Stolberg attributes the success of the campaign to demonize mastur- bation to several political, ideological, and economic motives, including religious concern with "uncleanness;’ bourgeois fears about self-control, and the “financial interests of the London venereal trade.‘’ He also shows how the symptoms blamed on masturbation addressed contemporary anxieties about virility, gender identity, and selfhood and were consis- tent with prevailing understandings of bodily function and disease cau- sation. Stolberg particularly mentions the role of medical entrepreneurs eager to increase the sale of their goods and services, and notes that mas- turbation gave the medical profession” a welcome opportunity to demon- strate the importance of medical expertise for promoting individual as well as social welfare.‘’