Part 11

As in the case of boys of adolescent years, there should be enough teaching to warn against harmful habits. Such knowledge may possibly be of personal application to a few girls and it will be of use to many girls who will later as mothers or teachers have the care of small children.

[Sidenote: Knowledge concerning men.]

I find that many thoughtful mothers and women physicians think that girls in late adolescent years should learn from some reliable source the most general facts regarding male structure and function. Here again the strong argument is that the majority will have the care of small children. Such instruction has often been given as part of courses in biology and physiology and also in special lectures. It is certain that some parents will favor such instruction, and others will regard it as indecent to suggest that girls should have any such knowledge. There will always be some parents who will let their daughters face life-problems blindly.

[Sidenote: Mothercraft.]

Sometime in adolescent years girls should learn the scientific facts regarding mothercraft or the care of small children. This phase of the sex-education is rapidly attracting attention from those who are interested in practical arts education, and before many years pass it will probably be treated adequately in connection with household arts in schools and colleges. I have already referred to household arts in general as making a decided contribution to the larger sex-education which works for harmonious adjustment of the sexes in the home.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Both books by M.A. and Anna N. Bigelow.

[15] Sets of drawings and lantern slides for the biological introduction to sex may be obtained from the American Social Hygiene Association, 105 W. 40th St., New York City.

[16] The instructor of young men should not allow confusion to arise from the recent contention of some medical men that emissions are abnormal or unnatural because they are not known to occur in animals. Certain it is that they are adaptations to changes caused by enforced sexual restraint after the seminal secretions begin with puberty. Such restraint is, of course, abnormal or unnatural if we compare with animals; but many of our acts are unnatural and not necessarily unhealthful. For instance, the sedentary life of the student or professional worker is abnormal or unnatural, but it need not be unhealthful, if hygienic adaptations are made. Likewise, seminal emissions are unnatural for primitive men or animals without sexual restraint, but this does not mean that they are unhealthful for self-controlled men. Here, as in many other cases, comparison with animals is misleading and does not teach us useful facts concerning human sexual functioning. The truth is that physicians have no evidence of harm from emissions that are not caused by voluntary activity.

VIII

SPECIAL SEX-INSTRUCTION FOR ADOLESCENT BOYS AND YOUNG MEN

[Sidenote: Methods and teachers.]

In this lecture I shall discuss a number of problems in the relations of men to women which ought somehow to be made clear to boys who are in transition to manhood. I can do little more than point out the lines along which it is desirable that young men should be informed and influenced; for I confess that I do not know any guaranteed pedagogical method for teaching along these lines. So far as I can now see, it seems to me that a good beginning would consist in getting the best ideas before young men by lectures, books, and personal conversations. Here more than in any other phase of sex-education the influence of personality is of great importance. Many an ordinary teacher or lecturer may well present the cold facts of biological science that help interpret sex, but one who does not by his personal qualities command the entire confidence of his hearers is worse than useless in presenting to young men such problems as those outlined in this lecture under the following subheadings: Developing young men's attitude towards womanhood; developing ideals of love and marriage; reasons for pre-marital continence; essential knowledge concerning prostitution; need of more refinement in men; dancing as a sex problem for men; dress as a sexual appeal; the problem of self-control; the mental side of a young man's sex life.

§ 30. _Developing Attitude towards Womanhood_

[Sidenote: Influence of ideals.]

Many there are among the believers in the larger sex-education who feel sure that a young man's greatest safety lies in having high ideals of womanhood. I have known a number of men who passed unscathed through the storm and stress of early manhood because each of them could say, as Tennyson makes the lover confess to Princess Ida, "from earlier than I know, immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, I loved the woman." Some of these men learned to love "the woman" in the abstract, in the dream world, perhaps as the "brushwood girl" of Kipling. Others first loved "the woman" through boyhood sweethearts. Still others came to love her through mothers who inspired them with reverence for womanhood and motherhood.

..."Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high comes easy to him." (Tennyson)

But it matters little for the future purity of the boy on the threshold of manhood whether he has learned to love "the woman" in the dreamland of youth or in the very real world of life. It is simply a question of the intensity of the devotion and of the loftiness of the ideals which She has aroused within him.

[Sidenote: Who may influence boys.]

