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Title: The Karezza Method Author: J. William Lloyd Date: 1931 Language: en Topics: free love, sex, individualist Source: https://www.reuniting.info/karezza_method_lloyd
It was, I believe, in the winter of 1915-16 that a woman-friend in
California wrote and asked me why I did not write a special little book
on Karezza.
As events had convinced me that there certainly was crying need of
instruction on the matter, her suggestion took root and this small
brochure is the fruit.
For though quite a number have written more or less concerning
controlled intercourse, they have usually done so guardedly and so
vaguely that to the average inquirer the subject remains a mystery and
the beginner does not know how to proceed. For which reason most men
fail and give up who could just as well succeed. And success or failure
here may make all the difference between divorce or a lifetime of
love-happiness.
And still beyond the embrace that begets the body is the embrace that
begets the soul, that invokes the soul from the Soul.
The wonderful embraces, sacred, occult and unspeakably tender, pure as
prayer;
The hour-long, longer indwelling of him within her, conceiving her again
like a child, the hour-long, longer, over-closing of her upon him,
bearing him again like a babe in her womb.
The infinite understanding of each by the other, the transcendent uplift
of each by the other;
No tumult orgasmal here; not because crushed out, simply because not
desired, simply because this is beyond that, a saner, broader joy; the
great currents, flowing through wider channels, rage not nor whirl, for
where the greater is there the lesser is not demonstrative.
Here is harmony too sweet for violence, osmosis of soul within soul,
rhythmically blending, inflowing, outflowing; singing without words;
silent music of divine instrument.
Symphony of sex of nerve, heart, thought, and soul in touch, at-one-ing.
Absolute peace, realized heaven, the joy that never disappoints, that
exceeds imagination, that cannot be described.
The love ineffable, the inspiration of brain, the energizing of muscle,
the illumination of feature, the healing of body, the expression of
soul.
Spiritual sex-exchanging; the masculine in her uttering, the feminine in
him receiving, positive and negative alternating at will.
Spiritual sex-begetting; the impregnation of each by the other with
beautiful thoughts, divine dreams, high hopes, noble ambitions, pure
aspirations, clairvoyant vision, the birth-bed of genius.
The giving of each to the other to the uttermost impulse of blessing,
the receiving of each by the other to the uttermost nerve terminal of
body, to the uttermost fine filament of spirit.
Not followed by exhaustion, but by days of genius, clear and exalted
vision, buoyant and happy health.
Not followed by revulsion, but by hours, days, weeks, years, a lifetime,
maybe, of tender memories, clinging, affectionate longing to caress
again, to be re-embracing.
(Nay, is it not true, beyond all truth, that those who have once thus
bathed, blended, soul in soul, are eternally married?)
The embrace of at-one-ness, of expression, and purification and
revivification, that incarnates the divine in the human.
Not possible except to the pure and poetic, to true and innocent lovers,
fitting, responding, liberating.
To whom soul and body are both sacred, to whom this communion is a
religious rite the most sacred.
The embrace of the Cosmic souls, the angel-mates in their heaven.
No vision this, dear friends, no poetic metaphor merely, for lo! I have
lived it all many, many times, hundreds of others have lived it many
times, every member of the race shall sometime, in some life, live it.
It is joy and truth, the joy of joys and truth of truths. KAREZZA
It is my hope that in this work I shall be able to give the world a
plain, practical little guidebook to what I consider the most important
sexual discovery and practice in all human history.
Karezza is controlled non-seminal intercourse. The word Karezza
(pronounced Ka-ret-za) is from the Italian and means a caress. Alice B.
Stockham, M.D., was the first one who applied it as the distinctive name
of the art and method of sexual relations without orgasmal conclusion.
But the art and method itself was discovered in 1844 by John Humphrey
Noyes, the founder of the Oneida Community, by experiences and
experiments in his own marital life. He called it Male Continence.
Afterwards George N. Miller, a member of the Community, gave it the name
of Zugassent's Discovery in a work of fiction, The Strike of a Sex.
There are objections to both these names. Zugassent was not a real
person, therefore did not discover it. It was Noyes' Discovery, in fact.
Continence, as Dr. Stockham points out, has come to mean abstinence from
all intercourse. The Oneida Communists do not appear to have opposed the
female orgasm, therefore it was well enough for them to name it Male
Continence, but Dr. Stockham and I agree that in the highest form and
best expression of the art neither man nor, woman has or desires to have
the orgasm, therefore it is no more male than female continence. And a
single-word name is always more convenient than a compound. For which
reasons I have accepted Dr. Stockham's musical term, which is besides,
beautifully suggestive and descriptive. Another writer on this art (I
first heard of it through him; he deriving it from Noyes) was Albert
Chavannes, who in a little book on it, called it Magnetation, a name
which I coined for him. It is perhaps not a bad name; but I now think
Karezza better.
Noyes' honor to the discovery has been disputed. Others, it is asserted,
discovered it before him or independently since.[1] It is necessary to
contest this. Various Europeans and Asiatics probably discovered America
before Columbus, but he first made it known and helpful to the world at
large, therefore the honor is rightfully his. Exactly so with Noyes - he
first made Karezza available to mankind in general.
His little work, Male Continence, is a model of good argument on the
matter; but I believe Karezza, by Dr. Stockham, is the only book now in
print which treats of it. Several other small works have appeared, but
mostly they treat of the subject in such poetic and transcendental terms
that the seeker after practical instruction is left still seeking. All
writers, too, have tacitly assumed that the woman could do as she
pleased in the matter and that success or failure all depended on the
man. I regard this as a fundamental error and the cause of most
disappointments. Considerations such as these have mainly decided me to
write this little work. At this time of agitation on birth control,
also, it appears timely. And beyond all looms the extraordinary, one
might say unaccountable ignorance of it, not only of ordinary sexual
students, but of practically all physicians and even the greatest sexual
specialists and teachers. Actually the general public knows more about
it than its educators. Thus Forel, in his Sexual Question, never
mentions it at all, therefore presumably never heard of it. Bloch, in
his professedly exhaustive work, The Sexual Life of Our Times, though he
once mentions Dr. Stockham on another matter, has only one ambiguous
paragraph in the whole book that can possibly refer to Karezza
(apparently some imperfect form of it), disapproving of it on theory
only, evidently, without the slightest personal knowledge, or even
observation. Havelock Ellis, in the Psychology of Sex, is more
instructed and favorable, but appears to have derived his knowledge
almost entirely from the Oneida Communists; not at all at first hand.
And the general ignorance, indifference, or aversion, even to any
experiment, among men, is simply amazing. Most men say at once that it
is impossible, most physicians that it is injurious, though with no kind
of real knowledge. Most women, on the other hand, who have had any
experience of it, eulogize it in unmeasured terms, as the very salvation
of their sexual life, the very art and poetry of love, which indeed it
is, but, as most men will not attempt it, most women are necessarily
kept in ignorance of its inestimable benefits to their sex.
The first objection that is certain to meet one who would recommend
Karezza is that it is "unnatural." Noyes confronts this objection very
ably, and it is indeed absurd, when you came to think of it, to hear men
who drink alcohol, smoke, use tea and coffee, take milk, though adults,
eat cooked food, live in heated houses, wear clothes, write books, shave
their faces, use machinery, and do a thousand and one things which the
natural man, the true aborigine, knew nothing of, condemn a mere act of
moderation and self-control in pleasure as "unnatural."
They do not stop to think that if their appeal is to original or animal
nature, then they must never have intercourse with the female at all,
except when she invites it, is in a certain condition, at certain
seasons of the year, and for procreation only. For all intercourse as a
love act is clearly "unnatural" in their use of the term. How would they
relish that?
These same men will recommend and have their women use douches, drugs,
and all sorts of mechanical means to nullify the natural consequences of
their act, with never a lisp of protest at the unnaturalness of it all.
As a matter of fact, Karezza is absolutely natural. It employs Nature
only and from first to last. To check any act which prudence suggests,
or experience has shown, likely to have undesired consequences, is
something constantly done throughout all Nature, even among the lowest
animals. Karezza is such a check. It is simply prudence and skill in the
sexual realm, changing its form and direction of activity in such wise
that the desired pleasure may be more fully realized and the undesired
results avoided. Nothing more.
The denunciation of it as injurious is almost equally an expression of
thoughtless prejudice. I have now had personal knowledge of it for over
forty years. I learned of it from A. Chavannes, who with his wife had
practiced it twenty years. It has been before the American people since
1846. The Oneida Communists practiced it, Havelock Ellis states, thirty
years. I have known members of the Oneida Community. I have read all I
possibly could on it, talked with everyone I could hear of who had
knowledge of it; I have yet to meet or hear of a single woman who has
the slightest accusation to make against it on the score of injury to
health or disagreeable sensations or after effects. Three only (all with
slight experience) told me they thought there was more pleasure in the
old embrace; the others most emphatically to the contrary. Van de
Warker, says, Havelock Ellis, "studied forty-two women of the community
without finding any undue prevalence of reproductive diseases, nor could
he find any diseased condition attributable to the sexual habits of the
community." (Italics mine.) Contrast this with the usual sex-relation,
which is constantly being accused, particularly by women, of causing all
sorts of injurious and painful consequences, apparently upon the best of
evidence. After twenty-five years experience, the Oneida Community, upon
request of the New York Medical Gazette, instituted "a professional
examination" and had a report made by Theodore R. Noyes, M.D., in which
it was shown, by careful comparison of our statistics with those of the
U. S. census and other public documents, that the rate of nervous
diseases in the Community is considerably below the average of ordinary
society. This report was published by the Medical Gazette, and was
pronounced by the editor "a model of careful observation; bearing
intrinsic evidence of entire honesty and impartiality."
Physicians freely condemn it, or express doubts of it, almost invariably
with no knowledge of it of any kind. They think it should cause
ill-health, therefore they say it will. It is said to cause nervousness,
prostatitis, an inflamed state of organs, etc. Now we all know how much
pure guesswork figures in so-called medical "science"; how often that
which merely coincides is asserted to hold a relation of cause and
effect. However I think I can see how, very easily, the ignorant or
imperfect use of this art might lead to the above-described bad results.
In ideal and successful Karezza the sexual passion is transmuted and
sublimated, to a greater or less degree, into tenderness and love, and
the thought is maintained that the orgasm is not desired or desirable.
Now if a man, on the contrary, entered the embrace with the thought that
he terribly desired the orgasm, but by the sheer force of will must
prevent it; if he excited himself and his partner to the utmost sexual
furore, but at last denied it culmination; caring nothing for love at
any time, but for sex only all the time, I can see how, very reasonably,
his denied passion might react disastrously on his nervous system, just
as any strongly repressed emotion may. Just as a man who indulges in the
most furious thoughts of rage, but clenches his fists and shuts his
mouth tight, rather than express it, may burst a blood vessel or get an
apoplexy. This may indeed be a sort of "male continence," on the
physical side, but real Karezza, as I know it and would present it, is
very different.
Real Karezza requires preparatory mental exercise. It requires first the
understanding and conviction that the spiritual, the caressive, the
tender side of the relation is much more important, much more productive
of pleasure in fact, than the merely sexual, and that throughout the
whole relation the sexual is to be held subordinate to this love side as
its tool, its agent, its feeder. Sex is indeed required to furnish all
it has to the feast, but strictly under the leadership of and to the
glory of love.
It requires, second, the understanding and profound conviction that in
this kind of love-feast the orgasm is a marplot, a kill-joy, an awkward
and clumsy accident, and the end of everything for the time, therefore
most undesired.
It requires, third, an understanding of the psychological law that all
emotions are to a considerable extent capable of being "sublimated,"
that is expressed in a different direction and with reference to another
object than that first intended. We have all seen orators or actors
first arouse an audience to emotional intensity and then direct that
emotion at pleasure to laughter or tears, to love or hate, revenge or
pity, lust or purity. Taking full advantage of this law, the Karezza
artist sublimates a portion of his sexual passion into the more refined,
intellectual, poetic and heart-sweet expression of feeling, thus
preventing it from ever reaching that pitch of local intensity which
demands explosive discharge. In other words the soul, taking over the
blind sex-emotion, diffuses it and irradiates the whole being for a
prolonged period with its joy-giving, exalting potency. This might be
compared to a man who had a barrel of gunpowder where with to celebrate,
whereupon instead of firing the entire cask in one mighty explosion
(orgasm) he made it into fire-works for the esthetic enjoyment of a
whole evening. Observe that either way all the powder would be burned,
only in the second form the display covers a much greater length of
time, is more refined, artistic and complexly satisfying.
Such is Karezza to the orgasm. It is art, intellect, morality and
estheticism in sexual enjoyment instead of crude, reckless appetite.
Still this comparison does not do Karezza justice. When the powder is
burned it is gone, but it is not at all so with Karezza. In Nature
something accumulates in the organism for the endowment of the
offspring. Much of man's food consists of what lower forms of life have
stored up for their children - we largely live on starch, honey, gluten,
seeds, milk, eggs, robbed from babies that were to be. In our own bodies
also we store up a reproductive surplus to be given to our progeny. This
is probably not simply one thing, but many things - love, magnetism,
vital force, seed, perhaps other things that we know nothing about
today, and indeed we do not know very accurately about any of these
things today, but we do know that something is stored up in us, and that
its presence in us makes us vivid, brilliant, beautiful, powerful, like
a stimulating food. It is a life-food or life-force, intended to be
given to our children, but we also can feed on it or give it to each
other. Love between a man and woman seems to be such a process of
mutually exchanging and feeding on this surplus life-force. When they
enter each other's aura there is an interchange of male and female
food-values; the nearer they are to each other the stronger and more
satisfying the exchange, and their "love" to each other is the craving
for such an exchange or the thing itself, hence the craving for
closenessand touch. In Karezza, both by reason of its intense intimacy
and of the long time of contact, besides the peculiar fitness of the
organs themselves for the work, this exchange reaches its maximum of
realization - it is vital exchange in its most satisfying expression -
wherefore it is really the thing for which all love is reaching,
wishing.
