adults as with the children. First, because the adults know its evil
effects and use self-control to limit their self-indulgence to the
minimum; second, the physical loss of seminal fluid with each
ejaculation can be easier and with less danger spared by a grown-up
body, as the vitalizing fluid of the sexual glands is not needed so
urgently any more for the growth and development of the body, so the
damage to an adult from the habit of masturbation is mostly limited to
his nervous system and to his mental and moral forces.
This fact easily explains why the masturbation habit is so destructive
and dangerous to younger children. They are unconscious of the evil
character of their habit, and helplessly yield to the lure of impulse;
neither can they exert any self-control. On the other hand, every drop
of sexual fluid they lose means that much of vitality and life energy
taken away from their growing body; it means that much loss of the
natural source of their physical health and development. It is natural,
therefore, that excessive and persistent masturbation in younger
children may lead to physical exhaustion, may blunt their bodily growth
and dwarf their mentality, may lead to development of epilepsy, idiocy,
and other mental diseases; in a word, it may blight the child’s life
forever and render him a physical and mental invalid. The older the
victim of masturbation the smaller is the physical damage resulting from
this habit, and the more this damage is transferred to his nervous
system, mentality, and moral character.
The changes that take place in the personality of a habitual masturbator
are a natural result of slowly-accumulating influences, exerted by the
habit on its victim.
There are two cardinal features in the psychology of every masturbator
which give us a keynote toward understanding his character, and serve as
a starting point for all subsequent changes in his personality. The
first is that every masturbator of age knows that he is doing something
wrong; that he is committing a shameful act against his manhood and
against Nature. As a result, he reproaches and pledges himself to shake
off this degrading habit. But his will power is weak and temptation is
strong, and he again and again fails in his efforts and falls back in
the clutches of his master. This internal conflict gradually unnerves
him and puts an indelible stamp of shiftlessness and weakness on his
whole being. A feeling of guilt and shame makes him morose, seclusive,
depressed, and unsociable. Particularly characteristic it is for an
inveterate masturbator to avoid the company of all girls, and those
pleasures and games that are so attractive to normal and healthy boys. A
masturbator gets bodily weak, flabby, and unfit for any muscular
exertion or physical work. The changes in his nervous system and
mentality are still more striking. He becomes shiftless and restless,
and at the same time shows signs of nervous weakness and irritability.
He sleeps bad and feels in the morning more tired and broken up than
before going to bed; he is subject to headaches; he gets easily tired,
and is unable to concentrate his attention for any sustained mental
effort. His personality also changes markedly; he becomes deceitful,
self-retired, cowardly, and grouchy. His physical appearance reflects
well the internal conflict and the slow sapping of his physical and
mental strength; his look is haggard and dejected; the eyes are dull and
deeply encircled with blue rings underneath; his hands are cold and
clammy; his gait is slow, feeble, and uncertain. In a word, strong,
happy, and full of life a boy can in a few years or even months be
transformed under a loathsome mastery of the masturbation habit into a
wreck and a mere shadow of his former self. There is no more sad and
pathetic picture than that of an inveterate masturbator, who wants and
cannot break his slavery to the habit. Such cases can be redeemed back
to health by a long and tedious treatment. Much easier, and, in fact,
the only proper way to fight the scourge of masturbation is by spreading
knowledge of its dangers among the boys.
The prevention of the formation of the habit can best be affected thru
the same physical training of the boys that has been above recommended
to check unnecessary and premature sexual excitement. Give to a boy whom
you suspect or know to be in danger of forming the habit of masturbation
a friendly help; take him out into the fresh air for games and physical
sports; distract his attention by physical and mental pleasures;
regulate his diet and mode of life; even bring him into companionship
with clean and refined girls, and you may save him from a slow waste and
destruction of his physical and mental health and save his manhood for a
healthy and happy family life.
