<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></SPAN>CHAPTER VI<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</SPAN></span></h2>
<h3>SEX IN THE ADOLESCENT FEMALE<br/> <small>(FROM PUBERTY TO MATURITY)</small></h3>
<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">A</span>dolescence</span> in the girl is the period when
she develops into a woman. It is that stage
in female life embraced between the ages of twelve
or fourteen and twenty-one years. Elasticity of
body, a clear complexion, and a happy control of
her feelings should mark the young girl at this time,
if she has been so fortunate as to escape the dangers
and baneful influences of childhood and infancy.
Her numerous bodily functions should be
well performed. Thus constituted she should be in
a condition to take up her coming struggle with the
world, and the sex problem it will present.</p>
<h5>PUBERTY</h5>
<p>It has been noticed that in the case of girls,
puberty usually occurs earlier in brunettes than in
blondes. In general, it makes its appearance earlier
in those of a nervous or bilio-nervous temperament
than in those whose temperament is phlegmatic or
lymphatic. In the United States fourteen and a
half years is the usual age of puberty in girls. In
tropical lands, however, it is not uncommon for a
girl to be a mother at twelve. Country girls (and
boys) usually mature several months or a year later
than those living in cities. Too early a puberty in<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</SPAN></span>
girls may well arouse concern. It usually indicates
some inherent constitutional weakness. Premature
puberty is often associated with premature decay.</p>
<h5>THE SIGNS AND CHANGES OF PUBERTY</h5>
<p>In the girl the sign of puberty is the growth of
hair about the pubes, private organs and armpits.
Her whole frame remains more slender than in the
male. Muscles and joints are less prominent, limbs
more rounded and tapering. Internal and external
organs undergo rapid enlargement, locally. The
<i>mammæ</i> (the breasts) enlarge, the ovaries dilate,
and a periodical uteral discharge (menstruation) is
established.</p>
<h5>MENSTRUATION</h5>
<p>No young girl should feel alarmed if, owing
to the negligence of her parents or guardians to prepare
her, she is surprised by this first flow from
the genital organs. Puberty is the proper time
for the appearance of menstruation. This is the
periodical development and discharge of an ovule
(one or more) by the female, accompanied by the
discharge of a fluid, known as menses or catamenia.
Menstruation, in general good health, should occur
about every twenty-eight days, or once in four
weeks. This rule, however, is subject to great
variation. Menstruation continues from puberty to
about the forty-fifth year, which usually marks the
<i>menopause</i>, or “change of life.” When it disappears
a woman is no longer capable of bearing children.
Her period of fertility has passed. In rare cases
menstruation has stopped at 35, or lasted till 60.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</SPAN></span></p>
<h5>HINTS FOR OBSERVANCE DURING MENSTRUATION</h5>
<p>When the period arrives a girl or woman has a
feeling of discomfort and lassitude, there is a sense
of weight, and a disclination for society. Menstruation
should not, however, be regarded as a nuisance;
a girl's friends respect her most when she is “unwell.”
She should keep more than usually quiet
while the flow continues, which it will do for a few
days. Also, she should avoid all unnecessary fatigue,
exposure to wet or to extremes of temperature.
Some girls are guilty of the crime of trying
to arrest the menstruation flow, and resorting to
methods of stopping it. Why? In order to attend
a dance or pleasure excursion! Lives have been lost
by thus suppressing the monthly flux. Mothers
should instruct their daughters when the menses are
apt to begin, and what their function is. During
menstruation great care must be taken in using
water internally. A chill is sufficient to arrest the
flow. If menstruation does not establish itself in a
healthy or normal manner at the proper time,
consult a physician in order to remove this abnormal
condition. Any disturbance of the delicate
menstrual functions during the period, by constrained
positions, muscular effort, brain work
and mental or physical excitement, is apt to have
serious consequences.</p>
<h5>CONTINENCE AND THE YOUNG ADOLESCENT GIRL</h5>
<p>Continence is, as a rule more easily observed by
the adolescent girl than by the adolescent youth.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</SPAN></span>
Ordinarily the normal young girl has no <i>undue</i>
sexual propensities, amorous thoughts or feelings.
Though she is exposed to the danger of meeting
other girls who may be lewd in thought and speech,
in the houses of friends or at school, she is not apt
to be carried away by their example. Yet even a
good, pure-minded young girl may be debauched.
Especially during adolescence, the easy observance
of natural continence depends greatly on the proper
functioning of the feminine genital organs. These
may be easily disturbed. The syringe used for injections,
for so-called purposes of cleanliness, is in
reality a danger. The inner organs are self-cleansing.
Water or other fluids cast into them disorder
the mucous follicles, and dry up their secretions,
preventing the flowing out of some of Nature's
necessities. A daily washing of the inner organs
for a long period with water also produces chronic
leucorrhea.</p>
<h5>WHY YOUNG GIRLS FALL</h5>
<p>Lack of proper early training, abnormal sex instincts,
weak good nature, poverty, all may be responsible
for a young girl's moral downfall. As a
general thing, right home training and home environment,
and sane sex education will prevent the normally
good girl from going wrong. It should be
remembered, though, that a naturally more gentle
and yielding disposition may easily lead her into
temptation. Girls who are sentimentally inclined
should beware of giving way to advances on the part
of young men which have only one object in view:
the gratification of their animal passion.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>The holding of hands and similar innocent beginnings
often pave the way for more familiar caresses.
