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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
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.
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=Temptations.= Fortunate are you, my young girl friend, if you come from a well-sheltered home, if you have been properly brought up, if you have a good and wise mother who knows how to take care of you. A mother's wise counsel given at the proper time, and her comradeship all the time, are more invulnerable than an armor of bronze and more secure than locked doors and barred windows. But if you have lost your mother at an early age, or if your mother is not of the right sort--it is no use hiding the fact that some mothers are not what they should be--if you have to shift for yourself, if you have to work in a shop, in an office, and particularly if you live alone and not with your parents, then temptations in the shape of men, young and old, will encounter you at every step; they will swarm about you like flies about a lump of sugar; they will stick to you like bees to a bunch of honeysuckle.
I do not want you to get the false idea that all men or most men are bad and mean, and are constantly on the lookout to ruin young girls. No. Most men are good and honorable and too conscientious to ruin a young life. But there are some men, young and old, who are devoid of any conscience, who are so egotistic that their personal pleasure is Page 1 from 6: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 Forward |