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Most women do it at home; men, it seems, do it everywhere. Some consider it a health treatment, others as love for themselves. Yet despite everyone doing it, no one actually talks about it - masturbation is still taboo, and even today the subject is not discussed at dinner parties or soirees. To help the world overcome its diffidence towards solo sex, Mels van Driel has written With the Hand. Consulting theologians, historians, classicists, doctors, sexologists, connoisseurs, artists, philosophers, writers, poets, musicians, feminists and chauvinists, Van Driel answers questions about what masturbation actually is, and describes the latest discoveries and developments in the field. Covering a great number of topics, from the physical, to the mythical, to the mythological, to the artistic, this book explores masturbation in all its astonishing variety. From statistics of age, location and frequency, to the effects of circumcision, to multiple orgasms, he also explores masturbation in art, literature, poetry, song, religion and philosophy. Frequently astounding, often humorous and always informative, With the Hand refutes the many myths and confusion surrounding this universal, yet unmentionable pursuit. Making an unusual gift, this is perhaps the ultimate bedtime book.
About the Author
Mels van Driel is a consultant urologist and sexologist at Groningen University Medical Center in The Netherlands. He has written widely for scientific publications, newspapers and magazines, and is the author of Manhood: The Rise and Fall of the Penis (Reaktion Books, 2009).
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I am delighted to see a serious work on this subject making it onto the Amazon bookshelf and would like to congratulate Mels van Driel on 'With the hand'. Readers who enjoy this work may also enjoy the stirring defence of onanism from the wonderful German professor Leo P. Strong, which I myself translate.
Portnoy's Defence is subtle, quasi-religious, and inspirational, as Strong himself is keen to assert: `I am the first and only prophet of onanism,' he writes, 'and every night many millions of worshippers join me at prayer in the temple of the flesh.' Portnoy's Defence
Portnoy's Defence is subtle, quasi-religious, and inspirational, as Strong himself is keen to assert: `I am the first and only prophet of onanism,' he writes, 'and every night many millions of worshippers join me at prayer in the temple of the flesh.' Portnoy's Defence
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This fascination look at the cultural history of masturbation draws on material furnished by doctors, sexologists, feminists, chauvinists, theologians, historians and phoilosphers. The book covers a lot and also explores the subject in art, literature, poetry, music and film.
The author is a consultant urologist and sexologist, at Groningen University Medical Center in the Netherlands, who is clearly positive about masturbation, saying: ''it is perfectly normal'' and not ''dirty, sinful, shameful or even unhealthy. Masturbation is relaxing for both men and women and acts as an excellent soporific, without side effects'' (p239). In societies with high divorce rates, people find themselves to their own devices. This is where masturbation can help here too (p24)' And, may I add, it's also fun!
Masturbation occures in humans and animals and in both sexes. It is of course natural and is nothing to be ashamed of. The word 'masturbation' derives from the Latin words mas and turbare, 'masculine/masculinity' and 'move (violently)'. A variant of this etymology interprets the first part of the word as a form of manus, 'hand', and the second as stuprum, 'debauch'' (p7). It's the slang terms for the practice of masturbation that amuse us. Besides the familiar British 'wank' and American 'jerk off', we have the following inventive terms: assult on a friendly weapon, being your own best friend, charming the cobra, Custer's last stand, getting in touch with yourself, one man show, playing the organ, punishing the bishop, roughing up the suspect, and, shaking hands with Abe Lincoln. Women hoever, have a slightly more limited choice, such as, 'fingering oneself, a night with the girls, engaging in safe sex, having sex with someone you love, manual override, squeezing the peach and parting the Red Sea (p7-8).
Recent surveys inform us that people masturbate, at all ages, even when in a relationship (p22). Humans love to do it but not to talk about it. It's still taboo, and looked at as a guilty pleasure for many. A situation that Driel's book doesn't really answer. But what makes this work so interesting is the amount of people who condemn masturbation but should have known better. We're talking here of doctors and some progressive thinkers of the Enlightement (p124). We can understand how religion viewed masturbation as sinful but not secular thinkers. In his book, Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation (2003), the American historian Thomas W. Laqueur goes so far as to blame many Enlightenment thinkers for keeping the taboo on masturbation alive. It had become a sort of secular sin, if you will. Driel says: ''For centuries the commandment 'thou shalt not masturbate,' which become a paradoxical fusion between the progressive spirit of the Enlightenment and conservative ecclesiastical views, held the community morally in its thrall. Far into the twentieth century masturbating patients were informed of the gruesome consequences of their behaviour: blindness, hysteria, aggression and madness (particulary in women), kidney disorders or a deformed spine, the familiar endless litany. This pathology sparked a new industry, supplying products like erection alarm apparatuses, penis sheaths and for girls special gloves and bandages to prevent them from opening their legs'' (p 127). But this so-called moral crusade had little or no influence over human actions.
