September 2023: This post included links to posts by others. Sadly, everything changes. Those posts have been removed by the authors.
Two posts in the past few weeks were so well done on a topic near and dear to my heart that it seemed unlikely I could stay away long. After all, isn't sex supposed to be on our minds all the time?
Yup, sex. Not gender. "Doing it... Solo!" You know, coaxing the genie out of the magic lamp ~ buttering the bagel ~ petting the kitty .... *
Chronologically, it was on May 31 that the juices (did I really write that?) started flowing. Nadine posted "Why May is My Favourite Month" on Already Pretty. Beautiful flower photo... hmm, what's that say? "Self-pleasure can be a touchy subject" How clever ~ a play on words. She had my full attention.
So, who knew that May is National Masturbation Month??
Oh heck, read Nadine's article. Then come back please.
Next in the one-two that finally broke me down and made me want to write this post, was Lucy (the lady who dares to run where angels fear to tread) Melford's post "Autogynephilia". Please read it too and if you have a bit more time, come on back for my take on it all.
You have to give me some leeway here please. Part of the reason my salutation wasn't Miss long ago has to do with the effectiveness of labels in tearing a person's self-esteem from them.
Autogynephilia has always been a silly label in my opinion with its attempts to negatively pigeon-hole how people feel and act, so that some clinician can sum up incredibly complex and hardly consistent behaviours and other clinicians (nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more) can nod sagely in response.
I started masturbating long before it occurred to me it was wrong (once I figured out I needed some tissues before starting in) or knowing the word masturbate, or the term wank or any other way to make someone feel less than human for having a body that can give one such exquisite pleasure for no really good reason, other than it is there and functioning normally.
Perhaps at some time it was thought that doing such things would lead people to have un-natural urges and those might push them toward dangerous sexual adventures. It has always been my contention that it was the un-natural negative attention given to the activity that was the problem. Being sexually active with oneself and liking it hardly qualifies as an offense against another person. Why a deity would have a problem with it is way beyond me, but I expect ....
Making anyone feel guilt or shame because their mind and body function properly is amazingly silly, but to quote Mr. Spock, 'Who ever said the human race was logical?'
In the meantime, I'll have what she's having..... yes.... yes.....YES!
* If you need some chuckles, enjoy
Halle; I remember, some years ago now, being in a mixed group that discussed this subject. Some of the men went to great lengths to share their experiences, whilst all the women in the group simply sat and giggled. I drew a lesson from that, the lesson being that it's no big deal. If one needs to masturbate, do it. Who really cares? Actually, no-one's that interested in what you choose to do. And do you really care so much what other people think anyway?
ReplyDeleteExactly Tom. Yet I cannot help but wonder how different my life might have been if that attitude had been common and shared fifty years ago. Another part of me wonders how many ten year olds now are being taught it is really no big deal and sincerely believe that to be true.
DeleteIf it was just physical...
ReplyDeleteWhat if it just highlights that there is nobody who finds you attractive and would wish to be intimate with you, what if you need to be desired before any circuits get triggered in the brain?
In my previous incarnation I would occasionally try that game but the results at best were unsatisfactory and the hoped for sleep to follow often became an even more acute wakefulness with the added reminder that what little tingle happened was more than countered by the misery of the situation and disgust at the exuded waste material.
It is often said that masturbation is at least having sex with the person you love most in the world, this was hardly the case in the past... In my new guise I had wondered if I might love the new me enough for the situation to have changed enough to seek self pleasure but touching yourself is an extremely poor substitute for being touched by someone with desire in their hearts...
The feelings and the thoughts are all interconnected. I particularly relate to something in Nadine's post:
DeleteAs I grew through puberty, there was a much stronger connection between my sexual desires and fantasies and my urge to masturbate. But I still didn’t think of masturbation as part of my sexuality
For me, as puberty arrived, the purity of the experience became mixed in with fantasies that could never (at least I believed) be played out. I hated this part of myself, what seemed like inappropriate, misplaced desires for a very long time.
It is possible to get out of your own way and recapture an innocence that permits pleasure without guilt. I will attest to that. Whether it is possible to experience it for a first time at an advanced age, I cannot say, but I hope so Caroline.
I won't disagree that one is no substitute for the other. One can imagine and rehearse those feelings with enough imagination, but no, it can never have the spontaneity you experience with a lover.
DeleteIf you want something done right, do it yourself!
ReplyDelete:-D
DeleteAnd you didn't go blind?
ReplyDeleteNo hair on the palms of my hands either! Whew!
DeleteIn case some think such silly beliefs are long forgotten, check out this article from 2007 from a psychiatrist. These and other worries:
http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/does-masturbation-cause-blindness/
I read you and Nadine and Lucy and have nothing or almost nothing to say. Whatever is fine with yous is fine with me. I just don't understand why an entire month and,'turned on by one's own appearance' is new one for me. To be pleased with it yes but more?
ReplyDeleteReading your comment made me give some thought to why these topics moved me to post, even though it doesn't really relate to life now. It reminded me that so many of my posts are truly letters to that younger self (as futile as that may be).
DeleteHow I wish it was possible to go back in time and let that sensitive kid know that nothing he does or thinks or believes should make him hate himself.
So many of us have the same wish. Don't stop writing.
ReplyDelete