_On the Abuses of Sex_--I. _Masturbation_
Of the various forms of abuse which spring from ignorance or corruption
in the exercise of the most important of our human faculties, two only
will be dwelt on--viz., masturbation and fornication. These are the
two radical vices from which all forms of unnatural vice spring. The
first is the especial temptation of the child, the last the temptation
or corruption of the adult. It will be seen how the one prepares for
the other, and how both, unchecked and unguided into rightful channels
by judicious sexual education, lead inevitably to those horrors of
unnatural vice which belong to disease, not nature. Abnormal vice
abounds on the Continent, where the virtue of Christianity has fallen
into contempt. But although it is increasing amongst ourselves as we
blindly follow in the path of foreign error, yet, happily for parental
guidance of childhood and youth, the darkest phases of human corruption
need not be exhibited here.
Of Self-abuse (called also Masturbation, Onanism, etc.) it is
necessary to speak fully. This vice may infect the nursery as well as
the school, and in innumerable cases it induces precocity of physical
sensation, and prepares the way for every variety of sexual evil.
That much contradiction of thought exists on this subject even in the
medical profession, the following facts will show. One of the most
distinguished members of the profession, a man noted for sound judgment
and large experience, made the following noteworthy statement to me in
speaking of ‘The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex.’ He
said: ‘You are all wrong in what you say about masturbation. Medically
speaking, it is of no consequence whatever. Mind, I say _medically_,
not morally speaking. I know a man, the father of a family, who was
taught by his nurse to masturbate at three years old, and it has done
him no harm whatever.’
On the other hand, distinguished physicians, as Tissot and others, have
drawn frightful pictures of the mental and physical ruin which always
result from habits of self-abuse, and they refer to the records of
insane asylums to confirm these statements.
There is error and confusion of thought in both these extreme views.
Self-abuse or Solitary Vice is the voluntary purposed excitement of the
genital organs, produced by pressure or friction of those parts, or by
the indulgence of licentious thoughts.
The term ‘masturbation’ does not apply to that involuntary and
beneficent action of the organs in the adult of both sexes, with which
nature from time to time relieves necessary secretion.
This radical distinction between the independent and benign action of
nature, and the dangerous practice of voluntarily stimulated physical
sensation, has not been pointed out by physiological investigators with
necessary clearness, nor has the extreme importance of this distinction
in the guidance of practical life been dwelt on as a distinction vital
to the growth of a Christian nation.
The dangerous habit of voluntarily produced excitement, to which alone
the term ‘masturbation’ is due, may be formed by both the male and the
female, and it is found even in the child as well as the adult.
In the child, however (it being immature in body), it is the
dependencies of the brain, the nervous system, which come more
exclusively into play in this evil habit. The production of ova or
semen, which mark the adult age, has not taken place; in the child
there are none of those periodic or occasional congestions of the
organs which mark the growth or effects of reproductive substance in
the adult. In the little ignorant child this habit springs from a
nervous sensation yielded to because, as it says, ‘it feels nice.’ The
portion of the brain which takes cognizance of these sensations has
been excited, and the child, in innocent absence of impure thought,
yields to the mental suggestion supplied from the physical organs.
This mental suggestion may be produced by the irritation of worms, by
some local eruption, by the wickedness of the nurse, occasionally by
malformation or unnatural development of the parts themselves. There is
grave reason also for believing that transmitted tendency to sensuality
may blight the innocent offspring.
A serious warning against the unnatural practice of circumcision must
here be given. A book of ‘Advice to Mothers,’ by a Philadelphia doctor,
was lately sent me. This treatise began by informing the mother that
her first duty to her infant boy was to cause it to be circumcised! Her
fears were worked upon by an elaborate but false statement of the evils
which would result to the child were this mutilation not performed. I
should have considered this mischievous instruction unworthy of serious
consideration did I not observe that it has lately become common among
certain short-sighted but reputable physicians to laud this unnatural
practice, and endeavour to introduce it into a Christian nation.
Circumcision is based upon the erroneous principle that boys--_i.e._,
one-half the human race--are so badly fashioned by Creative Power that
they must be reformed by the surgeon; consequently, that every male
child must be mutilated by removing the natural covering with which
Nature has protected one of the most sensitive portions of the human
body.
The erroneous nature of such a practice is shown by the fact that,
although this custom (which originated amongst licentious nations in
hot climates) has been carried on for many hundred generations, yet
Nature continues to protect her children by reproducing the valuable
protection in man and all the higher animals, regardless of impotent
surgical interference.
Appeals to the fears of uninstructed parents on the grounds of
cleanliness or of hardening the part are entirely fallacious and
unsupported by evidence.
It is a physiological fact that the natural lubricating secretion of
every healthy part is beneficial, not injurious, to the part thus
protected, and that no attempt to render a sensitive part insensitive
is either practicable or justifiable. The protection which Nature
affords to these parts is an aid to physical purity, by affording
necessary protection against constant external contact of a part which
necessarily remains keenly sensitive; and bad habits in boys and girls
cannot be prevented by surgical operations. Where no malformation
exists, bad habits can only be forestalled by healthy moral and
physical education.
The plea that this unnatural practice will lessen the risk of infection
to the sensualist in promiscuous intercourse is not one that our
honourable profession will support.
Parents, therefore, should be warned that this ugly mutilation of their
children involves serious danger, both to their physical and moral
health.
* * * * *
It is a fact which deserves serious consideration that many ignorant
women purposely resort to vicious sexual manipulation to soothe their
fractious infants. The superintendent of a large prison for women
informed me that this was a common practice, and one most difficult,
even impossible entirely to break up.
