What was/is the problem with masturbation?
In the past, as the lecture showed, people went to extreme lengths to prevent children from masturbating. The main problem with it in the past was that it was considered to be not only sinful but also damaging to your health, so naturally parents didn't want their children to start. The "problem" of child masturbation still occurs today, a worried mum wrote to a doctor on an online blog about her five year old son touching himself to fall asleep at nursery. The doctor relates the behaviour to thumb sucking or curling hair as a form of soothing themselves, but unlike those habits it must be done in private.
Similar to the past where masturbation has been related to sin and illness it is now linked with child abuse. While this may be the case it seems that it is more likely that the child is simply doing it because to them it feels nice and they don't see anything wrong with it. So why do adults still have a problem with masturbation if it appears to be a perfectly natural thing?
I think it's is similar to why we don't want to hear or see other people having sex or why we consider nudity to be embarrassing. It is a Westernised view that there are certain ways to behave which have probably stemmed back from colonisation when whites wanted to make the people from these new lands appear more barbaric, "they don't even wear clothes!"
It does seem that there is a difference between female and male masturbation. A BBC website describes female masturbation as almost an accident and they don't really know what they are doing, "most women who are currently without a sexual partner tend to ease their loneliness though the intense study of bubble baths, romance novels, and chocolate. Some women also attain emotional release during these times of stress by exploring their nether regions in solitude." Whereas male masturbation has a far more natural theme, "from the day the male foetus' hands grow long enough to grasp at their "third leg", until the man in question is dead and buried, the penis is a constant source of amusement and amazement to those of the male gender".
I think masturbation will always be a social taboo but at the same time I don't think anyone really wants to try and stop it from happening.
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