Opening the door to masturbation

By: Rose Hansen

Posted: 1/6/09

Once when I was fourteen, I was playing cards with the neighborhood boys, and they started talking about masturbating. Actually, I think they referred to it as "slapping the salami." When I shared one of my own stories about masturbating, their reaction was something between erotic shock and disgust.

Not much has changed since them. The whole topic of masturbation is a social taboo. While our culture is clearly capable of carrying out open discussions about most forms of sex - vaginal, anal, casual, good and bad - masturbation, or sex with yourself, is virtually excluded from most conversations.

And while masturbation is expected of men (consider all the slang terms that exist to describe it), it's often portrayed as a shameful, pathetic activity for women.

In fact, the only time it ever seems encouraged for females is if they're doing it to enhance sex with a partner. Read the sex advice sections of women's magazines like "Self," "Cosmopolitan" and "Glamour." The most common published motive for masturbating is to learn how to achieve an orgasm and then transfer this knowledge to intercourse.

But there's nothing on masturbating just because you want to.

When's the last time you heard a girl say, "Well, I was horny, and I just felt like masturbating"? The only time I ever hear girls talk about masturbating is when they admit to engaging in mutual masturbation or using it as a sleep aid.

Ahem. So here's to breaking the mold.

I won a vibrator at a Passion Party last term - battery operated, green and phallic. And I use it. It's not a deeply emotional experience for me. I don't do the whole bubble bath, candlelight thing. It's more like a snack - something to do because I have an appetite for it, and it satisfies.

Laugh all you want, but as Woody Allen famously said, "Don't knock masturbation; it's sex with someone I love." And that's more than can be said about many other forms of sex.

In fact, when you think about it, it's amazing that masturbation isn't widely encouraged. They never said it during the sex education I had in middle school, but it's the safest sex you can have. After all, there's absolutely no chance of getting pregnant, and it's impossible to contract a sexually transmitted infection.

But remember all the rumors and assumptions that floated around about masturbation in grade school? People who admitted to doing it were considered perverts. Some said you'd go blind. Even worse, some were told by parents or religious leaders who "caught them in the act" that masturbating was a sin that would send them straight to hell.

The myths might be broken by education, but the stigma still lingers. As easily as we engage in dialogues about intercourse and oral sex, how many of us are openly willing to admit to having healthy sexual relationships with ourselves?

Not many. While it's socially assumed and accepted that virtually all men masturbate, on average, 60-70 percent of women admit to partaking in self-pleasure (key word: admit). When it comes to masturbation, the subject still makes us shift in our seats.

But masturbation is a healthy expression of sexuality, and the physical and psychological benefits of it deserve recognition. It can relieve stress, pain (such as menstrual cramps or migraines) and increase self-awareness; it has even been linked with decreasing the risk of cancer. And yes, when incorporated into sex with a partner, it can make foreplay and intercourse better. But best of all, it simply feels good.

So why aren't we doing it more often and talking about it more openly?

Until we're ready to engage in open dialogues about it, the association of it as a deviant, pathetic and shameful activity will never break, and that's a shame in itself.

Rose Hansen is a junior in recreation resource management. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily Barometer staff. Hansen can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.