The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-01
DOR0TRY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
worlds Highest Paid Woman writer.

IHey Snail 90 ABOUT the k1SSlnS prop
osition. They say that it is Practical
ly a case of no kiss, no beau, for the
young men who take them about de-
mand a good night kiss as pay for
their courtesies, and if they refuse it
is, indeed, good night, in the slang
phrase, for they never see these escu-
latory youths again.
Now the innate modesty and deli
cacy of these girls revolt at yielding
their lips to men to whom they are
not even engaged; to men who do not
even pretend to be in love with them.
1t violates their sense of what is
proper, but, at the same time, they
do not want to be regarded as prudes
and puritans. Still less do they de-
sire to be wall flowers left out of all
the fun and parties, and numbered
with those forlorn damsels who never
have any attention from men.
So the girl is torn between her in
stinctive sense of what is right and
her knowledge of expediency, and she
wants to know what she shall do and
how she shall answer the eternal ar
gument of man when he is trying to
persuade a woman into doing the
thing that he knows she should not
do. To kiss, or not to kiss, that's the
question that troubles her.
There can be but one answer to give
girl to this problem. 1t is no, no,
no! A maiden's lips should be kept
lnviolate, and the first mans kiss that
Is pressed upon them should be the
kiss of love from the man she expects
to marry. For a girl to give her lips
to every Tom, Dick and Harry who
takes her to moving picture show or
escorts her home from a dance is
something unthinkable. 1t is as much
of Dissertation as if she trailed a
white rosebud thru a sewer.
( hnf irIe r.,
made to realize that the most alluring
and attractive thing about them is the
aura of innocence and unsophistica-
ton that surrounds them. 1t is the
Whiteness the untrodden snow-ness of
their souls that is their chiefest charm
and they never make so fatal a mis-
take as when they throw this away.
II girls were only wise enough to
realize how fascinating aloofness is,
ana what an appeal unsullied purity
makes to the masculine imagination,
they would keep every man at arms
length at least until he had come out
ana popped the question. They would
not think for a minute of putting up
with cheap familiarities from men
that rob them of their freshness and
make them little shop worn bits of
humanity that have been paved over
ike the goods on a bargain table.
Girls should never forget that it is
the shy and shrinking violet that is
mans favorite flower, not the brazen
sunflower.
My girl correspondent says that she
does not know how to answer a man
when he begs her to kiss him, and
tells her that there is no harm in it,
and that his arguments make her feel
foolish because she seems to be maxi
ing a great ado over very little mat
ter. There is one answer that every
girl can make to a mans request for
a kiss.
She can ask him if he would like
his sister to kiss any man good night
who happened to call upon her She
can ash him what he would advise
his sister to do if his sister We're in
her place. And-she can ask him if
he would like to think that the girl
that he is going to marry some day
had kissed a hundred men who were
mere casual acquaintance
Such questions will make any de-
cent man writEe. A man will tell his
own sister quickly enough what he
thinks on the subject, and his own
lips would grow cold and stiff on his
Sweetheart's if he remembered that
her soft young mouth had belonged
to a long procession of men before
him.
Girls can never bear in mind too
constantly the fact that men never
just or logical in judging them. A
man will spend hours, days and
months persuadihg a girl to do some
thing that is wrong. and then have
contempt for her ever afterwards for
yielding to him. He will argue down
her every instinct and scruple and
principle against kissing him. and the
minute she does he will lose his rever-
ence for her as for something utterly
fine and delicate. 1t has been his
hand that has brushed the dew off
of the bud, but none the less, it is
a oh h
Girls should also bear in mind that
a wedding ring on the hand is worth a
peck of them in the dim distance and
that the girls who have the most
beaux generally get the fewest and
the poorest makeshifts of husbands.
A girl observes that those girls who
are free and easy in their manners,
who exact no sort of respect from men
and permit men to indulge in famili-
arities and take liberties with them,
girls who drink and smoke with men,
and listen to and tell off colOred stories,
girls who are good sports. are what
we call popular, and are generally
surrounded by a horde of men. Es-
pecially while they are young and
good looking, and full if high spirits.
But what the girl does not notice
is that this type of young girl very
seldom marries, and when she does
she almost invariably marries a crook
ed stick who wasn't worth picking up.
The fast girl, the girl without modesty
or delicate womanly reserve may be
the kind of a girl that men like to play
with, but she isn't the sort of a woman
that they want for a wife and for the
mother of their children.
That is why you are SO often sur
prised at the marriages that men
make. Men whom you have known
of as FOUNDERS bob up with a wife who
is Sunday school teacher. Men who
have been noted as chorus girl chas-
ers go to some country village and
marry girls who never saw a brighter
light than a kerosene lamp. They
don't want the lips on which a thous-
and kisses have rained. They want
the lips that have never kissed at all.
And don't be misled, girls, into
making the mistake of believing that
because a man asks you to kiss him
it is any indication of his being in
love with you. A kiss is no guarantee
of affAcfiAn midas het "a zsd his