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. 

* * * * * 

=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