FOOTNOTES:

[8] The Limitation of Offspring by the Prevention of Conception.


Chapter Thirty-three[ToC]

ADVICE TO GIRLS APPROACHING THE THRESHOLD OF WOMANHOOD

The Irresistible Attraction of the Young Girl for the Male—The Unprotected Girl's Temptations—Some Men Who Will Pester the Young Girl—Risk of Venereal Infection—Danger of Impregnation—Use of Contraceptives by the Unmarried Woman May Not Always Be Relied Upon—Nature of Men who Seduce Girls—Exceptions—Illegitimate Motherhood—Difficulties in the Way of Illegitimate Mother Who Must Earn Her Living—The Child of the Foundling Asylum—Social Attitude Towards Illegitimacy Responsible for Abortion Evil—Dangers of Abortion—The Girl Who Has Lost Her Virginity.

When a girl has passed the transition period of puberty and is entering upon young womanhood she exerts an irresistible attraction on the male sex. Whether she give the impression of a luscious red rose or of a delicate white lily, the charms of a beautiful, healthy, bright girl of seventeen or eighteen are undeniable and their appeal to the esthetic and sexual sense of every normal male is a normal, natural phenomenon. Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing that it is so, we will not stop to discuss here. But it is a natural phenomenon, a natural law, if you will, and one does not quarrel with natural phenomena. It is useless. But the attraction which the girl exercises on the male is fraught with danger to her, and therefore a few words of advice and of warning are not out of place.