Masturbation and Health
It was primarily during the 1700s and 1800s when masturbation
was first associated with mental and physical deficiencies. Some prominent
physicians, scientists, philosophers, and religious leaders believed that
illnesses such as insanity, vision and hearing problems, epilepsy, mental
retardation, and general health problems were caused by self-stimulation.
At the time over 60% of medical and mental illnesses were blamed on masturbation.
American health reformers of the 19th century preached that, as in these words
from John Kellogg, masturbation was "the vilest, the basest and the most
degrading act that a human being can commit."
Robert
Baden-Powell, the founder of The Scout Association incorporated a passage
in the 1914 edition of Scouting for Boys warning against the dangers of masturbation.
This passage stated that the individual should run away from the temptation
by performing physical activity, which was supposed to tire the individual
so that masturbation could not be performed.
Between 1856 and 1932, the U.S. Patent Office, awarded 33 patents to inventors
of anti-masturbation devices.
There were recommendations to have boys' pants constructed so that the genitals
could not be touched through the pockets, for schoolchildren to be seated
at special desks to prevent their crossing their legs in class and for girls
to be forbidden from riding horses and bicycles because the sensations these
activities produce were considered too similar to masturbation.
The medical literature of the times describes procedures for electric shock
treatments, infibulation, restraining devices like chastity belts and straitjackets,
cauterisation or—as a last resort—wholesale surgical excision
of the genitals.
Turn-of-the-century magazines featured advertisements for penile rings which
were spiked on the inside so that if the wearer experienced an erection during
the course of the night, he'd wake from the pain. Bondage belts, restraints,
straitjackets, cauterising irons and even clitoridectomy (the surgical excision
of the clitoris) were all methods used to prevent young women
masturbating.
Routine neonatal circumcision was widely adopted in the United States and
the UK at least partly because of its believed preventive effect against masturbation.
In later decades, the more drastic of these measures were increasingly replaced
with psychological techniques, such as warnings that masturbation led to getting
hairy palms, getting warts on your fingers, going blind, having a permanent
erection, never being able to get an erection, shrinking your penis permanently,
never being able to have real sex, never being able to father children, going
insane and becoming a sex pervert.
More about Masturbation
and Health >> 1 | 2
|
Masturbation Taboo
| Masturbation and
Health | Female
Masturbation Positions |
Female Masturbation
Techniques | Masturbating
with A Vibrator | Masturbating
With A Dildo
Male Masturbation
Techniques | How
to Masturbate A Woman | How
to Masturbate A Man
Mutual Masturbation
| Submit
Your Masturbation Technique | Masturbation
RSS feed |
