as you reach the age of puberty and for a few years thereafter, you will have many little worries and hours of fear. there is absolutely no reason why you should have these times of self-fear or any kind of worry. the gradual change from boyhood to manhood should go on without mental worry or too much thinking of the changes in yourself. nature never intended that this time should be any but a joyful and happy time. and it can be made a period of full content and feeling that all is right with yourself and the good world.
but why have boys been so depressed during this time of sexual growth and development? why is it that we see men whose whole careers have been handicapped and physical misery been their lot, just because when they were youths they had some fright which has lasted throughout life?
because they were left the prey of their own thoughts; because little matters that are natural to the growing boy were exaggerated into fearful diseases, because they struggled through[80] a fog of ignorance upon which were blown the lies of older boys and the advertisements of those beasts—the quacks.
to sum it all up in a few words: because the boys were never told the real truth.
truth is never vile, nasty nor injurious. to hide the truth is criminal, cowardly and injurious. but conditions which we will not bother ourselves about here have kept our parents and teachers from seeing the truth. it is here where all the harm has been done to the boy and the girl. you were not able to get the truth because it was hidden from you, but the lies, nasty lies, were allowed to get to your ears and eyes. if there were any false colors surrounding truth it certainly would not be the truth; would it? if the laws of nature were untruthful in their significance, if nature were all lies, then the whole world and the power behind it is a living lie. but it is not; it is a beautiful revelation of powerful truths and when you know it as it is, nothing more astounding or wonderful can possibly fill your mind.
and to know the truth these things should be plainly told you:—
about fourteen years of age you may feel a gradual soreness in the nipples. this will increase and sometimes be a little annoying. now don’t become frightened and try to recall[81] some blow you have received there. it is only a demonstration of how the growing sex instinct affects all the body. there are little glands in the breast that for a short time become slightly inflamed and this produces the soreness and itching which bother you.
i knew a boy who was much affected with this soreness; he had no idea what it meant. he worried about it silently and ceaselessly. he could not apply his mind to his studies; he lost sleep and ceased to play with his companions. one day when he was moping around the house his mother noticed how pale and listless he was. she asked him what the trouble was. he told her that his chest was very sore; that the nipples pained him; that he had suffered day after day.
now what did this mother do? at once became frightened so that she frightened him. he at once thought that something horrible was to happen to him. poor boy! the mother at once asked him if he had received a blow on the breast? of course he remembered such a blow. then this ignorant mother rushed to her family medical book—the curse of many a home—and commenced to read up on cancer of the breast. then she rushed off to the doctor, leaving the book, which was at once seized upon by the trembling and pale boy. then he read his doom—cancer of the breast; he had all the[82] symptoms! at once he lost what little heart he had left, and when the mother returned she made matters worse by her fear and sympathy.
the doctor? he wasn’t at his office; would return the next day. that boy spent the night in a fear which almost wrecked him. he could not go to the doctor the next morning, he was so weak from fear. when the doctor did come, instead of laughing at the whole matter, taking the boy aside and telling him what the signs meant, he hemmed and looked wise. then he said he “thought it would pass away.” but it did not, neither did the fear. the boy just escaped complete ruin of his health, or perhaps a worse fate at his own hands, by a stroke of luck.
in the small city where he resided there were a number of chinese youths—sons of gentlemen—being educated. one of them, a chum of the unfortunate boy, called to see what was the matter. tearfully the boy told him his pains and fear. the chinese boy laughed loud and heartily. then he told the boy the truth.
you see these foreign boys had a real knowledge of the truth given them before being sent out into the world.
from that time onward this american boy never told his mother anything about himself or his thoughts; he had to get what knowledge[83] he wanted from other sources, and as his chinese friends soon went off to a large prep. school, the later information came from older boys who only knew the lies and untruths.
so never worry about these little pains or uncomfortable feelings. they belong to your natural growth and are signs that you are becoming a man.
at about the same time hair will appear on various parts of your body. it will make its appearance there before it will be seen on the face.
new and strange feelings will now be part of your mental life. you will wonder about everything around you. what is life? where shall i go to when dead? what is religion? am i fit to live? and all sorts of new and queer ideas. don’t bother about them; just go along doing your best with the knowledge that all is coming out right when you do your best.
of course you cannot be perfect—you will make many mistakes, do things which you would be ashamed to repeat; often tell an untruth when you wanted to be truthful. but this does not make of you a sinful boy—just a natural boy. time and forthrightness in trying to correct these errors will make you a square man. that is what you must aim at being—a square man—square with yourself, god and man. a boy is a thing of many sides;[84] he is in the rough; experience, growth and determination cut away, hammer out and finally polish the rough youth into a square man.
but he must have the proper tools for this work and these tools are knowledge of self, determination and forthrightness.
