[“When base lust fills thy thoughts,
Let a horrible picture rise before thy mind
Of withered dead men’s bones,
So let the sensual stimulation be driven away.”]
It is dominated by a thoroughgoing pessimism. In this view he is followed by Voltaire, in his “Dictionnaire Philosophique,” and by the authors of the first seventy years of the nineteenth century. Such gloomy views are expressed, above all, by Lallemand, in his celebrated book upon involuntary losses of semen; but they are shared by German physicians also, as, for example, B. Hermann Leitner, in his treatise, “De Masturbatione” (Buda-Pesth, 1844), and in the preface to his book we read: “The writers who speak of the terrible results of self-abuse do not exaggerate; on the contrary, their picture is not sufficiently gloomy.”[418] Modern medical science has, however, reduced these exaggerations to a reasonable measure. For this we have, above all, to thank W. Erb and Fürbringer. The old belief in the enormous dangers and the eminent injuriousness of masturbation, still remains as a bugbear in certain popular writings, some of which have been published in hundreds of editions. Who has not heard of the “Selbstbewahrung” (“Self-Abuse”) of Retaus,[419] the prototype of this dangerous literature, which must be regarded as the principal source of sexual hypochondria; frequently, also, it induces direct sexual stimulation, because it does indeed describe the devil, but describes also voluptuousness!
At the present day all experienced physicians who have been occupied in the study of masturbation and its consequences hold the view that moderate masturbation in healthy persons, without morbid inheritance, has no bad results at all. It is only excess that does harm; but even excess in healthy persons does less harm than in those with inherited morbid predisposition. I may express the matter in this way: it is not masturbation (Ger. Onanie) that is harmful, but “onanism” (Ger. Onanismus)—that is to say, the habitual and excessive practice of masturbation, continued for a number of years, which certainly has an injurious influence on health. The boundary line at which the harmless masturbation (Onanie) ceases and the injurious onanism (Onanismus) begins cannot generally be defined. The difference between individuals makes their reactions in this respect very different. For example, Curschmann reports the case of a talented and brilliant author who, notwithstanding the fact that he had masturbated to excess for eleven years, remained physically and mentally vigorous, and pursued his literary labours with notable success. Fürbringer reports a similar case in a University lecturer. The following case, which came under my own observation, shows that even excessive masturbation need not impair health and working powers. A man of letters, forty years of age, probably misled by a nursemaid in the first instance, had masturbated without intermission since the age of five, and since puberty had done so several times a day (three to ten times), without any interference with his powers for work. He is a big, powerful, healthy man, of a really imposing appearance. No one would suspect him to be a habitual masturbator. That from the masturbation (Ger. Onanie) of childhood and youth there developed a condition of formal onanism (Ger. Onanismus) in the adult is in this case principally to be ascribed to the continued abuse of alcohol. The patient drinks daily twelve to fourteen glasses of Munich beer. He is also a heavy smoker. No evidence of inherited predisposition to masturbation can be obtained. For the patient the female sex exists only in the imagination; he has very rarely had sexual intercourse, and avoids ladies’ society, although he has good fortune with women. It is the same with masturbation as it is with sexual intercourse: the effects vary according to the individual. Recently masturbation and coitus have been compared in this respect. Sir James Paget in his lecture on “Sexual Hypochondriasis” says: “Masturbation does neither more nor less harm than sexual intercourse practised with the same frequency in the same conditions of general health and age and circumstance.” Erb and Curschmann go even further; for they consider that masturbation has less influence on the nervous system than coitus. In reality, however, masturbation is almost always more harmful than coitus. The reasons for this are obvious. In the first place, masturbation is begun much earlier, generally at an age when the body has not yet developed any marked capacity for resistance. Masturbation in childhood is, therefore, especially harmful.