<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></SPAN>CHAPTER V<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</SPAN></span></h2>
<h3>SEX IN THE ADOLESCENT MALE<br/> <small>(FROM PUBERTY TO MATURITY)</small></h3>
<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">A</span>dolescence</span> is the period when the boy is
lost in the man. It is the time of life embraced
between the ages of fourteen or sixteen and the age
of twenty-five. Every boy, if properly trained,
should reach this period in a state of good general
health and spirits. Hitherto he has been led and
guided. Now he must develop mental strength and
will power himself to choose the good and refuse
the evil in the sexual problems confronting him.</p>
<h5>PUBERTY</h5>
<p>According to climate puberty, the age when the
human male becomes sexually perfect, varies from
ten to fifteen years. In the United States puberty in
the male usually occurs at the age of fourteen and a
half years. In tropical climates it occurs at nine or
ten, and in cold countries, such as Norway and
Siberia, it may not take place until eighteen or
nineteen. Vigorous physical exercise tends to delay
puberty, anything exciting the emotions tends to
hasten it. Stimulating foods, pepper, vinegar, mustard,
spices, tea and coffee, excess meat nutriment
hasten puberty. A cool, unstimulating vegetable
and farinaceous diet may delay the development of
the sexual system several months or a year.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</SPAN></span></p>
<h5>THE SIGNS AND CHANGES OF PUBERTY</h5>
<p>In the boy the signs of puberty are the growth
of hair on the skin covering the pubes and in the
armpits. Chest and arms broaden, the frame grows
more angular, the masculine proportions more pronounced.
The vocal cords grow longer and lower
the pitch of the voice. Hair grows on chin, upper
lip, cheeks, and often on the body surface.</p>
<h5>THE SEXUAL MORAL LAW</h5>
<p>The sexual moral law is the same for both sexes,
and equally binding. It may be summed up as
follows: “Your sexual urges, instincts and desires
should never consciously injure an individual human
being or mankind in general. They should be exercised
to further the value and happiness of both.”</p>
<h5>THE MALE ADOLESCENT AND CONTINENCE</h5>
<p>The perfect carrying out of this general moral
law implies continence on the part of the male
adolescent until marriage. Continence is positive
restraint under all circumstances. Strict continence
is neither injurious to health, nor does it produce
impotence. While self-denial is difficult, since the
promptings of nature often seem imperious, it is not
impossible. It is certain that no youth will suffer,
physically, by remaining sexually pure. The demands
which occur during adolescence are mainly
abnormal, due to the excitements of an overstimulating
diet, pornographic literature and art, and the
temptations of impure association.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</SPAN></span></p>
<h5>WHY YOUNG MEN GO WRONG</h5>
<p>Foul thoughts, once they enter the mind, corrode
it. The sensual glance, the bawdy laugh, the ribald
jest, the smutty story, the obscene song may be met
with on street corner, in the car, train, hotel lobby,
lecture hall and workshop. Mental unchastity ends
in physical unchastity. The habit common to most
adolescent boys and young men of relating smutty
stories, repeating foul jokes and making indecent
allusions destroys respect for virtue. In addition
there are such direct physical causes of undue adolescent
sexual excitement as constipation and alcoholism,
and such mental ones as nervous irritability.</p>
<p>To the constant discussion and speculation regarding
sex and its mysteries by the adolescent
young male, must be added the artificial idea that
idle prattling on the subject is a sign of “manhood.”
Thus many young men whose natural trend is in the
direction of decency and right sexual living, “step
out” or “go to see the girls,” as the phrase is, because
they think that otherwise “they are not real
men.” More subtle in its evil effect, yet somewhat
less dangerous physically, perhaps, than the professional
prostitute is the lure of the “hidden” prostitute,
who carefully conceals her derelictions, and
publicly wraps herself in a mantle of virtue.</p>
<h5>PROSTITUTION</h5>
<p>The training of the average male mind in impure
language and thought during boyhood and adolescence,
the cultivation of his animal at the expense<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</SPAN></span>
of the moral nature, often leads the adolescent to
seek satisfaction by frequenting the prostitute.</p>
<p><i>Prostitution</i>, known as the “social evil,” is promiscuous
unchastity for gain. It has existed in all
civilized countries from earliest times. Prostitution
abuses the instinct for reproduction, the basic
element of sex, to offer certain women a livelihood
which they prefer to other means. Love of excitement,
inherited criminal propensities, indolence and
abnormal sex appetite are first causes of prostitution.
Difficulty in finding work, laborious and
ill-paid work, harsh treatment of girls at home,
indecent living among the poor, contact with
demoralizing companions, loose literature and
amusements are secondary causes. They all contribute
to debauch male and female youth and lead it to
form dangerous habits of vicious sensual indulgence.</p>
<p>Prostitution seems inseparable from human society
in large communities. The fact is acknowledged
in the name given it, “the necessary evil.” Regulation
and medical control only arrest in a degree the
spread of venereal diseases to which prostitution
gives rise. The elementary laws on which prostitution
rests seems to be stronger than the artificial
codes imposed by moral teaching. It is an evil
which must be combatted <i>individually</i>. Men are
principally responsible, in one way or another, for
the existence of the social evil. In the case of the
young man, abstention is the only cure for the
probable results of indulging his animal passions by
recourse to the prostitute.</p>
<p>Prostitution, both public and private is the most<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</SPAN></span>
dangerous menace to society at large. It is the curse
of individual young manhood because of the venereal
diseases it spreads. One visit to a house of
prostitution may ruin a young man's health and life,
and millions of human beings die annually from the
effects of poison contracted in these houses. “Wild
oats” sown in company with the prostitute usually
bear fruit in the shape of the most loathsome and
destructive sex disorders.</p>
<p>The development of self-control, the avoidance of
impure thoughts and associations, the cultivation
of the higher moral nature instead of the lower
animal one, and, finally, <i>marriage</i>, should prevent
the young man from falling into prostitution. All
the state and medical regulation in the world will
not protect him from the venereal diseases he is so
apt to acquire by such indulgence.</p>
<h5>FREE LOVE</h5>
<p>Free love is the doctrine of <i>unrestrained choice,
without binding ties</i>, in sexual relations. For altogether
different reasons, however, it is quite as
objectionable as prostitution for the young man. It
may offer better hygienic guarantees. But it is a
sexual partnership which is opposed to the fundamental
institution of <i>marriage</i>, on which society in
general is based throughout the world. And, aside
from the fact that it is a promiscuous relationship
not sanctioned by law or society, it is seldom practically
successful. It cannot admit of true love without
bitter jealousies.</p>
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