Masturbation

“ There is an immediate return to normal sexual intercourse as soon as obstacles to it are removed. Very frequently the cause of such temporary aberration is masturbation and its results in youthful individuals.
Nothing is so prone to contaminate—under certain circumstances, even to exhaust—the source of all noble and ideal sentiments, which arise of themselves from a normally developing sexual instinct, as the practice of masturbation in early years. It despoils the unfolding bud of perfume and beauty, and leaves behind only the coarse, animal desire for sexual satisfaction. ”

“ On the whole, I agree with the estimate of the consequences of masturbation expressed by Aschaffenburg,88 a man to whom we are indebted for the refutation of many extravagant views. Experience teaches that almost all men, healthy and unhealthy, moral and immoral, have masturbated for some years, once or several times a week, towards the end of the second and during the beginning of the third period of childhood. In view of this experience, what right have we to maintain seriously that masturbation is, generally speaking, dangerous to health. ”

“ The question why masturbation is regarded as immoral has never yet been answered, declamation being here commonly mistaken for argument. And yet reasons may be found for the belief that masturbation may sometimes be a positively moral act; as, for instance, when one who is dominated by a very powerful sexual impulse, avoids injury to another by means of masturbation. Consider a case, for example, in which one who masturbates would otherwise transmit venereal infection to another, or would injure another by illegitimate sexual intercourse. ”

“ While this is so, I am certainly inclined to believe that an early and excessive indulgence in masturbation, though not an adequate cause, is a favoring condition for the development of inversion, and that this is especially so in women. The sexual precocity indicated by early and excessive masturbation doubtless sometimes reveals an organism already predisposed to homosexuality. But, apart from this, when masturbation arises spontaneously at an early age on a purely physical basis it seems to tend to produce a divorce between the physical and the psychic aspects of sexual love. ”

“ Masturbation in man is performed by friction of the penis with the hand or against some soft body. In the latter case especially erotic images of naked women or female sexual organs is associated with onanism. This kind of masturbation may be called compensatory, because it does not depend on an anomaly of the sexual appetite, but serves to satisfy a natural want by compensation. There are a whole series of manipulations employed for the same object, which constitute the psychic equivalent of compensating masturbation. ”

“ Causes.—The vice of masturbation is perhaps the most common cause. In youth, the sexual organs being in an undeveloped state, local weakness is very commonly produced, and that even before puberty, by the titilations taught the child by accident or by a designing nurse. The novel sensation, followed by the profuse flow of semen, commonly surprises the youth, and through curiosity and a [84] desire to reproduce the new pleasurable sensation, he continues this very common cause, masturbation. ”

“ It is self-evident from what has been previously said that during the second period of childhood masturbation is more likely than during the first period to culminate in ejaculation.
The methods by which the artificial stimulation of the genital organs is effected are extremely variable. The commonest way to masturbate is with the hands, but this is by no means the invariable practice. All kinds of little artifices are employed, partly to render it possible to masturbate unobserved in the presence of others, and partly in order to increase the intensity of the stimulus. ”

“ Among girls, masturbation is less general than it is among boys. Among those who have never masturbated during girlhood, we find women who as adults have powerful sexual impulse. On the other hand, many girls who masturbate do so very often. I believe, indeed, that cases in which masturbation is performed twice or thrice in brief succession are relatively commoner among girls than they are among boys. ”

“ At 12 I learned masturbation, apparently by instinct, and, I regret to say, practised it to excess for the next seven years, always secretly and with shame, and often with the accompaniment of prurient imaginings which did not prevent my relations with those I loved being of a very spiritual nature. Masturbation was often practised daily, with bursts of repentance and abstinence, latterly more rarely. ”

“ In many cases it has seemed to me that masturbation, when practiced in excess, especially if begun before the age of puberty, leads to inaptitude for coitus, as well as to indifference to it, and sometimes to undue sexual irritability, involving premature emission and practical impotence. This is, however, the exception, especially if the practice has not been begun until after puberty. In women I attach considerable importance, as a result of masturbation, to an aversion for normal coitus in later life. ”

“ Thinking more critically about my own masturbation also made me wonder if all sex is masturbation, in the sense that people are focused on their own pleasure and use other people as ‘masturbation material’. ”

“ In a very large number of cases of masturbation, it is not the glans, but some other portion of the penis, which is the focus of stimulation. In girls, also, in numerous instances, masturbation is effected by stimulation of the labia minora, and I am inclined to believe that the importance of the labia minora is in this respect not inferior to that of the clitoris. In solitude, and above all in bed, masturbation can naturally be effected much more readily. Some little girls grasp a pillow between their legs in such a way as to give rise to a masturbatory stimulus. ”

“ The detumescence-impulse is sometimes the sole manifestation of the sexual impulse. Certain idiots practise masturbation as a physical act, because sensations proceeding from the genital organs impel them to do so, precisely as itching of an area of the skin impels us to scratch. They masturbate without thinking of another person, and they feel no impulsion whatever towards sexual contact with another person. Analogous phenomena may be witnessed in the animal world also, in connexion with the masturbatory acts of monkeys, bulls, and stallions. ”

