[extropy-chat] Onan's disgraceful sin

[Don Dartfield]

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003, Damien Broderick wrote:

> > http://www.libidomag.com/reviews/professionals/selfpleasure.html
> 
> Without looking beyond the suffix of that url, I can tell that it's
> about masturbation--which is exactly NOT what God struck Onan dead for
> doing.

I'd like to clarify that I believe (<g,d&r> ... I meant think!) that
anybody with more than a passing familiarity with the story knows that
Onan's sin wasn't really masturbation.  But people still think that's what
it refers to, and the word "onanism" has become a synonym for
masturbation, and that's probably where most people have heard of Onan --
in the phrase "the sin of Onan."