Passionate kisses—the promiscuous kiss, by the
way, may be the carrier of that dread infection,
syphilis—violently awaken a young girl's sex instincts.
The fact is that many innocent girls idealize
their seducers. They believe their lying promises,
actually come to love them, and think that in gratifying
their inflamed desires, they are giving a proof
of the depth and purity of their own affection.</p>
<p>Here, as in the case of the young man, self-control
should be the first thing cultivated. And self-control
should be made doubly sure by never
permitting one of the opposite sex to show undue
familiarity. Many a seemingly innocent flirtation,
begun with a kiss, has ended in shame and disgrace,
in loss of social standing and position, venereal
disease, or even death. The pure-minded and innocent
girl often becomes a victim of her ignorance
of the consequences entailed by giving in to the desires
of some male companion. <i>The girl who has a
knowledge of sex facts is less apt to be taken advantage
of in this manner.</i></p>
<h5>MODERN CONDITIONS WHICH ENCOURAGE
IMMORALITY</h5>
<p><i>Excessive Freedom.</i>—The excessive freedom
granted the young girl, especially since the World
War, must be held responsible for a great increase
in familiarity between the adolescent youth of both
sexes. Many young girls of the “flapper” type,
in particular, are victims of these conditions<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</SPAN></span>
of unrestrained sex association. Sex precocity
is furthered in coeducational colleges, in the high
school and the home. Adolescents of both sexes too
often are practically unhampered in their comings
and goings, their words and actions. The surreptitious
pocket flask, filled with “hooch,” is often a
feature of social parties, dances and affairs frequented
by young people. Girls and boys drink together,
and as alcohol weakens moral resistance in
the one case, and stimulates desire in the other, deplorable
consequences naturally result. In the
United States the number of girls “sent home” from
colleges, and of high-school girls being privately
treated by physicians to save them from disgrace, is
incredibly large.</p>
<p>Parents who do not control the social activities
of their daughters, who permit them to spend their
evenings away from home with only a general idea
of what they are doing or whom they are meeting,
need not be surprised if their morals are undermined.</p>
<p><i>The Auto.</i>—The advent of the automobile is
responsible for an easy and convenient manner of
satisfying precociously aroused sex instincts in
young girls and boys. Often, unconscientious pleasure-seekers
roam the roads in their auto. They accost
girls who are walking and offer them a “lift.”
When the latter refuse to gratify their desires
they are often beaten and flung from the car. The
daily press has given such publicity to this civilized
form of “head hunting,” that it is difficult to sympathize
with girls who are thus treated. They cannot<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</SPAN></span>
help but know that in nine cases out of ten, a
stranger who invites them to a ride, who “picks”
them up, does so with the definite purpose already
mentioned in view.</p>
<p><i>Poverty.</i>—Poverty, too, plays a large part in
driving young girls into a life of vice. In all our
large cities there are hundreds of young women
who earn hardly enough to buy food and fuel and
pay for the rent of a room in a cheap lodging house.
Feminine youth longs for dress, for company, for
entertainment. It is easy enough to find a “gentleman
friend” who will provide all three, in exchange
for “companionship.” So the bargain is struck.
These conditions exist in a hundred and one occupations.
A young woman may go to a large city as
pure as snow, but finding no lucrative employment,
lonely and despondent, she is led to take her first
step on the downward path. Soon daily contact with
vice removes abhorrence to it. Familiarity makes it
habitual, and another life is ruined. The heartless
moral code of the cynical young pleasure-seeking
male is summed up in the cant phrase anent
women: “Find, ... and forget!” It is these girls,
who are victimized by their lack of self-restraint or
moral principle, their ignorance or weakness, who
make possible the application of such a maxim.</p>
<h5>VIRGINITY</h5>
<p>Both mental and physical purity are rightfully required
of the young girl about to marry. How shall
she acquire and maintain this desirable state of
purity? The process is a simple one. <i>She must let a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</SPAN></span>
knowledge of the true hygienic and moral laws of
her sex guide her in her relations with men.</i> She
must cultivate clean thought on a basis of physical
cleanliness. She need not be ignorant to be pure.
Men she should study carefully. She should not
allow them to sit with their arm about her waist, to
hold her hand, to kiss her. No approach nor touch
beyond what the best social observance sanctions
should be permitted. Even the tendernesses and
familiarities of courtship should be restrained. An
engagement does not necessarily culminate in a
marriage, and once the foot has slipped on virtue's
path the error cannot be recalled. These considerations,
together with those adduced in the preceding
section, “Why Young Girls Fall,” are well worth
taking to heart by every young woman who wishes
to approach matrimony in the right and proper way.</p>
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