Three factors – a long prepuce, slight urethritis, and highly sensitive nature of the part (increased by constant irritation, naturally and unnaturally) – have a great bearing on the continuance of the obnoxious practice. Another factor in many cases consists in the perusal of literature that is suggestive and sometimes even pornographic. French novels, which merely relate travesties of love and deal with the ‘sublime passion’ in gross and vulgar fashion are avidly read by these patients, just that their sensitive imaginations may be stimulated by the suggestive descriptions and hardly veiled innuendoes.