Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 25, No. 4, Winter 1986
Twentieth-Century Attitudes Toward Masturbation MICHAEL S. PATTON A B S T R A C T : This article demonstrates the progress t h a t medicine, psychiatry, religion, and anthropology have made toward a v a r i a n t perspective of masturbation. Researchers documented the suffering and damage caused by classically ingrained religious and medical distortions. The "secret sin" of Judeo-Christianity and the "social disease" of nineteenth-century medicine has paradoxically become the therapy for various forms of psychosexual dysfunction. Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish denominations polarize opinions from rigorous orthodoxy to unconditional acceptance of this psychosexual behavior as a source of emotional homeostasis.
Introduction Various researchers argue t h a t the Judeo-Christian heritage has perennially t a u g h t h u m a n sexuality from a negative and hostile perspective as evil, dirty, and harmful behavior. 1 In the early centuries of Christianity sex was at best tolerated as a necessary evil to promote procreation, the only legitimate purpose of sex. 2 Euro-americans--Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, agnostic, atheist, or h u m a n i s t - - h a v e inherited much of this tradition directly or indirectly through enculturation and diffusion2 Certain forms of sex were condemned because they were believed to t h r e a t e n the possibility of conception: masturbation, homosexuality, bestiality, oral and anal sex. Masturbation has been the one form of sexual behavior most h a r s h l y treated through the centuries by society, religion, and medicine. Early churchmen regarded masturbation as a threat to the survival of the h u m a n race and related it to the sin of Onan in Genesis 38:7-10. Medieval theologians treated masturbation as an u n n a t u r a l form of sexual behavior, describing it as "secret," "double," "mortal" sin, diabolical, and analogous to murder, thus meriting eternal damnation. The Catholic Church condemned masturbation during the Medieval and Renaissance eras, while J u d a i s m and Protestantism followed the same pattern. Samuel Tissot, a Swiss Catholic neurologist and advisor to the Vatican, caused a revolution in Euro-american medical opinion, when he published an edition of Onania beginning in 1758 linking masturbation to insanity. Tissot's work reinforced the Judeo-Christian belief t h a t masturbation was sin, and it continued the traditional hostility toward sex with scientific basis. There fol-
Michael S. Patton, Ph.D., is an anthropologist concerned with sex research in society, history, and religion. He lives in Mansfield, OH 44903. 291
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lowed an avalanche of l i t e r a t u r e - - o v e r 800 medical books and articles--condemning masturbation as a social disease. A major part of the medical profession in Europe and the United States linked masturbation to insanity, neurosis, neurasthenia, and various diseases whose aetiology remained unknown until the twentieth century. At one point, two-thirds of all h u m a n diseases, medical and mental, were attributed to masturbation. Such authorities as Voltaire, Rousseau, Lallemand, and Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry, agreed with this belief. As a result of Tissot's Onania there evolved the "masturbatory insanity" hypothesis (1758-1885) expounded by a group of doctors known as the Alienists, such as Benjamin Rush, Esquiral, Luther Bell, David Skae, and Maudsley. There followed subsequently the "masturbatory neurosis" hypothesis (18851940) stating t h a t masturbation caused not insanity but neurosis, neurasthenia, and nervous disorders such as epilepsy. Such doctors as Charcot, Beard, and J a n e t promoted masturbatory neurosis in opposition to Clouston, Savage, Goodal, Hall, and Bianchi, who continued the belief t h a t masturbation caused insanity, despite the lack of empirical doco umentation. The twentieth-century sex pioneers challenged these beliefs as m y t h and distortion. The vestiges of religious, social, and medical tradition remain firmly ingrained in Western societies. 4 In 1986, the word masturbation has become part of most languages, and in professional textbooks it has replaced all other expressions such as onanism, sodomy, self-abuse, self-pollution, and auto-eroticism. The word "masturbation" was derived from the Latin verb masturbare, meaning to defile or disturb by hand2
Early twentieth century The nineteenth-century Victorian era repressed sexuality with moral admonitions, surgery, and various barbaric techniques designed to prevent the new social disease--masturbation. Progress came during the early twentieth cent u r y as new attitudes toward masturbation began to develop in medicine and psychology, eventually causing change in social and religious rational-emotive behavior. Early pioneers in h u m a n sex research such as Freud, Krafft-Ebing, and Havelock Ellis challenged a world paranoid about the negative consequences of masturbation and repressed by Puritan, Jansenist, Calvinist, and Victorian sexual mores. Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) saw masturbation as a n a t u r a l sexual outlet and absolutely essential in a Victorian society which promulgated the double standard for men, while paradoxically it repressed women and children as sexless persons. ~ Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902) perpetuated the teaching t h a t masturbation caused neurasthenia, fetishism, homosexuality, and complete degeneration in the masturbator. 7 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) maintained the belief that masturbation caused neurasthenia, while on the contrary he viewed it as essential for proper psychosexual development. ~ Freud was greatly influenced by his medical and re-
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ligious education, which stressed the "masturbatory neurosis" theory 9 and the Jewish interpretation of the Onan passage in Genesis 38:7-10.1~ As a young Viennese physician, Freud argued t h a t masturbation was harmful to genitalia and to psychosexual and moral development. ~ By 1926 Freud had altered his position, once he observed the salient damage in those who attempted complete abstinence from masturbation. 12Although Freud never felt comfortable with the position t h a t masturbation was a normal stage of develo opment, ~3 he nonetheless began to perceive masturbation as the prevention rather t h a n cause of neurosis24 The father of psychoanalysis viewed neurosis as the result of sexual repression. Freud further stipulated t h a t a disturbed sexual history caused such a neurosis, relating repression of the libido directly to psychosexual dysfunction. 15 He observed m a n y patients--especially w o m e n - - s u f f e r i n g impairment from obsessive guilt subsequent to the practice of masturbation. Freud attributed the symptoms of such suffering to the distortions generated over the centuries by both religion and medicine. TM
Psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis was an early catalyst for social change which gradually liberated the medical establishment from the m a n y irrational, fear-oriented theories about masturbation. In 1912 and again in 1928 the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society permitted the first extensive discussions of masturbation. 17The "masturbatory insanity" and "masturbatory neurosis" theories for condemning masturbation were rejected as non-scientific by such doctors as Clouston, Wittels, and Robinson. 18 Following World War I the major focus shifted from the purely medical to the psychological and psychiatric analysis of masturbation. The twenties were an era of sexual liberation, while the thirties were once more a sexually repressed era. During the great depression the Victorian fundamental t h a t masturbation caused neurosis and neurasthenia resurfaced. Conversely, the psychoanalytic society reinforced the conviction t h a t masturbation was not the cause of medical or psychiatric disorders. RecidivisticaIly, various preachers and educators continued to reinforce the Judeo-Christian sex ethic with their condemnation of masturbation. 19 Between World Wars I and II medical professionals began to perceive masturbation as a harmless sexual behavior. 2~Simultaneously psychologists and psychiatrists began to research the relationship between anxiety, guilt, and masturbation, since the guilt and anxiety related to masturbation were considered as emotionally damaging when transmitted by the family, religion, medicine, law, and education. ~
Sex and guilt The Judeo-Christian heritage generated a self-perpetuating "guilt machine" when it began imposing an absolute moral code on Western societies based on
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ancient beliefs about sex and religion. Judaism and Christianity initially condemned all non-procreative sex and allowed for no "sexual outlet" except in a blessed monogamous marriage. 22 Modern societies have been enculturated to condition people with this Judeo-Christian sex ethic at the logical and subliminal spheres of consciousness. The result has apparently been generation after generation of children with a fear of sex, clinically known as sexophobia. Small children frequently learn shame, fear, anger, depression, and disgust as cultural reactions to their early experience of masturbations 3 Such beliefs have allegedly caused tremendous suffering and damage in those individuals who practiced them, destroying the possibility for human affection, trust, and communication. Children learn the traditional sexual dualism that part of their self is g o o d - - t h e soul, while part is e v i l - - t h e body. This fragmentation in the developing personality is the inception of a deviant process.
