INTRODUCTION TO MASTURBATION
BY EDWARD BRONGERSMA
Presented here is the introduction to “Masturbation”, the first of the five parts of “The Outlets”, the final section of “Boys and their Sexuality”, the third chapter of Loving Boys, the encyclopaedic study of Greek love by the eminent Dutch lawyer, Edward Brongersma, of which the first volume (including this) was published by Global Academic Publishers in New York in 1986.
For most boys, masturbation is their first experience with sex.
The ancient Greeks saw it as a divine invention. Hermes (Mercury) taught it to his son Pan. The cynic Diogenes masturbated publicly, in full sunlight, in the market place, declaring, “How nice it would be if you could rub your hunger away just as easily![1]
We have already seen that masturbation in babies is a normal phenomenon. “Infants of both sexes may be observed rubbing their sex organs against the bed, the floor, or some toy in a thrusting motion, and there is no doubt that they derive physical pleasure from it. For some time, they are still unable to coordinate their movements and to use their hands for a more direct stimulation. However, after a while, they may learn to do so and begin to masturbate. Quite often such deliberate masturbation is carried through to the point of orgasm. A child’s orgasmic capacity increases with advancing age. But by their fifth birthday, more than half of all boys have reached orgasm, and for boys between 10 and 13 years of age the figure rises to nearly 80%.[2] It becomes a fixed habit (unless adults try to repress it), as it is a natural activity: all mammals have been observed doing it.[3] Thrusting movements of the abdomen similar to those made during intercourse are observed in eight-month-old boys, but only when they feel safe and protected. Intercourse imitation starts in both sexes, if the child feels free, at the age of two years.[4]

Among the Hopi in Arizona and the Sirian in Bolivia, childhood masturbation passes without anyone taking notice of it, at least until puberty. The Kasak-Kirgises in Central Asia think it is quite normal for little children to stimulate their genitals. In Indonesian Timor the Alorese infant boys masturbate without interference. The Pukapuka in Polynesia pay no attention to sexual play in children: boys and girls masturbate in public freely and unhampered. Nor do the Nama-Hottentots make a secret of childhood masturbation. In the New Hebrides, the Seniang see no reason to interfere when the older boys masturbate. On Tikopia in the Pacific, little boys manually induce erections in themselves and adults either take no notice or only reprove them lightly.[5] Sioux Indian fathers even teach their little sons how to rub their penises – and encourage them to do so regularly.[6]

In the South American nation of Colombia, the virginity of girls has to be strictly maintained. Any male who deflowers a girl outside of marriage runs the risk of being killed by her father or one of her brothers. Thus parents are terribly afraid that their adolescent sons, while courting, may go too far. In the Cartagena region this anxiety, coupled with the conviction that boys absolutely need to satisfy their sexual drives, has led to the institution of the donkey-man. On certain, fixed days a man walks through the streets of the village singing the praises of his female donkey. Parents encourage their sons to follow him. Man, donkey and a trail of boys retire to the woods where the boys undress and take turns having intercourse with the beast (or, perhaps we should say: masturbate with the help of the donkey’s vagina!) while the others form a circle about him and watch. Nobody is in the least embarrassed. When a German living in the area got to know some of the local boys, heard about the institution and asked if he could film the scene, he was cordially invited to do so. The Brongersma Foundation possesses a copy of this film.
In our own culture, masturbation is the rule with infant boys; it is in no way exceptional. Child psychiatrist René Spitz established a close connection between children’s tendency to play with their genitals and their relationships with their mothers. Where this relationship was excellent the little boy was found playing with his penis already in the first year of his life; where the relationship was difficult he did this much less often; where the relationship was either bad or didn’t exist at all, genital play simply didn’t take place.[7] Niels Ernst, a Danish psychologist, thinks it interesting “that it is just those well-developed and mentally healthy children who obviously enjoy masturbation.[8] The German professor of education Helmut Kentler observes, “Mothers should really be happier over the first genital play of their babies than the first smile, for genital play is proof-positive of a satisfying mother-child relationship and the basis for a sound development.”
Continue to Masturbation: Deterrence
[1] Buffière, F., Eros adolescent–La pédérastie dans la Grèce antique. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1980, 462 [Author’s reference]. The primary source for this is Diogenes Laertios, Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers VI 46 [Website footnote].
[2] Haeberle, E. J., The Sex Atlas. New York: Seabury, 1978, 153, 156. [Author’s reference]
[3] Ford, C. S. & Beach, F. A., Formen der Sexualität. Berlin: Rowohlt, 1968, 202; Borneman, E., Lexikon der Liebe, Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1978, p. 1258 [Author’s references].
[4] Hertoft, P., Orgasmus und Nähe. In: Nørretranders (Ed.), Hungabe, Über den Orgasmus des Mannes. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1983, 70. [Author’s reference]
[5] Ford, C. S. & Beach, F. A., Formen der Sexualität. Berlin: Rowohlt, 1968, 201-203 206. [Author’s reference]
[6] Sarlin, Ch. N., Masturbation, Culture and Psychosexual Development. In: Marcus & Francis: Masturbation. New York: International Universities Press, 1975, 377. [Author’s reference]
[7] Clower, V. L., Masturbation in Female Sexuality. In: Marcus & Francis (Eds.), Masturbation. New York: International Universities Press, 1975, 111. Kentler, H., Sexual-erziehung. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1970, 133. [Author’s reference]
[8] Hertoft, P., Orgasmus und Nähe. In: Nørretranders (Ed.), Hungabe, Über den Orgasmus des Mannes. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1983, 71. [Author’s reference]
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