Our violently repressive, collective sexual history

Neither plague, nor war, nor smallpox, nor a crowd of similar evils, have resulted more disastrously for humanity than the habit of masturbation: it is the destroying element of civilized society.

- New Orleans Medical & Surgical Journal - 1850


“Scientific” declarations like these inspired Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (brother of the Corn Flakes Kellogg) in his campaign to eradicate masturbation from the United States.Though widely considered to be one of the leading sex educators of his day, Kellogg proudly claimed never to have had intercourse with his wife in over four decades of marriage.

As a medical doctor, Kellogg claimed the moral authority to instruct parents on the proper sexual education of their children. If you’re unfamiliar with the writings of Kellogg and others like him, their gloating disdain for basic human eroticism is chilling and unmistakable. In his best-selling Plain Facts for Old and Young (written on his sexless honeymoon in 1888), Kellogg offered parents guidance for dealing with their sons’ natural erotic self-exploration in a section entitled “Treatment for Self-Abuse and its Effects:”

A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision… . The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anaesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment… . [emphasis added]

If circumcising a struggling, terrified boy without anesthesia wasn’t quite what a parent had in mind, Kellogg recommended “the application of one or more silver sutures in such a way as to prevent erection. The prepuce, or foreskin, is drawn forward over the glans, and the needle to which the wire is attached is passed through from one side to the other. After drawing the wire through, the ends are twisted together and cut off close. It is now impossible for an erection to occur… .”

Parents were assured that sewing their son’s penis into its foreskin “acts as a most powerful means of overcoming the disposition to resort to the practice [of masturbation].”

Circumcision remains prevalent in the United States, though varying greatly by region, ranging from about 40 percent of newborns circumcised in western states to about twice that in the Northeast. This widespread procedure, rarely a medical necessity, has its roots in the anti-masturbation campaigns of Kellogg and his like-minded contemporaries. As sexologist John Money explains, “Neonatal circumcision crept into American delivery rooms in the 1870s and 1880s, not for religious reasons and not for reasons of health or hygiene, as is commonly supposed, but because of the claim that, later in life, it would prevent irritation that would cause the boy to become a masturbator.”

Lest you think Kellogg was interested only in the sadistic torture of boys, in the same book he soberly advises the application of carbolic acid to the clitorises of little girls to teach them not to touch themselves.

- Sexual Repression: The Malady That Considers Itself the Remedy by Christopher Ryan

1 year ago · 258 notes

Bikini Kill - I Like Fucking

Developmental neuropsychologist James Prescott found that bodily pleasure and violence seem to have an either/or relationship—the presence of one inhibits development of the other. In 1975, Prescott published a paper in which he argued that “certain sensory experiences during the formative periods of development will create a neuropsychological predisposition for either violence-seeking or pleasure-seeking behaviors later in life.” On the level of individual development, this finding seems obvious: adults who abuse children were almost always victims of childhood abuse themselves, and every junkyard owner knows that if you want a mean dog, beat the puppy.

Prescott applied this logic on a cross-cultural level. He performed a meta-analysis of previously gathered data on the amount of physical affection shown to infants (years of breastfeeding, percentage of time in direct physical contact with mother, being fondled and played with by other adults) and overall tolerance for adolescent sexual behavior. After comparing these data with levels of violence within and between societies, Prescott concluded that in all but one of the cultures for which these data were available (forty-eight of forty-nine), “deprivation of body pleasure throughout life—but particularly during the formative periods of infancy, childhood, and adolescence—is very closely related to the amount of warfare and interpersonal violence.” Cultures that don’t interfere in the physical bonding between mother and child or prohibit the expression of adolescent sexuality show far lower levels of violence—both between individuals and between societies.

- Sex Against War

The Radical Possibilities of Pleasure

1 year ago · 14 notes

Padmasambhava’s Rainbow Body Padmasambhava has a special place in my heart. At home I have a little postcard of his image, given to me by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche after I told him of a dream in which I was driving a flying car with he in the passenger seat. We flew over the rooftops of tall buildings and I could see there a bunch of grotesque monsters. They each looked like poorly formed amalgamations of other hideous creatures, creating bizarre and exponential freakiness. Rinpoche was exuding joy, as if pleasure had taken form, (Sambhogakaya?) He showed me I could look through a petaled circle of light which appeared in the center of my vision. Through this the world was clearer, brighter, sharper and the monsters non-existent. I could at once see with this Clear Vision and outside of the circle still perceive the darker world. I started to count the petals, to try and figure out the magic of it… he just laughed heartily, compassionately and let me know I was missing the point. : ) His advice when he gave me the image of Padmasambhava was to “try and see things like this all of the time.” I am continually blown away, a few seconds so ripe with meaning, deep significance yields itself every time I think of this dream, even now I’ve learnt something very important which I’d never seen before. So simple and so profound

Padmasambhava’s Rainbow Body

Padmasambhava has a special place in my heart. At home I have a little postcard of his image, given to me by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche after I told him of a dream in which I was driving a flying car with he in the passenger seat. We flew over the rooftops of tall buildings and I could see there a bunch of grotesque monsters. They each looked like poorly formed amalgamations of other hideous creatures, creating bizarre and exponential freakiness. Rinpoche was exuding joy, as if pleasure had taken form, (Sambhogakaya?) He showed me I could look through a petaled circle of light which appeared in the center of my vision. Through this the world was clearer, brighter, sharper and the monsters non-existent. I could at once see with this Clear Vision and outside of the circle still perceive the darker world. I started to count the petals, to try and figure out the magic of it… he just laughed heartily, compassionately and let me know I was missing the point. : )

His advice when he gave me the image of Padmasambhava was to “try and see things like this all of the time.” I am continually blown away, a few seconds so ripe with meaning, deep significance yields itself every time I think of this dream, even now I’ve learnt something very important which I’d never seen before. So simple and so profound

1 year ago · 40 notes · Source

1 year ago · 19 notes