Being told "not to touch yourself down there"

As a child, did your parents warn you against "touching yourself down there"? Which time period? Was this general admonition, or did they catch you playing with yourself?

Yes they did and when I was caught with my hand down in the pants of my cousin, it was a lecture time plus spanking plus a time out.

Your cousins' pants?!

I suspect that I would have been told off very seriously by mom if I had been caught playing with my cousins' or other children's private parts. Did this happen to you several times?

My parents never ever mentioned anything. Now, my father was mainly away at sea most of the year and when he came back as I was older, he would simply give me a bunch of (expensive) condoms to use with my non-existent girlfriends ... ha ha.

And my mother would never deign to mention anything of such a vulgar nature.

Not "touch" myself down there? Are you serious? My parents never said a word to me. My mom read Dr Benjamin Spock. Frankly I always thought the American Indian custom of parents encouraging their children to masturbate or even to do it for them made the most sense. It gave the kids something to do to relieve stress or anxiety.

Not touch yourself? I FACILITATED our daughter's masturbation habits. They learned how to make a baby at 3 1/2 years old when they asked, "where did I come from." and learned about their sensitive spots when they mentioned finding it when wiping after urinating when they were around 4-5. When they entered puberty, we had a bidet installed in their bathroom and I left astroglide in their medicine cabinet, not that young girls are ever at a loss for their own lubrication, but it sent a message.

I told them I would rather they masturbate than have sex when they were young. The girls even told me they masturbated and "know what it feels like to be a woman."

Telling a child not to touch themself in flat out STUPID.

I was raised by my grandmother and I never heard anything like that. I think it would have the opposite effect.

My precocity was anal much early than genital. So I imagine my grandmother saying: Child demon, I told you that you do not insert objects in the ass. The funniest thing is that she gave me enemas at will.

:-P

Telling a child not to touch themself in flat out STUPID.

Yes, and in more ways than one. The obvious one being that by doing so, the attention has been brought to just what isn't wanted in the first place. Of course, some parents have never heard of letting sleeping dogs lie. My wife's parents for one were a real set of out of touch nits and really did a number on my wife's head when it came to masturbation.

Not touch yourself? I FACILITATED our daughter's masturbation habits.

Ah ha, some native American DNA in there somewhere perhaps? Any idea which tribe, cause frankly with such a diversity of cultures, some tribes were real prudes ...

Switchablesusie: It may be stupid but it used to be common.

I think I was told not to touch my anus unless to wipe it. And if my mom did not prohibit masturbation outright, I could see, when she walked on me, that she found it abnormal in a child and somewhat disapproved of it.

One of the often-recurring flashbacks of my early childhood was my neighbor friend's mom admonishing him on their front porch or in their driveway, "Don't touch your duty, Dave!" I don't know how many times I heard that from her!

One of the often-recurring flashbacks of my early childhood was my neighbor friend's mom admonishing him on their front porch or in their driveway, "Don't touch your duty, Dave!" I don't know how many times I heard that from her!

Maybe it was meant to be 'doody' and as a youngster you misinterpreted the word? You know, as in the silly way of speaking like 'diddling' and 'doodling'.

Now that you mention it, there is a hilarious episode (but they all are of course) in '3rd Rock from the Sun' in which John Lithgow wants to be an artist but has no talent. Someone says, well artists like Picasso often doodled. Back home, John Lithgow asks his son 'Tommy, do you ever doodle?' ... the laughter comes hard and long at the look on the boy's face ...

Never warned by my parents about touching myself or anyone else for that matter!

In my opinion, the surest way to encourage a child do something is to tell them not to. First offm it calls attention to the activity no matter how far off the kid's radar screen it was. Then, kids being kids, will often do or try that which they are told not to do. Tell a kid not to play with matches, and your chances of a house fire just increased dramatically.

Never. When my dad saw me exploring down below, he would either ignore it or caution me to not hurt myself. He even encouraged me to masturbate instead of going out with boys

Yes both my sister and I were both told do not touch down there from the earliest time I can remember. That is why when I caught my sister masturbating the first time I said Ummm and she begged me not to tell.

