Appositely, I find in Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Posthumous Works” (vol. xii. of the “Collected Works,” p. 149; Leipzig, 1901) an interesting remark bearing on the question:
“Many of our impulses find an outlet in a mechanically powerful activity, which can be directed by intelligent purpose; unless this is done, these manifestations are destructive and harmful. Hate, anger, the sexual impulse, etc., can be set to the machine and taught to do useful work—for example, to chop wood, to carry letters, or to drive the plough. Our impulses must be worked out. The life of the learned man more especially demands something of the kind.”
What a wise and apt remark! Our whole civilization is permeated with sexual equivalents of this kind; the pleasure of life and the joy of existence are based thereon, however much our puritans and asexual “morality-fanatics” may strive against this fact. And it is well that the sexual impulse has been “civilized,” that there are now so many spontaneous modes of its discharge, that the sphere of auto-erotism increases pari passu with the growth of civilization. Many new, finer, and nobler incitations and stimuli stream therefrom into love and life, upon which they exercise a rejuvenating and strengthening influence. Still, this light throws a shadow, inasmuch as fantastic and unnatural aberrations of the sexual life are also apt to ensue.
Auto-erotism (including its grosser form, masturbation) is therefore, to a certain extent, a physiological manifestation; it becomes morbid only in certain conditions—that is to say, in individuals who are previously morbid. This is, indeed, an old medical doctrine, that there exists a physiological masturbation faute de mieux, and a morbid masturbation in cases of neurasthenia, mental disorder, and other troubles. The same is true of auto-erotism in its entire extent. When Fürbringer describes masturbation as “an unnatural gratification of the sexual impulse,”[397] this is only partly true. There exists a natural, physiological masturbation, a normal auto-erotism. Metchnikoff shares this view.[398] He says: “It is man’s constitution itself that permits the premature development of sexual sensibility, before the reproductive elements are mature.” The ultimate cause of such auto-erotic manifestations as belong neither to the category of “vice” nor to that of “crime” is to be found, he thinks, in a disharmony in the nature of man in respect of the premature development of sexual sensibility. For this reason we meet with these manifestations just as much among the lowest races of mankind as we do among civilized peoples; even among animals auto-erotism is a widely diffused phenomenon. This can be observed, not only among the monkeys (perhaps already a little civilized) of our Zoological Gardens, which masturbate freely coram publico, but it may be seen also in horses, which shake the penis to and fro until seminal emission occurs; also in mares, which rub themselves against any available firm object. We see the same thing in wild deer. Even elephants masturbate. Among primitive races masturbation is, perhaps, even more general than among civilized races. Among South African tribes, Gustav Fritsch reports, masturbation is actually a popular custom.
Havelock Ellis has described the entire auto-erotic instrumentarium, and it appears from his account that savage races manufacture onanistic stimulatory apparatus for women quite as elaborate as those which are produced by the most highly developed lewd industry of civilized peoples. Most frequently articles in everyday use are employed for auto-erotic gratification—as in Hawaii, bananas; in our own part of the world, cucumbers, carrots, and beetroots. Further, in the vagina and bladder have been found pencils, sticks of sealing-wax, empty reels, bodkins, knitting-needles, needle-cases, compasses, glass stoppers, candles, corks, tumblers, forks, toothpicks, pomade-boxes, cockchafers,[399] hens’ eggs, and, with especial frequency, hairpins.
