Note 135 — Chapter IX

This does not conflict with the fact that in these circles also much hypocrisy is practised—much more certainly than in our own country (Germany). To a still greater extent is this true of England, where also in many circles all illegitimate sexual intercourse is proscribed, thus leading to the practice of hypocrisy. Because a large proportion of the population does not practise illegitimate intercourse, those who do indulge in it are led to conceal as far as possible their own illegitimate intercourse; as a result of this we find side by side and simultaneously in the same circle, on the one hand a prohibition of illegitimate intercourse based upon genuine conviction, and on the other a hypocritical condemnation of such intercourse. Further, we have to admit that the question is an exceptionally difficult one, precisely on account of the hypocrisy and lies in which the sexual life is enveloped. Naturally, where illegitimate intercourse is forbidden, those who do indulge are far more careful, and especially in guarding against venereal infection, lest the illness should betray them to others. A communication made to me very recently suggests the need for great caution in our judgment in these matters. A foreign university professor gives his students very fine lectures on the sexual life, laying great stress on the beauty and importance of sexual abstinence. The lecturer was convinced that as a result of his lectures his students were exceptionally chaste and abstinent. But a colleague of this same professor at the university is no less firmly convinced, and this as the result of reports from members of his friend's audience, that the assumed chastity of the students is purely imaginary, and that in actual fact their lives are just as loose as those of students in general.