Is it I? A book for every man.

by Horatio Robinson Storer

The dangers environing those accustomed to consort with harlots exist to almost the same degree where a single private mistress is employed. To say nothing of the expense of supporting such, usually much greater than that of honestly building a family, there must always exist the fact that the woman who permits one man to unlawfully use her will be very likely to grant similar favors to his friend or any one else who may please her fancy or offer her her price; and then comes the chance of her receiving and imparting disease.

Many men think that all such risk is avoided in the case of deliberate seduction. Such, however, is by no means always the case. The popular spread of physiological knowledge has been productive of many unforeseen results. Many women, as well as many men, imagine that by the observance of certain precautions they can do as they please with a friend without possible chance of discovery; the result of all which is, that, in many instances of intercourse with supposed virgins, the biter is sorely bitten, and repents him at his leisure. Where true seduction is effected, not only is the offender oppressed by a life-long sense of the wrong he has done, but he must also feel that the prize thus unfairly gained is liable at any moment to slip from his grasp, or to prove to him the veriest apple of Sodom.

Thus disappointed, or thus fearing, many, even of adult age, resort to what is physiologically a worse crime against nature—self-excitation. This yielded to in boyhood sometimes makes of the young man a woman pursuer, but probably more often a woman hater; while, on the other hand, it is often the last and final resort of the old and broken-down debauchee. In either event the effect upon the constitution is detrimental in the extreme. It is customary, but still a grave error, to preserve silence upon this subject. “But,” to apply to it the brave words of my friend Dr. Shrady, of New York, when discussing prostitution, “notwithstanding our prejudices of education, agitation will here, as in the kindred question of pre-natal infanticide, finally culminate in reform.”[25] If the subject is decided, as I believe will be the case, to be of the importance that is claimed by every philosophical physician who has looked into the matter, a voice will go out into every corner of the land, caught up and re-echoed by all the medical men thereof, that will cause those who care either for their souls or their bodies, to pause and tremble.

I would not exaggerate this matter—I would not indorse that empiricism in medicine which seeks to obtain gain through awakening ungrounded fears, or imply that I believe that those who have occasionally gone astray are necessarily incurably diseased, or their souls irretrievably lost. On the contrary, it is my opinion, already stated, that just as there is more joy in heaven over the repentant sinner than over those who wandered not, so those who have learned by bitter experience often make, here below, the better men. I have more than once in this essay drawn from the language of Dr. Ware, an old man, of widely-extended experience, close habits of observation, a thoughtful mind, and of abounding charity for those who had erred. There is no one among the wide circle of medical men who were on terms of personal acquaintance with this distinguished member of our profession who will not acknowledge that the following sketch is far from being overdrawn:—

“There is another form of sensuality, far more common among the young, it is to be feared, than that of which we have been speaking, and equally demanding notice—solitary indulgence. This is resorted to from different motives. With many there is no opportunity for the natural gratification of their appetites; some are deterred from such gratification by the fear of discovery, regard for character, or a dread of disease; others there are whose consciences revolt at the idea of licentious intercourse, who yet addict themselves to this practice with the idea that there is in it less of criminality. It is to be apprehended, however, that its commencement can usually be traced to a period of life when no such causes can have been in operation. It is begun from imitation, and taught by example, long before the thoughts are likely to have been exercised, with regard either to its dangers or its criminality.

“The prevalence of this vice among boys, there is great reason to believe, has very much to do with the great amount of illicit indulgence which exists among young men. The one bears the same relation to the other, in a certain sense, that moderate drinking does to intemperance. It prepares the way, it excites the appetite, it debauches the imagination. There is little doubt that it is often, if not commonly, begun at a period of life when the natural appetite does not, and should not, exist. It is solicited, prematurely developed; it is almost created. On every account, then, this practice in the young demands especial notice. It is the great corrupter of the morals of our youth, as well as a frequent destroyer of their health and constitution. Could it be arrested, the task of preventing the more open form of licentiousness would be comparatively easy; for it creates and establishes, at a very early age, a strong physical propensity, an animal want, of the most imperious nature, which, like the longing of the intemperate man, it is almost beyond human power to overcome. The brute impulse becomes a habit of nearly irresistible force before the reason is instructed as to its injurious influence on the health, or the conscience awakened as to its true character as a sin.

