AF GREATEST HITS: The Solitary Vice

the present. Ah. But the news that I'm talking about is that the CEO of Kellogg's, you know, the cereal brand, said that to save money, poor people should eat cereal for dinner. Wow. Can you believe a rich person is out of touch? Weird? They're usually so on the pulse. But if we look at history, this isn't the weirdest

thing that a person affiliated with Kellogg's has said. In fact, Kellogg the man, that's John Harvey Kellogg, who was one of the creators of cornflakes along with his brother Will Keith. He said that people should eat his cereal because it would help you stop masturbating. In fact, it would help you take away any sort of sexual desire you might have, and that's a good thing for your soul. And your

health and don't worry. John Harvey Kellogg, well he's a scientist and doctor, so he knows what he's talking about. And he wasn't the only ones saying stuff like this. Back in the nineteenth century, there was a whole bunch of doctors and scientists who are talking about how bad masturbation was for your health. In kellogg cereal, that was just one way to cure your heinous sexual proclivities. Another example is you could just electrocute your genitals a little bit.

So for today's episode of American Filth, I'm going to show you, yes, you, how you can stop masturbating the Kellogg's way. Cue the theme song. This is American Filth. I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history. Today's episode the Solitary Vice. Well, you might be thinking, what's so bad about masturbation. Well, I'll tell you a lot of stuff is bad about it. First of all, it's a sin. It's been a sin for a while now, you know, ever since God became

a thing. I guess because the thing is the only reason you're supposed to use your genitals and your sexuality is to make babies. Lord, God doesn't want you to feel good. Excessive pleasure. That's a no goes with God. People have been calling masturbation a variety of things. It's self abuse, it's the solitary vice, it's self pollution. Another term is onanism. That's from the Bible. In Genesis, there's

this dude named Onin and get this, yahweh. You know, God killed his older brother, and then Onin's dad was like, well, now you got to marry your dead brother's wife. But then when Onin had sex with his dead brother's wife, he pulled out before he gizzed. Ergo, he spilled his seed on the ground. Terrible sin. But I guess according to the Bible this is considered masturbation or something. So like, if you don't come in a woman, you're just pleasuring

yourself basically because I guess women aren't real people. But also, this is really inappropriate. We really need to take dirty books like this out of schools. So here's the thing. We know masturbation bad for the soul, but starting as early as the eighteenth century, some scientists and doctors propose that masturbation might not just be good for your soul. It's also bad for your body. There were two books

that set the stage for this type of thinking. The first one dropped in seventeen ten and it was called Ononia, The Heinous Sin of Self Pollution. And this is one of the first books. I was like, yeah, masturbation, it's gonna be bad for your health. And then in seventeen fifty eight this doctor named Samuel Auguste Tissau. He wrote a book called Onanism, or a Treatise upon the disorder

produced by masturbation. He was basically like, if dudes lose even a little bit of semen, it greatly weakens them. He was like, yeah, losing an ounce of semen is the same thing as losing forty ounces of blood, So watch out, fellas and the jiz. He called it the seminal liquor yuck. And if you lost too much of it, you're just putting yourself at risk for horrible diseases. He wrote the Way to Consumption, Deterioration of is disorders of digestion, impotence,

and so on. And it's not just for your bodily health, also your mental health, because masturbation makes blood flow increase to the brain, which then could affect your nervous system, and then that would make you go crazy. And the thing is, doctors took this theory seriously throughout the nineteenth century. Doctors would attribute any disease that couldn't be cured to masturbation.

Like one fringe doctor said in eighteen twenty eight, in my opinion, neither plague, nor war, nor smallpox, nor similar diseases have produced results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicious habit of onanism. It is the destroying element of civilized societies and gradually undermines the health of a nation. Oh my god, masturbation equals death of a nation. The stakes couldn't be higher. And these guys, they're just talking

about people with wieners. But don't worry vagina holding individuals. They were also at risk. If you were a female masturbator, you could also die and go insane, and doctors were particularly suspicious of women who had large glitteresses. They thought that this would not only lead to being a nymphomaniac, but it would also lead to something even worse, lesbianism. Ah so yeah. In the nineteenth century, people were going

