5/6/2008
Keywords:
dr.susan block, masturbation, masterbation, masturbate, wank, jerk off, jack off, jill off, stroke, taboo, orgasm, betty dodson, bonobo way, pleasure
Brothers and Sisters, Lovers and Sinners, Spankers and Wankers, Lovers and Friends: Come, Let
Us Play…
May is National Masturbation Month, having been so declared
by the Godmother
of Masturbation herself, my mentor and friend, Dr.
Betty Dodson. Why bother to have a National Masturbation
Month here in the Mastubation Nation? Since just about everybody plays sexual
solitaire at least sometimes, it's virtually the country’s—and
the world’s--preferred leisure past time, regardless of the time of year, far more popular than playing football (either kind), blackjack or even the lottery.
Check Out Dr. Suzy's Masturbation Month Special on
Hitachi Magic Wands: Get One During the Month of May &
Receive a Free DVD of Vibrators & Other Lovers
Yet far too few of us private Onanists are willing to admit publicly that we indulge. Here in our Land of
the Somewhat Free, we have plenty of Gay
Pride and Leather
Pride, even a bit of Libertine
Pride (in the Blue
States), but not much in the way of Wanker
Pride. After all, "sex for one," as harmless and healing
as we now know it to be, is still condemned and ridiculed as an illicit, shameful
act. Thus, most of us keep our single-handed pleasures under the covers
and in the closet. National Masturbation Month is a respectful attempt
to open that closet door, just a crack, letting a little light shine in
on that which is usually hidden and forbidden.
Old Testament Testicles
So, Brothers and Sisters, Liars and Fibbers, who will
testify to the truth of masturbation?
Actually, that word "testify" tells us a little
something about masturbation and truth, coming, as it does, from the same
Latin root as the words "testament," "testimony,"
and "testicles." See, way back in Old Testament times, when
our forefathers swore an oath, they didn't put their hands on the Bible,
because these were Bible times, and the Bible hadn't been written yet.
So, when our forefathers testified, they put their hands on their testicles.
That's right, they swore by their family jewels!
Telling the
truth, for a man, was assured by the public act of squeezing, stroking
or gently cupping one's sac. One explanation for this gesture is that
the man is swearing by the lives of his future children. Another reason
is that there is something inherently honest about touching your own genitalia.
It is the place of your greatest physical vulnerability, sensitivity and
power.
So do like your ancestors, do like your Old Father
Abraham, grab your balls and testify! Grab 'em right now, Brother! Don't
grab 'em too hard. But don't be too soft on yourself either. And Sister,
you just grab your holy vulva right where it feels good. You might want
to grab it with one of those holy vibrators for an intense erotic sensation. Feel the power, the glory and the truth
of solo sexual revelation!
Yes indeed, this month (or any month), finger yourself with joy! Stroke yourself into
rapture! Buzz yourself into bliss! Surrender to self-pleasure. Testify
to the truth of autoerotic ecstasy. Testify and be healed of stress and
frustration, anger and sleep deprivation, Horny Toaditis and Desperate
Housewife Syndrome......
What's the matter, Brother Jack? Are you embarrassed,
Sister Jill? Feel silly? Guilty? Naughty? Baaaad? Don't you know that
if God had intended you not to masturbate, he would have made your arms
shorter? No, Jesus didn't say that, and neither did Mohammed. George Carlin
did. But it rings with more truth than most psalms.
Self-Touching Taboos
Then why is such a natural, pleasurable, healthful, free,
convenient, ecologically sound (population control, anyone?) and virtually
harmless act as masturbation so embarrassing, so unmentionable, so vilified?
Ball-fondling oaths aside, society's prohibitions against "self-abuse"
seem to have begun thousands of years ago as a moral code to sustain agrarian
culture and tribal wars. Back again to those Bible times, when the infamous
Onan was struck dead by God for "spilling his seed upon the ground."
Biblically speaking, this was more of a case of coitus interruptus than masturbation. But the general tribal assumption was that masturbation
was taboo. Why? Tribal leaders assumed that if folks were masturbating--that
is, having sex for *fun* instead of channeling their entire sex drive
into reproducing the tribe--they wouldn't "be fruitful and multiply."
That is, they wouldn't spawn enough children to work their harvests and join their
armies in their wars against opposing tribes. You could call this ancient
tribal taboo against masturbation and other forms of nonreproductive sex:
The Mother of All Membership Drives.
