Institutional belief · Psychiatry and sexuality
Masturbation as causing or worsening insanity
Masturbation was treated as a cause or aggravating factor in mental illness strongly enough for psychiatric institutions to classify it etiologically and, in some cases, physically prevent patients from engaging in it.
1 episode
Current understanding
Current understanding
Masturbation is a normal sexual behavior and is not a cause of insanity or mental disorder. Sexual or masturbatory behavior can occur alongside psychiatric illness or become compulsive, but observing it in a patient does not establish that it caused or worsened the underlying disorder.
Consequences and human impact
Consequences and human impact
In 1877 the provincial London Asylum for the Insane in Ontario acted directly on the belief that masturbation could precipitate attacks or aggravate insanity. Superintendent R. M. Bucke used genital “wiring” on 15 male patients to make masturbation difficult or painful. The intervention failed and was discontinued.
How the consequences followed
Bucke's position was narrower than the blanket slogan “all masturbation causes insanity.” Contemporary historical reconstruction of his official report shows that he treated masturbation as capable of precipitating an attack or aggravating existing insanity. His position therefore included both causing and worsening mental illness.
The figure of 15 refers to patients. Some biographical accounts count 21 procedures, but that does not mean 21 separate patients.
London Asylum carried out the documented anti-masturbation intervention
male patients subjected to genital wiring in the asylum
Quantitative figures are highlighted only when the cited evidence supports them. The scale of a related catastrophe is not automatically treated as a death toll caused solely by this belief.
Institutional episode
Canada — Ontario
During his first year as superintendent in 1877, R. M. Bucke acted on the belief that masturbation could precipitate attacks or aggravate insanity. The provincial public asylum subjected 15 male patients to genital “wiring” intended to make erections and masturbation difficult or painful. The procedure failed to stop masturbation reliably and was abandoned.
Institutions
- London Asylum for the Insane
Documented consequences
- Fifteen male patients were subjected to genital wiring intended to inhibit erections and masturbation
- Pain and physical restraint were used as psychiatric treatment on institutionalized patients
- The intervention continued until experience showed it did not reliably prevent the behavior
- The treatment embodied a false causal interpretation of sexual behavior in mentally ill patients
Institutional machinery
During his first year as medical superintendent, R. M. Bucke acted on a psychiatric belief then common enough to appear in asylum etiologies: masturbation could precipitate or aggravate insanity. His 1877 superintendent's report, preserved in the Ontario Sessional Papers, documented an intervention intended to prevent male patients from masturbating. Because this occurred inside a provincial public asylum under its superintendent's treatment authority, the belief became an institutional medical practice rather than merely a private theory.
Sources and what they establish
- London Asylum — Report of the Medical Superintendent and Statistical Information, 1876–77Legislative Assembly of Ontario / Inspector of Asylums, Prisons and Public Charities
Primary provincial annual-report volume containing Bucke's 1877 London Asylum report. The relevant intervention is cited in historical scholarship to Ontario Sessional Papers, 1878, vol. 10, part ii, no. 4, p. 280.
- Gynecological Operations on Insane Women: London, Ontario, 1895–1901Journal of Social History / PubMed
- Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902)Royal Society of Canada
Biographical account describing the use of penile wiring on 15 London Asylum patients and the failure of the experiment.
Last reviewed: 24/08/2026