(1961) The Chapman Report

by Irving Wallace

  “I’m not sure I like that kind of gamble.”

  “Sometimes it’s necessary,” said Paul. “You lock yourself up in this pretty bungalow and theorize, but we’re out listening to three thousand real women with real sex histories. That’s reality. That’s the way the world is living. The peddlers of ignorance, of medieval morality, smear us for this. They say we are collectors and purveyors of erotic filth. You have no idea of the resistance we meet. They put Dr. Chapman with D. H. Lawrence, and Rabelais, and De Sade, and Henry Miller. But that’s not the worst of it. While we’re locked

  in battle with these roundheads, we have at our rear the special eggheads, the lint pickers and pinhead tabulators, the intellectual critics.” He held up his hand. “I’m not saying you are among them, though to all intents you might as well be. But despite this, while our arms and strategy and banners may not be perfect, we go on fighting, because we know the cause, and we know we are needed. Perhaps our means to the end is wrong. Perhaps the end does not justify the means. Well-perhaps. But we are fighting, because we know someone must win a more tolerant morality and a new climate for sex-and since someone isn’t doing it, now, right now, then we must.”

  Paul halted, breathless. Momentarily embarrassed by his outburst, he sought his pipe. Dr. Jonas smiled. “You’re all right,” he said.

  “As I told you, I believe in this.”

  “Maybe I’ve been a little rough on you. I don’t mean it personally-“

  “Christ, you don’t have to apologize to me.”

  “… but, you see, I don’t believe in this. When we spoke on the phone, you said we had the same goal, so let’s talk. Well, yes, that I believe. The same goal. You know, Paul, prattling on about tolerance and wisdom and better life used to be the province of radical or liberal boys, the very young. Now, I think it’s time for the men to take over, do the boys’ work. I’m sick of idealism being related to puberty. I think the business of idealism belongs to tough, sophisticated, mature grown men. I want to confine puritanism behind a small iron fence, as you do, make it a curiosity and symbol of the dead past, like Plymouth Rock. I want men and women finally free and unafraid. They must be led out of bondage to that better place. Yes, we are in full accord about that. The question is: Which road will take us swiftly and surely to that place? I have an idea, and I don’t think it is Dr. Chapman’s road.”

  Paul was suddenly conscious of his assignment. “But we’re going in the same direction. That’s the important thing. I’m sure Dr. Chapman would appreciate your criticisms-“

  “I doubt it.”

  “The survey is his entire life. He’s always trying to improve it. He’s a pure scientist.” Paul hesitated, aware of the skepticism in Dr. Jonas’ face. “You don’t believe me?”

  “Well-“

  “You seem unreasonably hostile to him.”

  “Because, in my opinion, he is not a pure scientist. He is as

  much, if not more, a publicist and politician. Those strains degrade the breed, the purity.”

  Fleetingly, Paul remembered the conversation on the train, when Dr. Chapman had defended the Scientist as Politician. He considered paraphrasing Dr. Chapman’s explanation of the necessity, but then he thought better of it.

  “I think,” Dr. Jonas was saying, “you make the mistake, Paul, of mixing your own identity with Dr. Chapman’s. You are devoted to truth. And you can see how I might be useful. But Dr. Chapman, I am sure, is not you, far from you.”

  “We’re not that unlike.”

  “You may not want to be, but I have a hunch you are. However, that’s neither here nor there.”

  “But it is. I’d very much like to get you together with Dr. Chapman. Let you see for yourself.”

  Dr. Jonas eyed Paul curiously. “Is that why you are here?”

  “Not exactly,” Paul said too quickly.

  Dr. Jonas studied the blotter on his desk a moment. His fingers fiddled with a small clay ash tray in the shape of a sombrero. When he looked up, his voice was gentle. “Well, before we find out exactly why you are here, you might want to hear me out a few more minutes. I have a little more to say about your survey. My sense of completeness would be frustrated if I did not finish. I would keep thinking at night what I should have told you.”

  “By all means,” said Paul, relieved.

