Masturbation 101 ~ Dr. Susan Block's Journal

MASTURBATION

JOIN
FRONT PAGE
SUBSCRIBE FREE
RADIOSUZY1TV
.THERAPY

SmARTLINKS
PHONE SEX THERAPY

SmARTLINKS
RADIO & TV

RADIO SEX TV on HBO

SmARTLINKS
EROTIC TRAVEL


Libertine Clubs of Cannes

SmARTLINKS
EROTICA

SQUIRTING
Female Ejaculation

The Weimar Love Club

WATERWORLD

EROS & PSYCHE

The Womb Room

EROS CARNAVAL

Annie Body:
Geyser of Desire

EROS PAGES

SmARTLINKS
PRESS OFFICE

PRESS QUOTES

PRESS CLUB

EMMA GOLDMAN AWARD

The Cannes Press Club

My Missionary Position

WHAT'S NEW?

SmARTLINKS
ART

GALLERY

SmARTLINKS
THE BOUDOIR

SmARTLINKS
DATING

SmARTLINKS
PHONE SERVICES

NEED TO TALK?

MASTURBATION 101
Come, Let Us Play…

"Open Up" ........................................................................................... XAM

By Dr. Susan Block

Brothers and Sisters, Lovers and Sinners, come, let us play…

May is National Masturbation Month, having been so declared by the erotically aware jill-off gals at Good Vibrations and the Godmother of Masturbation herself, Dr. Betty Dodson. Why bother to have a National Masturbation Month? Since just about everybody plays sexual solitaire at least sometimes, it's virtually the nation’s—and the world’s--preferred leisure past time. Masturbation isn’t terribly controversial in these days of hotly debated sexual subjects. Why, it didn't even make Senator Rick the Stick Santorum's List of Naughty Sex Acts that the Government Should be Allowed to Break into Your Bedroom and Bust You For. Nor did Pope Rat mention it in his List of Reasons Good Catholic Americans Must Vote Republican. Still, what the Brits so adorably call "rubbing off" just doesn't get the respect that it deserves.

Thus, the M Month. Otherwise, far too few of us private Onanists would be willing to admit publicly that we indulge. Here in our Land of the Somewhat Free, we have plenty of Gay Pride and Leather Pride, even a bit of Libertine Pride out in the Blue States, but not much in the way of Wanker Pride. After all, "sex for one," as harmless and healing as we now know it to be, is still condemned by many as an illicit, shameful act, forbidden even to lonely priests. Thus, most of us keep our single-handed pleasures under the covers and in the closet.

Dr. Suzy and Mistress Selina Minx jill off with Magic Wands

O, Brothers and Sisters, Liars and Fibbers, who will testify to the truth of masturbation?

Actually, that word "testify" tells us a little something about masturbation and truth, coming, as it does, from the same Latin root as the words "testament," "testimony," and "testicles." See, way back in Old Testament times, when our forefathers swore an oath, they didn't put their hands on the Bible, because these were Bible times, and the Bible hadn't been written yet. When our forefathers testified, they put their hands on their testicles. That's right, they swore by their family jewels! Telling the truth (for a man) was assured by the public act of squeezing, stroking or gently cupping one's sac.

So do like your ancestors, do like your Old Father Abraham, grab your balls and testify! Grab 'em right now, Brother! Don't grab 'em too hard. But don't be too soft on yourself either. And Sister, you just grab your holy vulva right where it feels good. Feel the power, the glory and the truth of solo sexual revelation! Finger yourself with joy! Stroke yourself into rapture! Surrender to self-pleasure. Testify to the truth of autoerotic ecstasy. Testify and be healed of stress and frustration, sleep deprivation and Desperate Housewife Syndrome......What's the matter, Brother Jack? Are you embarrassed, Sister Jill? Feel silly? Guilty? Naughty? Baad? Don't you know that if God had intended you not to masturbate, he would have made your arms shorter? No, Jesus didn't say that, and neither did Mohammed. George Carlin did. But it rings with more truth than most psalms.

"Testify and Be Healed"........ Video Photos: Dr. Susan Block

Then why is such a natural, pleasurable, healthful, free, convenient, ecologically sound (population control, anyone?) and virtually harmless act as masturbation so embarrassing, so unmentionable, so vilified? ? Ball-fondling oaths aside, society's prohibitions against "self-abuse" seem to have begun thousands of years ago as a moral code to sustain agrarian culture and tribal wars. Back again to those Bible times, when the infamous Onan was struck dead by God for "spilling his seed upon the ground" (which was, Biblically speaking, more of a case of coitus interruptus than masturbation). Tribal leaders assumed that if folks were masturbating--that is, having "sex for fun" instead of channeling their entire sex drive into reproducing the tribe--they wouldn't "be fruitful and multiply." They wouldn't spawn enough children to work their harvests and go to war against opposing tribes. You could call this ancient tribal taboo against masturbation and other forms of nonreproductive sex the Mother of All Membership Drives.

