Whilst I thus reject the view that masturbation in children is generally dangerous, this must not be regarded as implying that I consider the practice altogether indifferent as far as its influence upon health is concerned. In the child, as in the adult, there is danger in the fact that the act is so easy that it is likely to be repeated very frequently, and thus to become habitual. In addition, the masturbator is apt to require strong physical and mental stimuli, and this increase of the stimulus may become dangerous. A special danger of persistent masturbation is to be found in the possibility that impotence may result. The masturbator, being accustomed to stimulate his genital organs by manipulations, and by various methods increasing in intensity of stimulus, will often find subsequently that the normal stimuli, acting in part in the form of the sensory processes in the genital organs, and in part in the form of the normal psychical influences proceeding from without, are no longer competent to induce the normal sexual reactions (erection and ejaculation). This affects chiefly members of the male sex, but in some instances the same is true also of women. It is true that in women the sexual act is rather of a passive character, erection not being in them essential as it is in the male; but in the case of women also, long-continued masturbation, whether practised in childhood or subsequently, may bring about so intimate a dependence of sexual desire, ejaculation, and gratification, upon the artificial stimuli, that the occurrence of these phenomena in normal coitus may be hindered or completely inhibited.