mental masturbation

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Thu, Sep 19, 2002 at 02:03:24PM -0700, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
> 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.

OED3, on the other hand, has a few more, including an 1820
example of _mental masturbation_ from Byron (!) and a few
other figurative examples of _masturbation_ (I would have
given more).  It doesn't give too much more for the fig. use
of _masturbate_, but there are figurative examples under
_masturbatic_ ("I remember all those intellectual, masturbatic
discussions in the art community") and _masturbatory_ (with a
fig. example from as far back as 1919, "...the arcanely
masturbatory tone in which some of them chant..of their
experiences").

> 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)

No, but it is in OED3, citing Dwight Macdonald's essay,
among others.

Jesse Sheidlower