The Clitical Guide to Female Self-Pleasure: How to Please Yourself So Your Partner Can Too. Jenne Davis
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of the modern-day campaign against masturbation that would persist well into the middle of the 20th century.
This book was by no means the only work that set out to detail the perils of masturbation or, as it was known by this time, ‘onanism’. Of all these works, probably one of the most famous was written by Swiss doctor, Simmons A.A.D. Tissot and was also given a grand title: 'Onanism: – A treatise on the diseases produced by masturbation, or the dangerous effects of secret and excessive venery.'
Tissot was the first physician to declare that the loss of the body’s vital fluids via masturbation could, and would, undoubtedly cause mental illness, as well as a litany of other symptoms and was something to be avoided at all costs.
It was during the 18th century that masturbation prohibition was practiced and encouraged by physicians, parents, and the authorities with a vigor that bordered on an obsession at times, but the prohibition would not reach its peak until the 19th century, which is where we will visit next.
Nineteenth Century
During the 19th century, and especially with the reign of Queen Victoria, the feelings against the practice of masturbation reached a fever pitch. While the Victorians are well known for their puritanical views of sex, not many people realize that masturbation was now more popularly referred to as self-abuse and this was indeed how it was viewed by many of this era. Even well-known feminists of the time would warn against the nasty habits of schoolgirls, as many women believed that if you masturbated when you were younger, you would never have the ability to grow into a proper Victorian lady.
During the 19th century the medical profession began to make great strides as regards to our understanding of the way that the body actually worked. That said, it was also very much the time of what is now referred to as ‘quackery’. Anyone could concoct a potion and claim it would cure just about any ill or affliction that took one’s fancy. As the anti-masturbation hysteria grew many quacks and the odd doctor designed a range of devices that were intended to aid parents in their quest to stop their children from the evil and dangerous practice of ‘self-pollution’.
Most of these devices were aimed at the male market, but there were a few produced with the female in mind. These, typically, would involve a chastity belt-type device or perhaps the most famous would take the form of gloves constructed of steel wool. Can you imagine sleeping with those on, let alone trying to masturbate? The anti- masturbation craze soon surfaced in the USA and particularly within the food market. It was a commonly held belief that eating spicy, rich food would fuel one’s sexual appetite, which in turn would be hard to control. As I began to look more at the history of an entire industry that was founded in no small part on these beliefs I became more and more obsessed with the humble breakfast cereal. What follows is a quick tour around how the breakfast-cereal industry came to be in America, and the impact that anti-masturbation thoughts of the time prevailed on that industry and the entire population.
Snap, Crackle, and Porn!
Whilst most people are familiar with the humble Graham Cracker, few of us know what lead to its creation, so let me enlighten you. Sylvester Graham was a Presbyterian preacher and a free-thinker. During the 1830s the typical American diet consisted of little more than red meat and blood. From his pulpit each Sunday Graham would spend many hours highlighting the perils of poor eating and masturbation. These beliefs were based on the work of Samuel Tissot and his then-famous book: Treatise on the Diseases Produced by Onanism.
As influential as Tissot was on Graham's thinking, an equally strong influence came in the shape of the English clergyman, William Metcalfe, who was the first advocate of vegetarianism in America. Again Graham interpreted Metcalfe's writings and thoughts into his own, while Metcalfe argued in favor of vegetarianism on moral grounds. Graham was more concerned with the carnal passions that eating meat produced in people. At that time the stomach was considered to be the major organ in the body, so anything that inflamed it was compared to lust. Graham actively promoted a vegetarian diet and claimed it was a cure for almost every form of human sickness. The cure consisted of sexual moderation (no more than 12 times a year for a married couple), exercise (this would help with nocturnal emissions, he told us) and a proper diet.
In the 1830s Graham took his show on the road, lecturing an inquiring public about the perils of ‘self-pollution’. As the first of its kind it had an amazing impact on the general populace and the man behind it was just as dynamic. He sought to revolutionize the diet and sexual behavior of an entire country and in many ways was successful. Graham knew his audience well and if he were alive today no doubt would make a wonderful spin doctor, given his grasp of rhetorical devices. He was a master at making claims that no one could disprove. Considering that he preached that masturbation caused its victims to become shy, suspicious, languid, unconcerned with hygiene and, in acute cases, to suffer from hysteria, you'll see how hard it would be for your average masturbator to disprove his theories.
Around 1834, Graham stopped lecturing about sexuality and turned his thoughts toward sound nutrition. The truth was, his lectures had become too unpopular for him to continue, but our friend Graham was determined to find a way to spread his thoughts. Graham believed that there were two kinds of hunger – sexual and nutritional – and that both kinds threatened good health.
As strange as this may seem to many of us today, the Graham movement was a powerful one back in the 1800s. By 1840, his public career was over but his ideology remained deeply ingrained in society and had influenced a number of bran-loving entrepreneurs. One of those was James Caleb Jackson (1814–1895), a diet expert who combined Graham’s health-reform plan with his own ideas, which mainly consisted of hydropathy. Hydropathic therapy, also known as the ‘water cure’, involved applying extremely cold water – showers, tubs, soaks, and wet-packs – to different parts of the body. Jackson's real brainstorm, however, was creating a stone-like wafer out of Graham flour and water. He called his treat ‘Granula’ and would later go down in history as having made the first cold breakfast cereal.
Graham’s legacy to the world was what we today know as the humble Graham Cracker, all be it a sweetened and processed version of the one that was served during his lifetime at the many Graham hotels and boarding houses that sprang up and catered to his devoted followers. Although Graham's career had ended, his effects on sex and nutrition teachings still remained popular and the invention by Jackson of Granula was considered a major breakthrough in medical nutrition.
Of course, back then Granula was not considered a tasty treat and was not popular at first, but Jackson, like many eminent people of the day, had an ace up his sleeve. He had a ready-made market in the form of his patients at his sanitarium in Dansville, NY, where it was served on a daily basis to the residents.
It was this sanitarium that Sister Ellen White of the Seventh Day Adventists visited and asked Jackson to duplicate his Dansville establishment in Battle Creek, Michigan, the home and world headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventist movement. This facility would later become known as the Kellogg Sanitarium, or just ‘the Sans’, but the fact is the institute was to play a key role in not only revolutionizing the American breakfast but also the ideas behind health, nutrition, and sex.
When Sister White first opened the Sans she, too, was considered a health reformer. Inspired by Jackson and Graham, she too published a book on masturbation in 1864 called, An Appeal to Mothers: The Great Cause of the Physical, Mental and Moral Ruin of Many of the Children of Our Time. As we can see from the passage below, even though this text was written by a woman, women were still regarded as the weaker sex.
‘Females possess less vital force than the other sex, and are deprived very much of the bracing, invigorating air, by their indoors life. The results of self-abuse in them is seen in various diseases, such as catarrh, dropsy, headache, loss of memory and sight, great weakness in the back and loins, afflictions of the spine, the head often decays inwardly. Cancerous humor, which would lay dormant in the system their lifetime, is inflamed, and commences its eating, destructive work. The mind is often utterly ruined, and insanity takes place.’
Sister White, although intelligent, proved to be no leader and the Sans floundered for about ten years until a quirky young doctor named John