Apparently, in the love-contact of two, some of this life-food is
released in each and reabsorbed in each, but more of it is given to the
other partner. Men and women in love are thus veritable cannibals and
feed each on each, and each gives to the other the stored-up life-food,
charged with the personal qualities of maleness or femaleness of the
individual sex. Apparently my lover and I may live on our life-foods to
some extent, but each finds the life-food of the other the more
stimulating and nutritious. In Karezza we feed each other "baby food."
Explain the process as we may, this fact is sure, that in successful
Karezza the sex-organs become quiet, satisfied, demagnetized, as
perfectly as by the orgasm, while the rest of the body of each partner
glows with a wonderful vigor and conscious joy, or else with a deep,
sweet, contentment, as after a happy play; tending to irradiate the
whole being with romantic love; and always with an after-feeling of
health, purity and wellbeing. We are most happy and good-humored as
after a full meal. Whereas, if there has been an orgasm, it is the
common experience that there is a sense of loss, weakness, and dispelled
illusion; following quickly on the first grateful feeling of relief.
There has been a momentary joy, but too brief and epileptic to make much
impression on consciousness, and now it is gone, leaving no memory. The
lights have gone out, the music has stopped. The weakness is often so
severe as to cause pallor, faintness, vertigo, dyspepsia, disgust,
irritability, shame, dislike, or other pathological or unloving
symptoms. This especially on the man's part, but perhaps to some extent
on the woman's part too. Even if no more, there is lassitude, sudden
indifference, a wish to sleep. A wet blanket has fallen for the time at
least, on the flame of love. Romance drops and crawls like a winged
bird.
In Karezza, on, the contrary, the partners unfold and separate
reluctantly, lingeringly, kissing, clinging, petting to the last,
thrilled with and rehearsing memories, glowing with an affection and
admiration which they feel can never end.
It would appear that in the orgasmal embrace the life-force is thrown
off with such suddenness and volume that it is quite impossible for the
partner to receive or assimilate much of it, therefore most of it is
utterly wasted.
For this reason, the orgasmal-embrace is a most clumsy and disappointing
thing when employed as a love-embrace. Nature meant it only for
propagation and its whole modus operandi is calculated to check love,
defeat love, and turn love into indifference or aversion. The more
frequently it is employed, the more love dies, romance evaporates, and a
mere sexuality, a matter-of-fact relation, or plain dislike, takes the
place of the glamour of courtship days. On the contrary, Karezza makes
marriage more delicious than courtship, more romantic than wooing, and
maintains an endless, satisfying honeymoon.
There is an increase of attractiveness and magnetism of each for each, a
growth of satisfaction in each other's society, affection, and caressing
becomes a sweet habit. Nothing else known makes the course of true love
run so smooth as Karezza.
The orgasm is not always, but very commonly followed by a greater or
less degree of exhaustion, perhaps extreme, but Karezza, unless repeated
to excess, or practiced between the mismated, is never followed by
exhaustion, but often by a delightful glow and joy in life. The usual
sequel to the orgasm is demagnetization, indifference, too frequently
irritability, disgust, repulsion and a craving for stimulants, but
Karezza irradiates the whole being with tender, romantic, peaceful love.
This, so far as I know, is universal experience, therefore merely needs
to be stated to show how healthful an influence Karezza must wield. As a
matter of fact, because of the tonicity, glow and vigor it bestows on
the sexual parts and its wine-like inspiration of the spirit of the
partners, with no reaction, it is one of the best hygienic agencies for
the benefit and cure of ordinary sexual weaknesses and ailments -
leucorrhea, displacements, prolapsus, bladder-troubles, simple
urethritis, prostatitis,[2] etc., known. And I say this from actual
knowledge. I have known it to act like magic in painful menstruation and
in prostatitis. But remember, I am always speaking of its exercise
between those who are naturally fitted to respond and who really love
each other, who honor their bodies and would not knowingly abuse them.
As a mere sex-experiment it might be of little value or satisfaction. It
appears to be perfect or poor, just about in proportion to the greater
or less amount of heart-love involved. At least it imperatively demands
kindness, tenderness, chivalry on the man's part, a pleased acceptance
and relaxation on the woman's; and the more refinement, poetry of
feeling and mutual romance the better - any amount can be utilized. The
gross, reckless and lustful may as well let it alone - it is not for
them.
As a nerve sedative its effect is remarkable. I have known it to
instantly cure a violent, even agonizing nervous headache, a restful nap
following upon the cessation of pain. Under a strong, gentle magnetic
man, a nervous woman often falls into a baby-like sleep, in the very
midst of the embrace, and this is felt to be a peculiar luxury and
coveted experience. Many women call Karezza "The Peace"; others call it
"Heaven." This alone is a testimony worth volumes.
S. G. Lewis, of Grass Valley, California, in his Hints and Keys to
Conjugal Felicity, is especially rich in testimony to the spiritual and
romantic value of Karezza, but his fine little work is long out of
print.
Now I do not apprehend, from all I have seen of life, that Karezza will
ever come into vogue from the male side of the world. Men seem united in
their dull, lethargic indifference to it. Helplessly or selfishly they
say it is impossible, and let it go at that, rather than make the little
effort required to perfect themselves in it. They would preferably
choose, or rather oblige their women to choose, something out of the
nerve-shocking, disgusting, disease-producing outfit of douches, drugs,
tampons, plugs, pessaries, shields, condoms, and save them all further
responsibility in the matter, although the highest authorities admit
none of these resources are really safe, that is sure, contraceptives,
and most of them are decidedly injurious. Only the absence of semen is
safe, and that is found in Karezza and in Karezza alone. But perhaps the
most clinching condemnation of these methods, to a refined person, is
that pronounced by a fine woman of my acquaintance, "There is not one of
these methods that does not destroy, for the woman, all the poetry of
the act." Only in Karezza is the poetry fully preserved, and not only
that, but made capable of development to the most refined nuances of
artistic and ingenious delight. Only to the Karezza-lover is the Art of
Love possible in any sense worthy of the name. All the others begin the
performance by shutting off the music and throwing away the wine.
But as the Woman Movement grows I am sure Karezza will come into its
own. As women learn its transcendent importance to their happiness and
health, they will demand it and refuse all men that cannot supply that
demand. That will be a force that cannot be withstood.
Woman is by birth the Queen of Love and will certainly assume her
inheritance and control in her own sphere and realm.
As I have said, I coined for Albert Chavannes, as a title for his little
brochure on this subject, the word "Magnetation." This was intended to
express the theory, then so prevalent, that the thrills and pleasures of
sex and love were caused by the transmission and reception of currents
of "animal magnetism," or "vital electricity," which could be conveyed
by contact or passes from one human body to another, and that diseases
even could be cured by the same agency, as in "laying on of hands."
There has been much controversy on this matter. It has been argued by
some that the "currents," the "magnetic attractions," etc., felt by the
susceptible, were purely imaginary and ideological, - that the lover
induced his own thrills, the patient cured himself. We may waive much of
this. While today one hears very little of this magnetism, the fact
remains that the presence and the touch, explain it as we may, of
certain people, give us intense, vivid feelings and produce powerful
reactions, while the presence and touch of others may shock, or leave us
indifferent or repelled. Practically this is sufficient. This seems like
magnetic action and for all our purposes we may assume that the seeming
is a fact.
It is assumed therefore that ordinarily the male is positive to the
female, who is negative to him, and the masculine organs are positive to
the feminine organs. This may be called the normal or usual relation,
but it is possible to voluntarily or involuntarily reverse this, and in
most cases, between lovers in close contact, certain parts in each are
negative to the contacting parts of the other, which may be positive to
them. This fact, that the entire personality, in all its parts, is not
necessarily positive or negative at the same time, is one important to
remember, for it explains much and is like a key to the whole art of
Karezza. Thus a woman may be very positive and even dominant in her
love, while her body remains most alluringly passive. Or she may open
her eyes and make them positive while the rest remains negative. Or she
may put positiveness into the caress of her hands alone, or will it into
some other part of her being, or entirely assume and play the masculine,
positive part, while the man assumes the feminine. Of this more will be
said later.
But in general, though the woman allures and makes herself a drawing
lodestone, it is the man who takes and should take the active, positive
role and is "the artist in touch." The man who would succeed in Karezza,
then, must cultivate the art of magnetic touch. He should learn to think
of himself as an electric battery, of which it may be said that the
right hand is the positive pole (in right-handed people only, of
course), and the left hand the negative, capable of transmitting to
other and receptive human beings an electric current. If both his hands
are in contact with someone, he must feel the current flowing from his
right hand through the body he touches into his left hand, and he must
learn how to reverse this and send a current at will from his left hand
to his right hand. If he touches with only one hand, or one part, then
he must feel that he touches positively and the flesh he touches is
negative or receptive to him. He must learn to will the current he gives
through the body he touches, through its nerves, to any part he wishes
to electrify, to thrill or to soothe, and to feel convincingly that he
is doing so. In Karezza his organs must ordinarily be felt to be
positive, and the woman's negative, for the best results to both. He may
even practice on himself, learning to feel his own magnetism, to test
it; and how to cure various pains and ailments by his own touch.
Understand me - a man may succeed beautifully in Karezza who has done
nothing of all this, nor even heard of it, because of natural magnetism
and intuition of what to do, but even he would do better to consciously
understand his powers and deliberately will to direct their use.
The fact that magnetic touch has been found a successful method of
invigorating the weak and curing the sick, is one proof that should
never be overlooked that Karezza, practiced normally, with a wise
avoidance of excess, is not only not injurious, as so often claimed, but
is really conducive to health. I have been told that Harry Gaze, the
Western lecturer, advocates Karezza as a means of maintaining eternal
youth, and personally I am convinced that nothing else known is so
efficient in preserving youth, hope, beauty, romance and the joy of
life.
A man should learn, therefore, to touch the woman he loves in such a way
that he transmits to her a vivid electric current that thrills her with
delightful feeling, while it relieves his nervous tension of accumulated
surplus force. At the same time, if the parties are well-mated, she will
be generating and returning, in some roundabout way, something to him,
which equally satisfies him, prevents all sense of loss, and makes him
equally thrilled and happy. There is a circuit and exchange which
finally perfectly balances and leaves each content.
The man who would be an artist in touch must learn to put this vital
elixir into his fingertips, his palms, into the glance of his eyes,
suggest it in the tones of his voice, convey it at will from any part of
his body which may touch the body of another - yes, even to convey it by
mere aura, invisibly, secretly, to another body, near, but not in
contact. He must learn to touch with firm and thrilling strength, or
with tender gentleness and restfulness. He must learn to stroke and
caress with an exquisite delicacy, tactfulness and grace, suggesting
music. In the actual embrace he must learn to alternate violent speed
and force (yet controlled and never really rude or inconsiderate), in
his movements, with touches delicate and soothing, in a contrast of
symphonic "storm and peace," which may sink to absolute quietude of
strong, tender enfolding.
O touch me, touch me right! she said —
(O God, how often womanhood hath said!)
That we two ones as one be wed,
That all with all, throughout, we wed,
Close, close and tender close! she said,
The touch that knows, O Man! she said
O touch me, touch me right! she said.
The ideal of the woman should be to apprehend with exquisite intuition
every mood of the man almost before he knows it himself and to meet it
with sympathy, comprehension and response - relaxing, revivifying,
restraining, applauding, reinforcing, encouraging, quieting or thrilling
as his need may be. She must realize that her love and admiration are
really the psychic basis of the whole relation. The ideal of the man
must be to manifest a glorious strength, and passion, held, as a rider
would hold a mettled stallion, under an equally glorious control - to
prove himself as skillful and chivalrous as heroic. Thus each will be
irradiated by the glowing admiration of the other, which is the highest
bliss of love.
Probably the most untellably delightful of all human sensations is to
touch the flesh of a perfectly mated lover, where the soul is innocent,
the heart satisfied, and the magnetic currents seem divinely strong.
There is so much, so much,
In human touch!
Always in the sexual life there should be cleanness - that innocence,
kindness, justice of feeling which instinctively prefers any sacrifice
of immediate passional pleasure rather than befoul or degrade a high
ideal, or to jeopardize the physical or spiritual health of the beloved,
or of self, or of the tenderly considered, possible unborn.
Cleanness expresses itself in a reverent regard and considerate
self-control at all times, concerning all things, thoughts, motions and
relations of sex, and the conscientious use of all organs and functions
in the service of the soul's ideal.
The clean may be mistaken, but whatever they do they cannot be impure.
Sex is very close to soul. Whoso touches sex touches the secrets and
centers of life. This is the Mid-Spot, the Origin, the Crux, the
Mystery. In sex the soul is naked. At the contacts of sex the soul
trembles, quivers, is shaken to its midmost. The voice of sex, in its
power, is as the voice of God - the most imperious and
certain-to-be-obeyed call known in Nature or to man.
Sex, soul, religion, morality, are not to be separated. They belong
together. The first reverence we detect in Nature is that of the male
for the female, of offspring for mother. There is fear elsewhere, but
here are mysterious adumbrations and blendings of attraction, adoration,
worshipful obedience and withdrawing respect. Sex-religion was the first
religion of man and we shall never get back again to true religion until
we again see God in His creative motions and worship and reverence the
soul in flesh.