Venereal Diseases
Venereal diseases present a unique and most difficult problem of our
days. To realize fully the enormous scope and difficulties of the
control of venereal peril, several social factors bearing on this
problem must be considered. Such are: The attitude of society to the
sexual problem; double standard of morality; prevailing ignorance on the
subject on the part of the public; self-medication and medical quacks;
the sources of venereal infection, and the best methods of its control.
THE CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE.
Medically, venereal diseases belong to the oldest and best worked out
class of diseases, tho their treatment only recently, due to the new
discoveries, has been put on a definite and secure basis. Socially,
their tremendous importance for the health, morals, and happiness of a
community is just being disclosed to society, which heretofore, in its
prudish and ostrich-like attitude, attempted to solve the problem of
venereal peril by ignoring it and suppressing free discussion or
preventive education along these lines. Naturally, the evil unchecked,
tho driven underground by a prohibition of publicity, has spread to such
a monstrous size that society could not any more feign not to see it and
to continue the old policy of “conspiracy of silence.”
DOUBLE STANDARD OF MORALS.
Among factors bearing on the causes of sexual intemperance and venereal
peril, possibly none stands out as clearly and prominently as the
so-called double standard of morals. We all know that society has
adopted and hypocritically approved a double code of sexual morality for
men and women. What is considered to be natural and permissible for a
man is an offense of morality and a crime punishable by social disgrace
for a woman. No man is willing to marry a girl whom he knows or suspects
to be of loose sexual morals, and no self-respecting man will tolerate
that the fair name and honor of his sister be attacked or ruined even by
a word, not to say in fact. And yet the same man, in full sincerity and
in accord with his conscience gives to himself a free license of “sowing
wild oats” before his marriage. In fact, many men believe that it is not
only permissible, but even desirable for a young man to work off a
surplus of his physical manhood before he settles down to family life.
How a squandering of the best physical and nervous energy in
dissipation, how a waste and perversion of the highest spiritual and
moral instinct of love by a degrading purchase of the body of a
prostitute, how a polluting of the young and pure blood with venereal
poisons can make a man a better husband and father is beyond human
reason and common sense to comprehend; but the superstitions and
barbaric notions of the good old days are dying hard, and thousands of
young men sacrifice their manhood to the deep-rooted traditions and to
the slavery of established social habits.
How this double code of sexual morality has developed is probably to be
explained by a combination of several factors. First, a historically
developed subjection of the woman to man naturally has led to the
domination of man’s ideas and laws, and to the interpretation of
different facts bearing on the relationship between man and woman in
favor of the man. To justify his own license of sexual intemperance and
deny the same freedom to a woman, it was easy for a man to declare that
the sexual necessity for a woman is not as imperative as for a man, and
therefore a woman shall be chaste and pure until the marriage, while the
man may suit himself in this regard. There is no scientific proof
whatsoever that a woman differs in any way from a man in regard to the
sexual instinct. It is true that woman, as an average, is purer, more
temperate, less attracted by mere animal, brutal passion, and often
seeks or tolerates a physical gratification only as the means to get
with it a man’s love and affection. On the other hand, a man is more
brutal and violent in seeking and satisfying his physical passion, less
able to control his sexual impulse, less affectionate and less
sentimental in his expression of love. But this comparative moderation,
modesty, and better self-control can be more easily explained by woman’s
training thru many generations in clean and moral habits of thought and
living, by the fewer chances of exposure to evil influences, by less
stimulation and intoxication thru liquors and tobacco, and last, but not
least, thru fear of public disgrace. The man, being master of the
situation, has never tried to develop self-control and will power in
subduing his physical passion, and has cloaked his sexual intemperance
and indulgence with a fancied natural necessity. The double moral
standard as it is practiced to-day has brought untold misery and has
ruined lives of millions of young women who were so unfortunate as to
make a first misstep and yielded to temptation. While the male seducer
goes on unmolested and unnoticed on his gay round of life, the girl, his
helpless victim, has to face all the fury of public disgrace and
contempt. Many of them commit suicide, others try to hide their disgrace
by a criminal operation and die or cripple their health for life. Many
more, in despair and revolt against the injustice and hypocrisy of
public opinion, enter the gates that swing only one way to slow decay
and untimely death, the gates of prostitution.