  “From the outset of your investigation, I noticed, Dr. Chapman, like several others before him, seemed to choose the orgasm as his unit of measurement. At first, I saw nothing wrong with that. It was something to start with. And, as you have remarked, how can one measure love? All right, then-the orgasm-but what alarmed me, what I now deplore, is the ill usage of his findings in the bachelor survey, and the dangers inherent in publishing the married female survey. Of course, Dr. Chapman is a biologist, so I can understand his affection for sub-human animals. I was not surprised when he quoted Edward Elkan, writing in that Bombay sexology journal, as stating that no female animals, except some bony fish and the swan, ever have orgasms. Nor was I surprised when Dr. Chapman reported that the average male primate indulges in sex as a reflex action, that he has his orgasm seventeen seconds after intromission, just long enough for the species to survive. But when he related this latter information to the revelation that the average

  single male interviewed reaches orgasm in one hundred and nineteen seconds-less than two minutes-I was disturbed.”

  “Why should you be? It’s a fact.”

  “Your fact. Others have different facts. Dickinson found the average to be closer to five minutes; Kinsey found the average to be between two and three minutes. But let’s say it is a fact. I don’t object to that. What I object to is that by implication Dr. Chapman condones the fact-says brief duration of intercourse is right and good, because it is widespread and therefore normal. I’m not sure it is right and good-I speak of marital relations-and neither are most psychiatrists sure it is right and good. What is natural and easiest for the male as an animal may not be suitable to the condition of marriage that he has invented. I wouldn’t be surprised if many men took this as license to abandon control.”

  “I can’t believe that, Victor, not while women-and this I have heard from them-relate potency and virility to prolonged intercourse. And don’t forget Hamilton’s findings. He asked his women, ‘Do you believe that your husband’s orgasms occur too quickly for your own pleasure?’ and forty-eight per cent answered yes, in one form or another. Most men sense this or understand it.”

  “Well, maybe. Mind you, I’m not saying rapid ejaculation is always wrong. An excited, erotic response can be good, if it does not stem from hostility. And often, of course, a female may be pathologically retarded in her response, and then there is no need for the male to indulge in unnatural masochism. But generally, this is not the case. And I think Dr. Chapman’s use of his figures on male orgasm have been harmful. Furthermore, I don’t like the way he separates orgasm from emotion. In your tables, each orgasm represents a single numeral, no more, no less, no different from any other. But don’t tell me an orgasm with a streetwalker is the very same as orgasm with a pretty virgin you have married. Or that orgasm attained in harried seconds on a public stairway is the same as one attained during a leisurely vacation in a mountain hide-out. Even worse, to Dr. Chapman, that numeral on orgasm is the end of the sexual relationship.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “For the male, technically, yes. But you’ve just been talking to some thousands of females. For many of them, it may not be an end but a beginning. What about procreation-pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood?”

  “You’re right, of course,” said Paul. “I’m sure Dr. Chapman understands that. It’ll be clear when the new work is written.”

  “I see no evidence of it in what I’ve read to date. You may think, Paul, I’ve drifted far afield. But I don’t believe so. You throw a lot of cold figures out to men and women who are deeply concerned. They read them, or misread them, or are misled by what they read, and they’re no higher fro
m hell than when they started. I was going over Dr. Chapman’s female pie graphs last night, and I was appalled at some of the master’s sketchy and dogmatic comments to the Zollman people. In graph after graph, he seemed to be saying that women who enjoy orgasms frequently are certain to have happy marriages, as if that was all there was to love. I’m more inclined to plump with Dr. Edmund Bergler and Dr. William S. Kroger. Remember what they wrote? ‘If a woman typically experiences orgasm in a series of clandestine relationships, but is cold in marriage, her orgasm is not proof of health but of neurosis.’ There are a hundred authorities who believe orgasms are not so closely related to marital success as Dr. Chapman would suppose. I really worry that Dr. Chapman’s undigested nonsense can do infinite damage.”

  “I think it’s a pity you saw this new material before Dr. Chapman could study and edit it.”

  Dr. Jonas pinched the point of his hooked nose. “I only read it because Dr. Chapman saw fit to submit it to the Zollman Foundation. And that’s one more point I wish to make. Do you mind?”

