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Margaret Sanger, 'What Every Girl Should Know: Sexual Impulses--Part II,' 29 Dec1912. Published article.

Source:, Dec. 29, 1912, C16:0046. This is the seventh article in an 12-part series. For 'Introduction,' see, for 'Girlhood-Part I' see, for 'Girlhood-Part II' see, for 'Puberty-Part I' see, for 'Puberty-Part II' see, for 'Sexual Impulse--Part I' see for 'Reproduction--Part I' see, for 'Reproduction--Part II' see, for 'Some Consequences of Ignorance and Silence--Part I' see, for 'Some Consequences of Ignorance and Silence--Part II' see, and for 'Some Consequences of Ignorance and Silence--Part III' see WHAT EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW By MARGARET H.

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Sexual Impulses--Part II. In the first part of this article we learned that the sexual impulse is a combination of the two impulses, the one which impels the discharge of ripe sex cells, strongest in the boy, and the other which impels the individual to touch or caress an individual of the opposite sex, strongest in the girl. Every girl has in mind an ideal man. This ideal begins to form sometime in the early adolescent age. He is usually distinct in her mind as to his physical qualities, such as dark or light hair, or brown or blue eyes.

He is always a certain physical type, and often remains an ideal to her through life. At the forming period of the type she will be attracted toward many men who seem to answer the ideal type, but as she reads and develops through the various stages of the adolescent period, the ideal changes and grows with her. As she reaches the romantic stage the ideal must be brave, daring, courteous. If she is inclined toward out-door sports he must be athletic. And so it goes on until the twenty-third year, when the average girl has a fairly settled idea of the man who would suit her as a mate through life. When the sexual impulse makes itself felt strongly in the adolescent boy or girl, they, feeling satisfied with the physical beauty and perfection of the other, marry, they are unconscious that the incentive to love when based on physical attraction alone is soon destroyed. For sickness, poverty or disease will affect even the most seemingly perfect physical attraction.

Let us not confuse the sexual impulse with love, for it alone is not love, but merely a necessary quality for the growth of love. No sexual attraction or impulse is the foundation of the beautiful emotion of love. Upon this is built respect, self-control, sympathy, unity of purpose, many common tastes and desires, building up and up until this real love unites two individuals as one being, one life. Then it becomes the strongest and purest emotion of which the human soul is capable.

There is no doubt that the natural aim of the sexual impulse is the sexual act, yet when the impulse is strongest and followed by the sexual act without love or any of the relative instincts which go to make up love, the relations are invariably followed by a feeling of disgust. Respect for each other and for one's self is a primary essential to this intimate relation. In plant and animal life the reproductive cell of the male is the active seeker of the passive female cell, imbued with the instinct to chase and bodily capture the female cell for the purpose of reproduction. This instinct man, as he is today, has inherited, and, as with the lower forms of life, the senses are intensely involved. It is kept alive by the sense of sight, sound and smell, and reaches its highest development through the sense of touch. It is heightened by touching smooth and soft surfaces--which is said to account for the pleasure of kissing. In the early part of this article I spoke of the desire to touch being stronger in girls than in boys.