Though the Catholic church had railed against sexual sin for centuries, it wasn't until 1772, when Onanism: a Treatise on the Disorders Produced by Masturbation reached England that “This heinous crime, this abominable sin, condemned alike by God and man” began to consume the minds of moral watchdogs. Written by Samuel Tissot, the Pope's chief expert on hygiene and advisor on plagues, Onanism is a mixture of medical hysteria and hellfire thunderation. Tissot claimed that self-abuse causes impotence, epilepsy, blindness, imbecility, gonorrhea, priapism, tumors, hemorrhoids, homosexuality, and death. One man, according to Tissot, was so addicted to self-abuse that his brain dried out and could...

Though the Catholic church had railed against sexual sin for centuries, it wasn't until 1772, when Onanism: a Treatise on the Disorders Produced by Masturbation reached England that “This heinous crime, this abominable sin, condemned alike by God and man” began to consume the minds of moral watchdogs. Written by Samuel Tissot, the Pope's chief expert on hygiene and advisor on plagues, Onanism is a mixture of medical hysteria and hellfire thunderation. Tissot claimed that self-abuse causes impotence, epilepsy, blindness, imbecility, gonorrhea, priapism, tumors, hemorrhoids, homosexuality, and death. One man, according to Tissot, was so addicted to self-abuse that his brain dried out and could be heard rattling in his head. More important than the vivid picture he paints of the wretched masturbator is Tissot's linking of medical and moral doom, assuring the self-abuser of torment both in this world and the next. Going through innumerable reprintings in many languages, Onanism had a deep and lasting effect on medical thought.
In short, the person addicted to the solitary vice became a repository for all the most nauseous symptoms that the Victorian mind could conjure up.

Masturbation was seen in not just physical or psychological terms, but also as a “moral leprosy.” With the rise of racial anxieties, the obsession with protoplasmic purity and hereditary hygiene, came the obsession with the sexual fluids and organs. Dr. Joseph Jones, in 1889, declared that a child of a masturbator was likely to be afflicted with hereditary insanity. The specter of racial decay haunted the so-called Anglo-Saxon world in the late 1800s. The strength, reproductive ability, the moral and spiritual character of “Aryan” seed-bearers was directly threatened by the “vicious habit.” Doctors were charged with protecting society's most precious substance: the seed out of which new gen...

Masturbation was seen in not just physical or psychological terms, but also as a “moral leprosy.” With the rise of racial anxieties, the obsession with protoplasmic purity and hereditary hygiene, came the obsession with the sexual fluids and organs. Dr. Joseph Jones, in 1889, declared that a child of a masturbator was likely to be afflicted with hereditary insanity. The specter of racial decay haunted the so-called Anglo-Saxon world in the late 1800s. The strength, reproductive ability, the moral and spiritual character of “Aryan” seed-bearers was directly threatened by the “vicious habit.” Doctors were charged with protecting society's most precious substance: the seed out of which new generations would spring.
“Influence of Sewing Machines Upon the Health and Morality of Females Using Them.” The authors of this article found that sweat-shop seamstresses often suffered from heart palpitations, severe back pain, headache, eye strain and exhaustion. The cause? Not miserable working conditions but secret sexual pleasure from pumping the sewing machine treadles all day. Women, as cogs in the vast industrial system, were thought to be masturbating and many were “forced to quit the establishment on account of the fatigue, lassitude, pains, etc. superinduced by the venereal excitement incident to setting the machine in motion.”

How did the guardians of Victorian purity deal with this blight? The course of their treatments in the 1800s falls into three progressive periods. First, up to the 1850s, doctors emphasized hydrotherapy, diet, and drugs. From 1850 to 1880, the majority of the literature on the plague recommended the use of surgical intervention. Between 1880 and the turn of the century, medical men turned toward physical restraint and psychic terrorization.

To numb the sexual organs, doctors used a variety of anesthetics, among them camphor and tincture of cantharides. The therapeutic use of baths was also encouraged. And special diets too were believed to help keep the monstrous impulses at bay. Through...

How did the guardians of Victorian purity deal with this blight? The course of their treatments in the 1800s falls into three progressive periods. First, up to the 1850s, doctors emphasized hydrotherapy, diet, and drugs. From 1850 to 1880, the majority of the literature on the plague recommended the use of surgical intervention. Between 1880 and the turn of the century, medical men turned toward physical restraint and psychic terrorization.

