In his Appeal to the German Nobility Luther says:  “Is it not a terrible thing that we Christians should maintain public brothels, though we all vow chastity in our baptism?  I well know all that can be said on this matter; that it is not peculiar to one nation, that it would be difficult to demolish it, and that it is better thus than that virgins, or married women, or honorable women should be dishonored.  But should not the spiritual and temporal powers combine to find some means of meeting these difficulties without any such heathen practise?  If the people of Israel existed without this scandal, why should not a Christian nation be able do so?  How do so many towns and villages manage to exist without these houses?  Why should not great cities be able to do so? . . .  It is the duty of those in authority to see the good of their subjects.  But if those in authority considered how young people might be brought together in marriage, the prospect of marriage would help every man and protect him from temptations.” (10, 349; transl. by Waring.)

This is the Luther of whom Catholic writers say that he would not be considered qualified to sit with a modern Vice Commission.

But what about the many coarse references in Luther’s writings to sexual matters-references which are unprintable nowadays?  Do these not show that Luther was far from being even an ordinary gentleman, that he was depraved in thought and vulgar nauseating, in speech whenever he approached the subject of marriage and sexual conditions?  We have just cited a few of Luther’s references to these matters.  They are clean and proper.  We could fill pages with them, and they would prove most profitable reading in our loose, profligate, and adulterous age.  Those other references which are also found in Luther’s writings should be studied in their connection.  Leaving out of the account humorous references and playful remarks, which only malice can twist into a lascivious meaning, they are indignant and scornful expostulations with the defenders and practisers of vice that flaunted its shame in the face of the public.  Righteous anger will give a person the courage to speak out boldly and in no mincing words about things which otherwise nauseate him.  When Catholic writers cull from Luther vile and disgusting remarks about sexual affairs, it should be investigated to whom Luther made those remarks, and what reason he had for making them.  There is another side to this matter, and that concerns medieval Catholicism itself.  We have indicated in sundry places in this review the social conditions in respect of the sex relations that existed under the spiritual sovereignty of the Roman Church in Luther’s day in the very city of Rome, and had grown up and were being fostered by her leading men.  Luther’s references to lustfulness are paraded as evidence of the lust that was consuming him; they are, in reality, evidences of the lust that he knew to be raging in very prominent people with whom he had dealings.