1) The document discusses the origins of International Masturbation Month in May, which was started by a US sex toy company to promote masturbation as a healthy behavior. 2) It provides historical context of masturbation being seen as shameful and unnatural in the past, with religious and medical figures advocating strongly against it. 3) The author criticizes the normalization of masturbation today, citing figures from the past like Dr. John Harvey Kellogg who created corn flakes to suppress sexuality and masturbation.

1. Celebrating May
Russell Grenning
I don’t know about you but I’m glad that May is over. In fact, it has come as a relief
-in a manner of speaking.
Some - the more delicate, protected and genteel - might not have been aware that May
was International Masturbation Month and, let’s face it, it’s not the sort of thing
decent respectable people want waved in front of their faces.
Sadly, May has been appropriated by a US sex site “Good Vibrations” for the
celebration of the solitary vice. It’s not an official United Nations celebration – well,
not yet anyhow – although some might think it’s only a matter of time given that this
outfit is nothing more than a bunch of wankers.
It has just occurred to me that if May is the official celebration of self-abuse, what do
the lonely, the ugly and the downright anti-social do for the other eleven months.
Anyhow, that’s not my problem any more than it is yours since we are all in healthy,
sharing and caring relationships.
A bit of background.
“Good Vibrations” came up with this dreadful, shocking and disgusting celebration
back in 1994 when US President Clinton fired the Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders.
On World Aids Day that year she was asked if promoting masturbation might
discourage school-aged children from riskier sexual activity. She agreed, noting that
children should be taught that masturbation is a natural part of human sexuality and
respectable people quite properly went off their trees.
Already outraged by her views about abortion and drugs, they construed her
comments as meaning that masturbation should be taught in schools. She had to go.
Four years later in 1998, the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted and Clinton famously
– and falsely – declared, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” When
Lewinsky’s semen-stained blue dress with all of its tell-tale DNA was produced,
Clinton was forced to admit an “improper sexual relationship.” He came within a
millimetre of impeachment.
What is not clear is whether or not Clinton had his urges especially strongly during
the month of May. Did he, for example, on each and every day in May buzz his outer
office and ask Ms Lewinsky to pop by to take dictation? We will never know but what
we do know is that he is not the Patron of International Masturbation Month, probably
because he hasn’t been asked. Or his wife won’t let him.
It seems that something called the twittersphere – I understand a so-called social
media show for people who don’t have real friends – voted the tune “I touch myself”
by The Divinyls as the best song to celebrate the month. If I had been asked, I would
have gone for “Pump it up” by Elvis Costello and The Attractions but, then again, I
don’t twitter any more than I mastu..abuse myself.

2. The popularity – well, at least the popular acceptance of masturbation – has waxed
and waned over the years.
The ancient Egyptians believed that their creator god Atum actually masturbated the
universe into existence – I did wonder if this was the origin of the big bang theory
until a worldly-wise chum pointed out that in common parlance a “bang” suggests
more or less consensual relations and not a lonely act of desperation and frustration.
Atum had a very special place in the hearts and minds of the Egyptians – his
ejaculations controlled the flow of the Nile. It seems to me that if Atum - who had to
be number one in the scheme of things - couldn’t create a mate for himself, then he
wasn’t really trying. Then again, the Egyptians had a thing about cats.
Slowly but certainly, masturbation was seen as the vile, awful thing that it really is.
One 18th
century pamphlet, based on the best available medical evidence, was entitled,
“Onania, of the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution, And All Its Frightful Consequences In
Both Sexes, Considered: With Spiritual and Physical Advice To Those Who Have
Already Injured Themselves By This Abominable Practice.”
You have to wonder why it hasn’t been reprinted – no doubt a victim of the
international communist/socialist/pagan conspiracy.
Mind you, some brave, caring and responsible people over the years have kept this
flame burning. One notable campaigner was the 19th
century medico Dr John Harvey
Kellogg.
Dr Kellogg once observed – well more than once it appears –that, “If illicit commerce
of the sexes is a heinous sin, self pollution is a crime doubly abominable.” With his
brother W K Kellogg, he produced in 1898 the ultimate libido-suppressing remedy
which they called corn flakes.
Kellogg’s website to this very day proudly boasts that their nutritional product is still
the “original cereal” and that “We’re proudly upholding the values that W. K.
Kellogg instilled more than 100 years ago…” The fact that the good Dr Kellogg is
expunged from the company’s history is a classic example of whitewashing history –
a bit like VW and Mercedes-Benz not mentioning if at all possible a certain former
German leader who gave these firms a right old leg-up in the pre-war days.
And, to make matters even worse, Kelloggs today refuses to promote, let alone even
acknowledge, the marvellous curative values of this breakfast cereal vis-à-vis the
control of self-pollution. I’ve been over the package with a magnifying glass and can’t
find a single slight mention of it.

3. Their website features an endearing snap of a lovely mother feeding her attractive
young kiddies breakfast cereal and these innocents showing every sign of
appreciation. Yet, I can discern from the twinkle in her eye that she is thinking, “That
should hold you for twenty-four hours.” Mother love is expressed in so many ways.
Mind you, their historical time-line does proudly announce that in 1969 they were,
“honoured to provide breakfast for the legendary Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and
Michael Collins during the Apollo 11 trip to the moon.”
NASA are no fools and they wanted to ensure these trailblazing astronauts kept
themselves nice and didn’t, well, indulge in self-abuse, however tricky that would
have been in those bulky space suits. And, of course, the consequences of any failure
at control are terrible to imagine given the lack of gravity.
Somebody told me once that as you age your libido fades so why the legendary
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes are standard fare at the Twilight Facility in which my mummy
resides is puzzling. To my mind, it’s rubbing their faces in it - in a manner of
speaking - and an appallingly disgraceful sense of humour by management.
Now it is June, I can concentrate my energies and my juices on celebrating really
important UN-endorsed International Celebrations like the International Day of the
Seafarer on the 25th
which should not be confused with World Maritime Day which,
as we all know, is in September.
Hello sailor!