masturbatorium

English

Etymology

masturbate +‎ -orium, probably by analogy with words like auditorium and sanatorium.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌmæstɜː(ɹ)bəˈtɔːɹi.əm/
• Hyphenation: mas‧tur‧ba‧tor‧i‧um

Noun

masturbatorium (plural masturbatoriums or masturbatoria)

1. (US, rare) A room in which a person masturbates; for example, a private room in a clinic where a sperm donor masturbates to produce semen.
   • 1971, Nancy Keesing, editor, Transition: An Australian Society of Authors Anthology, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson Ltd, →ISBN, pages 85–86:

     The fact is that we are all censors, whether we operate the amnesic sedative of shock, faint from pain, deceive ourselves into thinking things are better than they are, or simply find a coherent message incomprehensible. Imagine smuggling a small child into one of Fun City’s new masturbatoria where only skin-flicks are screened, where those who jiggle may be gratified and those who giggle may be maimed.

   • 1983 fall, Bartholomew Lee, “‘Brass Checks’ Return: An Excursus in Erotic Numismatics, or The Spintriae Roll Again”, in The Journal of Popular Culture, volume 17, number 2, page 145:

     It is reported that upon deposit in the usual standard mechanical coin box, it got for its spender a few minutes of a pornographic movie, in a booth large enough to seat two (or more) people comfortably. Each of these tokens appeared in what can only be called commercial masturbatoria, and not old fashioned whorehouses.

   • 2002, Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors, St. Martin's Publishing Group, published 2010, →ISBN, page 313:

     As for the rape, well, Dr. Finch did seem like a pretty horny old fat man. I thought back to his masturbatorium, his many “wives.”

   • 2004 March 21, Mark Oshinskie, “[Letters to the editor] Government must ban sperm and egg sales”, in Home News Tribune, New Brunswick, N.J., page A14, column 5:

     Among the arguments advanced to support homosexual marriage is that homosexuals can have children. Yet, as the attorney/author Lori Andrews states in “The Clone Age,” such “parenthood” entails the use of glassware and sperm, purchased from catalogs, and “generated” for quick cash by strangers who view pornography in “masturbatoria” with vinyl sofas.

   • 2010 October 14, Jonathan Guthrie, “IVF proves fertile ground for cuts”, in Financial Times‎^[1], London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2 April 2024:

     The Hewitt [Centre] has dedicated facilities for everything, including two purpose-built “masturbatoria” – rooms where male patients produce sperm samples assisted by cable TV pornography.

   • 2011 June 8, Nigel Andrews, “Deja vu of a mundane kind”, in Financial Times‎^[2], London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC:

     I wish Jerry Rothwell’s movie [Donor Unknown] went further than the “dear diary” tones in which a set of well-adjusted teens – central character JoEllen and her adventitious kinsfolk – meet an apparently well-adjusted beach bum. Doesn’t anyone in this America have a problem? Isn’t there something strange, even tragic, about a guy who spent his years of desire doing three-times-a-week sessions in “masturbatoria”?

   • 2014, Ben Lerner, 10:04, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 126:

     The distinguished female author and I were now unabashedly getting drunk. As we ate, I told her the story of my visit to the masturbatorium, and I had her cracking up; we were laughing loudly enough to draw some stares from other tables.

   • [2018 July 25, Nellie Bowles, “The Dawning of Sperm Awareness”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN:

     At his clinic, sports are on TV in the waiting room, and the walls are painted dark. The room Dr. Turek calls the “masturbatorium” has a lava lamp, framed Playboy magazines and a photo of a vintage Maserati (his own).]

Translations

room for donating sperm

• Finnish: luovutushuone
• French: masturbatorium (fr) m