for the cause, and in suggesting the remedies which may be applied, the
Committee must not be thought to be laying the blame on any one section
of the community more than another.




_VII. Some Visual and Auditory Influences_


=(1) Objectionable Publications=

There has been a great wave of public indignation against some
paper-backed or "pulp" printed matter. Crime stories, tales of "intimate
exciting romance", and so-called "comics" have all been blamed for
exciting erotic feelings in children. The suggestiveness in the cover
pictures of glamour girls dressed in a thin veiling often attracts more
attention than the pages inside.

Immorality would probably not result from the distribution of these
publications, unless there were in the child, awaiting expression, an
unhealthy degree of sexual emotionalism. Some of these publications are,
possibly, more harmful to girls than to boys in that girls more readily
identify themselves with the chief characters. One striking piece of
information which was conveyed to the Committee was that the girls under
detention in a certain institution (the greater number of them had had a
good deal of sexual experience) decided that various publications were
more harmful than films because the images conveyed by the printed
matter were personal to them and more lasting.