Quotes From The Past: “No greater curse today hangs over the American people than…”

One of my favorite things to do is read old books and journals, especially those written by misogynistic men. In these I find such fascinating quotes. Sometimes they make me laugh at the stupidity. Sometimes they make me feel as if nothing has changed, or as if everything has changed. These next quotes I could conservative men might say today, although in less academic sounding words.

I’ve been sharing quotes just briefly with everyone on Threads and Facebook, but since they have been so well received, it occurred to me this should be a series. Usually I read these looking for information for a history piece, but often they are side tangents and you don’t get to read them in the post. Now you can join me on my side tangents too.

In the Journal of Orificial Surgery 1895-1896, J.B. Wheelock M.D. of Minnesota advocated for teaching sexual education to boys and girls in school at the time of puberty.

He was well versed in these matters to do so.

He hoped society would teach such important things as making sure children are aware that when they “debauch the body and rob it of the elements that are of the highest and noblest mechanism”, hint hint their 💦 for reasons other than procreation, they are wasting their “nerve forces.” Doing this causes women to become “haggard and worn”, their future children “more ugly and vicious.” In men it may cause “the heart [to be] weakened” from “drunkenness and debauchery,” and of course in both sexes it might cause them to become “an inmate of the insane asylum.”

It isn’t just self-made 💦 that causes this. When a married couple engages in lust, sensualism, instead of for reproductive reasons, they waste their nerve forces too. After all, “marriage is not a license to debauch and destroy the body, as well as weaken the intellectual forces.”

It’s sadly devastating for married couples to engage in lust, because in “the offspring brought forth from the beds of license” “one-half of the deaths among children, whether premature or not” are caused by married couples who had previously had sex for lustful reasons.

These dumb parents! They “must mourn when such are taken from them, because they know not that they are the agents of their destructions.” He sees parents with their “puny and bloodless children, seeking a physician for their ills and asking why they must suffer.” If only they could have sexual education in school that teaches people that any sort of sexual activity done in lust and not for reproduction, is the waste of their nerve forces.

“No greater curse today hangs over the American people than sensualism.”

Sources:

Sexuality versus Sensuality J.B. Wheelock M.D

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