Sincerity, seriousness, cleanness, generosity and liberty in sex are the
foundations of morality. Where these are found we have genuine love,
true relations, open souls, fearless hearts, fragrant bodies, healthy
children, happy mothers, a society everywhere honest, free and kind.
Where these or any of them are lacking, society rots, lies fester, men
exist by crime, and shame broods like a cloud.
The agitation of the youth who blushes, trembles and stammers before the
woman he loves; of the girl who melts in his arms, not daring to lift
her eyes, dumb, soul-shaken, overcome by the mystery of her being and
emotions - these reveal by signs ineffable the sacred seriousness of
sex.
For all finer natures, sex relations are only satisfying when touched by
moral and religious emotion - when they are serious - when they involve
the depths - when they inspire to the heights.
When sex feels sacred in the use it gives a divine innocence to the
moment, a satisfying sweetness of recollection in the memory.
Sex is only satisfying where it is absolutely free, in a liberty made
new and genuine by glad, mutual consent at every moment of its being.
Sex only satisfies when on both sides there are kindness, innocence,
consideration - a love that is goodness in expression, that gives and
blesses.
Sex only satisfies the finer natures when it unites souls, not merely
copulates bodies for a thrill.
An atmosphere of frivolity, recklessness, mere hedonism and indulgence
about sex, invariably reacts in disgust — the conscience instantly
stamps this as "sin."
Sex having two offices - to unite souls and propagate bodies - there are
for these offices two unions - Karezza-union for the deeper love,
orgasmal-union for physical begetting. Do not make the mistake of using
the latter for the former.
But sex is also like a food, and sexual contact with vital magnetic
exchange at certain not-too-long intervals, varying with different
temperaments, conditions and times of life, seems necessary for health
and satisfying living and is also a perfectly valid and justifying
reason for sexual embraces and caresses, even where there is only
innocent need on one side and tender kindness on the other, or where on
both sides there is only need and kindness. There is biological reason
to suppose that the function of sex to mysteriously feed and rejuvenate
is its oldest and perhaps most essential function, antedating its
reproductive function a long, long time.
Starting then from the beginning, the functions of sex may be read as
three:
of catalysis) and a mysterious generation, interchange and mutual
exchange of subtle processes and forces.
spiritual-companionship, mental-inspiration.
In all its normal aspects sex is creative and uniting, kind and
life-giving in function.
Unless we recognize that sex is spiritual as well as physical, we shall
not understand how it is the great agent of love. For love is the
uniting principle in the universe, and as all things have their
opposites, that which reconciles and at-ones them, marries them, is that
which we term sex. In the physical organs of male and female, sex is
objectified in fixed forms, but this in only one example, and a very
small one, of sex. These organs relate peculiarly to physical union and
reproduction, but when we come to consider all the various ways in which
sex unites and reproduces we find no limitations to these tools. On the
contrary, the "duality" which philosophers constantly recognize in
Nature is nothing but the larger sex-relation and interaction. All
chemical attractions and repulsions, all electrical, are sexual. But we
shall not understand this at all if we think always of men and women as
such, or of physical males and females when we say sex.
Physical sex-forms are often very deceptive. Some women are more
masculine than the average man, and vice versa, which accounts for much
of the phenomena of homosexuality. In all deep-seated friendships
between those of the same external sex it will be observed that
spiritually one represents the masculine element, one the feminine. And
masculine women normally love and marry feminine men. And when such come
together, while his physical sex is male and hers female, so that
physically he may impregnate her, she is spiritually male and may
spiritually impregnate him and beget spiritual children in his brain and
soul (that is, thoughts, ideals, purposes, emotions) that change and
rule his whole character.
But the complexity by no means stops here. Each person is dual in sex,
both in body and in each organ and part. We still remember our divine
ancestry, still are androgyne and hermaphrodite. And this is not only
so, but it is variably, changeably so. Sex alternates and plays through
us all the time, partly involuntarily, partly as we will it. It varies
even with difference in weather, food, fatigue, health, and all external
impressions and internal evolutions. Thus one listening to an argument
may be altogether negative, receptive, feminine in mind, till some word
or thought changes the mood, and then, instantly, positive, projective,
masculine - this change of mental sex possible, in the same person of
either physical sex, within a few moments of time.
This has a very practical relation to Karezza. In its long, blending,
intimate embrace of body and soul a great deal more than the more
obvious sex-organs and functions are concerned. A similar sexual
interchange takes place between all corresponding parts of body and
mind, every function and every thought. Thus while her pelvis may be
feminine to his, her bosom may be masculine to his breast; his hands may
be more masculine than hers, but her mouth and tongue more positive than
his. His intellect may be dominatingly masculine to her mind and yet in
emotion and feeling she may control. And this may at any moment be all
reversed. And this may be true not only of regions, but of small parts
of regions, single muscles or nerves in one being masculine or feminine,
according to health or stimulus, without regard to the possibly opposite
condition of the surrounding parts. So of every thought, emotion or
word. Could anyone view the two lovers physically, I fancy he would see
streams of sex-force flowing from each to the other from every part,
eagerly received, drunk up and returned, till it would be hard to tell
which one was the most masculine or feminine. If the streams of
magnetism were objectified to the eye, they would appear like filaments,
making the two forms appear to be literally sewn and tied, netted and
interwoven together by innumerable millions of little threads of
electrical love and commerce. No wonder love is called "attachment."
But more than this - an unconscious change of mood or thought, or a
conscious effort of the will, can reverse the sex of any part and make
that instantly feminine which before was masculine, or turn feminine to
masculine. This may be done skillfully and with delightful effect by
those trained in sex-expression. The sexual motions and magnetisms, the
touch of the skin, of the hands, the glance of the eyes, the kiss of the
lips, the tones of the voice, all these can be instantly reversed from a
tender, yielding, clinging, drawing, appealing receptiveness to a bold,
positive, thrilling bestowal of vital force. It is plain, then, that the
more points on which two lovers are unlike, yet capable of easy and
loving exchange, the greater their capacity to give each other joy.
Those who aspire to sexual genius and mastership should take deep note
of this, for it is very important: One's power to give sexual joy and
satisfaction depends upon one's power to give one's partner a cup for
every stream and a drink for every thirst - in other words, to give
sex-force where the partner's desire is to receive, and to receive
sex-force where the partner desires to give. All this can be learned and
acquired, just as other controls and other self-directions can be
acquired. It is simply tact and adaptation in the realm of sex. The
woman who can be sweet, yielding, tender, receptive to the man when he
is sexually virile and strong, and motherly, helpful, executive, when he
is dispirited and weak, has vastly more sexual charm than one who can
only be timid and passive, or who is always assertive and manlike. And
the more easily and skillfully these changes can be made in the same
embrace, to meet differing moods, exercise different desires, and to
prevent monotony, the longer the embrace can continue, the greater its
benefits and joy. Karezza is exactly like music - it may be only a rude
monotonous rhythm, or mere chant or refrain, or it can attain any
perfection of harmonic or symphonic complexity and execution. The
character and individuality of the players, their natural genius or
"ear" for the changes, and their acquired experience and skill being the
determining factors, together with the quality and "tune" of the
instruments themselves. Genius in sexual expression is just as normal
and certain of occurrence as any other, and some day artists in love
will be known and recognized as such — nay, even today, under all our
incubus of repression and Grundyism, they are known and admired.
And it will be recognized that the sexual organism, strung with its
vibrating and, delicate nerves, is an instrument more perfect than any
violin or harp, capable of as exquisite harmonies under the touch of a
master. Yet, even as the perfect music is not that which the mere
perfection of technique produces, but that into which the true artist
breathes his passion and his life, so it is with sex. It is not simply
the man of training, the one who knows how, but the man who loves his
instrument, and throws the passion and enthusiasm of his soul into the
expression, who elicits the divine melody.
All art demands the lover, and sex-art is the art of the lover.
I believe that sex runs through all life, animal and vegetable - perhaps
through the inorganic world also. And that the sexes are cannibals,
feeding on each other - the sexes are food to each other.
I believe that both sexes are in the simplest uni-cell. That,
afterwards, as life evolves, there is a tendency to a division of
labor - to separate the sexes into two persons, but that always the two
sexes are more or less in one - always the male is part female, the
female part male in varying degrees of more or less.
I believe that the processes of life require as an essential a frequent,
if not constant, interchange of maleness with femaleness. I believe this
takes place within the organism constantly and in proportion to its
perfection there is beauty and health. In every cell there is this
interchange, and between different cells of the organism there is such
an exchange.
But just as in-and-in breeding finally "runs out" the strain, and leads
to deterioration, so in-and-in exchange of maleness and femaleness -
really the same thing - leads to deterioration at last, though many
things may assist to delay and postpone the process - change in
nourishment, in environment, etc.
Therefore the maleness of one person needs exchange with the femaleness
of some other person; the femaleness of one with the maleness of
another.
Homosexuality bases partly on the fact that this exchange may be
effected, with more or less satisfaction, sometimes, with persons of the
same sex (who, as both sexes are in one, are more or less persons of the
opposite sex also) but this too is a form of in-and-in exchange,
therefore the normal and best exchange is with persons whose sex is
visibly and predominantly opposite to one's own. Man normally goes to
woman, woman to man. And even here very opposite temperaments are
usually preferred, the smooth by the hairy, the red-headed by the
black-haired, the fat, by the lean, etc., because these have existed
under very different environments, have fed on different nourishment,
which they exchange through sex, and, so still further put away
in-and-in exchange and complement each other's lacks - Nature always
seeking an equilibrium and redistribution of elements in alternation.
This exchange and mutual feeding can be effected in any way in which the
sexes can come into each other's aura, but it is most easily effected by
touch, and most perfectly by the complete union of Karezza. The sexual
orgasm having an entirely different purpose, that is, not the
nourishment of the two individuals concerned, but the transmission of
life and nourishment to another, a new and third organism starting from
these two, tends rather to defeat and prevent the nourishment of the
two, and is normally limited, usually, to propagation. To indulge in the
orgasm frequently, as a mere pleasure and indulgence, is to create a
vice - salacity.
I do not pretend to know what this sexual food is. We may theorise that
it is a "flux of electrons," a "current of corpuscles," "hormones," or
what not - who knows? - but its effects we may see. The thrill, the
vigor, the brilliancy, the glow of lovers; the "illusion," the
"glamour," the "romance" of love we all know. This means swift exchange
and joyous feasting. Suppose we call this food the Elixir of Life?
But the mere suggestion of this sexual exchange seems to marvelously
quicken and benefit even the inward in-and-in exchanges. Thus reading a
love letter, or a love story, handling a keepsake, thinking of a lover,
and a thousand other such things, may benefit the whole being by sex
suggestion.
There are those who claim that the cells of the animal organism go to
seed and that each one of these little molecules, or corpuscles, go to
the ova or spermatozoa to represent that cell in the new organism to be
formed by reproduction, so that the essence of everything in the parent
organism may be in the offspring. And there are Karezza-ites who explain
the thrill and exhilaration of Karezza by claiming that during its
exercise these vital seed-elements, not being thrown off by an orgasm,
are thrown, instead, into the circulation again and become a nerve food
and cell-elixir; perhaps leading to the return to the germ or sperm of
new seed-elements more vivified and electric than before. And that this
explains why the mere autosuggestion of love, above alluded to, if
intense enough, by somewhat the same process, seems to vitalize like
Karezza.
This may not ultimately prove scientific, but I am inclined to accept it
and reconcile it with the preceding - to believe that love is a process
of self-feeding and redistribution of elements within the organism as
well as of mutual feeding and exchange between lovers.
And I believe that all human love that naturally seeks expression in
embracing is, at least largely, moved by and based upon this human need
of vital exchange and sexual rejuvenation.
Moreover, morally, we need to recognize that this desire of the sexes
for hugging, kissing, caressing, contact, closeness and the most
pressing and intimate touch, is not vicious or suspicious, but a
physiological, a food desire. One needs meats of sexual touch, just as
one needs meals of food, only not so often. The fullest life cannot be
lived without them. However, there can be sexual gluttony, just as there
can be food gluttony. And there can be foul, poisonous, unhealthy sexual
touches and contacts, just as there can be poisonous, foul, unhealthy
viands. Intelligence, selection, self-control, refinement, hygienic
wisdom and education, and a sensitive conscience, are needed with both.
But neither should be regarded from the attitude of prejudice or mere
sentiment, or convention, but from that of science, common sense and the
ideal.
The sexual elixir, essence, magnetism, whatever it is, in the human
blood, is the true natural stimulant and joy-giver of life. It is this
that gives the "illusion," the "glamour," the romance," the "blindness,"
the "madness," the "thrill," and all the rest of which the lore of love
tells us. All other stimulants are artificial - this one is absolutely
natural; all other stimulants are poisons - this one is food; all others
have reactions, are finally narcotics and depressants - this one has no
reactions; reaction only appears in its absence, when it is lost or
wasted.
It is courage, wit, sparkle, radiance, imagination, high spirits,
enthusiasm, creative-passion, religious fervor - everything that lifts
life above the clod and the monotonous levels. It is the inspiration,
directly or indirectly, of almost every poem, song, painting, or other
work of art. It has led more men to battle than any bugle note or
national peril. It is the great kindler and sustainer of ideals.
