Female Autoerotism in Twentieth Century Sexology and Sex Research

291 Pages·2015·1.825 MB·English

by  Nour Alsaoub

Female Autoerotism in Twentieth Century
Sexology and Sex Research

NOUR ALSAOUB

PhD
University of York
Women's Studies

March 2015
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Abstract

In this thesis I argue that female masturbation is still in some ways seen as
problematic even though it is no longer represented as a basis for shame
and sin. Historians have shed light on the vicious campaign against
masturbation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but little attention
has been dedicated to the twentieth century, beyond overviews of how ideas
changed so that masturbation was no longer, allegedly, condemned.
Although I will begin with a consideration of attitudes towards female
masturbation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, my main focus will
be on the twentieth century through an in-depth analysis of the works of the
prominent sexologists and sex researchers: Havelock Ellis, Freud, Kinsey,
Masters and Johnson and Shere Hite. I address specific problems in their
arguments regarding female sexuality in general and female autoerotism in
particular. I contend that these influential figures participated in the great
confusion we have about female masturbation today. At first it was thought
that excessive or prolonged masturbation led to psychological or sexual
problems. When later sexologists tried to present masturbation in a better
light, it continued to be, for them, an inferior form of sexual practice. Even
when female autoerotism is advocated, it is justified by claiming that it leads
to better "real sex". Finally, through a reading of recent popular culture, my
study explores how sex researchers' attitudes towards masturbation
influenced our own, resulting in a paradox: it is still a secretive practice and
yet can be celebrated in women's magazines. In concentrating on the
twentieth century I seek to substantiate my argument that the problems we
have with masturbation did not stop at the end of the nineteenth century. My
thesis is an attempt at presenting female masturbation as neither a disease
nor a cure. It is a step towards a better comprehension of a wide-spread,
mostly pleasurable, practice while avoiding both condemnation and
overenthusiasm.
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Table of Contents

Abstract 2
List of Images 4
Acknowledgements 5
Author's Declaration 6
Dedication 7
Introduction 8
Chapter One 26
Before the Invention of Autoerotism: On the Horrors of Being a
Female Onanist in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Chapter Two 56
Havelock Ellis and the "Inevitable" Phenomenon
Chapter Three 91
Freud's Unsolved Riddle of Infantile Masturbation
Chapter Four 125
Masturbation as a Prerequisite for Married Life
Chapter Five 154
In the Absence of a Sexual Partner
Chapter Six 190
A Feminine Touch: A Study of Shere Hite's Work on Female
Sexuality and Autoerotism
Chapter Seven 223
Knitting Our Way to Orgasm: Contemporary Representations of
Masturbation in Popular Culture
Conclusion 266
Bibliography 274
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List of Images

Image 1. Title page of Onania 29
Image 2. Title page of Onanism 39
Image 3. Knit Your Own Orgasm (1998) by Grizelda Grizlingham. 224
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Acknowledgements

I am thankful for completing this project under the guidance of an exemplary
PhD supervisor who worries about the personal, educational and financial
wellbeing of her students. Her encouragement and insightful, logical
comments on my work made a strenuous journey truly worth the effort.
Learning from her as well as reading her books made me a better
researcher, writer and feminist. Thank you, Prof. Stevi Jackson. My gratitude
goes to Dr. Ann Kaloski-Naylor for her great help in correcting my work
during the last, very hectic six months of my study. I thank her for her
kindness and willingness to help at all times. Finally, my utmost thanks go to
my family for their continuous moral, educational, and financial support. I am
grateful to them for their unconditional, profoundly undeserved love, and for
being a part of my life.
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Author's Declaration

I hereby declare that the work contained in this thesis is my own and has not
been previously published. No part of the material has been previously
submitted for a degree at The University of York or any other university.
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For my mother and sisters
With love and endless gratitude
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Introduction

Eve Sedgwick's phrase "Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl"1 raised
eyebrows before the "transgressing" paper was even published. In his book
Tenured Radicals, Roger Kimball cited Sedgwick's title as an example of
"ideologically motivated assaults on the intellectual and moral substance of
our culture" (Kimball, 1998, p. 11). Sedgwick's notorious phrase was seen as
"oxymoronic, a scandalous yoking of some words which should never, ever
belong in the same sentence" (Jones, 2004, p. 196). Sedgwick's ploy is
believed to be intentional, however, as a way of creating ripples in the
otherwise still pond of Jane Austen Studies (Jones, 2004, p. 196). Its
importance lies not only in discussing Jane Austen's novels from a different
angle, but also in raising the question: "why shouldn't a literary critic write
about masturbation?" (Siegel, 2013, p. 436).
The controversy is not restricted to the field of literary theory neither is
it limited to the halo which surround a figure like Jane Austen. At times, even
examining the topic is considered a step too far. When Paula Bennett and
Vernon A. Rosario's call for papers for their anthology on masturbation
appeared in an academic journal, a reader could not restrain his anger and