I may allude here, in passing, to the fact that C. Posner refers the discovery of various bodies in the male urethra to other causes than masturbation in some cases. He states that often they have been introduced by other persons than the one in whom they are found, and is of opinion that the introducer is a man with sadistic tendencies, and usually homosexual (see C. Posner, “The Introduction of Foreign Bodies into the Male Urethra, with Remarks on the Psychology of such Cases,” published in Therapie der Gegenwart, September, 1902). In the year 1862 masturbation with the aid of hairpins was so widely practised in Germany that a surgeon invented a special instrument for the removal of hairpins from the female bladder! At the present day this hairpin masturbation is extremely common.[400] Still more elaborate are artificial imitations of the male penis, the so-called godemichés (gaude mihi, dildoes, consolateurs, “bijoux indiscrets,” etc.),[401] of which we find representations in ancient Babylonian sculpture, in Egypt, and in the “Mimiamben” of Herondas[402] (third century before Christ); and since very ancient times they have been in use in Eastern Asia, where the Spaniards found them in the Philippines. Particularly well known are the wax phalli of the Balinesian women. In Europe, as early as the twelfth century, Bishop Burchard of Worms condemned the use of artificial penes. Their use was especially common at the time of the Italian renascence; the technique of their employment became continually more elaborate. The culmination was reached in the eighteenth century France. No less a man than Mirabeau, the celebrated French politician, in his erotic romance, “Le Rideau Levé, ou l’Education de Laure,” describes such an artificial phallus, and I append his description in order to enable the reader to represent to himself the extremely elaborate technique that was used in the application of such auto-erotic instruments:
“The instrument resembled in every respect the natural penis. The only difference consisted in this, that from the apex to the root it was shaped in transverse waves, in order to render the rubbing action more powerful. Made entirely of silver, it was covered with a kind of smooth and very hard varnish, giving it the natural colours. For the rest, it was very light and thin, being hollow. Through the middle of the hollow interior there passed a round tube, made also of silver, and about twice the diameter of a goose-quill, and within this tube was a piston; the tube was firmly closed at the other end by means of a screw. This screw was perforated, and firmly soldered to the base of the head. Consequently there was an empty space between the central tube and the outer wall of the instrument. This outer cavity of the godemiché was filled with water warmed to blood-heat, and then closed with a well-fitting cork. The small central tube was filled with a thin, whitish solution of isinglass (!), which was previously prepared. The warmth of the water was immediately communicated to the isinglass solution; and the latter then represented, as far as was possible, the human semen.”
This description dates from the year 1786! But even to-day apparatus of this kind are advertised in the catalogues of certain traders, under the title of “Parisian Rubber Articles.” Whether they really exist I do not know, for I have never actually seen anything of the kind. Havelock Ellis assumes that they are still used to-day. In brothels, prostitutes use at the present time very primitive leathern phalli, such as were described by Herondas and Aristophanes, for erotic practices and demonstration.
In addition to these, there are numerous other methods of purely peripheral-mechanical masturbation. Thus, the rubbing and movement of the genital organs in bicycle-riding, horse-riding, very frequently in working the treadle of a sewing-machine, and in travelling on the railway, may give rise to masturbatory stimulation. Very commonly in women merely rubbing the thighs against one another is sufficient to induce a sexual orgasm; whereas men almost always need to have recourse to more powerful manipulation, such as manual friction (manustupratio).
What are the general physiological factors of auto-erotic phenomena, more especially of masturbation? In this connexion it is interesting to note that auto-erotism is almost always a precursor of completely developed sexuality, and manifests itself a long time before puberty; and may even appear soon after birth, for the older and more recent medical literature of the subject contains numerous observations of masturbation in sucklings, not to speak of masturbation in older children. The auto-erotism of sucklings is purely peripheral in its nature, and depends upon the mechanical stimulation of certain parts of the body, the first “erogenic” zones of man. Freud enumerates among the regions of the body by the stimulation of which sexual pleasure is most readily obtained, the lips of the infant, which, in sucking the mother’s breast or its substitute, receive an instinctive perception of pleasure, in which the stimulation produced by the warm flow of milk also plays a part. This “ecstatic sucking” of infants is auto-erotic in character. Not infrequently, while sucking in this voluptuous manner, the infant simultaneously rubs certain sensitive parts of the body, such as the breast and the external genital organs. A kind of orgasm occurs, followed by sleep. Freud aptly compares this phenomenon with the fact that in later life sexual gratification is often the best means of inducing sleep. Freud also regards the masturbation of sucklings as being within certain limits a physiological phenomenon, as exhibiting on the part of Nature an intention “to establish the future primacy of these erogenic zones for sexual activity.”[403]