Ebook Studies in the Psychology of Sex

This secrecy has not always been maintained. When the Catholic Church was at the summit of its power and in?uence it fully realized the magnitude of sexual problems and took an active and inquiring interest in all the details of normal and abnormal sexuality. Even to the present time there are certain phenomena of the sexual life which have scarcely been accurately described except in ancient theological treatises. As the type of such treatises I will mention the great tome of Sanchez, De M am'nwnio. Here you will find the whole sexual life of men and women analyzed in its relationships to sin. Everything is set forth, as clearly and as concisely as it can be-without morbid prudery on the one hand, or morbid sentimentality on the other — in the coldest scientific language; the right course of action is pointed out for all the cases that may occur, and we are told what is lawful, what a venial-sin, what a mortal sin. Now I do not consider that sexual matters concern the theologian alone, and I deny altogether that he is competent to deal with them. In his hands, also, undoubtedly, they sometimes become prurient, as they can scarcely fail to become on the non-natural and unwholesome basis of ascet icism, and as they with difficulty become in the open — air light of science. But we are bound to recognize the thor oughness with which the Catholic theologians dealt with these matters, and, from their own point of view, indeed.