1 Sedgwick's paper compares the bedroom scene from Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility
to Zambaco's case study of two little girls. For her the interaction between the sisters Elinor
and Marianne Dashwood bears resonance with the dialogue referenced between the two
little sisters in the 19th century case study. "Reading the bedroom scenes of Sense and
Sensibility, I find I have lodged in my mind a bedroom scene from another document, a
narrative structured as a case history of "Onanism and Nervous Disorders in Two Little Girls"
and dated 1881" (Sedgwick, 1991, p. 827). This comparison sheds light on the importance
of the identity of the masturbator which, according to Sedgwick, represents the "proto-form
of modern sexual identity itself" (Sedgwick, 1991, p. 826).
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wrote to the editor asking: whatever next? The outraged reader could not
wrap his mind around how serious scholars and academics would deem
such "vulgar and distasteful" topics as "medical attitudes towards
masturbation (for God's sake!)" as worthy of examination (Bennett and
Rosario, 1995, p. 1). In 1994, the Surgeon General of the United States,
Joycelyn Elders, expressed her view that masturbation "is something that is
part of human sexuality and it's part of something that perhaps should be
taught" (as cited in (Plante, 2014, p. 142). Because of this statement, she
was fired by none other than Bill Clinton. Evidently the mere suggestion that
the "vice" should be normalised is what constitutes crossing the line.
Elder's forced resignation did not go unheeded by scholars. The
incident was cited numerous times (Rutter and Schwartz, 2012, p. 55),
(Ogden, 2008, p. 52) and (Irvine, 2004, p. 1) as an example of how orthodox
views of sexuality still prevail. The incident, however, was not enough
incentive for researchers to devote a complete study to masturbation. The
number of researches on masturbation is far from proportional with the
prevalence of the practice. A basic search of the word "masturbation" in
Ethos2 yields no more than three results; two of which are related to literature
and one to cinema.3 Other variations such as "autoerotism" and "solitary sex"
do not come up with any results at all. A similar search on Amazon UK yields
522, but the vast majority of these are self-help books (on how to masturbate
or stop masturbating), erotic stories, religion's views on masturbation, some

2 http://ethos.bl.uk/ British Library Ethos: e-theses online service.
3 Keats, Modesty and Masturbation, The Secret Vice: Masturbation in Victorian Fiction and
Medical Culture, and Masturbation, Sexual Logic and Capitalism: The Autoerotic in
Contemporary American Cinema and Beyond.
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out-of-print books and repeated results. The remaining published studies on
masturbation are far from popular. For a topic described as "inexhaustible"
by Freud in 1912 (Freud, 1958, p. 254), we have not done very well.
Due to the Jocelyn Elder incident, the 1990s is a good time to place a
marker regarding the problem of masturbation. The attitude towards
Sedgwick's paper and Bennett and Rosario's anthology, which were also
published in the 1990s, reveal that the issue is wider than a disagreement
between the president and his Surgeon General. Thus was the attitude
towards masturbation twenty years ago, but has it changed since then? Most
importantly, what led to such an attitude? Scholars chose to concentrate on
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries because it is then that autoerotism
became a problem. It is argued that the campaign against masturbation
began with the publication of the best-selling pamphlet Onania in 1710. Its
author, an anonymous quack doctor, who was later recognised by Thomas
Laqueur as John Marten (Laqueur, 2003, p. 32), accumulated riches by
denouncing the sinful disease. Among the most important studies on the
condemnation of autoerotism is Masturbation: the History of Great Terror
(2001) by the Belgian historians Jean Stengers and Anne Van Neck. They
argue that denouncing masturbation started because of John Marten's book
and developed due to Tissot's influence on the Occident as a revered
physician. Even though Tissot's book Onanism was influenced by Onania,
Stengers and Van Neck argue, the physician is the one who is responsible
for spreading the fear. Only towards the end of their study do the two
historians discuss the decline of Tissot's influence. Apart from Freud, they