Sex For One Liberating Masturbation

From Bluetruth

by Betty Dodson

Masturbation is a primary form of sexual expression. It's not just for kids or for those in-between lovers or for old people who end up alone. Masturbation is the ongoing love affair that each of us has with ourselves throughout our lifetime.

In the age of AIDS, you'd think we could at least celebrate masturbation as the safest sex. But making love alone is still society's dirty little secret.

It used to be said that incest was the last taboo, but that word is now freely used. Incest has been dramatized on national television. So why hasn't there been a story about a preorgasmic woman who learns how to masturbate to orgasm and starts enjoying partnersex for the first time? Or think about the education value of a script dealing with a premature ejactulator who teaches himself how to prolong erection with masturbation and turns into a fabulous lover. My retirement fantasy, if is ever got aired on prime time, could change the image of old age. There are thirteen of us old folkd living together in a commune. Every full moon we gather in front of the TV set to watch a new pornographic video of politically incorrect sex. After brewing a strong pot of tea, we plug in our vibrators and settle down for an evening of orgasms. The rocking chairs creak, the vibrators hum, and occasionally one of us smiles and nods yes after a particularly good one.

Our cultural denial of masturbation sustains sexual repression. From childhood through adulthood, we feel guilt and shame over masturbation. Deprived of a sexual relationship with ourselves, we are easier to manipulate and more accepting of the status quo. I believe masturbation holds the key to reversing sexual repression, especially for women who think they're "frigid" or aren't sure whether they're having orgasms in partnersex. The same is true for men who are 'premature ejaculators' or for those men who can't get enough stimulation to have an orgasm from intercourse.

Masturbation is a way for all of us to learn about sexual response. It's an opportunity for us to explore our bodies and minds for all those sexual secrets we've been taught to hide, even from ourselves. What better way to learn about pleasure and being sexually creative? We don't have to perform or meet anyone else's standards, to satisfy the needs of a partner, or to fear criticism or rejection for failure. Sexual skills are likely any other skills; they're not magically inherited, they have to be learned.

Masturbation is our first natural sexual activity. It's the way we discover our erotic feelings, the way we learn to like our genitals and to build sexual self-esteem. It's the best way to gain sexual self-knowledge and to let go of old sexual fears and inhibitions. For women especially, it's a way to build confidence so we can communicate clearly with our lovers. When we're asked what feels good, we will have the courage to let go of our little white lie, 'Oh, everything you do feels good."

At th end of the Sexy Sixties, during my erotic evolution, guilt-free adult masturbation became an important part of my sexual healing. As my sex life went from zero to fantastic, I wanted to share the good news. At first I expressed my joy with erotic art. Next I started writing articles and speaking out about women's sexual liberation. At the time I thought women suffered more than men from sexual repression, and liberating masturbation was my feminist commitment. Soon masturbation became my field of expertise, mostly because no one else wanted to talk about it publicly.

When I began speaking about masturbation with the women in my consciousness-raising groups, I realized there was a need for CR groups devoted entirely to sex. My next step was running masturbation workshops, called Bodysex Groups, for feminists who were willing to take sexual love and liberation into their own hands. Then in 1974,Ms. magazine published my views on masturbation in an article. The reader response was so immense that I was inspired to publish a little book the same year titled Liberating Masturbation: A Meditation on SelfLove. With the national recognition the book brought, I found myself with a full-time job that I kept trying to get out of. "I'm a fine artist, not just a jerk-off artist," I complained. But being committed to a concept was similar to having a child: it meant giving unconditional love, even on the days I hated being "The Mother of Masturbation".

Each year I resigned from teaching masturbation in my Bodysex Groups, and each year I set up another round of workshops. Being a sex teacher without any academic credentials was a bold move, but where could I go to get a degree in masturbation? I decided my fine-arts background qualified me to explore the aesthetics of sexual self-love. Some days I saw myself as a performing artist, and the workshops were simply my new art form. Other days, I saw myself tilting the windmills and was ready to disappear into my studio, never to be heard from again. But after fourteen years of this unique fieldwork, I've awarded myself a Ph.D. in masturbation.

