ABSTRACT
Pornography aside, fewer than a handful of novels engage the topic of masturbation as a theme. Certainly there are furtive references, passing episodes, fleeting indications, but only rarely are there direct depictions. Despite the different times at which they were written, the novels are strikingly similar in the associations made between masturbation and various signifying systems. The depiction of masturbation is related to the purported dangers of reading: the activity of reading may be the warning sign of self-abuse. Masturbation is a singular activity. It is no news that the mechanics of masturbation and literary writing, at least that literary writing defined as the praxis of dead, white, European males, resemble one another. The nineteenth century transforms the intertwined behaviors of masturbation and dangerous reading into a social interdiction of unhealthy literature and unhealthy practices.
