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From: Ian Robert Douglas <Ian_Robert_Douglas@xxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 06:02:06 -0500
>what's an onanism?
>If the term has any greater meaning in a Foucault-ian
>sense, I wouldn't know.
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Tatiana,
'onanism' is the biblical word for masturbation (Genesis xxxviii).
Victorian sexology made it a matter for scientific investigation on the
grounds of a concern for the proper health of the child. Foucault in his
original scheme for the _History of Sexuality_ wrote a whole volume (now
lost, to my knowledge) on the "panic-theme" of masturbation. His concern,
seemingly, is with the ways in which through the 19thC masturbation became
a concern and a focal point of 'corrective mechanisms' based not so much on
the symbolism of sin but that of sickness. Masturbation becomes
'dangerous'; degenerative and disforming. Medicine was to intervene where
morals had failed. I'm sure you can fill in the details ...
ian