Ongelmana onania

Itsetyydytyksen patologisoinnin mikrotasoiset merkitykset 1930-luvun psykiatrisissa sairauskertomuksissa

Authors

• Anna Kinnunen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30666/elore.79302

Abstract

The article discusses micro-level meanings of pathologising masturbation of mental hospital patients. The author has studied the psychiatric case histories of patients who were hospitalised in a Finnish mental institution between 1930 and 1939. As primary research material, two case histories are analysed, in which the patient’s onanism has a significant role.

The case histories were contextualized into the social and scientific debate about the pathological consequences of onanism. The lively debate on an extensive scale was held throughout Western Europe, including Finland, from the beginning of the 18th century. By the 1930s, the debate overlapped with the discourse of mental hygiene, in which onanism was taken as a sign of degeneration and undisciplined sexuality of insane persons. The author focuses on the micro-level and asks how the patients and their family members viewed the deviance of masturbation and participated in its pathologising process.

The article illustrates that pathologising masturbation was a two-way process in which the patient may play an active role. In both case studies, the patients had tried to control their urge to masturbate by extreme practices, even suicide attempts. By controlling onanism on the micro-level, they strengthened the macro-level interpretations of its pathology. The author also points out how a patient may use onanism as an explanation for past failures in life and thus maintain the beliefs and fears of its severe consequences.