Written By: Jenne

I know what your thinking, strange title for an article on masturbation! Not as strange as you might think. Most of us sit down each morning and munch on our favorite breakfast cereal without a thought of how those little flakes of bran and corn came into being. Even less of us know that many masturbation myths can be directly linked to the humble breakfast cereal. The two are linked in more ways than you might imagine, read on and find out how...

Many of you will be familiar with Graham Crackers but not many with the thinking that lead to it's creation. Sylvester Graham [1794-1851] was a free thinker and reformer in his time. In the 1830's the American diet consisted mainly of red meat and blood. Graham specialized in highlighting the perils of poor eating and masturbation. Until Samual Tissots book: Treatise on the Diseases Produced by Onanism the evils of masturbation had been simply a moral one, Graham took this a step further and made it a health issue.

In the 1830s Graham took his show on the road, lecturing an inquiring public about the perils of self pollution, as masturbation was then refereed to. As the first of it's kind it had an amazing impact on the general populace and the man behind it was just as dynamic. He sought to revolutionized the diet and sexual behavior of a whole country and in many ways was successful. Graham knew his audience well and if he were alive today no doubt would make a wonderful spin doctor given his grasp of rhetorical devices. He was a master at making claims that no one could disprove or that maybe would disprove would be a more accurate interpretation. Considering that he preached that masturbation caused it's victims to become shy, suspicious, languid, unconcerned with hygiene and in acute cases to suffer from hysteria you'll see how hard it would be for your average masturbator to disprove his theories.

Around 1834, Graham stopped lecturing about sexuality and turned his thoughts towards sound nutrition. The truth was his lectures had become to unpopular for him to continue, but our friend Graham was determined to find a way to spread his thoughts. Graham believed that there were two kinds of hunger -sexual and nutritional- and that both kinds threatened good health.

As influential as Tissot was on his thinking an equally strong influence came in the shape of the English Clergyman, William Metcalfe. Metcalfe was the first advocate of vegetarianism in America. Again Graham interpreted Metcalfe's writings and thoughts into his own, while Metcalfe argued vegetarianism on moral ground, Graham was more concerned with the carnal passions that eating meat produced in people. At that time the stomach was the considered the major organ in the body, so anything that inflamed it was compared to lust. Graham actively promoted a vegetarian diet and claiming it was a cure for almost every form of human sickness. The cure consisted of sexual moderation [no more than twelve times a year for married couple] exercise [this will help with nocturnal emissions, he told us] and proper diet.

As strange as this may seem to many of us today, the Graham movement was a powerful on back in the eighteen hundreds. By 1840, his public career was over but his ideology remained deeply ingrained in society and had influenced a number of bran loving entrepreneurs. One of those was James Caleb Jackson [1814-1895], a diet expert who combined Grahams health reform plan with his own idea's namely hydropathy. Hydropathic therapy, also known as the water-cure, involved applying extremely cold water -- showers, tubs, soaks, and wet-packs -- to different parts of the body. Jackson's real brainstorm, however, was creating a stone-like wafer out of graham flour and water. He called his treat Granula, and would later go down in history as having made the first cold breakfast cereal.

Graham's legacy to the world was what we today know as the graham cracker all be it a sweetened and processed version of the one that was served during his lifetime at the many Graham hotels and boarding houses that sprang up in his time and believed in his preaching. Although Graham's career had ended, his effects on sexual and nutrition teachings still remained popular and the invention by Jackson of Granula was a major break through in both aspects for one Doctor and Seventh Day Adventist, one John Harvey Kelloggs.

Granula at the time wasn't pleasant to taste by any stretch of the imagination and was not popular but Jackson had a ready made market in the form of his patients at his sanitarium in Dansville NY, were it was readily feed to the residents. It was here that on the advice of an angel, one Sister Elen White of the Seventh Day Adventists visited and asked Jackson to duplicate his Dansville establishment in Battle Creek Michigan, the home and world headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventist movement. This facility would later become known as the Kellogg Sanitarium of just "The Sans"but the fact is the institute was to play a key role in not only revolutionizing the American breakfast but also the idea's behind health nutrition and sex.

When Sister White first opened the Sans she was a health reformer pro. Inspired by Jackson and Graham, she too published a book on masturbation in 1864 called, An Appeal to Mothers: The Great Cause of the Physical, Mental and Moral Ruin of Many of the Children of Our Time. As we can see from the passage below even though this text was written by a women, women were still regarded as the weaker sex.