Now, we of the older generation, who as parents and teachers are largely the makers of the boy's view of life, may play a very important part in developing in him a love for "the woman," a reverence for womanhood. The greatest opportunity falls to the lot of that mother whose natural gifts and education adapt her for impressing her son profoundly with appreciation of womanhood. The next greatest opportunity comes to the woman who as an instructor in school, church, or other institution comes into intimate relations that sometimes give the teacher greater influence than the mother is able or willing to exert. Finally, we must not discount the value of men's coöperation in this problem, for many a boy's attitude towards women is largely the reflection of what he has seen in his father and in other men, particularly in his teachers both secular and religious.

Now, while the direct influence of personality is most important in this problem of developing a young man's attitude towards women, organized educational effort should not be neglected. It is important that both men and women help by encouraging young men to read good literature that unobtrusively tends to introduce them to the best in womanhood (see § 23); and by discussing with them, as opportunity offers, the higher ideals of the relationships between men and women.

§ 31. _Developing Ideals of Love and Marriage_

Closely associated with high ideals of womanhood is necessarily a pure understanding of love, even in its physical basis. While preparing this lecture I discovered that James Oliphant (in the _International Journal of Ethics_, Vol. 9, pp. 288-289, 1898) has well expressed some of the views that in a more or less unformulated shape have been in my mind for years.

[Sidenote: Ideals of love in art.]

"If the true preparation for love and marriage is, as I hold it to be, to learn to associate physical passion with the higher emotions developed by social sympathy--with a single-hearted devotion that demands courage, and self-sacrifice and considerate forethought and tenderness; if we wish to bind all these qualities together in the imagination of the young and clothe the conception with every attribute of beauty that fancy can devise, how can we forego the precious opportunities that lie to our hand in the persuasive witchery of art? The power that may be exercised in the formation of character by the presentment of ideal types is as yet very imperfectly utilized. Love is _par excellence_ the theme of the artist, and young people will soon find this out for themselves; but there is a wide difference in the degrees of idealization, and, while we concern ourselves to exclude the grosser forms, we neglect the only effective means of accomplishing this, namely, the persistent presentation of the sentiment in its noblest examples. It is the prevalent idea that the longer we can keep all notions of love, even in its romantic guise, out of children's heads, the better it will be for them. Surely it would be a wiser policy to fill their minds as soon as they are able to receive them, with the creations of art in which love is represented in its sublimest aspects. The youth who is familiar with the love-stories of Shakespeare, and George Eliot, and Meredith, will suffer little harm from the gilded sensualism of the Restoration drama. Let us hasten to implant the images of beauty that will keep the soul sweet and wholesome, and free from the taint of any later influences, however sordid these may be."

In the lecture on marriage as offering one of the problems for the larger sex-education (§ 12) and in the reference to general literature in § 23, I have called attention to literature which will be suggestive and useful to those who are considering the young man's attitude towards love and marriage.

§ 32. _Reasons for Pre-marital Continence of Men_

Recognizing the fact that moral considerations fail to reach many people, the following points should be emphasized in trying to show young men practical reasons why they should avoid pre-marital sexual relations.

[Sidenote: Continence and health.]

(1) Young men ought to know that many eminent physicians and physiologists agree that it has not been proved that continence injures the health of men who make an effort to avoid sexual temptations. Physicians of the highest standing never advise extra-marital or immoral relations, for they are far more likely to injure health than to improve it, and they surely injure character and reputation. On this question of continence young men should read such pamphlets as "Sexual Necessity" by Howell and Keyes; "The Young Man's Problem" and "Health and Hygiene of Sex" by Morrow; "The Physician's Answer" and "The Rational Sex Life for Men" by Exner.[17] Also, see pp. 183-190 in Geddes and Thomson's "Sex."

Dr. Exner's "Physician's Answer" is based on the following declaration which was signed by about three hundred of the foremost physicians of America:

"In view of the individual and social dangers which spring from the widespread belief that continence may be detrimental to health, and of the fact that municipal toleration of prostitution is sometimes defended on the ground that sexual indulgence is necessary, we, the undersigned, members of the medical profession, testify to our belief that continence has not been shown to be detrimental to health or virility; that there is no evidence of its being inconsistent with the highest physical, mental, and moral efficiency; and that it offers the only sure reliance for sexual health outside of marriage."

[Sidenote: Psychical results of incontinence.]

