There is any amount of nonsense current about auto-erotism. As a matter of fact, all boys masturbate, and many girls also. Some authors claim that more than half of all women engage in some form of auto-erotism, at some time in their lives, and the estimate is probably too low rather than too high. But, unless they carry the act to excess, they are guilty of no wrong. Not infrequently, they may make the act a means of great good to themselves. _The sex organs are alive! They constantly secrete fluids that need to be excreted, as all other organs of the body do. They ought to be relieved, as their nature requires they should be._ If this cannot be accomplished as the most natural way prescribes, it is only right to do the next best thing. Only, it should not be carried to excess. Be temperate in all things. Gratify yourself, but don't ABUSE yourself. Auto-erotism, or masturbation, should never be permitted to become "self-abuse," nor is there any need that it should ever do so. It should be self-upbuilding, not self degrading. Rightly used it can be thus. IX COITUS RESERVATUS This brings us to another item in the matter of sexual exercise on the part of the husband and wife, as follows:-- It should be the constant aim and endeavor of both parties to continually lift all sex affairs above the plane of animality, mere physical gratification, into the realm of _mental_ and _spiritual_ delight. To this end, let it be said at once that such a condition can be reached, in the greatest degree, by the practice of what is known, in scientific terms, as "_coitus reservatus,"_ which, translated, means going only _part_ of the way in the act, and not carrying it to its climax, the orgasm. Described in terms with which the reader is now familiar, it means, carrying the act only through the first and second stages, the "courting" stage, and the union of the organs, and stopping there! This may seem, at first thought, neither right nor wise, but, as a matter of fact, it is both, as thousands of most happily married people have proved. Going a bit into details, this act of "reservatus" really unites the first two parts of the act into a common whole, making it simply one continuous piece of "courting," merely that, and nothing more. It is almost entirely a _mental and spiritual love-embrace; and in its perfection, it exalts the husband and wife to the topmost heights of mental and spiritual enjoyment and expression_.