I have tried to get at the facts, and, having got at
the facts, to look them simply and squarely in the face. If I cannot
perhaps turn the lock myself, I bring the key which can alone in the end
rightly open the door: the key of sincerity. That is my one panacea:
sincerity.
I know that many of my friends, people on whose side I, too, am to be
found, retort with another word: reticence. It is a mistake, they say, to
try to uncover these things; leave the sexual instincts alone, to grow up
and develop in the shy solitude they love, and they will be sure to grow
up and develop wholesomely. But, as a matter of fact, that is precisely
what we can not and will not ever allow them to do. There are very few
middle-aged men and women who can clearly recall the facts of their lives
and tell you in all honesty that their sexual instincts have developed
easily and wholesomely throughout. And it should not be difficult to see
why this is so. Let my friends try to transfer their feelings and theories
from the reproductive region to, let us say, the nutritive region, the
only other which can be compared to it for importance. Suppose that eating
and drinking was never spoken of openly, save in veiled or poetic
language, and that no one ever ate food publicly, because it was
considered immoral and immodest to reveal the mysteries of this natural
function. We know what would occur. A considerable proportion of the
community, more especially the more youthful members, possessed by an
instinctive and legitimate curiosity, would concentrate their thoughts on
the subject.
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