Self-Abuse: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Another supposed result of masturbation was that it would make you go mad, though there was at least some reason for thinking this; asylum doctors would notice that many mentally disturbed people masturbated a lot, and reasonably ([[Science Marches On|though incorrectly,]]) concluded that the madness was caused by masturbation.

 

* In ''[[Police Academy 2]]'', the disgruntled prankster recruit Mahoney swaps the overbearing [[Drill Sergeant Nasty|man in charge of recruit training]]'s shampoo with fast-curing helmet repair epoxy. This has the desired effect of Supergluing the victim's hands to his head. When he finally manages to get his hands free, they are naturally covered with hair. When he asks a group of recruits if anyone can explain how this happened, Mahoney replies, "I can, sir. And if you don't stop, you'll go blind."

* In ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: Dead Man's Chest'', when the other crew members see the hairy black spot on Jack's hand (the mark of a curse), he's quick to say that his eyesight's as good as ever.

* In ''[[Saint Ralph]]'', the characters literally refer to it as "self abuse," a reflection of the 1950's Catholic school setting. However, since the title character is 14, the concept that it's bad for him does not stop him.

* Another Catholic school movie, ''[[Heaven Help Us]]'', features a compulsive masturbator who's also pallid, twitchy and socially awkward.

 

== Literature ==

* Doctor Crombie, eponymous character in Graham Greene's short story, expounds that cancer is a result of masturbation... More accurately, he claims it is a cause of "playing with oneself", the euphemism giving rise to humour. The central theme of the story is to demonstrate the folly of conflating correlation and causation: "Almost one hundred per cent of those who died of cancer had practised sex".

* This is discussed in the memoirs of the real-life [[Casanova]] when he makes friends with a Turkish Muslim and they compare attitudes toward sex in their respective religions/cultures. Casanova subscribes to the view that too much masturbation will make you sickly and weak (of course, his solution is to deal with horniness by sleeping with everything that moves and relying on the sacrament of confession to keep you out of hell) while Yusuf says that obviously "too much" of anything is bad by definition, but there's nothing wrong with masturbation per se, and that anyway it's a completely unenforceable rule. They also talk about male vs. female masturbation, with Casanova saying that girls don't run the same risk as boys because they're not losing a bodily fluid every time they do it.

== Live Action TV ==

* [[Played With]] in an episode of ''[[Supernatural]]''. Sam and Dean wind up in a town where all the old wives tales - like "your face will stick that way" - actually come true, and Dean realises it's affecting them when he ends up with hairy palms. Sam is not amused.

{{quote| '''Graeme:''' Now, I've left this one alone for six months to prepare him for the isolation. Let's see what he's--don't do that!<br />

'''Tim:''' ''(laughing)'' He probably can't hear you.<br />

 

== Web Original ==

** In the closing credits of that episode we get the sage advice "Avoid Wanker's Cramp! Know your limits!"

 

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}