Nowadays it's commonly accepted by most—but not all—North Americans that a high level of self-esteem is essential for good mental health as well as for success in school, career, family and community living in general. Countless studies by educators, psychologists and other social scientists confirm that our feelings about ourselves tend to predict either our success or failure in many aspects of our lives. However, although most educated people in the 1990s at least pay lip service to self-esteem, I find that few possess a really high level of it.

While growing up as a small-town boy in the late '40s through the 1950s I heard little about boosting self-esteem. In fact family, community and religious forces seemed united in trying to make young people feel humble, guilty, obedient and fearful. At the heart of this negativism is a self-view of our bodies and, especially, of our sexuality which is anything but healthy.

Masturbation attitudes are at the core of our sexual self-image because, as masturbation guru Betty Dodson observed, masturbation is our baseline sexuality. "Masturbation is a primary form of sexual expression," Dodson said in her masterpiece book Sex For One: The Joy of Selfloving. "It's not just for kids or for those in-between lovers or for old people who end up alone. Masturbation is the ongoing love affair that each of us has with ourselves throughout our lifetime... Masturbation is a way for all of us to learn about sexual response. It's an opportunity for us to explore our bodies and minds for all those sexual secrets we've been taught to hide, even from ourselves. What better way to learn about pleasure and being sexually creative? We don't have to perform or meet anyone else's standards, to satisfy the needs of a partner, or to fear criticism or rejection for failure. Sexual skills are like any other skills; they're not magically inherited, they have to be learned." (pages 3, 4)

Modern therapists and medical professionals recognize the importance of masturbation as a natural part of our lives. But, as is so often the case, the rest of society is far behind our cutting-edge thinkers. And, in my opinion, there are cultural institutions—led by the Christian churches—which covertly and even overtly attempt to undermine sexual expression and solo sex in particular. Even serious articles about masturbation often contain innocuous-sounding disclaimers that state that although most people masturbate, some choose not to do so because of religious or moral reasons—giving the impression that those of us who do masturbate are guilty of side-stepping religious and/or moral values. It is time that someone stands up and says that those religious and so-called moral objections to masturbation are wrong; they are based upon incomplete information, folk "wisdom," and centuries-old negative cultural attitudes toward our bodily functions. This essay will illustrate this cultural repression from a personal perspective.

I was raised in what many would consider an average middle-class home in a small Western town (United States of America). There was a strong fundamentalist Christian religious tone in the home and political attitudes were decidedly conservative. ("Right Wing" was not a term in common use in those days but I suppose my parents could be judged to have been moderately Right Wing by today's standards—definitely staunch Republicans and Mother was—and in her 90s still is—a fervid Baptist. Luckily, I have been able to adopt more realistic, tolerant views.) As a child I was loved, never physically abused nor neglected despite several spankings which I can vividly remember—administered when I probably deserved correction by parents who felt that it was okay to spank in moderation.

One exception to this pattern of non-abuse comes to mind, though, and that is the non-consensual circumcision which I was subjected to as an infant. Today I view this barbaric religious-based custom to be one of the most extreme forms of child abuse. But that is a different story. In passing let me state that the modern practice of male circumcision was initially pushed upon American parents 100 years ago by quacks and ill-informed physicians who felt it would reduce the sensitivity of the penis (it does) and make boys/men less inclined to masturbate. As everyone knows, circumcision has a religious base in Judaism but New Testament church leaders (St. Paul in particular) claimed circumcision was unnecessary for Christians. Promoting circumcision as a "cure" for the "destructive," "vile" and "immoral" practice of masturbation, as self-eroticism was then characterized, helped negate the obvious New Testament injunction that clearly stated that Christians need not be circumcised.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, co-founder of the giant Kellogg cereal empire, was only one of many doctors who taught that masturbation was detrimental. In discussing potential "cures" for the "vice" of masturbation, Kellogg wrote that "A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision... The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind... In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement."

Enough said about the link between anti-masturbation/anti-pleasure crusaders and circumcision!