306).
There is, I think, some truth--though the exceptions are
doubtless many--in the distinction drawn by W.C. Krauss
("Masturbational Neuroses," _Medical News_, July 13, 1901): "From
my experience it [masturbation] seems to have an opposite effect
upon the two sexes, dulling the mental and making clumsy the
physical exertions of the male, while in the female it quickens
and excites the physical and psychical movements. The man is
rendered hypoesthetic, the woman hyperesthetic."
In either sex auto-erotic excesses during adolescence in young men and
women of intelligence--whatever absence of gross injury there may
be--still often produce a certain degree of psychic perversion, and tend
to foster false and high-strung ideals of life. Kraepelin refers to the
frequency of exalted enthusiasms in masturbators, and I have already
quoted Anstie's remarks on the connection between masturbation and
premature false work in literature and art. It may be added that excess in
masturbation has often occurred in men and women whose work in literature
and art cannot be described as premature and false. K.P. Moritz, in early
adult life, gave himself up to excess in masturbation, and up to the age
of thirty had no relations with women. Lenau is said--though the statement
is sometimes denied--to have been a masturbator from early life, the habit
profoundly effecting his life and work.
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