ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the erroneous scientific assumptions of the Greeks about the dangers of sexual intercourse and “unnatural” sex. Masturbation can be defined in various ways, and though it can involve more than one person, it can perhaps most simply be defined as any action of deliberate self-stimulation that brings about sexual arousal. A widow, for example, was prohibited from keeping a pet dog for fear that she would use the dog for sexual activity. Males as a rule began masturbating at puberty and the incidence decreased after that as they turned to other forms of sexual activity. Benjamin Rush taught that the overuse of sexual power, typical of the masturbator, caused seminal weakness, impotence, dysury, tabes dorsalis, syphilis, pulmonary consumption, dyspepsia, dimness of sight, vertigo, epilepsy, hypochondriasis, loss of memory, manalgia, fatuity, and death. Masturbation went from the medical literature into the popular sexual manuals where all kinds of horror stories were told.
