Onania: or, the heinous sin of self-pollution

[laughs]

The first anti-masturbation ra- wave came around 1712 or 1716, and it, it was an anonymous London pamphlet called Onania or The Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution.

And it just appeared some- sometime between 1708 and 1716.

The title, as a reminder, is a reference to the biblical story of Onan, which as a reminder, was originally about refusing levirate marriage and coitus interruptus, not solitary sex.

So again, like, over $130.

And the pamphlet presented them as remedies for the supposed physical damage caused by masturbation, including nocturnal sexual urges.

And then this sort of got solidified and boosted by a Swiss physician named Samuel Auguste Tissot, who pub- published a, um, another Onania style writeup-

Mm-hmm

Just know, let it wash over you.

I'm going to start by reading to you some excerpts from the 18th edition of a book titled Onania or the heinous sin of self-pollution and all its frightful consequences in both sexes.

Self-pollution, buddy.

I don't

Nasty.

Unclean.

So this book has an unbelievably long title.

It's Onania or the heinous sin of self-pollution and all its frightful consequences in both sexes considered with spiritual and physical advice to those who have already injured themselves by this abominable practice.

They weren't wrong.

The publication of Onania in 1707 was the turning point.

This was an anonymous pamphlet, which was the first to portray masturbation not only as a spiritual violation, but a medical issue.

So it kind of put forward this argument that there was something medically wrong with you if you were masturbating, as opposed to previously, you were just a sinner, right? So Onania probably built on ideas that were already in circulation, and it might just be the one text that survived.

That's often the case with 18th century texts.

But the problem that 18th century Europe had was it was the Enlightenment, and people were still mentally ill, even though we'd figured out that witches and demons probably weren't making them mentally ill.

So it's kind of like...

Even the type, even the type typing is just so beautiful.