Substitutions for sexual satisfaction are by no means harmless; they dispose a person to the numerous forms of neurosis and psychosis that are conditional upon the reversion of the subject's sexual life to its infantile forms. Moreover, masturbation in no way meets the ideal requirements of civilized sexual morality and therefore drives young people into the very conflicts with the educational ideal that they sought to escape through abstinence. It also corrupts the character through indulgence in more ways than one; first, it teaches people to reach significant goals without expending any effort, by taking the easy route rather than committing all their energies to the task (that is in accordance with the principle that sexuality sets the pattern); secondly, by raising the sexual object in the fantasies accompanying the satisfaction to a degree of excellence that is not easily rediscovered in reality.