wild against masturbation. One historian called it the Great masturbation panic. Ah, But you know what was it about the nineteenth century that made masturbation such a public menace? Well, historian Arthur Gilbert had some theories. What he said was, you know, the nineteenth century, it was a time when people were trying to invest in the public good, you know. So it's basically like, oh, to be a good person, you got to invest in social stuff. Disturbation it's solitary, you're alone,

it's narcissistic. That's not going to work here. Also, at the time, because of middle class morality, people were scared of any sort of excess that included sexual Also, people were being thrifty, and that idea was transferred to sexuality. Gilbert was like, you know, a penny saved as a penny earned. But they were also applying that to sperm, you know, sperm retention. Why would you give up your sperm we got to save. Also, at the time, there was a lot of venereal diseases. We had syphilists, we

had gone rhea. So it was like, oh, well, I'm just going to masturbate instead of having sex. And so it seemed like there was like an increase awareness about masturbation in the public. Also in the nineteenth century, you know, in the US and Europe, you were only supposed to

have sex within a marriage. But throughout the nineteenth century, the age of puberty started declining, so people had more and more time to be horny and have sex, which could lead to these diseases, is to pregnancy outside of a marriage. So yeah, they're like, I guess we'll do masturbation. So again, it just seemed there's more awareness about it. Another thing that was going on was that people started caring about children, because here's the thing about kids. Throughout history,

they'd be dying. You know, kids were dying all the time, they would get diseases, and so socially that meant that sometimes parents wouldn't care that much about their kids, or they wuantn't get too attached to them until they lived into adulthood be like Okay, cool, you're going to survive. You're a survivor. Hell yeah. But then throughout the nineteenth century, people were like, hmm, I like my kids more. They're getting more attached and they wanted explanations of why they

got sick or why they died. And since masturbation was pretty common amongst kids, doctors were like, that's why, that's why your kids are dying. But also the nineteenth century in general, you know, there's more religious fervor. People were becoming more conservative, and also in science and medicine, they didn't really know what was going on, Like they didn't have germ theory until the end of the nineteenth century, so a lot of the lessons of Christianity were applied

to medicine. So that's kind of where the idea that the mind and the body were connected, and so all of your moral failings could lead to disease. So if you're being morally corrupt and doing things like you know, masturbating, that would cause you to get sick. One psychologist in the nineteenth century was named Henry Maudsley. He was a big antiinist. In his book on Onanism, he described what

would happen if you did too much self abuse. He wrote, when they reached the last and worst stage of degradation, they sink into an apathetic state of moody and morose self absorption, with extreme loss of mental power. They sit or lie all day or saunter lazily about, muttering or smiling to themselves, lost to all healthy feeling and human interest slovenly and dirty. If they enter into any conversations, they probably revealed delusions of a suspicious or obscene nature.

So they linger on pitiable wrecks of degradation from year to year, becoming weaker in mind and body until they die from complete nervous prostration or from some inner current disease to which they easily fall victim at last. And the thing is, doctors were going to extreme lengths to stop people from masturbating. Some of the crazier things that they would do is that they would remove women's glitteresses, stitch together their labias, or like cauterize the dick. Absolutely horrendous.

So that's when Kellogg comes into it. Back to cereal. John Harv D. Kellogg was a good Christian American boy and short king. He was only five four. He was obsessed with cleanliness and being dedicated to cleanliness. Ran in the family like his dad was a broom manufacturer. So Kellogg was like, while my daddy cleans the floor, I got to clean up the body and soul. And he thought that he had been put on this earth by God to heal people. But Kellogg took his dislike of

masturbation to the next level. He hated any sort of sexual pleasure. In fact, on his wedding day, people think that instead of consummating his marriage, he was working on his book that is all about how sex is evil, called Plain Facts for Old and Young. Also, it seems that he never actually consummated his marriage at all. He and his wife they had separate bedrooms. They never had any biological kids. They adopted eight and then fostered another

thirty four. He practiced what he preached. He was like, sexuality disgusting, it's bad. I'm not gonna do it. So yeah, Kellogg was a big Christian too, you know, he was a Seventh day Adventist and in the nineteenth century that church developed a health philosophy that promoted a vegetarian diet, abstinence from unclean foods like pork, rabbit, and shellfish. And they were like, don't consume any drugs, tobacco, caffeine, processed food, all of that stuff is bad. And Kellogg was in