The self-image of the child potentially suffers retardant pathology with the loss of self-respect, self-control, and self-confidence. This involutional process of self-destruction can obstruct genuine love for self and others. '~4Such obsessive guilt can degenerate rapidly into neurosis, psychosis, psychosomatic illness, delinquency, criminal behavior, and unhappy marriages. Social intimacy can be seriously impaired. 26 There is no doubt that dualistic philosophies have seriously infected Catholic-Protestant anthropology and theology through the centuries, perpetuating a separation of matter from spirit, body from soul, women from men, human from angelic, erotic pleasure from reproduction, and sex from God, as evil is separated from good. This dissociation of self from body, emotions, sexual feelings, thoughts, and behavior has caused a schizophrenic state in many Catholics and Protestants. The erotic was consciously and subliminally repressed by the belief and practice of religious-sexual orthodoxy literally destroying the potential for human sexual integration-homeostasis, while compulsively driving the Christian believer to seek sexual release frequently in a libertine fashion in order to escape his or her disembodied sexual state. Both the sexually repressed and the sexual libertine are victims of disembodiment, which prevents the enjoyment of h u m a n sexuality without pathological consequence.
Pre-World War H research
Diverse researchers from Freud to Kinsey documented the psychological conflict resulting from rigorous social, religious, and medical proscribing of masturbation. 26 Researchers related such disturbance to the practice of sociocultural patterns ingrained in the historical past. ~7 Thus masturbation was regarded as "harmless" sexual behavior by a new breed of clinicians, while many of the distortions, rooted in the family, medicine, religion, and society, were now recognized as the principal cause of dysfunction and paranoia in male and female masturbators. 28
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World War II The forties continued the traditional hostility toward sex and cryptically reinforced the double-standard ethic as the war in Europe and Asia heightened the opportunity for sexual promiscuity. Men and women returned from military service in Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific with more n a t u r a l sex attitudes; Victorianism was beginning to decline. 2~ Some researchers describe this social change as a sexual revolution. Most sexologists prefer to call it a sexual renaissance era, whereas the data indicate no radical social progress.
Post-World War II: Countertradition Alfred Kinsey, while conducting for a decade the first scientific study of male and female sexuality, discovered t h a t 92% of males and 62% of females masturbate. In conjunction, Kinsey predicated that female orgasm, even in married women, was routinely achieved by masturbation, proof t h a t women were not "sexless" as held in nineteenth-century custom2 ~ Kinsey's report was a distinct shock to Victorian America, generating what some call a re-examination in society similar to that following Darwin and Marx. Kinsey noted t h a t masturbation for males is generally more frequent during adolescence and declines rapidly toward mid-life,31 while females generally masturbate less frequently during adolescence and more frequently toward mid-life2~ Kinsey discerned masturbation primarily as a release of psychosexual tension in the masturbator23 He did not test for suffering and damage in the masturbator, but he became cognizant of it. William Stekel, a German psychiatrist, spent over thirty years of clinical research on masturbation. Stekel found t h a t traditional social, religious, and medical precepts about masturbation caused severe anxiety, depression, scruples, perfectionism, neurosis, neurasthenia, psychosis, and suicide. Following Freud's theory t h a t sexual repression caused h u m a n illness, Stekel opposed linear religious and medical absolutes, calling for a change in traditional t h i n k i n g about masturbation24 Apart from societal t r e n d s - - s e x u a l repression, integration, or excess--Stekel saw masturbation necessary for both personal health and happiness. Stekel proposed t h a t religious, social, or medical professionals, who condemned masturbation through institutional legislation, were themselves suffering from neurotic guilt resulting from their own formative sexual indoctrination exacerbated by years of schizoid psychosexual behavior. 3~
Social change The fifties introduced the birth control pill, promoting erotic pleasure r a t h e r t h a n procreation, thus threatening to destroy the ancient Judeo-Christian sex ethic. :~6While acknowledged as one of the foremost biomedical innovations in h u m a n history, the birth control pill has ameliorated only some attitudes to-
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ward sex, 37 since the rationalized arguments for the condemnation of masturbation are deeply rooted in Western civilization. ~ Tradition t a u g h t t h a t only the weak, immature, and emotionally crippled masturbate; more recent attitudes indicate t h a t the strong, mature, and emotionally stable cultural subdivision undisturbedly masturbate, approaching a par with the former "weak" segment.3~
Sex education Since the sixties, various medical, psychological, and religious educators have cogently attempted to exonerate society from the superstition, prejudice, and ignorance about masturbation with empirical evidence, 4~ thus dispelling unwarranted fears and guilts which classically caused the suffering-damage syndrome in the masturbator. 41 In the seventies and eighties masturbation has been humanized as a natural function much like eating, sleeping, and elimination. 42 Masturbation has been found endogenous behavior in primates, mammals, in utero; in infants, children, teenagers, and adults of male and female sex. 43 H u n t found the male-female ratio was 2:1 in favor of masturbation, while under the age of 35 the ratio was 5:1 opposed to traditional attitudes about masturbation. Approximately one-fifth of males and females still consider masturbation as sin, 44 though there exist more tolerant social trends t h a n in previous generations. 45 Specific doubts, fears, and myths still affect both the professional and lay classes of society,~ generating varying forms of confusion and tension, proof t h a t the effects of nearly two millenia of anti-masturbatory indoctrination are not yet eradicated. 47 There subsists simultaneously a neo-puritanical attitude in society, fostering a climate of moral indifference; that is, masturbation won't kill or harm you or cause depravity and diseases, but it's "no damn good for y o u . ''4s One recent sex education program in New York State forbade the mention of "masturbation" in the classroom. 4~ Sex educators report t h a t those adults who masturbate are mature, fully integrated persons who know how not only to enjoy erotic pleasure but also accept it without sustaining rebound guilt. Masturbation does not cause shyness or pathological styles of behavior, but in reality enhances a person's social life. Used as the optimum self-preparation for heterosexual and homosexual relationships, masturbation can foster wholeness in the person if the motivation to enjoy sex for its own sake is not hindered2 ~ Sol Gordon believes t h a t masturbation has uncharted potential to heal a variety of societal ills from teen pregnancy to rape and even prostitution, whereas the execration of masturbation has been correlated to sexual dysfunction and to antisocial and psychopathological behavioral aberration21