one natural act of the glands in the body which now commence to secrete profusely, is to empty themselves of an overload. your testicles are secreting life fluid. they do this constantly and will keep on doing so throughout a long life if you have cared for them as they should be cared for; left alone until the time has arrived for you to be a father.
nights when the testicles are overloaded with seminal fluid, they empty themselves. but remember this fact: they only let out the overflow, they never waste any. it is something like that which goes on in a good spring of pure water. this spring is always welling up with fresh water; its overflow must be taken care of, so off the excess water runs. but you will notice that no more water runs away than is necessary; the spring keeps up to the same level and always has fresh water. dam it up and you all know what happens—a muddy, dead mass of useless water. go to work and pump out the spring, and what occurs? it is emptied, and if the pumping is kept up will disappear altogether. it is now[85] a useless, dirty and moldy hole where once flowed pure, sparkling, live water.
just so with the life spring in you. let it take care of itself. it knows how. but you must protect it, as you would any good thing. and this is done through the mind; by keeping evil thoughts out of your mind the spring is not emptied or muddied.
when the testicles are overflowing with their fluid there comes a night for casting off this overflow. now this overflow irritates certain nerves around the sex organ, these send a message to the brain telling it to open the glands and let out this overflow. this message is the dream you have. it is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing sinful or wrong, just a sign that you are in good health and growing to be a strong man.
here is where the injury of evil thoughts, smutty talk and reading comes in. if you have been listening during the day to these injurious things, when you sleep, some memory of the things heard or seen remains on the memory—as everything does. this brings about injurious dreams, these dreams send a message to your sex organs and they return an order to open the valves of the testicles and pour out precious life fluid. as you see, in such a case it is not the overflow you are casting off, but most valuable energy and muscle-giving[86] power. you have been drawing from the well, and if you persist in this method you will soon be a ruined boy. but the dreams which come naturally do no injury to you when they do not occur too often.
but how often should they come, doctor?
just wait for a few moments; we will soon come to all those questions and their answers.
let me first tell you, boys, that all the statements of the quacks, and of too many doctors who are not known as quacks but in heart and method are worse than quacks, are abominable lies. every one of their advertisements about “lost manhood” is a mean falsehood. they are founded upon what is natural for every boy to have occur to him, but they confound in your minds the true and the false. they try to scare you, and they have scared millions of american youths and boys, by telling you what happens is always a symptom of “lost manhood.” nothing of the kind, as i have shown you. if you will all grasp and hold the facts i have and shall tell you, we can drive these bloodhounds from the land. when you realize that the advertisements you read in some papers and those booklets sent to boys are nothing but a pack of lies gotten up to bleed you and frighten you, the quacks will fall away like leaves in an[87] autumn gale. we can raise such a wind, you and i, that every quack and his kind will have to go digging sewers for a living—where they belong.
“lost manhood” is such a rare condition in the boy and youth that many doctors go through a career of practice and never see a case. of course we have boys born with weak brains, idiots, and those with a growth or disease of the sexual center in the brain. this makes them constantly handle their organs; they are thinking of vile things only, they are really insane on this one subject and of course soon sink to the level of—no, not beasts—animals are pure in their instincts—to the level of imbeciles.
i have shown you how you can bring yourselves to the point of not being the fathers of these unfortunate and horrid things.
the quack takes all those natural occurrences of boyhood and in his advertisements points them out to you. he well knows that each and every symptom he describes will be found in all healthy boys. for instance he says that if you have dark rings under your eyes it is a dangerous symptom. of course you will find dark rings under your eyes at times. just after a night’s natural emission. this is the time to throw a scare into you. you have never thought of those dark rings[88] before, but now you look into the mirror, and “oh, i’m lost—there they are!”
rotten nonsense! they have always been there, but you didn’t receive the suggestion before you read the advertisement or those criminal booklets. and that picture: “before taking; after taking.” you know them well.
i was acquainted with a fellow who had been quite an athlete. somehow he never seemed to make good. he tried almost everything but never stuck to one thing. he passed out of my mind for some time. one day i met him on broadway, swinging along full of health and apparent contentment. he told me that he had tried to be an actor, but was now doing something better. he smiled and answered that he was “making good money” when i asked him what he was doing.
a few days after this little conversation he came to my office. at least a forlorn creature staggered in and sank down in a chair. he was thin-looking, pale and had pimples all over his face. his clothes hung on him—just hung, nothing else. his arm was in a sling and he talked with effort.
“you don’t know me, doctor?” then he straightened himself up and showed a magnificent figure even under the draggled clothes. he was the athlete. then he explained:
he had fallen downstairs in a photographer’s[89] shop and broken his arm, and without waiting to wash and dress had rushed to me. as he paid the fee out of a big roll of bills he said:
“oh, it’s easy money, doctor.”
“what is?”
“beating you simple men out of your rights. why don’t you all wake up? these fakers i am working for have gotten you chaps beaten to a frazzle. why, the phony docs i work for just have a basket to shove their suckers’ money in.
