The latest HOW book, For Boys Only/For Girls Only is close to my heart. It's actually a reproduction of two sex-ed books from the 1950s that I found in a used book store. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop laughing.

A few gems from For Boys Only:

“I say, doctor, just what is the fun what the older fellows are always beating their gums about—petting, or necking, or boodling? Is it the same as what the older people used to call spooning? How can a fellow who’s as good an athlete and all-around outdoor man as Bill, stand it to stay hanging around with some girl who isn’t interested in a single thing a boy enjoys doing? I just don’t get it.”

Question: Doesn’t a shot of liquor increase a fellow’s ability to be—er,—manly?
Answer: Not in the slightest. What it does do is simply to make him think he’s more of a man than he actually is! Even a little drink makes a fellow’s opinion of himself go up, while it strengthens his desires. At the same time it blunts the good sense and self-restraint that might otherwise have kept him from doing harm to a girl he’s supposed to be reliable enough to be with. And its avoidance might well prevent him form getting a disease, or from becoming a father of an illegitimate child. You can imagine what a tragedy either of these must be!

This internal secretion put out by the testicles changes you in some mysterious way that no one really understands, so that you begin to feel the way a man feels and have some of the thoughts and wishes that a man has and that a younger boy doesn’t have. For example, you begin to have courage and backbone and guts, that are not expected of a small boy but are taken for granted in a man. You get more and more interested in girls, where before as a little fellow you thought they were just a nuisance to be teased and then pushed aside. You look forward to having more to do with them—first with any girl, later with one particular one.

A few gems from For Girls Only:

“I wonder why she never married,” added Jane. “You know she’s old. She’s twenty-four! I’m sure she must have had several love affairs. I bet she was engaged to be married, and he was killed in the war. I certainly expect to get married before I’m that old! I’m going to have eight children, and live in a great big house.”

“And what do you call ‘fun’? Having a boy hold your hand and kiss you? My mother said it was wicked to allow a boy even to touch you. She told me about Edna who had to leave school because she let a boy touch her.”
    “What about Edna? I knew she had to leave school; but what was it all about?”
    “Why, didn’t you know she was going to have a baby?”
    In utter amazement both girls almost shrieked, “NO!”
    “Tell us about it. I didn’t know you could have a baby if you weren’t married,” said Jane. “What an awful thing! I knew that everything was ‘hush, hush’ about Edna; but I never dreamed such a thing could happen at high school. Rosemary ran off and got married. But Edna! she seemed so nice! I can’t believe it; and I can’t understand it, either.”

“Now let me tell you something, Helen. I, too, hope the boys will think you are pretty. I hope you will always want to be well dressed, and never look like a sloppy Joe when you are at a formal reception; that is a most important thing in a girl’s life. But when you’re older and get married, if you still keep on thinking that your dress and the shade of lipstick are the biggest things in your life, that to have a baby might spoil your figure, then you have not grown up emotionally. We could all name some women who are just like that; and I’m afraid they don’t make their husbands very happy.

Posted by Megan