Sex therapy Recent evidence indicates that lack of masturbatory experience has led to psychosexual anomalies such as impotence and anorgasmia2 2 Masturbation has
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been used as a "behavior modification" mechanism in m a n y sex therapy programs. 5'~Masturbation has been strongly advocated for persons with no available sex partner: singles, divorced, handicapped, prisoners, widows, widowers, and particularly those suffering from sexual inhibition, hypothetically related to traditionally conditioned stimulus response. ~4 Masturbation remains the most probable way for women to achieve orgasm, 5~ while men tend to prefer coitus or fellatio to masturbation. 59
Scientific research There remains a serious paucity of scientific data on masturbation? 7 Since Kinsey, there have been m a n y sex s u r v e y s - - m o s t l y nonscientific--suggesting some attitudinal change toward masturbation. Statistics demonstrate t h a t 86-97 percent of males and 47-78 percent of females masturbate. 5s Sorenson found t h a t almost 100 percent of males and females masturbate during adolescence, 59 while Haas replicated t h a t over 80 percent of males and 59 percent of females masturbate during the formative adolescent psychosexual stage of development. 6~ In pseudoscientific research Hite reported t h a t women felt a more intense orgasm from masturbation t h a n coitus. During an era of sexual renaissance, masturbation has become a prime source of orgasm in women, who reject the socioreligious formation of the past which prohibited their enjoyment of sex. On the other hand, in some sectors of female society there is a popular trend t h a t perceives masturbation as less t h a n socially acceptable. G1 The available data have indicated t h a t masturbation is a common sexual practice in both males and females with variant indices related to age, education, social, economic, and religious status. One generalization abstracted from such research has been that masturbation is an adolescent preoccupation for males, while it is more an adult behavior for females, although it is becoming much more prevalent in people of all ages, especially senior citizensY~ It is significant t h a t both the Kinsey and the nonscientific reports form the same conclusions.
Religion and sex The Judeo-Christian religious tradition has t a u g h t for nearly two thousand years t h a t masturbation is a grave "sin against nature" and deserving of eternal damnation. The assumption has been t h a t personal suffering t h a t resulted from the effort to discipline--control, deny, r e p r e s s - - t h e sex impulses was holy and pleasing to God. Catholics, Protestants, and Jews have allegedly suffered with varying degrees of guilt, fear, depression, anger, hostility, and anxiety concerning natural sexual impulses. 63 The story of Onan in Genesis 38:7-10 has been the basis of the condemnation of masturbation by Jewish and Christian theologians. Biblical scholars universally agree t h a t the Onan story is a gross misconception of masturbation, since Onan's sexual activity was not masturbation but coitus interruptus. ~
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Formally, orthodox Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish denominations still jurisprudentially anathematize masturbation despite some trends toward reversing such tenets. While some Catholic clergy and laity m a i n t a i n the belief t h a t masturbation is a mortal sin, a venial sin, or a symptom of psychospiritual disintegration, ~6 there is evidence t h a t clergy of all ages have been altering their understanding of the masturbatory phenomenonY 6 Strict constructionists treat masturbation as intrinsically evil behavior; progressives, as psychosexually and spiritually normal behavior; moderates, as symptomatic of m a n y interpretations. ~ Lay Catholics vary their impressions of masturbation from rigid sin to unconditional acceptance. There has sporadically been more understanding and compassion toward the masturbator in pastoral praxis, but still no change in formal church policyY~ The t r e a t m e n t of masturbation is undergoing re-interpretation in the mainline Protestant churches, yet some evangelical churches continue to oppose masturbation as sinful behavior. Charles Shedd, a Presbyterian minister, initially provoked anger and shock when he proposed that masturbation is truly a "gift of God," but gradually m a n y churches have accepted Shedd's viewpoint. The major attitudinal shift toward masturbation has been among Protestant youth and women. ~9 In J u d a i s m there exists a broad spectrum of opinions on masturbation, from condemnation to tolerance and acceptance. Orthodox Judaism considers masturbation as a grave sin, based on the story of Onan and reinforced by the Talmud. Reform J u d a i s m teaches t h a t masturbation is not evil, nor a threat to Judaism, rather a means of intensifying emotional intimacy. Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism is less rigorous t h a n the Orthodox while stricter t h a n the Reform. ~~
A n t h r o p o l o g y a n d sex
Anthropologists have also functioned as disciples of social change, gradually liberating h u m a n i t y from excessive fear, guilt, shame, and paranoia about masturbation. 7~ Both scientific and folk cross-cultural perspectives demonstrate t h a t most boys and girls masturbate by the age of six or eight. 72 Mothers and fathers in m a n y and varying cultures masturbate their small children to relieve their crying. In other sociological microcosms the child is prevented from touching his or her own genitals, and masturbatory behavior is severely punished. 7~In still other primitive societies men sit around the campfire and m u t u a l l y masturbate one another as in homosexual activity. TM Margaret Mead found in New Guinea t h a t masturbation is practiced by the children in solitude without any shame or social stigma. 7~ Yet Mead warned t h a t the radical shift from condemnation to obessive insistence on masturbation by parents and educators may cause equivalent damage in the psychosexual development stage of children. ~6 J a m e s Prescott, a neuropsychologist, found that the absence of physical nurturing, particularly bodily pleasures gained from the physical intimacy of
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touching self and others, ultimately produces a violent society. Inexplicably, a populace t h a t encourages a lot of touching and physical intimacy among adults and children is a stable, sane, and peaceful culture. Recent evidence shows t h a t pleasure and violence have a reciprocal relationship: the presence of one inhibits the other. 77 The repression of masturbation may be hypothetically correlated to various forms of violent anti-social behaviorism: murder, suicide, rape, incest, genocide, bellicosity, racism, anti-semitism, and sexism. Future research may prove such a cogent link exists between the suppression of masturbation and these hate variables on a spectrum analysis.