"Females possess less vital force than the other sex, and are deprived very much of the bracing, invigorating air, by their indoors life. The results of self-abuse in them is seen in various diseases, such as catarrh, dropsy, headache, loss of memory and sight, great weakness in the back and loins, affections of the spine, the head often decays inwardly. Cancerous humor, which would lay dormant in the system their lifetime, is inflamed, and commences its eating, destructive work. The mind is often utterly ruined, and insanity takes place. "

Sister White although intelligent, proved to be no leader and the Sans floundered for about ten years until a quirky young doctor named John Harvey Kellogg, took over daily operations. Kellogg was another Graham disciple and advocate, he was also highly regarded within the Adventists for his hard hitting medical journalism. Unlike Graham, he openly embraced medical science and was constantly experimenting with whole grain foods. Two years into the job, he invented the first Battle Creek health treat, which consisted of a mixture of oatmeal and corn meal, baked into biscuits and then ground into bits.

For some reason he decided to call his treat Granula, a strange decision when you realize that the only other cereal on the market was also called Granula. Once they finished suing him, Kelloggs took the decision to remain his new product, Granola. Granola wasn't the only delicacy that was served to the inmates of The Sans. Other specialties included Caramel cereal coffee, Bulgarian yogurt and meat substitutes.

At one point in his career Kelloggs concentrated his research solely on nuts. He wrote a paper entitled "Nuts May Save The Race" During this period of his studies he is believed to have invented peanut butter as well as malted Nuts. As strange as it may now seem this bland diet helped turn around the fortunes of the once failing Sans. Kelloggs believed that most of the patience admitted to the Sans simply suffered from Americanitis and the remedy was simply a change in diet. The cure rate at the Sans as was remarkably high at The Sans simply because no one that was seriously ill was ever admitted. Kelloggs never admitted any chronic masturbators to the Sans either, this suited his purpose and like Graham continued to preach the doom and gloom of such abhorrent practices.

On the night of his Honeymoon, Kelloggs spent his time writing his most famous book, "Plain Facts for Old and Young, a warning on the evils of sex" An amazing collection of symptoms and cures for the curse known as self pollution as well as covering all important sexual ills of the time, but self pollution was by far the biggest. He included the 39 signs that indicate someone who masturbates, a list that just about covers anyone who even vaguely looks human. #7. Sleeplessness, #11. Love of solitude, #12. Bashfulness and #13. Unnatural boldness, #14. Confusion of ideas, #24. Capricious appetite, #28. Use of tobacco, #30. Acne.

This was a clever ploy from his point of view. Just as Graham had done before him it was extremely difficult for anyone to prove the theories wrong. DR Kelloggs was never wrong, his way was the only way and to prove a point although he married he never consummated his marriage to Ells Eaton and they lived in separate apartments. This was supposed to prove that sexual relationships were not neccasary to obtain good health.

It's quite likely, though, that the doctor was in some way dysfunctional (one book suggests he had mumps). After breakfast every morning, he had an orderly give him an enema. This may mean he had klismaphilia, an anomaly of sexual functioning traceable to childhood in which an enema substitutes for regular sexual intercourse. For the klismaphile, putting the penis in the vagina is experienced as hard, dangerous, and repulsive work.

Whatever the reasons for his beliefs, they had long lasting effects on society and many of the myths that still surround masturbation can be directly attributed to his way of thinking. The Sans became more and more famous and DR Kelloggs, himself became something of a demagogue. He began to concentrate less on his fundamental beliefs and more on scientific facts and theories.

A major step in this direction came when a patient showed him a little wheat mattress a friend had sent her to aid her digestive problems. Invented by Henry Perky from Denver, they were what we now know as Shredded wheat. At this time shredded wheat was not thought of as a breakfast food. Originally it was a main course, a natural food that followed the true Grahamite tradition. As well as the original shredded wheat there was a whole host of recipes associated with this biscuit. These ranged from Banana croquettes with shredded wheat to cheese and shredded wheat toast, the list was endless. Perky even founded a scientific institute devoted to training demonstrators on how to educate the humble housewife on it's uses.

In the humble shredded wheat the good DR Kelloggs saw the potential for the first ready to eat breakfast cereal and went about creating his own. After much experimentation he came up with Granose, the first flaked wheat cereal. Once again the The Sans featured heavily in the development of this little wonder flake. As Kelloggs put his idea's into commercial production he met with some stiff opposition, not least from Perky himself who wasn't about to let anyone rip off his invention and had taken no less that 47 patents out with regards to Shredded wheat. The effect of the cereal wars was that Battle Creek exploded with cereal and health food manufacturers and almost overnight the place began known as cereal central. Many more wars ensued in the battle for the cereal that would rid the world of all it's ailments.

John Kellogs was finally forced to turn the ailing Kelloggs company over to his brother, William who although he had worked at The Sans with John, had little interested in curing the public of bad eating habits and masturbation but in making money. So was born the Kelloggs brand as we now know it today but it's original founder left his legacy in the myths that still surround masturbation to this day.

So now you know the story behind Snack, Crackle & Porn...