GEN1474 Although this story is about interrupted coitus and not masturbation, its negative view of “spilling semen” is considered the basis for the prohibition against male masturbation (hence the term “onanism”). The Mishnah and Gemara elaborate on this prohibition Mishnah Niddah 2:1, Niddah 13a-b, as does later Jewish law. Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 23:2. Female masturbation is almost never mentioned, though the Talmud does describe one woman’s practice of having intercourse with a phallus-like object in negative terms. Avodah Zarah 44a. Today more people describe masturbation as a positive, healthy part of human sexuality. Elliot Dorff suggests that masturbation should be permitted on the grounds that its physiological ill effects, as described by doctor and important legal authority Maimonides, have since proven to be untrue. “A Jewish Perspective on Birth Control and Procreation,” in Ruttenberg, Ed., The Passionate Torah, pp. 158-9. See also Elliot N. Dorff, Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics, pp. 116-20. Rebecca Alpert points out that the connection between the story of Onan and masturbation is not necessarily one to be taken for granted. She writes, “What was Onan’s crime? The most obvious conclusion is that it was his refusal to comply with the task his father set for him, which was to impregnate Tamar. So although the term ‘onanism’ should refer to a refusal to follow orders to take a stance against the custom of levirate marriage, it refers instead to the method Onan used to accomplish this act, namely, ‘letting his seed go to waste.’” She suggests that masturbation should be reframed in Jewish life based on Jewish values, including those of self-care, self-knowledge, preparation for connection with others, and privacy. Rebecca Alpert, “Reconsidering Solitary Sex from a Jewish Perspective,” in Ruttenberg, Ed., The Passionate Torah, p. 182, 187-9. OXFORD 391