
The Solitary Vice: Victorian Views on Masturbation - Avawelles
https://mimimatthews.com/2016/05/17/the-solitary-vice-victorian-views-on-masturbation/
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13of40
Funny, I was just listening to a serious piece on NPR this morning about how
internet porn is causing an epidemic of erectile dysfunction in teen boys.
Considering our history of blaming various diseases on masturbation, it really
makes me wonder whether it's just another reefer-madness-esque round of the
same thing.

Edit - Example from the mid-19th century:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=AiEDAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22self-
po...](https://books.google.com/books?id=AiEDAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22self-
pollution%22%20blindness&pg=PA103#v=onepage&q=%22self-
pollution%22%20blindness&f=false)

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knocte
Porn != Masturbation

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13of40
I beg to differ. (Since we're all talking frankly in this thread about
masturbation.) Masturbation is what makes porn porn. Without the threat of
masturbation, porn would just be boring medical images. (I say this without
wandering into the subject of whether the porn industry has side effects like
human trafficking or objectification of women, etc. Those are bad, but it's a
different question. The question at hand is whether it medically harms the
"self-abuser".)

~~~
jgrahamc
Masturbation may be a necessary condition for porn, but not the other way
round. People have been masturbating without external stimuli for a long, long
time: the imagination is a very powerful thing.

~~~
michaelbuddy
Yeah not as powerful as hard core porn of every category and fetish available
instantly on your smart phone under the covers. Porn is definitely causing
multiple problems in young people.

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taxicabjesus
In my own relationship world, I've had dry spells, and I've had periods of
abundance. I've had enjoyable relationships, and .... "less than fully
satisfying" relationships. "Exercising" with others -- even those with whom I
was not fully invested in -- is much more satisfying than going solo.

These old prohibitionists certainly didn't understand that not everyone finds
it easy to find someone else to exercise with.

Plenty of horny people got in my cab... Horny men were easy to spot -
sometimes they were going to meet up with someone else, sometimes to/from a
strip club, sometimes to the porn shop, sometimes to the sex club... Sometimes
women had a glow about them - because of where they were going, because of
where they were coming from... There were three women who found _me_ to be
intriguing. I wasn't expecting that, I never heard from them again.

Most of these masturbation prohibitions were on men, but I know that women get
frustrated too. Most of them internalize it, or find a new boy-friend. I had
to provide counseling for one of these women, one night. That diary was titled
_The Difference Between Boys and Girls:_

[http://www.taxiwars.org/2016/02/the-difference-between-
boys-...](http://www.taxiwars.org/2016/02/the-difference-between-boys-
girls.html)

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cko
When reading those excerpts from old texts, I am thankful for the scientific
method.

~~~
chezhead
Have any sources of papers that prove masturbation does not have any of the
effects listed in the excerpts?

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svantana
That's not how (modern) science works. The null hypothesis is that there is no
causal relationship between masturbation and (ailment of choice). Until such a
link has been proven, there is no reason to believe it exists.

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sporkologist
Hey I'm just trying to keep my prostate healthy.

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pipio21
Well it must be said that Onan the son of Judah did not masturbate itself. He
did coitus interruptus to Er, widow of his brother.

The fact of "spilling the seed" was later interpreted as the sin by some
christian churches, but there are other interpretations.

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contextfree
I'm curious whether this was specifically a late 18th through 19th century
thing, or if there have been other times/places where similar beliefs were
prevalent.

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tonfa
iirc the Victorian view on masturbation is the reason of the popularity of
circumcision in the US (and Anglo-Saxon world but mostly US didn't reverse
course).

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alfon
www.yourbrainonporn.com

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rhaps0dy
I don't know why this is down-voted, the page seems pretty solid, even
including an interesting academic article: "Men Ejaculate Larger Volumes of
Semen, More Motile Sperm, and More Quickly when Exposed to Images of Novel
Women
(2015)"[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40806-015-0022-...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40806-015-0022-8)

Also be aware that it does not condemn masturbation (which IIRC is healthy),
but rather masturbation _for hours_ kept alive by watching endless variety of
internet porn, which seems to cause erectile dysfunction.

The process bears a conceptual resemblance to exposure to more novel and
avant-garde art. Such thing changes one's tastes to value even more novelty at
the expense of traditional aesthetic, causing the "modern art" that people
exposed to less novelty dislike or mock.

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zkhalique
Why are so many comments and replies on this post downvoted?

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pstuart
It's clearly a touchy subject (pun intended but the comment stands on its
own).

~~~
nstj
It seems like a lot of people have been rubbed the wrong way with this post

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kikishortler
Many of the religious ideas about masturbation were wrong, e.g. that it caused
blindness. These ideas were created by priests who felt guilty about
masturbating.

Many of the modern ideas about masturbation are _also_ wrong, e.g. that it is
'healthy'. These are merely scientistic attempts to reverse the former shaming
and guilt.

For me the question remains: is masturbation any better or worse than taking
drugs?

~~~
Waterluvian
I will always bet on what comes natural to most to be healthy.

It's absurd to think we evolved "wrongly" and need to fight natural
tendencies.

~~~
burkaman
Is your only life goal to survive long enough to reproduce? If you want more
than that out of life, it's at least plausible that you might need to second
guess some of your natural instincts.

~~~
zkhalique
Perhaps those who wanted more than that out of life had less genetic fitness
than those who wanted exactly that out of life, so most people want that out
of life.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how to explain the presence of homosexuality
in a population when the theory of evolution predicts that any such trait
(which leads to much lower genetic fitness) would have disappeared a long time
ago. How does it stay at this level from generation to generation?

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sevenless
The basic flaw in this is that there's no straightforward heritability for
homosexuality, so regardless of the evolutionary pressures, it's not something
that could be obviously 'selected against'.

Homosexual men throughout history did reproduce, though. In many ancient
societies, norms were such that you had kids (if you survived long enough),
and what you did with other men on the side was more or less your business.
The Romans had a lot of gay sex, but didn't have a concept of a gay man,
rather an effeminate man (who liked to bottom). So homosexuality is not really
a puzzle that begs for a solution. The reality is, that the reasons we have
sex do not have much to do with reproduction. Western society is still rather
prudish about acknowledging this.

It's worth pointing out also, men generally pass their genes on a whole lot
less than women do. Genetic evidence shows women were twice as likely as men
to reproduce. So it's not like being heterosexual meant you'd have kids, being
homosexual meant you wouldn't. I guess monogamy would reduce the disparity
between men and women here.

[http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-09/uoa-
ges091604...](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-09/uoa-
ges091604.php)

