He was educated at Lancing College, St John's College, University of Oxford (where he took a double first) and Louvain University. During the early 1920s, he was a Professor of English in Japan (where he tutored the sons of the Emperor of Japan), then a Professor at the University of Peking. He sailed to Singapore on a tramp steamer, and worked as a barman at the "Long Bar" of the Raffles Hotel, before returning to Oxford. He later moved to India and served as principal of a Moslem-Hindu school in central India from 1927—1928. He also taught in the US. In 1935, he was involved in a major trial involving the publication of his work, The Sexual Impulse.

He was a major proponent of sexology, and in particular the promotion of contraception.