Self-abuse or Solitary Vice is the voluntary purposed excitement of the genital organs, produced by pressure or friction of those parts, or by the indulgence of licentious thoughts.
The term ‘masturbation’ does not apply to that involuntary and beneficent action of the organs in the adult of both sexes, with which nature from time to time relieves necessary secretion.
This radical distinction between the independent and benign action of nature, and the dangerous practice of voluntarily stimulated physical sensation, has not been pointed out by physiological investigators with necessary clearness, nor has the extreme importance of this distinction in the guidance of practical life been dwelt on as a distinction vital to the growth of a Christian nation.
The dangerous habit of voluntarily produced excitement, to which alone the term ‘masturbation’ is due, may be formed by both the male and the female, and it is found even in the child as well as the adult.
In the child, however (it being immature in body), it is the dependencies of the brain, the nervous system, which come more exclusively into play in this evil habit. The production of ova or semen, which mark the adult age, has not taken place; in the child there are none of those periodic or occasional congestions of the organs which mark the growth or effects of reproductive substance in the adult. In the little ignorant child this habit springs from a nervous sensation yielded to because, as it says, ‘it feels nice.’ The portion of the brain which takes cognizance of these sensations has been excited, and the child, in innocent absence of impure thought, yields to the mental suggestion supplied from the physical organs. This mental suggestion may be produced by the irritation of worms, by some local eruption, by the wickedness of the nurse, occasionally by malformation or unnatural development of the parts themselves. There is grave reason also for believing that transmitted tendency to sensuality may blight the innocent offspring.
A serious warning against the unnatural practice of circumcision must here be given. A book of ‘Advice to Mothers,’ by a Philadelphia doctor, was lately sent me. This treatise began by informing the mother that her first duty to her infant boy was to cause it to be circumcised! Her fears were worked upon by an elaborate but false statement of the evils which would result to the child were this mutilation not performed. I should have considered this mischievous instruction unworthy of serious consideration did I not observe that it has lately become common among certain short-sighted but reputable physicians to laud this unnatural practice, and endeavour to introduce it into a Christian nation.
Circumcision is based upon the erroneous principle that boys—i.e., one-half the human race—are so badly fashioned by Creative Power that they must be reformed by the surgeon; consequently, that every male child must be mutilated by removing the natural covering with which Nature has protected one of the most sensitive portions of the human body.
The erroneous nature of such a practice is shown by the fact that, although this custom (which originated amongst licentious nations in hot climates) has been carried on for many hundred generations, yet Nature continues to protect her children by reproducing the valuable protection in man and all the higher animals, regardless of impotent surgical interference.
Appeals to the fears of uninstructed parents on the grounds of cleanliness or of hardening the part are entirely fallacious and unsupported by evidence.
It is a physiological fact that the natural lubricating secretion of every healthy part is beneficial, not injurious, to the part thus protected, and that no attempt to render a sensitive part insensitive is either practicable or justifiable. The protection which Nature affords to these parts is an aid to physical purity, by affording necessary protection against constant external contact of a part which necessarily remains keenly sensitive; and bad habits in boys and girls cannot be prevented by surgical operations. Where no malformation exists, bad habits can only be forestalled by healthy moral and physical education.