The enlightenment as genesis of 18th-century masturbation degeneracy hysteria.

Solitary Sex." A Cultural History of Masturbation. By Thomas W. Laqueur. New York: Zone Books, 2003, 496 pages. Cloth, $34.00.

Why did social hysteria about masturbation appear so dramatically in Europe at the beginning of the 18th-century? Thomas W. Laqueur examines the history of masturbation in search of the answer to this question in Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation. Scholars researching the history of masturbation in the West usually point to the early 18th-century anonymous publication of Onania: or the Heinous Sin of Self Pollution, and all its Frightful Consequences, in Both Sexes Considered, as the first significant published source of misinformation that launched 2 centuries of medical and moral terror over masturbation. Laqueur agrees with this analysis, but views Onania simply as a seed that could only germinate and bear its destructive fruit if nurtured in the soil of a cultural climate vulnerable to its propositions. Laqueur argues that it was not just Onania's pronouncements and popularity that stigmatized masturbation and launched a new era of sexual fear, but it was also the philosophical environment of the Enlightenment that allowed social attitudes to evolve in a way that put masturbation in an entirely new light.

According to Laqueur, masturbation was no longer seen as simply an issue of sin, as it had been previously, but it also became a new form of secular social threat that Western societies desperately needed to control. "Beginning in the eighteenth century, solitary sex came to represent the relationship between the individual and the social world" (p. 22), says Laqueur, where the individual might "choose the wrong kind of solitude, the wrong kind of pleasure, the wrong kind of imagination, the wrong kind of engagement with their inner selves. A false step led not so much to sin as to disease and decay; it was a secular waywardness" (p. 22).

To support his argument, Laqueur takes readers on a nearly 500-page, copiously footnoted, comprehensive journey through the cultural history of masturbation. This exhaustive approach is used to lay the groundwork on which he constructs and supports his unique thesis.

In opening his first chapter, Laqueur states, "Modern masturbation can be dated with a precision rare in cultural history" (p. 13). This landmark date, circa 1712 on Laqueur's timeline of masturbation history, is identified as the date Onania first appeared. Its anonymous author invented and named a new disease--onanism--that became a "nearly universal engine for generating guilt, shame and anxiety" (p. 13) over masturbation. It is Onanina's publication that differentiates prior masturbation attitudes from "modern" ones. Laqueur views his "modern masturbation" as a creature of the Enlightenment. In chapter 1, he introduces his essential theoretical framework and entices the reader to accept a new social interpretation of masturbation history.

Chapter 2 is an historical map of the cultural relevance of masturbation from the publication of Onania in the 18th-century to the present. The author states that he "reveals for the first time" (p. 20) the name of Onanina's anonymous author: John Marten. Chapter 3 reviews masturbation's cross-cultural history prior to Onania (what Laqueur calls masturbation's prehistory) from both a medical and ethical view. He explains why he believes that masturbation meant so little before the Enlightenment: "Missing is the ethical problem of sexual modernity--the relationship of desire not to external temptations but to inner circumstances ..." (p. 90). Chapter 4 proposes to answer the question of exactly why masturbation became a new kind of threat at the dawn of the Enlightenment: "... it was secret in a world in which transparency was a premium; it was prone to excess as no other kind of venery was, the crack cocaine of sexuality; and it had no bounds in reality because it was a creature of the imagination" (p. 21).

In chapter 5, Laqueur explains that core elements of his "modern masturbation"--imagination, excess, solitude, and privacy--became worrisome because they represented what he describes as the first great psychic "battleground between civilization and libido" (p. 276). He argues that, paradoxically, "all the elements of what was so terribly wrong with masturbation were themselves widely valued, praised and discussed. But this made their abuse all the more threatening ..." (p. 278).

The final chapter, titled "Solitary Sex in the Twentieth Century," examines the most recent social evolution of attitudes toward masturbation. Laqueur describes the transformation of social attitudes by sexology and psychology and their ultimate influence on recent social politics, including details on feminism, the arts, and the gay movement. Finally, he acknowledges the Internet as a vast new social paradigm of privacy that allows masturbation a new social freedom and liberates it from the control of social censorship or authoritarian voices.

Solitary Sex showcases Laqueur's theory in an intriguing and engaging style. Its 500 pages include 75 of detailed footnotes. He uses a precise scholarly pedagogical verbiage that is more suited to an academic audience interested in a deep engagement with theoretical social historical analysis than the casual reader. On the whole, his masturbation history is detailed and highly comprehensive. However, the cross-cultural account suffers by overlooking the Pacific and other native cultures that accepted masturbation and remained mostly free of the shame that characterized Western masturbation attitudes.

