So many people masturbate it's practically the national pastime, yet all too few of us are willing to admit to enjoying this simple pleasure. The masturbation taboo has its roots in historical misconceptions that have survived to the present day.

Concerns about masturbation tend to fall into two general categories: that masturbation is dangerously wasteful or that it's immature. The notion that masturbation is wasteful has its roots in the widespread misconception that men have a finite allotment of sperm and that every ejaculation depletes precious semen, resulting in exhaustion and weakness.

Although women don't produce semen, it was once believed that masturbation was similarly destructive and debilitating to them. The belief that masturbation is such a dangerous drain on energy that it can lead to enfeeblement, illness and ultimately insanity was so prevalent in 18th, 19th and even 20th century Europe and America that treatments for preventing masturbation became something of an obsession.

Turn-of-the-century magazines featured advertisements for penile rings which were spiked on the inside so that if the wearer experienced an erection during the course of the night, he'd wake from the pain. Bondage belts, restraints, straitjackets, cauterizing irons and even clitoridectomy (the surgical excision of the clitoris) were all methods used to prevent young women from masturbating. American health reformers of the 19th century preached, as in these words from John Kellogg, that masturbation was "the vilest, the basest and the most degrading act that a human being can commit."

Although most men and women today are aware that masturbation isn't a "degrading act," many are still constrained by the notion that it's a selfish, immature activity or a second-rate substitute for partner sex. We live in a society in which sexual expression has always been legislated and restricted and the pursuit of pure pleasure is frequently condemned as selfish and childish. A lot of people who consider themselves free of sexual hang-ups have simply rewritten the equation: "Sex is only good if it involves procreation," to "Sex is only good if it involves two loving people."

The fact that masturbation is a pleasurable end in itself gets short shrift in main-stream sex manuals, which focus on masturbation as a useful tool in the building of a better sex life with one's partner. While it's certainly true that masturbation provides valuable information about your own and your partners' sexual responses, masturbation is much more than a means to the exalted end of better partner sex. Masturbation is our first sexual activity, a natural source of pleasure that's available to us throughout our lives, and a unique form of creative self- expression. Each time you masturbate, you're celebrating your sexuality and your innate capacity for pleasure, so give yourself a hand!

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