There is no more miserable existence, no more hopeless, no more body and
soul-wrecking life than that of a white slave. It is no accident that
practically all of the prostitutes are drinking and smoking, and that
the majority of them are also drug fiends. In fact, that should rather
be credited in their favor, as it shows that with clear judgment and
normal senses they cannot endure this degradation and life-long slavery,
and, since they do not see any possibility of breaking their chains and
redeeming their lives, they drug themselves to forget their misery. Yet
even continual drugging cannot dull the agony of their hopeless
existence, and many of them welcome death at their own hands, usually
thru poison. There is no other occupation or human walk of life where
the suicide rate is as high as among the slaves of prostitution, neither
is there any class of population where physical decay and premature
death is as common as among the women of the underworld. Let a man or
youth who enters a house of prostitution know that by doing so he is not
only purchasing a lottery ticket for the prize of a venereal disease,
which he seldom misses, but that also with each visit to a fallen woman
he drags her down one step lower on the down-grade path of a social
abyss. And if he can do this with full knowledge of the social
consequences of his act with a clear mind and cool judgment, let him
know that he is a man in name only, and that morally he is much more to
be despised and branded with social contempt than the painted creature
he is ashamed to recognize on the street the morning after.
THE DANGERS OF IGNORANCE.
There are three main venereal diseases which constitute the roots of the
giant tree of the venereal peril, and from which almost all venereal
disorders spring out like branches and twigs. They are Gonorrhea,
Syphilis, and Chancroid. The first two easily overshadow in widespread
distribution and dangers of complications the third member of the
venereal triad, so that Chancroid can be considered by far the least
dangerous of the three.
A conservative estimate of the spread of venereal diseases, in the
writer’s opinion, would be that from every hundred men, at least ninety
have had at one time or another a venereal infection; that from every
hundred cases of venereal diseases, not half of them receive a thorough
and scientific treatment, not half of the patients are aware of the
seriousness of their condition and possibilities of different
complications, and only a minority of them bring the treatment to a
complete and permanent recovery. Any physician doing genito-urinary work
both in a clinic, hospital, or private practice knows that most of the
patients take treatment only until they cure up their pains, sores, and
other symptoms of the disease, and not until they are completely cured.
As it were, they dismiss the physician; the physician does not dismiss
them. As a result of this unsystematic and superficial treatment, the
original disease recurs again and again, only each time it penetrates a
little deeper into the system and requires a longer period of time for a
complete cure, with less chances for success. Thousands and thousands of
men develop serious and deep-reaching complications, sapping their
vitality and undermining their strength, complications which would never
have happened if the disease had been treated from the start, thoroughly
and to the finish. Still another result of this indifferent and reckless
attitude is that thousands of men, believing themselves cured, take upon
themselves the grave responsibility of entering marriage, taking a pure
and fresh girl, the girl they love and revere with all their hearts,
trusting and unsuspecting of the terrible danger hovering over her head.
The disease-producing germs that have been weakened and stunned but not
killed by insufficient treatment, falling on a virgin and fertile soil,
take on a new lease of life, and with the fury of a devastating tornado
attack and ruin their new victim. A young bride often before the
honeymoon bliss is over is struck down with an acute infection, a
mutilating operation follows, and in a few months a beautiful, healthy
girl is transformed into a permanent invalid and nervous wreck, deprived
forever of beauty, health, and joy of life. This terrible tragedy is not
an exceptional case, it is not an overdrawn statement, it is an
every-day occurrence in medical practice, and every day adds its new
victims of men’s folly, criminal indifference, and recklessness born of
ignorance.
