aroused to do so; yet it is to be hoped that, in our zeal for less restraints in this field, we do not swing to the opposite extreme. This suggests, as a fitting conclusion to this review, the subject of education and what it means to our evaluations of sexual morality, and of representations of sexual subjects in art and literature.

The Educational Challenge

We hear a great deal today about the dangers of "thought control" as exercised in the political and even the religious activities of our social life, meaning by "thought control" the efforts of persons or agencies to impose upon others any particular view of life, or culture, to the exclusion of other views. Yet surely there is no single area of life where effort at thought control is so relentless and universal as in the area of sex, with all of its psycho-sexual and socio-sexual implications. It begins, so to speak, at the very cradle and continues to the grave, and its agents are parents, brothers, sisters, teachers, friends, together with all of the general public influences which aim to bring about conformity of behavior through conformity of thinking, and through conformity of attitude.

Educators and psychologists seem to be in universal agreement that sexual orientations and attitudes are basically established in everyone before adolescence, and that from adolescence onward, actual sexual behavior merely reflects the tendencies which were already there. Although we are here concerned only with certain individual preferences, or tastes, in literature and the arts, which create a demand for certain types of material, it is only too evident that these preferences are nothing more than the outcome of general attitudes and valuations, stemming largely from parental and other educational influences, most of which stress conform-

ity to certain traditions, rather than self-fulfillment. Whatever fails to aid (or positively restrains) the individual self-fulfillment smacks of thought control, conformity, and constraint, and as such cannot be considered truely educative. Thus the educator and the censor can be said to perform contrary functions in our society, and it would be a sad day indeed if the latter should ever assume the upper hand.

In the legal category, "obscenity" in literature and the arts is simply what we are told it is, by a few persons in a position to assert and enforce their views no matter how capricious and groundless their views may be. In other categories, "obscenity" must necessarily be determined through individual judgments, which will be related to the same individual's judgments in sexual matters generally; and although a jority may agree sufficiently in their judgments to permit a public code to be established and enforced, nevertheless there will always be something unique about each individual's judgment, and the liberty to think and act in private as one chooses is far more precious than any advantages to be gained by curtailing it.

The esthetic tone of erotic representations in literature and the arts is and always will be precisely in accord with the varieties of public demand. Those who bring depth, beauty, insight, and significance into their own experience of sex, will demand similar treatment of the subject in literary or other artistic forms, and will be shocked or disgusted or merely bored when these standards are violated. And if we propose to elevate the esthetic tone of literature and art, insofar as the representation of erotic themes is concerned, so as to eliminate what is "obscene" from the esthetic standpoint, it is quite useless to begin with the censor, or to suppose that he can take any final meas-

17