May Flowers features The Nymphs of Zorbacchus on
Dr. Suzy's Speakeasy 2008 Calendar
Medieval Christians went on to further denigrate the
joys of self-diddling by equating any kind of sexual pleasure with pure evil. Though
Jesus himself, according to the Gospels, said remarkably little about
sex and nothing at all about masturbation, early Christian Fathers like
Saint Paul and Saint Augustine were inflamed by what they saw as sexual
degeneracy in themselves and others. They declared masturbation to be
a gargantuan sin, one of the worst a human being could commit, tumbling the poor wanker down, down, down to the lowest levels of eternal hell..
Unlike a so-called "natural sin" such as fornication, bigamy or adultery, masturbation was considered a "sin against nature." What made
masturbation "unnatural" is anybody's guess, since nature shows
us many creatures--dogs, cats, monkeys and, of course, bonobos,
to name a few--having sex for one just for fun.
Medieval Christian Fathers were not big on fun, at least
not for the common folk. Around 1300, the Archbishop of Sens wrote regarding
sins against nature that "the first branch is when man or woman by
him or herself, alone and aware of the fact and awake, falls into the
filth of sin." This proclamation encouraged the already popular practice
of feigning sleep whilst flogging the hog.
Flog Thyself!
Though a natural sin like fornication was considered
fairly minor, and could be absolved by a parish priest, masturbation,
being "unnatural," could be absolved only by bishops or their
lieutenants. Thus, the Church
Fathers shrewdly used the masturbation taboo to gain deep psychic
power over an uneducated, frightened populace.
In other words, they had
'em by the balls.
Since everybody masturbated, everybody could be made
to feel guilt, shame and the profound need for expiation, from whom else
but the Church Fathers? Over the centuries, frightening superstitions built up,
e.g., that indulgience in self-love caused warts, blindness, insanity
and hair on the palms, not to mention eternal damnation in hell.
Then there's the more “modern” notion that
masturbation is wasteful of those "precious bodily fluids" that Dr. Strangelove's Jack D. Ripper is so obsessed with. This humdinger
has its roots in the widespread misconception that men have a limited
amount of sperm, and that every ejaculation depletes a man's finite allotment
of precious semen, resulting in weakness and eventual impotence. Actually,
the opposite is closer to the scientific truth: use it or lose it. If a man doesn't have sex or masturbate consistently throughout his life,
as he gets older, he is more likely to lose his ability to get erections
and ejaculate. Studies show that he is also more likely to have prostate
problems.
Of course, Brother Jack, if you ejaculate six times
a day, you will not shoot more than a gasp and a dribble by Ejaculation
#6. So if you want to maximize your spunk output, keep your hands off
your treasure for 72 hours. That's enough time to build up your maximum
load. Wait much longer than that, and you won't be building up anything
but an unholy case of blue balls.
Flaky Ideas, Corny Recipes and Circumcision
Though women don't produce semen, the myth that female
masturbation is debilitating, unfeminine or just plain wrong, has also
held sway. Both witch doctors and medical doctors, in their vain attempts
to stop women from touching their clitorises, have gone so far as to chop
them off, sometimes along with the labia too, performing horrific "cliterectomies"
or "female circumcisions" that sometimes kill their victims
(usually young girls) and always deform them. Though Western doctors now
rarely perform these operations, female circumcisers still actively practice
their trade in various African and Asian villages.
Then there’s male circumcision, widely practiced
all over the world, sometimes with elaborate religious ritual, as among
Muslims and Jews, but also in hospitals where it is presented as *necessary*
for hygiene. In this sex
therapist’ view, it’s all a byzantine smokescreen for
a massive, brutally child-abusive, rather fruitless effort to control
male masturbation.
Two major circumcision enthusiasts were also the biggest anti-masturbation activists of the
19th century, Graham Cracker King Sylvestor
Graham and John Kellogg, creator of Kellogg's Corn Flakes. The consumption
of either Graham Crackers or Kellogg's Corn Flakes was supposed to suppress
the sex drive. Did it work? Not at all, scientifically speaking. But then
Kellogg and Graham weren't very scientific, especially when it came to
masturbation. Kellogg called it "the vilest, the basest and the most
degrading act that a human being can commit." Wonder what he’d
say about all the semen fetishists who enjoy consuming cum along
with his cornflakes.