I used to say masturbation leads to sex, but now I know masturbation is sex. The next time someone asks, "When was the first time you had sex?" the appropriate response would be your first memory of masturbation, not the first time who had partnersex.

Although I expected masturbation to be a household word and part of every high school's sex-ed program the eighties, here I am, still liberating you-know-what. Friends sometimes ask why I keep hanging in with the subject, saying 'These days everybody knows masturbation is okay." But the truth is that people still can't use the word freely or talk openly about the subject - particularly in relation to their own sexlives. It's true hardly anybody believes that masturbation causes insanity or warts anymore, but most of the current books and articles about sex, while deploring the frightening old myths about masturbation, still damn it with faint praise. Worst is the implication that masturbation is an okay substitute for 'something better'. Whenever I get a new sex book, I immediately look up 'masturbation' to find out where the author really stands on sex.

Aside from it's importance as a form of sexual self-help, the benefits of masturbation are many. Masturbation provides sexual satisfaction for people unable to find partners. It's a way for teenages with irrepressible sex drives to have orgasms without the possibility of pregnancy. Masturbation also provides a sexual outlet for couples when they are seperated, when one partner is ill, when one partner is not interested in sex, or when either partner cannot get enough stimulation to reach orgasm through sexual intercourse.

Masturbation can also be done with a partner (or partners) as a valid alterative to intercourse; sharing masturbation is an important addition to the sexual repertoire of couples. Masturbating prior to partnersex is a way for men to eliminate sexual urgency and rushing. It also provides safe sexual satisfaction during the last stages of pregnancy, can be relief from menstrual cramps. Masturbating to orgasm is relaxing and helps induce sleep. Finally, and certainly a consideration these days, masturbation is the basic form of safe sex.

It's important to remember that there re all kinds of people who are not in a relationship - some out of choice, some because they're waiting for the right person to come along, and some because they lack confidence or have a physical disability. Some women and men just out of long-term marriages find it too panful to reestablish themselves in a relationship, but they still feel sexual. And we often forget about the sexual needs of the elderley, especially a wife or husband widowed after fifty years of marriage. There are still others who have no choice about masturbation; they're in prisons, nursing homes, mental institutions, or the military. Acceptance of masturbation can make a lot of people's lives more fulfilling.

Another reason I keep hanging in, urging the world to say yes to sex in it's most basic form, is to counter the voices of organized groups committed to condemning masturbation as 'sinful'. The Roman Catholic church heads this list. It also includes the fundamentalist Moral Minority, which still clings to the doctrine of sexual guilt from the Old Testament. (The biblical story of Onan spilling his silly seed isn't even about masturbation, it's about coitus interruptus.) Organized opposition to masturbation, like opposition to pornography, it actually opposition to sexual arousal; to be turned on is somehow considered antisocial. In truth, it's just the reverse: to be sexually repressed is antisocial.

When I was a high-school student obsessed with sex, full of romantic myths, thinking my acne was from too much masturbation, and lacking any information about birth control, I was a potential victim at all times. What a difference it would have made if there had been a Professor of Sex at East High! My fantasy of her lecture goes like this: "Sex will change throughout your life. After hot, romantic sex, which is all you understand now, there will be the sweetness of early married sex, the mystical quality of procreative sex, and the comfort - or boredom - of long-term monogamous sex. Most of you will get divorced and have another phase of hot romantic sex, and run the cycle again. Those of you who are lesbian or gay will follow a similiar pattern. A few of you might go on to explore sex in depth, getting beyond conventional sexroles and labels, and experiencing bisexual three-somes and groupsex. But take note! The most consistent sex will be your love affair with yourself. Masturbation will get you through childhood, puberty, romance, romance, and divorce, and it will see you through old age."

I am renewing my commitment to validating masturbation as a primary form of sexual expression. Sex for One is an erotic concept whose time has come. Universal acceptance of masturbation is the next step in civilization's sexual evolution.

My futuristic fantasy for sexual liberation goes like this - it's New Year's Eve, 1999. All the television networks have agreed to let me produce 'Orgasms Across America'. Every TV screen will be showing high-tech, fine-art porn created by the best talent this country has to offer. At the stroke of midnight, the entire population will be masturbating to orgasm for World Peace.