STEVEN MARCUS
itself. It is a power, a privilege, of which the man is, and should be,
proud...." But this power is as precarious as ever, if not more so,
and the terrors of sex in maturity are as threatening as they were
before, and their numbers have
if
anything increased. Although
Acton states that "the moderate gratification of the sex-passion in
married life is generally followed by the happiest consequences to the
individual," he obviously believes that few ever achieve this modest
consummation. The consequences of sexual excess now include heart
failure and loss of memory, and the rites of the marriage bed though
sacred are perilous. Those who were continent before marriage become
incontinent after it, intercourse is "indulged in night after night,"
and the result, at least for the man, "is simple ruin"-he goes bankrupt
and is sold up. Such a man, however unconscious he may be of the
fact, has been "guilty of great and almost criminal excess"-like the
head of a company who has invested wildly in shares. Acton then
cites a specimen case of this condition.
A medical man called on me, saying he found himself
suffering from spermatorrhoea. There was general debility, in–
aptitude ·to work, disinclination for sexual intercourse, in fact,
he thought he was losing his senses. The sight of one eye was
affected. The only way in which he lost semen was, as he
thought, by a slight occasional oozing from the penis. I asked
him at once if he had ever committed excesses. As a boy, he
acknowledged having abused himseif', but he married seven
years ago, being then a hearty, healthy man, and it was only
lately that he had been complaining. In answer to my further
inquiry, he stated that since his marriage he had had connec–
tion two or three times a week, and often more than once a
night! This one fact, I was obliged to tell him, sufficiently
accounted for all his troubles. The symptoms he complained
of were similar
to
those we find in boys who abuse themselves.
It is true that it may take years to reduce some strong, healthy
men, just as it may be a long time before some boys are
prejudicially influenced, but the
ill
effects of excesses are
sooner or later sure to follow.
This
is
all classically familiar material, but one is none the less
prompted to wonder: if the consequences of sexual intercourse are
indistinguishable from those of masturbation then why marry? More-