line with this philosophy. He was like, I love cleanliness, Yes, a clean diet, please. And he also had this idea he was like God exists within living things, you know, so you got to be close to the living things, you got to be natural so you can be one with God, etc. So the Seventh Day Adventists they opened a sanitarium called the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan. Basically it's a health resort, and from eighteen seventy six to

nineteen forty three, Kellogg ran it. Oh by the way, in nineteen oh seven, Kellogg was basically like disowned from the Seventh Day Adventists because of some differences in theology whoopsies. But the thing is he still operated the sanitarium because he was the reason that so many people started going there. Famous people like Amelia Earhart went there because everyone was like, oh my god, he has all these treatments. We gotta go, we gotta get fixed. And Kellogg he was becoming a

famous doctor. Like the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which people called the sand it was a luxurious place. There were persian rugs, dramatic chandeliers, an indoor garden that had palm trees and banana trees everywhere. There was marble floors because allegedly, I guess according to early germ theory, you know, germs can't handle being on marble. It also had like a huge bath house that had nice apartments and suits for the guests. It also had an enema room because Kellogg fucking loved

animas he loves them. The sand was so popular. When when he first started working there, there was only like one hundred patients, but by nineteen oh six there were more than seven thousand at a time, and no, people weren't going there just for a cure for masturbation. People went to the sand for a large quantity and variety of illnesses cancer, heart disease, ulcers, digestive problems. Yeah, did you guys know that cancer could be cured by an enema? Crazy?

I mean, the place definitely had like a culty vibe, you know, like people would spend a lot of money to be there, and then Kellogg would give speeches and lectures promoting his innovative treatments and his health philosophy. He was a big part of the clean living movement, and he had this idea of biological living, basically doing things naturally.

He'd be like, yeah, eat a lot of nuts, but not too many nuts, but also definitely don't eat meat because meat is a death wish also, but also rest sit in the sun, sit in the shade, get some fresh air, take deep breaths. They had a lot of entertainment, so he was like, yeah, go watch the orchestra play. One of his premier things was hydrotherapy, which was basically like shooting cold water in your bottom. Again, back to the enemas. He was like, yes, put the cold water

in your butt. And to his patience, he was like, if you're not shitting four times a day, you're not clean enough. More enemas. Also, eat some yogurt and then we're gonna give you a yogurt enemas. Your body is getting attacked by yogurt on either sides because yogurt will cure you. I guess do you guys like this soothing spa music as we talk about enemas, isn't it fun? Of course? Another treatment that Kellogg had for diseases abstinence, chastity,

abhorring sexual pleasure boo. And that's when the cereal comes into the mix. A lot Ofellogg's thinking about food can be attributed to this guy, Sylvester Graham. He's the inventor of the Graham cracker, and initially he made those crackers to be as bland as possible, because he was like, if you eat flavorful food, it's going to get you horned up and wanting some sex, and then you'll spill your seed and then you'll die. That's why it's important

to eat bland foods so you won't touch yourself. So Kellogg he also started inventing some bland foods. First of all, he invented this thing called granola. Have you heard of this? And then the corn flakes. But the corn flakes of yesteryear are nothing like the ones we eat today, specifically the ones we eat today for dinner because we are poor. The ones he made, they didn't have sugar. They're probably

just like dry and nasty, like eating cardboard basically. But Kellogg's brother, Will Keith Kellogg, he's the one who actually made the cereal into a commercial product. Will also worked at the sand He was a bookkeeper. But he wasn't as crazy as his brother about the whole bland foods to prevent masturbation and sexuality thing. He was like, Hey, if we actually want to make money off of this, we got to make it taste good. We got to put sugar in it. And then John Harvey Kellogg was like, no,

that's horrible. That goes against everything I believe in. But then Will started selling it through his own company and was like, too bad, brother, I'm making this And then the two of them fought for decades. Also, Will was smart, he didn't put on the box a cure for masturbation. That's not a very commercially viable product. So yes, I think you guys understand at this point that sex, sexuality, sexual desire, all of that is bad, and masturbation it's

even worse. So let's figure out how to stop our disgusting behavior from Kellogg himself. Be back after these soothing advertisements. So team, let's learn how to stop touching ourselves from