SELF-MEDICATION AND MEDICAL QUACKS.
That the average boy or man has not the slightest idea about all the
possible complications that may develop from a venereal infection is
best shown by their attitude in time of such venereal mishap. What is an
average boy doing when he discovers that he is a victim of a venereal
mishap? The very first thing he does is to confide his shocking surprise
to one of his companions, who he knows has already had a similar
experience. The experienced friend first gives him a hearty laugh over
his bad luck, and then assuming a wise look, pats him on the shoulder
and confidently tells him not to worry, as he “will fix him all right.”
He gives him a few general instructions, the kind he used to follow in
his own previous experience, and sends him to the drug store for a
certain kind of pills, capsules, or solutions for injections. If there
be no such friend at hand, some other amateur “expert” is consulted;
sometimes it is a barber, or even a bartender friend who gives an advice
to drive out the sickness by copious drinking of beer. A grade higher in
quality, but equally poor and uncertain in results is a consultation
with the neighboring druggist, who, not having any more knowledge about
the developments of diseases than the average layman, takes up the case
with the supreme confidence of an authority and hands over the counter
the best advertised pills or solution for injections. The best that can
happen to the beneficiary of these consultations is, that he will not
see at once any improvement, or that he will feel worse, then he will go
to a competent physician and will start regular treatment. But woe to
him if he will feel some symptomatic relief, some checking of the
discharge or the pains. This is the time when he is the real loser.
Fooled by the temporary improvement and by clearing up of the symptoms
of his disease into belief that he is cured or pretty nearly cured, and
encouraged in his belief by his equally ignorant and often unscrupulous
adviser, the patient resumes his former mode of life and discontinues
what little precaution or treatment he has been using. The natural
result of it is that a few weeks later, after some indiscretion like
drinking alcoholic liquors or dancing, the whole sickness comes back as
strong and violent as in its very beginning. Again he resumes his
treatment and care, and acute symptoms again quiet down until, under a
new provocation, the disease will break out once more. Thus trusting and
ignorant victims of venereal mishap, wasting time and often considerable
money on their amateur doctoring, let the roots of the sickness
untouched, allow it to penetrate deeper and deeper into the body and
develop some deep complication or permanent damage of the sexual system,
which is either incurable or at best requires many months of the most
painstaking treatment.
Probably the most pitiful of all venereal patients are those
unfortunates who either have no friends in whom they could confide, or
who, thru a false feeling of shame, do not care to have a personal
consultation, and resort to a treatment by mail thru one of the quack
medical concerns. In no other class of diseases, in fact in no other
walk of life, is human ignorance, suffering, and fear so cruelly and
unscrupulously abused and penalized as in venereal diseases.
Shielded from criminal persecution by the secret manner of dealing with
their trusting patrons, secure in their shady operations by the fear of
disgrace, and a reluctance on the part of their victims to bring to
publicity the fact of their venereal infection, these human vultures ply
their extortionate trade on thousands and thousands of men. Most
extravagant claims, guarantees of cure, regardless of what the sickness
is, most blatant, alluring advertisements and offers of free
examinations—these are the stock of trade used by these leeches waxing
fat on human ignorance and degradation. Fortunately, in recent years the
attention of State and Federal government has been called to the use of
the mail by these benefactors of suffering humanity for extortionate
purposes. Energetic steps have been taken to curtail and abolish this
criminal correspondence game and to close up many of these
establishments. Public opinion is aroused on the subject, and it demands
that the newspapers refuse and eliminate all fraudulent and alluring
ads. of quack medical institutions. In the meantime the campaign of
information and enlightenment should be carried on, and every young man
should be informed that reckless and indifferent treatment of venereal
diseases, self-doctoring, cures by correspondence, and “sure cures” by
medical quack institutes may prove as disastrous as the disease itself.
PROSTITUTION.
