The Harrad Experiment

by Robert H. Rimmer

  “Ye Gods . . . what about Jack and Valerie?”

  “Silly . . . we don’t know about them yet. Maybe they won’t want to get married and have children.”

  “But you and Beth do?”

  “Yes!”

  “And who supports all this brood?”

  “Well,” Sheila said seriously, “Beth and I figured it this way. She and Harry are planning to go to medical school. If you and I apply to do graduate work in the same university, we all ought to be able to get scholarships. Next summer and the following summer we will have a fund of nearly five thousand dollars. Then, when we graduate from Harrad we can take an apartment together or rent a house, and all of us can move in with the children. We can hire a woman to take care of the children when we aren’t there. But, anyway our classes will probably work out so that one of the four of us will be there most of the time.”

  “Sheila,” I chuckled and pulled her behind against me so that I was deep inside her. “Do you mind if I change your name?”

  “To what?” she asked.

  “To Kandy ... Kandy Grove. And when you write your father be sure and tell him!”

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF SHEILA GROVE

  November, December, January, the Second Year

  All of the second year class at Harrad are experimenting with a method of sexual intercourse which Margaret and Phil call sexual communion. I can see now that Phil has been preparing us for it gradually. Since September in the Human Values seminar, he has assigned John Woodroffe’s S’akti and S’akta, John Noyes’ Male Continence, Diana, by Henry Parkhurst, Kasezza by Alice Stockham, Art of Love, by W. F. Robie, Sex Perfection by Rudoph von Urban, finishing with Nature, Man and Woman by Alan Watts.

  This is by no means all the books we have had scheduled. Phil feels the only sound basis of education is exposure to thousands of ideas. By forcing us into continuous evaluation, he expects our own frames of reference will be eventually enlarged into a workable philosophy of life.

  When we groaned that we didn’t need to read any more books on how-to-do-it-sex, Phil asked us to be patient. “I would never assign these books to the freshman class. As freshmen you weren’t mature enough. Even now with most of you in your twentieth year it may be questionable, whether you can fully grasp these concepts. In the next few weeks we are going to explore the psychological, the metaphysical, and the religious quality of sexual intercourse. Whether you profit by it now, or in later life, the door has been opened. I predict that eventually you will embody these ideas in your love experiences. To our knowledge, outside occasional references to these ideas in various sex manuals, the books we have assigned, are the only writings available on the subject. Yet we will be dealing with a very ancient idea. In practical married life, perhaps many people have learned these ideas by trial and error without ever becoming aware of their tremendous potential in developing communication in its deepest sense between the male and female.

  “The original concept stems from the Hindu Tantric literature and is based on the worship of Sakti, or the all pervading life principle in the Universe. As John Woodroffe points out: ‘the whole of life, without any single exception, may be an act of worship if man makes it so.’ Thus, the Hindu Pancattattva offer five ways for man to unite himself with the fountainhead of the universe. One of these ways “Maithuna” is sexual intercourse of a very special kind. The Tantric philosophy conceives the physical union of man and woman as part of the Divine Nature in action. Thus the body is Sakti. Pursued to its ultimate, man himself is God. When the Divine Mother is seen in all things, man achieves true liberation. In seeking these truths, many means are available. Sexual intercourse, properly understood, is one of the important ways for man and woman to eliminate the polarization of their bodies. In the act of coitus, a man and woman can unite their consciousness into a single pole with the unceasing Consciousness of the Universe. In the sexual act, bodies are left behind and the minds of the participants can merge into a state called by the Hindu Samadhi.”

  “You can see,” Phil said later, during one of his lectures to us in Harrad Little Theatre, “that sexual intercourse taking place in this mental environment is actually an act of worship. By definition it becomes elevated, pure without lust. We are not suggesting that the act of coitus need always be endowed with such high spirituality, but we do have in this yoga discipline a definite and obvious requirement that the male participant be able to delay his ejaculation not for a typical half-hour, but perhaps for a whole evening.”

  There was a lot of laughter, groans, and comments that it might be possible if the girl would cooperate and not move a muscle. But what fun would that be, anyway?

