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Masturbation
Jun. 17th, 2003 03:49 pmI need to start a page of odd facts about me, topped with:
- I think the funniest body part is the penis. Hands-down hilarious. I mean, really, have you seen one lately?
- Nonetheless, I still find men more attractive than women. Still don't quite get that part.
So anyway, I'm reading this book about masturbation. I think what's amusing me most right now (in a rather morbidly horrified way) is that concern about masturbation, all the hysteria and what-not? We can trace back to one man, in the early 1700's (1706, 1708 or 1716, depending on how you pin down the first publication) selling quack medecine. One single, solitary, snake-oil salesman.
Before that? Nothing. Vast tracts of nothing. The literary evidence simply isn't there - and there wasn't even a word for it until the last millennia. What vague mentions and sideways allusions are scarce: the ancient Greeks only concerned themselves with the sexuality of adult men, and men who were forced to use their hand for pleasure instead of a prostitute or boy were to be pitied, in a rather locker-room-snickering sort of way. The early Christians didn't like any sort of sex, 'self-pollution' was sinful, but really only as a 'gateway sin' to the worst of them: sodomy.
And the mention of women masturbating? Not there either.
And then this quack comes out with this (mis-named, by the way) tract called Onania and suddenly masturbation is the single worst corrupting sin imaginable. And horror of horrors! Women can be tricked by the Demon Lust into masturbation too!
Much weirdness.
- I think the funniest body part is the penis. Hands-down hilarious. I mean, really, have you seen one lately?
- Nonetheless, I still find men more attractive than women. Still don't quite get that part.
So anyway, I'm reading this book about masturbation. I think what's amusing me most right now (in a rather morbidly horrified way) is that concern about masturbation, all the hysteria and what-not? We can trace back to one man, in the early 1700's (1706, 1708 or 1716, depending on how you pin down the first publication) selling quack medecine. One single, solitary, snake-oil salesman.
Before that? Nothing. Vast tracts of nothing. The literary evidence simply isn't there - and there wasn't even a word for it until the last millennia. What vague mentions and sideways allusions are scarce: the ancient Greeks only concerned themselves with the sexuality of adult men, and men who were forced to use their hand for pleasure instead of a prostitute or boy were to be pitied, in a rather locker-room-snickering sort of way. The early Christians didn't like any sort of sex, 'self-pollution' was sinful, but really only as a 'gateway sin' to the worst of them: sodomy.
And the mention of women masturbating? Not there either.
And then this quack comes out with this (mis-named, by the way) tract called Onania and suddenly masturbation is the single worst corrupting sin imaginable. And horror of horrors! Women can be tricked by the Demon Lust into masturbation too!
Much weirdness.
