Between three and six, children are described as having true sexual feelings, rather than just curiosity. The clearly comprehensible Spock is suddenly murky. We learn that frequent or excessive masturbation is a serious condition. A sign of tenseness or worry, it may be "due to something else going wrong in the child's life or spirit." Rapid assessment, perhaps involving a child psychiatrist, is indicated. But Spock does not define "excessive." It must be more than the few seconds at a time attributed to the toddler's wholesome curiosity! In order to explain "excessive," Spock gives several examples.
One is an eight-year-old boy, terrified that his
mother might die, who absently handles his genitals in
school while gazing out the window. Another is an almost
three-year-old boy who views his infant sister's lack of penis
and begins to hold his own appendage anxiously. These
"excessive" masturbators seem neither very active nor very
interested. Masturbation is presented as an altogether
uncomfortable, but perhaps necessary, part of development
which usually warrants distraction or mild suppression.
Never is masturbation primarily pleasurable or desirable.
Spock is a moderate. He warns against telling children
that masturbation will injure their genitals, or that it leads
to insanity. Yet he suggests that more than a vaguely defined
amount is a danger signal. It can proclaim a serious emotional
problem. Are serious emotional problems so different
from the older concept of insanity? He feels that it is quite
proper for parents to uphold society's disapproval of sexuality
if they agree with society. He doesn't offer instructions to
those who disagree with society.
Most enlightening is Spock's recent account of his own
early life published in a collection of various celebrities' first
sexual experiences. Spock recounts a childhood dominated
by a moralistic and opinionated mother who never, ever,
changed her mind. Spock, as the oldest of six, is the chief target
of her prohibitions. His mother cites sex as sinful and
threatens that if a child touches himself he will have
deformed offspring. Spock associates with some strange bedfellows
in The First Time. Such raw and brassy collaborators
as Mae West and Erica Jong disgorge spectacular details of
their first sexual experiences. Not so Spock-with dignity, he
circumvents any salacious material. Spock's "first time" is
never depicted. Dr. Benjamin Spock is a compassionate pediatrician
and a magnificent gentleman. He's as human as the
rest of us.
More fashionable but less durable than Spock is Dr. Haim
G. Ginott. He devotes only two pages to the topic of masturbation
in his book Between Parent and Child. Far more negative
than Spock, he makes the following statements:
Intellectually, parents recognize that masturbation may be a
phase in the development of normal sexuality. Emotionally, it is
hard to accept. And perhaps parents are not altogether wrong in
not sanctioning masturbation.
Self-gratification may make the child less accessible to the
influence of his parents and peers. When he takes the shortcut
to gratification, he does not have to depend on pleasing anyone
but himself...
Parents may exert a mild pressure against self-indulgence,
not because it is pathological, but because it is not progressive;
it does not result in social relationships or personal growth. The
pressure must be mild or it will back-fire in wild explosions.
Ginott presents masturbation as a siphoning off of vital
energies which could better be devoted to accomplishments
in behalf of self and society. This is again reminiscent of
Drysdale's "fatal drain." One pictures the masturbating child
floating directionless in a sea of marshmallows, while his
personality disintegrates. Ginott's title to the section on
masturbation is "Self-gratification or Self-abuse?" One concludes
that masturbation is self-abuse.