THE JOHN BRUNI MUSEUM OF MEDIOCRE (AT BEST) SHIT #51: MASTURBATION

[When I was working for the college paper, the editor-in-chief said she wanted to do a feature on masturbation. It was a hot topic back then, and it was a concern among the student body. Who was her go-to guy for this? That's right. So I hit the library and I conducted several interviews (the highlight of which was when I asked a chaplain how masturbation fit into his own life, which he easily sidestepped without complaint), and this story was the result. Big surprise: the editor chose not to print it. I am told that years later, this story is still legendary at the Leader office. It won a Leader award for the Best Story Never Printed that year. I chose to redact the names of those I interviewed, as I'm sure that they probably don't want to be associated with this piece now that they're out in the real world, living real lives. Enjoy!]

“Usually masturbation means touching, rubbing, or squeezing your penis or clitoris to give yourself sexual pleasure. Sexual thoughts and fantasies may fill your mind at the same time. If you keep it up long enough, you may have an orgasm—rhythmic waves of muscle contractions in your genitals and internal reproductive organs that feel very good.”

                                                                                --Ruth Bell, Changing Bodies, Changing Lives

“It’s a human need,” says [name redacted]. “It reduces stress.”

“It’s fun,” says [name redacted 2].

“It feels really good,” says [name redacted 3].

Masturbation has found a new acceptance in society, although the subject still elicits nervousness and guilt. “It’s hard to talk about because of a lot of our Puritan upbringings and the Puritan values that this society is still laced with,” says Rev. [name redacted 4].

[Name redacted 5], Psy.D., agrees with the reverend. “The problems with masturbation are religious-based. It comes from a time when it was very important to continue to proliferate your tribe. You needed to make sure that no seed would be wasted on the floor.”

Dr. Ruth Westheimer goes into the spilling of seed on the floor in her book, Dr. Ruth’s Encyclopedia of Sex. “Persons who based their attitudes on religious belief often cite the biblical story of Onan and his sinful ‘spilling’ of seed (Genesis 38:8-9)—hence the term ‘onanism,’ meaning masturbation. However, according to scholars, the story of Onan’s sin probably refers to coitus interruptus, not masturbation. Onan withdrew before ejaculation, thereby failing to fulfill his social and religious duty to impregnate his brother’s widow.”

As to whether or not masturbation is a sin, Rev. [name redacted 4] believes it is not. “Some traditions probably still use the word ‘sin’ with ‘masturbation,’ but there’s none that I as chaplain or any of our community here associate with,” he said.

According to All About Sex, a book edited by Ronald Filiberti Moglia, Ed.D., and Jon Knowles, there were many methods to ensure that children wouldn’t masturbate in the Victorian era. “Parents applied ointments to the genitals of their children to make them painful to touch. Surgeons inserted rings into the foreskin of the penis so boys could urinate without touching themselves. Carbolic acid was used to burn the clitorises of girls who masturbated. Castration was used to cure boys of ‘excessive’ masturbation.”

In response to that and to the religious painting of masturbation, [name redacted 3] said, “They need to loosen up on the entire swanking off thing. Masturbation is a good thing and should not be shunned.”

[Name redacted] agrees. “God must have made masturbation feel good for a reason,” she said.

[Name redacted 4] believes that masturbation, as long as it’s healthy and not destructive, is a safe outlet. “Some of it is exploration,” he said, “some of it’s about tension and the release of tension, something that has to do with coming to terms with one’s self as a sexual being. That process or experimentation is in fact a healthy process, and it is a part of one’s life.”

[Name redacted 5] agrees with [name redacted 4] and adds, “The only time masturbation is inappropriate is if you are doing it in such a way that you could hurt somebody else or yourself. Personally, I don’t feel that you could hurt somebody else through masturbation unless you are making somebody else be there, especially if that someone else is a child.”

What, then, are healthy masturbatory practices? Most women use vibrators. “I can’t get off without using something,” [name redacted] said.

“If I’m desperate, I’ll use my hand,” [name redacted 2] said.

However, a favorite among both women is hydrobation. For the uninitiated, hydrobation is the act of positioning the vagina below a high-powered water faucet and turning it on, allowing water to run across the clitoris. “I don’t like it inside me, though,” [name redacted] said. “It’s uncomfortable.”

[Name redacted 6] admits to using internet porn mostly, and what he calls “the all-purpose hand lubricant,” saliva.

[Name redacted 3] prefers magazines. “If I’m in a desperate mood, I’ll pick up a Victoria’s Secret catalogue,” he said, “but usually I’ll just use my standard imagination.”

Bell adds that some boys and girls at an early age will rub against bed sheets or pillows and others will simply tighten and release muscles in the pubic/anal area.

These practices have long had a bad reputation for causing all kinds of weird abnormalities. Dr. Ruth says, “It was believed that excessive masturbation could cause blindness or insanity, that women would grow facial hair and that men would grow hair on the palms of their hands because of it. These myths were reinforced by the common belief that each man had a finite amount of semen; if he lost too much of it from masturbation, he risked physical deterioration.”

[Name redacted 5] says that she has talked to a number of students who fear that they may be obsessed with masturbation. However, she describes obsession as something that interferes with one’s life, something that prevents one from dating or going to work or school. As a result of this definition, she says, “I have never heard of anybody who obsessively masturbates.”

Dr. Ruth refers to The Janus Report, a 1993 survey taken throughout the United States. According to this survey, 55% of adult males and 38% of adult females said that they masturbate on a “regular basis” (ie. ranging from daily to monthly).

“Furthermore,” Dr. Ruth says, “66% of the men and 67% of the women said they agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that ‘masturbation is a natural part of life and continues on in marriage.’ This view was supported by 63% of the Catholics and 73% of the Jews who responded to the survey.”

[Name redacted] admits to masturbating two times a month. “I can’t get off unless I masturbate on my period,” she said.

[Name redacted 2], on the other hand, masturbates two to three times a week, on average. [Name redacted 3] also masturbates two to three times a week. “Sometimes, if I’m energetic, three times a night,” he said.

[Name redacted 6] admits to masturbating two to five times a month. “If masturbation is a way of knowing yourself,” he said, “then I’ve known myself three or four times over. I’d like to know other people,” he added sheepishly.

--30--