[Sidenote: Effect of mental imagery.]
Most of the discussions of the education of young men for moral living
have centered around the problem of keeping him from physical sexual
activity. So far as society is concerned, this is the great
desideratum. So far as the individual life is concerned, it is
important that self-control should extend to mental imagery. Professors
Geddes and Thomson have well said, in "Sex," that "while anatomical
chastity is a moral achievement, it is not the deepest virtue. The
incisive declaration: 'Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her
hath committed adultery with her already in his heart' expresses an
even more searching standard, and modern science brings home to us the
radical importance of our reflex thought and deep-down impulses, which
appear to bulk largely in molding our lives and the lives of those who
may spring from us." In language adapted to the understanding of
average young men, this idea should be emphasized.
In the opinion of some physiologists the greatest harm done to the
individual who has long been a victim of masturbation is in the
centering of the attention on imaginary sexual situations. This is
especially true of mental masturbation. Hence, the relation of
masturbation to the possible establishment of a disordered mental state
should be known by adolescent boys and young men.
[Sidenote: Control of thoughts.]
It appears from the experience of many men that strenuous work and play
are the only efficient weapons for driving sexual images into the
background of the mind. This applies not only to sordid and lewd
thoughts of unchaste sexual situations, but also to the mental images
that are inevitably associated with the purest affection and which
should be trained to obey when calm reason so orders.
The following literature will be especially helpful to young men: W.S.
Hall's "Sexual Hygiene for Men," or his "Sexual Knowledge"; Exner's
"The Rational Sex Life for Men"; Morrow's "The Young Man's Problem,"
and "Health and Hygiene of Sex for College Students"; King's "Fight for
Character" (Y.M.C.A.); and the chapter on Ethics of Sex in "Sex" by
Geddes and Thomson.