The Mind of Mr Soames by Charles Eric Maine

world as well as men.’
    ‘It can be presented in an abstract way, as gender rather than sex,’ Dr Mortimer explained. ‘As in learning French, for example, la plume is acknowledged as feminine without any question of sex arising. There is no reason at all why Mr Soames should not acquire this convenient attitude, initially at least. After all, young children do quite naturally.’
    ‘Until they come into contact with other young children of the opposite sex, and then they frequently discover that there’s more to it than mere gender,’ Conway said. ‘For instance, I fancy Mr Soames will regard the nurses looking after him as rather less than abstract, as you could hardly call his interest precocious, as it might be in the case of a child.’
    ‘Dr Conway obviously has a practical turn of mind,’ Breuer said to the assembly at large, ‘but the solution to the problem would seem to be rather simple, namely, to employ male nurses. Candidly, I’m inclined to Dr Mortimer’s point of view. I think it is essential not to introduce complications during the early phase of the educational programme. It is equally desirable to eliminate or at least minimise any distracting influences, of which sex is obviously going to be the most powerful.’
    ‘I entirely concur,’ said Mortimer. ‘We must, I think, regard sex education as a thing apart, to be introduced when Mr Soames has reached an accepted level of general education and training and is ready to mix with society. It means, of course, that he will be required to live a monastic life for a period of, well, perhaps several years, but it also means that his education ’will be more speedily accomplished without irrelevant distractions. Or doesn’t Mr Conway agree?’
    Conway shook his head doubtfully. ‘I can’t see anything irrelevant about sex so far as Mr Soames is concerned, and the programme sounds to me more like indoctrination than education. There’s another danger—if Mr Soames, with his blank mind and primitive instincts is forced to live a purely monastic life among male nurses and doctors, his inherent sex drive is likely to become diverted into autoerotic or even homosexual channels.’
    ‘In that case, what would you suggest?’ Mortimer asked with some irony.
    Conway shrugged. ‘That’s hard to say. It just seems to me that here we have a man who, so far as we know, is normal in every respect, perhaps far more normal in absolute terms than any of us here in this room. His mind is, in a sense, raw material which it is our responsibility to mould. Mr Soames will become what we make of him, and we shall stand or fall by the end product. The question of sex is a tricky one, I’ll admit, but we can’t take an ostrich-like attitude by pretending it doesn’t exist—by leading Mr Soames up the garden path of gender when the very hormones in his blood are blindly motivated by sex. Frankly I think one could do worse than provide him with a mistress, or even a wife, at the earliest possible moment. After all, education takes many forms.’
    Silence followed Conway’s matter-of-fact speech, as if his audience couldn’t make up their minds whether to take him seriously or not. Dr Breuer looked slightly incredulous, his mouth slightly open as if about to say something, but he remained silent.
    ‘We must not make the mistake of treating Mr Soames as a little child at infant’s school,’ Conway added tentatively.
    Breuer found his voice. ‘Dr Conway, with all due respect to your obvious sincerity, I’m afraid you appear to have misconstrued the situation entirely. It is not our task to make something of Mr Soames, as you suggest, nor do we stand or fall by the end product. All we are required to do is to give this adult man the kind of information and establish the type of behaviour pattern that will best fit him for the society in which he is to live. If we are successful Mr Soames will, in the course of time, make his own major decisions as to what