[CHAPTER V]
NIGHT EMISSIONS AND THE BOY’S WORRY
As you reach the age of puberty and for a few years thereafter, you will have many little worries and hours of fear. There is absolutely no reason why you should have these times of self-fear or any kind of worry. The gradual change from boyhood to manhood should go on without mental worry or too much thinking of the changes in yourself. Nature never intended that this time should be any but a joyful and happy time. And it can be made a period of full content and feeling that all is right with yourself and the good world.
But why have boys been so depressed during this time of sexual growth and development? Why is it that we see men whose whole careers have been handicapped and physical misery been their lot, just because when they were youths they had some fright which has lasted throughout life?
Because they were left the prey of their own thoughts; because little matters that are natural to the growing boy were exaggerated into fearful diseases, because they struggled through a fog of ignorance upon which were blown the lies of older boys and the advertisements of those beasts—the QUACKS.
To sum it all up in a few words: because the boys were never told the real truth.
Truth is never vile, nasty nor injurious. To hide the truth is criminal, cowardly and injurious. But conditions which we will not bother ourselves about here have kept our parents and teachers from seeing the truth. It is here where all the harm has been done to the boy and the girl. You were not able to get the truth because it was hidden from you, but the lies, nasty lies, were allowed to get to your ears and eyes. If there were any false colors surrounding truth it certainly would not be the TRUTH; would it? If the laws of nature were untruthful in their significance, if nature were all lies, then the whole world and the power behind it is a LIVING LIE. But it is not; it is a beautiful revelation of powerful truths and when you know it as it is, nothing more astounding or wonderful can possibly fill your mind.
And to know the truth these things should be plainly told you:—
About fourteen years of age you may feel a gradual soreness in the nipples. This will increase and sometimes be a little annoying. Now don’t become frightened and try to recall some blow you have received there. It is only a demonstration of how the growing sex instinct affects all the body. There are little glands in the breast that for a short time become slightly inflamed and this produces the soreness and itching which bother you.
I knew a boy who was much affected with this soreness; he had no idea what it meant. He worried about it silently and ceaselessly. He could not apply his mind to his studies; he lost sleep and ceased to play with his companions. One day when he was moping around the house his mother noticed how pale and listless he was. She asked him what the trouble was. He told her that his chest was very sore; that the nipples pained him; that he had suffered day after day.