How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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published by pseudo-scientific writers on the practice of “ self-abuse ”, and so much fearsome sexual jingoism has been perpetrated on frightened young men and women, that a few common sense paragraphs on this most widespread of all sexual malpractices are of service. Masturbation is no more than the sexual life of an isolated human being. It begins occasionally as a spontaneous discovery, and is frequently taught in the “ gutter school ” of sex to which so many parents send their children when they have forfeited their confidence. More common in girls than in boys, masturbation is practically a normal phenomenon in both sexes until the age of sexual maturity. Masturbation cannot, in and of itself \ have the least harmful consequence. Much more harm has been done by those who have preached and thundered against masturbation than by masturbation itself. On occasions of artificial isolation—so common in our society—it may actually be the only available form of sexual expression. Its extent is almost universal. The psychological implications of masturbation are manifold. It can be spoken of as a perversion only when a mature man or woman practices masturbation to the exclusion of normal sexual relations, and in preference to these. Under such circumstances it is not only self¬ gratification, but a solacing and consoling practice, well designed to stimulate a subjective sense of power and sexual virility. Among savage peoples, masturbation is practically unknown, because the opportunities for normal sexual congress are present as soon as sexual maturity is reached. But among civilized men and women, who build up walls of fear about themselves, masturbation is a very common phenomenon. It occurs among domesticated animals, but never among wild animals, because, like human beings who have cooped themselves up in mental cages, domesticated animals frequently lack the opportunities for normal sexual gratification. If you live in a mental vault without doors and windows, if you eat, sleep, and build up a constant reserve of