Very few understand this or realize it sufficiently. It is commonly
observed how lovers glow and radiate and move in an enchanted world; but
this is all attributed to love itself. On the contrary, it is the wine
of sex that gives love its enchantment and divine dreams. This is easily
proven by giving lovers unrestricted license to express their
transports. No sooner have they wasted the wine of sex by reckless
embraces - often a single orgasm will thus temporarily demagnetize the
man - though they love each other just the same, as they will each
stoutly assert - the irresistible attraction and radiance and magnetic
thrills are gone, and there is a strange drop into cool, critical
intellection or indifference, or perhaps dislike. But as the wine of sex
reaccumulates and lifts again in the glass, the old magic and charm
reappear.
And in this is a clear natural lesson as to the inestimable value of
this elixir in human life and in the ethics of the love-life itself. The
one thing that makes life worth living is not its cold facts, but the
romantic glow and glamour with which a vivid and kindled imagination
invests them, and any manner of conducting the love-life which can
create and maintain this zest and charm at its highest is clearly the
ethical one. Ascetics, perceiving only that the sex forces give
inspiration and that orgasms waste them, and wrongly arguing that in sex
life sexual waste is inevitable, teach that the sexes should avoid each
other and turn all sex forces into channels of ambition, public service,
religion, etc. This is like telling a man that he should give all his
money for the public good, but should avoid earning any; fails to
recognize that it takes sexual consciousness, sexual association to
develop sexual force. Others, going a step further, getting a glimmer of
this last, urge that the sexes associate, but Platonically only. These
fail to see that to hold a delicious cup constantly to the lips of a
thirsty man and yet forbid him to drink, is to waste his force in
needless cravings and foolish battles to subdue them and finally usually
ends in failure and a sickening sense of guilt.
On the other hand, to have frequent orgasmal embraces, as most married
lovers do, is to keep the wine in the sexual lovers low by constant
spilling, to thus kill all romance and delight and finally starve and
tire out love itself.
Here comes in the application and immense value of Karezza. It is
perfect self-control, and yet, once understood and rightly practiced, it
is such a perfect and complete satisfaction to all the nerves and
appetites concerned that all sense of denial or restriction is lost in
one of higher, larger, sweeter expression. It brews and fills every
vessel with the sexual wine of ambition, charm, enchantment, as nothing
else can, and maintains it steadily at a high tide, preventing all
losses by preventing all reaction, thus making life continuous romance,
genius and joy.
It avoids alike the waste of starvation and the waste of excess, the
wastefulness of self-torture and self-battle to overcome a perfectly
natural and wholesome hunger for sexual contact and closeness - it not
only avoids all these wastes, it cultivates the grape and presses the
wine into the cup of life which is alone capable of giving man normal
inspiration and poetic happiness.
Whoso would succeed with Karezza must begin with the mental and
spiritual values. Both the man and the woman, and perhaps especially the
woman, must resolve that they do not wish the orgasm - that there is a
greater spiritual and physical unity and emotional bliss to be obtained
without it, besides the sense of safety. This must be the fixed thought
and ideal of Karezza.
If you are novices, choose a time when you can both be all alone,
unhurried and free from interruptions. Concentrate yourselves entirely
on your love and joy and the blending of yourselves into one.
Let the room be warm, the surroundings pleasant and esthetic; and be as
unhampered by clothing as possible. Let both of you think more about
your love than your passion; translate your sex-passion as much as
possible into heart-passion; be sensitively alive to the charm of each
other's forms, tones, touch and fragrances; let the thought of mutual
tenderness and blessing never leave you for an instant, and make
everything that you do and say and feel and think religious in its
purity, idealism, aspiration. If you do not come nearer heaven in this
act and relation, than in anything else you do or ever will do, you fail
of perfect Karezza.
Let your embrace be music and a living poem.
Now to you, the man, I speak: Lie down beside your partner and begin to
caress her gently with the softness of your hands and fingertips. Tell
her to relax herself and lie utterly passive. Tell her to yield herself
to the bliss of utter peace and realization. Tell her that you love her
and that your whole being longs for entire unity with her. Remember that
you cannot use the word "love" too often. She will never tire of it and
it is your watchword. Be to her an incarnate blessing. Try to convey God
to her.
As your hands caress her, tell her how beautiful her features are to
you - her brow, her hair, her lips, her throat - her arms, hands, bosom,
waist, the flowing rounded lines of her limbs. Grow eloquent, poetic in
her praise. The Loved One can never be too much praised or appreciated
by the Lover. Spend plenty of time on these preparatory caresses.
Finally your touch will grow near and you will come to the focus of all,
"the love-flesh" - the Flower. Be tender; be tender, for this is
Holiness itself - the seal of God on the woman's person.
If there is dew and moisture here, a flowing with honey, you may begin -
that is if your own Finger of Love is firm and fit.
Let there be no hurry or thought of rudeness - be tender, be tender!
Have her lie in a straight line, easy, at peace, utterly relaxed and
willing.
Begin, seeing to it that the lips do not enfold to prevent. Be gentle,
tender, steady, steady. Keep your thoughts on love, not passion. Let her
help you by doing the same and murmuring to you, "I love you!" If your
passion threatens to overcome you, pause and sublimate it into
tenderness of love. Feel strong and confident and say, "I can!" Maintain
your own positiveness. Feel yourself stronger than she is, than your
passions are. But above all think of your spiritual love. Let her be
utterly relaxed physically, let her hold the thought of Peace. Yet for
her to hold the thought "I will help him!" would help. Do not worry and
do not mind how long you have to wait before strength and self control
return and you can go on. Finally the stress subsides and you can
continue. If she suffers pain, caress her with your hands, pity her, and
be tender and very sympathetic, but reassure her and go on. She herself
does not wish you to stop or to fail. Reassure and help each other. When
you do finally pass the gates and enter the Hall of the Feast and the
Holy of Holies, the worst of the battle will be over and self-control
much easier. Penetration can now be perfect and complete.
Now let her put her arms around you and sweetly kiss you, but with
heart-love, not yet passion. Pour out your soul to her in extravagance
of out-gushing, poetic love. Praise her with every epithet you can
honestly use. Give her your soul's best, always your best - and call out
the best and purest from her.
At other times - and this is most important - be silent and quiet, but
try to feel yourself a magnetic battery, with the Finger of Love as the
positive pole, and pour out your vital electricity to her and
consciously direct it to her womb, her ovaries, her breasts, lips,
limbs, everywhere filling her in every nerve and fiber with your
magnetism, your life, love, strength, calmness and peace. This attitude
of magnetation is the important thing in Karezza, its secret of sweetest
success. In proportion as you acquire the habit and power of withdrawing
the electric qualities from your sexual stores and giving them out in
blessing to your partner from your sex-organs, hands, lips, skin,
everywhere; from your eyes and the tones of your voice; will you acquire
the power to diffuse and bestow the sex-glory, envelop yourselves in its
halo and aura, and to satisfy yourself and satisfy her without an
orgasm. Soon you will not even think of self-control, because you will
have no desire for the orgasm, nor will she. You will both regard it as
an awkward and interrupting accident. And the practice of Magnetation
will beautify and strengthen every organ in your body that you thus use
to express it, as well as hers. It is the great beautifier. Every look
from your eyes, yes, every touch of your hands, and the tones of your
voice will become vibrant with magnetic charm.
And while you are magnetizing her, try to feel your utter unity with
her. This is the real ideal and end of Karezza. You will finally enter
into such unity that in your fullest embrace you can hardly tell
yourselves apart and can read each other's thoughts. You will feel a
physical unity as if her blood flowed in your veins, her flesh were
yours. For this is the Soul-Blending Embrace.
If any part of her is weak or ill you can direct the magnetic currents
there with the conscious thought of healing.
But this is anticipation and a description of the perfect thing. Perhaps
at first you will have much difficulty and many failures. If while you
are penetrating you feel the orgasm irresistibly approaching, withdraw
entirely, lift yourself a little higher up and have the emission against
her body, while you are pressed close to her warmth and consoling love.
After all is over, wipe all away, carefully, with a convenient cloth,
and be very careful that no drops can reach her entrance. Then repose
quietly by her side, talking tenderly and lovingly. Do not worry — all
will come right - this is only a common accident with beginners and to
be expected - perhaps with the very passionate and fully-sexed, several
times in succession. Remember you are not yet used to each other or in
magnetic rapport. If she is a true woman she will never reproach you,
but will be all patience, sympathy, loyally working with you to attain
the perfect result.
At the end of an hour, not sooner, all discharges having long since
passed and dried up, if you can again feel potent it will be safe to
renew the attempt.[3] Caress her for a while, exactly as at first, and
be sure her nectar-moisture and willingness are as at first. This is
your sign of invitation - of her blissful welcome and Nature's chrism.
If she is dry, you will hurt her. The top having been taken off your
passion by the emission, you will probably, this time, feel less
pressure and be able to easily succeed, but the second testicle may
demand equal privileges and again you may fail. Do exactly as at first
and so continue till you do succeed. Practice makes perfect and "it's
dogged that does it," Thackeray said. Never permit yourself to
contemplate anything but ultimate and ideal success. It is right here,
after one or two failures, that most men give up and declare the whole
thing impossible. Yet it is right here, and after such failures, that
success becomes easiest, because the discharges have lessened the
seminal pressure. If the attempt is renewed just as often as potency can
be renewed, success is certain. Any man can succeed if he will
persevere.
When you have fully acquired the power you will go on from strength to
strength. You will amaze yourself and your partner by what is easily
possible to you. You will be able to make any motion you please, that
anybody can make anywhere, yet with no failures. You can take the most
unusual positions and change places with your partner. You can allow her
to be as active as she pleases, or to have the orgasm herself, if she
greatly desires it, with no danger to your equilibrium. You can continue
the embrace for half an hour, an hour, or even two hours. You can repeat
it twice, or perhaps three times, in twenty-four hours, with no
sensation of excess. And, so on. But keep the spiritual on top,
dominant - loving is the first thing, and at-one-ment in the highest
fruition of your souls, your real end. Sex-passion as an end in itself
will degrade you. Make it a tool of your spirit.
Karezza is the embrace - The Embrace - the most perfect and satisfying
thing in human life, between two mates who truly love. All other
caresses point to this and are unsatisfactory because they are not it.
It is the only embrace for the truly refined and poetic, as an adequate
expression of their insatiable longing to be at one. It is Heaven, on
earth.
The opinion prevails that in Karezza the man does it all and the woman's
co-operation is negligible. This error may have arisen in part from the
old name, "Male Continence," for the method.
On the contrary, her co-operation, or at least acquiescence, is
indispensable, and it is probable that a reckless woman, or one who
deliberately and skillfully seeks to do so, can break the control of the
most expert man in the art.
For instance, very sudden and unexpected leaps, plunges, or contortions
on the woman's part, or wild and abandoned writhings are difficult to
withstand, and there is one particular movement, in which the feminine
organs clasp tenaciously their sensitive guest and then are drawn
suddenly, powerfully backward and downward, which, if executed quickly
and voluptuously enough and repeated, I feel sure must unlock the
strongest man living.
Also where the woman's muscles are tense and she is quivering and
vibrating within with avid hunger almost past control, radiating a
thrilling excitement - to attempt entrance at such a moment almost
certainly means an explosion, though the same condition after
penetration is perfect and a harmonious rapport established, may be
supportable, safe and exquisitely delightful, provided the man's own
will or passion is still stronger.
Karezza should always begin gently. Too intense or excited a condition
on either side, but especially on the woman's side, at the very outset,
militates against success. As a rule the woman, at first, should be in a
state of complete muscular relaxation. Strong passion in her feeling is
not only permissible but excellent, if it is under complete control, if
the muscles are not tensed by it, and if it is wisely and helpfully
wielded. There is a passion which grips and dominates its subject,
greedy, jerky, avid and, as it were, hysterical - like the food-appetite
which bolts its meal. This makes Karezza impossible. But there is
another passion just as strong, or stronger, more consciously
delightful, in which the emotion is luxurious, voluptuous, esthetic,
epicurean, which lingers, dallies, prolongs and appreciates, which is
neither hurried nor excited, and which invites all the joys and virtues
to the feast. This is the passion of true Karezza, especially of the
woman who is perfect in the art. She is then to her lover like music,
like a poem, not like a bacchante or a neurotic.
As a rule the woman's passion, however great, must be subordinated to
the man's. He must feel himself the stronger and more positive of the
two and as controlling the situation. If the woman takes the lead, is
more positive, especially if she assumes this suddenly and unexpectedly,
the result is almost always failure. The woman may rule in the house, in
the business, in the social life, and it may be very well, but in
Karezza the man must be her chief and her hero or the relation leaves
both dissatisfied. In the ordinary, orgasmal, procreative embrace the
woman may dominate and be successful, at least become impregnated,
though her pleasure is usually imperfect, but Karezza is a different
matter. And this is because in Karezza the woman is happy in proportion
to her fulfilled femininity, the man in proportion to his realized
masculinity, and each happy in realizing this in the intimate touch of
the other.
There is a physical help which the woman may render at the very outset
which is important. It often happens at the beginning of penetration
that the labia, one or both of them, are infolded, or pushed in, acting
as an impediment and lessening pleasure or causing a disagreeable
sensation. If the woman, before penetration begins, will, with her
fingers, reach in and open wide the lips, drawing them upward and
outward the fullest extent, she will greatly facilitate entrance, and if
she will several times repeat this during the Karezza, each time drawing
the inner labia outward, while her partner presses inward, it will be
found greatly to increase the contact surface and conscious enjoyment,
giving a greater sense of ease and attainment.
