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Title: On Sexual Liberty Author: Émile Armand Date: 1916 Language: en Topics: free love, love, polyamory, promiscuity, sex, sexuality Source: http://libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com/2011/09/emile-armand-on-sexual-liberty.html][libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com]]. Proofread online source [[http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3770, retrieved on July 14, 2020.
Before explaining our notion of “sexual liberty,” I think it is
necessary to define liberty itself. We all know that liberty could not
be an end, for there is no absolute liberty; just as there is no general
truth, practically speaking, but what exists in particular verities,
there is no general liberty; there are only particular, individual
liberties. It is not possible to escape certain contingencies; one
cannot be free, for example, to not breathe or digest... Liberty is only
a abstraction like Truth, Purity, Goodness, Equality, etc. And an
abstraction cannot be an end.
Considered instead, from the particular point of view, ceasing to be an
abstraction, and becoming a way, a means, liberty is understood. It is
thus that we call for the freedom of thought, which is to say the power,
without external hindrance, to express thoughts in speech or in writing,
in the manner in which they present themselves in the mind. It is thus
the integral expression of the thought which is the goal pursued, and
not liberty.
It is precisely because there are only particular liberties that we can,
departing from the domain of the abstract, place ourselves on a solid
terrain and affirm “our needs and our desires” — much better than “our
rights,” an abstract and arbitrary expression — stifled, mangled or
distorted by various sorts of authorities.
Intellectual life, artistic life, economic life, sexual life — we demand
for them the liberty to manifest themselves freely, as individuals, in
view of the liberty of individuals, apart from the legalistic
conceptions and the prejudices of religious or civil order. We demand
for them, grand rivers where human activity flows, to run without
obstacles, — without the locks of “moralityism” or the dams of
“traditionalism” troubling or miring their course. All in all, better
the liberties, with their impetuous errors, their nervous jolts, their
impulsive “lack of perspective,” than the authorities, immobile façades,
frozen gates before which we wilt and die. Between life out of doors and
life in the cellar, we choose the outdoor life.
When we call for “sexual liberty” — what do we mean? Do we mean “freedom
to rape” or debauchery? Do we desire the annihilation of sentiment in
the love-life, the disappearance of attachment, tenderness and
affection? Do we glorify unthinking promiscuity or animalistic sexual
satisfaction, at any time and place? Not at all. In calling for sexual
liberty, we simply demand the possibility for every individual to
dispose, as they wish and in all the circumstances of their sexual life
— according to the qualifications of temperament, sentiment, and reason
which are peculiar to them.
Thus we do not demand the liberty to “rape.” Attention: their sexual
life — that does not imply the sexual life of another. Neither do we
demand a liberty of the sexual life which would precede any sexual
education. On the contrary, we believe that, gradually, in the period
preceding puberty, the human being should be left ignorant of nothing
that concerns sexual life, — that is, the inevitable attraction of the
sexes — whether that sexual life is considered from the sentimental,
emotional or physiological point of view. We believe that advanced minds
should have take it to heart to recommend and propagate that education,
to never let an occasion escape to engage in it; we think that from the
moment that we have just indicated, not only should the human being know
what delights — sentimental, emotional, and physical — the sexual life
hold, but also what responsibilities it leads to. Both sexes should be
lead to understand, for example, that it is up to the woman to choose
the hour of conception. And neither sex should be ignorant of the means
of contraception. Following my thought to its logical conclusions, I
would say that in a society which had not made it possible for its
female constituents to refuse or avert an undesired pregnancy, those
constituents would be perfectly justified in leaving their progeny to
the care of the collectivity.
We do not separate the “liberty of the sexual life” from “sexual
education.”
Contrary to the prejudices of religious or civil orders, we treat the
sexual question like the intellectual question, like all the questions
raised by human activity. Just as the experiences of life, taken as a
whole, appear necessary to us so do experiences in that particular phase
of life that is sexual life seem indispensable. We declare it an
“absurdity” for a young boy or girl of sixteen years to be bound for
life in marriage and yet nothing appears more natural than a being of
that age maintaining sexual relations with another, of the emotional or
physical sort. Moreover, the sexual life from fifteen to twenty years of
age differs from the sexual life consider at thirty-five or in the
autumn of life. Sexual life is so complicated that the existence of
[multiple] simultaneous experiences of sexual life is easily
comprehensible, since in each experience, sometimes it is the
sentimental or emotional side which dominates, sometimes the emotional
or sensual side, and sometimes is the side of pure physical
satisfaction. From experience to experience, the degrees of moral,
emotional or voluptuous sensations, vary so strangely that we can
conclude from it that no experience resembles that which preceded it, or
is pursued similarly.
We do not normally pursue identical experiences.
For we do not exclude intense, voluptuous, sensual pleasure from the
experiences; we put it on the same plane intense intellectual pleasure
(artistic, literary, etc.), moral pleasure, economic pleasure. We
consider paltry moralists, morally mutilated, those who place it on some
lesser plane. None of the experiences of life are inferior except those
caused by the fear of life or the imbalance of the will. Now, normal
voluptuousness — whether that is the enjoyment of a splendid landscape
or an intensely lived sensual experience — to engender, on the contrary,
love of life and exercise of the will.
Thus “liberty of sexual life” is not synonymous with “debauchery,”
otherwise known as “loss of moral equilibrium.” Sexual liberty is
exclusively individual order. It presupposes an education of the will
which permits each to determine for themselves the point where they will
cease to be master of their passions or penchants, and education perhaps
much more instinctive than it appears at first look. Like all liberties,
that of the sexual life involves an effort, not of abstinence — (in
fact, abstention from the experiences of life is a mark of moral
insufficiency, as debauchery is a sign of moral weakness) — but of
judgment, discernment, and classification. In other words, it is not so
much a question of the quantity or number of experiments as of the
quality of the experimenter. To conclude, liberty of the sexual life
remains united, in our mind, with a preparatory sexual education and a
power of individual determination.
Liberty of sexual life in all circumstances, of course: in or out of
union... If it is true that sexual experiences differ from one another,
how can jealousy — morbid attitude of love — exist? Can an individual,
subject or object of an experience, reasonably bemoan the lack of
necessary qualifications which make one of their fellows the subject or
object of another experience? Sentimental experience is one thing,
sensual experience another, and the choice of a procreator yet another.
It could be that the being that a woman chooses for procreator would not
be the one for whom she feels the most affection and that she seeks in
the one certain physical qualities to which she is indifferent in the
other. Could the one be reasonably jealous of the other?...
Let’s finish. By replacing the emotional phenomena among the experiences
of ordinary life, we have not at all wanted to diminish the importance
of the factor “love” in human existence. We think that an experience can
be experienced seriously, profoundly, intensely, but that we would be
spared many disenchantments and sufferings if a number of the facts of
life, instead of being considered as definitive, appeared as temporary,
modifiable, revisable — essentially variable. This is accepted from the
scientific point of view — from the intellectual point of view — from
all points of view, — we can’t comprehend how it would be otherwise from
the sentimental, emotional or sexual point of view. It is not enough for
us that this idea be adopted hypocritically and practiced clandestinely.
We demand for the research and practice of sexual liberty the same broad
daylight as for those of other liberties, persuaded that to its
development and evolution are linked not only the increase of individual
and collective happiness, but also in large part the disappearance of
the present state of things.
Moreover, we do not declare ourselves more in favor of unicity or
plurality in love than we do against either; and it could well be that
in a given couple, one of the constituents will practice unicity while
the other practices plurality. And it could be that after some time,
unicity could appear preferable to plurality and vice versa. These are
individual questions. What we are asking is that we cease to qualify
experience as more or less legitimate depending on whether it is simple
or unique. We also ask that we instruct all being on these things and
that the father, mother, or partner not profit from their privileged
situation to keep them hidden from those who are obliged to trust them.
To each then, education, to determine their sexual life as they intend,
to vary its experiences or to hold themselves to one alone: in a word,
to proceed “at will.”