Sex efficiency through exercises : special physical culture for women / by Th. H. van de Velde ; [photos, by E. Steinemann].
28/426
7 (canvas 29)
The image contains the following text:
Only a few years ago, I experienced a very similar scene,
though in a different setting and circumstances, which was
received with a precisely similar embarrassment and resent-
ment by the young people who took part in it. And quite
recently I have had written or oral statements from several
young married women to the effect that they had hitherto
prevented pregnancy, simply and solely because the fact of
public proof of their intimate erotic life was intolerable to
them.
I cannot agree that sexual modesty should be so generally
disregarded, denied and cancelled as, e.g., certain advocates
of extreme Nudism recommend. Sexual modesty has its
appropriate times and places and should not shroud the
whole of life. But in my opinion a woman who reveals her
whole body to her husband, in any and every circumstance
and as a matter of course, is as unwise, indelicate and
erotically callous and clumsy as the frigid prude who never
abandons herself, without veils or reserves, to love-play.
And it is just as fatal an error to think of marriage, and deny
its sexual aspects, as it is to regard marriage as a
succession of sexual encounters and nothing else. The act
of union between man and woman is important and funda-
mental to the whole of life. It is a deplorable mistake
to speak of it only in terms of flippancy and lubricity, or to
approach it only with irresponsible desire ; it is an equally
deplorable mistake to depreciate the significance of the
central coital act itself, and of the necessary actions and
emotions, both for the individuals and the social institution
of marriage.
This act and its emotional superstructure are, in fact,
depreciated and degraded if we do not endeavour to make it as
satisfactory and successful as possible in every way.
In " Ideal Marriage," (5) I endeavoured to give men the
necessary knowledge and guidance to that end. I shall now
suggest and indicate to women how they may best co-operate
in what should always be reciprocal. The need for light and
help here is great, and therefore, the inhibitions aforesaid, as
well as many other inconveniences and hindrances, must be