Discover why this practice has been, over the years, one of the most condemned and secret.
Masturbation comes from Latin ‘manus turbarewhich in common words would mean something like bother with the hand. However, for centuries, many words have been used to describe what is perhaps the most common sexual practice in the world, but also one of the most condemned and secret: masturbation.
Why has it been so stigmatized?
- For ancient Eastern cultures, masturbating implied an imminent loss of energy.
- In the West, during the 14th and 15th centuries, people spoke of an abominable and repulsive action, so remedies were sought to stop practicing it, such as ice water baths, punishments or even flagellation.
False medical and religious reasons condemned a natural manifestation of self-pleasure. It was said that it generated irreparable changes at the brain level, which induced deafness and stuttering, so the ‘treatments’ reached barbaric levels such as burning the clitoris with carbolic acid and putting a silver ring on the penis, tight enough to cause pain. in case of starting masturbatory practice.
Although masturbation has been strongly highlighted, the fantasies that accompany each event are each person’s best kept secret. Private enough that no ‘treatment’ can suppress it. Galen, the most influential Western physician of the Middle Ages, spoke of how the mixture of fantasy and the physical act of self-pleasure was a basic need of human beings, comparable to intestinal or urinary tract evacuation.
Self-pleasure today
There have been centuries of arguments for and against. More recent studies have found that today masturbating is a practice that is carried out with fewer feelings of guilt. The main reason is the increase in sexuality education, since those people with greater access to information have less fear of the practice and stop considering it a risk to their health.
These changes in appreciation, and education as a driver of change, have allowed women and men to have more pleasurable and frequent masturbations, free of guilt or fear of deterioration in physical and mental health.
Unlike what happened centuries ago, when treatments were devised to avoid the practice, masturbation is currently used in therapies for the management of sexual dysfunctions, as a fundamental tool for the knowledge of eroticism and its function in the development of sexuality. .
So, it’s time to get to know yourself and enjoy safe and pleasant sexuality.