Masturbation Politics
There are far too many anti-wanking superstitions that
have proliferated though history to list here, and science has disproved
them all. Experts consider masturbation to be a normal, safe sexual activity,
not to mention a relatively easy but superb cardiovascular workout. Still, in many circles,
self-pleasuring is unmentionable. American Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn
Elders was forced to resign when she mentioned masturbation in the context
of safe sex education. Maybe if Bill
Clinton had taken Dr. Elders' advice instead of firing her, he'd have
sidestepped being sideswiped by the Religious Right. Dr. J is now a patron
saint of strumming; a popular masturbation nickname is "firing the
surgeon general."
Speaking of American presidents, George
W Bush demonstrated his own dark twist on the touchy subject of solo
sex in the notorious Abu Ghraib pictures that show leering American soldiers forcing helpless, hooded prisoners to masturbate. What this is supposed to accomplish in terms of "national defense" is unclear."
Is it a punishment? A reward? A bizarre, religiously inspired humiliation?
A way to “blow off steam”? A very bad joke? A military-industrial
fetish? Some kind of interrogational inducement to spill the beans along
with the seed? Whatever its ostensible purpose, Bush’s forced Detainee
Jack-Off Policies cast yet another deeply sinister shadow on the innocent
pleasures of masturbation.
God's Gift
Despite millennia of anti-masturbation mania, there does
exist some positive folklore on the natural wonders of whacking off. According
to the Greeks, masturbation was a gift from the gods. Hermes revealed
it to Pan, whose love for a nymph was unrequited, demonstrating how the
simple act of jacking off could be an excellent rape prevention technique.
Pan then taught the shepherds (for which the sheep must have been grateful),
The Greek philosopher Diogenes praised the extraordinary physical efficiency
of masturbation, "Would to heaven that it were enough to rub one's
stomach in order to allay one's hunger." The Greeks understood the
powerful benefits of solo
sex.
Some Americans have also had a "feel" for it. Mark Twain, in between penning literary masterpieces, spoke of it
with satiric yet compassionate, truthtelling eloquence: "to the lonely
it is company; to the forsaken it is a friend; to the aged and impotent
it is a benefactor; they that are penniless are yet rich, in that they
still have this majestic diversion."
Then there's Truman Capote: "the nice thing about
masturbation is you don't have to dress up for it." Come as you are.
Masturbation Addiction
Nevertheless, self-pleasuring taboos never die; they just mutate
with the times. Now, instead of fearing masturbation will make us blind,
we worry that it will brand us as lonely, desperate, or as a pathetic,
unlovable "sex addict."
Of course, you can become addicted to masturbation. Anything
really good in life is addictive. Jerkin' your own gherkin can be so damn
convenient that you don't want to bother with the rigors of dating, mating, communicating with your spouse, or whatever hurdle you'd have to jump
in order to have partner sex. Physically speaking, you can get so accustomed
to the rhythm of your own hand, or the megabuzz of your vibrator,
that you prefer masturbation to making love.
Then again, self-love is
a kind of love. And sometimes, especially after a bad break-up, or when
you're sick, or stressed, or physically separated from your lover, it's
the best kind of love. A lot better than gorging on chocolate brandy cordials, stalking your ex, mainlining any kind of drugs, or many other things people do to comfort themselves.
Eroticize Your Shame!
So, shake that shame and shimmy, Brothers & Sisters! Give yourselves a hand…
If you can't manage to shake your shame, you can always
eroticize it. You might do this already. Sex is intrinsically perverse,
and our anti-sex society makes it more so. Thus many of us need to feel
bad in order to feel good. The naughtier we feel about masturbating, the
better masturbation feels. Take it from a sex
therapist: People that grow up tortured by religious dicta against
"self-abuse" often become some of the world's most avid masturbators.
.
See a Circa-1926 Weimar Berlin
Masturbation Machine in Action!
So what's it all about for you, Brother Jack? Sister Jill? Is it wild? Is it wonderful? Is it weird?
Is it just a tremendous relief? Do you get a mystical, spiritual sense
of fulfillment? A primitive, animal sense of contentment? Does it give
you energy or put you to sleep? Does it make you feel alone? Or like
an ecstatic link in the Great Chain of Sexual Being? Does it make you
feel powerful? Peaceful? Beautiful? Bountiful? Biological? Do you masturbate
to be safe, or do you do it for the danger? Do you enjoy an audience,
or would you rather be the audience? Do you like to use props?