  “Please-“

  “Your boss is too impatient, too much the man in a hurry. Fretfulness, haste, may be estimable qualities in a promoter, but they work to the detriment of a scientist. Don’t think me pompous or stuffy about this. I’m really concerned. If you must excuse or qualify what you have written, then don’t submit it to be read. I’m referring not only to the latest findings he gave the Zollman directors but the books he has and will submit to his profession and the lay public. And even his pronouncements in the press-I read that big interview he gave when he arrived here-all about men and women having different attitudes toward the sexual act. It’s taken him a long time to learn what Lord Byron knew by instinct in 1819 -‘Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart ‘Tis woman’s whole existence.’”

  “Which Madame de Stael discovered a quarter of a century before Byron,” Paul could not resist saying. ” ‘Love is the whole history of a woman’s life; it is only an episode in man’s.’ Perfectly true. But

  few people ever believed what Byron or Madame de Stael wrote. Now, Dr. Chapman is proving it statistically. Why shouldn’t he tell the press about it? It’ll certainly give more mutual understanding of love to married couples.”

  “Will it? The mere statistics of it-that men and women are different? I think not. Because it doesn’t tell the whole truth. And either Dr. Chapman knows this and won’t face it, or he simply doesn’t know it-and in either case, he shouldn’t go to the public with it yet. This very fact that men and women are different proves a serious error in the survey itself. Dr. Chapman’s graphs show how many times a woman has sexually complied to her mate’s demands, but the graphs don’t show how she felt about complying. Which is a truer fact about a woman’s love-that she agreed to copulate with her husband last night? Or that she felt a certain way about doing it before, during, and after? Remember this, Paul, a man must have desire to become one of Dr. Chapman’s statistics, but a woman may become a statistic without any desire at all. More often than not, I believe, a woman will want her husband because he has been sweet and thoughtful and devoted to her the entire day, and the night’s physical act of love becomes a culmination of all the other facets of love throughout the day. I think it is this, rather than an aching and demanding sexual organ, that puts a female happily into bed. With a man, it is quite the opposite. He is in bed largely because of his organ. I’m only saying Dr. Chapman’s splashy interview did not explain this important difference.”

  “He pointed out plainly that woman’s needs differ from man’s,” Paul interrupted doggedly.

  “Not enough. He’s only saying that men and women face each other on two different levels. That’s disheartening to know, when you leave it that way. But if your statistics also included women’s feelings and requirements-and he then told them to the press-it might do a lot of good. But here again, he’s not interested in the essential, only in numbers that can be translated into headlines. If he were not so rushed to win publicity and money-“

  “He doesn’t keep a red cent of his earnings.”

  “I know that,” Dr. Jonas said brusquely. “I mean money for his damn project-and I’m not sure this is all so selfless-anyway, if he weren’t so rushed, he could get into his investigations with more depth. The whole atmosphere of superficiality is distressing.”

  “One has to set boundaries.”

  “Yes, Paul, but as long as you’ve opened the can of peas partially, open it completely, so that someone may profit by its contents. I’m not trying to harass you with generalities. I know exactly what I mean. Take this married female survey you’re winding up. I want more information. And what I want is pertinent. The woman you interviewis she sterile or not? How many children does she have? If she had premarital intercourse, was she ever pregnant? If so, how did this affect her eventual marriage? This woman -was she an only child? If not, did she have an older brother or sister? What are her feelings toward the size of the male genital? What are her feelings toward intimacy during the period of menstruation? Does she prefer twin beds to a double bed? Do contraceptives restrain her response? Is she thinking of a divorce? Has she been in analysis? If she had premarital intercourse, and married her partner, did she do so because coitus was satisfactory, or in spite of the fact that it wasn’t or didn’t it matter?” Abruptly, he stopped. “I could go on for an hour. I won’t. The point is, a few of these questions should have been considered.”

  “How do you know they weren’t?”

  “I don’t. I assume-based on what I perceive of Dr. Chapman’s character, ambitions, aims, and previous charts.” He stared at Paul a moment. “You still think Dr. Chapman would like to talk to me?”

  “I know that he would.”