Speculation In recent decades societal consciousness concerning masturbation has gradually evolved toward minimal social tolerance, indicating a change in psychosocial perspectives. The roots of the historical-cultural past have prevented truly radical change. Through the centuries religion treated masturbation as a threat to the hum a n race, u n n a t u r a l behavior, mortal sin, and murder. Medicine ostracized masturbation as the primary etiology of insanity, neurosis, neurasthenia, and various medical diseases. Psychologists have come to consider masturbation as normal sexual behavior, but are clinically concerned with the guilt, anxiety, depression, and shame associated with it. Socially, masturbation was perceived as a taboo sexual deviation. Barbaric techniques and even surgery were used to repress the masturbator, all to no avail. Since 1970 some therapists have prescribed masturbation as an adjunct for the t r e a t m e n t of sexual dysfunction and as a sexual outlet, especially when there is no available sex partner. Therapists regard masturbation as integral to homeostatic psychosexual development hypothetically linked to parametrically acceptable social behavior. It appears t h a t what was once regarded as the "secret sin" of classical religion and the "social disease" of nineteenth-century medicine has conversely become the therapeutic solution for various forms of psychosexual dysfunction during the twentieth century. Kinsey and Stekel documented the counter-tradition which promoted the sanity and safety but not yet sanctity of masturbation. The literature has been g a r g a n t u a n - - o v e r 800 articles--since Tissot's Onania, yet since Stekel the subject is rarely mentioned in professional journals, with the exception of the women's movement. Medical scientists certainly must have suffered from "burnout," so engrossed were they over this inexhaustible deviant behavior. Paradoxically, there is no other sexual behavior so indigenous to the h u m a n species, more thoroughly discussed, more roundly condemned, yet more universally practiced t h a n masturbation. The basal significance of masturbation lies not so much in the sexual behavior itself, but rather in how different social institutions such as religion, medicine, education, and family interpret such behavior. Masturbation may now be regarded as a linchpin in the understanding of all psychosexual behavior. There is little tolerance in contemporary cultural constructs for the authen-
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tication of self-pleasure, perhaps for fear that the individual will become too independent of institutions. Thus, proper self-love has not been developed, nurtured, or encouraged in the crucial areas of the family, religion, or society. Children learn to "hate self' at a very tender age, which may be one reason why antisocial psychopathological violence has become so widespread in the West, and the fact that the double standard is not yet eradicated. Jesus' ethos of love has been grossly misconceived and obfuscated, since so many Christians "hate" and are unable to accept themselves in the name of religious justice. This sociopathology is related to both the denial and condemnation of sexual pleasure, which shows itself in various deviant patterns. Medical and religious professionals tend to blame the family or society rather than the ideologies disseminated by their respective institutions for causing such suffering and damage. Some clerical pedagogues deny or repress this consequence, while others candidly acknowledge the magnitude and severity of such psychosexual fragmentation. Clinical preceptors tend to recognize this abnormality from their experience, but admit there is little being done to combat the polymorphic etiologies of such psychosomatic disintegration. There has been relatively no public acknowledgement on the part of major social institutions--medical, religious, educational--to accept a share of the awesome responsibility for the fact that the preponderance of their respective theories of masturbation caused untold human suffering and damage in those who seriously practiced them. Many senior citizens have not forgotten their painful experience of religion, sex, and society; many still suffer from fear and guilt surrounding sex. Youth intuitively reject such traditional religious doctrine which caused incalculable degrees of suffering and damage in their parents and grandparents. Consider whether William Stekel's insight may still have notable relevance for our society: if masturbation was evil, as various institutions taught, the overwhelming majority of the human race should be locked away in insane asylums, and moreover include those who fashioned such austere sexual scripts for humanity to practice, leaving the populace no other form of release.
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tion: With a Focus on Changing Attitudes from 1972-1982 at Ogdensburg Free Academy Junior-Senior High School. Ogdensburg, New York, 1983. Kelley, G., Sexuality: The H u m a n Perspective. New York, Barron's Educational Series, 1980. Lutz, D., "Psychologist Favors Healthy Attitude Toward Masturbation," Minnesota Daily, Feb. 26, 1985, 120, 86, 1. DeMartino, M., ed., Human Autoerotic Practices. New York, Human Sciences'Press, 1979. Kaplan, H., The New Sex Therapy. New York, Bruner and Mazel, 1974. Lo Piccolo, J., and Lobitz, W., "The Role of Masturbation in the Treatment of Orgasmic Dysfunction," Archives of Sexual Behavior, December 1972, 2, 2, 163-171. Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, op. cit. Masters, W., and Johnson, V., Human SexualResponse. Boston, Little, Brown and Co., 1966. Gagnon, J., "Masturbation." In Human Sexualities. Glenview, Illinois, Scott, Foresman and Co., 1977. Francoeur, op. cit. Sorenson, R., "Masturbation." In Adolescent Sexuality in Contemporary America. New York, World Publishing Times Mirror, 1973. Haas, A., "Masturbation." In Teenage Sexuality: A Survey of Teenage Sexual Behavior. New York, MacMillan, 1979. Hite, S., The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality. New York, Dell, Inc., 1976. Gagnon, op. cit. Durham, T., and Grossnickle, W., "Attitudes toward Masturbation," Psychological Reports, 1982, 51,932-934. Larue, G., "Masturbation." In Sex and the Bible. Buffalo, Prometheus Books, 1983. Kraft, W., "A Psychospiritual View of Masturbation," Human Development, 1982, 3, 2, 39-45. Greeley, A., The Catholic Priest in the United States: Sociological Investigations. Washington, D.C., United States Catholic Conference, 1972. Kosnik, A.; Carroll, W.; Cunningham, A.; Modras, R.; and Schulte, J., Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought. A Study Commissioned by the Catholic Theological Society of America. New York, Paulist Press, 1977. Patton, M., "A Historical Survey of Attitudes toward Masturbation in Western Civilization." In Masturbation in the American Catholic Church With a Focus on Social and Educational Change. Ann Arbor. Research Abstracts, Microfilm International Inc., 1984. Scanzoni, L., "Protestatnt Views of Sexuality." In Holland, J., ed., Religion and Sexuality: Judaic-Christian Viewpoints in the USA. San Francisco, The Association of Sexologists, 1981. Bennett, A., "Jewish Views of Sexuality." In Religion and Sexuality: Judaic-Christian Viewpoints in the USA, op. cit. Katchadourian, H., and Lunde, D., "Autoeroticism." In Fundamentals of Human Sexuality. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1972. Colton, op. cit. Harris, M., CulturalAnthropology. New York, Harper and Row, 1983. Roheim, G., Psychoanalysis and Anthropology: Culture, Personality and the Unconscious. New York, International Universities Press, 1973. Mead, M., Growing Up in New Guinea. New York, William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1975. __, Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World. New York, Dell, 1949. Prescott, J., "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence," The Futurist, 1975, 9, 2, 64-74.
