“Video meliora proboque,
“Deteriora sequor.”
Masturbation in women.—In former times masturbation was considered an exclusively male vice. Very few even among the profession dreamt of the widely-spread masturbatic practices in the female sex. Nowadays we have progressed. We have learned that even in this respect perfect equality reigns among the sexes. Even female animals make no exception to the rule.
Mares rub themselves against objects. Stags, in the rutting season, when they have no mates, rub themselves against trees. Mammary masturbation is found in certain females like the dog or cat. Apes are given to masturbation even in freedom and use their hands.
Female masturbation is further found among peoples of every race and every clime and in every period of history.
Among the ancients the Lesbian women are said to have used ivory fascini or golden ones, covered with silken stuffs or linen, in solitary sexual gratification. Aristophanes relates the use by the Milesian women of the “olisbos,” an artificial leather mentula.
The Hebrew women also knew the use of the artificial phallus, as stated by Ezekiel (xvi, 17). ותעשי לך צלמי זכר ותזני בם “Et fecisti tibi imagines masculinas et fornicata es in eis.”
Fritsch found masturbation common among the young women of the Nama Hottentots. It is regarded there as the custom of the country. The same is the case among the Basutos and the Kaffirs.
The Spaniards found the women in the Philippines addicted to masturbation. It was customary to use an artificial fascinum and other abnormal methods of sexual gratification.
Jacobs found among the Balinese masturbation to be a common practice. The women employ a wax fascinum, to the use of which they devote many hours of solitude.