Porn Flakes - John Harvey Kellogg, Sylvester Graham
Porn Flakes
Kellogg, Graham and the Crusade for Moral Fiber
"All kinds of stimulating and heating substances; high-seasoned food; rich dishes; the free use of flesh; and even the excess of aliment; all, more or less -- and some to a very great degree -- increase the concupiscent excitability and sensibility of the genital organs..." -- Sylvester Graham
"A remedy [for masturbation] which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision...The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind...In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement. " -- Dr. John Harvey Kellogg
by Carrie McLaren
As a rule, there's often more to folk wisdom than bad science, and so it is with myths about masturbation and other aspects of sexuality. In America, a peculiar flowering of these myths took place in the 19th century. Though the predictable culprits -- Victorian prudery, evangelical Christianity, entrepreneuriallism -- are part of the picture, what's less known is the the myths' century-old relationship with whole-grain foodstuffs. Thanks to certain influential health advocates, sex and diet were inexorably linked, and, for both, healthy meant bland.
The souvenirs of these efforts with us today are only ironic footnotes on the graves of two crusaders: Sylvester Graham, immortalized not for his sexual and nutritional reform but for the sugared brown crackers used in pie crust. And John Harvey Kellogg, a flaked-food believer eclipsed by his brother's breakfast cereal dynasty.
A free thinker, Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) lashed out against white bread, feather beds, pork, tobacco, salt, condiments, tight corsets, nocturnal emissions, heavy clothing, and hot mince pie. His specialties, though, were masturbation and poor eating habits. Graham was by no means the first to decry the debilitating effects of masturbation; Judeo-Christian tradition has long considered it an evil, a barrier to the natural function of sexuality -- reproduction. But Graham's approach was different, focussing on health rather than morality.
Sylvester Graham: grain lover
Before 1700, medical references to the harmful effects of masturbation were scarce. In the eighteenth century, two works--Ononia: Or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution, and all its Frightful Consequences... (by an anonymous author) and Samual Tissot's Treatise on the Diseases Produced by Onanism--introduced concepts that Graham adopted and help popularize (for example, Tissot's idea that loss of semen under any condition made one sick). Graham's Lecture to Young Men (1834) was the first of its kind and launched a whole genre of medical tracts on masturbation, known then as "self abuse" or "self pollution."
Graham knew his audience. With his solid grasp of rhetorical devices, he made claims no one could disprove--or rather, would disprove. Though people often disagreed on the particular causes of masturbation, most believed the symptoms were easy to recognize--victims were usually shy, suspicious, languid, unconcerned with hygiene, jaundiced. Graham used this to his advantage; in fact, he found most any health problem could be tied to masturbation. Only first-hand experience (yuk yuk) could disprove his claims and Graham came prepared to beat down any challengers with flamboyant, over-the-top gore. According to Graham, a masturbator grows up "with a body full of disease, and with a mind in ruins, the loathsome habit still tyrannizing over him, with the inexorable imperiousness of a fiend of darkness."
The cause of acne in incriminating teens is revealed, and the result: "ulcerous sores, in some cases, break out upon the head, breast, back and thighs; and these sometimes enlarge into permanent fistulas, of a cancerous character, and continue, perhaps for years, to discharge great quantities of foetid, loathsome pus; and not unfrequently terminate in death."
After 1834, Graham stopped lecturing about sexuality and started focussing his attention on nutrition. The frank talk had become too heated, too divisive. Graham considered his move into dietary reform a natural, evolutionary step: the proper diet moderated sexual desire.
From his early days, Graham believed both kinds of hunger -- sexual and nutritional -- threatened good health. Here, he was influenced by homeopath William Metcalfe. Metcalfe, an English clergyman, was the first public advocate of vegetarianism in American and a strong believer in the future of asparagus seed as a coffee substitute. But while Metcalfe argued vegetarianism on moral grounds, Graham was more concerned with the carnal passions meat-eating provoked. Reflecting the prevailing view of his day, Graham considered the stomach the major organ of the body, so anything that inflamed it was compared to lust. The medical profession was evil, according to Graham, and, besides, there was no need for it since: "Disease is never the legitimate result of the normal operation of any of our organs." All irritations or excitements such as hunger or sexual desire exhausted the body and increased the chance of disease and death. Fortunately, this made the cure for virtually ever human sickness simple--sexual moderation (no more than 12 times a year for married couples), exercise (to help prevent nocturnal emissions) and the proper diet (to facilitate free peristaltic action of the bowels, among other benefits).
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