Sexology, 1912, edited by Prof. Wm. H. Walling, at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health

More about masturbation:
In Plain Facts for Old and Young: Embracing the Natural History and Hygiene of Organic Life, by J. H. Kellogg, M.D., 1892 - in Dr. R. V. Pierce's "Spermatorrhea" section of The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser (63rd edition, 1895) - in The Sexual System and Its Derangements, by Dr. E. C. Abbey (1882) - in Kelly's Gynecology, 1928 - Rachel Maines wrote a book about other doctors' masturbating their patients, male and female, as a treatment, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (Johns Hopkins Press, 1999)

Excerpt about "Masturbation, female" from Sexology, by Prof. William H. Walling, A.M., M.D. (1912, Puritan Publishing Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. and Hanley, England )

main Sexology page

Prof. Walling, like most of the writers about masturbation (see links above), regards masturbation as almost beyond mention - but not quite.

And like all these writers, he often attributes the practice to female attendants of children. It would be interesting to know how much of this was true. I find it suspect - it's woman as the temptress in an era when men had even more power and status in America and England than today, and when one of the other writers in the links above equated a man's masculinity with the size of his testicles, one of the symptoms of masturbation being the shrinking of the testes (Dr. Pierce, above, helpfully includes before-and-after drawings of testicles in his book).

Bram Dijkstra writes of the terrible influence of women in this era in the 1986 Oxford University Press book Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture. He provides a picture of the "Idol of Perversity," a Medusa look-a-like, as the frontispiece, as well as a horde of others, some of whom may have attended male children. This is almost a complete reversal of roles from today, when men are overwhelmingly implicated in molesting children.

At the time Prof. Walling warned against masturbation, some American doctors were masturbating men and women as part of their practice, something doctors and midwives had done for centuries. A British doctor had even invented the vibrator to relieve tired hands. Rachel Maines wrote about this in the Johns Hopkins Press book in the links, above.

By the way, it appears to me that some of what the professor writes about is lesbianism.

What a wonderful name for the book's publisher!

Four pages will give you an idea of his thoughts.

main Sexology page

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