Autoeroticism

Autoeroticism is the practice of becoming sexually stimulated through internal stimuli. The term was popularized toward the end of the 19th century by British sexologist Havelock Ellis, who defined autoeroticism as "the phenomena of spontaneous sexual emotion generated in the absence of an external stimulus proceeding, directly or indirectly, from another person".

The most common autoerotic practice is masturbation. Though the terms autoeroticism and masturbation are often used interchangeably, they are not synonymous as not all autoerotic behaviors are masturbatory. Nocturnal emissions, erotic daydreams, and sexual arousal to 'sexually-neutral' stimuli (music, scenery, art, risk, spiritual reverie, etc.) are also examples of autoeroticism.

A 1977 paper titled Asexual and Autoerotic Women: Two Invisible Groups, by Myra T. Johnson, contrasts autoerotic women with asexual women: "The asexual woman ... has no sexual desires at all [but] the autoerotic woman ... recognizes such desires but prefers to satisfy them alone." Johnson's evidence is mostly letters to the editor found in women's magazines written by autoerotic/asexual women. She portrays them as invisible, "oppressed by a consensus that they are nonexistent," and left behind by both the sexual revolution and the feminist movement. Society either ignores or denies their existence or insists they must be ascetic for religious reasons, neurotic, or asexual for political reasons.

Many but not all people use sex toys such as dildos, vibrators, anal beads and Sybian machines while alone. remains unproved but autofellatio, the act of orally stimulating one's own penis, is thought to occur in less than 1% of the male population, possibly because of the physical flexibility required to perform it.

Some people, for religious or personal reasons, believe autoeroticism to be wrong. For example, masturbation is considered a sin by the Roman Catholic Church. Teaching adolescents about masturbation remains controversial in some parts of the world. For example, in 1994 Bill Clinton fired Joycelyn Elders who was Surgeon General of the United States in part because she advocated teaching about masturbation in schools as a way of preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

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Wikipedia