If a woman by intuitional genius or acquired skill does the right thing,
her passion is a food and a stimulus to the man, filling him with a
triumphant pride. He is lifted, as it were, by a deep tide, on which he
floats buoyantly and exultantly, like a seabird on a wave. Under such
conditions both parties become exalted by an enthusiasm approaching
ecstasy, a feeling of glorious power and perfect safety no words can
adequately describe. And this, I insist, depends mainly on the woman.
Under such conditions of realized power and ability almost any
movements, on either side, are possible, provided they are ordinary,
expected, and carrying a sort of rhythm. Remember that Karezza is, in
its way, a form of the dance. But no movement should be too often
repeated without a break. Change is in every way pleasing and desirable.
Steady repetition excites to the orgasm, or tires, satiates, chafes or
bruises. No movement at any time should be jerky or unexpectedly sudden.
Lawless, nervous, unregulated flouncings and wrigglings should be barred
as from a waltz. They properly belong to epileptic states of the
orgasmal embrace, and for that very reason have no place in Karezza,
which is the opposite. There should be often, long, tender, restful
pauses - alternations of "storm and peace," as one woman happily phrased
it - and in many cases the whole embrace may most helpfully be very
quiet. This part should be decided by the woman and as she wishes it.
The mental attitude and atmosphere and the words of the woman are of
inestimable importance. As before said, she must hold the thought that
she does not wish or will the orgasm and that she will help the man to
avoid it. She should feel calm, strong, confident, safe and pure. At
such a time a sensitive man will almost know her thoughts and
participate in her emotions, and her sub-consciousness, and his, affect
each other like mingling streams. Nervousness, doubt, remorse,
suspicion, irritation, guilt, coldness, repulsion or blame may make him
impotent for the time. Too tense or avid a passion may do the same, or
pull the trigger of discharge. Her attitude should always, consistently,
be one of encouragement. The sudden, perhaps sub-conscious fear that the
woman is expecting more than he can give, and will blame him if he fail,
often quite destroys a sensitive man's courage and makes temporary
impotence or an emission inevitable, where admiration and approval could
develop a sexual hero. Nothing else can possibly help a man so much as
to feel all around him the glow of his loved one's loving admiration and
trust, her comfort, satisfaction and confidence. Her praise is iron and
wine to him.
She need not say much, but if there are few words they must be eloquent.
Some women make little, inarticulate musical sounds of applause and joy.
Any way she must make him understand, and the chief thing to understand
is that the love-side is of a thousand times more importance to her than
the sex-side - and this especially if, for the time, he has failed.
There is probably no place in the love-life where an attitude and effort
of generous love - a soul-cry of "I will help him! I will praise him! I
will love him!" will return so much in personal profit and pleasure to
the woman as right here.
The woman must feel innocent - that she is doing right. To accept an
embrace under conditions of moral self-reproach may sicken a sensitive
partner as well as herself, and cause him genital injury.
Remember that Karezza is passionate emotion guided by the intellect and
sweetened by the sanction of the soul. It is an art and belongs to the
world of the beautiful. It is because it is so controlled and sanctioned
that it appeals so to the higher minds - the noble, the poetic and the
refined. Exactly as music and poetry exploit some emotional episode in
beautiful detail of rhythmic expression long drawn out, so Karezza
exploits, in the rhythmic, changeful figures of a clinging dance, the
beauty and bliss of the sexual episode.
Karezza is the art of love in its perfect flower, its fulfillment of the
ideal dream.
The desire of a woman is seldom so comparatively constant and steady as
with a man, but fickle and variable, often latent, though the practice
in Karezza tends to equalize the sexes in this, but there are times
when, from various reasons, a wave of intense craving suddenly sweeps
over her. Particularly is this likely to happen just before the
appearance of the menses. And at such times the woman's desire is very
likely to exceed in wild, fiery force that of an ordinary man. Wherefore
it follows that very few women at such times get complete satisfaction,
leading to great disappointments and marital unhappiness. The unexpected
violence of the woman's emotion, upsets the man's nerves and causes
either a "too quick" orgasm, or complete psychic impotence.
Now I think the Karezza-man seldom has any difficulty with the woman
whose desire he has himself aroused by caresses and wooing. But when the
desire arises spontaneously in her, her natural tendency appears to be
to abandon herself to it, to abdicate all self-control, forget
everything else and recklessly, fiercely, almost madly demand sensual
gratification. This attitude is a very difficult one indeed for the
Karezza-lover to meet, because just in proportion to his fineness,
sensitiveness and real fitness to be a Karezza artist is his
susceptibility, almost to telepathy, to the woman's moods. If he meets
her on her own plane, the orgasm cannot be refused, while if he
struggles against her for his Karezza ideal, he is almost certain in the
conflict either to lose his poise or to become impotent. This is because
this wild desire on her part is normally related to reproduction and is
intended by Nature to overcome any male scruples and lead to an
immediate embrace and swift orgasm, followed by conception. If, however,
the woman wills to have it met on the Karezza plane, and converted into
an esthetic love-embrace, then she herself must take the initiative and
put it on that plane. She must begin the process by getting an inclusive
grip on herself, relaxing her tense muscles and steadying her quivering
nerves. And no longer concentrating altogether on the sexual, she must
sublimate a portion of her passion into heart-love, into a tender desire
to encourage her lover and assist him to complete success. The man,
whose nerves have been thrown into agitation by her ungoverned attitude
and thrilling vibrations, will recover courage and assurance the moment
he senses the aid of her self-control, and his proud power will return
when her eyes turn admiringly upon him and her tone and her touch give
him her confidence and the cooperating support of her strength.
The wise woman, skillful and trained in her art, will thus beautifully
control herself until the man has attained complete and deepest union
with her, and the blending current of their mutual magnetism is smoothly
running, and then will gradually, as he can bear it, turn on her
batteries full strength, reinforcing and redoubling his, till all need
of restraint disappears and she may let herself go to her uttermost of
bliss and expression, to the limit of complete satiety.
No other time affords an embrace so completely satisfying to the woman
as this, so full of joy to both, capable of reaching such heights of
ecstasy, but to realize this she must understand that it is up to her to
furnish her full half or more in skillful assistance and magnetic
contribution. A woman should be ashamed to expect the man alone to be
the Karezza-artist. She should take pride in her own superb sex-power,
the poetry of her rhythms, the artistry of her acts. She should have an
exulting delight in proving herself worthy of his adoration as the Queen
of Love.
And always this should be remembered: The more heart-love the more
sex-joy.
A lady physician of my acquaintance thinks that a woman would be left
congested in her sexual organs, probably, by Karezza, did she not have
the orgasm, and the result would finally be disease.
I have not found it so in practice, and the criticism would almost
appear to have come from one who had not known Karezza in its perfect
form. If valid, it would apply to the man as well and would destroy all
force of the case for Karezza for either sex, which is far from what my
critic desires.
In Dr. Max Huner's Disorders of the Sexual System, a work in which the
woman's need of the orgasm is strongly insisted on, I find these
significant words: "'Whenever a woman states that she remains dry after
coitus it generally means a lack of orgasm." In other words, it is very
common in the ordinary orgasmal embrace, for the man to have an orgasm
in a few moments and depart, leaving the woman entirely unsatisfied in
every way. The ordinary husband-and-wife embrace, anyway, is purely
sexual, and based on his demand to get rid of a surplus. There is little
or no thought to make it esthetic or affectional - it is merely animal.
If the husband stays long enough and excites his wife sufficiently to
have an orgasm, then she has a gushing out of fluids that relieves the
congestion brought on by his approaches, and on the physical plane, at
least, she is relieved and satisfied, the same as he. If not, "she
remains dry." Her moisture or dryness, then, are a pretty good index of
her physical satisfaction and relief of congestion, or the reverse.
But what happens in Karezza? Here, if she really loves her partner, her
whole nature is attuned to his, in delicious docility, expectation and
rapport. Every nerve vibrates in sweet gratitude and response to his
touch. There is a marvelously sweet blending and reconciliation of the
voluptuous and the spiritual that satisfies both her body and her soul
at once and makes her exquisitely sensitive to everything poetic or
esthetic in his acts. In this state, when interrelation has been
successfully established and his magnetism is flowing through her every
fiber, uniting them as one, such a heavenly ecstasy of peace, love and
happiness possesses her that she "melts" (there is no other word for
it), her whole being wishes to join with his, and though there is no
orgasm in the ordinary definition of the word yet her fluids gush out in
an exactly similar manner and all possible congestion is utterly and
completely relieved. Not only is this true of the mucus membranes, but
the outer skin also is bathed in a sweet sweat. Indeed I consider mutual
perspiration as very desirable, if not almost indispensable to the most
perfect magnetation, as the moist bodies in loving contact seem to
communicate the magnetic, electric currents so much more effectually
then.
Rest assured that no woman who has known Karezza in its ideal, its
"Heaven" and "Peace" form, remains dry, nor is she left with any trace
of congestion, or restlessness. On the contrary, she often sinks into a
blissful slumber in the very midst of the embrace, just after its
sweetest delights.
In truth I have often thought that a very plausible argument might be
advanced for the claim that in Karezza the woman really did have an
orgasm, only in such a very gradual form, spread over so long a time,
and so sweetly sublimated and exalted in love, that the usual symptoms
did not appear or were unrecognized as such.
One who has read the preceding wishes to know why I have said nothing
concerning the woman's shock when the man has a failure and is compelled
to withdraw.
Perhaps it would be well to consider this, for it is quite true that in
some cases the woman feels nervously shocked when the man has to
suddenly stop everything and come away. Indeed, in some cases she
becomes furiously angry and upbraids him bitterly, and in others is
sullen, or cold, or dully depressed. She may have backache, or headache
as a consequence.
But the thing all should know is that many women never feel this way at
all, but accept the man's failure with a tender amiability and sympathy
for him, and carry the whole thing off so sweetly and lovingly that it
is clearly seen to be the trivial accident which it truly is. These do
not seem to be shocked, or to suffer, and soon restore and woo the lover
back to his normal passion and ability, thus helping themselves as much
as him.
Now the cause and remedy here can be instantly revealed if we remember
that in Karezza all hinges on love. Karezza is easy and successful just
in proportion to the abundance of mutual love - hard and difficult just
in proportion as mere sex-craving dominates love. If the woman loves her
mate so much that his mere presence, voice, touch, are a heaven of joy
to her, so much that the sex-relation is only an adjunct and she could
be happy if entirely without it, then, by a sort of paradox, not only
does she enjoy it twice as exquisitely as her merely sex-craving sister,
but can let it go at any moment without a pang. On the other hand the
more the man rises above mere sex-hunger in delicious perfection of
romantic love, the more easy and natural and effortless becomes
Karezza-control, and the less likely is he to have a failure; and the
more the woman loves him, almost to forgetting of sex, the more she
assists him to be perfect in sex-power and control, while the less she
cares if he does fail. In every way and on every side, absence of love,
or a break in the tender stream of romantic rapport and adoration and
soul-blending, makes the mechanical technique of Karezza difficult,
awkward, unsatisfactory or impossible.
Remember this: If a woman does not love her man with heart or soul, or
at least an innocent sense of need that arouses in her a tender
gratitude for his service, but merely craves sex-sensation, her avid and
animal passion, sensed by his sexual nerves on contact, will arouse in
him a lust as soulless as her own, or will render him impotent, or will
give him an initial power and then demand so imperiously of his centers
that denial and control will be impossible and helplessly he will fail.
Just so if he comes to her only for her sex, not in tender love or
sympathy, he will find he cannot hold.
It is the predominance of the finer emotions, the capture of the body by
the soul and the joyous devotion of every function to that dear service,
that alone renders Karezza easy and divinely satisfying.
The woman who is shocked in this case is one who loves less than she
should; the shock is disappointment of sex-craving, and when she
embraces a man whom she loves more than sensation she will never feel
it.
This book would be incomplete were I to make no mention of that sudden
and mysterious loss of erectile power which sometimes befalls men.
Perhaps there are few men who do not know the secret dread of some day
becoming impotent.
I remember a champion athlete - a magnificent man physically -
confessing to me that he was afraid to marry, fearing that he would not
be able to satisfy his wife. And perhaps the earliest sexual story that
I remember was that of a soldier, in the time of the Civil War, who by a
sudden and natural motion lost his power, which no effort of himself or
his mistress could restore. All my life such tales have come to me.
Tragic tales, some of them, as where a spiteful woman overwhelmed her
helpless lover with shame and reproach; where divorce was demanded for
this cause; where a marriage between two devoted lovers remained
unconsummated to the end, the husband dying in a few years, perhaps of a
broken heart. These and many others. Who has not heard of the pitiful
case of Carlyle and his Jane Welsh, as told by Froude? And it has been
hinted that the same cause lay back of Ruskin's beautiful surrender of
his wife to the artist Millais, and of the relation of Swift to his
Stella and Vanessa.
The mystery of this thing lies in its suddenness and unaccountability.
No wonder that in the superstitious it has suggested witchcraft. If it
came only to cowards, to weaklings, to the sterile, to bashful boys and
inexperienced lovers, it would not be so strange. But precisely these
may never be troubled by it, while a Don Juan of experience and proud
list of conquests; a hero of courage; or a Titan of genius, whose virile
mind dominates his time, may suddenly be stricken by it, perhaps blasted
for life. It may occur with one woman and not with another, at one time
and not another, or it may appear permanent and incurable.
The very worst of it is the mental effect upon the victim. For ages the
man human has dreaded to be called "impotent." His manly power is the
dearest attribute of man. There are no words to describe the agony, the
shame, the bitter self-reproach, the helplessness, the awful despair;
that may overwhelm an innocent, loving and otherwise perfect man when
the fear comes upon him that his virility has left him and that he may
perhaps always disappoint and appear a weakling in the eyes of the woman
whose embraces may be dearer and more desired than aught else in life.