  Phil chuckled. “We are neither prescribers, or enforcers ... just exploring with you an idea which we believe can enhance and enlarge your own values. So far as we can determine, the Tantric idea which is extremely repugnant to orthodox Christianity and Judiasm because it idealizes sex, and uses sex as a form of worship, has lain dormant in the West for centuries. Whatever knowledge of the basic concepts that have filtered through to the West were ultimately identified with a sexual orgiastic behaviour, and little has been written about them.

  “The possibility of delaying the male ejaculation was rediscovered in 1846 by John Humphrey Noyes who described it in a book called Male Continence. Noyes’ discovery came about through his great love for his wife who had suffered through five pregnancies, with all but one child prematurely born. Noyes persuaded his wife to experiment with prolonged intercourse without ejaculation or orgasm. Keep in mind this was little more than a hundred years ago. Contraceptive techniques were largely unknown. In Noyes’ words: ‘But what if a man knowing his own power and limits should not even approach the crisis, and yet be able to enjoy motion ad libitum. If you say that is impossible, I answer that I know it is possible ... nay it is easy.’”

  “He’s crazy,” Harry Schacht said when a group of us continued the discussion with Phil after his lecture. “First, a man who had intercourse without ever ejaculating would have aching testicles, and second, I doubt its efficacy as a method of birth control. Some semen would escape into the vagina whether there was ejaculation or not.”

  Dr. Anson Fanner, who had been attending this series of lectures, shook his head. “I won’t agree that male continence is a healthy approach to sex, but it is a method that probably would be effective for birth control. Basically in prolonged intercourse some semen is released into the urethra. This slight release probably saves the male from what you refer to as aching testicles. Since there are no violent muscular contractions in the man who accomplishes this feat, the pressure of the vagina on the penis may tend to crowd any liquid from escaping from the seminal ducts into the urethra back toward the bladder, rather than forward to the meatus.”

  “You mean a man doesn’t have to wear anything until he ejaculates?” Valerie demanded.

  Dr. Fanner smiled. “If you are depending on sheaths for birth control, you can probably blame the failure of the sheath at the point of ejaculation rather than the simple insertion of a penis into your vagina for an hour or two. Since you have birth control pills available to you, the problem is academic.”

  “We want you to realize,” Phil Tenhausen told us a few days later, “that we are simply tracing an idea. Noyes’ theory of male continence was adopted for a time by the Oneida Community who, at the time, depended upon it as a means of birth control. This community shared wives communally. Male continence probably permitted them to determine with some accuracy a particular father, as well as limit the combined progeny of the group. The real value of the theory is the awareness that the male can control his ejaculation and develop such a yoga like control that it is possible for the female to have several orgasms over a period of several hours without the male losing control.”

  “This may be well and good in theory,” Jack Dawes protested, “but I fail to see the advantage of such lengthy intercourse.”

  “Only personal experimentation can prove the v
alue of this approach to sex,” Phil said, “In the various books we’ve read, a common body of unique experience indicates that individuals attempting prolonged intercourse may make some interesting discoveries. We, of course, believe that ultimate orgasm for both participants is desirable. As you read these various books, I suggest you collect a series of impressions from them that may point up for you the psychological and mystic experiences that others have obtained from sexual communion.”

  Stanley hasn’t been keeping a journal for the past few months. “I’m too happy to write in a journal,” he grinned at me. “I have no problems. You underline all the ideas that impress you. When you’re finished, we’ll give sexual communion a real whirL We’ll climb in the sack and you can read them to me while I’m inside you. Be sure you have enough material to last all night, because I am really a strong yoga.”

  I challenged Stanley there and then, and he had to eat his words. But Saturday night he demanded a return match, “to prove the power of mind over matter.” By nine o’clock I was in bed with Robie’s book, The Art of Love, von Urban’s, Sex Perfection, Alan Watt’s, Nature, Man and Woman, and Summer-hill by A. S. Neill. I told Stanley I was ready.

  “What has Summerhill got to do with this,” Stanley demanded, trying to ignore naked me, and looking over the books I’d piled on the night stand near the bed.

