ONAN ESCHEWED - Rick Grunder

You ought never to put your finger in your eyes, nor let any one else. Well, you
say, you wouldn't do that; but I once knew a little girl who used to pull the
corners of her eyes down and at the same time put her thumbs in her mouth and
pull the corners of her mouth up, just to make other people laugh when they
looked at her; and so she deformed her face and made it very ugly.
You would not put sticks or stones in [p. 105 ends] your ears nor let any one
else do so. Every organ of the body is sacred and should be protected, and this is
just as true of the sexual organs as of the eyes or ears. You should never handle
them or allow any one else. And yet, girls sometimes form a habit of handling
their sexual organs because they find a certain pleasure in so doing. Maybe they
have never known that it is wrong, but usually they are ashamed of it, and as
they go alone to practice this habit, it is called the habit of solitary vice. Perhaps
they do not imagine that any one will know that they are guilty of this habit,
because they are alone when they practice it, but it leaves its mark upon the face
so that those who are wise may know what the girl is doing. [pp. 105-106]
117 WOOD-ALLEN, (Mrs.) Mary. . . . WHAT A YOUNG WOMAN OUGHT TO
KNOW. By Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen, M.D. National Superintendent of the Purity
Department[,] Woman's Christian Temperance Union; Author of "The Man Wonderful
in the House Beautiful," "Marvels of Our Bodily Dwelling," "Child Confidence
Rewarded," "Teaching Truth," "Almost a Man," "Almost a Woman." [at head: "Price
$1.00 Net 4s. Net. PURITY AND TRUTH, Self and Sex Series"]. Philadelphia,
London, Toronto: The Vir Publishing Company, [c. 1898, by Sylvanus Stall].
17 cm. 264, [18 (ads)] pp. + frontispiece portrait of the author, preceded by
"Commendations from Eminent Men and Women": eight women (including
Elizabeth Cady Stanton) and two men with portraits on glossy paper; followed
by another page with recommendations from two women without portraits.
Orig. maroon cloth blind-stamped with author & title on front board plus "Purity
and Truth. Self and Sex Series." Gilt-lettered spine. Moderate binding wear and
front board dull. Internally near-fine but for loss of the front free endpaper. $65
Chapter XIX, "Solitary Vice," pp. 147-54.
Girls who would shrink from use of mechanical means to arouse sexual desire will
permit themselves to revel in imaginary scenes of love-making with real or unreal
individuals, or in mental pictures which arouse the spasmodic feelings of sexual
pleasure, and yet be unaware that they are guilty of self-abuse. [p.151]
The victim of self-abuse has, through the frequent repetition of the habit, built up an
undue amount of brain that is sensitive to local irritation of the sex-organs or to mental
pictures of sex-pleasure. She must not allow this part of the brain to become quiescent,
and she should go to work to build up other brain centers. Let her train her sight by
close observation of form, color, size, location. Let her cultivate her sense of hearing in
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