that was responsible for these deplorable results; it was the
_wrong_ kind of instruction that was to blame--it was the wrong
emphasis, the lurid exaggerations that caused the mischief, and not
the truth. In other words, it is not sex information, it is sex
misinformation, that is pernicious. And, of course, to this everybody
will agree: rather than false information, better no information at
all.

But if the information to be imparted be sane, honest and truthful,
without exaggerating the evils and without laying undue emphasis on
the dark shadows of our sex life, then the results can be only
beneficent. And the task I have put before myself in this book is to
give our girls and women sane, square and honest information about
their sex organs and sex nature, information absolutely free from
luridness, on the one hand, and maudlin sentimentality, on the other.
The female sex is in need of such information, much more so than is
the male sex. Yes, if boys, as is now universally agreed, are in need
of sex instruction, then girls are much more in need of it. Why? For
several important reasons.

The first reason why sex instruction is even more important for girls
than it is for boys is because a misstep in a girl has much more
disastrous consequences than it has in a boy. The disastrous results
of a misstep in a boy are only physical in character; the results of
the _same_ misstep in a girl may be physical, moral, social and
economic. To speak more plainly. If a boy, through ignorance, rashly
indulges in illicit sexual relations, the worst consequence to him may
be infection with a venereal disease. But he is not considered
immoral, he is not despised, he is not ostracized, he does not lose
his social standing in the slightest degree, and when he is cured of
his venereal disease he has no difficulty in getting married. He does
not even have to conceal his past sexual history from his wife. But if
a girl makes a misstep the consequences to her are terrible indeed; it
may not only cost her her health and social standing, she may have to
pay with her very life. She runs the risk of venereal infection the
same as the boy does, but in addition she runs the risk of becoming
pregnant, which in our present social system is a catastrophe indeed.
To save herself from the disgrace of an illegitimate child she may
have an abortion produced; the abortion may have no bad results, but
it may, if performed bunglingly, leave her an invali