Masturbation
Despite thirty or forty years of so-called s****l liberation, m**********n still has an image-problem. Nice people don’t talk about it, though everybody does it, even those who believe it is sinful. There’s a persistent idea (enshrined in some versions of religion) that it’s somehow second-best, a poor substitute for the real thing, which is intercourse. When I was at school we called m**********n “tossing off” or “wanking”. (Historical footnote: in cockney rhyming slang m**********g is “having a J. Arthur”; J Arthur Rank (rhymes with wank) was a celebrated British film producer in the post-war years.) And a tosser or a wanker in English slang is someone who is all show, who talks a lot but gets nothing substantial done.
Doubtless for many of those deprived of s****l contac
