|
|
Article: Masturbation
- Article from:
- International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Thomson Gale. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
MASTURBATION
Masturbation is the act of obtaining pleasure from manipulation of the genital organs.
Before Sigmund Freud shed light on infantile sexuality, masturbation was exclusively viewed from the extremely negative perspective of religion and morality, rather than being seen as a social and medical problem. This is attested by Dr. Samuel Auguste David Tissot's
L'onanisme: Dissertation sur les maladies produites par la masturbation
(Onanism: Dissertation on the illnesses produced by masturbation; 1778), which for more than a century and a half remained the standard reference on the issue. In 1576 Michel de Montaigne, in his
Essays
(II, 12), was the first to introduce the term
...