The Washington herald., 1911-05-14
KEEP FIRST KISS AS
WEDDING PRESENT
The Girl Who Kisses Pro-
miscuously Loses
HER BEAUTY AND MODESTY
Every Man Who Kisses Her Kisses
Away Something of Her InnO-
cence, Something of Her Purity,
Something that Makes Her Less
Desirable in Every Mans Eyes.
By DOROTHY DIX.


Two young men have written me a
letter in which they ask me to set
tie a dispute that has arisen between
them.
The point at issue is whether a girl
who kisses young man, to whom she
is not engaged to be married, displays
thereby an affectionate disposition or
not a contends that she does, and as
serts that he would not marry any
woman who did not like to kiss, while B
takes the opposite position on the SUBJ
ject
AS far as my opinion is concerned
l should say that any girl who kisses
A man to whom she is not betrothed-
and the wedding day set-shows that she
has an exceedingly affectionate tempera-
ment. Entirely too affectionate Dam
gerously affectionate. 1t likewsie shows
that she is utterly lacking in rnaidenly
modesty and delicacy. And it indicates
that she is a great many kinds of a
fool
If / were a man l would no more
pick out for a wife the girl that would
let any man with whom she had a
casual acquaintance kiss her than 7
would go to a florist shop and buy the
battered. bruised. overD,own roses that
had had their freshness rubbed off by
too much handling. The girl and the
rose with the bloom them for mine
every time.
Only Contempt for Such n Girl.
This is also the opinion of most men
1t takes man of very undiscriminating
taste to really care for girl whose lips
are free to every Tom. Dick. and Harry
who comes along. OF course. as long
as woman is young and good looking
and has a nice red mouth pouted to a
Cupids bow, every man Will kiss her
who can. but such kisses only make him
have contempt for the girl. and ready
to believe any evil he may hear of her
That kind of a girl is not the sort of :,
woman that flstidious man wants to
marry. His wife must nave kept her lips
as austerely pure rs those Of a saint for
every man, in love. is a monopolist. and
MS eternal creed is that his lady low.
shall be fire TO him. and ice to every
other man
It is q pity that girls do not under
stand this. and how they Cheapen them
selves BY permitting far-iliarities from
men. II is a thousand pities that they
do not understand tnat the higher they
hoId themselves the more precious they
hecome. and TIE more they refuse men
tokens OF affection the more eager are
they Tor them. \ man will risk his life
for the kiss he has To steal whereas he
won't turn his head to meet the lips that
are offered to him.
There are girls so foolish as to thinh
they make themselves popular with
men by letting men kiss them Perhaps
they DO in common. bargain-counter
sort Of way: but it is a popularity
that Is dearly bought. and comes to
oE
man who kisses her kisses away some
thing of her innocence. something Oh
her purity. something of the aroma Of
glrlhood. something that makes her less
desirable in every other mans eyes.
Like the Touch of Pollution.
That 1t Vu!Sarizes a girl to permit
men 10 kiss her goes without saying.
1t coarsens her very soul. for it lowers
her every ideal of maidenly reserve and
refinement.
Certainly no modesty in a girl sur
wives the indiscriminate and promiscu-
Gus kiss. 1t is burnt up like a bit of
Whlte paper in a COnf1agration
Scientists are always telling US of the
physical danger that we run from the
kiss microbe. but moralists NAV well
strike a deeper note of warning. for the
kiss is the death Of puritv and the open-
upon millions of young girls. Fathers
are too careless to tell them of it, moth
ers are too nice to explain to them the
why of it, and so they are left to find
out by their own bitter and tragicaI ex-
TCrience that there = n innocent kiss
between men and women, outside of the
peck on the cheek bestowed by ones own
family.
Every kiss is the electric current that
sets of the mine of explosives of which
poor, weak humanity is composed and
is not thing to he lightly trifed with by
careless hands. There is not one of the
sad sisterhOod of the street, not girl
hiding a guilty secret in her breast, not
a woman whose husband has divorced
her whose sin did not begin in a kiss.
Therefore. l would urge every girl, as
she values her happiness and the white
ness of her soul, to hold her lips invio-
late and to keep her first kiss as a
precious jewels to give as a wedding
present TO her husband.
AS to the man who thinks the fact
that girl kisses every man that comes
along is sign Of her having an affec-
tionate disposition. l should say beware,
] should be afraid that she had acquired
the kissing habit and would not be able
t. break herself of it even after mar
riage.