John Harvey Kellogg himself. So he wrote this almost seven hundred page book called Plain Facts for Old and Young, and he said the main reason he wrote this book was to quote call attention to the great prevalence of sexual excess of all kinds, and the heinous crimes resulting from sexual transgressions and the terrible results which inevitably follow from the violation of sexual law. Kellogg first published this

book in eighteen seventy seven. That was the year after he became the director of the sam And also this is the book he might have been tinkering with on his wedding night. How romantic. And so what I have done for this part of the show, Yeah, I'm kind of breaking format again, guys. I know I did it last episode, but I'm doing it again. I'm going crazy.

But what I have done is I have adapted the chapter of the book about masturbation into a more listenable and fun modern vernacular, as if it's Kellogg himself giving a lecture. And I just think it is so important for the listeners of this show and myself to hear this. You know, we're listening to filth. We need to better ourselves. Kellog can help pull us out of the muck. So I'm gonna get into character. I'm gonna try to like

be Kellogg. You know, I'm a five to four short king, clean living, don't eat meat, never been sexual in my life. Here I go. Uh. The only issue is sometimes I do have a hard time staying in one character voice for too long. So let's just see if we can get through this. So here I go.

sex with someone you aren't married to. The Only thing I can think of as evil as the solitary vice is sodomy. Thunderclap. You might be asking why is masturbation such a problem. Well, I'll tell you first, it produces excitement in your genitals unnaturally, which are only supposed to be used to have a baby. But also it's a great evil because it's practice extensively. There are almost no

bounds to its indulgence. The victim of this solitary vice can do it whenever, wherever, at any age and any sex. That's right. Even girl babies might do this. And I know it's evil because the transgressors seem to know instinctively that they are committing a great sin. People do it in private, in the shadows alone. Masturbators know it's wrong in this world and the next, but they cannot stop. They are ruining their lives. Let me tell you one

example I've seen with my own eyes. I had a patient who was once a bright boy, kind, affectionate, active, intelligent, But once he started jack and himself, he was on the verge of complete idiocy. His eyes were expression, nothing seemed to penetrate into his brain. He was an imbecile. Yes, an idiot and an imbecile. If we left him alone, he would sit in the same position and hardly move. He couldn't get out of bed, he couldn't eat or drink,

and walking required much effort. He was so lethargic and unable to answer simple questions he hardly had a semblance of humanity left. Yes, all of that because of self abuse. If you are a parent, a friend, a caring member of your community, let me tell you some of the signs to look out for so that you can intervene

before someone completely loses themselves to the solitary vice. If they are self abusing, they might have consumption, premature and defective development, sleeplessness, thickness, untrustworthiness, love of solitude, bashfulness, a natural boldness, mock piety, are easy, frightened, confused, have round shoulders or a stooping posture, weak backs, paralysis in women,

small titties. They might be masturbating if they're eating clay, slate, pencils, plaster or chalk, have acne, are wetting the bed, or are having seizures. Sometimes they won't even have these symptoms. They'll just have a vibe that they are a bad person. And now, if you are the masturbator yourself, let me tell you some things that will happen to you if you continue your sinful behavior. First, for the males, irritated urethra enlarged prostate urinary disease priapism aka a most terrible

and humiliating condition where you are forever bricked up. Prolapses of the rectum and anal fissures. Your testes might waste away. You might ejaculate too much or not at all, or ejaculating internally, and the jis will get into your bladder. Impotent, nervous exhaustion, loss of seminal fluid, heart disease, epilepsy, spinal pain, insanity, idiocy, sore throat. Wow, really, anything and everything could happen.

