Sexual Neuroses :: CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER III.

Onanism.—I have adopted the term Onanism, more especially to illustrate a class of conjugal sins, and shall not use it, as generally applied, as a synonym for masturbation, but will define the term as it should be used. That the meaning of the word may be fully understood I will quote the two verses from Genesis xxxviii, 8, 9:

“And Judah said unto Onan, go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.

“And Onan knew that the seed should not be his. And it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.”

It must not be supposed that Onan used his hand to facilitate an emission, but that he simply withdrew his penis and allowed the semen to be lost on the ground, to prevent conception. Onanism is practised more at the present day by married males than may at first be imagined. It is the commonest of all means used as a preventive of conception. The majority of so-called society women are wives of men who practice Onanism. The word has come to signify masturbation, or any intentional process of wasting the seminal fluid. But I have preferred its use here as it explains a practice which I have no other word for. The very common practice of withdrawing the organ before ejaculation is often a very hurtful one, as the orgasm is often incomplete, and there are more satisfactory ways of accomplishing what is intended by such a practice. Under the strict signification of the term, a child cannot be an Onanist, until after puberty, but he may be a masturbator. A woman cannot properly be called an Onaness, but she may masturbate nevertheless. To present, in a true light, this conjugal vice, I excerpt, from the Ohio Med. and Surg. Reporter, the following most excellent paragraph, which illustrates in the pithy and elegant style that speaks volumes of argument, and should be a lasting hint to cultured and scientific students in the learned profession of medicine:

“The sexual instinct has been given to man for the perpetuation of his species; but in order to refine this gift and set limits to its abuse, it has been wisely ordered that a purely intellectual quality—that of love—should find its most passionate expression in the gratification of this instinct. Dissociate the one from the other, and man sinks below the level of a brute. Destroy the reciprocity of the union, and marriage is no longer an equal partnership, but a sensual usurpation on the one side and a loathsome submission on the other. Consider the moral effects of such shameful manoeuvres: wedlock lapses into licentiousness; the wife is degraded into a mistress; love and affection change into aversion and hate. Without suffering some penalty, man cannot disturb the conditions of his well-being or trespass beyond its limitations. Let him traverse her physical laws and Nature exacts a forfeit: dare he violate his moral obligations, an offended Deity stands ready to avenge them. That this law is immutable, witness, from the history read to you, the estrangement between the husband and wife; witness his ill health and ill temper, and the wreck of body and mind to which she has been reduced.”

Again, from the Medical Advance for 1876, we find the following language written by Dr. Arnalt:

“There is one phase of sexual depravity to which I would, in passing, call your attention.

“We are fully aware of the many devices used to avoid impregnation. It may be well to remember that such desires may, under certain circumstances, be excusable; but let us never forget the fact that generally they are conceived in iniquity.

“Of the many ways of avoiding possible conception, there is one so filthy, mean and degrading, and fraught with such fearfully disastrous consequences to health, that I make special mention of it. I have reference to the practice of withdrawing the male organ from the vagina before the completion of the embrace.

“But when man brings to the marriage-bed so foul a nature that he can repeatedly and constantly perpetrate such an outrage upon nature’s most precious gifts, he places himself at once beyond the desert of human sympathy.

“Just imagine, if you please, man and woman in the act of cohabitation; their brain reeling under the powerful stimulus of that all-pervading passion; the heart’s action increased to a high state of intensity; the whole system, with all the energy it is capable of exciting, getting ready for that great act of reproduction; and just as the act is about to be completed, when the soul of the man can almost feel and grasp that of the woman, the evil genius of lust, being more of a fool than a knave, must dash to the ground the chalice filled with ambrosia of purest bliss, if tasted with a pure lip; must turn into the vilest poison the sweetest and holiest gift of nature to man.

“Why, I have wondered, long and often, that man could sink so low, be so foolish. Just conceive of the intensity of such a shock upon the system, and then have this repeated time after time, year after year. Why there are married people who never once, in all their married life, completely and unreservedly finished the act of cohabitation.

“No wonder that nervousness, peevishness, and all kinds of distempers show themselves. No wonder we get spermatorrhoea and impotence in the male, and a perfect host of troubles, insanity included, in the woman. No wonder homes are broken up and human lives made desolate.”

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