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We are aware that many people, espe- [ cially parents, believe that our present sex laws (and the convictions obtained in their enforcement) are a powerful de- terrent against more sex crimes. Our research, however, does not bear out this view. It seems to be a rule that laws cannot be expected to change sexual be- havior very much; the laws can punish, but not correct or cure, nor even prevent to any great extent. By the time of adolescence, or cer- tainly by the time of adulthood, every person’s sexual habits and preferences seem to be quite rigidly established— partly by innate physical and glandular factors, partly by social conditioning, partly by the rather mysterious forces that the psychoanalysts find at work in our childhoods, The homosexual, for ex- ample, is not a homosexual by choice but by force of circumstance. He cannot help being a homosexual and cannot change, except possibly through psy- chiatric treatment. To us, these circum- stances are grounds enough to ask: If he conducts his homosexual activity in private and only with other homosexuals, why should society be concerned? Adultery is another problem of our society that is more complex than most of us think. Even aside from religious or moral considerations, society certainly has a stake in preventing adultery, for the family is the whole basis of our social structure; and one apparently obvious way to insure that marriages will last is to discourage sexual gratification with anyone except the legal husband or the legal wife. But a closer look shows that this ideal may not always fit the bio- F logical truth. A man and wife can be mismated sexually; or they can become sexually unattractive; or years of in- timacy can produce the urge for novelty. Unacubteaty many marriages are broken up by a husband or a wife who has become sexually dissatisfied. If the law, social custom and moral considera- tions permitted gratification outside the marriage, doubtiess many of these mar- riages would survive, as they do in the} } Latin American and Southern European | : countries, where affairs with a mistress : or a lover are condoned. On the other || hand, there is a great deal to be said , against extramarital dalliances even on - athe-simplest practical grounds. They :' usually involve jealousy and T¥iction, 7 NEL LTNC eect 90 ee ern tines Beton ene a y oo nee es nC RE EET, SEMA ELT YOY IN NAY RAEN AP MMi SM and can lead to emotional involvement thatultimately breaks up the nmme——- riage anyway, or makes it a mockery. The entire matter is fraught with nu- ; ances of practicality, morality, religious attitudes and the complicated structure of human emotions. It is far too delicate a question to be solved by a law that simply states that the man or woman who commits adultery must go to prison and be supported there by society. Even under the kind of law I have suggested, many problems of enforce- Ment and justice would remain. What should society do, for example, about men who commit statutory rape with girls under 16, and about the girls who get involved? If these men were “sex fiends”’ who deliberately set out to se- duce the girls, then the message of our report would be that society should be alert to the danger of a large group of vicious Don Juans preying on the inno- cent and immature. But in 110 cases where we had both the prisoner’s story and the official record for verification, it turned out that in 99 of them there was agreement that the girl had done ab- solutely nothing to discourage the man. Some of the men we found in prison could not possibly have known that the girl was under 16—she looked, dressed and acted more mature. The men were, in a sense, victims of a deception—and 80, in a pathetic way, were the girls ‘themselves. Many girls in their early teens hate the idea;of being so young. Some of them will do anything in their ‘power to seem old and wise beyond their years. They have older friends who are going out with mature young men, and they try their best to keep up. Usually they merely seek companionship; they want to make friends and have a good time. They do not necessarily want sexual experience, and may even fear it, yet come to consider it the price they must pay. Or they may become trapped by their own masquerade; they are not experienced enough to have learned the fine art of escaping unwanted sexual relations, and after so carefully contriv- ing the pretense of sophistication, they find it unbearable to back out at the last minute and reveal themselves as child- ish frauds. Are these girls really “bad” or just unfortunate? And are their boy- friends sex criminals or just ordinary young men who have made a mistake?