“The deleterious, the sometimes appalling consequences of this vice upon the health, the constitution, the mind itself, are some of the common matters of medical observation. The victims of it should know what these consequences are; for to be acquainted with the tremendous evils it entails may assist them in the work of resistance. These consequences are various in degree and in permanency according to the extent to which the indulgence is carried, and also according to the constitution of different individuals. But there is probably no extent which is not in some degree injurious.

“Among the effects of this habit, in ordinary cases, we notice an impaired nutrition of the body; a diminution of the rotundity which belongs to childhood and youth; a general lassitude and languor, with weakness of the limbs and back; indisposition and incapacity for study or labor; dulness of apprehension; a deficient power of attention; dizziness; headaches; pains in the sides, back, and limbs; affections of the eyes. In cases of extreme indulgence, these symptoms become more strongly marked, and are followed by others. The emaciation becomes excessive; the bodily powers become more completely prostrated; the memory and the whole mind partake in the ruin; and idiocy or insanity, in their most intractable forms, close the train of evils. It not unfrequently happens that, from the consequences of this vice, when carried to an extreme, not even repentance and reformation liberate the unhappy victim.

“Let no one say that we overstate the extent of this evil, or exaggerate its importance to the health and morals of the young. It is in vain that we attempt to stay the licentiousness of youth, when we leave, unchecked in their growth, those seeds of the vice which are sown in the bosom of the child. If there is impurity in the fountain, there will be impurity in the stream which flows from it. To what purpose is it that we make and execute laws against open licentiousness; that we arm ourselves with policemen and spies; that we prosecute the keepers of brothels; that we hunt the wretched prostitute from the dram shop to the cellar, from the cellar to the jail, from the jail to her grave? This does not purify society: it stops merely one external development of a corruption which still lurks, and cankers, and festers within. The licentiousness of the brothel is clear and open in its character; nobody defends it; every one is aware of its seductions and its dangers; the young man who enters the house of shame knows that he does it at the peril of reputation, and under the dread of disease. But the other form of licentiousness is secret from its very nature. It may be practised without suspicion; there is little fear of discovery or of shame. It lurks in the school, the academy, the college, the workshop, ay, even in the nursery. No age and no profession are without examples of the dreadful ruin it can accomplish. Begun in childhood, and sometimes even in infancy, it is indulged without a thought of its nature or its effects. Gradually it winds around its unhappy victim a chain which he finds it impossible to break. Continued for years, he may wake at last to a sense of his degradation, but perhaps too late; for it has often happened that neither the pressure of disease, the stings of conscience, a strong sense of religious obligation, nor even the fear of death, have been sufficient to enable the unhappy sufferer to break from the habit which inthralls him.

“None but those who go behind the scenes of life, and are permitted to enter the prison-house of the human heart, can know how many are the terrible secrets which lie hid beneath the fair and even face of society, as we see it in the common intercourse of the world. With how many are their early days a struggle for life and death between principle and passion, the spirit and the flesh! With how many are those days spent in yielding and repenting, in reluctant indulgences, followed by agonies of remorse and shame! With how many does the conscience become callous, and vice a second nature! How often has it happened that natures, really fair and pure, have gradually become tarnished and dim, and the highest hopes of youth been defeated! How often has it happened that young men of rare promise, of whose success great expectations have been entertained, have suddenly failed by the way; have seemed prematurely worn down by study, and been forced to relinquish the career on which they were entering with the brightest prospects! Little is it suspected by anxious friends, or a sympathizing public, in such cases, that it is not too exclusive devotion to study; that it is not midnight toil; that it is not errors of diet, or want of air or exercise, that have withered their energies and unnerved their frame. There may be a nearer and a more inevitable destroyer than these.