SOLITARY VICE.
As the reproductive system awakens to activity it naturally attracts
the attention of the girl, and an effort should be made to call her
thoughts to other themes.
As I have said before, the reading of sensational love stories is most
detrimental. The descriptions of passionate love scenes arouse in the
reader a thrill through her own sexual organism that tends to increase
its activity and derange its normal state. Girls often mature into
women earlier than they should, because through romances, through
jests of associates in regard to beaus and lovers, and through
indulgence in sentimental fancies their sexual systems are unduly
stimulated and aroused. This stimulation sometimes leads to the
formation of an evil habit, known as self-abuse. The stimulation of
the sex organs is accompanied with a pleasurable sensation, and this
excitement may be created by mechanical means, or even by thought.
Many girls who are victims of this most injurious habit are unaware of
its dangers, although they instinctively feel that they do not want it
known. Others who would not stoop to a mechanical exciting of
themselves do so through thoughts, and do not know that they are just
as truly guilty of self-abuse as the girl who uses the hand or other
mechanical means.
The results of self-abuse are most disastrous. It destroys mental
power and memory, it blotches the complexion, dulls the eye, takes
away the strength, and may even cause insanity. It is a habit most
difficult to overcome, and may not only last for years, but in its
tendency be transmitted to one's children.
If you have from the first thought nobly of yourself, you will have
fallen into no such debasing habit. But if, through ignorance, you
have acquired it, how shall you overcome it?
I should hesitate to write more on this subject did I not know that
many girls fall victims to this evil through ignorance, and many who
thus fall could and would have been saved had they been rightly
instructed. I therefore desire that you shall be wise.
Every normal function of the body is attended with a pleasurable
sensation. We enjoy eating, seeing, walking. Odors bring sensations
which are agreeable, the sense of touch may give pleasure, and as we
enjoy these sensations in fact, so we may enjoy them in memory or in
imagination. We can recall the beauty of the rose, the perfume of the
mignonette, the flavor of the orange, or we can imagine new
combinations of these delights. We feel joy or grief through reading
vivid descriptions, or we can ourselves create imaginary scenes in
which we are actors, who suffer or enjoy.
The reproductive system is the seat of great nervous susceptibility,
and the excitation of these nerves gives a pleasurable sensation. This
excitation may be thought a local mechanical irritation or it may be
mental. In little children it may be caused by lack of cleanliness of
the external organs. An irritation is produced, and an attempt to
allay this by rubbing produces an agreeable feeling, which may be
repeated until the evil habit of self-abuse is formed.
Sometimes constipation, by creating a pelvic congestion, will have the
same result. Sometimes clothing which is too small may, by undue
pressure on the parts, call the thought of the child to these organs,
and in an attempt to remove the pressure by pulling the clothing away
the habit may be begun.
Sometimes the tiny pin-worms in the rectum may wander into the vagina,
and the little girl feel a constant annoyance, which rubbing allays
temporarily, but which results in the evil habit of the use of the
hands to produce an agreeable sensation. Thus through avoidable causes
the evil habit may be acquired. Then it may be taught by one thus
learning it to another who, without this instruction, would never have
acquired it.
But new dangers arise as the girl approaches the age when the
reproductive system begins to take on the activity that indicates
approaching womanhood. The normal congestion of the parts causes a
hitherto unknown consciousness of sex, and unless she is warned she
may at this period acquire the habit without knowing its evils.
All functions necessary to the preservation of the individual life are
attended with pleasure, and so are those which are for the
continuation of the species. While the emotion may be pleasurable, it
is at the same time the most exhausting, that can be experienced. We
see that in some forms of animal existence parenthood is purchased at
the expense of the life of the parent; and while in the human being
the procreative act does not kill, it exhausts, and no doubt takes
from the vital force of those exercising it. One can feel justified to
lose a part of her own life if she is conferring life upon others, but
to indulge in such a waste of vital force merely for pleasure is
certainly never excusable, and least excusable of all is the arousing
of pleasurable emotions by a direct violation of natural law.
The only natural method of arousing a recognition of sexual feeling is
as God has appointed in holy marriage, and the self-respecting girl
feels that no approach of personal familiarity is either right or
proper. But it may be that she does not know that feelings may be
awakened by the imagination which are as wrong morally as, and more
injurious physically than, actual deeds, and so may allow her mind to
revel in fancies that would shock her as actualities.