Medical observation proves that such injury to infancy is not confined
to the lower or to the criminal classes. The habits formed by unrefined
or exposed women are brought by servants into our homes. The ignorance
or viciousness of nurses, often veiled by a respectable demeanour, has
injured and even destroyed the children of many a well-to-do nursery.
That this habit of self-abuse existing in early childhood is a danger
capable of undermining the health from its tendency to increase is a
very serious fact. A little girl of six years old was lately brought
to me whose physical and mental strength were both failing from
the nervous exhaustion of a habit so inveterate that she fell into
convulsions if physically restrained from its exercise. In this case
an evil hereditary tendency from both parents was discovered, and
malformation existed in the child. Indeed, cases of injury to childhood
from self-abuse are so common in the physician’s experience that
warning to parents should be given on this subject. The cause should be
carefully sought for wherever this vicious practice is discovered, and
the trusted family physician consulted if necessary.
Now, it is quite true that this habit, when observed in children, may
often, and I believe generally, be broken up. It is the mother who must
do this by sympathy and wise oversight. When a child is known in any
way to be producing pressure or excitement in these parts, the watchful
observation of the mother must be at once aroused. If no physical
cause of irritation, such as worms or some malformation, appears to
be present, the dangerous habit may be broken up entirely; but no
punishment must ever be resorted to. The little innocent child, to whom
the sentiment of sex is an unknown thing, will confide in its mother
if encouraged to do so. If kindly but seriously told that it may make
little children ill to do this thing, and the reply being given (as
in cases I have known) that ‘the little feeling comes of itself,’ the
child should be encouraged to come to its mother, and she ‘will help
him drive the feeling away.’
This providential guardianship of the portals of life is a special
endowment of maternity, and it is the potential motherhood of all
experienced women which fits them to understand and to guide the growth
and development of the sexual powers of our human nature. The tact of a
mother will never suggest evil to her child, but her quick perception
of danger will enable her to detect its signs, and avert it.
The frequent practice of self-abuse occurring in little children
from the age of two years old, clearly illustrates the fallacy of
endeavouring to separate mind and body in educational arrangements or
systems of medical treatment. In the very young child those essential
elements of reproduction, semen and ova, which give such mighty
stimulus to passion in the adult, are entirely latent. Yet we observe
a distinct mental impression possible, leading to unnatural excitement
of the genital organs. This mental impression, growing with the growth
of the child, produces an undue sensitiveness to all surrounding
circumstances which tend to excite this cerebral action. Touch, sight,
and hearing become avenues to the brain, prematurely opened to this
kind of stimulus. The acts of the lower animals, pictures, indecent
talk, which glide over the surface of the mind in a naturally healthy
child, excite self-conscious attention when habits of self-abuse have
grown up unchecked. The mind is thus rendered impure, and the growing
lad or girl develops into a precocious sexual consciousness.
At school a new danger arises to children from corrupt communication
of companions, or in the boy from an intense desire to become a man,
with a false idea of what manliness means. The brain, precociously
stimulated in one direction, receives fresh impulse from evil
companionship and evil literature, and even hitherto innocent children
of ten and twelve are often drawn into the temptation.
From the age when the organs of reproduction are beginning slowly to
unfold themselves for their future work, the temptation to yield to
physical sensation or mental impression increases.
The inseparable relation of our moral and physical structure is seen
in full force at the age of twelve or fourteen. Confirmed habits of
mental impurity may at any age destroy the body from the physical
results of such habits. My attention was painfully drawn to the
dangers of self-abuse more than forty years ago by an agonized letter
received from an intelligent and pious lady, dying from the effects of
this inveterate habit. She had been a teacher in a Sunday-school, and
the delight of a refined and intelligent circle of friends. But this
habit, begun in childhood in ignorance of any moral or physical wrong
which might result to her nature, had become so rooted that her brain
was giving way under the effects of nervous derangement thus produced,
whilst her will had lost the power of self-control.
It will thus be seen that there are two grave dangers attending the
practice of masturbation.
The first evil is the effect upon the mind through the brain and
nervous system from evil communications or evil literature. The mind
is thus prematurely awakened to take in and dwell upon a series of
impressions which awaken precocious sexual instinct. This precocity
gives an undue and even dominating power to this instinct over the
other human faculties. Coming into play before reason is strengthened
or the sense of responsibility awakened, there is no counterpoise or
principle of guidance to the rapidly developing powers of procreation.
Thus the precocious stimulus of childhood, even if it has not
undermined the individual health, becomes a direct preparation for the
selfishness of lust in the adult.
The other grave danger incurred by the practice of masturbation is the
risk of its becoming an over-mastering habit, from the ease with which
it can be indulged; also from the insidious and increasing power of the
temptation when yielded to, and from its association with the times
when the individual is alone, and particularly the quiet hours of the
night.
In the adult who yields to solitary vice, Nature’s marked distinction
between the beneficent effect of spontaneous healthy relief and the
injurious action of self-induced irritation is destroyed. Individual
self-control, the highest distinctive mark of the human being, is
abandoned. In this way the evil habit may become a real obsession,
leading to destruction of mental and physical health, to insanity, or
to suicide.
It will thus be seen that this first abuse of the sexual faculty given
to us by our Creator--viz., the practice of masturbation--is a special
danger to the very young as well as a temptation of the adult, and that
it is an injury to mind as well as body, through the inseparable union
of the moral and physical elements of our human constitution.