[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--
