On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Harmon Seaver wrote:

Ah, now I see. Before, I was thinking that he was talking about the passage where Onan pulls out and spills his seed on the ground, which, somehow, became a prescription against masturbation, although reading it, especially in context, is clearly just about pulling out. Or possibly against birth-control. "Thou shalt not pull out.", thus saith the Lord, "or in any other way deprive thy partner of the power of thy final orgasmic thrusting."

8-)

Weird, isn't it, that this became so associated with masturbation that a very successful company -- "Onan" -- even would choose their name for generators, i.e., "self power" or "do it alone", etc., from that passage. Even weirder that it doesn't have the slightest thing to do with jacking off, but with someone not willing to accept their (at the time) societal duty to support his dead brother's wife and father her children.

The irony, of course, is what the Catholic Church would have to say if the brother-in-laws of modern widows resumed this practice. -MW-