Historical Perspectives On Masturbation: Economic Ejaculation

As the Catholic Church's interpretation of why God slew Onan demostrates, taboos against masturbation are bolstered by the religious rejection of any sexual activity that is non-procreative. In addition to the religious argument against masturbation, physicians and philosophers alike have argued that masturbation wastes bodily fluids and exhausts the man's powers. The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex explains that "the notion that men have a predetermined, fixed allotment of sperm, and that every ejaculation depletes a finite store of this precious fluid, can be found in many cultures. Chinese Taoist sexual practices are based on the notion that female yin energy is inexhaustible, while male yang energy must be hoarded."

"In the context of this view of the body as an energy system caught in a precarious balance of consumption and depletion, sex was especially troublesome. Tissot [a Swiss doctor who became an authority on masturbation with his 1758 publication Onanism: Treatise on the Diseases Produced by Masturbation] believed that semen is a unique humour: it causes the beard to grow and makes muscles larger. He even quantified its importance: one ounce of semen lost has the same consequences as the loss of forty ounces of blood. The loss through intercourse is bad, but wasting semen through masturbation, anal or oral sex, or sex with contraception is far worse. He grouped these most dangerous practices under the term "onanism". Onanistic practices cause a variety of symptoms including hemorrhoids, pimples, tuberculosis, weak-mindedness, blindness, pain and death" (gayhistory.com) in men. This stark view of masturbation intensified the negative religious misconceptions already surrounding masturbation which impacted the popular view on masturbation for the next 100 years.

Although women did not produce semen, they were not exempt from Tissot's "scientific" analysis of masturbation: "The analog of semen in women is the fluid of vaginal lubrication, and this "seed" is even more precious than male semen because women's weaker nerves make the loss of female seed far more dangerous than male masturbation. Tissot warned that women and girls who become habitual onanists can expect to suffer many diseases including hysteria, jaundice, and, because of excessive clitoral stimulation, a pronounced tendency to turn to their own sex for erotic satisfaction" ( gayhistory.com). Tissot's thoughts were echoed by many of his peers and the backlash against women found masturbating was far more severe than that against men: being placed in a straight jacket when found guilty of masturbation pales in comparison to having one's clitoris amputated. Given both the medical and religious restrictions surrounding masturbation, it is no wonder that masturbation has remained a well guarded secret through the years.