he law allows, is a choice morsel for average
readers of newspapers. Everywhere it is the sexual abnormality,
perversity, and even bestial vulgarity, that seems to attract the most
attention. Books and magazines and theaters and preachers who extol the
normal and bright side of sex-life are not now extremely popular with
the masses of people. As a well-known magazine recently summarized the
present situation, "it has struck sex o'clock in America." There is no
denying the fact that in recent years the popular interest in sex
problems has taken a dangerous turn. It is time for those who are
active in the sex-education movement to note the signs of the times,
for an effective educational scheme for young people must take into
account the present tendency towards a dangerous interest in literature
relating to sexual abnormality, especially immorality. All this
tendency towards interest in the abnormal or irregular sexual problems
must cause not a little worry to those whose interest is primarily in
securing widespread recognition of the advantages of normal and moral
living.

[Sidenote: Need of interest in normal sex life.]

Perhaps those who are seriously interested in sex-education may help
stem the tide towards interest in sexual abnormality by using greater
care in the selection of literature, both for young people and for
their elders. I recently met a superintendent of schools who had
carefully read certain large volumes on the medical, psychical, and
social abnormalities of sex, and many books and pamphlets on the social
evil. Altogether he had read more than five thousand pages on the
immoral and abnormal aspects of sex. He wanted to know where he might
find a book on the normal side of sex in its physiological,
psychological, and ethical aspects. Unfortunately, there is no such
treatise by an author whose scientific standing equals that of several
of those who have written extensively on the abnormal side; and
probably this is in part the reason why so many young men and women are
now molding their ideas of sexual life according to the patterns
described by the authors of works on social and sexual pathology. Not a
month passes in which I am not astounded to find men and women who have
plunged deeply into studies of sexual vice and pathology and who know
less of the normal biology of sex than is contained in such books as
W.S. Hall's "Sexual Knowledge" or the last chapter of Martin's "Human
Body, Advanced Course