The Social Emergency

h they may be going in the wrong direction. Many retard the movement for social hygiene by making statements they do not know to be true, especially in respect to the extent of sexual immorality, the number of prostitutes, and the prevalence of venereal disease. Young people of opposite sexes, finding evidence on every hand that the traditional taboo is removed, discuss the subject for personal pleasure.

The books in the field of social hygiene which have most scrupulously and successfully avoided everything that might be sexually stimulating are not the ones bought by the largest numbers. The demand for erotic publications is so great as to warn us in advance that the new freedom will prove dangerous for many whose minds are already unclean. The propaganda for social purity is unlike many others, in that there is special danger of doing injury to the very ones in special need of help. The fact that the young, the ignorant, the hysterical, and the sexually abnormal, as well as commercialized agencies,