  “Just in case we ran out of material,” I grinned. “In point of fact, you don’t look as if you’d last ten minutes, let alone several hours.”

  Stanley snuggled against my breasts for a moment, kissing them softly. It’s probably going to be quite a project,” he whispered. “I’m losing confidence already.”

  “Come inside me,” I said, “Then we’ll turn on our sides, and we’ll lie very quietly while I read to you.”

  For a minute or two Stanley seemed to have other ideas. He found his way into me with great conviction. Feeling him moving slowly inside me, I was quite certain we weren’t going to prove anything. “All right,” he said giving me a final kiss and rolling me on my side, “I can see that it’s up to me to restrain you ... you demon! Go ahead and read to me.”

  “This really is a nice way to read,” I murmured into his ear. I was reluctant to open the book, enjoying the pressure of his hand on my behind as he held me close to him.

  “You’d better start reading,” Stanley chuckled. “I don’t dare breathe. I need to think of something beyond how enjoyable this is.”

  I perched Dr. Robie’s book on the pillow just over his head. “This is fun,” I said feeling quite bubbly. “Seriously, Stan, I think one of the most interesting things about this book is that it was written more than forty years ago. Dr. Robie was away ahead of his time in understanding sex and love. Here’s some of the things I’ve underlined: “ ‘Men now find that it is a delight to prolong the love union, and soon discover that mutual delight is given and received under complete control . . . During a lengthy period of lengthy control the whole being of each is submerged in the other, and exquisite exaltation is experienced ... Perfect control comes by patience and determination and the reward is happy, united lives and each attain to their higher selves ... To be able to continue the reciprocal movements of communion for an indefinite time without arriving at the orgasm is a matter of education, and will only come after continued endeavor.’ ”

  “He can say that again,” Stanley said tasting my nipples. “When I kiss you like that, I feel your vagina contract on me.”

  “It will do more than contract, if you don’t stop. Cooperate and listen,” I said, continuing to read. “‘I seem to sublimate my partner into a paradise of tender peace and romantic reverie and thrill her to a sort of soul intoxication of magnetic bliss. The orgasm would seem quite the antipodes of this and a crude shock by contrast ... All my aim is to establish this wonderful magnetic rapport and this romantic, Poetic ecstacy . . . Words fail ... We are literally angels in heaven in our innocence and conscious purity an untellable mutual love. Who would care for an orgasm in such an emotional state of divine realization. It would bring all to an abrupt end. Do not even think of it or mention it.’”

  “Stanley,” I shivered, “stop running your fingers over my belly before I explode. Listen to this. A female doctor wrote this to Dr. Robie more than forty years ago: ‘You ask how long the desire for emission should be inhibited ... You seem to consider reservatus (extended sexual intercourse) as repression while I think of it as expression of the highest order. As all progress in civilization has been by means of the volitional part of the brain gradually taking over more and more of the processes that were formerly reflexive or instinctive, so the sexual nature is the last to be taken over. Evolution demands that this be done. Fame waits at the door of him to whom is given the task of so educating humanity that it may come to see sexual intercourse in this light.’”

  “Are you going to last, Stanley?” I asked.

  “No trouble at all,” he grinned. “You look so sweetly serious while you are reading, your breasts feel so nice and warm, and your heart is beating so quietly that I really am magically floating on your words.”

  “Let me finish Robie . . . then you can read from von Urban. Here, this is interesting! It’s from the Handbook of the Oneida Community, written nearly a hundred years ago: ‘Oneida Communists have a special theory in regard to the act of sexual intercourse ... two distinctive kinds of sexual intercourse ought to be recognized; one simply social, the other propagative, and that the propagative should only be exercised when impregnation is intended and mutually agreed upon. Sexual intercourse without the propagative act (except when propagation is intended) is all that we tolerate in Free Love; ... So far as this matter is concerned, Free Love, in the Oneida sense of the term, is much less free in the gross, sensual way than marriage ... We have left the simple form of marriage and advanced to the complex stage of it. We have no quarrel with those who believe in exclusive dual marriage and faithfully observe it, but, for us, we have concluded there is a better way. The honor and faithfulness that constitute an ideal marriage may exist between two hundred as well as two; while the guarantees for women and children are much greater in the Community than they can be in any private family. The results of the complex system we may sum up by saying, that men are rendered more courteous, women more winning, children are better born, and both sexes are personally free.’

