Ancient world , dating to 560–550 BC, showing a
satyr masturbating, a common scene in many ancient Greek pottery paintings The Sumerians widely believed that masturbation enhanced sexual potency, both for men and for women, The
ancient Egyptians also regarded masturbation by a deity as an act of creation; the god
Atum was believed to have created the universe by masturbating to ejaculation. The
ancient Greeks also regarded masturbation as a normal and healthy substitute for other forms of sexual pleasure. Most information about masturbation in ancient Greece comes from surviving works of
ancient Greek comedy and
pottery. Masturbation is frequently referenced in the surviving comedies of
Aristophanes, which are the most important sources of information on ancient Greek views on the subject. According to the
Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by the third-century AD biographer
Diogenes Laërtius,
Diogenes of Sinope, the fourth-century BC
Cynic philosopher, often masturbated in public, which was considered scandalous. When people confronted him over this, he would say, "If only it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly." Within the
African Congo Basin, the
Aka,
Ngandu, Lesi, Brbs, and Ituri
ethnic groups all lack a word for masturbation in their languages and are confused by the concept of masturbation.
Development of the contemporary Western world view 18th century Onanism is a hybrid term which combines the proper noun,
Onan, with the suffix,
-ism. Notions of self-pollution, impurity and uncleanness were increasingly associated with various other sexual vices and crimes of the body (such as fornication, sodomy, adultery, incest and obscene language); in reaction to the 17th-century libertine culture, middle-class moralists increasingly campaigned for a reformation of manners and a stricter regulation of the body. Paradoxically, a crime that was secret and private became a popular and fashionable topic. Moreover, writers tended to focus more on the perceived links with mental and physical illnesses that were deemed to be associated with the sense of moral outrage. Attention increasingly shifted to the prevention and cure of this illness which perilously sapped men of their virility. Prior to 1712, onanism was not much of a problem. The first use of the word "onanism" to consistently and specifically refer to masturbation is a pamphlet first distributed in London in 1716, titled "
Onania, or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution, and All Its Frightful Consequences, in Both Sexes, Considered, With Spiritual and Physical Advice for Those Who Have Already Injur'd Themselves by This Abominable Practice." The Online Etymology Dictionary, however, claims the earliest known use of
onanism occurred in 1727. In 1743–1745, the British physician
Robert James published
A Medicinal Dictionary, in which he described masturbation as being "productive of the most deplorable and generally incurable disorders" and stated that "there is perhaps no sin productive of so many hideous consequences". One of the many horrified by the descriptions of malady in
Onania was the notable Swiss physician
Samuel-Auguste Tissot. In 1760, he published ''L'Onanisme'', his own comprehensive medical treatise on the purported ill-effects of masturbation. Though Tissot's ideas are now considered
conjectural at best, his treatise was presented as a scholarly, scientific work in a time when experimental physiology was practically nonexistent.
Immanuel Kant regarded masturbation as a violation of the moral law. In
The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), he made the
a posteriori argument that "such an unnatural use of one's sexual attribute" strikes "everyone upon his thinking of it" as "a violation of one's duty to himself", and suggested that it was regarded as immoral even to give it its proper name (unlike the case of the similarly undutiful act of suicide). He went on, however, to acknowledge that "it is not so easy to produce a rational demonstration of the inadmissibility of that unnatural use", but ultimately concluded that its immorality lay in the fact that "a man gives up his personality ... when he uses himself merely as a means for the gratification of an animal drive". His arguments were rejected as flawed by
ethicists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
19th century By 1838,
Jean Esquirol had declared in his
Des Maladies Mentales that masturbation was "recognized in all countries as a cause of insanity". The medical literature of the time also described more invasive procedures including electric shock treatment,
infibulation, restraining devices like
chastity belts and
straitjackets,
cauterization or – as a last resort – wholesale
surgical excision of the genitals. Medical attitudes toward masturbation began to change towards the end of the 19th century when
H. Havelock Ellis, in his seminal 1897 work
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, questioned Tissot's premises.
20th century In 1905,
Sigmund Freud addressed masturbation in his
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and associated it with addictive substances. He described the masturbation of infants at the period when the infant is nursing, at four years of age, and at puberty. At the same time, the supposed medical condition of
hysteria—from the Greek
hystera or uterus—was being treated by what would now be described as medically administered or medically prescribed masturbation for women. In 1910, the meetings of the
Vienna psychoanalytic circle discussed the moral or health effects of masturbation, but its publication on the matter was suppressed. "
Concerning Specific Forms of Masturbation" is a 1922 essay by another Austrian, the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst
Wilhelm Reich. In the seven and a half page essay Reich accepts the prevalent notions on the roles of
unconscious fantasy and the subsequent emerging
guilt feelings which he saw as originating from the act itself. By 1930,
F. W. W. Griffin, editor of
The Scouter, had written in a book for
Rover Scouts stating that the temptation to masturbate was "a quite natural stage of development" and, citing
Ellis' work, held that "the effort to achieve complete abstinence was a very serious error." The work of sexologist
Alfred Kinsey during the 1940s and 1950s, most notably the
Kinsey Reports, insisted that masturbation was an instinctive behavior for both males and females. In 1961,
The Encyclopedia of Sexual Behavior edited by
Albert Ellis and Albert Abarbanel declared that masturbation is normal and healthy at any age. In the US, masturbation has not been a diagnosable condition since
DSM II (1968).
Circumcision was sometimes used as a prevention for masturbation, with some mainstream pediatric manuals in English-speaking countries continuing to recommend it as a deterrent against masturbation into the 1950s, and a 1970 edition of the standard US urology textbook said "Parents readily ... adopt measures which may avert masturbation. Circumcision is usually advised on these grounds." In the 20th century (1962), the idea of "masturbatory insanity" has been attributed to irrational and unscientific hypotheses. In 1973, reflecting the shift in
scientific consensus,
Thomas Szasz stated: "Masturbation: the primary sexual activity of mankind. In the nineteenth century, it was a disease; in the twentieth, it's a cure." Dörner and others wrote in their now classic book (1978): "Self-satisfaction is therefore a priceless good for the success of sexual pleasure, but also for other partnership and sexual relationships: for only if I can offer something to myself can I also offer it to someone else. ... Not self-satisfaction, but feelings closely correlated with it need among others help through counseling, respectively therapy!" In the 1980s,
Michel Foucault was arguing masturbation taboo was "rape by the parents of the sexual activity of their children". However, in 1994, when the
surgeon general of the United States,
Joycelyn Elders, said that it should be mentioned in school
sex education curricula, as a side note, that masturbation is safe and healthy, she was forced to resign, with opponents asserting that she was promoting the teaching of
how to masturbate.
21st century Thomas W. Laqueur stated: "Less clinical, less overtly political, the solitary vice of the imagination and of fantasy that had so terrified Rousseau had been transformed into a virtue: self-pleasuring was the path to self-knowledge, self-discovery, and spiritual well-being." Both practices and cultural views of masturbation have continued to evolve in the 21st century, partly because the contemporary
lifeworld is increasingly technical. For example, digital photographs or live video may be used to share masturbatory experiences either in a broadcast format (possibly in exchange of money, as with performances by
webcam models), or between members of a
long-distance relationship.
Teledildonics is a growing field. Masturbation has been depicted as a complicated part of "Love in the 21st Century" in the
Channel 4 drama of the same name. In the 2020s, a
"gooning" subculture centered around extended masturbation sessions emerged online. Participants build "gooncaves", rooms covered in projectors and TV screens playing pornography as well as pornographic posters, and showcasing them online. ==Views on masturbation==