PREFACE
In the first chapter of this book I have shown, I believe convincingly, why sex knowledge is even more important for women than it is for men. I have examined carefully the books that have been written for girls and women, and I know that it is not bias, nor carping criticism, but strict honesty that forces me to say that I have not found one satisfactory girl's or woman's sex book. There are some excellent books for girls and women on general hygiene; but on sex hygiene, on the general manifestations of the sex instinct, on sex ethics—none. I have attempted to write such a book. Whether I have succeeded—fully, partially or not at all—is not for me to say, though I have my suspicions. But this I know: in writing this book I have been strictly honest with myself, from first page to last. Whether everything I have written is the truth, I do not know. But at least I believe that it is—or I would not have written it. And I can solemnly say that the book is free from any cant, hypocrisy, falsehood, exaggeration or compromise, nor has any attempt been made in any chapter to conciliate the stupid, the ignorant, the pervert, or the sexless.
As in all my other books I have used plain, honest English. Not any plainer than necessary, but plain enough to avoid obscurity and misconception.
Science and art are both necessary to human happiness. This is not the place to discuss the relative importance of the two. And, while I have no patience with art-for-art's-sake, I recognize that the scientist can not be put into a narrow channel and ordered to go into a certain definite direction. Scientific investigations which seemed aimless and useless have sometimes led to highly important results, and I would not disparage science for its own sake. It has its uses. Nevertheless I personally have no use for it. To me everything must have a direct human purpose, a definite human application. When the cup of human life is so overflowing with woe and pain and misery, it seems to me a narrow dilettanteism or downright charlatanism to devote one's self to petty or bizarre problems which can have no relation to human happiness, and to prate of self-satisfaction and self-expression. One can have all the self-expression one wants while doing useful work.
And working for humanity does not exclude a healthy hedonism; not the narrow Cyrenaic, but an enlightened altruistic hedonism. And in writing this book I have kept the human problem constantly before my eyes. It was not my ambition merely to impart interesting facts: my concern was the practical application of these facts, their relation to human happiness.
If this book should be instrumental, as I confidently trust it will, in destroying some medieval superstitions, in dissipating some hampering and cramping errors, in instilling some hope in the hearts of the hopeless, in bringing a little joy into the homes of the joyless, in increasing in however slight a degree the sum total of human happiness, its mission shall have been gloriously fulfilled.
For this is the mission of the book: to increase the sum total of human happiness.
W.J.R.
12 Mount Morris Park W.,
New York City.
Jan. 1, 1917.
WOMAN: HER SEX AND LOVE LIFE
WOMAN: HER SEX AND LOVE LIFE
Chapter OneToC
THE PARAMOUNT NEED OF SEX KNOWLEDGE FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN
Why Sex Knowledge is of Paramount Importance to Girls and Women—Reasons Why a Misstep in a Girl Has More Serious Consequences than a Misstep in a Boy—The Place Love Occupies in Woman's Life—Woman's Physical Disabilities.
All are agreed—I mean all who are capable of thinking and have given the subject some thought—that for the welfare of the race and for his own physical and mental welfare it is important that the boy be given some sex instruction. All are not agreed as to the character of the instruction, its extent, the age at which it should be begun and as to who the teacher should be—the father, the family physician, the school teacher or a specially prepared book—but as to the necessity of sex knowledge for the boy there is now substantial agreement—among the conservatives as well as among the radicals.
No such agreement exists concerning sex knowledge for the girl. Many still are the men and women—and not among the conservatives only—who are strongly opposed to girls receiving any instruction in sex matters. Some say that such instruction—except a few hygienic rules about menstruation—is unnecessary, because the sex instinct awakens in girls comparatively late, and it is time enough for them to learn about such matters after they are married. Others fear that sex knowledge would destroy the mystery and romance of sex, and would rob our maidens of their greatest charms—modesty and innocence. Still others fear that sex instruction would tend to awaken the sex instinct in our girls prematurely; would direct their thoughts to matters about which they would not think otherwise; and they argue that the warnings about venereal disease, prostitution, etc., which are an integral part of sex instruction, tend to create a cynical, inimical attitude towards the male sex, which may even result in hypochondriac ideas and antagonism to marriage.
I do not deny that there is a grain of truth in all the above objections. Sex instruction does cause some girls to think of sex matters earlier than they otherwise would, and some girls have been made bitter and hypochondriac, and disgusted with the male sex. But it would not be difficult to demonstrate that it was not sex instruction per se that was responsible for these deplorable results; it was the wrong kind of instruction that was to blame—it was the wrong emphasis, the lurid exaggerations that caused the mischief, and not the truth. In other words, it is not sex information, it is sex misinformation, that is pernicious. And, of course, to this everybody will agree: rather than false information, better no information at all.
But if the information to be imparted be sane, honest and truthful, without exaggerating the evils and without laying undue emphasis on the dark shadows of our sex life, then the results can be only beneficent. And the task I have put before myself in this book is to give our girls and women sane, square and honest information about their sex organs and sex nature, information absolutely free from luridness, on the one hand, and maudlin sentimentality, on the other. The female sex is in need of such information, much more so than is the male sex. Yes, if boys, as is now universally agreed, are in need of sex instruction, then girls are much more in need of it. Why? For several important reasons.
The first reason why sex instruction is even more important for girls than it is for boys is because a misstep in a girl has much more disastrous consequences than it has in a boy. The disastrous results of a misstep in a boy are only physical in character; the results of the same misstep in a girl may be physical, moral, social and economic. To speak more plainly. If a boy, through ignorance, rashly indulges in illicit sexual relations, the worst