Talk to the Hand

This is one of the best articles I've read in quite some time about masturbation -- which is to say, it is the only article I've read about masturbation in quite some time. Nevertheless, it is really good, if only to learn even more euphemisms for one's self-love.

A bone (hee!) of contention, though:

Clearly, jacking off remains taboo in our otherwise liberated, open, sex-saturated society. Most people who perform the five-finger shuffle aren't likely to talk about it. Never mind that men and women might be comfortable discussing everything from muff-noshing to prick-licking, ass-fucking to fist-fucking, felching to rimming, and flogging to water sports; more often than not, the topic of jerking off is forbidden. People tend to dance around the subject rather than dive right in, feeling embarrassed, ashamed, guilty, or just plain squeamish about their own enjoyment of what some see as a lonely art.

I'm not so sure this is the case. Most people I know -- though perhaps it is just they -- are more than happy to admit their masturbatory habits. The key, rather, is that most people don't want to talk about the masturbatory habits of others, and when they do it's mostly because of a fetish and not the product of a sexually-liberated society.

Update: Something I meant to emphasize here but didn't was that the problem is not simply that people don't want to think or talk about the masturbatory habits of others, they don't want to think or talk about the possibility of them doing it either. The crusade for clean television, for instance, is said to be about protecting children; but in the end, this protection only comes in the form of denying others the possibility of sexual titillation. Just another product of people being afraid of others enjoying themselves, literally in this case, too much.