convinced also that the day will come when its im-
portance will be recognized. In France it has been
kept hidden under a bushel, and I am rather relying
on the fact that in America it will emerge from this
obscurity, to which I myself deliberately relegated it,
as a precaution against unnecessary scandal. It has
been said that love of scandal drove me to write it.
On the contrary, I have done everything possible to
mitigate the scandal which this book might provoke,
even so far as its form is concerned: for if I had to
rewrite it today, I would do so in a far more affirma-
tive tone and no longer with any irony; partly because
my voice has assumed more assurance, and partly
because I have come to realize that I was far more
in the right than at first I dared to believe. I knew
that the book could wait. Its hour, in France at least,
has not yet arrived. In America perhaps it has? The
publication and circulation of the Kinsey Report al-
lows me to suppose and hope so.

I do not attempt to delude myself as to the inade-
quacies and imperfections of this book. But such as it
is (and I cannot rewrite it), I shall be satisfied if it
helps a little to tear down or lift the thick veil of lies,
conventions and hypocrisy which still stifles an im-
portant and not contemptible part of humanity.

-xiv-