Just as nothing else gives a man such pride, courage, inspiration and
exaltation as to be able to perfectly embrace and satisfy the woman he
loves, so nothing else has such power to crush, sadden, sicken and
embitter a man as sexual failure. It drives many and many a man to
solitude, old-bachelorhood, misanthropy, misogyny, insanity or suicide.
How much of the bitterness and gall of Carlyle's writings may have come
from this and the agony of his volcanic and morbid soul under its
torture, who can tell?
Now because of the sufferings of my sex from this cause and,
incidentally, of the women who love them, I have written this chapter.
And it is because I wish to speak a helping word that I preface it with
the frank confession (which I would otherwise dread to make) that I have
myself, at different times and places, suffered enough from this nervous
inability to give me a vivid glimpse of its tortures and a true sympathy
with its victims. Even a very few and fleeting experiences can do this.
Therefore I have studied it, with a personal as well as general
interest. And believe my conclusions are of value.
And first I want to correct many common misconceptions. Psychic
impotence, though of course not normal, is not pathologic. It is not a
proof of ill health. It is not an evidence of weakness, even of sexual
weakness. I speak positively when I say that the man completely impotent
at night may be absolutely potent in the morning, or vice versa, the man
who fails with one woman may within the hour be a marvel of manly power
with another. It is not a proof of a lack of love but often of the
opposite. It is not in the least an evidence of sterility. A man quite
sterile may have no trace of psychic impotence and the man troubled by
it may be most virile. I knew a man who completely failed with his wife
for some nine or ten months after marriage, who finally became the
father of four children and is now a grandfather. It is not a proof of
inexperience, for it may occur at any time to any man, after any number
of years' experience. Thus Forel says: It is often produced suddenly at
the time of marriage in persons who have hitherto been very capable,
even in Don Juans." I knew a widower, the father of two children, who
married a second time, found himself impotent and never overcame it with
that woman. At the time of his death, his wife, though she had been that
for years (and their life otherwise was most loving) was still a virgin.
So let no man shame himself for this thing, and let no woman despise her
lover for it.
Whatever it is, it depends nearly always upon the action and reaction of
the two natures brought together upon each other when in a state of
sexual nervousness, or upon some strong mental or subjective impression,
checking or diverting the normal nerve stimulus which causes the potent
expression of manly power. Thus even with those already in successful
embrace, a keenly enjoyed joke, a startling sound from without, an
argument, an angry word, or a preoccupying conversation, may suddenly
and completely cut off the current.
But usually it seems to arise from autosuggestion, or from some
suggestions derived, unconsciously or consciously, from the woman. I say
"unconsciously" because I am persuaded that there is much that passes
between two lovers of which their brains and conscious egos know
nothing. I am inclined to believe that there is a telepathy and
clairvoyance between their subjective minds and even between their
sexual systems of which their consciousness takes no note. I am
satisfied that the sexual nature of the woman may love a man when her
mind is convinced that she does not love him - that her sex may desire
him while her heart refuses. She may feel an almost irresistible impulse
to yield herself to a man whom her soul fears and loathes. Or she may
love a man mentally, spiritually, even with a heart-love, to whom her
sex is cold and indifferent. Human life is nowadays very complex.
And this is why it is that the most sensitive, refined, intuitive men
are the most likely to suffer from psychic impotence. The coarse,
sensual, selfish man, concerned only with his own passions and their
glut, is little likely to feel it. The man who asks only opportunity,
not consent, the man who can rape, is safe from it. But the man who
reverences womanhood, the man who adores his mistress, the man deeply
and passionately in love, so that every thought and suggestion from his
loved one sways him like a compelling power, is easily overcome. We must
remember that there is probably no time when a strong man is so utterly
suggestible as when he is completely in love. His whole nature is then
melted, sensitive, impressible (especially by Her) to a degree otherwise
impossible with him.
This is why usually coarse men temporarily exalted by a great love may
spend a whole evening in the close companionship of a beloved and
reverenced woman and never consciously think of sex. This is why a man
hitherto perfectly successful with prostitutes and voluptuous women (who
appeal only to sex-passion) when he comes to the bridal-bed with some
shrinking and nervous and spiritual girl, who knows nothing of sex and
to whom the heart love is everything, may suddenly find his sex efforts
imperfect. The very nervousness and fright of his companion, her
ignorance, her excitement, her dread of the unknown thing about to
happen, all this may react on a man and quite unnerve him, and all the
more in proportion to his real love for and rapport with her. Often at
such a time the excitement, fatigue and dread of the girl have taken
away all sex desire from her and she only fears being hurt, and this sex
negativeness may infect her lover subconsciously and demagnetize him.
Even where the beginning is all right a single cry of pain from the
bride may unman the groom. How can he go on and hurt her!
A woman should know that impotence is often the greatest proof a man can
offer of the depth, purity and spirituality of his love for her, of his
tenderness and consideration and of the probability of his being a
life-long lover.
For we must remember that heart-love, spiritual love, that dear and
tender at-one-ing and companioning which romantic love now idealizes and
desires, represents an evolution. The original love was simply fierce
sexual passion, hungry, physical, selfish, concerned only with its own
gratification. And to this day these two loves are generally combined in
very various degrees, with the coordination between them by no means
perfect. It is often difficult to get just the right balance and
proportion and requires the wise cooperation of both, something not
likely to occur at first - especially in the new, strange conditions of
a first conjugation between hitherto sexual strangers, particularly if
the woman has for many years known nothing of or repressed the sex-life,
and has become moody, abnormal and hypersensitive, or lacks normal
sensation, or if the man is very sensitive and deeply in love. There is
likely to occur an unbalance and dislocation of the sexual elements with
strange results.
Very often it would be better if, for the first night, or for many
nights, there was no effort made toward sexual congress, but only toward
full expression of the caressive heart-love, until such time as both
were consciously ripe and could no longer be denied.
The great danger of an initial failure with a nervous, sensitive and
impressible man, is that he may be seized with panic, a terror that the
heaven opening to him may be closed forever; that his dear one must be
disappointed; that she may despise and cease to love him, perhaps even
come to loathe him; or that he must live on under the shame of her pity
and unsatisfied longings; that his masculine fellows may come to know of
it and ridicule him as no man - and all the other terrors that an
excited imagination can conjure up; and that this fear and conviction
may be stamped in and fixed by auto-suggestion upon his
subconsciousness, making his fear a fact. Sometimes the
counter-suggestion of hypnotism, in these cases, becomes the only cure.
One of the most mysterious variants of this trouble is where the woman's
desire is unusually, perhaps abnormally strong and passionate, and the
man thrilled with an equal desire, finds himself helpless. This is
difficult to explain, but I think it will usually be found in these
cases that the woman is one who by reason of' her changeable moods,
previous cruelty, or something of that sort, has produced a subjective
fear in the man. In such temperaments, if not immediately answered and
satisfied, the woman will sometimes fly into a nervous rage, covering
her disappointing partner with shame and, cruel reproach, or withdrawing
her favors in cold contempt. Even if not conscious of this fear it may
affect a man, or it may exist as a race-memory, and act on his
subconsciousness. In some cases I think the sudden nymphomania of the
woman causes disturbed nervous vibrations which upset the nervous
balance of the man. But I admit there are some examples of this form,
for which I have as yet no explanation. The consoling fact is that this
form is usually very ephemeral and occasional only.
Sometimes the heart-love is so strong and motherly in a woman, that the
man comes completely under its dominance, and though the two may have
great happiness and even sensuous joy in each other's embraces, the
local sex-organs fail to become completely aroused. This is particularly
likely to happen in a woman no longer young, who is near the turn of
life, and is quite normal.
Now as the causes of this thing are mostly psychic, so should the
remedies be. Nourishing diet, especially of shellfish, milk, eggs, may
assist; running, horseback riding and muscle-beating over the lower
spine, nates,1 hips, thighs, and abdomen, by way of a local tonic; with
abundant sleep. But the chief need is to establish the right relation
between the psychic natures of the lovers themselves. Especially does
this depend upon the woman. If she is patient, tender, loving,
considerate; if she can prove to him that she is so happy in his
tenderness, his unity, his devotion, that the sex-union is really a very
secondary and comparatively unimportant matter with her and she can wait
any necessary time for its consummation without distress; especially if
she daintily and wisely cultivates in herself a touch of the coquettish,
sensuous, voluptuous - appealing subtly and luxuriously to his passions
and their stimulus — success is seldom long in coming.
There is nothing that so arouses, supports and sustains the normal
sex-passion in a man as for a strongly-sexed woman to fill her aura
toward him with a strong, steady, self-controlled appeal - tender,
loving, admiring, yet deliciously sensuous and esthetically voluptuous;
pure, yet deep, warm, alluring. To most men this is an instant and
permanent cure. The lover is lifted as a strong swimmer is by some deep
and briny tide, and floats deliciously at ease, bathed in bliss, and in
the consciousness of perfect power.
But a nervous, hysterical, moody woman; now frantic, now frigid; often
plays strange pranks with the sex-power of a susceptible man.
And the man must, whatever happens, maintain his courage, self-respect
and faith in his own manhood, and love and work wisely on till the tide
comes in.
More and more as man becomes less dominating, less simply carnal, more
sensitive, refined and at one with the woman he loves, will power to
initiate, direct and sustain his sex-life and love-expression, to make,
mar or mould him emotionally, be hers. And woman should be very glad
that this is so. The love-life should be hers. This power is her
opportunity, her shield, her glory, and the evidence of the greatness of
her soul is in the wisdom of her use of it.
And just as this spot is the most vulnerable in a man's whole life, the
place where he can be most deeply and incurably wounded, even so is the
depth and eternal quality of his gratitude to the woman who continues to
love him despite his weakness, and assists him back to pride and power.
I remember one beautiful instance of this that came to my knowledge. A
handsome and brilliant young man, weakened in this way, attracted the
sympathy of a woman who devotedly called out, cultivated and restored
his power. And though she was very plain, a woman of many faults,
un-popular, and many years his senior, he adhered to her ever afterward
with a faithfulness and gratitude that nothing could mar. He no doubt
felt that she had done more than save his life - she had made it
worthwhile to live.
When the full magnetic rapport of Karezza has been realized, in which
the two souls and bodies seem as one, supported and floating on some
divine stream in Paradise, all sense of restraint and difficulty gone,
and succeeded by a heavenly ease, power, exaltation, pure and perfect
bliss, diffused throughout the entire being, it is then that the eyes
and faces shine as though transfigured, every tone becomes music, every
emotion poetry. And this normally continues for a long time, perhaps
hours, gently subsiding, finally, into a sweet, contented lassitude and
child-like slumber. But even to the last moment of consciousness there
is a most clinging and tender affectionateness and desire to be close to
the loved one, gratitude for the gift of such joy; nothing of that
indifference or revulsion usually concluding the orgasmal embraces. And
this continues after parting, even for days, so that one walks in a
heavenly dream, and where the embrace is often repeated, tends to become
a fixed and continuous habit, resulting in the most ideal love; if the
parting is permanent, remaining in the memory for years, causing ever a
gentle and tender reminiscence to pervade the thought of the loved one.
It is because of this that Karezza, though a sex act, so wonderfully
increases and makes enduring the heart love. It is the embrace of the
angels; sex sublimed by soul.
And because of all this it excels all other forces or influences as a
beautifier. The faces of those who practice it tend to become
exceedingly beautiful, on the spiritual plane especially; that is to
say, it is the beauty of expression that is developed, rather than that
of feature, though the features surely but more slowly follow, a serene,
sweet light in the eye, a delicacy and refinement of line, a radiance
and play of feature, a glad timbre in the voice, that vibrates an
inexpressible magnetism and makes even the plainest personality
fascinating.
Owing to the blending of the two natures, their mutual exaltation and
reception of each other's moral qualities, it is soon to be noted that
lovers who practice Karezza display the fruits of such inspiration and
transmutation. The woman becomes strong, proud, confident, logical -
displaying the finer masculine - while the man becomes gentle,
considerate, compassionate, sympathetic, intuitive — revealing the finer
feminine. Thus the sexes spiritually change and interweave and become
at-one.
Is it any wonder if this most vitalizing of all elixirs, thus habitually
fed to them, should make the organs receiving it, or through which it
passes, beautiful, magnetic, graceful, radiant with life? Look at the
lips, eyes, cheeks of a happy bride and find your answer. Joy is the
greatest beautifier on earth and there is no joy like sex-joy. I
prophesy that when Karezza becomes the habit of the people, made easy
and perfect by inheritance developing into instinct, that the human race
will become beautiful exceedingly, beyond the beauty of all former
times; a subtle, inward beauty, shining through. The sex-force, which
produces such rapture when felt locally, such a divine ecstasy when
diffused in Karezza, will be healing in the hands of the physician,
eloquence on the lips of the orator, fire in the eyes of the leader,
genius in the brain of the great.
The accusation is continually brought against sex-reformers that they
become "obsessed by sex" and rush into excess. And this is sometimes
deserved, for the tendency to excess exists in every intense nature
toward whatever activity may predominate in interest.
But it is no condemnation of any pursuit to prove that it may be
indulged in to excess. Its merit or demerit must be shown quite aside
from the behavior of its advocates. For excess manifests itself
everywhere. Nothing can be imagined more innocent than useful labor,
intellectual study, or the desire for safety, yet every day we observe
men ruined by overwork, blind or neurasthenic[4] from over-study, or
cowardly or weak from excess of caution. Most of the accusers of excess
in sex are religious, yet excess in religion, leading to bigotry,
fanaticism, religious insanity, is among the very commonest forms of
abnormality. To seek physical perfection is certainly most praiseworthy,
yet few athletes escape an overstrain in training or competition that
damages or kills.
