ed by an indulgent parent and yet the girls resent the
feeling of dependence.

Girls are naturally just as ambitious as boys, and they need good,
honest work to keep them healthy and their minds occupied. If a girl
displays an interest in a certain line of work this interest must be
encouraged. Usually it is not. The girl is taught, either consciously or
unconsciously, that whatever occupation she takes up will be only
temporary, that to become engrossed in her work would mean no marriage.
Girls cannot do good work under such conditions.

CHAPTER XVI

SELF-ABUSE

In one of my articles for one of the leading women's magazines I spoke
of mental self-abuse. This brought me so many inquiries regarding both
mental and physical self-abuse that I feel impelled to explain them to
you.

To abuse means to use wrongly, or to injure. We have talked about the
uses of the female organs and also about the care of them. Sometimes, I
have watched children rub their eyes until they were quite red and
inflamed. I have seen children, thoughtlessly, stick pins and hairpins
in their ears and I even have had to remove a bean which a thoughtless
child had pushed up its nose. All these things did more or less harm to
the parts. In the same way, some girls play with their external
generative organs and even put things up in the vagina. Sometimes they
injure these organs greatly, and sometimes there is a more general and
serious effect. You know the nerves of the body all are very closely
connected like telegraph wires so that an irritation to one part will
sometimes be telegraphed to another entirely different part and cause
the nerves of that part to be irritated. When you have a toothache your
whole face and head and even your arms ache. That is because the nerves
are irritated. In the same way if one irritates the nerves of the female
organs, the whole body may be affected; only in this case it is more
serious than with the toothache; for these female organs are more
abundantly supplied with nerves.

One who is guilty of such an unnatural practice as to deliberately
irritate any portion of her body, especially the very important
generative organs, always secretly despises herself. If persisted in,
the results of this vice are a ruined nervous system and a weakened
character. The victim realizes she is doing a disgraceful thing and
seldom acknowledges her habit even to her physician.

If one has become a victim of such a habit