Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation

Journal of Social History, Fall, 2004 by Robert Darby

Aside from these limitations, the greatest weakness in Solitary Sex is its lack of specificity. Could there be a single explanation for the grande peur covering Europe, Britain (and presumably its colonies, though these are not mentioned) and the USA over three centuries? Is it possible that the different forces pushing the anti-masturbation bandwagon had distinct agendas and concerns? Might the history of masturbation differ in the various countries through which the bandwagon passed, and over time? It seems reasonable to treat Britain and Europe as a unit in the eighteenth century (since the same texts were translated and widely read in most places), but significant differences in national policy emerged in the nineteenth century. Unlike Britain and the USA, no European country ever adopted circumcision of young males as a disincentive to masturbation. While the bandwagon ground to a halt in Britain in the 1930s, in the USA it continued to rumble until well into the 1970s (as shown in studies by Edward Wallerstein and Frederick Hodges not cited); (7) and if the Joycelyn Elders case is any guide, it continues to roll even to this day. Is there a connection between the persistence of anxiety about masturbation in the USA and the tenacious survival of routine male circumcision there? Laqueur avoids controversial questions of this kind.

In his concluding discussion of various "redemptive" discourses on masturbation which emerged in the late twentieth century, Laqueur introduces us to some fairly esoteric performance artists and websites, but he neglects what may be the most vital factor of all in any process of rehabilitation: AIDS. Countries such as Britain, Australia and Germany have kept HIV infection at a low level by means of safe sex education stressing use of condoms and alternatives to sexual intercourse, including masturbation; one British poster proclaimed: "Once they said it could kill you; now it could save your life". If anything was going to make masturbation respectable it was the promise that it could reduce the danger of AIDS, as it has done in many places--but not in the USA, apparently, which boasts the highest incidence of HIV infection of any country in the developed world. (8) Medieval theologians held that it was sinful to relieve plethora in males and females by "artificial" means such as masturbation even if it meant the continued illness or death of the patient: their soul was more important than their body. Something of the same otherworldly spirit seems to be alive and well in the world's most technologically advanced superpower today.

ENDNOTES

1. A more complex matter than you might think: see Alan Soble, "Masturbation: conceptual and ethical issues", in his Philosophy of Sex (Fourth edition, 2002), pp. 67-94; seen at http://www.uno.edu/~asoble/pages/masturb.htm, 30 September 2003.

2. Michael Stolberg, "Self-pollution, moral reform and the venereal trade: Notes on the sources and historical context of Onania," Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 9 (2000), pp. 37-61; "An unmanly vice: Self-pollution, anxiety and the body in the eighteenth century," Social History of Medicine, Vol. 13 (2000), pp. 1-21.