The history of masturbation describes broad changes in society concerning the ethics, social attitudes, scientific study, and artistic depiction of masturbation over the history of sexuality.
The sexual stimulation of one's own genitals has been interpreted variously by different religions, and has been the subject of legislation, social controversy, activism, as well as intellectual study in sexology. Social views regarding masturbation taboo have varied greatly in different cultures, and over history.
Ancient history There are depictions of male and female masturbation in prehistoric rock paintings around the world. Most early people seem to have connected human sexuality with abundance in nature. A clay figurine of the 4th millennium BC from a temple site on the island of Malta depicts a woman masturbating. However, in the ancient world, depictions of male masturbation are far more common.
From the earliest records, the ancient Sumerians had very relaxed attitudes toward sex. The Sumerians widely believed that masturbation enhanced sexual potency, both for men and for women, and they frequently engaged in it, both alone and with their partners. Men would often use puru-oil, a special oil probably mixed with pulverized iron ore intended to enhance friction. Masturbation was also an act of creation and, in Sumerian mythology, the god Enki was believed to have created the Tigris and Euphrates rivers by masturbating and ejaculating into their empty riverbeds.
Male masturbation was an even more important image in ancient Egypt: when performed by a god it could be considered a creative or magical act: the god Atum was believed to have created the universe by masturbating to ejaculation.
Unlike the Sumerians and ancient Egyptians, the ancient Greeks regarded masturbation as uncivilized, suitable for slaves, barbarians and women. Haaretz columnist Terry Madenholm, explains: There is a hint in the terminology as to why the practice was considered indecent. The most commonly used verb for masturbation is "to soften" (dephesthai), while for most Greeks, male sexuality was essentially about power dynamics. In bed, it all came down to active versus passive. Playing with oneself was seen as an act of passivity, good enough for the low-status men and the rest of the miserables lacking enkratia (self-control). A respected member of society, meaning a "real man", could only play an active role in bed, that of the "penetrator"; hence, masturbating (or performing fellatio or cunnilingus) was viewed as an act of self-emasculation.
According to Jennie Rosenfeld:
Masturbation was regarded as a symbol for being lower class.
Most information about masturbation in ancient Greece comes from surviving works of ancient Greek comedy and pottery. Masturbation is frequently referenced in the surviving comedies of Aristophanes, which are the most important sources of information on ancient Greek views on the subject. In ancient Greek pottery, satyrs are often depicted masturbating.
According to the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by the third-century AD biographer Diogenes Laërtius, Diogenes of Sinope, the fourth-century BC Cynic philosopher, often masturbated in public, which was considered scandalous.Examined Lives from Socrates to Nietzsche by James Miller pg:80 When people confronted him over this, he would say, "If only it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly." Diogenes, speaking in jest, credited the god Hermes with its invention: he allegedly took pity on his son Pan, who was pining for Echo but unable to seduce her, and taught him the trick of masturbation in order to relieve his suffering. Pan in his turn taught the habit to young shepherds.Dio Crysostom, Discourses, iv.20
Masturbation is little noted in the sources for ancient Roman sexuality.Amy Richlin, "Sexuality in the Roman Empire," in A Companion to the Roman Empire (Blackwell, 2006), p. 351. The poet Martial considers it an inferior form of sexual release resorted to by slaves.Though he admits to resorting to it: Martial, 2.43.14. See Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 270; J.P. Sullivan, Martial, the Unexpected Classic: A Literary and Historical Study (Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 190. Aulus Gellius, a Latin writer of the second century A.D., claims that the fragment of Empedocles "O wretches, utter wretches, from beans withhold your hands" refers to the testicles symbolically, trying to keep men away "from excess in venery". Though infrequently mentioned, masturbation was a longstanding theme in Latin satire, appearing in one of the few surviving fragments of Lucilius, Rome's earliest practitioner of the genre.At laeva lacrimas Muttoni absterget amica ("A girlfriend wipes away Mutto's (i.e., Dick's) tears" — his left hand, his manus sinistra, because the right hand should be reserved for eating): Lucilius 307 and 959. Kirk Freundenburg has dubbed the Muttō of Lucilius "clearly the least finicky of all personified penises in Roman satire": Satires of Rome: Threatening Poses from Lucilius to Juvenal (Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 205. The Romans preferred the left hand for masturbation.Antonio Varone, Erotica pompeiana: Love Inscriptions on the Walls of Pompeii ("L'Erma" di Bretschneider, 2002), p. 95; CIL 4.2066, as cited by John G. Younger, Sex in the Ancient World from A to Z (Routledge, 2005), p. 108.
Cultures without masturbation Within the African Congo Basin, the Aka people lack a word for masturbation in their language and are confused by the concept of masturbation. Masturbation is also apparently rare in some other forested areas of the Congo. For example when a researcher attempted to collect semen samples from Lese men in the Ituri forest, they seemed to not be familiar with or understand the concept, and the samples were mixed with vaginal secretions.
