Masturbation Mythology: Breakfast or Sex

hi, Dr. Pinhas
this is harry, from human sexuality class
we were having the conversation about masturbation among my friends, and one of my friends said, as you  masturbate more, you  are more likely to have unhealthy children. i responded to him that according my human sexuality class discussion, masturbation doesn’t have any side effects, and its also good for your health. i would like you to respond to this question, Please?

Response from Dr. Pinhas

Phew!  Harry your friends are living in a by-gone era  under the influence of the anti-masturbatory historical legacy.  They sound like they have been influenced by the likes of Dr. John Harvey Kellog and Reverend Graham who developed the corn flake and the graham cracker, respectively, as anti-masturbation foods to prevent children from practicing the “secret sin, self-pollution, and sexual abuse” ( all synonoms for masturbation during the 1800’s).  During these times, masturbation was thought to cause ” premature and defective development, an unnatural gait, a failure in mental capacity, shyness, isolation,  idiocy, insanity, blindness, a fondness for irritating substances, loss of energy and spirit”….. the list of  illusionary illnesses goes on ad nauseam.  But I would like to mention that “self-pollution” was thought to be especially hideous in women (since they were never to be considered sexual, viable independent beings, anyway,  but rather were considered chattel).  In women, it was believed that masturbation would cause under or over developed breasts, sterility, painful menses, difficult childbirth or sterility.  To boot, ” female masturbators would become raving nymphomaniacs and die in a fit of sexual over excitment.”

Hilarious isn’t it?  This sounds like a Saturday Night Live script…But I am sad to say that this was the science of the late 19th century into the early 20th century.  The Boy Scout manual of the 1950’s still referred to masturbation as “self-pollution”.  In all the anti-masturbation bashing of early era’s, I have never heard that autoerotic behavior causes birth defects.  This is a new one to me.  There is no truth in any of this –sheer mythology  brought to us by the fusion of dogmatic religiosity, mascarading as pseudoscience,  handed down through the decades as an attempt to control sexual impulses in both men and women.  Why must we pervert religion into a form of social/sexual control when it has the power to provide boundaries, respect, comfort and healing?  Why can’t religion be used to help children develop a healthy, boundary-mindful guilt/shame free sexuality?  I guess I am asking too much of the world’s dominant religious institutions.  But alas, I am once again going too far a field… Let me get back to your question.  THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT MASTURBATION CAUSES ANY HEALTH HAZARDS OR CREATES BIRTH DEFECTS!!  As a matter of fact, women who have spasmodic dysmenorrhea (painful menstrual cramps) may benefit by masturbating to orgasm, which temporarily provides relief from uterine spasms.  Furthermore, men who clean out their prostate glands (by whatever sexual means, masturbation being the easiest, non-negotiable rapid way, may have less  tendency torwards prostatitis because seminal secretions are “fresher” and have less bacteria build up.

It is so sad that this negative historical legacy about self-pleasuring behavior has the power to warp and threaten individuals into a rigid  moral compliance.  Tell your friend that an orgasm is an orgasm.  How can the body possibly know which ones are the  “self-polluting ”  ( my sarcasm) self-induced  ones from the socially sanctioned two-person ones? LOL