CONTINENCE AND THE YOUNG ADOLESCENT GIRL
Continence is, as a rule more easily observed by the adolescent girl than by the adolescent youth. Ordinarily the normal young girl has no undue sexual propensities, amorous thoughts or feelings. Though she is exposed to the danger of meeting other girls who may be lewd in thought and speech, in the houses of friends or at school, she is not apt to be carried away by their example. Yet even a good, pure-minded young girl may be debauched. Especially during adolescence, the easy observance of natural continence depends greatly on the proper functioning of the feminine genital organs. These may be easily disturbed. The syringe used for injections, for so-called purposes of cleanliness, is in reality a danger. The inner organs are self-cleansing. Water or other fluids cast into them disorder the mucous follicles, and dry up their secretions, preventing the flowing out of some of Nature's necessities. A daily washing of the inner organs for a long period with water also produces chronic leucorrhea.
WHY YOUNG GIRLS FALL
Lack of proper early training, abnormal sex instincts, weak good nature, poverty, all may be responsible for a young girl's moral downfall. As a general thing, right home training and home environment, and sane sex education will prevent the normally good girl from going wrong. It should be remembered, though, that a naturally more gentle and yielding disposition may easily lead her into temptation. Girls who are sentimentally inclined should beware of giving way to advances on the part of young men which have only one object in view: the gratification of their animal passion.
The holding of hands and similar innocent beginnings often pave the way for more familiar caresses. Passionate kisses—the promiscuous kiss, by the way, may be the carrier of that dread infection, syphilis—violently awaken a young girl's sex instincts. The fact is that many innocent girls idealize their seducers. They believe their lying promises, actually come to love them, and think that in gratifying their inflamed desires, they are giving a proof of the depth and purity of their own affection.
Here, as in the case of the young man, self-control should be the first thing cultivated. And self-control should be made doubly sure by never permitting one of the opposite sex to show undue familiarity. Many a seemingly innocent flirtation, begun with a kiss, has ended in shame and disgrace, in loss of social standing and position, venereal disease, or even death. The pure-minded and innocent girl often becomes a victim of her ignorance of the consequences entailed by giving in to the desires of some male companion. The girl who has a knowledge of sex facts is less apt to be taken advantage of in this manner.
MODERN CONDITIONS WHICH ENCOURAGE IMMORALITY
Excessive Freedom.—The excessive freedom granted the young girl, especially since the World War, must be held responsible for a great increase in familiarity between the adolescent youth of both sexes. Many young girls of the “flapper” type, in particular, are victims of these conditions of unrestrained sex association. Sex precocity is furthered in coeducational colleges, in the high school and the home. Adolescents of both sexes too often are practically unhampered in their comings and goings, their words and actions. The surreptitious pocket flask, filled with “hooch,” is often a feature of social parties, dances and affairs frequented by young people. Girls and boys drink together, and as alcohol weakens moral resistance in the one case, and stimulates desire in the other, deplorable consequences naturally result. In the United States the number of girls “sent home” from colleges, and of high-school girls being privately treated by physicians to save them from disgrace, is incredibly large.
Parents who do not control the social activities of their daughters, who permit them to spend their evenings away from home with only a general idea of what they are doing or whom they are meeting, need not be surprised if their morals are undermined.
The Auto.—The advent of the automobile is responsible for an easy and convenient manner of satisfying precociously aroused sex instincts in young girls and boys. Often, unconscientious pleasure-seekers roam the roads in their auto. They accost girls who are walking and offer them a “lift.” When the latter refuse to gratify their desires they are often beaten and flung from the car. The daily press has given such publicity to this civilized form of “head hunting,” that it is difficult to sympathize with girls who are thus treated. They cannot help but know that in nine cases out of ten, a stranger who invites them to a ride, who “picks” them up, does so with the definite purpose already mentioned in view.