Men, Women, and God | Page 8

matter any kind of harsh warning is not the best
way. A boy can be taught that there is a certain sanctity about certain parts of his body.
He can be taught to treat them scrupulously and hardily. He can be given positive ideas
which will save him, though I also believe that he ought to be told with definiteness to
avoid this particular snare. I know of no other case in which a little wise love and timely
vigilance may have such tremendous results in saving a child from future suffering and
mistake. Does anything more need to be said to mothers who really love their sons!
I have written these things about boys and men because it is in that connection that I can
speak from first-hand knowledge. But several women doctors have told me of late that
there is a very real need that girls also should be helped in view of the similar danger
which lies in their path. With them the habit is no doubt much less common. But it is
common enough, and has serious enough consequences, to constitute a call to parents in
their case also.
Most of those who read these pages will themselves be young. If they have troubled to
read the paragraphs I have just written a number of them will, I know, be moved to say to
themselves, "We would give anything if our parents had done these things for us." Yes! it
is a great pity they did not. But do not be hard upon your parents. They were the victims
of a wrong tradition. The conspiracy of silence had in their day been given almost
religious sanctions. Some of them were themselves embarrassed by the whole subject just
because no clean persuasions about it were current in their youth. That was their calamity,
as it has in part been yours. But no such calamity need overtake your children. If you can
and will cleanse your minds now--if you will take this whole subject out into the
cleansing light of God, and look at it there till you have seen the divine truth about sex--if
you can escape embarrassment and attain to thankfulness, then you will be able to keep

this whole matter clean for your children. Your generation has suffered much. The next
need not. And remember that whatever doctors, teachers, and ministers may do for the
nation, it must be parents who will save us in the long run.
You at least can get ready.
CHAPTER II
COMRADESHIP
The first outstanding social consequence of sex is the mutual attraction of young men and
women in general. With apologies in the meantime to the girls who "have no use for
men" and to the queer men who "don't like girls," I propose to speak to the great majority.
To many a healthy and normal man there is nothing so wonderful or beautiful in all God's
earth as a woman. And the converse is often true. The most interesting thing about the
world for many of each sex is that the other sex is in it also.
Those who share the assumption on which this book is written will agree that an
influence so strong, so profound, and so universal must have some fine significance in the
divine scheme of things. It is an element in humanity which must affect the whole of life.
To handle it rightly must be necessary if life as a whole is to succeed. And the first step
towards a right handling of it is to accept the fact of it gladly and openly. The convention
lingers that it is a little weak in a man to admit that he needs and craves woman's society,
and that for a girl to admit the converse is not quite modest. And thus there is often a
certain furtive element in the relations of the sexes between fifteen and twenty-five which
is all of it a great pity. It is here that Mrs. Grundy has done us real injury. The poor old
dear has been so fussy and nervous about it all. She has often tried to close the doors
upon free and wholesome fellowship, and so has driven the young to find out other ways
of meeting. But even she has not been able to keep the sexes apart. The truth is that the
mutual relations of men and women in the realm of comradeship, and quite apart from
marriage, may be so happy and enriching--so exhilarating and so bracing--that one may
reverently say the whole arrangement of having divided mankind into two such groups, is
one of the most splendid of the divine thoughts. For many a man the joy and worth of life
depend largely upon women. The things he gets on his journey