\u201cI masturbate almost every day,\u201d declares the feminist writer, Amanda Chatel, in her essay What Happens When You Stop Masturbating for a Month <\/em>published by Bustle<\/em> in September.<\/em><\/p>

\u201cIf I\u2019m bored or feel the urge, I will do it a couple of times a day.\u201d<\/p>

Chatel, who lives in New York, gamely confesses to a fickle fondness for masturbation \u2013 which she calls \u201ca woman\u2019s best friend.\u201d<\/p>

But the heart of her narrative \u2013 as its title implies – concerns her experiences during extended periods when she doesn\u2019t masturbate at all.<\/p>

She attributes these weeks of abstinence to a number of things. Sometimes, she says, an orgasm is simply the farthest thing from her mind \u2013 as is often the case when she has just gone through a breakup.<\/p>

Then there are those times when she stays over at her parents\u2019 house, where, she admits:<\/p>

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t feel comfortable, for whatever reason, so I just don\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cI masturbate almost every day,\u201d declares the feminist writer, Amanda Chatel, in a recently-published essay. (Photo: Oneras\/Wallhere)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
An Unspoken Guilt<\/h2>
One might wonder how Chatel could feel uncomfortable about masturbating in her childhood home even as she quite unblushingly writes about the subject for Bustle\u2019s 80 million readers.<\/p>
She herself ponders over the question, writing:<\/p>
\u201cI do spend some time wondering why I can\u2019t bring myself to masturbate at my parents\u2019 house, especially since that\u2019s where I masturbated for the very first time when I was teenager.\u201d<\/p>
Chatel never explains the reasons for her discomfort. In the end, there is little need for an explanation. The average reader understands \u2013 at least on a purely intuitive level \u2013the guilt and awkwardness she might attach to the mostly solitary act.<\/p>
**Masturbation… not quite a dinner table topic yet!<\/strong><\/p>**
In fact, even talking about masturbation can prove thorny for many people. However liberal our views on sex might be, we generally don’t talk about masturbation as casually as we talk about \u2013 say – eating, sleeping or even, politics.<\/p>
**The extent of our discomfort over such a mundane subject can even be laughable:<\/p>**
In 2013, Swedish authorities arrested a 65-year-old man on charges of *sexual assault<\/em> after police caught him masturbating openly on a Stockholm beach.<\/p>*
*Bewildered by the rationale behind the seriousness of the charge, a magistrate promptly cleared him of the crime \u201cbecause he was not pleasuring himself towards a specific person.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>*
***The assault charges against the Swedish man so tickled the European press that his acquittal made the news worldwide<\/a>. <\/p>***
***That\u2019s all well and good for much of the world, of course, but few would have seen anything humorous about the situation just a few hundred years ago.<\/p>***
$\"In$
In 2013, Swedish police arrested a 65-year-old man on charges of sexual assault after the fellow was caught masturbating on a Stockholm beach. (Illustration Source: Wallhere)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
Epileptic Fits and Gonorrhea<\/h3>
The anonymous author of the pamphlet, Onania<\/em>, which first saw print in England in 1716, most certainly saw masturbation as a criminal act. And it seems that most of people alive during the European Enlightenment agreed with him… at least publicly.<\/p>
The \u201cshameful vice<\/em>,\u201d the \u201csolitary act of pleasure<\/em>,\u201d was something too terrible to even describe in print at the time. The pamphlet\u2019s author nonetheless saw no reason for reticence when it came to cataloguing \u201cthe frightful consequences of self-pollution<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>
*These consequences, he said, included – but were not limited to:<\/p>*
*epileptic seizures<\/li>*
*consumption<\/li>*
*gonorrhea<\/li>*
*impotence<\/li>*
*body aches<\/li>*
*stupidity<\/li>*
*blisters (of the hand perhaps \ud83d\ude09 )<\/li>*
*glandular swelling<\/li>*
*trembling<\/li>*
*dizziness<\/li>*
*heart palpitations, and <\/li>*
incontinence!<\/li><\/ul>
The author of the *Onania<\/em> makes it clear that he is well-aware that the sin of Onan refers to the superfluous spilling of male seed. But women are – apparently – just as easily lead to depravity.<\/p>*
The full title of his pamphlet was *Onania: Or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution, and all its Frightful Consequences (in Both Sexes)<\/em>.<\/p>*
**Oh no… not my virginity!<\/strong><\/p>**
It seems that women who masturbated could expect diseases of the womb, hysteria, infertility and the loss of \u2018that valuable badge of their chastity and innocence<\/em>\u2019 \u2013 their virginity.<\/p>
***$\"Europeans$*** Europeans of the 18th and 19th century believed masturbation caused epileptic seizures and gonorrhea.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
Breakfast for Your Soul<\/h3>