Twentieth-Century Attitudes Toward Masturbation MICHAEL S. PATTON A B S T R A C T : This article demonstrates the progress t h a t medicine, psychiatry, religion, and anthropology have made toward a v a r i a n t perspective of masturbation. Researchers documented the suffering and damage caused by classically ingrained religious and medical distortions. The "secret sin" of Judeo-Christianity and the "social disease" of nineteenth-century medicine has paradoxically become the therapy for various forms of psychosexual dysfunction. Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish denominations polarize opinions from rigorous orthodoxy to unconditional acceptance of this psychosexual behavior as a source of emotional homeostasis.
Introduction Various researchers argue t h a t the Judeo-Christian heritage has perennially t a u g h t h u m a n sexuality from a negative and hostile perspective as evil, dirty, and harmful behavior. 1 In the early centuries of Christianity sex was at best tolerated as a necessary evil to promote procreation, the only legitimate purpose of sex. 2 Euro-americans--Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, agnostic, atheist, or h u m a n i s t - - h a v e inherited much of this tradition directly or indirectly through enculturation and diffusion2 Certain forms of sex were condemned because they were believed to t h r e a t e n the possibility of conception: masturbation, homosexuality, bestiality, oral and anal sex. Masturbation has been the one form of sexual behavior most h a r s h l y treated through the centuries by society, religion, and medicine. Early churchmen regarded masturbation as a threat to the survival of the h u m a n race and related it to the sin of Onan in Genesis 38:7-10. Medieval theologians treated masturbation as an u n n a t u r a l form of sexual behavior, describing it as "secret," "double," "mortal" sin, diabolical, and analogous to murder, thus meriting eternal damnation. The Catholic Church condemned masturbation during the Medieval and Renaissance eras, while J u d a i s m and Protestantism followed the same pattern. Samuel Tissot, a Swiss Catholic neurologist and advisor to the Vatican, caused a revolution in Euro-american medical opinion, when he published an edition of Onania beginning in 1758 linking masturbation to insanity. Tissot's work reinforced the Judeo-Christian belief t h a t masturbation was sin, and it continued the traditional hostility toward sex with scientific basis. There fol-
Michael S. Patton, Ph.D., is an anthropologist concerned with sex research in society, history, and religion. He lives in Mansfield, OH 44903. 291
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lowed an avalanche of l i t e r a t u r e - - o v e r 800 medical books and articles--condemning masturbation as a social disease. A major part of the medical profession in Europe and the United States linked masturbation to insanity, neurosis, neurasthenia, and various diseases whose aetiology remained unknown until the twentieth century. At one point, two-thirds of all h u m a n diseases, medical and mental, were attributed to masturbation. Such authorities as Voltaire, Rousseau, Lallemand, and Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry, agreed with this belief. As a result of Tissot's Onania there evolved the "masturbatory insanity" hypothesis (1758-1885) expounded by a group of doctors known as the Alienists, such as Benjamin Rush, Esquiral, Luther Bell, David Skae, and Maudsley. There followed subsequently the "masturbatory neurosis" hypothesis (18851940) stating t h a t masturbation caused not insanity but neurosis, neurasthenia, and nervous disorders such as epilepsy. Such doctors as Charcot, Beard, and J a n e t promoted masturbatory neurosis in opposition to Clouston, Savage, Goodal, Hall, and Bianchi, who continued the belief t h a t masturbation caused insanity, despite the lack of empirical doco umentation. The twentieth-century sex pioneers challenged these beliefs as m y t h and distortion. The vestiges of religious, social, and medical tradition remain firmly ingrained in Western societies. 4 In 1986, the word masturbation has become part of most languages, and in professional textbooks it has replaced all other expressions such as onanism, sodomy, self-abuse, self-pollution, and auto-eroticism. The word "masturbation" was derived from the Latin verb masturbare, meaning to defile or disturb by hand2
Early twentieth century The nineteenth-century Victorian era repressed sexuality with moral admonitions, surgery, and various barbaric techniques designed to prevent the new social disease--masturbation. Progress came during the early twentieth cent u r y as new attitudes toward masturbation began to develop in medicine and psychology, eventually causing change in social and religious rational-emotive behavior. Early pioneers in h u m a n sex research such as Freud, Krafft-Ebing, and Havelock Ellis challenged a world paranoid about the negative consequences of masturbation and repressed by Puritan, Jansenist, Calvinist, and Victorian sexual mores. Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) saw masturbation as a n a t u r a l sexual outlet and absolutely essential in a Victorian society which promulgated the double standard for men, while paradoxically it repressed women and children as sexless persons. ~ Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902) perpetuated the teaching t h a t masturbation caused neurasthenia, fetishism, homosexuality, and complete degeneration in the masturbator. 7 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) maintained the belief that masturbation caused neurasthenia, while on the contrary he viewed it as essential for proper psychosexual development. ~ Freud was greatly influenced by his medical and re-
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ligious education, which stressed the "masturbatory neurosis" theory 9 and the Jewish interpretation of the Onan passage in Genesis 38:7-10.1~ As a young Viennese physician, Freud argued t h a t masturbation was harmful to genitalia and to psychosexual and moral development. ~ By 1926 Freud had altered his position, once he observed the salient damage in those who attempted complete abstinence from masturbation. 12Although Freud never felt comfortable with the position t h a t masturbation was a normal stage of develo opment, ~3 he nonetheless began to perceive masturbation as the prevention rather t h a n cause of neurosis24 The father of psychoanalysis viewed neurosis as the result of sexual repression. Freud further stipulated t h a t a disturbed sexual history caused such a neurosis, relating repression of the libido directly to psychosexual dysfunction. 15 He observed m a n y patients--especially w o m e n - - s u f f e r i n g impairment from obsessive guilt subsequent to the practice of masturbation. Freud attributed the symptoms of such suffering to the distortions generated over the centuries by both religion and medicine. TM
Psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis was an early catalyst for social change which gradually liberated the medical establishment from the m a n y irrational, fear-oriented theories about masturbation. In 1912 and again in 1928 the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society permitted the first extensive discussions of masturbation. 17The "masturbatory insanity" and "masturbatory neurosis" theories for condemning masturbation were rejected as non-scientific by such doctors as Clouston, Wittels, and Robinson. 18 Following World War I the major focus shifted from the purely medical to the psychological and psychiatric analysis of masturbation. The twenties were an era of sexual liberation, while the thirties were once more a sexually repressed era. During the great depression the Victorian fundamental t h a t masturbation caused neurosis and neurasthenia resurfaced. Conversely, the psychoanalytic society reinforced the conviction t h a t masturbation was not the cause of medical or psychiatric disorders. RecidivisticaIly, various preachers and educators continued to reinforce the Judeo-Christian sex ethic with their condemnation of masturbation. 19 Between World Wars I and II medical professionals began to perceive masturbation as a harmless sexual behavior. 2~Simultaneously psychologists and psychiatrists began to research the relationship between anxiety, guilt, and masturbation, since the guilt and anxiety related to masturbation were considered as emotionally damaging when transmitted by the family, religion, medicine, law, and education. ~
Sex and guilt The Judeo-Christian heritage generated a self-perpetuating "guilt machine" when it began imposing an absolute moral code on Western societies based on
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ancient beliefs about sex and religion. Judaism and Christianity initially condemned all non-procreative sex and allowed for no "sexual outlet" except in a blessed monogamous marriage. 22 Modern societies have been enculturated to condition people with this Judeo-Christian sex ethic at the logical and subliminal spheres of consciousness. The result has apparently been generation after generation of children with a fear of sex, clinically known as sexophobia. Small children frequently learn shame, fear, anger, depression, and disgust as cultural reactions to their early experience of masturbations 3 Such beliefs have allegedly caused tremendous suffering and damage in those individuals who practiced them, destroying the possibility for human affection, trust, and communication. Children learn the traditional sexual dualism that part of their self is g o o d - - t h e soul, while part is e v i l - - t h e body. This fragmentation in the developing personality is the inception of a deviant process.
The self-image of the child potentially suffers retardant pathology with the loss of self-respect, self-control, and self-confidence. This involutional process of self-destruction can obstruct genuine love for self and others. '~4Such obsessive guilt can degenerate rapidly into neurosis, psychosis, psychosomatic illness, delinquency, criminal behavior, and unhappy marriages. Social intimacy can be seriously impaired. 26 There is no doubt that dualistic philosophies have seriously infected Catholic-Protestant anthropology and theology through the centuries, perpetuating a separation of matter from spirit, body from soul, women from men, human from angelic, erotic pleasure from reproduction, and sex from God, as evil is separated from good. This dissociation of self from body, emotions, sexual feelings, thoughts, and behavior has caused a schizophrenic state in many Catholics and Protestants. The erotic was consciously and subliminally repressed by the belief and practice of religious-sexual orthodoxy literally destroying the potential for human sexual integration-homeostasis, while compulsively driving the Christian believer to seek sexual release frequently in a libertine fashion in order to escape his or her disembodied sexual state. Both the sexually repressed and the sexual libertine are victims of disembodiment, which prevents the enjoyment of h u m a n sexuality without pathological consequence.
Pre-World War H research
Diverse researchers from Freud to Kinsey documented the psychological conflict resulting from rigorous social, religious, and medical proscribing of masturbation. 26 Researchers related such disturbance to the practice of sociocultural patterns ingrained in the historical past. ~7 Thus masturbation was regarded as "harmless" sexual behavior by a new breed of clinicians, while many of the distortions, rooted in the family, medicine, religion, and society, were now recognized as the principal cause of dysfunction and paranoia in male and female masturbators. 28
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World War II The forties continued the traditional hostility toward sex and cryptically reinforced the double-standard ethic as the war in Europe and Asia heightened the opportunity for sexual promiscuity. Men and women returned from military service in Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific with more n a t u r a l sex attitudes; Victorianism was beginning to decline. 2~ Some researchers describe this social change as a sexual revolution. Most sexologists prefer to call it a sexual renaissance era, whereas the data indicate no radical social progress.
