The best part about research
is finding things that don’t necessarily relate to your thesis or topic, but are damned interesting anyway.
Reading through an article about medicalization of childhood and sexuality, looking for references to how they handle kids in school, I came across some of the following quotes:
apparently, throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “many of the best informed and respected medical authorities, (and, unfortunately, their patients) labored under the belief that masturbation, particularly among children and adolescents, caused myriad ills varying from acne to homicidal insanity…From Tissot onward, most medical writers regarded the loss of semen as a serious threat to mental and physical health…” R. P. Newman
Later, Newman goes on to discuss Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Emile, of which he says, “Rousseau believed that the postponement of sexual knowledge and development was essential to the healthy growth of young Emile. Indeed, he suggested to Emile’s tutor that, ‘if you wish to establish law and order among the young the rising passions, prolong the period of their development, so that they have time to find their proper place as they arise.’ Thus Rousseau extended the concept of the closely supervised childhood into adolescence. he warned that Emile must never be left alone, for ‘it would be a dangerous matter if instinct taught your pupil to abuse his senses; if once he acquires this dangerous habit [dangereux supplements] he is ruined…body and soul will be enervated; he will carry to the grave the sad effects of this habit.’ Stating a position that became common among doctors in the nineteenth century. Rousseau argued that ‘up to the age of twenty, the body is still growing and requires all its strength; till that age continence is the law of nature…After twenty, continence is a moral duty [which] teaches us to control ourselves to be masters of our own appetites’”
In fact, I’ve come to find out that masturbation was considered such an evil that it caused neurological and psychological illnesses and insanity. There was even a case study of a poor teenage boy that was caught masturbating by his parents, who told him to stop. He refused, and when asked why he refused he simply said because he wanted to. The results led him to be involuntarily committed more than four times for an accumulative time of over 5 years, being in and out of straitjackets so he couldn’t masturbate, and only being allowed home if he was constantly watched. They accused him of paranoia, which was known to be a symptom of masturbation-caused insanity. Of course, if I was never allowed to be ANYWHERE by myself and they had locked me up for having a small teenage fit, then I’d be damned paranoid too.
The conclusion of this particular article really hit me, “Historians of the youth movements of the period from 1890 to 1930 would do well to remember that the generational struggle also included a sexual struggle. Nor should it be forgotten that the modern concept of adolescence developed simultaneously with that of adolescent insanity.” R. P. Newman
… I know I’m WAY too young to consider myself cynical, but I like to think that not much about history can shock me. This one shocked me, somehow.
The other interesting part of my day was the package I received in the mail from a former professor of mine who I've kept in contact with over the years. Immediately I shook the box, and was curious as to the lack of sound. Here are images of what I found.