Onan's sin was failing to impregnate his late brother's wife. He had sex with her but withdrew his penis before ejaculating. It was not masturbation.But you are right about Kellogg. There was an anti-maturbation furor in the late Victorian age. Circumcision was also thought to be an anti-maturbation tool, which is why it gained popularity in the the U.S. in the late 19th century.
So if you look up "sin of Onan" in Christian mythology the sin they ascribe is masturbation. Just like the radical inhospitality which is the sin of Sodom is translated as butt sex, or sodomy (which is actually to be a really bad neighbor host and run a city that's just crappy all around to guests). The Hebraic view on Onan isn't remotely interested in the completely bonkers infidelity *because when it is for the right reasons its ok* and it's not that Onan had a moral crisis or sudden revelation, it's that he selfishly kept his seed from her womb and deliberately spilled it on the barren ground. And for clarification, fornication with a vagina without insemination was to them, masturbation because they had the view that a woman who was fucked but not inseminated wasn't anything more than a sex object and deserving of being stoned to death... and the text makes it clear that by doing this, he would not be the father but rather his brother would be because in their view his brother being married to her made his brother's semen his once inside her, which is wild but hey, they had some wild ideas. It also makes it clear he does this repeatedly, and let's use the interpretive lens that says there's a text, and a subtext, the one that everyone agrees is what we say, but then the one we agree we think, and masturbation was such a taboo subject that it would never be and is not mentioned directly in the OT, except sort of in the Song Of Solomon where the actual text describes the king milking himself into his servant's waiting mouth.,, for reasons I haven't been able to get anyone to explain beyond why not? So the official story is that Onan was schtupping his bro's wife often because they wanted a baby but never came in her... repeatedly. Because according to the story... he wanted the kid to be his, because every man wants kids before marriage, or something like that, which is... let's be honest, ridiculous now ...and then... what is the subtext here is what I think matters... and what every horny dude ever knows is that they wanna have sex, and will take any opportunity to if given the chance... and in that time, with no wife and not a royal person, as an Israelite male... you had no access whatsoever to women (the obvious thing you do have access to is unsaid for reasons the same as why they run around the topic of masturbation... very taboo yet totally widely done and known about as it is still the case today), and if you did do it with a woman.... any woman... and got caught you got put to death (her first though). So Onan is, in reality, not inseminating his brother's wife deliberately just so he can screw her again... pure and simple (which is the obvious and without any real doubt answer), but that is also deeply taboo to say in... temple reading from Torah, or in teaching the story otherwise, so... its left to the listener to understand what the real deal is, and, notice, the lord puts him to death for his sins, which are... first pleasure sex out of wedlock (which was ok if he did it one time for the bro to get a son out of duty not pleasure), but definitely not half to a few dozen times to then pull out and make it necessary thereby to try again, that's not in the "get out of being stoned to death for being immoral scott-free card" pile of things the 10 commandments say you can't do but in this case can...and that's why the son couldn't be his, otherwise it would be adultery right? so they just make a special case where it isn't for a brother to step in because... it happened was necessary for their survival and making it sanctioned in that way made sure they were not stoning every other family to death... and remember, each wasted ejaculation in ancient hebrew calculus was... a baby that was not born and that was lost. Abortion is sanctioned in seven or six places in the OT, but this, this waste in any way is never sanctioned or ok... for the obvious reason that saving the mother over the child unborn is reasonable if they have no other option because she will be able to get pregnant again and is grown, the child is likely going to die and is not grown... she has more value clearly and to do other than save her over the child and lose both would be vile even in those hardcore patriarchal times.., but wasting the baby before it has a chance to be born at least (which is what masturbation is, by their definition or pulling out before you shoot...or lying with a man like with a woman which is not about being gay or having ass sex, its about trying to make a butt baby which will fail and is therefore wrong like the rest, although it is a social sin and the lowest order not a sin against god, abomination sounds awful but its just a hype title,,, eating shrimp is there at that same level) so masturbation or seed wasting which is how they viewed it... its not the act but the outcome of it that is what matters to the writers/patriarchs and moral guides here... that, that is never going to be ok (interesting that butt sex with dudes is just shuffled a bit lower in that deck, and I wonder why lol)... and it's wild to read many interpretations calling this a story of coitus... uh,,, it's coitus interruptus at the very least, but that is birth control or unintended (caught in the act) birth control by its true definition, when its deliberately repeated and obviously so, what is it? Like if he was married today and agreed to try for kids with his wife and pulled that act every time what would be the interpretation? No one would call that coitus or even intended to be such... it's getting his rocks off at her expense. Or, being masturbatory/masturbation.
All this is news to me. Wow... Including the part about Kellogg. Ha.
Yeah it's wild isn't it? i had to watch that part of the documentary three times or so to be sure I wasn't getting it twisted and then had to research the citations and references to be sure... I remember older family members or church elders referring to self abuse being wrong when I was really little, but my parents said it was ok, natural, the school did and the books they put in my room instead of having to talk about it all said the same so I was sure it was ok, had to be.
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