tions, result bot because human beings engage in illicit activities (actually, millions of persons reap these evils in the course of perfectly legitimate marital relations), but because the victims are immature and uninformed. Modern contraceptive. and prophylactic information could reduce undesired pregnancies and venereal diseases just about to zero-if we properly employed available knowledge.

No one but an arrant crackpot suggests that we save lives by bannishing the most lethal weapon ever invented-the automobile. Rather, it is frequently suggested, we had better re-educate drivers and build safer roads and cars. Similarly, instead of "banning" certain relationships-which, as we know, does not prevent them-we would do far better to educate those who may engage in them. Not only should such persons be taught safe methods of contraception and prophylactics-they should also be educated as to the emotional considerations involved.

In the meantime, for yourself and your loved ones, there is no reason whatever why you cannot be extremely well informed sexually and teach yourself and them to use sexual knowledge in a sufficiently mature way so as not to jeopardize yourself or any possible sex partners.

2. BE UNEXPLOITATIVE AND UNFORCING. The primary law of human morality is not, as the vast majority of moralists firmly believes, selfsacrifice. It is, instead, self-interest. The only sane reason, in the final analysis, why you should sacrifice yourself for others is that you enjoy doing so, or want to help make this the kind of world where you yourself can gain a fair degree of satisfaction.

Nonetheless, to help yourself, you invariably have to think of others, too. Being extremely inconsiderate of others or harming them will eventually create the kind of world that will not be comfortable for you to live in.

So with sex: Unless you are reasonably considerate of the preference's of others, you are most unlikely to gain maximum satisfaction yourself or to create the kind of a world that you would want to exist.

Be, then, sexually considerate. Do not (emotionally or physically) force anyone to have sex relations with you. Don't take advantage of minors or incompetents. Try, by all means, to convince potential sex partners that they will enjoy relations with you, and do your best to show them that this is true; but if they are too adamant, take yourself quickly to other pastures. Voluntary sex acts between two informed adults, in my view, can virtually never be immoral (though under some conditions they may be inadvisable). Sexual exploitation or coercion, even when it takes place within the bonds of marriage, is essentially antisexual and antisocial.

mattachine REVIEW

.3. BE UNSADISTIC AND NON-INJURING. The sadist enjoys his "sex" act largely because, by his cruelty to another, he has seemingly lowered the intrinsic value of this other, and thus aggrandized his own (pitifully weak) ego.

Sadists, moreover, usually emotionally blackmail their victims. The masochist-the sadist's exploited partner-does not particularly enjoy the physical aspects of being abused, but is willing to accept sexually physical torture in order to gain the emotional acceptance of his or her partner. The sadist, therefore, usually exploits a distinctly disturbed mate. So even when technically he is having relations with a willing partner, this is not actually true; and he is needlessly, gratuitously harming another being, which is the essence of immorality.

Sexual sadism, contrary to popular belief, only very partially takes the form of a direct physical assault by one person against another. Mostly, it occurs in verbal rather than more overt ways, and consists of the sadist's denigrating his victim with words rather than deeds.

The victims of sexual sadists, moreover, are by no means always their sex partners, but can also be those of whom they are excessively jealous or afraid. Thus, the worst sexual sadists can be judges, police officials, censorship authorities, gossips-all those, in fact, who savagely try to devaluate the sex acts of those more potent or interested than they or who may have what they themselves pitifully lack: a facility for guiltless sex enjoyment.

4. BE SEXUALLY ENLIGHTENED AND ENLIGHTENING. Rational sexual virtue not only consists in uprooting your own antisexual, self-destructive tendencies, but in helping others to do the same.

This act of sexually educating others-that is, encouraging them to enjoy themselves as much as they can, personally and socially, so long as they do not harm or coerce others-can of course be abused. Under the guise of helping a member of the other sex surmount his or her self-defeating puritanism, you can-unfairly-try for some side benefits of a wholly unaltruistic nature.

But the other side of the coin, as noted above, is even more dreadful. For under the guise of helping someone to remain "pure," you may vent on him or her your own sadistic, semipsychotic philosophy of restraint. If, moreover, you are sufficiently self-disciplined to follow the other rules of personal and social sex morality already outlined here, you will truly be in a position to be sexually helpful to others rather than exploitative. And the more you spread the gospel of true morality, the more moral (as any good religionist will tell you) you yourself will become.