I am not preaching or sermonizing to you. I am not appealing to your religion or your morals. For if you have strong religious or moral ideas against illicit sexual relations, you are not in need of mine or anybody else's advice. But I assume that you are a more or less modern girl, with little or no religious bringing-up, or perhaps a radical girl, who has shaken off the shackles of religion and tradition. And to you I say: _Don't you do it_. Why? Because your welfare, your future happiness, is at stake. I am speaking from the point of view of your own good, and from that point of view I say: Resist all attempts which men make exclusively for the purpose of satisfying their sexual desire, their lust. You will ask again, why? For several reasons. First, you run the risk of venereal infection. The danger is not so great now as in former times, but is great enough. There are still plenty of men dishonest enough to indulge in sexual relations with a woman when they know they are not radically cured. The same man who will not get married unless he is sure that he is perfectly cured will not hesitate to subject a transient girl or woman to the risk of venereal infection. I know personally, because I have treated them; yes, I treated several intelligent and radical young men who infected young girls. And some of these girls in their turn, through ignorance and innocence, infected other men. So then, the first danger is the danger of venereal infection. The second danger, still greater and more certain than the first, is the danger of impregnation. And pregnancy for a girl under our present moral and social-economic conditions is a terrible calamity. She is ostracized everywhere, and it means, if discovered, her social death. But you will say: "Aren't there any remedies that can be used to prevent conception? Aren't you yourself among the world's chief birth-controllers; one of the world's chief advocates of the use of contraceptives?" Yes, my dear young lady, but I never made the claim that the contraceptives were _absolutely_ infallible, I never claimed that they were _100 per cent._ effective in _100 per cent._ of _all_ cases. But if they are effective 999 times or even 990 times in every 1000 they are a blessing. And thousands of families so consider them. And if a married woman gets caught once in a while, the misfortune is not so great. But if the accident happens to a non-married woman, the misfortune _is_ great. Then again, you want to bear in mind that accidents are less likely to happen to married than to non-married women. The married woman has no fear, needs no secrecy, and she can go about the method of preparation carefully, with deliberation. The unmarried girl, _as a rule_, has not the proper conveniences, more or less secrecy must be maintained, hurry is not infrequently necessary, and that is why accidents are more apt to occur in spite of the use of contraceptives. So then, the second danger, even more sinister than