When we
put them both on the basis of abstinence we put them on a basis which
covers the impulse for food but only half covers the impulse for sexual
love. We confer no pleasure and no service on our food when we eat it. But
the half of sexual love, perhaps the most important and ennobling half,
lies in what we give and not in what we take. To reduce this question to
the low level of abstinence, is not only to centre it in a merely negative
denial but to make it a solely self-regarding question. Instead of asking:
How can I bring joy and strength to another? we only ask: How can I
preserve my empty virtue?

Therefore it is that from whatever aspect we consider the
question,--whether in view of the flagrant contradiction between the
authorities who have discussed this question, or of the illegitimate
mingling here of moral and physiological considerations, or of the merely
negative and indeed unnatural character of the "virtue" thus set up, or of
the failure involved to grasp the ennoblingly altruistic and mutual side
of sexual love,--from whatever aspect we approach the problem of "sexual
abstinence" we ought only to agree to do so under protest.

If we thus decide to approach it, and if we have reached the
conviction--which, in view of all the evidence we can scarcely
escape--that, while sexual abstinence in so far as it may be recognized as
possible is not incompatible with health, there are yet many adults for
whom it is harmful, and a very much larger number for whom when prolonged
it is undesirable, we encounter a serious problem. It is a problem which
confronts any person, and especially the physician, who may be called upon
to give professional advice to his fellows on this matter. If sexual
relationships are sometimes desirable for unmarried persons, or for
married persons who, for any reason, are debarred from conjugal union, is
a physician justified in recommending such sexual relationships to his
patient? This is a question that has frequently been debated and decided
in opposing senses.

Various distinguished physicians, especially in Germany, have
proclaimed the duty of the doctor to recommend sexual intercourse
to his patient whenever he considers it desirable. Gyurkovechky,
for instance, has fully discussed this question, and answered it
in the affirmative. Nystroem (_Sexual-Probleme_, July, 1908, p.
413) states that it is the physician's duty, in some cases of
sexual weakne