Dangers of Masturbation

 

1920's – The Dangers of Masturbation. The following are accounts given by parents to child development specialist Susan Isaacs, D. Sc. in the 1920's and published in 1933. Dear Doctor,  “Since she was eight months old she (aged 2;5) has indulged in bad habits. At first she simply rubbed her thighs by crossing her legs. I have taken her twice to a children’s specialist…. "  In September 1931, the parent said she must be stopped at all costs and if everything else failed we would have to use the apparatus. I had a trained hospital and maternity nurse with me. She and I never left the child and after a fortnight she was much better. Then she found other ways of rubbing…. she is unusually intelligent. Dear Doctor, “As I have had my little girl of four giggling in the night I am wondering if in the other cases it arises from the same cause, that is the sensation caused by ‘touching’ themselves in their private parts. My nurse had spoken of my little girl’s laughing in her sleep, but as she is a very happy little person we thought it was her dreams….” Dear Doctor, “She (age 3;0) was very high strung, excitable, irritable, very underweight pale pinch faced and very dark around the eyes. She would be awake three or four hours night after night, practicing the habit.  She has never been scolded or punished for it. At the end of the first year I put her into splints…..” Dear Doctor, ”My baby girl of 18 months has developed a funny habit: when she is in her bed or pram she shakes the bed, and lying on her face, bumps herself up and down straight on for perhaps three minutes at a time. Then she sings and crows and off again with this peculiar bumping. It has suddenly dawned on me that this is a real ‘bad habit’. I called in the doctor….” Dear Doctor, “I should like to ask your advice with regard to my little girl (age 3;9) who has contracted the habit of masturbation. This condition began about two years ago – and for the last 9 months I resorted to splints for her legs at night.” Dear Doctor, “ I should be very grateful for your advice with regard to the recurrence of the rather unusual behavior of my little daughter of two and a half years old. When she goes to bed both for her afternoon nap and At night she invariably turns on to her tummy and putting her hands between her legs works herself about grunting and appears to draw her knees up together and then push them out. . I have told her that it was not the nice way to go to sleep and consequently she waits until I have left the room and then begins.” Dear Doctor, “I wonder if you can give me some advice about my little girl, about whom I am very worried. She was four years old last February and for about a month now I have noticed that she takes an excessively long time to get to sleep when put to bed at 6:30PM., and also gets unusually hot, altough lately she has only a sheet over her. I thought perhaps she might play some vigorous game when she was left, to account for the sleeplessness and heat, so I determined to find out, and one evening watched her, quite unseen by her. I found that instead of playing about as I thought she might, she was rolling about under the bedclothes and grunting and gasping in the most peculiar way, stopping every now and then to rest and cool down and then continuing. This lasted for about an hour and a half, when I thought I had better put a stop to it, so went and sat by her bedside and asked with all interest what she was so busy about. She told me she was ‘squeezing her legs together, and that it was lovely and a great treat’, and demonstrated to me in the most realistic way, using herself up in the process while she clung to the sheet with her hands.” Dear Doctor, “My little girl of four years old has developed the most terrible habit of lying about on the floor with her legs crossed or sitting on the edge of a chair and rubbing herself on the corner, or sitting with her hands, palms together, between her legs. She is a perfectly normal child but very highly strung and excitable. Dear Doctor, “I am very worried about my daughter. She is just 7 years of age. When she was about 9 months old I used to notice she would lie on her back and rub her tummy until she went scarlet in the face and used to go to sleep. I mentioned this to the matron of the Nursing Home where she was born as I had no one whom I could ask for advice. Matron alarmed me by saying it was a form of self-abuse and she would eventually go out of her mind unless the habit was broken. She advised smacking very hard. I did not smack her but showed her I was very cross and until she was three years of age I used to nurse her off to sleep and I believed that she had forgoten the habit. I then started putting her to sleep on her own but found that the trouble was worse. She still rubbed her tummy and at times lay on it and rocked the cot.” Note from Dr. J.B. Watson: “The infant was sitting up in the bath tub and in reaching for the soap accidentally touched the external opening of the vagina with her finger. The search for the soap stopped, stroking of the vagina began and a smile overspread her face.” 1920's - A Pedophile Encounter A woman remembers her childhood relationship with an adult, “When X. was 6:6 years of age a man friend often petted her and told her he was  ‘going to marry her.’ One day on the train, she being on her way to school, he said in her presence to a clergyman the both knew, ‘When are you going to marry us Rev. B?” The child took this with complete seriousness, and on returning to school the same afternoon she went straight to the house of the man friend, instead of home. She told his housekeeper (he was unmarried), I’m going to live here now. I’m going to marry Mr. D,” and refused to go home, even when her father and elder sister came to fetch her. She stayed the night, sleeping in a nightdress of the housekeeper, but was persuaded to go home on the following afternoon by a practical joke of her father’s, which made her realize that the remarks of the man friend had not been meant seriously. Her father sent a large parcel supposed to be her ‘clothes’, but when she undid the parcel, it had nothing inside but newspapers.  In adult life the memory of the intense grief and bitter chagrin she felt upon opening the parcel remained very vivid.  Sources: Isaacs, Susan. 1933. Social development in young children: A study of beginnings. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. Lindner, S. 1897. Das Saugen an den Fingern, Lippen etc. briden Kindern. Jahrbuch der Kindern 14:74

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