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Victorians Hated Masturbation…
The Victorians were kind of odd. And they do have this reputation for being prudish.
One Victorian belief was that masturbation reduced male fertility. The thought was that you were wasting semen and if you masturbated too much you wouldn’t be able to produce enough sperm to, you know, do the job. On top of that, they thought masturbation was bad for your overall health, for both sexes.
They were, of course, wrong, but this led to, well…
…male chastity belts.
Anti-Masturbation Devices
Victorian men who couldn’t avoid the vice of self-love, would be prescribed anti-masturbation devices.
This generally meant a torture device you put around your penis that, well, made erections painful. Some men were advised to wear this at night to prevent nocturnal emissions. It’s called a jugum penis, and I’m not going to embed the image for the sake of all penis-bearers reading this.
(I can hear the wincing from guys now, given how normal physical erections are during sleep).
Other devices included trusses, which either prevented an erection or kept you from touching yourself. And yes, some of them locked on. Parents put them on teenaged boys.