  “Why?” Before Paul could speak, Dr. Jonas spread his hands as a baseball umpire does in calling a safe play. “No prepared platitudes, Paul-and no double-talk about how the great white father always wants to improve. Just tell me the real reason he would want to see me-and why he sent you here?”

  Paul felt his cheeks tighten and their color change. He sat unmoving, trying to determine his reply. Should he play Dr. Chap man’s game of pretense? Surely, Dr. Jonas would find it obvious. Or should he cast aside pretense and frankly state the truth? Possibly, Dr. Jonas would be antagonized. In either instance, Paul realized, Dr. Jonas’ reaction would be negative.

  Through the evening, he was now aware, he had been carefully watching to detect that one crack in his host’s armor. In every man, there was this crack, sometimes hardly visible, but there nonetheless. Once detected, it could often be opened wider and breached, no matter what the initial resistance, by a concerted attack on insecurity or aspiration. But Paul had been unable to find the crack in his host’s integrity. Perhaps there was none. This possibility was

  disquieting. For all the man’s bull-headed, wrong-headed opposition, Paul wanted his respect. Usually, he did not care. But this time it mattered. To repeat the contrived story would involve a calculated risk. It might reveal the crack, and Dr. Chapman would win, and he, Paul, would gain. More likely, it would reveal nothing and serve only to earn Dr. Jonas’ contempt. Paul wanted neither the victory nor the defeat.

  Dr. Jonas, arms crossed on his chest, corncob smoking, balanced on his swivel chair, waiting.

  Paul stirred. “I’ll tell you what he wanted me to talk to you about. He wants you on his team as a consultant, under contract, at half more than you’re earning today.”

  Dr. Jonas’ voice was hardly audible. “The Zollman Foundation?”

  “Yes”

  “He wants to buy me out?”

  Paul hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Paul shrugged. “Because if you can be bought out, you will be. And if you can’t be, I’ve retained your friendship.”

  Dr. Jonas continued to teeter on the swivel chair. The only sound in the room was the squeak of its unoiled spring. That, and for Paul, his own heart. He watched
and waited. The crack. Would it show?

  There was a knock on the door.

  Dr. Jonas looked off. “Yes?”

  The door opened slightly, and Peggy’s freckled face poked into the room. She glanced from one to the other. “No cuts or bruises? No knockdowns?”

  “No,” said Dr. Jonas.

  “Well, now, you’ve both had enough. I’ve got a snack on the table. Victor, you bring your guest in before he faints from undernourishment.”

  “All right, dear.”

  Peggy’s head disappeared. Dr. Jonas rose to his feet, and Paul stood up. They went through the bungalow door into the yard. The fog was thicker now. Great flaxen curls of vapor obscured the moon. The wet yard was dark except for the light from the kitchen door. Both men entered the corridor of yellow light on the grass.

  Dr. Jonas took Paul’s arm. Paul turned his head, and he saw that Dr. Jonas was smiling. “Let’s put it this way, Paul,” he said. “Let’s say, you’ve retained my friendship.”

  Efficiently, Peggy Jonas cleared the dining-room table of the plates and the large platter that still held a third of the warm pizza pie. Paul and Dr. Jonas ate their Danish rolls and drank their coffee. Not once during the time at the table had Paul or Dr. Jonas returned to their discussion of the survey. The conversation had been inconsequential and pleasant. Peggy, with a wonderful gift for mimicry, had synopsized the old motion picture that she had seen on television. Dr. Jonas spoke of the bull fights the entire family had recently witnessed in Tia Juana, and each of them had a theory about the cult that had adopted the sport in the United States, agreeing only that there was a certain snobbery involved, like proudly parading the first name of some slob of a bartender. Paul spoke of a vacation that he had once enjoyed, during the period when he had taught at the private girls’ school in Berne, with the remarkable Basques in and about San Sebastian.

  When the coffee was served, Dr. Jonas asked Paul if he ever intended to write again-the only allusion to any part of their talk in the rear bungalow-and Paul told him of the Sir Richard Burton literary biography begun some years before and abandoned for the collaboration on A Sex Study of the American Bachelor.