To prolong the period of continence in a boy's life
is to prolong the period of _growth_. This is a simple
physiological law, and a very obvious one; and, whatever other
things may be said in favor of purity, it remains, perhaps, the
most weighty. To introduce sensual and sexual habits--and one of
the worst of them is self-abuse--at an early age, is to arrest
growth, both physical and mental. And what is even more, it means
to arrest the capacity for affection. All experience shows that
the early outlet toward sex cheapens and weakens affectional
capacity."
I do not consider that we can decide the precise degree in which
masturbation may fairly be called normal so long as we take masturbation
by itself. We are thus, in conclusion, brought back to the point which I
sought to emphasize at the outset: masturbation belongs to a group of
auto-erotic phenomena. From one point of view it may be said that all
auto-erotic phenomena are unnatural, since the natural aim of the sexual
impulse is sexual conjunction, and all exercise of that impulse outside
such conjunction is away from the end of Nature. But we do not live in a
state of Nature which answers to such demands; all our life is
"unnatural." And as soon as we begin to restrain the free play of sexual
impulse toward sexual ends, at once auto-erotic phenomena inevitably
spring up on every side. There is no end to them; it is impossible to say
what finest elements in art, in morals, in civilization generally, may not
really be rooted in an auto-erotic impulse.
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