Masturbation: a history of fear
The ancient Greeks believed, until the 18 th century, that the human body consisted of four liquids: blood, phlegm (the relatively clear liquid you get when you blow your nose); yellow bile (present in vomit) and black bile. When a person was healthy, the four liquids were in balance and in the right place.
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Illness was caused by an excess or surplus of one or other of these liquids, or was due to an accumulation of fluid in a part of the body (oedema). In accordance with these views, masturbation was considered a danger to one's health.
It was believed that man's semen and the secretions emitted by women came from blood, produced by a process of physical and chemical elaboration. It was also thought that ejaculation resulted in the loss of the equivalent of a quarter of a litre of blood, a belief that was still held in the Middle Ages. That when you lost semen, you lost blood, making you weak and increasing your risk of illness or even death. But this was only a problem for adults, particularly married couples.
Ejaculation was not considered dangerous for the young as the secretions they produced were believed to be deficient in some way. In the Middle Ages, children and teenagers were not prevented from masturbating. In the 18th century, adults didn't worry if children played with themselves, even if they did so in a communal area or around the stove or at school.
The repression of masturbation
During the 18 th and 19th centuries, masturbation was increasingly seen as a waste of the body's vital and much-needed resources. Moralists repeatedly stated that there only one justifiable reason to risk such illness: to have a child. The desire for pleasure was not reason enough. This explained the increase in the number of bans on masturbation. This obsession with masturbation would have perverse effects.
Masturbation as the cause of all ills
Doctors then announced that masturbation was the cause of numerous inexplicable illnesses. It was blamed for a number of nervous illnesses, sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis, as well as cancer. Not to mention deafness. Terrorising adolescents, they devised a whole range of methods aimed at preventing masturbation: chastity mittens to wear at night; tying the arms together when sleeping; special suits to restrict movement and prevent genital contact; mutilation or cauterisation (burning) of the clitoris; and devices to stop nocturnal erections.
And this continued until the 1930s... These violent and excessive reactions explain why so many negative ideas about masturbation persist today.
Today, we know for a fact that masturbation is harmless! And so, we are finally free from the ghosts of the past.
Copyright © 2010 Doctissimo
Posted 30.06.2010
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