(2) It ought to be significant to young men that many men who are now in the thirties or forties look back upon their youthful errors with profound regret. Many such men testify that unforgettable immoral experiences keep them from reaching the heights of love with their wives. One of my friends, a well-known physician, recently met in his office within two or three months seven men of high standing who are now happily married, but who feel that conjugal life is short of its full æsthetic possibilities because of the ever-present remembrance of early sexual mistakes.

[Sidenote: Physical results.]

(3) While the above refers to the psychical effect of youthful errors, young men should learn that there is also a physical side to the same problem. Eminent physicians assert that many men have completely and permanently destroyed their sexual functions by extensive dissipations, either by masturbation or by natural relations; and that very many more have injured themselves so that perfection of the physical basis of love and marriage is impossible.

[Sidenote: Possible diseases.]

(4) The probability of venereal infection by pre-marital relations and the danger of transmission to innocent wives and children should be presented to all young men as a strong ethical appeal for continence (see § 7).

[Sidenote: Purity for purity.]

(5) The "fair play" or "square deal" appeal to young men should be based on the fact that most for young men who are unchaste demand purity of the girls they claim as sisters, friends, or sweethearts; and yet they help drag down other women. An honorable man should be willing to play fairly and give purity for purity.

[Sidenote: Responsibility.]

(6) The grave responsibility of young men whose unchastity is connected with illegitimacy or with the organized social evil should be made a strong point in appeals for pre-marital abstinence.

[Sidenote: Sexuality and affection.]

(7) Young men should be impressed with the idea that their sexual functions should be held sacred to affection; in other words, that sexual union is moral only as love interchange. In so far as young men may be led to this interpretation of the relation of sexuality to the best conceptions of life, there will be no danger of prostitution and there will be a guarantee of marriages that give completeness to affection. The men who are safeguarded against unchastity are those who have learned to think of love and marriage and sexual functioning as interdependent and coincident elements in the great drama of life and who feel the impossibility of their personal interest in marriage without love or in sexual union except as expression of deep affection. Such men are by no means as rare as the sensational reports of the social evil lead many people to believe.

[Sidenote: Some men beyond appeal.]

I realize that all these seven reasons for continence will fail with that large group of young men who have persuaded themselves that they will never marry and thus they shake off all responsibility such as appeals to the man who looks forward to love that culminates in marriage. No one has yet suggested any line of appeal to the men who are physically or psychically or morally so abnormal that they have no interest in the possibility of marriage; but fortunately such individuals constitute an insignificant minority.

§ 33. _Essential Knowledge Concerning Prostitution_

[Sidenote: Safeguarding boys.]

(1) The adolescent boy should be safeguarded by the knowledge that in every city and in most towns there are women who for financial gain are constantly seeking to entice young men into immoral sexual relations; and that many unwary men are involuntarily entrapped, especially when influenced by alcohol.

[Sidenote: Prostitution a business.]

(2) The young man should know that the selling of woman's virtue is an organized business known as "prostitution" or "the social evil," words which stand for indescribable degradation and degeneracy that no beast could possibly imitate. Moreover, the young man should be informed that all immorality is not prostitution, but that most of the immoral relations of men are purchased directly or indirectly by money or its equivalent.

[Sidenote: Some causes of prostitution.]

(3) The young man should know that the great majority of prostitutes do not willingly undertake the shameful business of selling their virtue. He should know that the majority have gone downward for such reasons as follows: Many a woman has been betrayed by some detestable man who pretended to love her. Poverty has forced many other women to the first downward step. Many are easy victims because they belong to the feeble-minded class. Others have been driven into immoral life by parents and even husbands. Still others have been drugged, and raped while insensible. A limited number have begun prostitution as "white slaves" kept as prisoners until all hope of a better life has vanished. A few have deliberately begun to accept the attentions of lewd men in order to get money for luxurious dress and finery. And relatively very few have started downward because of sexual passion such as commonly influences men. In short, every young man should be informed that most women living by prostitution have begun innocently or unwillingly; but having made one false step, society has shunned them, even near relatives have cast them off, and a career of prostitution has appeared the only way of making a living, vulgar and unspeakably sordid though it be. It is evident that the responsibility for prostitution rests almost entirely upon men. Unfortunately, society does not recognize this fact and has no way of dealing legally with both men and women found associated in houses of prostitution. At present the women arrested for prostitution are treated as criminals, while their male associates in vice are allowed to depart as if they were respectable citizens.

[Sidenote: Appeal to men.]

