On Human Reproductive Behavior:
Sex Is Not A Problem

Oscar H. Geiger

[This essay was written by Oscar Geiger during the late 1920s or early 1930s, to be delivered as a speech. Reprinted from The Freeman, November, 1939]

The obvious and most outstanding facts about the sex urge are that it is wholly subjective and in accordance with natural law; that it is perhaps the greatest factor in nature's scheme of reproduction, and that it has but one purpose and that purpose the perpetuation of the species.

I believe that perhaps the greatest part of the confusion about the sex question arises out of our failure to recognize the sex urge as a purposeful agent in the scheme of nature to populate the world, together with our seeming general ignorance of the whole question of intent in nature, and of nature's determination and ability to enforce Its mandates.

In none but the human animal do we find the exercise of the sex urge combined with objective circumvention of the sex purpose; and this in spite of the fact that the decrease in human births has already been subjectively effected by nature, and in highly developed mind and sympathies man has greater appreciation of, and affection for, children. And also in spite of the more important fact that man has so conquered the forces of nature as to make them serve him in maintaining himself, and can therefore better care for his young than can any other animal.

The situation seems anomalous. It would appear that fewer numbers accompanied by greater sustaining abilities would make for freer and more unrestricted exercise of the productive potentialities; instead of which we find repression and circumvention, both attempts to foil the natural law, and consequently both failures excepting in their momentary and most superficial aspects.

Thus in the human animal we find a sex problem.

To speak of sex as a problem, however, I believe, as did the little boy about inverting the divisor and then multiplying in the division of fractions, is only to make it harder. Mathematics is not a problem; mathematics is something we must learn to help us solve problems. Perhaps sex is not a problem at all; perhaps it is just a fact of nature, one of the facts of existence that we must learn about to help us solve the problem of life.

Life itself presents a problem only because of the difficulty of "making a living." If it were easy to live, life would present no problem. And so with sex. May it not be that it is the hindrance that stands between the sex urge and its free and full and natural expression that really distorts into a problem what should be the happiest event in all human life?

In humans puberty may or may not be the mating time; but be it when it may, is there anyone who will hold that the urge when it does appear is always met and met naturally and normally and without any infraction of the natural laws or interference with the intent of nature? And is there anyone who is interested in "problems" of this sort who will hold that natural law over any appreciable length of time can be successfully violated?

The married state may or may not be the ideal state in which the sex urge finds its best expression (I hold that it is, and that monogamy is the ideal married state); but be that as it may, marriage is universal, conventional, legal, "proper," moral, chaste, and in accordance with all the commandments, usages and habits of civilized mankind, and has everywhere the sanction of civilization in practice and in theory. There is no general objection nor aversion to the married state. Why then do not young folks of marriageable age marry and raise families?

I am told that some of the reasons are: The selfishness of men. The extravagance of women. High rents and the high cost of living. Not able to give her as good a home as she now has. Won't marry a man who doesn't earn more than I do. Can't afford to marry. Uncertainty of keeping the job. Have dependents now and can't assume any further obligations. First want to save enough to buy a home. Have waited too long; it's too late now. The inconstancy of men. The inconstancy of women. The number of unhappy marriages that one sees everywhere. Have time to marry when I'm old and need a nurse. Don't believe in marriage. Don't need to marry -- having too good a time now. Haven't been asked.

The reasons mentioned can in the main be divided into two categories: marriage is not a "sine qua non" to sex expression; poverty.

Analyzing the first, we find the thing that makes marriage a nonessential in sex expression is the unmarried state itself; this state being general and continuous and manifesting the character and proportions of an institution. "Custom ever breeds habit in a man, and the thing first shunned and afterwards endured is finally embraced."

As to those reasons for the unmarried state that hinge on poverty, let us assume a condition in which there is no poverty and no fear of poverty. Can one avoid the conclusion that in such a condition youth would not remain unwed, and does it not follow as a corollary that marriage would supplant promiscuity? The sex urge is one of nature's constructive measures; it would seem that poverty is its greatest obstacle; does it then not also seem that the sex problem is really a problem of poverty, and does it not follow that the removal of poverty is the solution of the sex problem?

There are millions of women and girls of marriageable age at work (when there is work) in gainful occupations in the United States, eight million of whom are destined to remain unmarried. And there is a vast, but uncounted, number of women and girls of marriageable age not so employed (or otherwise employed) who are likewise destined to go through life unwed. Every unmarried woman means an unmarried man.

To say that the sex question, in so far as it presents a problem, is a question of biology or psychology is to beg the question altogether. It is the equivalent of saying that the sex question is merely a question of sex. Both statements merely assert that there is such a thing as sex and a sex urge; neither tends to find or solve, nor is either equipped to solve, the sex problem, unless, forsooth, by the tendency to annihilation.

Individual sex pathology may come under the purview of biology or psychology, but even the problem of general or social sex pathology, if there is such a problem, would be beyond the spheres of biologic or psychologic inquiry or solution.

If it is conceded that the sex problem is merely an economic problem, the rest is easy, for poverty is only a lack of purchasing power and the only thing we have to do to remedy it is to increase the purchasing power of the worker.

Purchasing power, of course, depends on wages, and to increase purchasing power it is necessary to increase wages. Wages are governed by the law of supply and demand, and are high or low in the measure that labor is scarce or plentiful in comparison to jobs. To increase the purchasing power of the worker or professional man we have therefore merely to make workers scarce in comparison to jobs, or jobs plentiful in comparison with workers. As the former can be done only by killing off enough workers, so as to leave a dearth of laborers, let us apply ourselves to the latter and see if we can increase the number of jobs.

To increase the number of jobs we've got to go to the source of jobs. All work is done to satisfy human needs and desires, and all wealth, which is produced in response to these needs and desires, comes out of the earth. The more earth there is in use the more workers there are employed; also the more workers there are employed, the greater is the production of wealth and the more wealth there is to go around. To get more jobs therefore we must get more land into use -- we must make it impossible to bold valuable land out of use.

The free use of land will result in. increased activity on farms and in mines, in quarries, forests, foundries, mills and transportation, and means increased activities in factories, shops and offices. Jobs will seek men, instead of men seeking jobs. Competition will be between employers for workers, not between workers for employment. The law of supply and demand will do the rest, and the worker will receive the full value of his labor.

Men and women will marry in the bloom of youth. The now permanent ten million counted spinsters, (and the now equally permanent though, uncounted millions) will be at work as wives at their own firesides instead of in factories, mills, shops, offices, or as dependents. The many millions of children below the marriageable age that are now at work will be in school.

The work now done by these many millions of women and children will have to be done by men, and thus will be added still more jobs to those, already provided, and the greater and more insistent demand for labor thus resulting, coupled with the reduction in the number of workers, will further raise wages, to the point where labor and services will absorb all wealth produced.

Natural law governs all life. Sex and the sex urge are only tools in the workshop of nature, intended for the reproduction of the species. Whoever disobeys or violates natural law tends only to destroy himself. There is no permanent or safe way out but in obedience to natural law.

If we are looking for solutions that are to be permanent, we cannot remain superficial in our investigations. We must be fundamental. Sex and the sex urge are facts, not problems. The conditions under which the sex urge is expressed (or repressed) are the problems confronting us. Eliminate poverty, want, and the fear of want, and you eliminate bachelorhood, spinsterhood and unhappy marriages. Eliminate poverty and you have solved the "sex problem."