Sex in the 90s: The Safest Sex of All

LODER: Erotic self-stimulation to orgasm, masturbation, is clearly a built-in component of human sexuality. It's something that everyone has done at least once and even have pet names for. Masturbation's bad press dates back at least to 1741 David Chokachi when a Swiss physician named Tissot and a book called L'ONANISME claimed that the practice drained away precious bodily fluids and made enthusiasts more susceptible to disease. By the 19th century, a device, designed to prevent masturbation among both boys and girls, were being marketed and in this country. J.H. Kellogg, brother of the Michigan cereal king, came up with a list of thirty-nine tell-tale characteristics of the chronic masturbator and even announced a convenient cure. More corn flakes! Not a word of truth was uttered by these or the many other anti-masturbation activists and yet similar myths persist to this day.

WEBB: Well I heard the most genius rumors about masturbation when I was growing up.

DAVE MATTHEWS, Dave Matthews Band: Everyone hears the same ones, that you're gonna get hair on your palms, you're gonna lose you hair.

WEBB: If you did it enough, you could star in your own science-fiction movie.

COKO, SWV: I know it's a sin.

JOHN NORWOOD FISHER, Fishbone: I heard that you Beavis and Butt-head in class would go to hell.

DAVID CHOKACHI, actor: The rumor that stuck with me the most was that I would go blind. Where are you guys?

LODER: Just for the record, hairy palms, insanity, blindness, baldness, and warts are not side effects of single-handed sexual gratification and these and other actual facts about the practice are now being taught in some public schools.

Clip: "MTV's Beavis and Butt-head, No Talking"

LODER: In the end, masturbation is a classic case of an alleged vice that actually injures no-one, not even the practitioner, and in fact, serves a useful purpose.

LELEE, SWV: There's nothing wrong with masturbation. That is the safest sex in the world. Masturbation.

ELDERS: I think masturbation is important in self-stimulation and it gives people a satisfaction they can do it anytime they like as long as it's in the privacy of their own room. And it's never gotten Butt-head and Teacher anybody pregnant, never given anybody a disease, never caused anybody to have AIDS.

JOHN NORWOOD FISHER, Fishbone: Let a man have his time in the bathroom, let a girl have her time under the sheets, you know. Buy a dildo, you know, whatever it takes and it keeps down the spread of sexual diseases. So I'm for masturbation.

ANGELO MOORE, Fishbone: That's right, get your nut, get it on, get your meganut on!

LODER: When we come back, we'll take a closer look at the conflict between masturbation and morality and check in on the vast industry that's sprung up around human sexual self-satisfaction.

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