  “I wonder why other groups haven’t tried to form communities like Oneida?” I asked.

  Stanley smiled. “There’s a lot more than sex in the Oneida concepts. They pooled the results of all their labor. The very thought is abhorent to the average American. We are too individualistic. There were a dozen or more of those communistic societies in the United States in the 1800’s. Most of them were based on very stern religious codes, and dominated by one or two leaders.” Stanley wiggled away from me and took von Urban’s book.

  “Hurry back,” I sighed. “I feel better when you are inside me.”

  Joined again, Stanley turned the pages to my underlinings. “This is from a letter to Dr. von Urban: ‘Dr. A. B., a former patient of my sanitorium, told the following story: (A week ago I married a beautiful young Arabian girl. We were both very much in love. The strange happenings between us were so remarkable and exciting, that I felt impelled to tell them to an expert. My wife and I lay for an hour, naked on a couch in close bodily contact, caressing each other, but without sex union. The room was in total darkness, entirely blacked out. You could not distinguish anything. Then we separated from each other and stood up; thereupon my wife became visible. She was outlined with a nimbus of greenish-blue mystic light which radiated from her. It was like a halo, except for the fact, that it encircled not only her head but her whole body, showing its configuration in a hazy way. As she stood there, I moved my hand slowly toward her. When my palm came within an inch of her breast an electric spark sprang from her to me, visible, audible, and painfuL We both shrank back) ... Experience has convinced the author that there is a difference in
the bio-electrical potential in the bodies of male and female which can be exchanged in proper intercourse, leaving both partners relaxed, happy and satisfied ... During the following weeks this young couple made further experiments on my behalf ... During the course of these experiments it was ascertained that if the couple did not lie naked for half hour or longer, in close physical contact, kissing and caressing, but instead started intercourse immediately, the strange radiation did not emanate from the body of the girl, nor did the sparks fly between the two lovers when they stood near each other afterwards, even though the sex union lasted less than twenty-seven minutes. Further the lovers found that every intercourse lasting less than twenty-seven minutes induced an urgent desire, in both, for a repetition of the sex act. But, if this desire was fulfilled by another too brief act, both became nervous and irritated, and sometimes they suffered physical ailments afterwards (headache, heart-palpitation, asthma, etc.) This seemed to show that the tension in the sex organs was reduced, but not the tension of the entire body ... Intercourse for less than twenty-seven minutes increased the distance at which the sparks would jump to more than one inch, indicating that the tension in their bodies became stronger with each intercourse of brief duration ... On the other hand intercourse lasting half an hour or more was followed by entire relaxation from nervous tension.’”

  “My God ... what does that prove?” I asked pressing myself even closer against Stanley.

  “It’s simple. If people like you and me rush into intercourse, and whack it off, the coroner may find only the charred remains. We would have electrocuted each other!”

  Stanley stopped for a minute to kiss away my laughter and then he read: “ ‘The natives of the Trobriand Islands, in British New Guinea, ridicule the sex life of civilized people, caricaturing before mixed audiences, the sketchy, limp and clumsy technique of Western lovers. The audience is amused by this burlesque of a lower state of erotic culture; but they believe that they exaggerate because, in their experience, no people could enjoy a sex act so lacking in preparation, and so hurried in consummation. The explanation they offer is this: “ ‘After one hour the souls of the ancestors awaken and bless our union.’ ” For these Island Lovers, the long duration of the sex act is obligatory, a duty to their ancestors. Too brief a sex union would torture them with feelings of guilt and remorse ... The man does not lie over his mate; to do so would imprison her ... During a long sex act this would become unbearable ... Sometimes they lie together with their heads at opposite ends of the sleeping mat, the two open pair of legs fitted together like two pincers in such a way that the sex organs come into the closest possible contact without penetration of the vagina. In this position they sleep together at times when no sex intercourse is intended.’ ”