ABSTRACT
"What every young man should know" is a piece of American folklore, a phrase that evokes earnest but irrelevant mini-instruction in sex, a mythical title whose mention evokes snickers and knowing leers. It had seven companion volumes that provided sex instruction for both sexes from cradle to grave. It was much admired, widely read, and, although not the first of its genre, set the tone for the sex education of teenagers for fifty years. Lack of restraint in sexual matters was seen throughout much of the nineteenth century as not only morally wrong but also physically and socially harmful. A metaphor that came to be accepted by the late Victorians as scientific fact was the idea that a man's physical, mental, and spiritual health depended upon the retention of semen within the body. The years between 1892 and 1920 saw the publication of several dozen sex education tracts addressed to adolescents themselves.