[420] Löwenfeld (op. cit., p. 127) is of opinion that self-abuse begun before virility is attained more readily gives rise to weakness of the nervous system than masturbation begun later in life. In neuropathic children he saw several times, as a consequence of masturbation, well-marked general nervousness, paroxysms of anxiety, sleeplessness, and arrest of mental development. In the second place, masturbation is more dangerous than coitus in this way—that it can be carried out much more frequently, on account of the more frequent opportunities, so that masturbation four, five, or even more, times in a single day is by no means rare. In the third place, the spiritual influence of masturbation is much more harmful than that of normal coitus. The “solitary” vice influences the psyche and the character in the mere child. The youthful masturbator seeks solitude, becomes shy of human beings, reserved, morose, unhappy, hypochondriacal. In the adult the sense of the debasing character and of the sinfulness of masturbation is much more lively; self-confidence departs; the masturbator regards himself as absolutely “enslaved” by his vice, the eternal struggle against the ever-recurring impulse gives rise more to mental depression than to actual physical harm. From this there results a whole series of diseases of the will, for by masturbation much less harm is done to the intellect than to the vital energy, the capacity for spiritual and physical activity. The cold, blasé manner of many young men, who seem never to have known the natural youthful joy of life, the whole “demi-virginity” of modern young girls—all these are without doubt dependent upon masturbation and upon psychical onanism. The egoism of the onanist in the sexual relationship increases his egoism in other respects, gives rise to cold-heartedness, and blunts the more delicate ethical perceptions. The campaign against masturbation as a group manifestation is eminently a social campaign for altruism; it insists that young people should take their share in all questions relating to the common good. Peculiar extravagances and unnatural characteristics in art and literature may also be partly attributed to masturbation. Many works clearly bear its imprints. Thus Havelock Ellis rightly refers in this connexion to the peculiar melancholy in Gogol’s stories, for Gogol masturbated to great excess. It would be possible to mention also certain writings of our own time which inevitably give rise to such a suspicion.
The reader will do well to consult the interesting discussion of masturbation from the philosophical standpoint by Schopenhauer (“Neue Paralipomena,” ed. Grisebach, pp. 226, 227).
The physical consequences of immoderate and habitual masturbation may also be really serious. The eye especially suffers manifold injuries, as has been proved by the investigations of Hermann Cohn. Irritable states of the conjunctiva, spasms of the eyelids, weakness of accommodation, subjective sensations of light, and photophobia, may result from masturbation. The heart also is sympathetically affected. Krehl even speaks of “masturbator’s heart” as a consequence of the long-lasting nervous hyperexcitability, which injures the heart and the vessels, and is manifested by irregularity of the pulse and by sensations of pressure and pain in the cardiac region, by palpitation, etc. Discontinuance of the habit leads to an immediate disappearance of all these alarming symptoms. Very important is also the causal connexion between masturbation and nervous or mental disorders. Here, however, as Aschaffenburg has recently insisted, we must distinguish clearly between masturbation resulting from previously existing nervo-psychical troubles, in which a vicious circle develops—for here the masturbation is partly the consequence of the original trouble, partly the cause of an aggravation of this trouble—and the effects of onanism on the healthy central nervous system. Here Aschaffenburg is in agreement with the views of those who consider these effects are less serious than earlier writers were accustomed to assume. Aschaffenburg also recognizes that the most harmful effect is to be found in the psychical influence of masturbation, in the continuous, but ever-vain, contest against the habit. This is the source of the majority of the hypochondriacal and other troubles. He often succeeded, by the discovery of this psychical mode of origin, in putting an end to a number of morbid manifestations. As soon as the patient becomes aware that these have a purely mental cause, he at once feels himself freed from them. That masturbation is never a direct cause of mental disorder is now generally recognized by alienists.[421] At the most, masturbation is no more than a favouring element in the production of such disorder. “Masturbatory insanity” occurs only in those with marked hereditary predisposition, and who already have been extremely neurasthenic.[422]
But masturbation can unquestionably give rise to purely local changes in the genital organs, such as inflammatory states of the prostate gland, spermatorrhœa, and prostatorrhœa; in women fluor albus, excessively painful menstruation, and other disturbances of the menstrual function, and in connexion with these phenomena there may appear the morbid picture of “sexual neurasthenia,” which we have soon to describe.
