Masturbation: Myths, Medical History, and Why It’s Not What They Told You

When you think of masturbation, the act of sexually stimulating oneself for pleasure. Also known as self-pleasure, it’s one of the most common human behaviors—and one of the most misunderstood. For over a century, doctors called it insanity, weakness, even a cause of blindness. Victorian-era physicians claimed it drained your vital fluids, ruined your nerves, and turned boys into criminals. They wrote books warning parents to lock their sons in cages at night to stop it. And yet, here we are: nearly everyone does it, and science now says it’s not just harmless—it’s good for you.

That shift didn’t happen by accident. It took researchers like Havelock Ellis, a pioneering sexologist who challenged Victorian moral panic with data to push back against fear-based medicine. He wasn’t the first to study it, but he was one of the first to treat it as normal biology, not moral failure. Meanwhile, female hysteria, a fake diagnosis used to explain women’s sexual frustration led to the invention of early vibrators—medical tools sold to doctors to treat "nervous disorders" by inducing orgasms. Women didn’t know they were getting pleasure therapy. They just knew the machine helped.

Today, we know masturbation reduces stress, improves sleep, and even helps with pelvic floor health. It’s linked to lower prostate cancer risk in men and better body awareness in women. But the shame? That didn’t vanish with the science. It just went quiet. It lives in the awkward silence when a teen asks a parent, in the way ads for sex toys still use euphemisms like "personal massagers," and in the lingering idea that "good people" don’t do it alone. The truth is, if you’ve ever touched yourself for pleasure, you’re not broken. You’re human. And you’ve been part of a quiet revolution—one that started in medical journals and ended up in bedrooms everywhere.

Below, you’ll find real stories from history: how doctors lied, how women used steam-powered devices to get relief, how religion turned pleasure into sin, and how science finally caught up. These aren’t just old articles. They’re the missing pieces to understanding why we still feel guilty about something that’s as natural as breathing.