In class, we began to learn about the history of sexuality. Before then, I never really looked into any history behind it and the ways it was viewed in different time periods and religions. I was aware of some of the topics talked about such as premarital sex being sinful, men were in charge of the women and that women were viewed as property, masturbation was a sin, and that same sex marriage was frowned upon in a lot of cultures. Even though I already knew about masturbation being “sinful”, I didn’t realize how many myths there were surrounding it. Some old ones we mentioned in class were you would have hairy palms if you masturbate or you will go blind if you masturbate. I decided to look up what some other ones were. In an article written by Sheri Stritof (https://www.verywellmind.com/myths-about-masturbation-2300804), some of the more “out there” myths included that a man’s penis will shrink, it will make you go insane, it will cause cancer, and that masturbation is self-abuse. These are obviously not true and were created by people who were against the idea of masturbation. This article also includes some other points on masturbation, so if you are interested in this topic, this may be a good read for you.

 This article does not mention, however, if these myths apply to both males and females.  I found another article about female masturbation by Suzannah Weiss (https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/01/myths-women-masturbation/). In this article she talks about the stigma surrounding female masturbation and some common myths about it. Some of the myths include that women are slutty if they masturbate, women don’t watch porn, or women just don’t masturbate. There is still a stigma around female masturbation (not as much as before) so it is a bit harder 😉 to find myths on it. This is also because the biggest myth is that females don’t masturbate, which is not true.

This topic mainly interested me because I didn’t realize all of the myths out there surrounding masturbation. I hope to learn more in this class about any myths about sexuality that I may already know and even ones I don’t know as well.