Fully researching masturbation history is a daunting task and as such is naturally limited by the author's historical interpretations. For example, Laqueur's analysis of Onania's origins offers convincing arguments for John Marten as the anonymous author and posits that he "invents the brilliant, almost entirely original, and wildly successful association of 'willful self-abuse' with the Genesis story of Onan ... Onanisim is born" (p. 15). In contrast, Michael Stolberg's historical interpretation proffers a different viewpoint:

   The publication was far from innovative. It was, as a matter of
   fact, hardly more than a compilation of extant writing on the
   topic. The treatise's condemnation on moral and religious grounds
   drew upon a long tradition of moralistic writing...the medical
   ideas in the tract were even less original ... Onania's historical
   importance lay not in its creation of the concept of post
   masturbatory disease, but in its highly successful popularization
   of the concept. (Stolberg, 2000, p. 38)

Kinsey is widely regarded as the principal architect of the sexual revolution, yet surprisingly, Laqueur overlooks the significance of Kinsey's data as a vital contribution toward the evolution of masturbation attitudes. Instead Laqueur writes, "Kinsey's data do not in themselves make a case one way or another for autoeroticism" (p. 74). In Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Kinsey states his case for the impact of masturbation statistics on social attitudes. He starts by describing the masturbation belief of the time:

   The boy is advised that a limited amount of masturbation may do
   him no harm, but that in excess it is something that needs the
   attention of a physician. Since the point of excess is never
   defined, the conscientious boy is left uncertain whether his own
   rate is going to harm him; and psychiatrists will quickly recognize
   that such subtle and indirect condemnation can do as much damage to
   the boy's personality as the more extreme teaching of the older
   day. (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948, p. 515)

For the first time in masturbation's history, Kinsey's statistics definitively answered the frightful question of the possibility of any harmful effects due to masturbation frequency and undoubtedly set the stage for the revolution of new attitudes toward masturbation:

   ... we have examined the histories of 5300 males ... It would be
   difficult to show that masturbatory activities have done measurable
   damage.... On the other hand, the record does include thousands
   of boys living in continual conflict...occasionally attempting
   suicide--as a result of the teachings concerning masturbation
   (Kinsey et al., 1948, p. 514).

Before Kinsey, boys and their advisors did not positively know, with statistical assurance, the normative nonpathological frequency of masturbation. This point on the social significance of Kinsey's work cannot be underemphasized or overlooked in any modern history of masturbation, nor can Kinsey's statement about youth suicide. The covert phenomenon of masturbation-shame suicide is underreported and difficult to research due to its double social stigma. It is an essential part of masturbation shame easily overlooked by historians.

The most comprehensive historical documentation on the topic was Auto-Eroticism: A Psychiatric Study of Masturbation and Neurosis, written in German in 1917 by Wilhelm Stekel and translated into English in 1950. Stekel stated he personally managed more than 100 suicidal cases of masturbation-shame in his own practice and documented many of the clinical details in Auto-Eroticism (Stekel, 1917/1950). In 1910, at a symposium held by the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on the causes of youth suicide, Stekel stated: "I think I have shown that the horrors attributed to the act of masturbation--itself harmless in my opinion--contribute to the increase of child suicide" (Stekel, 1967, p. 107). Laqueur acknowledges Steckel's position that masturbation was harmless, but he fails to report Stekel's shocking statistics of youth masturbation-shame suicide that is a critical psychosexual feature of masturbation history.

Regardless of Laqueur's historical omissions and unique personal theoretical view, he has generally written an interesting volume. He has succeeded in developing an original and intriguing new sociohistorical model of how Enlightenment philosophies may have influenced 18th-century masturbation attitudes. The question of whether or not the Enlightenment was as influential on masturbation as Laqueur argues that it was will likely become a subject of further scholarly debate. More importantly, Solitary Sex contributes significantly to the growing body of scholarly masturbation literature. It recognizes masturbation as a requisite topic for serious historical and scientific research and innovatively examines the evolution of our social attitudes, from historical shame to the acceptance of masturbation as an essential part of human health and well-being.

REFERENCES

Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B., & Martin, C. E. (1948). Sexual behavior in the human male. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co.

Stekel, W. (1950). Auto-eroticism: A psychiatric study of masturbation and neurosis (J. S. Van Tesslar, Trans.). London: Henderson & Spaulding Ltd. (Original work published 1917)

Stekel, W. (1967). Dr. Stekel. In P. Friedman (Ed.), Discussions of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on suicide with particular reference to young students. (pp. 81-121). New York: International Universities Press.

Stolberg, M. (2000). Self-pollution, moral reform, and the venereal trade: Notes on the sources and historical context of Onania (1716). Journal of the History of Sexuality, 9, 37-61.

Mark Kim Malan, Ph.D., M.P.H., 208 Ogden Canyon, Ogden, UT 84401; e-mail: [e-mail].