Masturbation: The History of a Great Terror is a funny and frightening look at the attitudes towards masturbation throughout history and how they have affected...

Masturbation: The History of a Great Terror is a funny and frightening look at the attitudes towards masturbation throughout history and how they have affected the sex lives of anyone living and breathing today. The French biologist, Tissot, was the original spoil-sport who turned masturbation into the scourge of young men everywhere. Saying that a little self-induced pleasure caused wasting, insanity, and finally death, Tissot put the clamps (literally, in some cases) on the greatest relaxation inducer known to humankind. From Tissot's work to the punitive postures of the German courts to the surgical preventatives of continental Europe and England to the handbook of the Boy Scouts of America, spanking/wanking, yanking/choking, and other assorted diddling became the big no-no. Stengers and Van Neck give us the whole story and it isn't pretty, but it will fascinate everyone who agrees with Woody Allen when he said "Hey, don't knock masturbation! It's sex with someone I love."

Author: Jean Stengers,Anne Van,Anne Van Neck
Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
Published: 07/06/2001
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.75d
ISBN: 9780312224431


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/25/2001 pg. 70
Library Journal 08/01/2001 pg. 142
Choice 02/01/2002 pg. 1084
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2001 pg. 128
Library Journal 08/03/2001

About the Author

Jean Stengers is Professor of History at the University of Brussels.

The late Anne Van Neck was a Master of Research at the University's Institute of History.

Kathryn Hoffmann, University of Hawaii, is the author of Society of Pleasures.