Post-World War II: Countertradition Alfred Kinsey, while conducting for a decade the first scientific study of male and female sexuality, discovered t h a t 92% of males and 62% of females masturbate. In conjunction, Kinsey predicated that female orgasm, even in married women, was routinely achieved by masturbation, proof t h a t women were not "sexless" as held in nineteenth-century custom2 ~ Kinsey's report was a distinct shock to Victorian America, generating what some call a re-examination in society similar to that following Darwin and Marx. Kinsey noted t h a t masturbation for males is generally more frequent during adolescence and declines rapidly toward mid-life,31 while females generally masturbate less frequently during adolescence and more frequently toward mid-life2~ Kinsey discerned masturbation primarily as a release of psychosexual tension in the masturbator23 He did not test for suffering and damage in the masturbator, but he became cognizant of it. William Stekel, a German psychiatrist, spent over thirty years of clinical research on masturbation. Stekel found t h a t traditional social, religious, and medical precepts about masturbation caused severe anxiety, depression, scruples, perfectionism, neurosis, neurasthenia, psychosis, and suicide. Following Freud's theory t h a t sexual repression caused h u m a n illness, Stekel opposed linear religious and medical absolutes, calling for a change in traditional t h i n k i n g about masturbation24 Apart from societal t r e n d s - - s e x u a l repression, integration, or excess--Stekel saw masturbation necessary for both personal health and happiness. Stekel proposed t h a t religious, social, or medical professionals, who condemned masturbation through institutional legislation, were themselves suffering from neurotic guilt resulting from their own formative sexual indoctrination exacerbated by years of schizoid psychosexual behavior. 3~
Social change The fifties introduced the birth control pill, promoting erotic pleasure r a t h e r t h a n procreation, thus threatening to destroy the ancient Judeo-Christian sex ethic. :~6While acknowledged as one of the foremost biomedical innovations in h u m a n history, the birth control pill has ameliorated only some attitudes to-
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ward sex, 37 since the rationalized arguments for the condemnation of masturbation are deeply rooted in Western civilization. ~ Tradition t a u g h t t h a t only the weak, immature, and emotionally crippled masturbate; more recent attitudes indicate t h a t the strong, mature, and emotionally stable cultural subdivision undisturbedly masturbate, approaching a par with the former "weak" segment.3~
Sex education Since the sixties, various medical, psychological, and religious educators have cogently attempted to exonerate society from the superstition, prejudice, and ignorance about masturbation with empirical evidence, 4~ thus dispelling unwarranted fears and guilts which classically caused the suffering-damage syndrome in the masturbator. 41 In the seventies and eighties masturbation has been humanized as a natural function much like eating, sleeping, and elimination. 42 Masturbation has been found endogenous behavior in primates, mammals, in utero; in infants, children, teenagers, and adults of male and female sex. 43 H u n t found the male-female ratio was 2:1 in favor of masturbation, while under the age of 35 the ratio was 5:1 opposed to traditional attitudes about masturbation. Approximately one-fifth of males and females still consider masturbation as sin, 44 though there exist more tolerant social trends t h a n in previous generations. 45 Specific doubts, fears, and myths still affect both the professional and lay classes of society,~ generating varying forms of confusion and tension, proof t h a t the effects of nearly two millenia of anti-masturbatory indoctrination are not yet eradicated. 47 There subsists simultaneously a neo-puritanical attitude in society, fostering a climate of moral indifference; that is, masturbation won't kill or harm you or cause depravity and diseases, but it's "no damn good for y o u . ''4s One recent sex education program in New York State forbade the mention of "masturbation" in the classroom. 4~ Sex educators report t h a t those adults who masturbate are mature, fully integrated persons who know how not only to enjoy erotic pleasure but also accept it without sustaining rebound guilt. Masturbation does not cause shyness or pathological styles of behavior, but in reality enhances a person's social life. Used as the optimum self-preparation for heterosexual and homosexual relationships, masturbation can foster wholeness in the person if the motivation to enjoy sex for its own sake is not hindered2 ~ Sol Gordon believes t h a t masturbation has uncharted potential to heal a variety of societal ills from teen pregnancy to rape and even prostitution, whereas the execration of masturbation has been correlated to sexual dysfunction and to antisocial and psychopathological behavioral aberration21
Sex therapy Recent evidence indicates that lack of masturbatory experience has led to psychosexual anomalies such as impotence and anorgasmia2 2 Masturbation has
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been used as a "behavior modification" mechanism in m a n y sex therapy programs. 5'~Masturbation has been strongly advocated for persons with no available sex partner: singles, divorced, handicapped, prisoners, widows, widowers, and particularly those suffering from sexual inhibition, hypothetically related to traditionally conditioned stimulus response. ~4 Masturbation remains the most probable way for women to achieve orgasm, 5~ while men tend to prefer coitus or fellatio to masturbation. 59
