Eulenburg considers that the comparative absence of bad effects
from masturbation in girls is largely due to the fact that,
unlike boys, they are not terrorized by exaggerated warnings and
quack literature concerning the awful results of the practice.
Forel, who has also remarked that women are often comparatively
little troubled by qualms of conscience after masturbation,
denies that this is due to a lower moral tone than men possess
(Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 247). In this connection, I may
refer to History IV, recorded in the Appendix to the fifth volume
of these _Studies_, in which it is stated that of 55 prostitutes
of various nationalities, with whom the subject had had
relations, 18 spontaneously told him that they were habitual
masturbators, while of 26 normal women, 13 made the same
confession, unasked. Guttceit, in Russia, after stating that
women of good constitution had told him that they masturbated as
much as six or ten times a day or night (until they fell asleep,
tired), without bad results, adds that, according to his
observations, "masturbation, when not excessive, is, on the
whole, a quite innocent matter, which exerts little or no
permanent effect," and adds that it never, in any case, leads to
_hypochondria onanica_ in women, because they have not been
taught to expect bad results (_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, p.
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