ONANISM.
ONANISM is a term of comprehensive meaning, applicable in a broad sense to all forms of sexual stimulation employed by either sex, singly or mutually, to produce orgasm in unnatural ways i.e., otherwise than by coitus. The onanistic acts are as follows: "Withdrawal", or the offence of Onan1; "coitus in os"; "coitus inter femora"; pederasty; bestiality; "mutual masturbation"; "self pollution" (masturbation, auto-sexual indulgence), etc.
None of these acts have in view the perpetuation of the species, and all are therefore perversions. "We shall here chiefly concern ourselves with onanism in relation to the acts of self pollution, which, of all the varieties, is by far the most frequent.
Causes which Predispose to Auto-Sexual StimulaUon. Anything which produces irritation in the genital zone, or which strongly directs the attention to those parts, is liable to result in handling of the privates, and thus the habit is often acquired by children without consciousness of wrong. Eczema, pruritus (intolerable itching locally), worms in the rectum, a too tight or too redundant prepuce, the accumulation of smegma, or the natural cheese like material, beneath the foreskin, and various other causes, all lead to manipulation of the sexual apparatus.
Certain kind of movements occasion pleasurable lustful feelings in certain individuals; for instance, the gymnastic feats of swinging on a trapeze, rope climbing, etc., are followed by ejaculation in not a few instances. Dangers also lurk in improperly adjusted bicycle saddles, badly fitting clothing, and, occasionally, even in the running of sewing machines.
Pollutions may follow these acts without the individual having the slightest impure intent, but are quite harmless unless employed as excuses for indulgence by voluntary self stimulation. But the more frequent causes of masturbation lie in other directions. In every aggregation of children a certain proportion are seduced by the bad example of their perversely inclined companions. This is, or should be, known to all teachers in schools. In reformatories for juveniles, and in prisons for adults, mutual and auto masturbation is notoriously prevalent, and is only kept down by constant vigilance on the part of the wardens. The author is informed by the attendants at the District Eeform School that the boys, most of whom, by the way, have "stigmata of degeneration," or anatomical defects, must be watched day and night in order to prevent these practices and even then they find opportunities for perverse indulgence.
It is a mistake to assume that this vice is limited to growing boys, for it is practised more or less in every assemblage of either sex where they are grouped together in large numbers, and also, of course, by numerous individuals of all ages in private life. Some nurses have a vicious habit of quieting children by titillation of their genitals; and there is no doubt that pleasurable feelings, with erection, can be induced many years before the time of puberty. This, of course, predisposes to furious masturbation later on. "There seems hardly any limit to the age at which a young child can be initiated into these abominations, or to the depths of degradation to which it may fall under such hideous teaching". Sometimes nurses, or servant maids, practise masturbation on children, chiefly boys, for their own curiosity, and sometimes they actually copulate with them, secure in their opportunities from all chance of exposure. In this way young children have occasionally been infected with venereal disease. Various habits of children predispose them to vicious ways, such as idleness, apathy in play, too long repose in bed, the use of spicy food, etc.
Masturbation is sometimes a symptom of brain disease, and sometimes a legacy inherited along with an unstable nervous system. It is frequent in hysteria, mania, idiocy, imbecility, insanity, epilepsy and dementia, and such unfortunates are also very prone to manifest tendencies in the direction of other perversions.
Varieties of Masturbation. The sexual orgasm may be induced (1), by a local friction and stimulation of the erogenous areas;1 (2), solely by a vivid psychical excitation; (3), or by a combination of the local and imaginative processes.
In the adult, masturbation is almost always accompanied by lively and highly colored mind-pictures which are excessively pleasing to the individual; in fact he is sure to picture to himself those ideational concepts which will best help him to reach an extreme acme of orgasm. Such situations as he paints for himself can rarely be enjoyed in reality, and thus he often gets to prefer his solitary habit to the normal act. But in a few cases the imagination plays a secondary part, and the individual derives a purely physical pleasure by friction of the erogenous areas.
Some individuals who have resorted to great excesses in venere and masturbation arrive at a condition where the fancy is so abnormally excitable, and where they have such a degree of psycho sexual hyperesthesia that they can indulge in what is called "psychical onanism", "ideal coitus", or "mental masturbation".