Scientific research There remains a serious paucity of scientific data on masturbation? 7 Since Kinsey, there have been m a n y sex s u r v e y s - - m o s t l y nonscientific--suggesting some attitudinal change toward masturbation. Statistics demonstrate t h a t 86-97 percent of males and 47-78 percent of females masturbate. 5s Sorenson found t h a t almost 100 percent of males and females masturbate during adolescence, 59 while Haas replicated t h a t over 80 percent of males and 59 percent of females masturbate during the formative adolescent psychosexual stage of development. 6~ In pseudoscientific research Hite reported t h a t women felt a more intense orgasm from masturbation t h a n coitus. During an era of sexual renaissance, masturbation has become a prime source of orgasm in women, who reject the socioreligious formation of the past which prohibited their enjoyment of sex. On the other hand, in some sectors of female society there is a popular trend t h a t perceives masturbation as less t h a n socially acceptable. G1 The available data have indicated t h a t masturbation is a common sexual practice in both males and females with variant indices related to age, education, social, economic, and religious status. One generalization abstracted from such research has been that masturbation is an adolescent preoccupation for males, while it is more an adult behavior for females, although it is becoming much more prevalent in people of all ages, especially senior citizensY~ It is significant t h a t both the Kinsey and the nonscientific reports form the same conclusions.
Religion and sex The Judeo-Christian religious tradition has t a u g h t for nearly two thousand years t h a t masturbation is a grave "sin against nature" and deserving of eternal damnation. The assumption has been t h a t personal suffering t h a t resulted from the effort to discipline--control, deny, r e p r e s s - - t h e sex impulses was holy and pleasing to God. Catholics, Protestants, and Jews have allegedly suffered with varying degrees of guilt, fear, depression, anger, hostility, and anxiety concerning natural sexual impulses. 63 The story of Onan in Genesis 38:7-10 has been the basis of the condemnation of masturbation by Jewish and Christian theologians. Biblical scholars universally agree t h a t the Onan story is a gross misconception of masturbation, since Onan's sexual activity was not masturbation but coitus interruptus. ~
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Formally, orthodox Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish denominations still jurisprudentially anathematize masturbation despite some trends toward reversing such tenets. While some Catholic clergy and laity m a i n t a i n the belief t h a t masturbation is a mortal sin, a venial sin, or a symptom of psychospiritual disintegration, ~6 there is evidence t h a t clergy of all ages have been altering their understanding of the masturbatory phenomenonY 6 Strict constructionists treat masturbation as intrinsically evil behavior; progressives, as psychosexually and spiritually normal behavior; moderates, as symptomatic of m a n y interpretations. ~ Lay Catholics vary their impressions of masturbation from rigid sin to unconditional acceptance. There has sporadically been more understanding and compassion toward the masturbator in pastoral praxis, but still no change in formal church policyY~ The t r e a t m e n t of masturbation is undergoing re-interpretation in the mainline Protestant churches, yet some evangelical churches continue to oppose masturbation as sinful behavior. Charles Shedd, a Presbyterian minister, initially provoked anger and shock when he proposed that masturbation is truly a "gift of God," but gradually m a n y churches have accepted Shedd's viewpoint. The major attitudinal shift toward masturbation has been among Protestant youth and women. ~9 In J u d a i s m there exists a broad spectrum of opinions on masturbation, from condemnation to tolerance and acceptance. Orthodox Judaism considers masturbation as a grave sin, based on the story of Onan and reinforced by the Talmud. Reform J u d a i s m teaches t h a t masturbation is not evil, nor a threat to Judaism, rather a means of intensifying emotional intimacy. Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism is less rigorous t h a n the Orthodox while stricter t h a n the Reform. ~~
A n t h r o p o l o g y a n d sex
Anthropologists have also functioned as disciples of social change, gradually liberating h u m a n i t y from excessive fear, guilt, shame, and paranoia about masturbation. 7~ Both scientific and folk cross-cultural perspectives demonstrate t h a t most boys and girls masturbate by the age of six or eight. 72 Mothers and fathers in m a n y and varying cultures masturbate their small children to relieve their crying. In other sociological microcosms the child is prevented from touching his or her own genitals, and masturbatory behavior is severely punished. 7~In still other primitive societies men sit around the campfire and m u t u a l l y masturbate one another as in homosexual activity. TM Margaret Mead found in New Guinea t h a t masturbation is practiced by the children in solitude without any shame or social stigma. 7~ Yet Mead warned t h a t the radical shift from condemnation to obessive insistence on masturbation by parents and educators may cause equivalent damage in the psychosexual development stage of children. ~6 J a m e s Prescott, a neuropsychologist, found that the absence of physical nurturing, particularly bodily pleasures gained from the physical intimacy of
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touching self and others, ultimately produces a violent society. Inexplicably, a populace t h a t encourages a lot of touching and physical intimacy among adults and children is a stable, sane, and peaceful culture. Recent evidence shows t h a t pleasure and violence have a reciprocal relationship: the presence of one inhibits the other. 77 The repression of masturbation may be hypothetically correlated to various forms of violent anti-social behaviorism: murder, suicide, rape, incest, genocide, bellicosity, racism, anti-semitism, and sexism. Future research may prove such a cogent link exists between the suppression of masturbation and these hate variables on a spectrum analysis.
