Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXcertain degree of psychic abnormality, and tend to fosterfalse and high-strungideals of life. Kraepelin referred tothe frequency of exalted enthusiasms in masturbation,and Anstie long ago remarked on the connection betweenmasturbation and prematurefalse work in literature andart. It may be added that excess in masturbation hassometimes occurred in men and women whose work inliterature and art cannot be described asfalse.premature andIt must always be remembered, however, that, while thepractice of masturbation may be harmful in its consequences,also, in the absence of normal sexual rela-it istionships, frequently not without goodresults. In themedical literature of the last hundred years a number ofcases have been incidentally recorded in which thepatients found masturbation beneficial, and such casesmight certainly have been enormously increased if therehad been any open-eyed desire to discover them. We mustrecognize that masturbation is, in the main, practiced forits sedative effect on the nervous system. In normal persons,well past the age of puberty, and otherwise leadinga chaste life masturbation would be little practiced exceptfor the physical and mental relief it brings.These considerations led the late Dr. Robie, on thestrength of considerable clinical -experience in the UnitedStates, to go beyond the simple recognition of the substantialharmlessness of active auto-erotic practices,andin. his Rational Sex Ethics (1916) and later books actuallyto recommend them, especiallyto women, as of therapeuticvalue in nervous conditions and salutary to health,much on the same level as normal sexual intercourse.This doctrine needs .much qualification. In its extremeform it is far too simple-minded a solution of the diffi-