Frankly Speaking

When I was a teenager, I learned in a sex education class at church (of all places) that a solid majority of women (something like 2/3, as I recall) and nearly all men masturbate.

The line, as I recall, was, "98 percent of all guys maturbate and the other 2 percent are liars."

The point was that it was nothing to be ashamed of; it's natural behavior done by most people.

Sometime after this, I was at the movies with two female friends, who were a year or two younger than me. One was a girl who I had been interested in, but she had ultimately gone for a friend of mine -- a punk rocker who was ever so much cooler. The other girl was her friend, and she was newer to me, but someone who I definitely could have had an interest in. She was cute.

So, for whatever reason, the two got up the nerve to ask me if I masturbated. Emboldened by knowledge, I declared to my intent listeners, "Well, you know what they say: 98 percent of all guys masturbate and the other 2 percent are liars."

The one I knew better asked me if I was a liar. I declared I wasn't. The implication was clear, and I was quite pleased with my openness, which I thought was cool. Bottom line, though, was I got nowhere with either of them ever.

We acknowledge that masturbation is common, practiced by numerous people (I've seen stats all over the board on it, but usually it's a solid majority), but still in most instances we regard it as embarrassing and something that needs substantial privacy. After all, the thought of two people getting it on can be a turn-on; the thought of one often is awkward, silly or even a slam (as in Pink singing, "It's just you and your hand tonight.")

Girls probably are one up on guys in that regard. A girl playing with herself is a much hotter, more acceptable image than the silly, awkward image of a guy jerking off. Or choking the chicken. Or spanking the monkey. You get the picture.

Yet most of us have it in common. We have natural curiousity or we accidentally discover that touching or rubbing ourselves a certain way doesn't just feel good, it gives us real pleasure. That can start young, before we even know what we're doing. When we get older, when we've been "warned" about sex, it can produce guilt -- but we do it anyway.

I discovered it as a preadolescent, rubbing myself against the mattress like some precursor to the thrusting of intercourse. I even laid on top of a Playboy centerfold once or twice, but that didn't do much if you wanted to keep the centerfold in tact. Eventually I discovered the efficiency of my hand, though the first time my orgasm was accompanied by cum -- just a tiny couple drops of semen -- I freaked out, not knowing what or why my body had produced this whitish fluid. Had I broken it? Was it some kind of infection? Good thing I figured it out pretty quickly.

As I got to be a teen, I used to masturbate in bed almost every morning and frequently at night. Or sometimes in the afternoon, right into the toilet. In bed, I'd clean myself up with tissue -- almost always two -- and toss them in my wastebasket, which probably made it appear to anyone who saw my wastebasket that I had really bad allergies. My fantasies often were elaborate -- me and my latest object of desire from school or church, me and some celebrity, different situations, different ages. It was my own Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

As I've gotten older, I don't do it quite as often -- but how could I possibly keep up the pace of my teen years? I still do it frequently, even though the law of diminishing returns definitely applies to male masturbation. I almost always do it in the shower (jerking off in bed wakes up anyone else in bed), where privacy is assured (it's absurdly easy to cover up your actions if anyone comes in) and cleanup is not needed. I can latch on to a fantasy for a while, but the celebrities are pretty much gone. Often enough, it's some girl from past, in the prime of her youth. It also can be reliving a real situation.

One thing still definitely applies: That need for privacy. I've been caught once, by my current partner, many years ago. It was witheringly embarrassing

You'd think that such a discovery between partners might inspire some frisky play. Some people even can incorporate into their sex. Well, it might have inspired play if it had been me walking in on her (or it might have put her off the mood). But there's that awkward image of the guy jerking off again. It just made her wonder what the hell I needed that for.

As I mentioned before, I think girls are definitely one up on us here. Not as many of them may do it -- that's a shame -- but in some ways, I think they're freer to do it. They certainly seem to have more ways to do it. And it's probably more important for their own self-discovery, vaginas being wrapped in mystery the way they are.

The image of a girl masturbating is completely hot, and they do seem to have a jillion ways. Beyond the myriad of ways they can approach it themselves with their fingers -- the rub or the finger fuck? lips or clit or g-spot? in or out? a little bit of this and a little bit of that -- they can use outside help more easily -- the jet of a spa, the shower head, the cross- legged pump (when I see a woman do this, I sometimes wonder if she's getting off or is she just bored and fidgety), sitting on the washing machine, etc.

And, of course, there's the numerous toys. I had a friend who named hers. One was Mr. Fun, a dildo. Another dildo, one with a phallus on both ends (probably a lesbian sex aid), was Mr. Double the Fun. The Rabbit seems to have gained wide acclaim and it's apparently well deserved. Vibrators in any case seem to be standard issue, or maybe they ought to be. (Well, Sarah, look what the government sent you now that you're 14 -- your very own vibrator! Now you won't need a guy!)

Therein lies the rub (ha!) for guys. When it comes to women, guys are fumbling and clumsy, at least to start and sometimes forever. Vibrators do seem vastly superior to our efforts. A girl knows what a girl needs. On her own, she can go at the pace she wants and she can decide where to go and how. She knows when to go to her clit and how hard. She knows how to get herself off, and guys' track records here are spotty at best.

On the flip side, guys don't need a lot a variety. It's rub till you cum, and the most variety seems to be how fast or maybe whether you want some lotion with that. Even the toys are ridiculous -- a blowup doll? a fake pussy? Those are even more ridiculous than the image of a guy flailing away on himself.

In the end, though, masturbation really is a stop gap. It may be more a more efficient way of getting off, but if it's what we really wanted, why do we need that fantasy in our head? There's nothing like the skin to skin contact, the touching, the just plain connection there is when two consenting people enjoy sex together.

Labels: masturbation