Masturbation/Talk

What about other forms of autoeroticism, such as use of sex toys like dildos? Should that be mentioned here or under autoeroticism as a larger area? --Dmerrill

My 2 cents is to try to keep everything on as few pages as is workable, with REDIRECTS. I was planning to do a litle more on this page soon. (Just created a redirect; maybe we can see how this works out over the next few days.)

Just to comment on the latter, "keep everything on as few pages as is workable, with REDIRECTS," I think this is a bad idea. Even when X is really just another term for Y, sometimes it is better not to use the REDIRECT command, but instead to explain the meaning of X on the X page, and then send people on to Y for more information. If someone specifically searches for info on X under the name "X", it's not unlikely that the person will want information on why the person's being redirected to Y instead. Providing that (usually semantic) information on the X page will help clarify this for the reader. Just for example: is there a difference in meaning between "masturbation" and "autoeroticism"? I guess I don't know. If none at all, then a redirect would be what I'd do. But if there is some subtle difference in meaning, it could help to explain the difference of meaning on the other page, i.e., the one you want to redirect from.

You might say, "But hey, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so why care about such information?" Because very often the difference in meaning represents important jargon, and jargon is very useful to explain in an encyclopedia. Very much of theoretical knowledge consists of elaborations of explanations of jargon! --LMS

Autoeroticism very definitely is different from masturbation. It is a much larger field, including dildos and dozens of other sex toys. Not to mention the phenomenon which is the child of youth, hormones and flexibility. Ah, the days when... --Dmerrill

Knock yourselves out. :-) Personally, I prefer to keep the number of entries small, and in this particular case think one entry can easily accommodate a precis of the variations. But I'm sure not going to make a fuss about it.

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"Many conservative religious groups teach masturbation to be a sinful practice."

Which ones, and why? --LMS