Speculation In recent decades societal consciousness concerning masturbation has gradually evolved toward minimal social tolerance, indicating a change in psychosocial perspectives. The roots of the historical-cultural past have prevented truly radical change. Through the centuries religion treated masturbation as a threat to the hum a n race, u n n a t u r a l behavior, mortal sin, and murder. Medicine ostracized masturbation as the primary etiology of insanity, neurosis, neurasthenia, and various medical diseases. Psychologists have come to consider masturbation as normal sexual behavior, but are clinically concerned with the guilt, anxiety, depression, and shame associated with it. Socially, masturbation was perceived as a taboo sexual deviation. Barbaric techniques and even surgery were used to repress the masturbator, all to no avail. Since 1970 some therapists have prescribed masturbation as an adjunct for the t r e a t m e n t of sexual dysfunction and as a sexual outlet, especially when there is no available sex partner. Therapists regard masturbation as integral to homeostatic psychosexual development hypothetically linked to parametrically acceptable social behavior. It appears t h a t what was once regarded as the "secret sin" of classical religion and the "social disease" of nineteenth-century medicine has conversely become the therapeutic solution for various forms of psychosexual dysfunction during the twentieth century. Kinsey and Stekel documented the counter-tradition which promoted the sanity and safety but not yet sanctity of masturbation. The literature has been g a r g a n t u a n - - o v e r 800 articles--since Tissot's Onania, yet since Stekel the subject is rarely mentioned in professional journals, with the exception of the women's movement. Medical scientists certainly must have suffered from "burnout," so engrossed were they over this inexhaustible deviant behavior. Paradoxically, there is no other sexual behavior so indigenous to the h u m a n species, more thoroughly discussed, more roundly condemned, yet more universally practiced t h a n masturbation. The basal significance of masturbation lies not so much in the sexual behavior itself, but rather in how different social institutions such as religion, medicine, education, and family interpret such behavior. Masturbation may now be regarded as a linchpin in the understanding of all psychosexual behavior. There is little tolerance in contemporary cultural constructs for the authen-
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tication of self-pleasure, perhaps for fear that the individual will become too independent of institutions. Thus, proper self-love has not been developed, nurtured, or encouraged in the crucial areas of the family, religion, or society. Children learn to "hate self' at a very tender age, which may be one reason why antisocial psychopathological violence has become so widespread in the West, and the fact that the double standard is not yet eradicated. Jesus' ethos of love has been grossly misconceived and obfuscated, since so many Christians "hate" and are unable to accept themselves in the name of religious justice. This sociopathology is related to both the denial and condemnation of sexual pleasure, which shows itself in various deviant patterns. Medical and religious professionals tend to blame the family or society rather than the ideologies disseminated by their respective institutions for causing such suffering and damage. Some clerical pedagogues deny or repress this consequence, while others candidly acknowledge the magnitude and severity of such psychosexual fragmentation. Clinical preceptors tend to recognize this abnormality from their experience, but admit there is little being done to combat the polymorphic etiologies of such psychosomatic disintegration. There has been relatively no public acknowledgement on the part of major social institutions--medical, religious, educational--to accept a share of the awesome responsibility for the fact that the preponderance of their respective theories of masturbation caused untold human suffering and damage in those who seriously practiced them. Many senior citizens have not forgotten their painful experience of religion, sex, and society; many still suffer from fear and guilt surrounding sex. Youth intuitively reject such traditional religious doctrine which caused incalculable degrees of suffering and damage in their parents and grandparents. Consider whether William Stekel's insight may still have notable relevance for our society: if masturbation was evil, as various institutions taught, the overwhelming majority of the human race should be locked away in insane asylums, and moreover include those who fashioned such austere sexual scripts for humanity to practice, leaving the populace no other form of release.
References 1. Bullough, V., Sexual Variance in Society and History. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1976. 2. Bullough, V. and B., "Why the Hostility to Sex?" In Sin, Sickness and Sanity: A History of Sexual Attitudes. New York, New American Library, 1977. 3. Wilson, R., "Attitudes toward Modern Sex." In Ellis, A., and Abarbanel, A., eds., Encyclopedia of Sexual Behavior. New York, Hawthorne, 1961. 4. Patton, M., "Masturbation from Judaism to Victorianism," J. Religion and Health, 1985, 24, 2, 26-34. 5. Haeberle, E., "Masturbation." In The Sex Atlas. New York, Continuum, 1982. 6. Francoeur, R, Becoming a Sexual Person. New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1982. 7. Krafft-Ebing, R. von, Psychopathia Sexualis. New York, Bell Publishing Co., 1886, 1965. 8. Zucker, K., "Freud's Early Views on Masturbation and the Actual Neuroses," J. Amer. Academy of Psychoanalysis, 1979 7, 1, 15-32. 9. Freud, S., "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality." In Standard Edition, Vol. VII. London, Hogarth Press, 1905, pp. 125-145.
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