The foregoing sketch will serve to show how vast is the field of life—of normal and not merely abnormal life—more or less infused by auto-erotic phenomena. If, however, we proceed to investigate precisely the exact extent, degree, and significance of such phenomena, we are met by many difficulties. We find, indeed, that no attempts have been made to study auto-erotic phenomena, except as regards the group—a somewhat artificial group, as I have already tried to show—collected under the term "masturbation" while even here such attempts have only been made among abnormal classes of people, or have been conducted in a manner scarcely likely to yield reliable results.[[289]] Still there is a certain significance in the more careful investigations which have been made to ascertain the precise frequency of masturbation.
Berger, an experienced specialist in nervous diseases, concluded, in his Vorlesungen, that 99 per cent. of young men and women masturbate occasionally, while the hundredth conceals the truth;[[290]] and Hermann Cohn appears to accept this statement as generally true in Germany. So high an estimate has, of course, been called in question, and, since it appears to rest on no basis of careful investigation, we need not seriously consider it. It is useless to argue on suppositions; we must cling to our definite evidence, even though it yields figures which are probably below the mark. Rohleder considers that during adolescence at least 95 per cent. of both sexes masturbate, but his figures are not founded on precise investigation.[[291]] Julian Marcuse, on the basis of his own statistics, concludes that 92 per cent. male individuals have to some extent masturbated in youth. Perhaps, also, weight attaches to the opinion of Dukes, physician to Rugby School, who states that from 90 to 95 per cent. of all boys at boarding school masturbate.[[292]] Seerley, of Springfield, Mass., found that of 125 academic students only 8 assured him they had never masturbated; while of 347, who answered his questions, 71 denied that they practiced masturbation, which seems to imply that 79 per cent. admitted that they practiced it.[[293]] Brockman, also in America, among 232 theological students, of the average age of 23½ years and coming from various parts of the United States, found that 132 spontaneously admitted that masturbation was their most serious temptation and all but one of these admitted that he yielded, 69 of them to a considerable extent. This is a proportion of at least 56 per cent., the real proportion being doubtless larger, since no question had been asked as to sexual offenses; 75 practiced masturbation after conversion, and 24 after they had decided to become ministers; only 66 mentioned sexual intercourse as their chief temptation; but altogether sexual temptations outnumbered all others together.[[294]] Moraglia, who made inquiry of 200 women of the lower class in Italy, found that 120 acknowledged either that they still masturbate or that they had done so during a long period.[[295]] Gualino found that 23 per cent. men of the professional classes in North Italy masturbate about puberty; no account was taken of those who began later. "Here in Switzerland," a correspondent writes, "I have had occasion to learn from adult men, whom I can trust, that they have reached the age of twenty-five, or over, without sexual congress. 'Wir haben nicht dieses Bedürfniss,' is what they say. But I believe that, in the case of the Swiss mountaineers, moderate onanism is practiced, as a rule." In hot countries the same habits are found at a more precocious age. In Venezuela, for instance, among the Spanish creoles, Ernst found that in all classes boys and girls are infested with the vice of onanism. They learn it early, in the very beginning of life, from their wet-nurses, generally low Mulatto women, and many reasons help to foster the habit; the young men are often dissipated and the young women often remain single.[[296]] Niceforo, who shows a special knowledge of the working-girl class at Rome, states that in many milliners' and dressmakers' workrooms, where young girls are employed, it frequently happens that during the hottest hours of the day, between twelve and two, when the mistress or forewoman is asleep, all the girls without exception give themselves up to masturbation.[[297]] In France a country curé assured Debreyne that among the little girls who come up for their first communion, 11 out of 12 were given to masturbation.[[298]] The medical officer of a Prussian reformatory told Rohleder that nearly all the inmates over the age of puberty masturbated. Stanley Hall knew a reform school in America where masturbation was practiced without exception, and he who could practice it oftenest was regarded with hero-worship.[[299]] Ferriani, who has made an elaborate study of youthful criminality in Italy, states that even if all boys and girls among the general population do not masturbate, it is certainly so among those who have a tendency to crime. Among 458 adult male criminals, Marro (as he states in his Caratteri dei Delinquenti) found that only 72 denied masturbation, while 386 had practiced it from an early age, 140 of them before the age of thirteen. Among 30 criminal women Moraglia found that 24 acknowledged the practice, at all events in early youth (8 of them before the age of 10, a precocity accompanied by average precocity in menstruation), while he suspected that most of the remainder were not unfamiliar with the practice. Among prostitutes of whatever class or position Moraglia found masturbation (though it must be pointed out that he does not appear to distinguish masturbation very clearly from homosexual practices) to be universal; in one group of 50 prostitutes everyone had practiced masturbation at some period; 28 began between the ages of 6 and 11; 19, between 12 and 14, the most usual period—a precocious one—of commencing puberty; the remaining 3 at 15 and 16; the average age of commencing masturbation, it may be added, was 11, while that of the first sexual intercourse was 15.[[300]] In a larger group of 180 prostitutes, belonging to Genoa, Turin, Venice, etc., and among 23 "elegant cocottes," of Italian and foreign origin, Moraglia obtained the same results; everyone admitted masturbation, and not less than 113 preferred masturbation, either solitary or mutual, to normal coitus. Among the insane, as among idiots, masturbation is somewhat more common among males, according to Blandford, in England, as also it is in Germany, according to Näcke,[[301]] while Venturi, in Italy, has found it more common among females.[[302]]
There appears to be no limit to the age at which spontaneous masturbation may begin to appear. I have already referred to the practice of thigh-rubbing in infants under one year of age. J. P. West has reported in detail 3 cases of masturbation in very early childhood—2 in girls, 1 in a boy—in which the practice had been acquired spontaneously, and could only be traced to some source of irritation in pressure from clothing, etc.[[303]] Probably there is often in such cases some hereditary lack of nervous stability. Block has recorded the case of a girl—very bright for her age, though excessively shy and taciturn—who began masturbating spontaneously at the age of two; in this case the mother had masturbated all her life, even continuing the practice after marriage, and, though she succeeded in refraining during pregnancy, her thoughts still dwelt upon it, while the maternal grandmother had died in an asylum from "masturbatory insanity."
