Onania: or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution- A Supplement to the Onania

by Various

Genres: Nonfiction

197 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1756

About the author

Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).

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Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

gr=Librarians will be interested to note that Onania or the Heinous Sin is the same work ; variously attributed to Anonymous and Various.

At any rate, every hardcore Foucauldian oughta be interested in this pamphlet. Here's one such ::
https://aeon.co/essays/the-body-as-am...

"The strange thing is that masturbation was never before the object of such horror. In ancient times, masturbation was either not much mentioned or treated as something a little vulgar, not in good taste, a bad joke. In the Middle Ages and for much of the early modern period too, masturbation, while sinful and unnatural, was not invested with such significance. What changed?

"Religion and medicine combined powerfully to create a new and hostile discourse. The idea that the soul was present in semen led to thinking that it was very important to retain the vital fluid. Its spilling became, then, both immoral and dangerous (medicine believed in female semen at the time). ‘Sin, vice, and self-destruction’ were the ‘trinity of ideas’ that would dominate from the 18th into the 19th century, as the historians Jean Stengers and Anne Van Neck put it in Masturbation: The Great Terror (2001).

"There were exceptions. Sometimes masturbation was opposed for more ‘enlightened’ reasons. In the 1830s and 1840s, for instance, female moral campaign societies in the United States condemned masturbation, not out of hostility to sex, but as a means to self-control. What would now be termed ‘greater sexual agency’ – the historian April Haynes refers to ‘sexual virtue’ and ‘virtuous restraint’ – was central to their message."

And but the inversion :: Why this contemporary obsession of ours with the prurient views of Others? Don't we get a little thrill about the silly things others have done/said about Sex and its many iterations?


btw, can you name any one human activity/artifact for which an History of XYZ will=not/ought=not be written? All is permitted // all is obligatory.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 2 out of 5]

The 45 pages I read of it just beat to death a now well- understood to be untrue proposition that masturbation leads to pimples/ insanity/ other illness, etc. Though fair to say that it could be a spiritual ill to objectify another- but I’d argue that it’s even in the structure of religion to objectify people. Only got into it because Foucault referred to it in his History of Sexuality.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read this copy of the book, but an electronic reprint of the third edition. The text is fascinating. Of course, we have a better understanding of masturbation now. I wanted to read it for the historical context. Don't worry, neither reading this book about the 'evils' of masturbation, nor the actual act it self, will make you go blind.