Masturbation

Abstract

Abstract The paper emphasizes that ideas about masturbation are crucial to understanding any societal attitudes toward sex. It examines attitudes to masturbation in ancient Egypt, Tigris Euphrates Valley, India, and China. It looks at Biblical views and their misinterpretations and at the Greek and Roman descriptions of masturbatory practices. Key to the development of western attitudes was the Augustinian version of sex which was influenced by Augustine's personal background in Manichaeanism, a religion which was based on ancient Persian beliefs. The Augustinian view of all non-procreative sex as a sin was carried over into medicine in the eighteenth century which changed sins into pathologies. The only advantage this had over the sin model (which still remained for large segments of the population) was that it allowed research to challenge past assumptions and as medical ideas changed so did those about sex. It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century with new scientific discoveries about sexually transmitted diseases that masturbation could be studied more objectively. Attitudes were slow to change but as they did so attitudes towards human sexuality also changed. The two changes, it is held, are closely tied together and this is why an understanding of attitudes toward masturbation is a key to understanding changing development in attitudes toward human sexuality.