A very serious result of onanism (not of Onanie) is the disinclination to normal sexual intercourse to which the habit gives rise, and the production of sexual perversions. The former is more marked in the female sex, the latter more in the male sex. Masturbation is the principal cause of sexual frigidity in women and of a disinclination to normal intercourse. Undoubtedly psychical influences here play the principal part; but also a certain blunting of the sensations of the genital organs by means of excessive masturbatory stimulation. They are no longer susceptible to the normal stimulatory influence of coitus. Moreover, masturbation is often effected by stimulation applied to some definite portion of the female reproductive organs, most frequently to the clitoris or the labia; and these parts in such cases are not sufficiently stimulated by coitus. In the male the especially sensitive portions of the penis are stimulated alike by masturbation and in coitus, for which reason man, notwithstanding the practice of masturbation, is much more readily able to obtain sexual gratification in the course of ordinary sexual intercourse. Notwithstanding this, there are also certain peculiar methods of masturbation in the male, the effect of which is not attained by coitus. In such cases men also may fail to induce the sexual orgasm by ordinary intercourse.
The close relationship of masturbation to sexual perversions is obvious. The more frequently the onanistic act is repeated, the more the normal sensibility is blunted, the stronger and more peculiar are the stimuli, which must be of a nature diverging from the ordinary, demanded in order to induce a sexual orgasm. The content of the lascivious ideas must be varied more and more frequently, and soon passes entirely into the sphere of the perverse. Gradually these perverse sexual ideas become more firmly rooted, and ultimately develop into complete sexual perversions. A classical example of this is the case reported by Tardieu[423] of a man who was in the habit of masturbating seven or eight times every day, and ultimately inflamed his imagination to the point of representing the act of intercourse with female corpses. At length he passed to the practical carrying out of this horrible idea, which had now assumed definite sadistic characters. He arranged to obtain a view of opened female bodies, killed dogs, dug up human corpses—all in order thereby to provide satisfaction for his imagination, which had been disordered in consequence of masturbation, and thus to obtain sexual gratification. In the etiology of pseudo-homosexuality masturbation unquestionably plays a part—a fact to which Havelock Ellis has drawn attention.[424] The Mexican “mujerados” are trained for pæderasty by means of masturbation repeated several times daily. Ideas of bestial intercourse may even be aroused by masturbation. Von Schrenck-Notzing[425] reports the case of a woman who had masturbated for thirty years, and ultimately came to represent to herself in imagination that she was having intercourse with a stallion.
The prospects of the satisfactory treatment and cure of masturbation are unquestionably greater in the case of children. To attain perfect success, parents, teachers, and physicians must co-operate. Above all, it is necessary to relieve any local and general morbid conditions favouring the practice of masturbation. The diet should be light and unstimulating, the clothing and bedding light and cool. In the year 1791 the body physician of the Schaumburg-Lippe family, Dr. Bernhard Christian Faust, published a remarkable work under the title “How to Regulate the Human Sexual Impulse,” with a preface by the celebrated pedagogue J. H. Campe (Brunswick, 1791). In this book he maintained the thesis that the principal cause of masturbation in boys was the wearing of breeches. According to him, the wrapping up of children in swaddling clothes causes premature stimulation of the sexual organs. Later, in consequence of wearing breeches, there is produced “a great and damp warmth, which is especially marked in the region of the sexual organs, where the shirt falls into folds” (p. 46). Also, the boy, “when he wishes to pass water, must take his little penis out of his breeches. At first, and for a long time after he begins to wear them, the little boy cannot manage this himself; other children, maids, and menservants, help him, and pull and play with his sexual parts. By this handling, pulling, and playing, which he himself does, or which others do for him, with his sexual organs, the boy is led (also the girl, who very often assists, and whom the blameless boy, out of gratitude, wishes to help in return) into constant acquaintanceship with parts which he would otherwise have regarded as sacred, unclean, and shameful. The child becomes accustomed to play with his sexual organs, and occasional masturbation develops into habitual self-abuse, all brought about by wearing breeches” (p. 45). To prevent all this, he suggested that boys from nine to fourteen years of age should wear clothing resembling rather that of girls. Then these children would be “according to Nature, children, and would ripen late; and the human sexual impulse would come under control, and mankind would be better and happier” (p. 217).
Although the far-reaching and systematic development of this thesis appears ludicrous, still, there is an element of truth in it, and unsuitably tight and warm clothing certainly favours the tendency to masturbation.