Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXural diversion, just tinged with the salacious." Such "perversions"are neither banned nor cultivated into institutions;they are simply the sign of the recognition of a widerange of normality, and public opinion, while viewingattention to the details of sex as unseemly, does not regardthem as wrong. It is claimed by Margaret Mead that theSamoans by this system "legislate a whole field of neuroticpossibility out of existence"; there is no neurosis,no frigidity,no impotence. Facility of divorce makes unnecessaryan unhappy marriage(though adultery does notnecessarily destroy marriage) , and economic independ-,ence of the wife places her on the same level as thehusband.When we turn to the European tradition, and to thesources of our modern civilization, the earliest referencesto these manifestations show no clearly implied disapprovalor at the most an occasional touch of contempt, andthere is even in Greek literature an association of masturbationwith gods. In historical times we find that admiredphilosophers of the Cynic school boasted of the advantagesof satisfying sexual needs in a solitary manner. InRome there appears to have been a considerable amountof indifference to these matters, and even in the ChristianChurch, for over a thousand years, there were so manyextravagant sexual excesses to combat that the spontaneoussolitary manifestations of sex scarcely attractedattention. It was not till the Reformation and at firstmainly in Protestant countries, though the movementquickly spread to France and other Catholic countries,that moralists and physicians began to be much troubledabout masturbation. This was in the eighteenth century.At the same time opportunity was furnished to quacks tooffer more or less fanstastic remedies for the evils whichwere beginning to be attributed to "self-abuse." Even[104]