Chapter 5 - Page 2

children?

"Yes: if only a hundredth of the efforts spent in curing diseases were
spent in curing debauchery, disease would long ago have ceased to exist,
whereas now all efforts are employed, not in extirpating debauchery,
but in favoring it, by assuring the harmlessness of the consequences.
Besides, it is not a question of that. It is a question of this
frightful thing that has happened to me, as it happens to nine-tenths,
if not more, not only of the men of our society, but of all societies,
even peasants,--this frightful thing that I had fallen, and not because
I was subjected to the natural seduction of a certain woman. No, no
woman seduced me. I fell because the surroundings in which I found
myself saw in this degrading thing only a legitimate function, useful
to the health; because others saw in it simply a natural amusement, not
only excusable, but even innocent in a young man. I did not understand
that it was a fall, and I began to give myself to those pleasures
(partly from desire and partly from necessity) which I was led to
believe were characteristic of my age, just as I had begun to drink and
smoke.

"And yet there was in this first fall something peculiar and touching. I
remember that straightway I was filled with such a profound sadness that
I had a desire to weep, to weep over the loss forever of my relations
with woman. Yes, my relations with woman were lost forever. Pure
relations with women, from that time forward, I could no longer have.
I had become what is called a voluptuary; and to be a voluptuary is a
physical condition like the condition of a victim of the morphine habit,
of a drunkard, and of a smoker.

"Just as the victim of the morphine habit, the drunkard, the smoker, is
no longer a normal man, so the man who has known several women for
his pleasure is no longer normal? He is abnormal forever. He is a
voluptuary. Just as the drunkard and the victim of the morphine habit
may be recognized by their face and manner, so we may recognize a
voluptuary. He may repress himself and struggle, but nevermore will he
enjoy simple, pure, and fraternal relations toward woman. By his way of
glancing at a young woman one may at once recognize a voluptuary; and I
became a voluptuary, and I have remained one."