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STEVEN MARCUS
standard surgical writers on the generative system have practically
ignored the functional aspect of their subject; dealing with the whole
of the wonderful and complex machinery of which they treat, as if
the offices it fulfills, the thousand feelings it affects, the countless
social, moral, and scientific interests with which it is so intimately
connected, were of little or no moment." Acton's purpose is to supply
this defect and to "investigate these subjects in the same calm and
philosophic spirit with which all other scientific inquiries should be
approached." Furthermore, he writes in a preface to the fourth,
revised edition, he has devoted much care to "the minute weighing
of every sentence," hoping thereby to achieve a precise and un–
objectionable treatment "of a subject so novel and difficult, and in
many respects painful." I do not include these statements in order
to play the easy game of "showing up the past" but to convey a
sense of what Acton, and probably his readers, thought he was doing.
The full title of the work is
The Function and Disorders of the
Reproductive Organs, in Childhood, Youth, Adult Age, and Advanced
Life, Considered in their Physiological, Social and Moral Relations.
It is an admirably comprehensive designation, and the first comment
on it must be that it is altogether misleading and inaccurate. The
book is entirely about men and male sexuality. With the exception
of two extremely short but significant passages not a word is said
about women. The first implications of this discrepancy are to say the
least odd: do women not have reproductive organs; or, alternatively,
if they do, do they not have functions or fall into disorders? Moreover,
Acton seems perfectly unconscious of the fact that he has anything
to account for in this connection, and at no point does he feel it
necessary to explain what in charity we may call the disproportions
of his work-obviously there is nothing to explain. This kind of dis–
located awareness serves to introduce us to the world of this book;
it is a world part fantasy, part nightmare, part hallucination, and
part madhouse. Yet we should recall that it was written by the
author of that eminently sane work on prostitution- the operations of
the mind are never simple, to coin a phrase.
Acton begins by describing the "Normal Functions in Childhood."
In a state of health no sexual impression should ever affect
a child's mind or
body.
All
its
vital energy should be employed
