Masturbation and insanity: Henry Maudsley and the ideology of sexual repression.

摘要: Throughout the nineteenth century, auto-eroticism was viewed as a great evil, threat to individual and society. At one time or another, nearly every disease which nineteenth-century doctors could not cure blamed on self-abuse. Summing up relationship between masturbation illness, French doctor Eugene Beckland wrote in 1842, “Many physicians of high authority have maintained that two-thirds diseases human race is liable had their origins certain solitary practices ….” As impact society, Dr. Reveille Parise observed 1828, In my opinion, neither plague, nor war, small pox, similar diseases, produced results so disastrous humanity pernicous habit onanism. It destroying element civilized societies, constantly action gradually undermines health nation.Since 1953, when Rene Spitz published his important article subject, number scholars tried explain intense concern with century. argued heightened interest self-abuse reflected shift Protestant culture its emphasis responsibility for sin. More recently, John Robin Haller used arguments it. Other writers such E. H. Hare Edward Shorter reason why fear increased people began indulging vice greater extent than ever before. Men women were masturbating more—and if they read medical journals subject—enjoying it less. speculated this because venereal caused by intercourse, Masturbation safer. Shorter, who saw part general increase sexual appetite, asserted “unlikely … practiced wide scale before premarital revolution.” likely historians will uncover reliable data incidence prove disprove hypothesis.