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Masturbation Is at the Root of the Culture Wars
Masturbation Is at the Root of the Culture Wars
"Tell me how you really feel about masturbation, and I can more or less predict how you'll feel about the more frequently debated 'sex war' issues."
HUGO SCHWYZERMAY 22 2013, 9:28 AM ET
When we think of the culture wars, we tend to think of sex. And when we think of the most contentious political fronts in the sex wars, we usually think of gay marriage, abortion rights, and pornography. As divisive as those issues remain, a universal human activity may lie at the heart of these contemporary struggles: masturbation. The questions that self-pleasure raises are foundational: to whom do our bodies belong? What is sex for? Tell me how you really feel about masturbation, and I can more or less predict how you'll feel about the more frequently debated "sex war" issues.
Masturbation is almost certainly the most common human sexual practice. Though statistics about private sexual behavior vary widely, there's little dispute that the vast majority of both men and women will masturbate over the course of their lifetimes. Perhaps nothing so universal is discussed with greater embarrassment (or denied with greater frequency). That enduring shame and silence is one reason behind National Masturbation Month, which comes (sorry) to an end next week. First organized by the pioneering sex shop Good Vibrations in 1995 to protest the firing of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders (who had dared suggest that teaching young people to masturbate could have a place in sex education), the month's events include innumerable education events across the country—and a Masturbate-a-Thon in San Francisco that raises money for charity. The month serves, as Good Vibrations announced in its annual press release, as "a necessary reminder that self-satisfaction is a healthy, accessible form of pleasure engaged in by almost everyone."
The view of masturbation as benign and beneficial is a new one. The Judeo-Christian tradition has long been hostile towards self-pleasure, at least for men. The Talmud compares spilling seed to spilling blood; the Zohar (the central work of Kabbalah) calls it the most evil act a man can commit. The traditional Christian view was no more tolerant; Catholic and Protestant authorities framed masturbation as a deeply sinful (though forgivable) waste of precious semen. Women were left out of these prohibitions for the obvious reason that most male religious authorities didn't consider the possibility that women were capable of or interested in giving themselves orgasms.
The campaign against masturbation became medicalized in the middle of the 19th century. Health reformers like Sylvester Graham (of the cracker) and John Harvey Kellogg (of the cereal) warned against the feminizing and enervating effects of male masturbation, describing it not as a sin but as a habit that could rob boys of their vital life force. At the same time, doctors began to warn of something theologians either hadn't considered or dared to mention: the dangers of female self-pleasure. Beginning in 1858, Dr. Isaac Baker-Brown—the president of the Medical Society of London—began to encourage surgical clitoridectomies to prevent hysteria, epilepsy, mania and even death that would surely follow as a consequence of the stimulation of the clitoris.
Other Victorian-era doctors took a seemingly more enlightened attitude...
"Tell me how you really feel about masturbation, and I can more or less predict how you'll feel about the more frequently debated 'sex war' issues."
HUGO SCHWYZERMAY 22 2013, 9:28 AM ET
When we think of the culture wars, we tend to think of sex. And when we think of the most contentious political fronts in the sex wars, we usually think of gay marriage, abortion rights, and pornography. As divisive as those issues remain, a universal human activity may lie at the heart of these contemporary struggles: masturbation. The questions that self-pleasure raises are foundational: to whom do our bodies belong? What is sex for? Tell me how you really feel about masturbation, and I can more or less predict how you'll feel about the more frequently debated "sex war" issues.
Masturbation is almost certainly the most common human sexual practice. Though statistics about private sexual behavior vary widely, there's little dispute that the vast majority of both men and women will masturbate over the course of their lifetimes. Perhaps nothing so universal is discussed with greater embarrassment (or denied with greater frequency). That enduring shame and silence is one reason behind National Masturbation Month, which comes (sorry) to an end next week. First organized by the pioneering sex shop Good Vibrations in 1995 to protest the firing of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders (who had dared suggest that teaching young people to masturbate could have a place in sex education), the month's events include innumerable education events across the country—and a Masturbate-a-Thon in San Francisco that raises money for charity. The month serves, as Good Vibrations announced in its annual press release, as "a necessary reminder that self-satisfaction is a healthy, accessible form of pleasure engaged in by almost everyone."
The view of masturbation as benign and beneficial is a new one. The Judeo-Christian tradition has long been hostile towards self-pleasure, at least for men. The Talmud compares spilling seed to spilling blood; the Zohar (the central work of Kabbalah) calls it the most evil act a man can commit. The traditional Christian view was no more tolerant; Catholic and Protestant authorities framed masturbation as a deeply sinful (though forgivable) waste of precious semen. Women were left out of these prohibitions for the obvious reason that most male religious authorities didn't consider the possibility that women were capable of or interested in giving themselves orgasms.
The campaign against masturbation became medicalized in the middle of the 19th century. Health reformers like Sylvester Graham (of the cracker) and John Harvey Kellogg (of the cereal) warned against the feminizing and enervating effects of male masturbation, describing it not as a sin but as a habit that could rob boys of their vital life force. At the same time, doctors began to warn of something theologians either hadn't considered or dared to mention: the dangers of female self-pleasure. Beginning in 1858, Dr. Isaac Baker-Brown—the president of the Medical Society of London—began to encourage surgical clitoridectomies to prevent hysteria, epilepsy, mania and even death that would surely follow as a consequence of the stimulation of the clitoris.
Other Victorian-era doctors took a seemingly more enlightened attitude...
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/05/masturbation-is-at-the-root-of-the-culture-wars/276110/
13 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
In 1994, she was invited to speak at a United Nations conference on AIDS. She was asked whether it would be appropriate to promote masturbation as a means of preventing young people from engaging in riskier forms of sexual activity, and she replied, "I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught." This remark caused great controversy and resulted in Elders losing the support of the White House. White House chief of staff Leon Panetta remarked, "There have been too many areas where the President does not agree with her views. This is just one too many." [1] Elders was fired by President Clinton as a result of the controversy in December 1994.[1][7][8] Elders had previously made a number of other statements that put her in the public spotlight, like her quote in January 1994 "We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children."[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joycelyn_Elders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joycelyn_Elders
