Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects

by Henry N. Guernsey

In this manner many promising youths, just as they are blossoming into the pride of early manhood, begin to indulge in sexual thoughts and to allow these thoughts to influence their minds until they commit some of the evils to which perverted and unchaste passions lead them. If this evil be masturbation, then they are on the direct road to ruin, as will be seen described further on. If it be the commission of sexual intercourse with women, their ruin is still more certain, and in the latter case they are exposed to one of the worst poisons that can possibly infect the human race. I do not overdraw the picture when I declare that millions of human beings die annually from the effects of poison contracted in this way, in some form of suffering or another; for, by insinuating its effects into and poisoning the whole man, it complicates various disorders and renders them incurable. When gonorrhœa is contracted, although frequently suppressed by local treatment in the form of injections, it is never perfectly cured thereby. No; the hidden poison runs on for a life time producing strictures, dysuria, gleet and kindred diseases; finally, in old men, a horrible prostatitis results from which the balance of one's life is rendered miserable indeed. If inflammation of the lungs supervenes, there is often a translation of the virus to these vital organs, causing what is termed “plastic pneumonia,” where one lobule after another becomes gradually sealed up, till nearly the whole of both lungs becomes impervious to air, and death results from asphyxia.

This horrible infection sometimes becomes engrafted upon other acute diseases when lingering disorders follow, causing years of misery, and only terminating in death.

If real syphilis, in the form of chancre, should be contracted, and in that form suppressed, we have buboes often of a malignant type, ulceration of the penis and a loss of some portion of this member. Sometimes the poison attacks the throat, causing most destructive ulcerations therein; sometimes it seizes upon the nasal bones, resulting in their entire destruction and an awful disfiguration of the face; sometimes it ultimates itself in the ulceration and destruction of other osseous tissues in different portions of the body. Living examples of these facts are too frequently witnessed in the streets of any large city. Young men marrying with the slightest taint of this poison in the blood will surely transmit the disease to their children. Thousands of abortions transpire every year from this cause alone, the poison being so destructive as to kill the child in utero, before it is matured for birth; and even if the child be born alive, it is liable to break down with the most loathsome disorders of some kind and to die during dentition; the few that survive this period are short lived and are unhealthy so long as they do live. The very first unchaste connection of a man with a woman may be attended with a contamination entailing upon him a life of suffering and even death itself. There is no safety among impure or loose women whether in private homes or in the very best regulated houses of ill-fame; even in Paris, where, after women have been carefully examined and pronounced free from any infecting condition, the first man who visits one of them, often carries away a deadly enemy in his blood, which had lurked in concealment beyond the keen eye of the inspector. A young man, or a man at any age, is in far greater danger amidst company of this stamp, than he would be with a clear conscience and pure character in the midst of the wildest forest, full of all manner of poisonous serpents and wild beasts of every description. A knowledge of the above facts should be enough to chill the first impulse and to make any man who respects his own well-being, turn away and flee from the destruction that awaits him.

As if the above sufferings were not a sufficient penalty for the transgression against the law—“Be ye pure,” we find yet another. Coincident with the physical wreck, which syphilis makes of the man who becomes thoroughly tainted with its poison, comes his moral wreck. He loses all respect for the truth and all regard for his word; no dependence of any kind can be placed upon him, and he will not pay his debts or fulfil any moral obligation; all because he began by prostituting his mind more and more until, with deadened conscience, almost literally, his head is dependent and his feet uppermost, ruling all the better part of his nature. And next come the mental sufferings—and most agonizing they are. Unhappy to the last degree, he no longer takes pleasure in life, but, wishing to die, finally commits suicide. A search in any insane asylum will show that a very large proportion of patients are made up from those who masturbate or have syphilis. Stamp out these two evils, or rather curses of the human race, and the supply that feeds our insane asylums, aye and our penitentiaries, too, will become vastly lessened. Think of it! So many of the inhabitants of our prisons, asylums, and our poor-houses, are composed of men and women who have offended against nature's laws by violating their own sexual nature. Add to this summary the list of broken-hearted, deflowered virgins and unwedded mothers, and you have the picture complete.

What a contrast with that manliness of character from which he has fallen! Now he is in an insane condition, blaming everyone for having contributed to his many misfortunes and his fallen condition, whereas he alone is the culprit. No one made him commit the first or any subsequent evil. He allowed his own mind to yield to the first temptation, and then went on from step to step, he alone being responsible for the result Yield not the first point, and all is safe.

The pride of perfect adolescence, as described a few pages back, is due to purity of thought, to chastity and continence. This purity shines through every tissue, enkindles the eye with a true expression, makes bright the countenance and erects the form. It gives elasticity to the step, causes harmony in the tones of the voice, and adds dignity to the carriage and deportment. The first step in the paths of vice in any form, whether in sexual errors or any other, detracts in the exact degree of the digression from all of the above beautiful and ennobling characteristics.

We have spoken in the preceding pages of new feelings and desires being awakened in the youth after his fourteenth year. This change is wholly due to his approaching manhood, to the time when he will be fully prepared to appreciate, to love and protect, guide and support her whom he makes his wife, and to become the father of happy and healthy children. But this approach to manhood is not due to the development of the genital organs, as some writers affirm, for this would be a reversion of orderly development. The approaching manhood develops in full accordance to their uses and importance all the organs belonging to man. As the well-developed infant has all its organs developed in a condition suitable for its state, and the child has all its organs in all parts of the body, developed in full accord with its state, so adolescence follows, and every organ must develop accordingly; and in this development a new impetus is given to every organ in the body. The whole man awakens to a newness of life as is seen in the change of his voice, the spreading out of his frame, the independence and command of his bearing, the activity of his brain, the soundness of his judgment, until he becomes in the fullest sense a rational being. Of course the development of his genital organs keeps pace with that of his brain; but the brain should lead the way throughout the entire development of the human race.

At the time of puberty, then, a new and a different sensation springs up in the generative organs, which is in perfect harmony with the uses for which they are intended. We recognize the use of the hands, the fingers, the feet, the eyes, the ears, the sense of taste, &c., and we use them accordingly. We should think of the generative organs only in the same light. They are intended for use, for the highest and holiest use of procreating human beings to the end that they may become angels in heaven. These organs were not made to be abused; but they are abused every time the mind is allowed to dwell upon them improperly. Every excitation we allow from lewd thoughts or fancies, has a debasing and deteriorating effect upon that well-developed form, upon that conscience so free, and upon that countenance so open and bright, which has been described in the preceding pages.

If the mere thought and excitation arising therefrom are injurious to the perfection of the youth, how much more injurious must be the ultimation of that thought in masturbation, in unlawful sexual intercourse, or in the loss of seminal fluid by other unnatural means.

Right here I feel impelled to say something of the