It is common to praise "love" in opposition to sex, but love, so far as
it exists apart from sexual expression, is peculiarly prone to excessive
manifestation. Maternal love is perhaps the typical and purest form, yet
in almost every mother we see her love become over-indulgent, partial
and blindly unjust. The jealousy almost always present in the deepest
loves, no matter how spiritual, proves excess, and when love is denied
or suddenly withdrawn, unhealthful, insane or criminal symptoms almost
always supervene, requiring all the powers of the spirit to quell. With
every virtue known to man the same is true. In proportion to the power
of any faculty, or the richness and value of any emotion, is the peril
of excess. And sex shares this danger with the rest.
The reproach of excess, in many cases, is the result of mere prejudice.
There is still an immense amount of theological odium attached to sex in
the popular mind. It is a thing apart, to be kept secret and mentioned
with bated breath, a thing doubtful and suspicious, if not certainly
vile. To those who think thus, all frank interest in and attention to
sex is excessive. And there is another large class who have themselves
only abnormal interest in sex, knowing it only from experience of lust.
To them all interest in sex borders on debauch. A man who studies sex,
or writes on sex, is sure to be denounced by such people as "obsessed by
sex," yet there is no more reason why a sexologist should not devote
himself to the study and elucidation of sexual phenomena, than there is
why an astronomer should not study stars or a geologist rocks.
But as sex is interwoven with our deepest feelings, the fountainhead of
some of our strongest emotions, it is certainly liable to excess and far
be it from me to deny this. There is a very real peril that those who
are very loving and strongly sexed may give too much of themselves to
the absorbing concerns of passion. A due proportion and balance is
necessary in everything.
It is perfectly true that the wine of sex may sometimes go to the head
and lead to a preoccupation with sex bordering on satyriasis or
nymphomania, just as any other passion may become an emotional
intoxication. Love and sex are subject to the universal laws of excess
and satiation. Love and the thrill of sex are delightful feelings and we
strive to hold them and intensify - this is natural and right within
reason, but if continued too long the inevitable result is that the
nerves become powerless to appreciate or respond. We may drain the
reserves of the other faculties by diverting them all to sex - may thus
indirectly weaken and atrophy them and finally may end by devitalizing
love and sex themselves. And lovers are prone to spend time and money
lavishly on their delight and may thus waste. Loss of sleep is a common
source of love-waste too little considered. And in the man there are
often the crude losses of the orgasm. There may be a feverish state of
the system developed in which appetite and digestion are impaired and
application or effective work become impossible; or an abnormal
loneliness, destroying appreciation of or contentment with the usual
joys of life.
Uxoriousness,[5] or slavish devotion and idolatrous admiration, may
cause one partner to abdicate vindication of selfhood and spoil the
beloved.
Those who are weak or moderately developed in sex may be less in danger,
nevertheless it is to be remembered that the weak person may be overdone
by an amount of expression that would be nothing to a stronger one.
Excess is an individual matter which each should observe from the center
of his own personality.
Those who practice Karezza are less liable to excess, because spared the
waste of the orgasm, and because in them the emotion is sublimated and
diffused, including soul, body and mind, the entire selfhood, yet they
also may overdo. Excess here is more apt to manifest itself in the form
of exhaustion from loss of sleep, or from too prolonged stress of tender
emotion, or perhaps merely in the form of diverting too much time from
other interests, rightfully precedent. There are cases too, not well
understood as yet, in which one party exhausts or demagnetizes the
other, perhaps acts consciously or unconsciously as a vampire, or in
which both mutually exhaust each other. Such symptoms are sometimes
observed by two people merely in each other's presence, with no
reference to sex, and are not necessarily coincident with any excess,
but belong rather to the department of mal-adjustments and misfits, yet
may unfortunately co-exist with a good deal of the finest mutual love.
It is possible to embrace too frequently in Karezza, or maintain the
embraces too long. Only experience can determine what is moderation and
what excess.
Those who do not use Karezza are vastly more liable to excess, and this
usually from too frequent and intense orgasms, too frequent pregnancies,
or too coarse, cynical and invasive an attitude. Where there is merely a
physical itch or craving gratified, with no mutual tenderness or
kindness, or perhaps actually against the desire or protest of one
party, sex is always excessive.
If there is no indulgence except where there is mutual consent and
enjoyment, mutual kindness and consideration, careful regard for the
conditions of health and useful living, and a dominant conviction that
all physical acts should express beauty of soul, there need be no fear.
Excess is only where the act is individually or socially detrimental.
It will be noticed that I lay great stress upon the value of love in
Karezza and of refined feeling. For success there cannot be too much of
both. Great love and poetry of feeling represent the ideal in the
practice of the art of love. But I never forget the limitations of real
life. Not all people can be poets. And I quite recognize that it often
happens that very good people wish to marry or unite their lives,
because they are lonely or physically starving, who yet have not and
never could have any great, mutual romantic love. The practical question
is: Can such successfully or beneficially practice Karezza? Certainly.
The mere skeleton or essential framework of Karezza is this: That the
parties be honest and kind toward each other, sexually healthy, the
woman willing, the man potent, mutually at peace in their consciences
about the matter, and united in their desire that there shall be no
orgasm on the man's part. On this basis they can succeed and with
benefit, but their happiness and peace will be very inferior compared to
what it would be if deeper and higher emotions could be included. But
when two pure and trustful friends once begin a relation of this kind,
it seldom fails to go on to more beautiful attainments. Karezza seems to
create inevitably a tendency to caress and be tender. It is a sort of
natural marriage ceremony, which marries more and more with every
repetition.
In relation to Karezza the question of the orgasm continually arises.
The early writers on male continence, I believe, all argued that the
seminal secretion resembled that of the tears, was normally secreted and
reabsorbed and need never be discharged, except for procreation. Other
physiologists, of a later date, declared that the semen, once secreted,
could never be reabsorbed and must find discharge, thus denying those
who have contended that reabsorbed semen was what gave the "illusion,"
the thrill, the virile feeling, the strongly sexed man knows. It is now
believed that this inspiring elixir comes from the ductless glands.
It is very well to have a healthy scepticism about science as about
theology. The theories and assertions of science too often crumble and
fade before our very eyes. What we know from experience and observation
in practice is a safer guide. And the practical facts are these: An
accumulation of semen does occur in almost every man, sometimes, varying
very much with different men, which apparently must have vent. It is a
surplus. Either more has been secreted than can be absorbed, or, once
secreted, it cannot be absorbed. Anyway it will come out. In the man who
has nothing to do with women this causes the "wet dream," which is a
perfectly natural way of getting rid of a surplus. In Karezza it causes
the occasional failure. At least it is one cause. For no matter how
expert the Karezza artist, the occasional failure to restrain the orgasm
must be counted on. That beautiful equilibrium between the parties which
leaves both so satisfied sometimes fails to occur and the man's orgasm
irresistibly approaches, he is obliged to withdraw, and his Karezza
becomes a coitus interruptus. The success of Karezza appears to depend
on the sublimation of mere sex feelings into predominance of love
feelings, and upon a diffusion of sex-consciousness so that too much is
not concentrated locally. If local concentration becomes too great, an
explosion inevitably follows. I have observed that if the woman a man
loves becomes suddenly cold or angry toward him this local concentration
is very apt to occur. It is more apt to occur with a fickle and moody or
coquettish woman than with a steady and deep one; with a weak woman
whose passion is fitful than with a strong woman whose great passion
lifts and carries her partner on an even tide. It is harder to be
continent on a full meal than on an empty stomach; harder soon after a
bath. A vivid emotional experience of any kind may cause it, or intense
intellectual exercise. The approach of a change in the weather, if sharp
and marked, especially a "cold snap," may bring it about. It is all
right and not to be worried over. Coitus interruptus used to be
considered very bad for the man, but the modern view is that it is
harmless, but may affect the woman nervously by leaving her unsatisfied.
But this does not apply to the well-trained Karezza couple because,
first the woman has the relation so frequently and so satisfyingly that
she can well afford an occasional lapse; and, secondly, she knows that
in a few hours, perhaps in a single hour, she may have it again, usually
rather better than ordinarily, therefore has no excuse for nervousness.
Just as the man must always be kind to the woman and stop the relation
at any moment if she grows weary, or for any other reason wishes it, so
the woman must be kind to him, cheerful, sweet and patient if he
sometimes fails, and by this calling up of her affectional nature
effectually cures the morbid self-pity which might make her nervously
ill. Most men feel that they must have the orgasm at certain intervals,
and there are scientists who have claimed to have discovered a sexual
rhythm or periodicity in man which would seem to support this. But this
sexual cycle in man appears to occur from once in four day to once a
month, according to the individual. On the other hand almost all women
want intercourse very frequently and long and leisurely each time, and
sexual scientists support this too. It is admitted also by the highest
authorities (they do not know Karezza) that coitus interruptus is the
surest of all ways to avoid undesired pregnancy, while the
contraceptives are none of them safe. Now all these things can be
reconciled in Karezza. Let the man learn Karezza and his wife can have
intercourse as often and as long as she likes, while the occasional
failure gives him the relief of the orgasm at the time of his "period"
or some other time.
And there is the question of the woman's orgasm. It is held by quite a
good many men, some women, and many physicians say the same, that a
woman also needs the orgasm, and that if she does not have it her health
suffers. It is also commonly claimed that the woman's orgasm is
essential in conception for the best results.
With these contentions I disagree. I consider the female orgasm an
acquired habit and not natural. The male needs the orgasm to expel the
sperm, but the female has no analogous need - her orgasm has nothing to
do with expelling the ovum.
In all the animal embraces I have been able to witness, while the orgasm
of the male was evident, I could see no evidence of a female orgasm. If
the female orgasm is not necessary and does not occur below woman, why
should it be necessary of occur in woman?
"To give her pleasure," is the answer, and a good one, but I hold that
if she will have Karezza, she can have a finer, sweeter pleasure without
it.
My objections to the female orgasm in Karezza (for it is to be noted
that in the original "male continence" the woman had the orgasm if she
wanted it) are threefold:
That self-control is more difficult for the man where the woman thus
indulges herself.
That after her orgasm the woman is less magnetic, enthused and
delightful as a partner, enjoys the Karezza less, and quite often soon
becomes indifferent, depressed or irritable.
That indulgence in the orgasm on either side cultivates the merely
sexual at the expense of the affectional, the romantic, the spiritual.
As I know that a woman who has known the perfect orgasm may deliberately
abandon its practice completely in favor of Karezza, on the ground of
its being less satisfying than Karezza minus all orgasm, and as I know
that women who have never in all their lives had an orgasm may be
beautifully satisfied and blissfully happy as well as healthy in Karezza
without it, and this more and more as the years go on, I feel that I
have good grounds for saying that I believe the orgasm in the woman is
entirely unnecessary and artificial and that she is better off without
it.
The ordinary male orgasmal embrace seldom satisfies the woman. It is too
brief and animal for her. And if she is not satisfied in sex of course
she suffers. But if she can have the orgasm with it, that gives her a
kind of satisfaction, and that is why the orgasm seems beneficial to
her, and her physician seeing the benefit endorses the act. But the same
woman could be better satisfied in the non-orgasmal embrace of perfect
and prolonged Karezza, and then the orgasm would be seen to be
needless - that is my position.
My objections to the female orgasm in conception are as follows:
When a woman has an orgasm she has a discharge of vital-force and is
left demagnetized, as a man is after an orgasm. I believe she
demagnetizes the germ in so doing and that in this state it is less fit
for impregnation than if there had been no orgasm - but this may be mere
theory.
I believe, too, that the ideal way in the procreative embrace is for the
man to waive all attempt at pleasure or to prolong the embrace, but to
have his orgasm as quickly and forcefully as possible, directing all his
magnetism into the seed and drawing nothing of her vital-force from the
woman, but leaving it all for the child, and then to come immediately
away and entirely withdraw from the room. The woman to have no orgasm,
and to remain after the act quiet and recumbent for an hour or more.
This also is theory, but at least I can say that where my advice was
asked and followed pregnancy occurred, where before was sterility.
And this I know, that a woman can conceive without herself having an
orgasm. There is every probability, I would say, considering the sexual
lives of the average, that the majority of women conceive without it. I
believe she conceives more easily and surely without it, for it is
reasonable to infer that the spasmodic motions and abdominal
contractions of the orgasm would tend to expel the sperm and then leave
the parts negative and flaccid, instead of avid and receptive.
I know that a woman can have conception without having an orgasm, have a
normal pregnancy and easy parturition, give birth to a perfect child,
destined to grow up beautiful and healthy in body and a genius in mind.
What more or better can any mother do? There remains the further
question of Karezza in pregnancy: I feel sure the woman is better off in
pregnancy without the usual orgasmal intercourse. It is liable on the
man's part to be too violent and to cause her injury. And for the woman
herself to have an orgasm might certainly bring a miscarriage. But on
the other hand, I believe an occasional very gentle and quiet and tender
Karezza (the man being careful of his weight) is most beneficial to the
pregnant woman, and even to the unborn babe which is thus bathed in the
magnetic aura and enfolded in the love of both its parents.
The woman feels it a very great comfort to have her husband's love
embrace at such a time and often peculiarly longs for it. I have never
seen or heard of any bad results from it and I recommend its considerate
use.
