Thursday, October 26, 2006

Why all this guilt and shame? Actually, from American History

A little bit of American History:
Our attitudes about masturbation have deep roots for sure. Around the turn-of-the-century, some adults were so against masturbation that they forced their daughters to wear gloves made of a steel-wool-like material (like Brillo pads) at night and to put a powder on their genitals that made them painful to touch. They made their sons wear metal chastity belts at night that made it painful to have an erection. During the 1820s male masturbation was prevented by piecing the foreskin with a wire and soldering the ends together. Boys and girls were discouraged from masturbation by the threat of blindness, madness and illness. Of course, all of these are not true.
Most surveys suggest that approximately 94% of teenage males "admitted" that they masturbated and about 70% of teen females "admitted" to this also.


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