Solitary Sex

Around 1700, masturbation morphed from a minor sociospiritual transgression into a moral-medical horror. The author explains why. As centralized monarchs and the church lost power and the individual assumed new importance in civil society, masturbation was revisioned as the most selfish, antisocial and dangerous perversion of individualism. Much later, Freud remade masturbation into a temporary, youthful way station for individual socialization. After the 1960s, feminism and gay liberation helped engineer a third makeover of masturbation as fundamental for socialized individuals of any age. All three visions coexist uneasily today.