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THE CHAIRMAN, IRWIN MARCUS, OPENED the panel, commenting on Freud's frequent reference to the subject of masturbation, both in terms of "normal" developmental phenomena and in association with mental pathology. Freud viewed masturbation as a name for infantile activities that carry out sexual instinctual impulses. Tausk, in 1912, defined masturbation as "sexual manipulation of the genitals or of an erogenous zone which has no partner as an indispensable prerequisite, and the aim of which consists in the direct discharge of sexual excitation." Thirty years later, Sterba proposed restricting the definition to the manual stimulation of the genital zone. Still more recently, Eidelberg defined it as "the use of the self as the object of erotic stimulation and gratification." Marcus's definition in A Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts refers to "volitional, genitally directed, rhythmic self-stimulation which produces sexual pleasure … secondary erogenous zones may become the focus of the sexual excitation" (p. 55), which would exclude mutual masturbation, fellatio and cunnilingus. The activity, Marcus said, must also be defined in relation to