INTRODUCTION 25 



tain the desired information from evil sources whence 

 they would derive untold injury. 



What reason is there that the subject of the sexual 

 functions should be treated with such maudlin secrecy? 

 Why should the function of generation be regarded as 

 something low and beastly, unfit to be spoken of by 

 decent people on decent occasions? We can conceive of 

 no answer except the worse than beastly use to which 

 the function has been so generally put by man. There 

 is nothing about the sexual organism which makes it 

 less pure than the lungs or the stomach. ^'Unto the 

 pure all things are pure," may have been written es- 

 pecially for our times, when there is such a vast amount 

 of mock modesty, when so much pretense of virtue 

 covers such a world of iniquity and vice. The young 

 lady who goes into a spasm of virtuous hysterics upon 

 hearing the world '^eg," is perhaps just the one who 

 at home riots her imagination in voluptuous French 

 novels, if she commits no grosser breach of chastity. 

 The parents who are the most opposed to judiciously 

 imparting proper information to the young, are often 

 those who have themselves been guilty of gross 

 breaches of the laws of sexual hygiene. In the minds 

 of such persons, the sexual organs and functions, and 

 everything even remotely connected with them, are 

 associated only with ideas of lust and gross sensuality. 

 No wonder that they wish to keep such topics in the 

 dark. With such thoughts, they cannot well bear the 

 scrutiny of virtue. 



Sexual subjects are not, of course, proper subjects 

 for conversation at all times, or at any time in a spirit 

 of levity and flippancy. This subject should always be 

 handled with the greatest delicacy of expression. Gross 

 and vulgar forms of speech in relation to sexual sub- 



