women who are transformed by the mere presence of men, as there are men who cannot enter a room full of women without physical disturbance.  Such men, such women, are not necessarily depraved or immoral persons, their temperament may be a source of genuine distress to them.  It may be most admirably controlled, and in thousands of cases it is so, especially when the sufferer understands himself or—­more rarely—­understands herself.  All the help that psychology and medical science can give (and it is much) should be given to and accepted by such people.  The one thing that should not be yielded is the ridiculous claim that men and women who are not so susceptible (and who are in the vast majority) should rule their lives according to the standards of those who are sexually over-developed or one-sidedly developed.  It cannot be too strongly insisted that this problem is the problem of the individual.  He (or she) has got to settle it.  He must learn to manage himself in such a way that he ceases to be abnormally excitable, or he must arrange his life so that he avoids, as far as possible, the causes of excitement.  He must not expect others to cramp their lives to fit him; he must not expect civilization to be perverted or arrested in order to avoid a difficulty which is his own.

The only alternative to this is to revert to a form of civilization in which it was frankly admitted that sex-impulses could not be controlled, either by men or by women, and society was therefore organized on a basis which, quite logically, provided for the restraint of women in a bondage which prevented them from satisfying their impulses as they chose, and at the same time protected them from attack by other men than their lawful owners; and which, further, provided conveniences for the equally uncontrollable instincts of men.

This system is quite logical; so is the one here advocated, of assuming that the sexual instincts of both sexes can be controlled.  What is not logical is the assumption that they can be controlled, but that such control is to be exercised not by each one mastering himself, but by the removal of all possibility of temptation!  This demand is really incompatible with our civilization, and those who make it should try to understand that what they ask is, in fact, the reversal of all advance in real self-control in matters of sex.

Let us abandon the pretence that it is “wicked” for either a man or a woman to have strongly-developed sex-instincts.  When we do this, we shall be on the high way to learning how to manage ourselves without making preposterous demands upon our neighbours or inroads upon their individual freedom.