6 ms·
The Solitary Vice: Victorian Views on Masturbation
- cko 10y agoWhen reading those excerpts from old texts, I am thankful for the scientific method.
- chezhead 10y agoHave any sources of papers that prove masturbation does not have any of the effects listed in the excerpts?
- svantana 10y agoThat's not how (modern) science works. The null hypothesis is that there is no causal relationship between masturbation and (ailment of choice). Until such a link has been proven, there is no reason to believe it exists.
- throwanem 10y agoNo. Do you have any sources of papers that prove the moon is not made of green cheese?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- smallnamespace 10y agoSo where are the long-term longitudinal studies on masturbation?
- kikishortler 10y agoMany of the religious ideas about masturbation were wrong, e.g. that it caused blindness. These ideas were created by priests who felt guilty about masturbating. Many of the modern ideas about masturbation are also wrong, e.g. that it is 'healthy'. These are merely scientistic attempts to reverse the former shaming and guilt. For me the question remains: is masturbation any better or worse than taking drugs?
- oh_sigh 10y agoIs food any better or worse than taking drugs?
- kasparsklavins 10y agoIt could be argued that food is a form of drugs. It does affect our brains in a psychological manner.
- oh_sigh 10y agoOK...so could we rephrase your original comment as "Is masturbation any better or worse than eating food?"
- Waterluvian 10y agoI will always bet on what comes natural to most to be healthy. It's absurd to think we evolved "wrongly" and need to fight natural tendencies.
- burkaman 10y agoIs your only life goal to survive long enough to reproduce? If you want more than that out of life, it's at least plausible that you might need to second guess some of your natural instincts.
- zkhalique 10y agoPerhaps those who wanted more than that out of life had less genetic fitness than those who wanted exactly that out of life, so most people want that out of life. On the other hand, I'm not sure how to explain the presence of homosexuality in a population when the theory of evolution predicts that any such trait (which leads to much lower genetic fitness) would have disappeared a long time ago. How does it stay at this level from generation to generation?
- 10y ago
- alfon 10y agowww.yourbrainonporn.com
- rhaps0dy 10y agoI don't know why this is down-voted, the page seems pretty solid, even including an interesting academic article: "Men Ejaculate Larger Volumes of Semen, More Motile Sperm, and More Quickly when Exposed to Images of Novel Women (2015)"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40806-015-0022-8 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40806-015-0022-... Also be aware that it does not condemn masturbation (which IIRC is healthy), but rather masturbation _for hours_ kept alive by watching endless variety of internet porn, which seems to cause erectile dysfunction. The process bears a conceptual resemblance to exposure to more novel and avant-garde art. Such thing changes one's tastes to value even more novelty at the expense of traditional aesthetic, causing the "modern art" that people exposed to less novelty dislike or mock.
- 13of40 10y agoFunny, I was just listening to a serious piece on NPR this morning about how internet porn is causing an epidemic of erectile dysfunction in teen boys. Considering our history of blaming various diseases on masturbation, it really makes me wonder whether it's just another reefer-madness-esque round of the same thing. Edit - Example from the mid-19th century: https://books.google.com/books?id=AiEDAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22self-pollution%22%20blindness&pg=PA103#v=onepage&q=%22self-pollution%22%20blindness&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=AiEDAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22self-po...
- knocte 10y agoPorn != Masturbation
- 13of40 10y agoI beg to differ. (Since we're all talking frankly in this thread about masturbation.) Masturbation is what makes porn porn. Without the threat of masturbation, porn would just be boring medical images. (I say this without wandering into the subject of whether the porn industry has side effects like human trafficking or objectification of women, etc. Those are bad, but it's a different question. The question at hand is whether it medically harms the "self-abuser".)
- jgrahamc 10y agoMasturbation may be a necessary condition for porn, but not the other way round. People have been masturbating without external stimuli for a long, long time: the imagination is a very powerful thing.
- michaelbuddy 10y agoYeah not as powerful as hard core porn of every category and fetish available instantly on your smart phone under the covers. Porn is definitely causing multiple problems in young people.
- 10y ago
- zkhalique 10y agoWhy are so many comments and replies on this post downvoted?
- pstuart 10y agoIt's clearly a touchy subject (pun intended but the comment stands on its own).
- nstj 10y agoIt seems like a lot of people have been rubbed the wrong way with this post
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- S4M 10y agoI suspect the word "masturbation" triggers a spam filter that kills the comment containing it. If I'm right this comment will be dead :)
- pcl 10y agoVouching to shed light on what seems to be the cause of a lot of dead comments. (SM4's comment was marked as dead when I viewed it.)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- return0 10y agoVictorian HN filters.
- wunderg 10y agoIf God didn't want to masturbate, he would give us the shorter arms.
- taxicabjesus 10y agoIn my own relationship world, I've had dry spells, and I've had periods of abundance. I've had enjoyable relationships, and .... "less than fully satisfying" relationships. "Exercising" with others -- even those with whom I was not fully invested in -- is much more satisfying than going solo. These old prohibitionists certainly didn't understand that not everyone finds it easy to find someone else to exercise with. Plenty of horny people got in my cab... Horny men were easy to spot - sometimes they were going to meet up with someone else, sometimes to/from a strip club, sometimes to the porn shop, sometimes to the sex club... Sometimes women had a glow about them - because of where they were going, because of where they were coming from... There were three women who found me to be intriguing. I wasn't expecting that, I never heard from them again. Most of these masturbation prohibitions were on men, but I know that women get frustrated too. Most of them internalize it, or find a new boy-friend. I had to provide counseling for one of these women, one night. That diary was titled The Difference Between Boys and Girls: http://www.taxiwars.org/2016/02/the-difference-between-boys-girls.html http://www.taxiwars.org/2016/02/the-difference-between-boys-...
- sporkologist 10y agoHey I'm just trying to keep my prostate healthy.
- jkot 10y agoCircumcision was done to prevent masturb*tion. Not much has changed.
- tonfa 10y agoiirc the Victorian view on masturbation is the reason of the popularity of circumcision in the US (and Anglo-Saxon world but mostly US didn't reverse course).
- contextfree 10y agoI'm curious whether this was specifically a late 18th through 19th century thing, or if there have been other times/places where similar beliefs were prevalent.
- sevenless 10y agoWhen scolded for masturbating in public, Diogenes of Sinope said "I wish it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly."
- pipio21 10y agoWell it must be said that Onan the son of Judah did not masturbate itself. He did coitus interruptus to Er, widow of his brother. The fact of "spilling the seed" was later interpreted as the sin by some christian churches, but there are other interpretations.