silly and injurious attitude toward a
practice, which is very common, be radically changed. It is time that
parents and physicians learn that the injuriousness of the habit has
been greatly, grossly exaggerated. It is time that they know that the
vast majority of boys and girls get over the habit without being much,
or any, the worse for it. The knowledge of this fact will not only
save them and the children much needless anguish and suffering, but
will make it much easier to deal with the latter, make it much easier
to get them divorced from the habit.

If we look at the matter in a sensible, common-sense way, and do not
tell the child caught in the practice that it has done something
disgracefully vicious and criminal, but speak to it kindly and tell it
that it is doing something that may injure it greatly, that may
interfere with its future mental and physical health and development,
then we shall have far greater success in our endeavors to break the
boy or the girl of the habit of masturbation. As I have said in
another place:

"In my opinion, stigmatizing even the most moderate indulgence in
masturbation as a vice has a deleterious effect upon the people who so
indulge and makes it harder for them to break off the habit. Every
thinking physician and sexologist can tell you that picturing the
masturbatory habit in too lurid colors and stigmatizing it with too
strong epithets has, as a rule, the contrary effect to the one
expected. The victims of the habit consider themselves degraded,
irretrievably lost. They lose their self-respect, and it is, on
account of that, harder for them to break themselves of the habit."

We shall accomplish a good deal more with our youthful and older
patients if we leave alone, altogether, the moral side of the
question--if there be any moral side to it--and emphasize the physical
injuriousness of the habit. We do not want to diminish the
self-respect of our boys and girls, we want to increase it; and we can
not do this if we make them believe that a masturbator is a vicious
criminal. Inspire your patients with confidence, tell them that
indulgence in the habit jeopardizes their future growth, both physical
and mental, their health and happiness, and you will find them easier
to control.

I am not trying to minimize the danger of masturbation, for, if
indulged in from an early age and to great excess, the results _may_
be disastrous. But, even if I were to minimize the evil conseq