Amativeness (1848)

AUTHOR: Fowler, Orson Squire

As its title suggests, this short tract is concerned with what phrenologists term "Amativeness." In the prefatory illustration of the many organs of the brain according to phrenology, Fowler glosses this as the organ of “[s]exual and connubial love” (iv). His tract describes and warns against “the evils consequent on excessive sexual indulgence, whether promiscuous, or matrimonial, or solitary” (21). These evils include all kinds of negative effects for both physical and mental health, which Fowler catalogs and discusses these in some detail (20-50). It is a moral imperative to desist from any kind of sexual practice and to keep Amativeness in check: “Amativeness being situated in the midst of the animal organs, and this indulgence [in sex] tending necessarily to inflame it, its inflammation of course inflames, diseases, and perverts them also. … Excessive indulgence inflames the sexual organs, the whole body, and Amativeness, located in the cerebellum, in particular, and this inflames and depraves the whole animal group of organs, and thereby creates sin in all its forms” (36-37). Fowler promotes veg*ism to counteract the workings of Amativeness.

For Fowler, sexuality amounts to pure animality: The “animal,” he writes, is “a mere sexual thing” (46), and sexual desire is “animal passion” and “animal energy” (48): “Be entreated, oh foolish and wicked! not thus to dethrone the man and enthrone the animal!” (53). The only viable path is total abstinence; neither occasional indulgence nor gradual temperance will do when it comes to sexuality. Hence Fowler's rallying cry: “TOTAL ABSTINENCE IS LIFE ; animal, intellectual, moral. INDULGENCE IS TRIPLE DEATH!” (56).

To achieve abstinence, a proper diet is particularly helpful. Generally, “the diet should be simple and nutritious, and sufficient in quantity” (61). One should be particularly careful to avoid “tea, coffee, tobacco, and all stimulating meats and drinks” (59). While Fowler allows “cocoa, chocolate, or warm water seasoned, or bread coffee, rice coffee, pea coffee, corn coffee, &c., &.c., […] as they do not inflame, and are palatable,” he is adamant that “meats, mustards, condiments, peppers, spices, rich food, gravies – every thing heating and irritating – will only add to existing inflammation, and increase both desire and disease” (61). “A heating diet, after all, is the most prolific cause of ‘excessive and perverted sexuality’” (66), Fowler claims. Conversely, he recommends “rice, bread, fruit, vegetables” and specifies that “[c]oarse or Graham bread, with fruit, or rice, or sago, or tapioca, or potato starch pudding, &c., will tend to obviate inflammation, and allow the system to rally” (61). We cannot “expect the world to become pure morally,” Fowler insists, “till a correct system of dietetics is generally practised” (66).

Last updated on September 6th, 2024

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