Reference is made to it in the Bible, in the sending of women prostitutes into the camps of the enemy the night before an expected battle, in order to exhaust or decrease the vitality of the soldiers.
When one finds an individual who realizes the force of the sexual impulses and knows how to conserve them, you usually find a person who does not drain or exhaust these forces, but uses them in creative work.
Every girl should look upon the man who indulges freely in the sexual relations without Social responsibility, as a prostitute far more degraded than the unfortunate girl who is compelled to sell her body to sustain life.
Every girl should know something about the physical makeup of a boy as well as of her own, for upon the well-being of both does the future race depend. To be a real mother a woman must understand a boy's emotions and development, if she would sympathize with him. And when she does understand, she will not send him to buy a woman for physical satisfaction.
It is this ignorance of parents, together with the silence of the medical profession, which is largely responsible for the terrible spread of venereal diseases which exist today.
When a few years ago Dr. Morrow stated that there is more venereal diseases among innocent, virtuous wives, than among prostitutes, this statement should have resounded throughout the walls of every home in the land, instead of which it is kept intact within the covers of large volumes, where only those wearing cap and gown have access to it.
It is claimed that out of 1,000 married men in New York 800 have gonorrhoea, and 90 per cent. of these have not been cured and can infect their wives. The result is that at least three out of every five married women in New York have gonorrhoea.
This seems astounding and exaggerated, but the following quotation is taken from an authority and is considered quite conservative: “Over 90 per cent. of our young men stray from the path of virtue before marriage; 60 per cent. contract venereal diseases which are difficult to cure; more wives than prostitutes have venereal diseases; one-eighth of all diseases in New York hospitals are venereal; 20,000 infected persons walk the streets daily.”
It seems to me that the above facts are sufficient to warrant every girl and boy knowing something about these diseases.