Masturbation

Masturbation is extremely common between young people. About 60% of all men masturbate, and about 40% of all females masturbate (Organization of Sexuality, 1994). When excluding everyone that is not at a sexually active age (we’ll just say senior citizens) this is a definite majority! Why in the world is masturbation so taboo in a world of people dominated by the pastime?

Many people have gone at extreme length to prevent masturbation, including the use of straightjackets, spiked penile rings to prevent erections, bondage belts, cauterizing irons, the surgical removal of the clitoris, and circumcision (“History of the Masturbation Taboo”). Germans even tied their children to their beds to prevent masturbation and bad posture while sleeping (Griffin, Our Secret). What causes people to put forth so much effort to avoid something so normal?

Before germs were discovered in 1890 (Gollaher, “A short history of the world’s most controversial surgery”), masturbation was blamed for much disease and illness. Although it seems silly now, it is a reasonable conclusion to come to back then. Some of the negative affects that “self-pollution” was believed to produce include stunting of growth, growing hair on one’s palms, blindness, impotency, enfeeblement, insanity; honestly, the list is endless.

In reality, males need to empty their prostate at least once a week to avoid developing cancer within the prostate, due to constant accumulation of semen. A study of males confirmed previous smaller studies that men between the age of twenty and forty that ejaculate at least five times a week have less than one third a chance of developing cancer as those who ejaculate less than once per week. The hypothetical reason for this is that semen consists ...

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...goodvibes.com. Web. 30 Nov. 2014

Griffin, Susan. “Our Secret”, Ways of Reading. Boston: Bedford / St. Martins, 1999.

Gollaher, “A short history of the world’s most controversial surgery”, www.circinfo.org. Web. 30 Nov. 2014

Skatssoon, Judy. “Masturbation ‘may prevent cancer’”, http://news.com.au. Web. 30 Nov. 2014

Pope Paul VI, "Persona Humana - Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics," issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on 1975-DEC-29.

See: http://www.odyssee.net/~prince/cdfsex.html.

Rich, Adrienne. “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision”, Ways of Reading, Boston: Bedford / St. Martins, 1999.

Other Online resources:

- www.religioustolerance.org Web. 30 Nov. 2014

- www.jewishfaq.org Web. 30 Nov. 2014

- www.afraidtoask.com Web. 30 Nov. 2014

- www.male101.com Web. 30 Nov. 2014