Considering the sources of venereal infection and the best possible
methods of control of venereal peril, one strikes at once the sinister
problem of prostitution. Prostitution is undoubtedly the main source of
venereal infection, but the term prostitution should be taken broadly.
There are two kinds of prostitution: one is openly organized in
red-light district, tolerated by society, and regulated by the police;
and another, secret, clandestine, practised by thousands of women and
girls in large towns, women who do not make a living from the “life of
shame,” but secretly indulge in illicit sexual intercourse for a side
income or presents, while trying to keep up an appearance and social
standing of a “respectable” woman. Which kind of prostitution is more
dangerous to morals and health is not settled.
Many medical and social authorities believe that a woman secretly
prostituting herself is more dangerous and more liable to spread
venereal infection than an open registered prostitute, just because she
is secret, and does not have to submit to medical inspection at any
time. Yet it must be admitted that the medical inspection of houses of
prostitution has failed to bring about the expected results and to give
protection from venereal infection. It is well established that every
prostitute is infected with gonorrhea or syphilis, and mostly with both,
and that they practically at all times carry this disease in active or
latent form. The degree to which they can transmit a venereal infection
to a man depends mostly on the stage of the disease in the prostitute at
the time of her visit by a man; that is, one time danger is greater than
at another, but _at no time the perfunctory medical examination given to
prostitutes as it is conducted under police regulations can give the
slightest guarantee of safety from venereal infection_. All it can
establish and claim is that no acute or active symptoms or lesions have
been found on examination, and that there is no urgent necessity to move
this woman to the hospital as an evident and prolific source of venereal
infection. In other words, medical inspection can single out and isolate
a few of the most flagrant and most evident cases of venereal diseases,
but the women not excluded by medical examination from plying their
trade are just as able to carry over venereal infection to a man as
their sisters removed to the hospital. In fact, the reduction in the
number of venereal infections because of isolation of a few most
flagrant cases is so slight, and the increase in the number of venereal
infections due to increase in numbers of exposures by men, who are
misled into a feeling of security by alleged medical inspection, is so
great that many medical authorities and sanitarians consider medical
inspection of houses of prostitution useless and even harmful.
As mentioned above, a “secret” prostitute and private lady friend is not
a bit more safe and secure from transmitting venereal infection, and in
many cases, contrary to the expectations and beliefs of men, are much
more dangerous and treacherous in this respect. It is almost humorous,
if it were not so pathetic, to see how dumbfounded and shocked are these
youthful transgressors of the forbidden path, when a physician declares
that the exceptional favors of their lady friend resulted in a bad case
of gonorrhea or chancre. They are sincerely indignant at the reflection
on the honor of their affinity, and are almost ready to doubt the
competency of the physician, until a microscopical examination and the
subsequent course of the disease convinces them of the sad truth. On
occasions of this character a man as a rule is always inclined to blame
the woman and accuse her of gross deception. Such attitude is entirely
wrong, and is based on the ignorance of clinical facts. The truth of the
matter is that while a man can always tell when something is the matter
with him, and can always notice or perceive some evidence of the
venereal disease, such as a discharge, pains, sores, etc., a woman
hardly ever is aware of her disease. In fact, women feel pains,
discomfort, and suffer acute distress only in the acute stage of
venereal diseases, at the very beginning of the infection. But after
this acute period is over, they may sincerely believe themselves well,
as no pain or any symptom unusual for them calls their attention to it.
Therefore the noble indignation of these trespassers on forbidden ground
is unjust and unwarranted, and the only party to blame is their own
ignorance and lack of self-control.
The only sure way to avoid a venereal exposure is to avoid the exposure
and to keep away from the danger zone.
PRACTICAL PROPHYLAXIS (PREVENTION).
Different methods have been suggested to minimize the chances of
venereal infection. One of them is the use of rubber protectors,
“condom,” but the protection they give is far from certain, as they
occasionally tear, and also the infection may be implanted in parts
beyond the protected area.