The dissociation between the more purely sexual constituents of love and the elements of esteem, reverence and tenderness which is originally brought about in the manner indicated by Freud, probably owes much of its prevalence and importance in later life to the fact that, once established, it is very apt to be strengthened and maintained by certain of the conditions under which the development of a youth's sexual knowledge is liable to occur. Among the most important of these conditions are the two following: [Sidenote: Masturbation] (1) The first actual experience of acute sensory pleasure of a sexual kind about the time of puberty is very frequently associated with the act of masturbation, which in its turn is often accompanied by visual phantasies in which the rôle of sexual partner is played by women or girls known to the boy. As masturbation itself is usually carried on in the face of considerable psychic opposition, being looked upon as sordid, disgusting or injurious to health, there is not unnaturally a reluctance to bring into connection with this manifestation of the sexual impulse any woman or girl who is sincerely and profoundly loved, esteemed or honoured; those introduced into the masturbation phantasies being therefore such who, while not devoid of superficial sexual attractiveness, nevertheless display some real or supposed inferiority (as regards beauty, virtue, social standing or what not), as a result of which they make no appeal to the boy's sense of higher moral values. Through frequent repetition of this process, women of an inferior type come to be firmly associated with the more directly sexual aspects of love, from which women who are looked upon with tenderness or veneration are correspondingly dissociated, lest these dear objects of affection should be sullied by being brought into contact with what the boy regards as dishonourable, lewd or filthy[130]. [Sidenote: Prostitution] (2) At a later stage of development the original dissociation thus reinforced is frequently still further strengthened by the association (in thought or deed or both) of sexual practices with prostitutes--a class of women whom the youth is himself prepared to condemn because of the already existing connection in his mind between inferiority and sex, and as regards whose condemnation from the moral point of view he, as a rule, finds ample corroboration in the opinions expressed or implied by those around him. [Sidenote: Effect of the dissociation on marriage]