=Not Responsible for Thoughts and Feelings.= It is necessary to impress this point, because many girls and women, whose minds have been perverted by a vicious so-called morality, worry themselves to illness, brood and become hypochondriac because they think they have committed a grievous sin in experiencing a desire for sexual relations or for the embrace of a certain man. Altogether it is necessary to impress upon the growing girl, when the occasion presents itself, that a thought or a feeling can never be sinful. An action may be, but a thought or a feeling cannot. Why? Because we are not responsible for our thoughts and feelings; they are not under our control. Though it does not mean that when they do arise we are to give them full sway. We should attempt to combat them and drive them away, but there is nothing to be ashamed of, because for their origin we are not responsible. =Responsible for Actions.= Our actions are under our control, to a certain extent at least, and if we do a bad or injurious act, we have committed a sin and are morally responsible. The _desire_ for the sexual act is no more sinful than the desire for food is when one is hungry. But the performance of the act may, under certain circumstances, be as sinful as the eating of food which the hungry man obtained by robbing another fellow-being, just as poor as himself. I am not preaching to you. But I am not an extremist nor a hypocrite. I am advocating neither asceticism nor licentiousness. One is as bad, or almost as bad, as the other. What I am trying to do is to inculcate in your minds, if possible, a sane, well-balanced view of all things sexual. For I believe that wrong, perverted views of the physiology and hygiene of the sex act and of sex morality, that is, the proper relationship of the sexes, are responsible for untold misery, for incalculable suffering. Both sexes suffer, but the female sex suffers more. The woman always pays more. This is due to her natural disabilities (menstruation, pregnancy, lactation), to her age-long repression, to the fact that she must be sought but never seek, and to her economic dependence. For the above reasons, sex instruction is a matter of double importance to woman--this fact has been emphasized in the first chapter. But woman's disabilities impose upon us another duty: _because_ she carries the heaviest burden, _because_ she always pays more dearly than the man, it becomes incumbent upon man to treat her with special consideration, with genuine kindness and chivalry. CHAPTER FIVE PUBERTY Physical Changes in Puberty--Physical Changes in the Genital Organs and in the Rest of the Body--Psychic Changes--Puberty and Adolescence--Nubility. Puberty is the most wonderful, the most significant period in a girl's life. Important as it is in a boy's life and development, it is still more so in a girl's. At this period there are often laid the foundations which either make or mar the girl's future life.