Health concerns Insanity Several medical papers were written on insanity as a result of masturbation, and this was written as a reason for admission when a person was confined in a hospital. A doctor named J W Robertson tried to describe the differences between different types of masturbation in the year 1898, when addressing the Medical Society of the State of California."Parental Kidnapping in America: An Historical and Cultural Analysis" by Maureen Dabbagh. Page 36. Published November 30, 2011.
18th century pamphlet The first use of the word "onanism" to consistently and specifically refer to masturbation is a pamphlet first distributed in London in 1716, titled "Onania, or the Heinous Sin of self-Pollution, And All Its Frightful Consequences, In Both Sexes, Considered: With Spiritual and Physical Advice To Those Who Have Already Injured Themselves By This Abominable Practice." It drew on familiar themes of sin and vice, this time in particular against the "heinous sin" of "self-pollution", with dire warnings that those who so indulged would suffer: Disturbances of the stomach and digestion, loss of appetite or ravenous hunger, vomiting, nausea, weakening of the organs of breathing, coughing, hoarseness, paralysis, weakening of the organ of generation to the point of impotence, lack of libido, back pain, disorders of the eye and ear, total diminution of bodily powers, paleness, thinness, pimples on the face, decline of intellectual powers, loss of memory, attacks of rage, madness, idiocy, epilepsy, fever and finally suicide. Included were letters and testimonials from young men ill and dying from the effects of compulsive masturbation. The pamphlet then goes on to recommend as an effective remedy a "Strengthening Tincture" at 10 shillings a bottle and a "Prolific Powder" at 12 shillings a bag, available from a local shop. "Onania" was a huge success with over 60 editions published and being translated into several languages.
Robert James In 1743–45, the British physician Robert James published A Medicinal Dictionary, in which he described masturbation as being "productive of the most deplorable and generally incurable disorders" and stated that "there is perhaps no sin productive of so many hideous consequences".Stengers, Jean; van Neck, Anne. Masturbation: the history of a great terror. New York: Palgrave, 2001. pp. 56–57. .
Tissot
One of the many horrified by the descriptions of malady in Onania was the notable Swiss physician Samuel-Auguste Tissot. In 1760, he published L'Onanisme, his own comprehensive medical treatise on the purported ill-effects of masturbation. Citing case studies of young male masturbators amongst his patients in Lausanne, Switzerland as basis for his reasoning, Tissot argued that semen was an "essential oil" and "stimulus", the loss of which in great amounts would cause "a perceptible reduction of strength, of memory and even of reason; blurred vision, all the nervous disorders, all types of gout and rheumatism, weakening of the organs of generation, blood in the urine, disturbance of the appetite, headaches and a great number of other disorders."
In a 17th-century law code for the Puritan colony of New Haven, Connecticut, blasphemers, homosexuals and masturbators were eligible for the death penalty. The context is a discussion of the social habits of the early North American colonists.
Though Tissot's ideas are now considered conjectural at best, his treatise was presented as a scholarly, scientific work in a time when experimental physiology was practically nonexistent. The authority with which the work was subsequently treated – Tissot's arguments were even acknowledged and echoed by Kant and Voltaire – arguably turned the perception of masturbation in Western medicine over the next two centuries into that of a debilitating illness.
Rush In 1812 Benjamin Rush included "Of the Morbid State of the Sexual Appetite" as chapter 18 of his book on diseases of the mind.Benjamin Rush (1812) Medical Inquires and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind , page 347, link from Dickinson College In it he cites excessive eating, intemperance in drinking, and idleness as causative factors of onanism. Earlier in the book (page 33) he claims there is a "train of physical and moral evils which this solitary vice fixes upon the body and mind." In his charge of mentally ill people he notes three driven to mania by onanism (page 48). In his observation of "congenital idiotism" (page 292) he notes, "The venereal appetite exists in them with great force, and they gratify it after puberty by onanism."
By 1838 Jean Esquirol declared in his Des Maladies Mentales that masturbation was "recognized in all countries as a cause of insanity."E.H. Hare (1962) Masturbatory Insanity: The History of an Idea, Journal of Mental Science 108:4 (issue #452)William Dufty (1975) Sugar Blues, pages 65,6
White
In the 1870 book A Solemn Appeal Relative to Solitary Vice, and the Abuses and Excesses of the Marriage Relation, edited by James Springer White, and written by Ellen G. White, we find: If the practice [of self-indulgence] is continued from the age of fifteen and upward, nature will protest against the abuse he has suffered, and continues to suffer, and will make them pay the penalty for the transgression of his laws, especially from the ages of thirty to forty-five, by numerous pains in the system, and various diseases, such as affection of the liver and lungs, neuralgia, rheumatism, affection of the spine, diseased kidneys, and cancerous humors. Some of nature's fine machinery gives way, leaving a heavier task for the remaining to perform, which disorders nature's fine arrangement, and there is often a sudden breaking down of the constitution; and death is the result.Ellen G. White, An Appeal to Mothers 18.2 https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/6.14#67