Tell young men these facts as to why women become prostitutes. Help them to realize that most of these women are pitiful victims of man's worse than brutal sexual passions. Then add the astounding fact that very many of the women of the underworld have short lives, their health being undermined rapidly by dissipation, by alcohol used to bury their shame or to stimulate their flagging energies, and by the two loathsome diseases, gonorrhea and syphilis, which relatively few prostitutes escape--tell young men such facts which eminent physicians and sociologists have often verified, and there are good chances of striking sympathetic notes in their young manhood.

[Sidenote: Danger of social disease.]

(4) And there is one other line of facts concerning prostitution that the developing young man should know well, namely, that every prostitute is likely at any time to be infected with the social diseases, and that no ordinary medical examination can prove that she will not transmit these awful diseases to men who consort with her. In fact, within an hour after most careful medical examination she may become infected by some diseased man, and then she is capable of inoculating other men. Such facts, for which the greatest of special physicians vouch, will eradicate from the young man's mind the widespread notions that prostitutes are safe if they carry a physician's certificate, or one of the official cards given in some European cities. Many a young man of sixteen to twenty has not heard that prostitutes as a class are universally dangerous as distributors of the most terrible diseases, and his education is incomplete until he knows the exact truth from reliable sources.

[Sidenote: Limited reading.]

(5) It is not desirable that the young man should be set to read the numerous books packed with more or less sensational reports on the social evil, for these may sometimes tend toward morbidity. Any young man who is not effectively appealed to by the above facts will not be influenced by the most voluminous reports on prostitution ever published. Such reports are not useful for young men. They serve a good purpose by informing mature men and women and awakening them to the necessity of legislation, education, and other weapons with which we may fight the great black plague of social vice. For the average young man the books recommended in § 8 will give sufficient information and viewpoint.

[Sidenote: Liaisons.]

(6) Finally, the young man of adolescent years should be made to understand his responsibility for immorality that is not prostitution, that is, extra-marital relations with his girl friends and without pecuniary considerations. He should know the probability that he will ruin a girl's life, either because illegitimacy occurs or because her reputation suffers. Even if such immoral liaisons are kept private, both persons concerned are likely in after years to regret their illicit intimacy, especially if either marries another person.

§ 34. _Need of More Refinement in Men_

While refinement is a part of general culture, it is beyond doubt an important phase of the problems for the larger sex-education. Elsewhere I have referred to the need of better understanding and better adjustment between men and women, especially in marriage. Towards such a desideratum refinement of men will contribute immensely. Many cultured women avoid marriage and many are unhappy in marriage because men, sometimes even educated men, lack refinement in manners, language, and personal habits. In fact, "lack of refinement" is altogether too mild an expression, for many men are positively crude in manners, coarse and vulgar in language, and disgusting in personal habits.

[Sidenote: Manners and chivalry.]

In referring to manners, I am including not only the thousand and one little customs of everyday life among refined people, but also chivalric attitude towards all women. The world has changed vastly since knighthood was in flower, but many men of to-day might well take lessons in the art of courtesy to women as practiced by the famous knights of the age of chivalry. This problem of manners will be an increasingly important one, for here in America there is growing up a generation of boys who are far from chivalrous even to their mothers and sisters; and at the same time, the industrial competition and daily association of the two sexes is making young men realize that women are simply human beings and not super beings.

[Sidenote: Language.]

With regard to language, I am thinking not so much of the general need of speech that is grammatically, rhetorically, and vocally polished, which no doubt determines many a woman's estimate of a man, as I have in mind the repelling effect upon sensitive women of language that is coarse, vulgar, and profane. Hence, quite apart from the effect of low language on character, I believe it worth while to work for refinement of language of young men.

[Sidenote: Personal habits.]

And now with reference to personal habits, including cleanliness and refinement of actions, the average women of all classes set splendid examples for men of the same groups. It seems scarcely necessary to explain in detail concerning unclean personal habits and vulgar actions. It requires no keen observer to find plenty of examples. Those who have the training of boys should lose no opportunity to impress them with the importance of refinement, and especially in all phases of their home life. It is in the most intimate life of the home that refinement of personal habits of husbands may mean much to sensitive wives.

§ 35. _Dancing as a Sex Problem for Young Men_

[Sidenote: Dancing not to be eliminated.]

It is more than useless to discuss the question whether dancing ought to be eliminated from the social life of young people, for it has physical, social, and æsthetic or dramatic values which will make dancing in some form or other coextensive with human life.

[Sidenote: Young people and dancing.]