Think of a boy fourteen to sixteen years old on the threshold of manhood, and watch the changes going on in his whole being at this period of transition. Watch this most wonderful transformation, how a frail, little, helpless skeleton shoots into a large-boned frame with powerful muscles; how his squealing, girlish voice deepens into a low, manly, vibrating tone, and the smooth skin of the face and genital organs begins to show a hairy growth. Equally great changes take place in the boy’s mentality and feelings. A childish helplessness and insecurity gives place to self-assurance and assertiveness, coming from the inner feeling of growing power and ability to protect himself. Childish, care-free, everlasting joy gives way to a new feeling of growing responsibilities and duties, to plans and ambitions to strive for glory and success in life. The feeling of inner force and energy stirs him to ever-new activities, spurs him to ever-new achievements. Nothing is too hard for a youth standing on the threshold of manhood, no job is too big for him, no ambition is too high to realize. This is the time when the character and personality of a boy assume their permanent shape that forecasts the success or failure of his whole future life. And then comes the last and crowning change in growing manhood. He begins to feel an indefinite longing, vague and dreamy romantic impulses, and rapid changes of mood begin to disturb his repose. A new attitude toward the opposite sex gradually makes itself felt, and a woman acquires in his mind and feelings a new meaning and a new light. Womanly beauty and perfection, of which he has been unaware and unconscious, begins to exert on him all-powerful and irresistible attraction, and with further bodily and mental growth, he gradually reaches full maturity and enters the stage of highest consummation of normal manhood—love, marriage, and happy family life.
What magic power has brought about these changes from a helpless child to a strong, able-bodied man, ready for an active and happy life? This wonderful power is sex. Sex is the magic source of life, which not only reproduces life, but also keeps up the divine spark of vitality in the human body and controls and stimulates its growth and healthy development. Sexual glands that every healthy child gets from its very inception, thru their internal secretions, act as a source of life and energy in the body, stimulating its growth and influencing its general condition. And just as killing frost or withering heat stunts and dwarfs a young plant, so any abuse or lack of care of the sexual system will dwarf and stunt the growing boy, physically, mentally, and morally.
But even after a man has reached a full state of physical development, his sexual system exerts the same all-powerful influence over his body and mind. His own health and happiness, as well as the happiness of his wife and children, are most intimately and deeply dependent on the healthy and normal condition of his sexual system.
So it can readily be seen that sex is the greatest treasure Nature has bestowed upon men, and that the sexual organs are just as important for health and happiness as are any other organs of the body. For this reason every boy and man should know how to take care of these most vital organs in health and disease. In a word, he should have all necessary knowledge to protect and to keep intact his priceless heritage—healthy and noble manhood.
Anatomy and Physiology (Structure and Function) of the Male Generative Organs
To get a clear idea of the sexual system of a man, it is necessary first to learn the structure and function of sexual organs; that is, to get a brief acquaintance with their anatomy and physiology.
This is just the very purpose of this book, to give to intelligent and self-conscious boys and men this necessary knowledge, to give them guidance and information, which they need on different occasions, to solve and clear up their many doubts and questions that come up in the intimate recesses of their minds and which arise on different experiences of sexual life.
The sexual system of a man consists of the penis, two testicles with two seminal ducts, two seminal vesicles, and one prostate gland. The penis is a composite structure, as it has a double function of sexual and urinary organ. It consists of three cavernous, erectile elastic bodies capped in front by a head part—two of them on the sides and one underneath. These bodies contain numerous spaces, collapsible in the time of quiescence, but in time of sexual excitement, in the state of erection, those spaces fill up with blood and render the penis turgid and hard. Underneath the side cavernous bodies, piercing thru the lower cavernous body, goes the urethral canal, which starts from the bladder and reaches the external opening. The urethra has a double function: it carries urine from the bladder out of the body and it serves as a carrier for natural sexual secretions. The testicles are the most important sexual glands, as they produce human living cells—embryos—so-called spermatozoa. The testicles, two in number, are pigeon egg sized bodies, suspended by the spermatic cord in a sac called the scrotum.
The natural seminal secretion, semen, or sperma, after its production in the testicle, is carried out thru a long seminal duct, which, when unraveled, measures about twenty feet long, but in a natural condition is twisted and folded on itself many hundred times, forming a bundle-like swelling in the back of the testicle—epididymis. This detail is good to remember, as epididymis plays a very important part in venereal diseases.
The seminal duct goes thru the spermatic cord a long way and passes thru the inguinal canal, located in the groin and enters the seminal vesicles, which are located in the rear of the base of the urinary bladder. The seminal vesicles are the reservoir tanks for the seminal fluid, which resemble small pouch pockets, where it is stored up and accumulated before it is ejected thru the ejaculatory duct into the deep part of the urethral canal and then carried outward, spontaneously in a wet dream or actively in sexual intercourse. The seminal vesicles also produce their own viscid fluid-secretion, which probably preserves the spermatozoa in time of storage.