I received a letter not long ago from a young woman who most
emphatically asserted that she would never, never, never permit
familiarities, and then most innocently says, "but it wouldn't be
wrong to imagine yourself enjoying the embrace of some certain one,
would it?"
It is just this idea that there is no wrong in thought that weakens
virtue's fortress and renders it easily demolished. Girls who would
shrink from use of mechanical means to arouse sexual desire will
permit themselves to revel in imaginary scenes of love-making with
real or unreal individuals, or in mental pictures which arouse the
spasmodic feelings of sexual pleasure, and yet be unaware that they
are guilty of self-abuse.
Sexual feeling in itself is not base, but it can be debased either in
thought or in deed. Rightly considered, it is the indication of the
possession of the most sacred powers, that of the perpetuation of
life.
"Passion is the instinct for preservation of one's kind, the voice of
the life principle, the sign of creative power." These last four words
open before us a wonderful field of thought. "Creative power!" What
does that mean? Is creative power limited to reproduction of kind? Do
you not create when you work out with brain some idea and then embody
it in some visible form? Worth is said to create an artistic dress,
the actor creates his part in the play, the musician creates the
arrangement of harmonies which are represented in musical signs, and
in the same sense you may be in a myriad of ways a creator.
With the beginning of activity of sexual life in yourself came
increased development and new energy, beauty, and power, and the
preservation and right use of that life will continue to be a source
of power. "When the signs of this creative power come throbbing and
pulsing in every fiber, it only shows that one has more and greater
ability to create than ever before. One knows by this that she can now
do greater work than she has done or is doing;" so says one writer.
Is it not a beautiful thought that this feeling, which we have
supposed we must fight as something low, is in reality the stirring of
a divine impulse which we can control and govern and make to serve us
in all high and noble deeds?
If you hold such noble thoughts in your heart concerning yourself, you
will need no threatenings to keep you from self-debasement and
self-defilement. You will not need to be told of the loss of physical
strength or of beauty, of memory or of reason, through evil habits of
solitary vice, for they will have no temptation for you, even as you
do not need threats of police and prisons to keep you from stealing,
because honesty is the active and guiding principle of your life.
But supposing you have already acquired the evil habit and are now
awakened to the wrong you are doing yourself; you observe the lack of
lustre in the eye, the sallow, blotched complexion; you realize your
loss of nerve-power manifested in cold and clammy hands, backache,
lassitude, irritability, lack of memory, and inability to concentrate
thought. What shall you do to overcome and to gain control of
yourself? The question is a serious one, for no habit is more
tyrannical than the dominion of unrestrained sexual desire. Its
victims often fight for years, only to be conquered at last. If there
was no cure but in fighting, I should feel that the case was almost
hopeless.
The very first thing to do is to change the mental attitude in regard
to the whole matter of sex; to hold it in thought as sacred, holy,
consecrated to the highest of all functions, that of procreation.
Recognize that, conserved and controlled, it becomes a source of
energy to the individual. Cleanse the mind of all polluting images by
substituting this purer thought; then go to work to establish correct
habits of living in dress, diet, exercise, etc. See to it that there
are no such causes of pelvic congestions as prolapsed bowels, caused
by tight clothing or constipation; keep the skin active; and, above
all, keep the mind healthfully occupied.
The victim of self-abuse has, through the frequent repetition of the
habit, built up an undue amount of brain that is sensitive to local
irritation of the sex-organs or to mental pictures of sex-pleasure.
She must now allow this part of the brain to become quiescent, and she
should go to work to build up other brain centers. Let her train her
sight by close observation of form, color, size, location. Let her
cultivate her sense of hearing in the study of different qualities of
sound, tone, pitch, intensity, duration, timbre; her sense of touch,
by learning to judge with closed eyes of different materials, of
quality of fiber, of the different degrees of temperature, of
roughness or smoothness, of density; in fact, let her endeavor to
become alert, observant, along all the lines of sense-perception. Let
her study nature, leaf-forms, cloud-shapes, insects, flowers, birds,
bird-songs, the causes of natural phenomena; and, above all, let her
keep out of the realm of the artificial, the sentimental, the
emotional, and, holding firmly to the thought that creative energy is
symbolized by desire and can be dignified and consecrated to noblest
purposes, she will find herself daily growing into a stronger, more
beautiful self-control.