<< Masturbation >>

The term masturbation may be applied to any sort of self stimulation which brings erotic arousal. Since, as we have already seen, all tactile responses and still others of the sensory responses are basic to sexual activity, there is considerable justice in extending the concept of masturbation to all situations in which there is tactile stimulation. Freud (1938) and many of the analysts and other clinicians (Meagher 1924, Meagher and Jelliffe 1936, Mowrer and Kluckhohn in Hunt 1944, Lorand 1944, Carmichael 1946, Landis and Bolles 1946) use the word in this way, especially in connection with the behavior of younger children. When so defined, the phenomenon of masturbation is recognizable as universal among both males and females, from the youngest child to the oldest adult; but this is not the concept of masturbation held by the public in general, nor by most clinicians who inquire about it or report it in the histories of their patients. As more usually employed, the word “masturbation” refers to any self stimulation which is deliberate and designed to effect erotic arousal. By such a definition, the accidental touching of oneself is not masturbation because it is not deliberate. As so defined, not only tactile stimulation, but all other sorts of sensory and psychic stimulation, if deliberate and designed to bring satisfaction, fall under this head. Rubbing or scratching one’s body, even one’s genitalia, is not masturbation when it serves some other function than that of effecting erotic arousal. Throughout this volume the word has not been applied to anything except deliberate self stimulation.

Masturbation may be defined as deliberate self-stimulation which effects sexual arousal.
Other current writers generally agree with our definition. Autoerotism ( used by Havelock Ellis ) and onanism are frequently intended to be broader terms. See for example: Steiner 1912:129. Stekel 1920:18; 1950:31.

In the human animal, motivations for the activity lie in the conscious realization that erotic satisfactions and some release from erotic tensions may thus be obtained. Instances of orgasm induced by accidental self-stimulation are not, strictly speaking, masturbation. Masturbation may or may not be pursued to the point of orgasm, and it may or may not have orgasm as its objective. While the original forms of the word, manusturbo or manustuprum, associate the phenomenon with manus, the hand, the techniques, particularly in the female, may also include other means of stimulating the genitalia or some other part of the body, stimulation by way of some of the other sense organs, and psychologic stimulation.
The Latin verb masturbare appears, apparently for the first time, in Martial [1st cent. A.D.] IX,41,7; XI,104,13; XIV,203,2. Authorities disagree as to its exact derivation. Forcellini (Totius Latinitatis Lexicon) says it is from manu and stupro, to defile with the hand. Harper’s Latin Dictionary gives the same. But Pierrugues (1826) 1908, and Rambach 1833 allow two origins: manu and stuprare, or manu and turbare, to disturb with the hand. Licht 1932:314 accepts this dual possibility. Murray, Oxford Dictionary, 1908, gives manu and stuprare, but cites one authority who suggests the Greek roots mazdo (the virile member) and turba (disturbance) as the basis for the word.

Since any form of tactile stimulation may initiate the physiologic responses which are to be observed in sexual behavior, it is sometimes difficult to determine how much of the self-stimulation which occurs in an animal’s life is, in any strict sense, masturbatory. In much of the Freudian literature, and in still other studies, all tactile stimulation of one’s own body is interpreted as masturbation.
Such extensions of the concept of masturbation to include most tactile stimulation may be found, for instance, in: Hirschfeld 1926:259. Meagher 1929:66. Meagher and Jelliffe 1936:66. Freud 1938:585-589. Stekel 1950:22.
 
This has been particularly true in reports on younger children, especially females. There has not been so much confusion in the identification of masturbation in the older boy or adult male where the techniques are usually genital and where erection is taken as evidence that the responses are sexual. But the term masturbation has often been extended to include all activities which bring satisfaction through the rubbing, scratching, pressing, or stroking of the breasts, thighs, legs, or other parts of the body including even the nose and ears, thumb sucking, the biting of one’s fingernails, the chewing of gum, bed wetting, fast automobile driving, high diving, and still other activities.

In consequence, published incidences of masturbation, especially in the female, have often been unduly augmented by the inclusion of activities which we do not now consider sexual and which, as a matter of fact, few persons would consider masturbatory if they occurred in the adult male.
Other authors who also believe that the term should be restricted include: Moll 1912:172-173. Hamilton 1929:424. Valentine 1942:331-339.

In most instances, the average person has no difficulty in determining whether particular activities are sexual. Technical attempts to identify masturbation have, on the other hand, proved less satisfactory because they have been based on the identification of the elements involved in the behavior rather than upon the nature of the syndrome as a whole.

We ourselves were formerly inclined to accept the Freudian interpretations. But as we have learned more about the basic physiology of sexual response, it has become apparent that the individual elements in the response are not the factors that identify it as sexual—that the increased pulse rate, the increased blood pressure, the increase in peripheral circulation, the rise in surface temperatures, the loss of sensory perception, and even the genital erections are not in themselves sexual. Many of the same elements appear when a mammal becomes angry or afraid, but that is no reason for synonymizing sex, anger, and fear. Each of these types of behavior is a group, a cluster, a constellation, a syndrome of elements which appear concomitantly whenever that type of response is involved. Many of the elements are common to all of the syndromes, but in each syndrome there are some elements which are not found in any other. Sexual behavior, as one of these syndromes, is a unique combination of elements which appears only when an animal has coitus or when it becomes involved in activities which, at least to some extent, duplicate some of the aspects of coitus.

When so strictly defined, masturbation cannot be taken to be as universal as some of the psychiatrists and psychologists would have it. The extension of the meaning of the word has, unfortunately, distorted the interpretation of the actual data on the phenomenon; and it is to be suggested that the analysts would do better to describe a good deal of what they observe, especially among younger children, as tactile experience, which is exactly what it is, and not call it masturbation until there is evidence that the child is reaping an erotic reward for his activity, and that the behavior has been inspired by some anticipation of such a reward.

Data on the occurrence of masturbation, its incidences and frequencies in various segments of the male population, have already been detailed in this volume in the following tables and figures:

TABLE FIGURE NATURE OF DATA
38 30 Sources of first ejaculation
49 136 Range of variation and age
51 53-58 Age and masturbation
61 53-58 Marital status and masturbation
68 89 Sources of first ejaculation versus age at onset of adolescence
72, 73 91-92 Age at onset of adolescence as related to masturbation
82, 108, 115 98, 124 Social level and masturbation
96-97 106-107 Masturbation in patterns of behavior at different educational levels
98 108, 119, 122, 123 Older and younger generations and masturbation
117 125 Rural and urban groups and masturbation
126, 35f, 36f Religious backgrounds and masturbation
126, 128-133 Significance of masturbation as one source of total outlet
4, 17, 22, 132 8, 16, 24, 134 Accumulative incidence of masturbation
  7, 136 Individual variation in masturbation
20f   Source of first experience in masturbation
37f   Techniques in masturbation among females
38f   Fantasy in masturbation among females
39f   Attitudes toward masturbation among females
40f   Sources of information leading to acceptance of masturbation
180f   Summary and comparisons of female and male masturbation
111f   Pre-Marital Female Masturbation vs. Marital Orgasm
  118f-119f Female and male reproductive and genital anatomy
95f   Responses to Tactile Stimulation in Female Genital Structures

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