To numb the sexual organs, doctors used a variety of anesthetics, among them camphor and tincture of cantharides. The therapeutic use of baths was also encouraged. And special diets too were believed to help keep the monstrous impulses at bay. Throughout the entire Century of Progress, certain foods were thought to stir up sexual feelings and lead to the solitary vice. Dr. Stall warned his Dear Friend Harry against pork, eggs, salt-meat, candy, pies and cakes, pepper, pickles and condiments. “Milk and vegetable foods are most favorable to a mastery of sexual sensitiveness,” the doctor explained.
By the midpoint of the 1800s, more brutal treatments were brought into play to control imaginary sexual deviation: blistering and cauterization of the genitals, clitoridectomy, sectioning of the penile nerves, and even castration.

The use of caustic chemicals to sear the skin, hot irons, and electrical cauterization (“faradization”) of the clitoris were much in vogue. Not just sexual tissue though was the target of the doctors' fiery attentions. Blistering the thighs and spinal region were also thought useful to beat back onanistic impulses.

Another novel technique - infibulation - consisted of placing silver wires through the prepuce to prevent its retraction behind the glans. Stiffer silver rings were also used. Dr. D. Yellowlees of Scotland used infibulation well into the last part of the century. After a dozen cases, he wrote that “the sensation among the patients themselves was extraordinary.” He was much impressed by t

the “conscience-stricken way in which the patients submitted to the operation upon their penises” and hoped to “try it on a large scale and go on wiring all masturbators.”
There were those who objected to such sadistic practices and as the twentieth century loomed near greater emphasis was placed on psychological terrorization and physical restraint. Dr. I. Bloch, in The Sexual Life of Our Time, recounts with some fondness the technique of doctors “who appeared before the child armed with great knives and scissors and threatened a painful operation or even to cut off the genital organs” as an efficient way of preventing self-abuse. Thousands of children in the late Victorian period were thr...

the “conscience-stricken way in which the patients submitted to the operation upon their penises” and hoped to “try it on a large scale and go on wiring all masturbators.”
There were those who objected to such sadistic practices and as the twentieth century loomed near greater emphasis was placed on psychological terrorization and physical restraint. Dr. I. Bloch, in The Sexual Life of Our Time, recounts with some fondness the technique of doctors “who appeared before the child armed with great knives and scissors and threatened a painful operation or even to cut off the genital organs” as an efficient way of preventing self-abuse. Thousands of children in the late Victorian period were threatened with sexual mutilation if caught masturbating. To aid the vigilant parents, devices were sold to warn of nocturnal arousal. Attached to electrical bells and buzzers, these were useful for sexual surveillance. More crude, but perhaps more effective were toothed and spiked rings worn on the penis, causing severe pain and bleeding in the case of nighttime erection.

The chastity belt, or girdle of chastity, was not, contrary to popular notions, an artifact of the middle ages. There is little or no evidence that kings and knights locked up their ladies to contain their sexual impulses. These devices were the product of masturbatory insanity: doctors trying any method possible to keep the exploring fingers away from the genitals.

Dr. Moodie, another Scot involved in the war against self-abuse, may be the true inventor of the chastity belt. Not only did he warn against little girls fingering themselves, but designed his girdles to prevent married women from employing dildos - which he believed it was more common for wives to have than to be without. ...

The chastity belt, or girdle of chastity, was not, contrary to popular notions, an artifact of the middle ages. There is little or no evidence that kings and knights locked up their ladies to contain their sexual impulses. These devices were the product of masturbatory insanity: doctors trying any method possible to keep the exploring fingers away from the genitals.

Dr. Moodie, another Scot involved in the war against self-abuse, may be the true inventor of the chastity belt. Not only did he warn against little girls fingering themselves, but designed his girdles to prevent married women from employing dildos - which he believed it was more common for wives to have than to be without. The Moodie girdle of chastity consisted of a cushion made out of rubber or some other soft material and suitably covered with silk, linen or soft leather. This cushion or pad formed the base into which was fixed a kind of grating, and this part of the apparatus rested upon the vulva, the pad being large enough to press upon the mons veneris. The lower part of the pad rested upon the perineum, being curved so as to fit the parts enclosed. The bars of the grating were to be made of ivory or bone. The whole apparatus was affixed by means of a belt to a pair of tight-fitting drawers and secured by a padlock, a secret flap closing over the key hole.

A surgical-instruments catalog from 1930 shows various devices for sexual restraint: straight jackets of “stout sailcloth” fastened with leather straps and buckles, and the “masturbation appliance” consisting of a belt of corset material, and a “nickel-plated cage, which had padded edges and rubber understraps.” How many of these sexual shackles were actually sold is not known, but the fact that reputable medical supply companies made them available, that so many textbooks and articles spoke of their usefulness indicates these may have been a common - if secret - fact of Victorian life.