But, conversely--and this is the second consideration--they possess the immoral tendency of regarding sex with abhorrence, especially when they confuse sex with mere physical expression. In extreme cases the sexless individual has been known even to faint or exhibit symptoms of nausea at the chance touch of a woman. This is obviously to magnify the physical side out of all clean proportion. And probably such cases show themselves to be the result of artificial repression and consequent complex. It may be argued from this that all deviations from the normal are the results of repression. But, as we have seen, the difference between natural and unnatural is comparative, and most of our nature is built up, in the first instance, by early exterior influences. Chapter 10: Super-Abnormalities Under this head I have included a number of characteristics, which have no connective bearing upon one another. It seemed the most convenient classification. Perhaps it will be best to take as the first example a sex tendency which can hardly be described as super-abnormal, for among single men, and especially among boys, it is extremely common. Auto-eroticism in the form of self-abuse is not an easy problem to tackle. The usual policy adopted towards boys is most immoral. Well-meaning but hopelessly vicious purists, write terrifying pamphlets or deliver lectures in which they declare that this practice will inevitably lead to lunacy, paralysis or even death. The result is that the boy is scared into an ineffectual attempt at repression, which, so far as it is successful, sets the sex-impulse at work into morose channels and makes him a liar or a thief. Or he may be impelled to inquire for himself. He finds that, so long as self-abuse occurs infrequently, it does not bring about these dire evils, and accordingly he assumes that all moral doctrine is hypocrisy and often falls into the opposite extreme of constant self-abuse, with the result that actual physical and mental deterioration sets in. What is really the truth? The first consideration is that frequent and unregulated abuse does cause physical harm. The margin of frequency which will escape this harm varies with the individual. But, with growing boys, the practice is perhaps more dangerous than after physical maturity. The whole reserve of the physical constitution appears to be needed while the body is developing. The difficulty of this problem is its complications. There are several entirely conflicting influences which must be weighed one against the other.