Sadly when I've been out shopping and seen a little girl with her hand 'down there' I've seen the mother quickly pull the infants hand out of her pants and slap the child's hand. No wonder we have trouble getting to the toys. :0 Another GF that I had had been brought up that sex was only to have children.

As if telling a child not to handle the goods is going to prevent them from wanting to go poking around "down there"....I recall one of those early sex ed classes where the lay teacher made the dumbest statement--"if you boys do it too much you'll go blind" as if it were some kind of scare tactic...while sitting upon our desks were open soft cover books depicting our anatomical difference--girlie bits being most popular.

They might have been rudimentary drawings but they still made you stand up & take notice...LOL

I think I remember some female friend of mine telling me that when she was little, she was not to touch "down there" because she could "damage herself" or "have illnesses".

I don't know how much of it was disapproval of masturbation and how much was not wanting the child to rub or poke anything in her vulva or vagina (pencils? toothpaste?).

Didn't parents back then realize that anything "taboo" was automatically brought into focus? Why else did I spend so much time looking at the bra & girdle section of the Sears catalog?!?

Intruder: Sure. But maybe it happen on the spot, as some here have described: mom or dad sees son or daughter with hand in the pants, tells her not to do that, without actually thinking long that this could arouse the child's curiosity.

Or in some case they could want to scare the child away.

It is stupid and against nature, but if you were raised catholic (or perhaps some other religion) you were probably told all those silly things, Don't remember my parents ever telling me not to touch myself 'down there'...probably kept me from being promiscuous. Masturbation, as long as there are batteries or electricity, I will continue to pleasure myself.

I recall one of those early sex ed classes where the lay teacher made the dumbest statement--"if you boys do it too much you'll go blind"

Did anyone then infer from that statement that pupils who were wearing glasses, were already on the way to blindness? That would have been a not illogical conclusion after all ...

I really would love to see how a teacher would explain that away.

Turkey1: I remember reading some old publications from the 1940s and 1950s in which people seriously discussed the bad psychological impact of tampons on teenage girls. Apparently even inserting a tampon was believed to be too much "playing down there".

Turkey1: I remember reading some old publications from the 1940s and 1950s in which people seriously discussed the bad psychological impact of tampons on teenage girls. Apparently even inserting a tampon was believed to be too much "playing down there".

I remember conversations in which fellow female students at the university and also my wife, would tell of how the Catholic schools they attended in the 1960s actively discouraged, if not outright demonized, the use of tampons for girls. Good girls used pads, using tampons was just asking for trouble down the road ...

I never encouraged or discouraged my daughter from touching herself. If she did so at a young age when I was bathing her I just let her explore without saying anything. Years later when she went thru puberty she had no squeamishness about using tampons. In all honesty I have not heard of parents discouraging their children from touching themselves, whether boys or girls, but maybe I have enlightened friends.

Emom: What I'm unsure about was the motives of my friend's parents. Maybe they did not want her to stick unwashed fingers into her vagina (I mean, little children touch anything), at the risk of bringing dirt. Maybe the motives were more "moralistic".

If the child is very young and likes touching themself and they do it in public or in front of family or friends, they can be told to do that in private, otherwise there is no need to say anything. Emom, I don't think you have enlightened friends. Your friends are normal people who don't make a big deal over the body. It's the hypocritical religious idiots (you know they are hypocrites because the DO touch themselves) that are a problem.

Switchablesusie: I don't think my mom was much religious... But I think her view of sex is that this was only done vaginally between an adult male and an adult female, within a stable loving relation. The idea of her young boy masturbating was apparently quite shocking to her, to the point that she seemed to believe that I had been instructed by an older person!

Another example about her sexual hangups: at some point, when I was an adult, she mentioned something "perverse" in the conversation (I think she was talking of something in the news). I then understood she was talking about cunnilingus, which apparently she found perverse and disgusting.

She definitely sounds sexually repressed and hung up.

Switchablesusie: And she might no be alone, so I was asking if there were people even more hung up who prohibited their children from touching themselves. ;-)