Medieval Christians went on to further denigrate the joys of self-diddling by equating sexual pleasure with pure evil. Though Jesus himself, according to the Gospels, said remarkably little about sex and nothing at all about masturbation, early Christian Fathers like Saint Paul and Saint Augustine were inflamed by what they saw as sexual degeneracy in themselves and others. They declared masturbation to be a gargantuan sin, one of the worst a human being could commit.

Unlike a so-called "natural sin" such as fornication, bigamy or adultery, masturbation was a "sin against nature." What made masturbation "unnatural" is anybody's guess, since nature shows us many creatures--dogs, cats and bonobos, to name a few--having sex for one just for fun.

LEFT: Female bonobo masturbating with ball at the San Diego Zoo. ... PHOTO: Dr. Susan Block
RIGHT: Female bonobo masturbating in the wild. PHOTO: Franz Lanting. From Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape

Medieval Christian Fathers were no bigger on fun than Rick the Stick or Pope Rat--at least not for the common folk. Around 1300, the Archbishop of Sens wrote regarding sins against nature that "the first branch is when man or woman by him or herself, alone and aware of the fact and awake, falls into the filth of sin." This proclamation encouraged the already popular practice of feigning sleep whilst flogging the hog.

Though a natural sin like fornication was considered fairly minor, and could be absolved by a parish priest, masturbation, being "unnatural," could be absolved only by bishops or their lieutenants. Thus, the Church Fathers shrewdly used the masturbation taboo to gain deep psychic power over an uneducated, frightened populace. In other words, they had 'em by the balls! Since everybody masturbated, everybody could be made to feel guilt, shame and the profound need for expiation, from whom else but the Church Fathers?

Modern Church Fathers: Repositories of Expiation for Masturbation

Over the centuries, frightening superstitions built up, e.g., that indulgience in self-love caused warts, blindness, insanity and hair on the palms, not to mention eternal damnation in hell (though if one could rub off in hell, that might make it bearable--beat your meat in the heat).

Then there's the more “modern” notion that masturbation is wasteful. This humdinger has its roots in the widespread misconception that men have a limited amount of sperm, and that every ejaculation depletes a man's finite allotment of precious semen, resulting in weakness and eventual impotence. Actually, the opposite is closer to the truth: use it or lose it. If a man doesn't have sex or masturbate consistently throughout his life, as he gets older, he is more likely to lose his ability to get erections and ejaculate. Some experts say he may be more likely to have prostate problems.

Of course, Brother Jack, if you ejaculate five times a day, you will not shoot more than a gasp and a dribble by Ejaculation #5. So if you want to maximize your spunk output, keep your hands off your treasure for 72 hours. That's enough time to build up your maximum load. Wait much longer than that, and you won't be building up anything but an unholy case of blue balls.

Dr. Susan Block in "The New Horny Housewife" Video Self-Portrait
Get the Video

Though women don't produce semen, the myth that female masturbation is debilitating, unfeminine or just plain wrong, has also held sway. Both witch doctors and medical doctors, in their vain attempts to stop women from touching their clitorises, have gone so far as to chop them off, sometimes along with the labia too, performing horrific "female circumcisions" that sometimes kill their victims (usually young girls) and always deform them. Though Western doctors don’t perform these operations anymore, female circumcisers still practice their trade in various African and Asian villages.

Then there’s male circumcision, widely practiced all over the world, sometimes with elaborate religious ritual, but more often in hospitals where it is presented as “necessary” for “hygiene.” In this sex therapist’ view, it’s all a byzantine smokescreen for a massive, brutally child-abusive, rather fruitless effort to control male masturbation.

Two of the biggest anti-masturbation activists of the 19th century, also big hygiene enthusiasts, were Sylvestor Graham, designer of the Graham Cracker, and John Kellogg, creator of Kellogg's Corn Flakes, the consumption of which was supposed to suppress the sex drive. Kellogg called self-love "the vilest, the basest and the most degrading act that a human being can commit." Wonder what he’d say about all the semen fetishists who like to consume their cum with his cornflakes.

There are far too many anti-wanking superstitions that have proliferated though history to list here, and modern science has disproved them all. Experts consider masturbation to be a normal, safe sexual activity, not to mention a superb cardiovascular workout. Still, in many circles, self-pleasuring is unmentionable. American Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders was forced to resign when she mentioned masturbation in the context of safe sex education. Maybe if Bill Clinton had taken Dr. Elders' advice instead of firing her, he'd have sidestepped being sideswiped by the Religious Right.

Speaking of American presidents, as the whole world is all too aware, George Bush’s demonic twist on the touchy subject of solo sex involves getting leering American soldiers to force helpless, hooded prisoners to do it (sometimes on camera!). What this is supposed to accomplish is unclear. Is it a punishment? A reward? A bizarre, religiously inspired humiliation? A way to “blow off steam”? A very bad joke? Some kind of interrogational inducement to spill the beans along with the seed? Whatever its ostensible purpose, Bush’s Mandatory P.O.W. Jack-Off Policies cast yet another deeply sinister shadow on the innocent pleasures of masturbation.

continue to page 2 of
MASTURBATION