishment may be accomplished at a cheaper rate. / [200c and 200d are blank] / [201]
Inducements for punishing it not justfied on the
ground of mischievousness
When the punishment
[is] so severe, while the mischief of the offence is so remote and even so problematical, one cannot but suspect that the
inducements which govern are not the same with those which are avowed. When the idea of the mischievousness of an offence
is the ground of punishing it, those of which the mischief is most immediate and obvious are punished first: afterwards little
by little the legislator becomes sensible of the necessity of punishing those of which the mis- chief is less and less obvious.
But in England this offence was punished with death before ever the malicious destruction or fraudulent obtainment or embezzlement
of property was punished at all, unless the obligation of making pecuniary amends is to be called a punishment; before even
the mutilation of' or the perpetual disablement of a man was made punishable otherwise than by simple imprisonment and fine.
(It was the custom to punish it with death so early as the reign of' Ed. 1st. See Miroir des Justices, ch. 4, 14. Fleta. J.B.)
But on the ground of antipathy
In this case, in short,
as in so many other cases the disposition to punish seems to have had no other ground than the antipathy with which persons
who had punishment at their disposal regarded the offender. The / circumstances from which this antipathy may have taken its
rise may be worth enquiring to. 1. One is the physical antipathy to the offence. This circumstance indeed, were we to think
and act consistently, would of itself' be nothing to the purpose. The act is to the highest degree odious and disgusting,
that is, not to the man who does it, for he does it only because it gives him pleasure, but to one who thinks [?] of it. Be
it so, but what is that to him? He has the same reason for doing it that I have for avoiding it. A man loves carrion--this
is very extraordinary--much good may it do him. But what is this to me so long as I can indulge myself with fresh meat? But
such reasoning, however just, few persons have calmness to attend to. This propensity is much stronger than it is to be wished
it were to confound physical impurity with moral. (I pass without examination from the literal use of the word impunity [to]
the figurative. J.B.) From a man's possessing a thorough aversion to a practice himself', the transition is but too natural
to his wishing to see all others punished who give into it. Any pretence, however slight, which promises to warrant him in
giving way to this intolerant propensity is eagerly embraced. Look the world over, we shall find that differences in point
of taste and opinion are grounds of animosity as frequent and as violent as any opposition in point of interest. To disagree
with our taste [and] to oppose our opinions is to wound our sympathetic feelings and to affront our pride. James the 1st of
England, a man [more] remarkable for weakness than for cruelty, conceived a violent antipathy against certain persons
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