Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/81

 fancies or sexual thoughts, this is apt to reflect itself in erotic dreams often accompanied by an emission. The too frequent occurrence of the nocturnal discharge will impress the thoughtful youth with the advisability of revising his mental habits, turning them into channels less erotic or sexual in character. This mental reorientation is best accomplished by directing the thoughts into broader, impersonal fields, and engaging in physical and manual activities, athletic pursuits, etc.

One should not sleep on his back, as this position is conducive to emissions, particularly when the bladder is distended, causing it to press against the seminal vesicles.

Other predisposing causes are alcoholic drinks, sleeping in too warm beds, lack of cleanliness of the penis, hemorrhoids, and intestinal worms.

There are some men seemingly virile and leading continent lives who appear to have no night emissions. At least they have no actual discharge of semen, but whether the actual secretion escapes in a more subtle and inconspicuous way, cannot positively be stated. It is possible that a man who is not strongly sexed may secrete the seminal fluid very slowly, and it may be absorbed or eliminated in small quantities during urination. So if a man is otherwise normal and healthy, and does not consciously experience nocturnal discharges, it is no cause for alarm.

Diurnal, or day, emissions are sometimes experienced instead of night discharges. When they occur, it is usually a reflex mechanical process, taking place at the time of bowel evacuation, and perhaps caused by the muscular action of the pelvic regions upon the vesicles. This form of emission is comparatively uncommon, but is of the same significance as the nocturnal variety, and should occasion no concern, unless it takes place too frequently.