Fortunately for many generations, masturbation hasn’t always been the object of such horror and derision. In more ancient times, masturbation was either not much mentioned or \u2013 at most – regarded with cheerful humor.<\/p>
In the Middle Ages, and for much of the early modern period, masturbation, while widely viewed as sinful and perverse, was not treated with such importance.<\/p>
When did things change? In the West, apparently, it wasn’t until people started believing that the soul was present in semen! Whoa!<\/p>
This notion remained prevalent among religious Europeans up until the 19^{th<\/sup> century, according to the historians Jean Stengers and Anne Van Neck in Masturbation: The Great Terror <\/em>(2001).<\/p>}
*There were exceptions, though \u2013 especially toward the late 1800s, when medical professionals began opposing masturbation for more \u2018enlightened\u2019 reasons of self-control.<\/p>*
*Neither the plague, nor war, nor smallpox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicious habit of Onanism.<\/p>Dr. J. H. Kellogg<\/cite><\/blockquote>*
In 1877, the American physician, J H Kellogg, claimed that \u201cneither the plague, nor war, nor smallpox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicious habit of Onanism.\u201d<\/p>
*Kellog was both a doctor and a health-food pioneer. His development of dry breakfast cereals was largely responsible for the creation of the flaked-cereal industry.<\/p>*
**Corn flakes… the anti-masterbation diet!<\/strong><\/p>**
**\u201cFew of today\u2019s eaters of Kellogg\u2019s Corn Flakes know that he invented them, almost literally, as anti-masturbation food,\u201d the psychologist John Money once pointed out.<\/p>**
How deeply such harsh views on masturbation affected people in the 1800s is anyone\u2019s guess. We can reasonably assume that \u2013 at least in the beginning – they felt much the same way Chatel feels after a few weeks of self-denial.<\/p>
$\"The$
The author of the Onania<\/em> believed women who masturbated could expect diseases of the womb, hysteria, infertility and the loss of their virginity.
(Photo: Angela Nairod\/Wallhere)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
The Itch You Can\u2019t Scratch<\/h3>
Chatel says she typically feels perfectly fine throughout the first week of self-imposed restraint. But by week two, she notices a jangling in her nerves like an inexplicable itch she can\u2019t scratch<\/a>. <\/p>
\u201cIn fact, it\u2019s not just that I can\u2019t scratch it, but it also feels like I\u2019m not even sure where that itch is,\u201d she says.<\/p>
Unlike Chatel’s strange itch, however, some of the more palpable consequences of previous public policies against masturbation are still with us. <\/p>
For example, male circumcision originated in part with a 19th-century idea which associated the foreskin with masturbatory practices, say some researchers.<\/p>
In March 2004, a general court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a teacher to three years in prison and 300 lashes<\/a> for declaring that masturbation is permissible under Islam.<\/p>
And a recently as 2009, the supreme court of Alabama outlawed the sale of “*any device designed \u2026 primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs<\/em>.” The ruling formed part a political effort to deter sales of masturbation machines. <\/p>*
*The vibrator industry must have been overjoyed with that ruling! NOT!<\/p>*
$\"The$
The condemnation of masturbation began with the idea that the soul resides in semen.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
When the Dam Breaks<\/h3>
Thankfully, much of the world merrily masturbates penalty-free today \u2013 so long as the self-indulgent activity is not directed towards an unwilling \u201cspecific person\u201d in public.<\/p>
Still, even as we don\u2019t talk about masturbation much, the ideas of individual freedom, sexual liberation, and sexual consumerism have conjured their own demons.<\/p>
Chatel becomes supremely aware of their temptations after five weeks of abstinence, when even the notion of smelling something sexy in her dreams causes her to orgasm. She also observes a deceptive sharpening of her imaginative abilities during her waking hours.<\/p>
\u201cThe fourth week is still one of high creativity, indifference to sex, and sometimes it even makes writing about sex seem silly, because the desire for it is non-existent,\u201d she says.<\/p>
This illusion of easy restraint collapses in its entirety by the time Chatel arrives home after one month and seven days of abstinence. \u201cI know I\u2019ve come to the end of my rope,\u201d she writes.<\/p>
She does not even bother to unpack her bags before the vibrator \u2013 her favorite mode of transport to the shores of unmentionable bliss – is out and buzzing.<\/p>
A sweet wave of relief and release finally washes over the writer. Her ordeal is over.<\/p>
Seven hundred miles to the west of her pleasure, under the grassy fineries of Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek, Michigan, Dr. Kellog is turning in his grave. <\/p>
What’s your story. We say there are two groups of people… those who masturbate and those who lie! Which camp are you in? How long do you think *you<\/em> can hold out? Tell us in the comment section below. <\/p>*
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