The discussion of the sexual life of woman, which for many centuries was concealed by a thick veil from the eyes of the profane, or was viewed only through the frosted glass of poetical metaphor, has in recent times assumed a quite revolting character. Not only have the acquired liberties and the social aims of the present day a tendency to give to women in general a freer and higher position, to emancipate them from the bonds in which owing to the conditions of family life they have so long been shackled, but some members of the women’s rights party go even farther, and demand for women greater freedom in the sphere of sexual activity.
With this end in view the sexual life of woman is used as the fulcrum of the lever, and is withdrawn from the twilight into the open light of day, or indeed too often into a dazzling and altogether false illumination. Women writers especially, who have hitherto been accustomed to delude themselves and the world with sensational representations of the feminine soul, of feminine modesty, and the fineness of feminine sensibility in matters sexual, now find their greatest joy in unveiling themselves and their sisters before the face of all the world, and in discussing in the plainest language the most intimate processes of the genital organs. In writings exhibiting but little good taste, though all the more temperament, they emphasize again and again one side only of the sexual life, to wit, the sexual impulse, the force of which is intentionally exaggerated to a high degree, so that it is described as a mighty current of passion, which may with great pains be held in check for a season, but must ultimately break loose, and with devastating rage must overwhelm everything which has hitherto been regarded as discipline and good morals. Young girls, even, step down into the arena to take part in the contest concerning the reform that is to take place in the relations between men and women. Especially sensational in this connection was _Eine für Viele_. _Aus dem Tagebuche eines Mädchens von Vera_,[18] a book which, totally ignoring the biological differentiation of the sexes and their diverse sociological course of development, goes so far as to insist that from the man entering upon marriage, as from the woman, sexual purity and virginity are to be demanded. (The heroine of the book commits suicide because her lover has in earlier years had experience of sexual intercourse.)