repeated, may lead to actual illness.

I have spoken of the sex act as it should be, a fine and lofty
emotional experience of two people between whom is the bond of love. It
is true that in the female an entirely passive part is physiologically
possible, and it is also true that in the male, who is biologically the
hunting and pursuing animal, spontaneous desires arise from time to
time which are too often accorded a bodily and disharmonious
satisfaction. Disharmonious because it cannot be too strongly insisted
upon that the completely satisfactory realization of the sex act
involves the participation of every side of human nature, spiritual and
physical, and is the outcome of an intense desire for perfect unity
with the beloved. Hence mere bodily satisfaction of sensuous desire
must have a disharmonious and deteriorating effect, because it ignores
a basal fact of man, namely spirit, and leaves that side of him starved
and unsatisfied. And the same is true of all sexual aberrations and
perversions. Though they may seem at the moment to be unimportant, the
fact remains that they are sins against both the spirit and the flesh,
and are followed inexorably by their own punishment.

It is argued by some that the sexual act should be restricted to
occasions, when there is a definite intention of begetting children.
This does not seem either reasonable or desirable. Nature's plans were
certainly, in the case of human beings, not constructed on that basis.
It would introduce an element of calculation and deliberation into what
is naturally a finely spontaneous thing, and it would put a quite
unnecessary, and in some cases, at least, a harmful, strain upon two
people. As Havelock Ellis has put it: "Even if sexual relationships had
no connection with procreation whatever, they would still be
justifiable, and are, indeed, an indispensable aid to the best moral