“ In my opinion, stigmatizing even the most moderate indulgence in masturbation as a vice has a deleterious effect upon the people who so indulge and makes it harder for them to break off the habit. Every thinking physician and sexologist can tell you that picturing the masturbatory habit in too lurid colors and stigmatizing it with too strong epithets has, as a rule, the contrary effect to the one expected. The victims of the habit consider themselves degraded, irretrievably lost. ”

“ Hence when young individuals are given to inordinate masturbation, they harm the organs in a higher degree than excesses in copulation.
Furthermore, ejaculation in masturbation is forced through purely local manipulation. There is only a local excitation of the nerves. The help of the psyche and phantasy is missing, and the lumbar centres are tasked to the utmost. When the masturbator tries to supply the psychic means, he relies on the fertility and the extravagance of the lewd images which he presents to his mind to increase the libido. ”

“ There is even a real danger that a moral lecture may cause a shock to the system; in the case of some young men it may sometimes be better to acquiesce in masturbation, rather than to alarm them by talking about the disastrous consequences of the indulgence. I refer to those unfortunate creatures who suffer from severe hyperaesthesia of the sexual impulse, and who for social reasons are not in a position to satisfy the impulse in any other way than by masturbation, or who refrain from illicit intercourse in the well-grounded fear of venereal infection. ”

“ This disorder is masturbation or self-abuse, and it is rather a sexual vice or bad habit than a disease. Self-abuse is so widespread that some medical writers claim that every man has been masturbating at some time or other in his life. The chief danger of the masturbation habit lies in the fact that its victims are not only adults, but children as well; in fact, children constitute the main bulk of its victims. The habit of masturbation takes its roots ordinarily very early in childhood, even babyhood. ”

“ During the past forty years the efforts of many distinguished physicians—a few of whose opinions I have already quoted—have gradually dragged the bogy down from its pedestal, and now, as I have ventured to suggest, there is a tendency for the reaction to be excessive. There is even a tendency to-day to regard masturbation, with various qualifications, as normal. Remy de Gourmont, for instance, considers that masturbation is natural because it is the method by which fishes procreate: "All things considered, it must be accepted that masturbation is part of the doings of Nature. ”

“ This usually means masturbation. Many people think that masturbation is a sin, that it will produce insanity, that it leads to skin blemishes or pimples, that it is something disgusting or filthy, that it stunts your growth. All the evidence indicates that none of these is true. A noted psychiatrist, O. Spurgeon English, recently said: “Most all psychiatrists, psychologists, and educators today regard masturbation as a normal phenomenon ... indulged in to some degree by all human beings during the course of their development.” ”

“ Masturbation is of inestimable importance psychologically. One is guarded from fate, since there is no sexual need of submitting to any one, life and its difficulties. With masturbation one has in his hands the great magic. He needs only to imagine and in addition to masturbate and he possesses all the pleasures of the world and is under no compulsion to conquer the world of his desire through hard work and struggle with reality. ”

“ For such a development to be possible, it is necessary that very special influences should be in operation, more particularly a congenital predisposition, or the cultivation of the perversion by perverse imaginative processes—this latter, indeed, occurring very readily in masturbators. But masturbation to excess is far more likely to induce general neurasthenia than to give rise to sexual perversions. When I speak of excessive masturbation, however, it must be admitted that the term is a relative one. What is harmful excess in one person is not necessarily excess in another. ”

“ The evil results of exaggerating the influence of masturbation have been so great in the past that, if now the pendulum were to swing to the other extreme, I am sure it would not be a bad thing at all. ”

“ The specific evil results are of three kinds: (1) masturbation; (2) needless mental suffering due largely to ignorance; (3) illicit intercourse.
Masturbation is prevalent among boys. Two hundred and thirty-two replies were received to a question asked college students regarding their severest temptations of school days. Of these, one hundred and thirty-two said that masturbation had been one of their severest temptations and one hundred and thirty-one said they had yielded to it. ”

“ The questions which have been so widely, so diversely, and—it must unfortunately be added—often so mischievously discussed, concerning the nature and evils of masturbation are not seen in their true light and proportions until we realize that masturbation is but a specialized form of a tendency which in some form or in some degree normally affects not only man, but all the higher animals. ”

“ It is true that 44 out of 51 admit that they have practised masturbation,—at all events, occasionally, or at some period in their lives,—and it is possible that this proportion is larger than that found among normal people. Even if so, however, it is not difficult to account for, bearing in mind the fact that the homosexual person has not the same opportunities as has the heterosexual person to gratify his instincts, and that masturbation may sometimes legitimately appear to him as the lesser of two evils. ”

“ One reason why masturbation is more pernicious than coition arises from the state of mind during the two acts. The onanist, and here we allude only to those who have some ideas of sexual intercourse and love, having no material object which is the beginning and the end of its pleasures, the imagination must supply and invent it. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Not the least important among the results of masturbation is the attitude of the victim to society in general. This psychical change is noticed in immoderate cases of masturbation and takes the form of disinclination to enter into any physical contests, or games; and disinclination to cultivate the society of the opposite sex. ”

“ Analogous considerations naturally apply to masturbation in women. The need that each sex should regard the other as indispensable is a powerful motive in bringing about the popular condemnation of masturbation; and it must further be remembered that the amatory life, and more especially its psychical accompaniments, in truth only attain their fullest development through the mutual intercourse of the sexes. ”