Masturbation is a term applied to a bad habit that consists of manipulating and rubbing the genitals. It is a bad habit because it can harm the health and future development of the girl. The more frequently it is practiced, the more harmful it is. It is more harmful than when boys practice it, because the effects are usually more permanent. Girls who indulge in the habit of excessive masturbation not only become weak, anemic and get a dirty and pimpled complexion, but they lose the desire to have normal sexual intercourse when they grow up and cannot derive any pleasure from the act sexual. when they get married Many girls who masturbate excessively have a strong aversion to normal sexual intercourse and their married life is unhappy.
The habit is much less widespread among girls than among boys. The girl who values her health, her beauty, and her proper mental growth and development, should not indulge in it.
The behavior of parents – The behavior of some parents when they discover that their son is caressing his genitals or indulging in masturbation, they feel as if a great calamity has befallen them. Imbued with the medieval idea of the sinfulness of the habit, as well as its harmfulness, they begin to scold the child, frighten him, make him believe that he is doing something terrible, that he has dishonored them and himself. and they try to persuade him that unless he stops immediately, the most dire consequences await him. The result of this way of proceeding is disastrous, much more than the masturbation itself.
Parents and doctors should know that the harmfulness of the habit has been greatly and grossly exaggerated. It is time for them to know that the vast majority of boys and girls overcome the habit without being much or anything, worse for it. If you look at the matter in a sensible and common sense way, telling the child caught up in the practice that he has done something embarrassingly vicious and criminal, but speaking nicely to the child and telling him that what he is doing can ensure serious injury, which can interfere with their future mental and physical health and development, then they will be far more successful in their efforts to break the child’s habit.
Denouncing even the most moderate indulgence in masturbation as a vice has a detrimental effect on the person who indulges in it and makes it more difficult for him or her to break the habit. The victims of the habit consider themselves degraded, hopelessly lost. They lose self-respect and because of that, they find it harder to break the habit.
The prevention of the habit: one of the main ways to prevent habits is to carefully observe the child from early childhood. Although, many times, the vicious or stupid nannies, governesses, ignorantly or perhaps deliberately, induce the habit in the children in their charge and this of course must be prevented. Children from nine, ten and eleven years old should not always be left alone, but always under supervision. And also too close friendship between boys and girls, especially of different ages, should be viewed with suspicion.
Under no circumstances should two people sleep together in the same bed, whether they are two children or an elderly person and a child. The child, be it a boy or a girl, should sleep alone, on a fairly hard mattress, and the blanket should be light. A decorative quilt can be put over the feet. The child should always sleep with his arms outstretched on the blanket and never under it. If this practice is started in a child from infancy, it will be very easy to get used to the way of sleeping, and many cases of masturbation will be spared.
If any attempt is made to monitor the child, it must be so carefully surrounded by surveillance that it cannot transgress undetected. If he is only partially watched, he will soon learn to evade observation and thus the effect is only to make him cunning in his vice.
Hot baths are also very harmful for young children because of their influence on masturbation. Even in adults, a hot bath has a stimulating effect on their sexual desire. Any factor that can give rise to the habit of masturbation must be eliminated. Some people will refrain from manipulating themselves with their hands, but will practice what is known as mental masturbation. That is, they will focus their minds on the opposite sex and imagine various lewd scenes, until they feel satisfied. This method is extremely damaging and exhausting and is very likely to lead to neurasthenia and a nervous breakdown. This habit is even more harmful than regular habit.
In adults or youth, a different plan should be followed. Moral considerations and the inevitable consequences for the health of body and mind are the main influences by which reform should be effected. The considerations can be exhorted as eloquently and earnestly as possible, but they must not be exaggerated. If there are special influences that can be brought to bear on a particular individual, they should be promptly employed and applied in such a way as to secure for them your full support. But although, the most to be done, must be by the individual himself. All that others can do for him is to surround him with favorable circumstances and awaken him to a proper sense of his true condition and danger. If this can be thoroughly accomplished, there is every reason to hope, but if the individual has so lost himself in all sense of purity, all aspirations to good and noble objects, that he cannot be made to feel the need of reform, then his the case has become hopeless.
Work is also an excellent remedy, work that will actually make the victim very tired, so that when he goes to bed he will have no disposition to contaminate himself.
How a person can help himself.
I. Begin the work of reform by purging the mind. If a lewd thought enters your mind, dispel it immediately. Cultivate hatred of concupiscence. Never entertain such ideas even for a moment, because they will surely lead you to overreact. If perchance the physical sin is not committed, the thought itself is sin, and leaves a scar both physical and moral almost as deep and hideous as that inflicted by the gravest crime.
II. Avoid loneliness, because that’s when temptation sets in and you’re more likely to fail. Also avoid all other causes that may give rise to the fact.
third As an aid to purity of mind, whenever impure thoughts enter, immediately direct the mind towards the purest object with which you are familiar. Run away from the special exciting cause, if any, and engage in some active work or other exercise which will divert the mind into another channel.
IV. Strictly comply with all the rules established for the cultivation of chastity and the maintenance of continence.
V. And above all, seek the grace and help of the source of all spiritual strength in every moment of temptation, leaning on the promise, “seek and you will find.”