11 April 1959
SIR, – May a 21-year-old student give his reaction to the problem of “outmoded chastity”? For spiritual and psychological reasons which Dr Chesser evidently endorses, my girl-friend and I intend to retain our chastity until marriage. University life is not conducive to this. I, for one, find “integrity”, as Dr Chesser calls it, increasingly difficult to maintain.
My own experience and that of many friends emphatically denies that (a) a choice free from the pressure of society would increase chastity; and (b) that the “unconscious fear of frustrating maternal instinct” is an adequate balance. By all means get rid of the guilt and hypocrisy, but if every other social influence is removed Dr Chesser’s “homily” leaves the field uncontested to a converse pressure about which he seems to be unaware – the less easily resisted influence which says “Go on, you’re young, what does it matter when you’re in love – or even if you’re not in love”.
Dr Chesser thinks that only a minority find it difficult. I question this very strongly indeed. If it is true it can only be because the majority are not subjected to the pressures which exist in university life. I doubt that these are much stronger than elsewhere. Has Dr Chesser any convincing new values to redress the balance which he leaves overweighted with the combined pressures of natural impulses and a provocative social environment?
He leaves me for one in a disturbing physical and emotional turmoil, feeling that it would be so much easier if chastity were outmoded. And this is evidently not the conclusion he intended. Can sexologists have attained so pure a degree of dispassion that they are unable to assess the impact of their articles? But why should he bother? It isn’t his problem any longer. He’s married.
Signed, “Undergraduate”
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