mental masturbation

[Arnold Zwicky]

during a chain of postings on the Out In Linguistics mailing list, the
question came up of why "jerk-off", "jack-off", and "wanker" had come
to be used as conventional insults, and i briefly mentioned attitudes
towards masturbation, citing in addition the expression "mental
masturbation" for unproductive, useless, or self-indulgent thinking
and talking.  this led me to look at what the big dictionaries had to
say about this expression (the answer seems to be: nothing), and about
figurative uses of "masturbation", "masturbate", etc. (the answer
seems to be: OED2 says a little).  hence the posting below.

the use of "mental masturbation" to deride or dismiss certain
activities is interesting in several ways: in its, ahem, embodiment
of strongly negative cultural attitudes towards the practice
(attitudes that have, on occasion, occasioned moral panics, not to
mention considerable individual unhappiness and the resignation of
a U.S. Surgeon General), and also in the linguistic status of the
expression, which, it seems to me, is almost perfectly balanced on
the edge between mere figurative extension and the sort of
conventionalized usage that would merit listing in a dictionary.
comments, lexicographers?

i'm sure i've read and heard the expression many times, for some years
now.  and yes, i'll do at least a google search.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

-------------------
From: Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at csli.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 09:57:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: OutIL more on "mental masturbation"

i noted before that "mental masturbation" doesn't appear to be in
published dictionaries.  other posters here have supplied two
citations: one of a figurative sense of "masturbation" (that's not
music, that's masturbation) from the movie "Fame", and one of the
actual phrase "mental masturbation", from the 1977 movie "Annie Hall"
(uttered by the woody allen character).

it turns out that the OED2 does recognize that "masturbation" can
be "Also attrib. and fig." and gives two relevant cites:

1951 R. CAMPBELL  Light on Dark Horse xxiii. 346 The liberaloid
mentality that they had acquired from reading the masturbations of...
Rousseau.

1954 W. FAULKNER  Fable (1955) 59  That sort of masturbation about
the human race people call hoping.

similarly, OED2 recognizes that "masturbate" can be "Also refl. and
fig.", though in the cites the line between literal and figurative
is none too clear.  first one clearly figurative one, from r. campbell
again, then two other candidates:

1934 R. CAMPBELL  Broken Record vi. 125  A bankclerk has to masturbate
his mind all day: when he comes home he has no strength to mount the
muse.

1960 Spectator 3 June 809 The prose background to his [sc.
Swinburne's] violent, cerebral, masturbatory poetry.

1973 M. SEYMOUR-SMITH  Guide Mod. World Lit. 225  One senses Williams
hanging masturbatorily over his nasty, midcult images of evil.

apparently, writing that is judged to be excessive or extravagant
in style is, in some critics' eyes, masturbatory.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), made uncomfortable by the
  muse-mounting image, and wondering about that "midcult" thing
  (*that* word isn't in OED2)