米国の若者達の性の解放
英国の事情も,多少,アメリカの事情に似ている。ただし,(米国のような)禁酒法がないのと,自動車の数が少ないために,そこまでには至っていない。さらに,英国においては,また確実にヨーロッパにおいては,究極的な満足(感)を得ることなしに性的に興奮する習慣は,(アメリカに比べて)ずっと少ないように思われる。また,尊敬に値する英国人は,一部の偉い人々の例を除いて,大体において,対応する(尊敬に値する)アメリカ人ほど,他人を虐待しようとする熱意に駆られていない。とはいうものの,両国の違いは,程度の差にすぎない。 |
Chapter XII: Trial Marriage, n.4In spite of the drawbacks we have been considering, there are great advantages in the emancipation, however partial, of young people in America, as compared with their elders. They are freer from priggery, less inhibited, less enslaved to authority devoid of rational foundation. I think also that they are likely to prove less cruel, less brutal, and less violent than their seniors. For it has been characteristic of American life to take out in violence the anarchic impulses which could not find an outlet in sex. It may also be hoped that when the generation now young reaches middle age, it will not wholly forget its behaviour in youth, and will be tolerant of sexual experiments which at present are scarcely possible because of the need of secrecy.The state of affairs in England is more or less similar to that in America, though not so developed owing to the absence of Prohibition and the paucity of motor-cars. There is also, I think, in England, and certainly on the Continent, very much less of the practice of sexual excitement without ultimate satisfaction. And respectable people in England, with some honourable exceptions, are on the whole less filled with persecuting zeal than corresponding people in America. Nevertheless, the difference between the two countries is only one of degree. |