ACTON'S WISDOM
223
must ask ourselves what ideas lie behind these assertions and make
them possible. Acton himself provides the answer, when he remarks
the "very curious'" disposition in the human system "to repeat an
act and establish a habit." We notice this disposition "in children
who wet their beds. Another instance
is
that of going to stool at a
particular hour. Once establish the time of the bowels acting, and
they act with regularity. So with emissions, if they occur one night
they are likely to occur the next, and the next. The secret of success
is to
break the habit."
The sexual hygiene of continence
is
un–
mistakably founded on the idea of bowel control, and the connection
of this with the fantasy of semen as money
is
self-explanatory. At
the same time, to regard the genital organization from the point of
view of anal-economic regulation is to introduce another series of
contradictions. It
is
to assimilate the idea of money, or of life-giving
value, to the idea of waste, of dirt, of poison; and it is hopelessly to
confuse the two. In Dickens's later works, especially
Our Mutual
Friend,
the social ramifications of this process are memorably repre–
sented. In Acton, however, these contradictions never emerge into
consciousness, and the youth who has learned to control
his
sphincter
should by the same token be able to constipate his genitals.·
III
If
the youth has learned his lessons and has been lucky enough
to surmount' or bypass the dangers that lurk on every side, then he
should reflch adult life or manhood relatively undamaged. At this
time, he is able to experience "all those mysterious sensations which
make up what we call VIRILITY." This distinctive attribute "seems
necessary to give a man that consciousness of his dignity, of his
character as head and ruler and of his importance, which is absolutely
essential to the well-being of the family, and through it, of society
4. For a slightly eccentric but preternaturally learned and precise account of
the history of mechanical devices used to prevent masturbation, see Eric John
Dingwall,
Male Infibulation
(London, 1925), and
The Girdle of Chastity
(London, 1931).
The reader may be
intere~ted
to know that as late as 1921, in the second
edition of
Handbuch der Sexualwissenschaften
(Leipzig), p. 627, Havelock
Ellis and Albert Moll were still able to recommend
"Onaniebandagen"
or
"Korsette"-little
metal suits of armor fitted over the genitals and attached
to a locked belt- as prophylaxis for masturbation.