Vibrators? Dildos? Erotica? Porn? Romantic Fantasy? Phone sex? Bondage
gear? Aromatic oils? Special music? Fetish objects? How do you touch yourself?
Quick strokes or long? One hand or two? Lube or natural juices? What do
you think about when you masturbate? Do you fantasize, or do you just
feel the sensations? Do you feel great right up until orgasm, then feel
guilty? Or do you feel even better after you've
come, as you float down a stream of natural nirvana?
Mom's View
Whatever our personal feelings, masturbation is almost
always the very first sexual activity of our lives. Even in utero, we
touch ourselves for relaxation and pleasure. As babies, we play with all
parts of ourselves, but our genitals are especially exciting, because
of the intensity of sensation.
Thanks to my own Dr. Spock-influenced Mom, I didn't grow
up too inhibited about masturbation. Like most kids, I started
playing with myself at around the time I started playing. Not that my
mother approved of my masturbating. But she did, at least, put up with
it. That is, she didn't punish me for it, just warned me to cool it in
public, like when she caught me holding the sprinkler under my crotch
on the front lawn, or sliding my hand under my skirt during the duller
portions of the Passover Seder.
Modern Masturbation Machine: The Monkey Rocker
At least, Mom's pragmatic attitude didn't denigrate my
sexuality. "Suzy," she said when she caught me petal pushing,
"Stop that.. Your hands are dirty, and it's clean down there."
She was right about my hands being dirty, probably sticky with peanut
butter and jelly or something I'd pulled out of my nose. And I will always
appreciate her designation of my netherparts as "clean." She
wasn't George Carlin, Diogenes, Mark Twain or even Truman Capote,
but at least Mom had an oddly sex-positive way of attempting to regulate
my masturbatory passions.
Masturbation Education
Speaking of the positive...It may feel like playing hooky,
but masturbation is educational. It teaches you about your
own body, what kinds of touch arouse you, what positions relax you, what
fantasies stimulate you, what props get you hot. It helps you to find
your mental and physical rhythm and style for maximum orgasmic pleasure.
Partner sex is more romantic, of course, and usually
more meaningful, as well as educational, but it also tends to be more stressful. Unless you're
a total narcissist, you're probably going to concentrate more on your
lover's pleasure than your own. During masturbation, you don't have
to worry about pleasing or impressing anybody but yourself. That way,
you can relax and explore, learning all kinds of stuff about your erotic
responses that you can use to become a better lover and a more orgasmic,
relaxed, sexually satisfied person.
For instance, if you've never done kegels or PC (pubococcygeus) muscle
exercises, the perfect time to try them is during a private session of
solo sex. Just in case you don't know, both men and women have PC muscles. If you haven't a clue where yours are, just concentrate on the area between your genitals and your anus, and squeeze it as if you're stopping a stream of urine. Then release. Now squeeze and release. That's it. And that's a lot. Like any kind of physical exercise, kegels take practice and
concentration, tough to muster when you're making love with another person. Before or during
masturbation, you can easily practice squeezing and releasing your PC
muscles, making your orgasms longer and stronger, or multiple, and more
under your control. Lots of quick-on-the-trigger guys learn to manage
their tendency toward premature ejaculation this way. Many young women
who can't climax with their also-young, inexperienced lovers have
their first orgasms while petting their own kitties. In fact, that's how
I had mine.
My First Orgasm
I was 19 years old, a sophomore at Yale, and I'd never
had an orgasm. Oh, I'd had sex a few times, mainly with my high school
boyfriend, and he'd had plenty of orgasms. I'd masturbated since
before I could walk, but not yet to *completion.* I did have involuntary
climaxes occasionally when I rode a horse or did kip-ups in gymnastics.
But no full-fledged voluntary orgasms until first semester of my sophomore
year.
That was when I read a book that was most definitely not required
reading for any of my classes: Betty
Dodson’s Liberating Masturbation.
No I didn’t date any Skull
& Boners at Yale, but I was seeing a gorgeous
young math genius on the crew team named Steven, tall and sensuously lean,
with long flowing blonde hair and pool blue eyes.
