Masculinity and femininity

Do you find that by nature boys and girls have different interests?

I do. At one time I thought that interests were deter­mined by custom and training. The girls washed up and made the beds while the boys were not expected to do any­thing in the house. That was the vogue when I was a boy. Boys tinkered with bicycles; girls never did. Girls sewed and knitted while their brothers played marbles. I thought that when both sexes had freedom these differences would disappear. I was wrong.

Summerhill boys mend bikes, tinker with their radio sets, make things in the workshop—guns, swords, boats, planes, boxes. Seldom have we a girl who enters the work­shop; seldom a bigger boy who attends a sewing class. Both sexes will make pots in the pottery and beaten brass trays in the metal shop. There is nothing much to differentiate between them in lessons, yet I could count on one hand the number of girls who liked mathematics. A few like algebra but most girls shy away from geometry.

Both sexes like dancing, painting, acting, communal games. Many boys construct tree huts; some girls do, too. Boys dig holes and connect them by underground passages; girls never do. Freedom does not alter the innate predilec­tion of the sexes.

Menstruation

When should I tell my daughter about periods?

A goodish time before they are due to start. I have known girls who got into a panic, and thought they were bleeding to death.

Circumcision

I am not Jewish, but many of my gentile friends have their infant sons circumcised. Should I follow their example?

Why? On medical grounds? Whatever its history may be, circumcision is a symbolic castration. The rite is meant to weaken a child’s sex; the talk about prevention of veneral disease is pure rationalization.

Is there any evidence that the uncircumcised suffer more from venereal disease than the circumcised? Circum­cision is a cruel and barbarous custom which no humane parents should tolerate. Savages mutilate their faces; some put rings through their nostrils; and we, the superior races, smile at their childishness. Are we less savage when we mutilate a baby’s penis?

So, my dear questioner, I advise you not to be influ­enced by what the neighbors think, or for that matter, by what the specialists say. Any mutilation brings shame and inferiority. Men who lost an eye or a limb in war usually suffer from it great sense of embarrassment. As an extreme, imagine the feelings of a man in a nudist camp wearing a truss. Even dental plates are a source of shame to many people. I have more than once had a circumcised pupil who refused to undress in front of the other boys. I am con­vinced that unconsciously a young circumcised man may feel that he has lost something, been deprived of something very important.

No, do not do anything to your baby boy that will make him feel less of a man later on in life.

Contraceptives

My teenage daughter wants to have a sex life. Should I fit out with a diaphragm?

Dear lady, you can say no and then you’ll have a bead-ache every time she goes out with a boy friend. You’ll be worried stiff about her getting pregnant. When she goes to a party you will be frightened lest she drink too much, and then tumble into bed with a boy who has also had too much to drink. True, this situation could happen even if you had her properly equipped for she might not always carry her contraceptive with her.

You might let her have “the pill,” but then would you be happy? It’s your negative attitude—your fear of sex— that gives you so much concern. More important, your con­cern transmits itself to your daughter and gives her a sense of guilt. Not only is she frustrated by a dammed up sexual urge, but she is fighting all the time against your values which are at odds with hers.

Sex must go somewhere. If barred from its natural outlet, it may take the way of masturbation which is never altogether satisfying; natural sex means giving and receiv­ing and tenderness. Or her sex may be sublimated, or at least seemingly so. Or the dam may break and the girl may suddenly find herself in a jam.

Compared with Sweden, America is far behind the times. In Sweden, it is no disgrace to have an illegitimate child, and the State in its allowances for mothers makes no difference between the married woman and the unmarried woman. I have the feeling that America lives in fear—fear of Communism, fear of sex, fear of low status, fear of a poor income, and worst of all—fear that the young will challenge the opinions and wishes of the old.

The family in the U.S.A. can be a most dangerous com­pulsive institution—and not only the family that indoctri­nates with religion—but also the family that is liberal, that takes part in demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, that battles against color prejudice, and against out-of-date divorce laws. Not seldom does such a family have the same repressive attitude to the children as the most conservative family. These “liberal” parents also want to guide their chil­dren: We are older than you, and wiser than you, and we know best what is good for you.

I disagree. These parents don’t know what is good for •their children. That is why so many seemingly fine homes lose their children and never find them again.

If I were you I should certainly take my daughter to a doctor to be given full contraceptive advice.

On the other hand, I have more than once seen a mother try to force a sex life on her daughter. I have heard a 16-year-old girl cry: “Mother, I tell you I don’t want a sex life yet.” Such mothers are usually women who compensate for their previously inhibitive treatment by offering a con­science-saving sexual freedom, a freedom often not ac­cepted because of the prior maternal teachings. Such mothers do wrong to pressure their daughters. Sex shouldn’t be handled by pressure, either for or against. Sex is highly personal; no individual should dictate to another sexual timing or sexual response.

A girl of 20 said to her mother: “In my set, every girl seems to sleep with a fellow; the girls tease me because I don’t want to. I begin to feel that I should because I feel I don’t fit in.”

Here we have group pressure—a sad situation. It brings up the question of promiscuous sex, sex without love or ten­derness. But we must try not to be moral about it. A young couple can have sex together with much pleasure, even though they are not in love with each other. But the young man or young woman who goes on looking for casual chances for intercourse must have a sex life that lacks some­thing of value, call that something love or tenderness, call it what you will. There can be no permanent pleasure in promiscuity. Girls realize this when they talk about “having a steady,” partly of course, because a steady supposes likely marriage. The happiest love affairs I have seen were those which had some permanency. The Cassanovas and the Don Juans are not likely to give a girl anything like full enjoy­ment.

To return to your question: a girl or a boy should be free to have a sex life when she or be wants it. Without parental approval, such a sex life will be apt to be a guilty one; without contraceptives, a dangerous one.