Masturbation Throughout History
IT seems likely masturbation has always been the most common and universal of human sexual experiences — but only in recent decades have attitudes toward sexuality in general, and masturbation in particular, begun to improve. There never has been a "golden age" of sexual freedom and tolerance, though specific taboos have always varied widely. The frequent condemnation of masturbation apparently stems from a suprisingly simple mandate: there's safety in numbers. For centuries, all forms of sexual pleasure unlikely to result in population increase have routinely been denounced as wrong. In order to understand current attitudes, it helps to examine earlier human cultures. Before history, which is defined by the existence of written records, the evidence proves sketchy. Our closest living primate relatives, the Bonobo chimpanzees, share 98.4% of our DNA. The Bonobos are notable for their lack of sexual inhibition, engaging almost constantly in the full variety of sexual acts humans do, including frequent masturbation. Significantly their social order is amazingly harmonious; the regular sexual satisfaction among them seems to minimize conflict and aggression. Bonobo behavior may indicate how we ourselves could function if our belief system's distorting abstractions and concepts did not exist. Prehistoric petroglyphs and rock paintings from around the world evidently depict male masturbation, though these are entirely matters of interpretation. Most early people seem to have connected human sexuality with abundance in nature. A clay figurine of the 4th millennium Before Current Era [i.e., B.C.], from a temple site called Hagar Qim on the island of Malta, depicts a woman masturbating.