basically gross. And now we get to the important section for all of us. How can we stop self abuse? Well, if you come to my sanitarium and give me money, I can for sure cure you. But here's what's important to know. Prevention is the best method. You gotta cultivate chastity. But remember, any manipulation of your genitals can cause evil to arise. If you are a parent, you must tell your children about what self abuse is and all of

the bad things that can happen because of it. Some parents aren't willing to tell their kids about this stuff, but imagine how many lives might have been saved from ruin if they had heard about this from their parents. If you can't prevent the behavior, here's what to do next. For self abusing children who are old enough to understand morality again, what you can do is paint a very colorful picture of masturbation, sinfulness, and also tell them the

terrible things that can happen if they don't stop. Also, distract them. Work is an excellent remedy because it'll make the kids so tired that when he goes to bed, he will be too tired to defile himself. That's right, Send the kids to the factories. For younger kids, try a medical device, put bandages on their parts. You can tie up their hands, but the best thing you can do is cover their genitals with a cage. Yes, put your baby in a cage from the waist down. Also,

for boys, make sure they get circumcised. Remember, the more foreskin, the more room for pleasure, so you gotta cut it off as much as possible. Also, make sure the operation is performed without an anesthetic, as the pain from the operation will have a healing effect upon the mind where they will have this nice correlation between penis and pain. For adults, what you can do is just spell it out for them, tell them what happens if their self

pollution continues. You don't need to exaggerate. The truth is terrible enough. And if you're an adult trying to get treatment for the solitary device, you gotta surround yourself with favorable circumstances and people understand the danger you are in and be resolved to change. You've gotta control your evil thoughts, exercise and have a good diet. Stop eating stimulating foods that includes spices, pepper, ginger, mustard, cinnamon, condiments, pickles. Stop

drinking stimulating drinks like wine, beer, tea, or coffee. Coffee is particularly evil because it makes people so frickin' horny. It's a poison and I didn't think i'd have to say it, but stop smoking tobacco. Also, remember gluttony is fatal to chastity because your body is already weak from all that self abuse. If you eat too much, your body can't handle it and it might cause you to ejaculate spontaneously. And also on a full tummy, you won't

sleep well and dreams can cause horniness. Remember you'll stop dreaming once you're healthy. Healthy people don't dream. He's absolutely insane. But if you do have dreams, you should be able to control them. One patient was like.

hot enough that it's slightly uncomfortable. Also, for weaker patients who are unable to exercise self control, put a little bit of pure carbolic acid on the clitteris It's a great way to reduce abnormal excitement. Yes, acid on clit. Oh god, this section is disgusting. Okay, just like as a like like that someone with authority would tell people to do, Like this is dangerous, this is bad.

Perseverance and skillful treatment can cure you. Though I have found it absolutely hopeless for some also, don't listen to quacks, which I of course I'm not. Thank you, I have been John Harvey Kellogg. If you are a chronic masturbator or poor please eat my cereal incredible incrabling go fun.

four and are like, wow, they were so bad. Words like most of them weren't even in like a polycule kink bdsm dungeon situation, which is the only way to live healthily. What were they thinking back then? But let's take something from Kellogg himself. You know, let's get our heads out of the gutter and into a bowl of cereal, because, as always, we learn a lesson from American filth. And I think the lesson today is very obvious. Kellogg just

needed to be okay with being a sexual. He didn't need to make a whole philosophy to make everyone else asexual. He just needed to accept himself. It's fine, Kellogg, you can be that way. That's a fine way to live. Calm down. But we're all different. I think that's the lesson for sure. Or maybe he just needed to get fucked. I don't know. I'm not a real historian. I also don't think a real historian could prove if he was a sexual or needed to get fucked, so oh well,

we'll never know. American Filth is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. This episode was written, sound design, and hosted by Me Gabby Watts. Our theme song is by me and Jesse Niswanger. Our senior producer is Amelia Brock, and our executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Else Crowley and Brandon Barr. You guys can follow along with the pod on Instagram at American Filth Pod. Also leave a review,

good bad, either way it helps the algorithm. Give it five stars, one star, two, three or four any sort of stars. Also Tomorrow Thursday, the twenty first of March, I am recording a half hour stand up special in Atlanta, Georgia at a venue called Dynamic El Dorado. We got a couple of tickets left for the eight and a lot for the ten pm. Come out see me do stand up. It's not really about history, but you know, it's a similar vibe. It's also gross stuff. But if not,

I'll talk at you guys next week. Goodbye, School of Humans