Almost every masturbator at last reaches a point where, frightened on learning the results of the vice, or on experiencing them (neurasthenia), or led by example or seduction to the opposite sex, he wishes to free himself of the vice and re-instate his vita sexualis. The moral and mental conditions are the most unfavorable possible. The pure glow of sexual feeling is destroyed; the fire of sexual instinct is wanting, and self-confidence, no less; for every masturbator is more or less timid and cowardly. If the youthful sinner at last comes to make an attempt at coitus, he is either disappointed because enjoyment is wanting, on account of defective sensual feeling, or he is lacking in the mental strength necessary to accomplish the act. The fiasco has a fatal effect, and leads to absolute psychical impotence. A bad conscience and the memory of past failures prevent success in any further attempts. The constant libido sexualis, however, demands satisfaction; but this moral and mental perversion separates him further and further from women. For various reasons, however (neurasthenic complaints, hypochondriacal fear of the results, etc.), the individual is kept from masturbation. Occasionally, under such circumstances, there may be bestiality. Intercourse with the same sex is then near at hand,—as a result of occasional seduction or of the feelings of friendship which, on the level of pathological sexuality, easily associate themselves with sexual feelings. Passive and mutual onanism then becomes the equivalent of the avoided act. If there is a seducer,—which, unfortunately, is so frequent,—then the cultivated pederast is produced,—_i.e._, a man who performs _quasi_ acts of onanism with persons of his own sex, and, at the same time, feels and prefers himself in an active _rôle_ corresponding with his real sex; who is mentally indifferent not only to persons of the opposite sex, but also to those of his own sex. Sexual aberration in the _normally_ constituted, _untainted_, mentally healthy individual, reaches this degree. No case has been demonstrated in which perversity has been transformed into perversion,—into a reversal of the sexual instinct.[101] With tainted individuals, the matter is quite different. The latent perverse sexuality is developed under the influence of neurasthenia induced by masturbation, abstinence, or otherwise. Gradually, in contact with persons of the same sex, sexual excitation by them is induced. Related ideas are colored with lustful feelings, and awaken corresponding desires. This decidedly degenerate reaction is the beginning of a process of physical and mental transformation, a description of which is attempted in what follows, and which is one of the most interesting psychological phenomena that has been observed. This metamorphosis presents different stages, or degrees.