The only problem was that Steven was very shy, and since I was fairly
shy too, our evenings tended to be rather dull. But I was infatuated with
his golden athletic beauty and dazzling numerical brilliance. And one
night, when I let him stay over in my tiny little dorm room in my tiny
little single bed, we had sex. I don't remember much about the sex. I
think it wasn't bad, but I know it wasn't orgasmic. When Steven left for his early morning math class, I
remember lingering in bed. Lazily, I started to touch myself, picking
up where Steven had left off. But I didn't know what to do. Not exactly.
So, being a bookish girl, I reached for a book. We were reading Antony
and Cleopatra in Shakespeare class. Though I found the play to be
quite erotic, I knew old A&C wouldn’t tell me what I needed to know
at that critical moment. Nor would my psych or philosophy textbooks or
even my French Fleurs du Mal. So I pushed them all aside for
a little illustrated pamphlet I’d picked up from one of the women’s consciousness
raising groups so popular back then.
This was Liberating Masturbation. I perused
a few paragraphs as I continued to touch myself. Within less than a dozen
pages, I’d received a lesson in female anatomy like I’d never been given
before. In a smart, friendly, no-nonsense style, Betty told me exactly
what and where my clitoris was (nobody else ever had!), and how to touch
it to make it feel wonderful. She told me to relax and breathe deep, something
I’d never actually thought of doing with sex, despite my years of yoga. So, I relaxed
and breathed deeply, as I stroked and played with myself like I'd played
since I was a baby, but this time I followed Betty’s instructions,
pushing myself farther. I inhaled and exhaled deeper and deeper, and rubbed
and tickled and poked and pulled, licking my fingers and feeling the power,
checking back with the book for ideas, breathing deeper,
rubbing faster, then slower, and then faster again, until lo and behold,
the proverbial dam burst, the bed shook, the dorm room spun, and I bounced
off the cliff into orgasm. My first full-fledged, voluntary orgasm.
I remember feeling awed and amazed, like I'd gone through
a personal revolution right there in my tiny, overprotected, little Ivy Towered dorm
room bed. I knew I had passed through a "rite of passage" that
none of my anthropology books dared describe. I felt blessed, or maybe
just lucky, like I'd been given a gift from God, or the Goddess, or Nature,
a pure pleasure that I didn't have to work for, didn't cost any money,
didn't have any calories and didn't require *faith* in myths or suppositions.
I marveled that something so easy could be so explosive, yet so gentle.
And I remember realizing I was hooked, that at that point, after 19 years
of life on earth, I had become orgasmic. I knew, right then and there,
that no matter what else happened, the rest of my life would include these
exquisite explosions of pleasure, that pretty much whenever I wanted,
I could enjoy a little piece of heaven on Earth, and it was all just as close
as my fingertips.
I remember drifting blissfully in that tiny little dorm
room bed, as if I were Cleopatra floating down the Nile on her perfumed
barge toward Antony, her erotic destiny. Then I remember glancing at the
clock and realizing that if I didn't get out of bed that minute, I'd miss
that Shakespeare class, so I threw on my clothes, picked up my books and
left, a New Orgasmic Woman.
And I became a proud citizen of
Betty Dodson’s Masturbation Nation, joining her "on the barricades"
against sexual ignorance and repression. Betty’s Liberating Masturbation was eventually
revamped and renamed Sex
for One. It became a classic. Over the decades, it has helped
millions of women like me to have their first orgasms. And it has eased
the guilt and opened the minds of many others, male and female. Like another
bestseller of its time, The
Joy of Sex, it carried the sexology research of Dr.
Alfred Kinsey, along with the pioneering efforts of Victoria Woodhull, Emma
Goldman, Margaret Sanger and many others, into the burgeoning self-help arena.
It reached the masses, grabbed us (gently) by the cajones, and stoked the Sexual Revolution. As the title indicates, Sex for
One is the quintessential self-help manual (pun intended). Its message
is self-revolutionary: If you can help yourself to the greatest sexual
pleasure, you really don’t need to kow-tow to the demands of an unreasonable
husband, or wife, or religion, or government.
No wonder masturbation is
still so taboo.
And now here I am, a few million orgasms richer, Brothers
and Sisters, Lovers and Sinners, wishing you a Merry Masturbation Month!
Make love to someone you love tonight, even if that someone is you...
And
don't forget to wash your hands before you do! Remember what my Mama said! Then you can lick
your fingers...