If I had to fault this fine and highly informative book, then it would be the author's almost silent attitude to pornography or the porn film industy. Why he didn't have a chapter on porn is a big disappointment and oversight. After all, it's what a lot of people use today to masturbate. When the author does talk about film (chapter 9, Entertainment), it's soft-core like Emmanuelle (1974) or the masturbating nuns in Ken Russell's The Devils (1971), etc. Nothing of any real substance. Although Driel doesn't argue that consenting adult porn should be censored or banned, his claim (which I might be misunderstanding) that, ''Porn directs the eyes to certain anatomical parts and puts the focus on woman as object'' (p 213) is not the view of many today and even those who work in the porn industy. Indeed, taken this view, one could argue that those who masturbate view people as objects. In reality of course, masturbation is fanasty pure and simply. It's not the real world. People are not objects!
This is a book I heartily recommend. The 'Cultral History of Masturbation' is such a fascinating subject that I would like to know more.
The author is a consultant urologist and sexologist, at Groningen University Medical Center in the Netherlands, who is clearly positive about masturbation, saying: ''it is perfectly normal'' and not ''dirty, sinful, shameful or even unhealthy. Masturbation is relaxing for both men and women and acts as an excellent soporific, without side effects'' (p239). In societies with high divorce rates, people find themselves to their own devices. This is where masturbation can help here too (p24)' And, may I add, it's also fun!
Masturbation occures in humans and animals and in both sexes. It is of course natural and is nothing to be ashamed of. The word 'masturbation' derives from the Latin words mas and turbare, 'masculine/masculinity' and 'move (violently)'. A variant of this etymology interprets the first part of the word as a form of manus, 'hand', and the second as stuprum, 'debauch'' (p7). It's the slang terms for the practice of masturbation that amuse us. Besides the familiar British 'wank' and American 'jerk off', we have the following inventive terms: assult on a friendly weapon, being your own best friend, charming the cobra, Custer's last stand, getting in touch with yourself, one man show, playing the organ, punishing the bishop, roughing up the suspect, and, shaking hands with Abe Lincoln. Women hoever, have a slightly more limited choice, such as, 'fingering oneself, a night with the girls, engaging in safe sex, having sex with someone you love, manual override, squeezing the peach and parting the Red Sea (p7-8).
Recent surveys inform us that people masturbate, at all ages, even when in a relationship (p22). Humans love to do it but not to talk about it. It's still taboo, and looked at as a guilty pleasure for many. A situation that Driel's book doesn't really answer. But what makes this work so interesting is the amount of people who condemn masturbation but should have known better. We're talking here of doctors and some progressive thinkers of the Enlightement (p124). We can understand how religion viewed masturbation as sinful but not secular thinkers. In his book, Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation (2003), the American historian Thomas W. Laqueur goes so far as to blame many Enlightenment thinkers for keeping the taboo on masturbation alive. It had become a sort of secular sin, if you will. Driel says: ''For centuries the commandment 'thou shalt not masturbate,' which become a paradoxical fusion between the progressive spirit of the Enlightenment and conservative ecclesiastical views, held the community morally in its thrall. Far into the twentieth century masturbating patients were informed of the gruesome consequences of their behaviour: blindness, hysteria, aggression and madness (particulary in women), kidney disorders or a deformed spine, the familiar endless litany. This pathology sparked a new industry, supplying products like erection alarm apparatuses, penis sheaths and for girls special gloves and bandages to prevent them from opening their legs'' (p 127). But this so-called moral crusade had little or no influence over human actions.
If I had to fault this fine and highly informative book, then it would be the author's almost silent attitude to pornography or the porn film industy. Why he didn't have a chapter on porn is a big disappointment and oversight. After all, it's what a lot of people use today to masturbate. When the author does talk about film (chapter 9, Entertainment), it's soft-core like Emmanuelle (1974) or the masturbating nuns in Ken Russell's The Devils (1971), etc. Nothing of any real substance. Although Driel doesn't argue that consenting adult porn should be censored or banned, his claim (which I might be misunderstanding) that, ''Porn directs the eyes to certain anatomical parts and puts the focus on woman as object'' (p 213) is not the view of many today and even those who work in the porn industy. Indeed, taken this view, one could argue that those who masturbate view people as objects. In reality of course, masturbation is fanasty pure and simply. It's not the real world. People are not objects!
This is a book I heartily recommend. The 'Cultral History of Masturbation' is such a fascinating subject that I would like to know more.
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