I. A chief subsidiary cause common to both sexes is _defective education_, which is responsible for ignorance of the simple principles of sexual biology, sexual hygiene, and sexual disease. Boys and girls growing up, first learn of these things from their vulgar companions, stumble into love, courtship, and marriage, blundering and groping--all because they have been denied instruction in one of the subjects which are vital for their health and happiness. Venereal diseases and sexual sins are augmented because of the ignorance which prudishness insists upon. Women fall; men patronize the prostitutes, contract gonorrhea and syphilis, and carry them to their wives, because of this ignorance; and society reaps wretchedness and vice.
Were girls told the dangers of extra-marital sexual congress--how it ultimately means either pregnancy or venereal disease--and could they know the meaning and consequences of these two conditions, from both physical and social standpoints, the ranks of the prostitutes would be much depleted.
Many a girl would not have made her sexual mistakes had she been advised. It is not because there was not time in the home or school to teach her a little practical sociology. No, there was time to teach her many other things of minor importance. In fact, it will always be found that these girls have zealously been taught many things that are not true, and that would be of little service to them if they were true. The reason the girl was not given this useful information is that for two thousand years the "pleasures of the flesh" have been regarded as evil. It has been droned out by sad-voiced prelates that "man is conceived in sin." This wretched dogma has made its impression on the human heart; mothers and fathers are loath to speak of these sinful things to the young; and their girls grow up ignorant, and go into prostitution for want of the saving information.
Another defect of education is that which exalts prudishness under the guise of modesty. The draping of the body, to hide its parts from view, had its origin in Christendom in the doctrine that "the flesh is evil." Instead of hiding the body, this practice has directed attention to the covered parts. The vision of imagination has penetrated all draperies, and carried with it the lascivious sense which the unobstructed eye would not. Sensuality has been promoted rather than suppressed. The exhibition of the naked human body is the beginning of sexual morality. Unnecessarily to cover and screen it from vision is to insult it with shame which it does not deserve, proclaim it as evil, and direct attention to its more specialized sexual parts.