The advantages of Karezza, as a love-act and otherwise, may be summed up
as follows:
with no intervening substance whatever, thus completely satisfying
woman's greatest sexual craving, which is for long continued, tender
touch, as deep as possible, as long as possible.
woman plenty of time to be fully aroused and fully satisfied.
is the most important thing.
drugs, syringes, skin-pockets, rubber bags, napkins, getting up in the
cold, or any adjustments whatever - it leaves the poetry of the act not
only intact, but intensifies it. Thus it satisfies the imagination, the
craving for the ideal.
Because it cultivates self-control and requires the sublimation and
transmutation of the merely sexual into the tender, the loving, the
gentle, the romantic, its inevitable tendency is elevating, not
degrading, to redeem and purify sex, not only to maintain its perfect
natural innocence, but to add to it the chivalrous, the moral, the
religious, in an ascending scale. Thus it satisfies the mind and soul.
It gives complete birth control.[6]
A general knowledge and use of it must certainly lift most of the odium
which now attaches to everything sexual, thus increasing the respect for
and appreciation of sex, its liberty and exercise, thereby automatically
removing gradually the curse of social reproach.
Between the well-mated it leaves no sense of weakness or exhaustion, but
one rather of sweet satisfaction, fullness of realization, peace, often
a physical glow and mental glamour that lasts for days, as if some
ethereal stimulant, or rather nutriment, had been received.
As this satisfaction is always normally combined with a grateful
affectionateness and tender yearning toward the partner, it maintains,
increases and makes habitual the union.
Where properly and successfully performed between the well-mated it
gives the most absolute and perfect satisfaction without the orgasm.
Withdrawing the sexual electricity from the merely sex-organs,
distributing it throughout the system and discharging it from every part
toward the loved one, exchanging with that loved one, every part so used
is electrified and vitalized and becomes more beautiful - Karezza is the
greatest beautifier.
And this satisfaction, joy and perfected love inevitably react to
increase the general physical health and mental vigor - Karezza
maintains youth and is one of the best of the health exercises.
A school of physicians has arisen which claims the orgasm as a most
important function, beneficial, and justifiably attained by artificial
means if natural ones are not available, including with apparent
approval, masturbation and the use of mechanical and chemical
contraceptives.
The chief evil of this teaching appears to be that it is calculated to
leave the reader of little experience with the idea that orgasms are
practically harmless, that excess is unlikely, and that if no immediate
bad results are noticed the practice may be indulged in to about the
limit of desire.
To understand this problem we must consider the endocrine system.
In the organism there are ductless glands whose function is to deliver
energy. These glands and the varying power of their function, I conceive
to have a most intimate relation to the orgasm, its need and nature.
Where these glands work excessively we may have a condition of almost or
quite maniacal energy, quite upsetting the usual inhibitions; or, at the
other extreme, where their action is deficient, we may have depressions,
weakness, melancholy, cowardice, neurasthenia. Sexual love inspires the
ductless glands to action, which is one reason why it is so healthful
and joy-inspiring. To those who have deficient action of the ductless
glands, sexual love becomes most beneficial, giving strength, courage,
optimism, because it brings their action up to normal, or nearer to
normal. But to a man who has excessive action of the ductless glands,
sexual love, or sex-relations, may so increase this that a painful
tension is created even a state of emotional intoxication or madness
that may be insane.
All sexual crimes, rape, jealous murder, outrages of "Jack-the-Ripper"
type, originate in this sexual insanity caused by excessive action of
the energy glands - or that is my theory. On the other hand bashfulness,
impotence, occur where the endocrine glands do not work strongly, or
work fitfully, and give rise to melancholy and an "inferiority complex"
before the adored one.
The relation to the orgasm is this: In the normal man, under usual
conditions, it may be conceived that the semen secreted is all absorbed
as fast as secreted, no surplus accumulates, no pressure is felt. There
is a steady, normal output of energy from the ductless glands, neither
excessive nor deficient. That the semen can be and is absorbed I think
is satisfactorily proven by the numerous instances where men have been
sterilized by accident, disease, or intentional operation in such a way
that the testicles are left unharmed, but the semen is cut-off from its
natural outlet. After being once secreted only two things are possible -
either it must be absorbed or it will form a swelling. It does NOT form
a swelling, therefore it certainly is absorbed.
And the orgasm is not essentially a discharge of semen, for it is
possible for a man to have an orgasm with no discharge of semen, and
women, who have no semen, can have orgasms as violently as any man. An
orgasm is essentially a violent emotional discharge of energy or nervous
force. Fits of rage, weeping, etc. are often truly orgasmal, and in many
cases serve as substitutes for sexual orgasms, as in hysterics. Where
the ductless glands are excited to more than usual activity, energy
accumulates in the nerves and a demand is felt for its discharge. If the
thoughts are then sexually excited there will be a demand for a sexual
discharge, especially if the excitation has been of a sort to cause the
energy to accumulate in the sexual centers, causing congestion. For
wherever the nervous energy flows the blood flows also and remains
congested unless the energy is discharged or withdrawn.
Now observers report very differently as to after effects of orgasms.
Some "feel like a sick dog," or report dizziness, lassitude, weakness,
dimness of vision, perhaps vomiting or fainting, while others only feel
relaxed and soothed or declare energy and buoyancy increased. Some can
endure only one orgasm at long intervals of perhaps a month or more;
others glory in daily orgasms or even a number at one interview. Even
the same individual often experiences a wide range in power or in good
or bad effects. How explain these differences in the testimony of good
witnesses? I think an understanding of the ductless glands explains all.
There are those in whom these glands work with more than usual power and
if the energy thus received takes the direction of the genitals for an
outlet, such a one feels a tremendous need of an orgasm, and, if he has
it, he feels it relieves and benefits him, and if his glands are excited
by the sexual embrace they may rush more energy into the vacuum, even an
increased amount, making repetitions possible until the pressure is
lowered. During this the contagion of his emotions may excite the glands
of the woman and she also may have multiple orgasms, or may have them
anyhow because of her own endocrine flow.
On the other hand a man in whom the flow of endocrines, or hormones, is
only normal may feel quite spent after an orgasm, demagnetized, and must
rest before a repetition. If his glandular flow is weak and a surplus
only slowly accumulates, then, if he repeats too soon, he may spend not
only his too scanty surplus, but may draw on his reserves to a degree
that may cause uncomfortable or even alarming symptoms.
But must the nervous sexual surplus find an outlet through the orgasm?
Yes, say the doctors of the orgasmal school, or health suffers. Here is
where I differ. They recognize a coitus completus, a coitus interruptus,
a coitus reservatus, and I would add a coitus sublimatus, which may also
be a coitus completus in another way. I teach an embrace in which, in
its perfect realization, there is a complete dissipation of congestion,
complete discharge of nervous surplus, complete relief from tension and
a complete satisfaction. An embrace peculiarly suited to the weak,
because its action is to increase the function of their ductless glands
and to make strongly sexed individuals out of those previously afraid of
sex or feeling themselves sexual failures; and which can also completely
satisfy the normally strong.
But where the technique of the orgasmal school is followed this embrace
can hardly be realized, especially by those of powerful surplus. For
everything in their technique tends to create a local congestion which
must find relief in orgasm or distress follows. A "mutual, reciprocal,
simultaneous friction" must certainly produce this result. I teach an
alternation of friction, one positive while the other is passive, or
else mutual quiet, magnetation and sublimation being the object. With
them the whole matter is sexual and tends downwards to a sexual
conclusion. With me the sexual magnetism is generated simply as a
current on which to carry the love message, or by which to create the
love light, all to be sublimated upwards to a romantic, poetic,
spiritual conclusion, satisfying sex incidentally. They would
concentrate the energy on the genitals and I would diffuse it from the
genitals throughout the system, from the sexual to the affectional, from
sex-desire to romance, tenderness, spiritual exaltation and love,
affording, I contend, more complete satisfaction than an orgasm,
especially to the refined.
And their method requires always the use of contraceptives, or else
observance of times and seasons (all such safeguards being conceded by
the best authorities unsafe and unreliable), while my method may be used
at any time, with "nothing between," and all of Nature's romance of
touch unrestrained, with the certainty that where no semen discharges no
conception occurs.
One believes he has discovered what becomes of the semen in Karezza -
that it leaks backward and comes out in the urine. But better
authorities claim that leakage of semen only occurs in diseased
conditions, and not at all from continence. I think where the
sublimation and absorption are carried to the right degree there is no
leakage, but I think it possible that it occurs where the excitement
exceeds the sublimation.
I am willing to concede that where the intercourse is of such a nature
as to cause a congestion that is not sublimated, or where sexual
congestion occurs and sublimation and magnetation are not available, the
orgasm may have a necessary place. Perhaps it must be admitted that
everything has somewhere its use.
The idea that when once the usual amount of semen has been secreted,
secretion largely or completely ceases, only enough being secreted
usually to replace what is absorbed, and this even under frequent or
habitual sexual excitement, is, I believe, probably correct, and agrees
with my own understanding of the matter. But ever and anon, with the
usual man, a surplus does accumulate, is not sublimated, and an orgasm
occurs.
The question of whether the woman's orgasm is essential to the best
conception seems to have a new sidelight thrown upon it by the
discussion concerning birthmarks and prenatal influence.
If, as most modern physicians seem to agree, there is no truth in the
old theory of prenatal influence; if the germplasm is something
separate, of which the individual sex-partner is only a carrier, as a
postman carries a letter, but with the message within which he has
nothing to do, then it would appear that the woman's orgasm or nonorgasm
has as little influence as any other prenatal factor. Just as it would
not really matter, so far as the message in the letter was concerned,
provided it was delivered, whether the postman was quiet and normal, or
had an epileptic fit at the moment of delivery, so it would not matter
what the woman, or the man either, did or did not do, provided the ovum
and sperm-cell were safely gotten together. Their motives and emotional
states, according to this theory, do not count. Which would explain how
a woman could be impregnated by the semen from a syringe; or bear a
normal child even if raped; or if in a drug-sleep.
Again it must not be forgotten that conception, scientifically speaking,
is the penetration of the ovum by the sperm cell and their coalescing.
This rarely, if ever, occurs at the moment when the carriers are having
their orgasm, but sometime after, often hours or even days after, at the
moment when the sperm cell reaches the waiting egg. How can the previous
orgasm have any effect then to devitalize him?
The idea that a child begotten where the mother has an orgasm would be
more passionate or robust than where the mother has none may have a core
of truth. A robust woman would, all other things being equal, be more
likely to have an orgasm than a more mental type. This robustness, or
lack of it, would likely be an inheritable character transmittable to
the child as a trait of the strain. In other words, the orgasm would be
a symptom of the mother's robustness, which the child would be likely to
inherit, but would be in no sense a cause of that robustness or its
inheritance. If the sperm-cell could get to the ovum of that woman, no
matter how quiet she might be, the result would be just the same as if
she had the most intense orgasm - unless indeed the magnetic state of
the parents could have an effect to vitalize or demagnetize the germs,
which is also something the sceptical modem physician rejects. Also her
orgasm, in many cases, would be a symptom of her being in "heat," ripe
for impregnation, but no matter how ripe she might be, if she were slow,
the man fast, she could easily be impregnated without her own orgasm,
with exactly the same results to her child. Which accounts for the
well-attested fact that many women have been impregnated by the mere
spattering of semen within the lips of the vulva. Finally, as to whether
she did or did not get the orgasm would depend upon how much she was
excited, not upon her procreative power at the time - as it is certain
that a sterile woman may have intense orgasms.
To get the sperm-cell of a healthy male to the ovum of a healthy female
is the one important matter in conception, and how it is done, provided
it is effectually done, seems of minor importance, perhaps of no
importance at all.
To sum up: The orgasmal school is honest but mistaken. Its fault is that
it is a doctrine of the strong, only for the strong. Just as a wealthy
man may spend money recklessly for a while and still not be poor, so a
man rich in thyroxin and adrenalin may spend recklessly in orgasms for a
while and not seem any the worse. And the method, taught by the orgasmal
school is such that it creates a demand, by congestion, for the orgasm,
which must then occur or bad results follow. But for a weak man to
follow their advice is very dangerous and courts a nervous breakdown,
while my method builds him up. That orgasms are weakening is easily
proven. Just as the way to get real facts about alcohol is to consult
life-insurance companies, so to get facts about the orgasm go to the
stockbreeder. Business has no sentiment or prejudice. Every stockbreeder
will tell you that to permit a bull or stallion to serve too many or too
often is to devitalize him.
[1] Since writing the above I have become acquainted with a Dr. E. Elmer
Keeler, of Syracuse, New York, who tells me that he made the independent
discovery of Karezza, by his own sex-experiences in early manhood, and
for years taught it in private lectures, both to the laity and the
profession, before he learned of Noyes and his teaching — a sufficient
commentary, if any were needed, on the ignorance not only of the general
public, but even of the doctors, on this most important matter. Not
knowing of any other, Keeler gave it the name of "Sex-communion," but
defining the term as "ALL forms of sexual expression in which no
emission occur," thus still leaving a need for a specific term to name
the definite internal act, which Karezza as a term does.
[2] [Leucorrhea is vaginal discharge, prolapsus is the slipping of the
uterus, urethritis is inflammation of the urethra, and prostatitis is
inflammation of the prostate gland.]
[3] To facilitate this — immediately after the emission stroke, with a
firm, gentle pressure, upward from the anus to the scrotum, thus aiding
complete discharge, and thereafter soon urinate.
[4] [suffering a nervous breakdown]
[5] [foolish fondness for, or excessive submissiveness to, one's wife]
[6] [This is not true. It does, however, make conception less likely.]