I guess Sigmund Freud would have referred to this as ‘penis envy’ ( although I have a degree in Psychology and I have never given much credence to Freud and his male chauvinistic theories).

After having read some of the below passages while doing research on gender differences, I feel pretty privileged to be a female, though!

Look at these assertions from George Napheys from his 1879 text, The Transmission of Life:

“Male puberty: Unwonted desires and sensations, half understood and confusing, awake in the mind impulses to which he has been a stranger…a Restlessness, and a wilfulness, indicate to the observing eye the revolution which is going on within. Perilous moment for the boy! Dangers of which he has no knowledge, which he could not understand were they explained to him, yet which will imperil all his future life and all his other faculties, are around him.”

Danger, danger, Will Robinson! Masturbation is hazardous to your health!

“One of the common causes of premature excitement, even as early as infancy,” says Mr. W. P. Teevan, a writer in a recent number of the British Medical Journal (May, 1870), “is a tight foreskin. It is a cause of much evil, and it ought always to be remedied.”

Aha! So that’s the problem!

“Fortunately, the prevalence of flogging as a punishment is by no means what it once was. We say fortunately, for through ignorance of physiological laws this method of discipline was calculated to stimulate precisely what it was intended to check. It is well known that switching across the seat is one of the most powerful excitants of the reflex nerves of the part, and is resorted to by depraved and worn-out debauchees for that very purpose…{for example} Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau, where that depraved and eccentric, though gifted man, acknowledges to have rather enjoyed than otherwise the floggings he received when at school.”

Is this true, men? Do spankings turn you on uncontrollably? Perhaps this punishment should be reinstated?

“Many passages in the classics, many of the fables of mythology, much of the poetry, and the prose of modern and especially French writers, contain insinuations and erotic pictures. seductive and hazardous to the eager and impressible mind of boyhood. We have little reaped for the man or woman who sees obscenity in pure white marble.”

Guess that was the early version of topless native women in National Geographic magazine.

Here is a more modern take on problems all males have to put up with during their growing years:

• Males, in general, have limited definitions of masculinity available to them. This definition is usually confined to such behaviors as competition, repression of fear and emotions, and strength, both physically and emotionally.
• As a result of the limited range of definitions available for masculinity, boys tend to define themselves in opposition to others, either as non-female, non-homosexual, or anti-authority (i.e. schools, parents). Adolescent boys, in particular, see female behavior as non-acceptable.
• The range of affiliations available to boys are very limited; they are generally competitive models defined by winning or losing (ie. organized sports and athletics). The impact of this paradigm is that we have very few acceptable markers of malehood and, therefore, emotional connections become unsafe and threatening to masculinity.

I am sure that much of this is true but would have to expect that such generalized expectations are changing. what do you think?

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Sources:
“Adolescent Boys: Statistics and Trends”, http://www.maec.org/boys.html
Chest of Books: Free Books. This section is from the book “The Transmission Of Life. Counsels On The Nature And Hygiene Of The Masculine Function”, by George H. Napheys. Also available from Amazon: The Transmission of Life.