“what do i do? i am the ‘great and only before taking and after taking artist.’ see? no?
“well i learned the make-up on the stage. i sit before the camera with my chest out, hair curled, and in the best clothes this burg can turn out. then i am mugged as a fine specimen of the doc’s work. this done, i go and make up as you see me—next scene with slow music: ‘the lost manhood’ act. then the photos are placed side by side and off they go to the boys of this free and unwise land.
“oh, yes, i have several other stunts. i am the original ‘kidney cure’ chap. never seen me, bent over, holding on to one rotten kidney with an expression of death on my noble brow? i’m it in the next photo, fine girls hanging onto my brawny arms or sitting[90] happy with my two hundred pound, but happy, wife while the fireside burns cheerfully. but even the fire is a fake.
“i have a partner, too, in all these stunts; she stands for a photo with all the latest on her for the shapely woman, then they put a rig on her and blow her up. ‘how to reduce flesh. why be fat when you can, by using old doc’s food, look like this?’
“say, honest, doc,—pardon, i forgot, doctor,—how long did it take you to learn your professional duties? look, the fakers i work for can’t even write their own ads—it’s all done for them by men who understand what’s wrong with the boys and girls, schools and parents. wake up, doctor, wake up and get some of the mazulum that’s flying around.”
i think, boys, that this story of a faker’s tool will explain the whole matter to you better than a talk in our own tongue.
how often may a boy have these night emissions without being injured by them?
like all other physiologic functions the answer depends upon the boy. that is, how he works and plays; how well fed he is, and how he lets off his steam. the boy in good health and good surroundings, after he is sixteen years of age, need not think about the matter when they occur once a week. should[91] they be more frequent, occurring two or three times a week for several weeks in succession, then it means that something is wrong. but nothing to worry about; just some little fault to adjust. and the youth can do this adjustment himself. he will understand himself better than a physician can, after he has seen the truth of these matters. here is what i mean: supposing you have these “wet dreams” two or three times a week and they keep up until you commence to feel their weakening effect. now there is a cause for every effect. find the cause for their increase of frequency. look well into yourself. have you been listening to nasty stories? seen pictures which aroused your baser instincts, or read books which you know you should not have read? yes, a little, perhaps. well, remember what i said about the mind influencing the action of the sex organs. you see that the remedy is in your own hands. just stop such pictures and stories getting a place in your brain and the emissions will also stop.
but above all things don’t get frightened, don’t take any medicines or drugs, don’t believe a thing the quacks advertise. be your own master in this as in all matters.
there are other causes which you must correct. the irritation i spoke about which comes[92] by letting matter remain in your lower bowel, is sometimes a cause for too frequent emissions. this material remaining so close to the sex organs causes a pressure and heat. this excites the parts and then goes the message to the brain, bringing dreams and the letting out of seminal fluid. such a cause if continued will do harm, but you can at once stop the cause and then the emissions cease.
too warm clothing will bring about the same state by overheating the organs, hence always sleep with as little clothing as is consistent with comfort. in this matter you can commence in the autumn to accustom yourself to light coverings, so that when winter comes you will not want a lot of heavy blankets over you. and this is much better also for the breathing process of the skin. sleeping on the back will, with some boys, always bring on a night emission. sleep on your side always. if you are inclined to roll over in your sleep and remain on your back, take a towel and tie a knot in it. tie this towel around your back so that the knot comes in the middle of the back. then go to sleep on your side. should you roll over in the night, the knot will wake you up. after a few nights of this scheme you will break the habit of sleeping on your back and so correct the habit of emissions.
[93]
cold-water bathing of the sex organs every morning and night is an excellent way of keeping up their tone and preventing a laxity which has a tendency to bring on emissions.
if you hear a big, strong boy say that he has an emission once a week and you have only one a month, don’t worry about it. nature is taking care of you. it simply means that the big boy secretes more seminal fluid than you do. this by no means implies that he has more manhood; it is just a difference in temperament—the same difference as is shown by a fair-haired boy and a black-haired boy. this stands true only if both boys are living a correct physical life.
i am not trying to preach to you, boys, but i cannot let this subject go without warning you about smoking. now there is nothing wrong or wicked about smoking—i smoke a lot myself. but there are reasons why you should not smoke before you have reached complete development. smoking does affect the growth and vigor of the sex organs. it does so through lowering the nervous system. frequently i have seen boys whose night emissions were fast pulling them down, and the whole cause of these losses was smoking. in strong doses tobacco is a powerful depressant to the sexual activity. it can be given in such doses as to completely stop all seminal secretion. so[94] don’t forget this fact. i don’t think many boys would smoke if they knew these facts, but the trouble is that you have been told that smoking was not nice, that it injured you, but just how it injured you has not been told in plain language.
our next chat will be on self-abuse, its causes, how to stop the habit and what it means if you do not stop it. we shall also have another shot at the quacks.