d masturbation to the position of a colossal bogy which during a
hundred years has not only had an unfortunate influence on medical opinion
in these matters, but has been productive of incalculable harm to ignorant
youth and tender consciences. During the past forty years the efforts of
many distinguished physicians--a few of whose opinions I have already
quoted--have gradually dragged the bogy down from its pedestal, and now,
as I have ventured to suggest, there is a tendency for the reaction to be
excessive. There is even a tendency to-day to regard masturbation, with
various qualifications, as normal. Remy de Gourmont, for instance,
considers that masturbation is natural because it is the method by which
fishes procreate: "All things considered, it must be accepted that
masturbation is part of the doings of Nature. A different conclusion might
be agreeable, but in every ocean and under the reeds of every river,
myriads of beings would protest."[349] Tillier remarks that since
masturbation appears to be universal among the higher animals we are not
entitled to regard it as a vice; it has only been so considered because
studied exclusively by physicians under abnormal conditions.[350] Hirth,
while asserting that masturbation must be strongly repressed in the young,
regards it as a desirable method of relief for adults, and especially,
under some circumstances, for women.[351] Venturi, a well-known Italian
alienist, on the other hand, regards masturbation as strictly
physiological in youth; it is the normal and natural passage toward the
generous and healthy passion of early manhood; it only becomes abnormal
and vicious, he holds, when continued into adult life.

The appearance of masturbation at puberty, Venturi considers, "is
a moment in the course of the development of the function of that
organ which is the necessary instrument of sexuality." It finds
its motive in the satisfaction of an organic need having much
analogy with that which arises from the tickling of a very
sensitive cutaneous surface. In this masturbation of early
adolescence lies, according to Venturi, the germ of what will
later be love: a pleasure of the body and of the spirit,
following the relief of a satisfied need. "As the youth develops,
onanism becomes a sexual act comparable to coitus as a dream is
comparable to reality, imagery forming in correspondence with the
desires. In its fully developed f