The genetic ideas of the inheritable nature
 of various undesirable physical and
 mental characteristics found their ways 
to Finland in the late 1800s. The 
actual breakthrough of eugenics has often
 been located to 1912, the year when 
the first international conference on 
eugenics took place in London. And that 
conference brought out the aims and practical
 implications of eugenics, which 
were reported largely even in Finnish 
newspapers. Especially enthusiastic 
advocates of eugenics in Finland were 
many influential medical doctors and 
professionals who were in charge of the institutional
 care of people with disabilities.
Also, the Swedish speaking upper-class 
was especially keen to raise and 
implement eugenic principles and, for 
instance, Finnish language was seen as one 
indication of a, how do you say, racially
 degenerate trait. And the Finnish 
Civil War in 1918 and the following 
financial crisis strengthened the general 
disgust against groups considered as morally
 dubious and financially consuming. 
Unsurprisingly, the defeated part of the 
Civil War, which consisted mainly of 
working class and Socialists was seen as
 especially dangerous regarding 
Finland's prosperity. These people were
 often referred to as mentally feeble and 
pathologically fanatic in their hatred
 toward the bourgeois, especially 
individuals with a poor intellectual 
competence who seemed to be prone to live 
uncontrollably according to their instincts
 and mainly sexual instincts. They 
suffered moral insanity, inborn incapability
 to know right from wrong.
So, something needed to be done and that
 something occurred in several ways. At 
first, people with unfavorable hereditary
 characteristics were isolated in 
institutions, but that really didn't 
work because institutions and a segregated 
environment provided these inhabitants
 with supposed endless sexual urges just a 
sheltered environment for breeding. 
Another way was to prevent certain people 
from getting married or grant them a 
marriage permit only if they were 
sterilized. According to the 1929 
Marriage Act, kinship, insanity, and idiocy 
constituted unquestionable impediments
 to the marriage, whereas marriages of 
individuals with epilepsy, sexually 
transmitted diseases and marriage between 
two congenitally deaf persons was 
conditional on president's special license. 
And corresponding regulations had been
 enacted for example in Norway and 
Denmark, but it was soon noticed that 
marriage acts were ineffective, because 
people tend to have sex even though they're
 not married. So the next step was 
sterilization, which offered a cheaper and
 more effective, and so it was said, a
 more humane way than institutionalization
 to prevent people with unwanted 
characteristics from having children.
Sterilization was seen to be the only
 effective way to prevent the morally 
insane people from breeding, because 
this was thought to be due to their 
uncontrollable sexuality. The report of
 a sterilization law commission in 1929 
illuminated this supposed broad fact with
 various cautionary example true to
 life cases. These are my translations. 
 There were quite a few of these cases
 that were reported. First of all, SR 
feeble-minded 27-year-old butcher's 
daughter; even-tempered, could be looked
 after at home [unleashed/without 
special monitoring] unless she was 
not extremely prone to practice sexual 
intercourse; therefore, she has lately
 been looked after in the county mental 
hospital; gave birth to an illegitimate
 child while being at home. Now the word 
"unleashed" or "without special monitoring"
 was difficult to translate because 
its usually, the word that is used there
 is only used in relation to animals, 
like if wild animals are being in the
 wild or where they are unleashed, so I 
think actually unleashed is a proper 
term. Another one: H.R. Feeble-minded 37-
year-old workman's widow; fit for work
 and even-tempered, could support herself,
 but is very lustful, constantly 
looking for male company when not 
institutionalized; has given birth to 
two illegitimate children. And this 
"constantly looking for male company" 
the tone of the text is like these people 
are like MADLY looking for sex all the
 time. And surprisingly the commission 
constituted of only 10 men.
So the idea of uncontrollable and wild 
sexuality did not refer primarily to the 
quantity of sex between eugenically 
dangerous people, it referred mostly to its 
quality. This meaning that the sexual 
activities of women with impairments were 
regarded dangerous because sex in their
 cases resulted with great probability in 
a birth of a child with similar 
characteristics, similar unwanted 
characteristics. Another factor 
explaining the undesirability of certain
 people's sexuality had to do with the
 dominant moral and legal norms of the 
time. According to Christian morality
 extramarital sexual affairs were 
condemnable and also the criminal code
 at the time defines extramarital sexual 
affairs as crimes. So on eugenic, moral, 
 and criminal grounds, certain 
people's 
sexuality was considered as undesirable.
