Sex Through the Navel

A little glint showed in the doctor’s eyes then. He had had other well-bred young men come to him shortly before their marriage. Sometimes it was gonorrhea, less often syphilis; sometimes it was mere fear, masturbation phobia; a widespread theory of the time maintained that the wages of self-abuse was impotence. But usually it was ignorance; only a year before a miserable and childless young husband had come to see Dr. Grogan, who had gravely to explain that new life is neither begotten nor born through the navel.

— John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman