You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This is a collection of 19 separate articles relating to the subject of masturbation. The differences in perspective of the various writers add interest to the book, and each of the papers makes a contribution of some value. Because, except for the editors' brief introduction, no attempt is made to integrate the essays, they may be read in random sequence. Although there may be some advantage to this, it is this reviewer's opinion that a valuable dimension would have been added had the editors included, perhaps a final summary or, better, brief interstitial comments. This would have made for a more cohesive text rather than an anthology on the subject.
The editors quote Freud's closing remarks to the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society's Conference on Masturbation in 1912: "You are aware of my preference for a fragmentary treatment of a subject …" and seem to have organized their book to follow this line—that is, to provide a collection of disconnected papers relating some more specifically and some more generally to masturbation. This format results, of course, in some inevitable repetition.
The book clarifies many of the terms related to masturbation. The longest and most extensive definition of masturbation itself is given by the editors in the opening article, wherein a distinction is made between "autoeroticism" and "autoerotic activity." The former term is used to describe a developmental stage, according to Nagera, the latter, to designate objectless instinctual activity providing pleasure from physical stimulation. When an object is involved in the activity, even in fantasy, it cannot be called "autoerotic activity." When this activity involves the genitals, as it normally does in the first and second year of life, the term "genital play" is used and is distinct from "masturbation," which is applied