Freud considers that auto-erotic manifestations are common in infancy, and that the rhythmic function of any sensitive spot, primarily the lips, may easily pass into masturbation. He regards the infantile manifestations of which thumb-sucking is the most familiar example (Lüdeln or Lutschen in German) as auto-erotic, the germ arising in sucking the breasts since the lips are an erogenous zone which may easily be excited by the warm stream of milk. But this only occurs, he points out, in subjects in whom the sensitivity of the lip zone is heightened and especially in those who at a later age are liable to become hysterical.[[304]] Shuttleworth also points out that the mere fidgetiness of a neurotic infant, even when only a few months old, sometimes leads to the spontaneous and accidental discovery of pleasurable sexual sensations, which for a time appease the restlessness of nervous instability, though a vicious circle is thus established. He has found that, especially among quite young girls of neurotic heredity, self-induced excitement, often in the form of thigh-friction, is more common than is usually supposed.[[305]]
Normally there appears to be a varying aptitude to experience the sexual organism, or any voluptuous sensations before puberty. I find, on eliciting the recollections of normal persons, that in some cases there have been voluptuous sensations from casual contact with the sexual organs at a very early age; in other cases there has been occasional slight excitement from early years; in yet other cases complete sexual anæsthesia until the age of puberty. That the latter condition is not due to mere absence of peripheral irritation is shown by a case I am acquainted with, in which a boy of 7, incited by a companion, innocently attempted, at intervals during several weeks, to produce erection by friction of the penis; no result of any kind followed, although erections occurred spontaneously at puberty, with normal sexual feelings.[[306]]
I am indebted to a correspondent for the following notes:—
"From my observation during five years at a boarding-school, it seems that eight out of ten boys were more or less addicted to the practice. But I would not state positively that such was the proportion of masturbators among an average of thirty pupils, though the habit was very common. I know that in one bedroom, sleeping seven boys, the whole number masturbated frequently. The act was performed in bed, in the closets, and sometimes in the classrooms during lessons. Inquiry among my friends as to onanism in the boarding-schools to which they were sent, elicited somewhat contradictory answers concerning the frequency of the habit. Dr. ——, who went to a French school, told me that all the older boys had younger accomplices in mutual masturbation. He also spoke with experience of the prevalence of the practice in a well-known public school in the west of England. B. said all the boys at his school masturbated; G. stated that most of his schoolmates were onanists; L. said 'more than half' was the proportion.
"At my school, manual masturbation was both solitary and mutual; and sometimes younger boys, who had not acquired the habit, were induced to manipulate bigger boys. One very precocious boy of fifteen always chose a companion of ten 'because his hand was like a woman's.' Sometimes boys entered their friend's bed for mutual excitement. In after-life they showed no signs of inversion. Another boy, aged about fourteen, who had been seduced by a servant-girl, embraced the bolster; the pleasurable sensations, according to his statement, were heightened by imagining that the bolster was a woman. He said that the enjoyment of the act was greatly increased during the holidays, when he was able to spread a pair of his sister's drawers upon the pillow, and so intensify the illusion.
"Before puberty the boys appeared to be more continent than afterward. A few of the older and more intelligent masturbators regulated the habit, as some married men regulate intercourse. The big boy referred to, who chose always the same manipulator, professed to indulge only once in twenty days, his reason being that more frequent repetition of the act would injure his health. About twice a week for boys who had reached puberty, and once a week for younger boys, was, I think, about the average indulgence. I have never met with a parallel of one of those cases of excessive masturbation recorded by many doctors. There may have been such cases at this school; but, if so, the boys concealed the frequency of their gratifications.
"My experience proved that many of the lads regarded masturbation as reprehensible; but their plea was 'everyone does it.' Some, often those who indulged inordinately and more secretly than their companions, gravely condemned the practice as sinful. A few seemed to think there was 'no harm in it,' but that the habit might stunt the growth and weaken the body if practiced very frequently. The greater number made no attempt to conceal the habit, they enlarged upon the pleasure of it; it was 'ever so much nicer than eating tarts,' etc.