The New Male Sexuality (17 page)

It’s understandable that masturbation should make us feel uneasy. Sex by oneself for one’s own pleasure—where even the pretense of trying to conceive didn’t exist—was always at or near the top of the worst sexual abuses in Western cultures, the mere mention of which was enough to send religious and medical “experts” into a state of hysteria. The terms they used to refer to the act—“self-abuse,” “self-pollution,” and “the solitary vice”—reflect their attitude. It was only about forty years ago that the American Medical Association and the Boy Scout Manual dropped their opposition to masturbation. Although virtually all medical and psychological experts today consider the activity quite normal, we aren’t that far removed from the days when it was considered anything but normal.

Despite its reputation, masturbation actually has a number of uses and benefits.

It’s fun, one of the small pleasures of life. What’s wrong with making ourselves feel good?

In masturbation you don’t have to look your best, and, as Woody Allen put it, it’s sex with someone you love. You don’t have to concern
yourself with anyone else’s feelings, desires, or goals. You can do whatever you want for as long or as short a time as you like and get whatever you want out of it. Partner sex, while certainly having advantages of its own, does require that we carefully attend to the desires of our partner and synchronize our behavior with hers, and that’s not something one always wants to do.

Self-pleasuring is an excellent way to learn how you like to be touched and stimulated, not only on your genitals but elsewhere as well. This information can then be given to your partner, thus enhancing your sex life together.

Even if you’re committed to partner sex as the best way of satisfying your erotic needs, there may be times when you don’t have a partner or the partner you do have isn’t available because of illness, fatigue, or something else. Why deny yourself sexual pleasure at such times?

As I discuss in detail in the latter part of the book, masturbating in certain ways can help overcome sexual problems such as erection difficulties and rapid ejaculation.

The only sense in which masturbation can be said to be bad is when a man regularly uses it as a substitute for sex with his partner. That is, whenever he feels sexy he satisfies himself and rarely or never wants sex with his partner. Understandably, the partner may feel less than ecstatic about this state of affairs. Usually something else is involved. The man is unhappy about either the partner or relationship, about himself or about sex with her.

Because most of us still feel somewhat uneasy about masturbation, we try to hide it. When a man is walked in on by his partner while masturbating, instead of simply acknowledging what he is doing, he often denies it. “Nothing, just dozing” or “I had an itch [or ache] in my penis and was just scratching [examining] it.” Yeah, sure. How much better and easier if he could just say what he was doing.

It’s possible the woman may not feel good about what he’s doing, just as he feared. She may feel that her attractiveness or skillfulness is inadequate if he masturbates even though she’s available.

Such feelings need to be talked about. They stem from our culture’s narrow view of sex. As I try to show throughout this book, the only rules necessary for good sex are consent (if you’re doing it with someone else, they must agree to the activity), honesty (don’t say things that aren’t true), and responsibility (it’s not right to make babies when you don’t want them, to spread disease, or to behave in ways that are disrespectful of your
partner). Aside from these things, anything goes. It’s perfectly fine to masturbate even though you have a sexual partner, it’s fine to masturbate in her presence or with her participation, it’s fine for the two of you to masturbate together, and it’s just as fine for either of you to stimulate yourself during an erotic encounter together. Just because you have a partner who’s available to have oral sex or intercourse or any other sexual activity doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll always want to engage in that activity with her. There are times when you may simply prefer to stimulate yourself despite your partner’s availability.

As far as I’m concerned, the same rules apply to self-stimulation as to any other sexual activities. If whatever you’re doing isn’t hurting you, your partner, or your relationship, why not just enjoy yourself?

WHAT IS NORMAL SEXUAL DESIRE OR ACTIVITY?

This is a very sensitive topic for both men and women. Bad feelings and name-calling are typical when someone feels his partner wants too much or too little. If she wants less, she’s frigid, withholding, unloving, neurotic, and a sexless bitch. If she wants more, she’s oversexed, a slut, a tramp, neurotic, and a demanding bitch. As Kinsey put it, a nymphomaniac is anyone who’s having more sex than you are. All of these terms are simply ways of saying that you don’t like your partner’s level of interest. Instead of putting it that way, our frustration and anger result in name-calling and put-downs. In effect, we’re saying she’s abnormal and ought to shape up.

In answer to the question of what is normal sexual desire, we don’t know—unless all you want is a purely statistical report on how often people demographically similar to you have sex. It’s not even clear that the question makes any sense. What is normal eating desire or activity? We don’t know that, either. Most people eat meals three times a day and have a few snacks as well. Some people eat only two meals a day, and a few eat only one. And there are also people who eat small meals every two or three hours, never having what the rest of us would call a regular meal. We judge not the eating but the results. If you’re not obese or anorexic, your arteries aren’t clogged, and your health is good, you’re okay, whatever it is you’re doing about eating. And, unlike sex, eating is necessary for your survival.

I think we need to judge sexual interest and activity, as we do eating, by the results. If it’s not causing a problem in your life or relationship, whatever you’re doing is okay. We know there are huge variations. Some couples have sex several times a day, every day. Most couples have sex less
frequently. Believe it or not, there are also men and women, not all of them priests and nuns, who’ve never engaged in partner sex.

In my opinion, sex—however defined—is not necessary for survival or for a good relationship. And if you are having sex, a large amount is fine and so is a moderate or a low amount.

A widespread problem these days is the inability of couples to agree on how often to make love. In most of these cases there’s no basis on which to say that one partner’s desire is abnormally high or the other’s abnormally low, but there’s plenty of basis to say that the discrepancy is causing huge problems in their relationship.

WHAT ABOUT THE USE OF EROTIC MATERIALS?

The use of erotic pictures, books, and other materials is hardly new. Even in Victorian England, one of the most sexually repressive societies in history, pornographic books and magazines were quite popular. With the advent of moviemaking, erotic movies, often called stag films, appeared. More recently, with the proliferation of VCRs, it has become convenient and common for individuals and couples to watch sexy videos in their homes.

A controversy has raged over erotic materials for a long time. Many religious authorities object to them because they tend to incite sexual arousal, which of course is their purpose. Some feminists object to them, claiming that these materials treat women as objects and cause violence against them. But as other people have pointed out, erotic materials do not discriminate against women: They objectify everyone. Sexual organs and acts are all they focus on. As for violence, the vast majority of erotic films and other materials contain none. You are far more likely to see murder and rape and other kinds of mayhem in PG-13 or R-rated movies than in those rated X. (There is, to be sure, a very small segment of the erotica market that caters to those who are aroused by the combination of violence and sex. But these materials are easy to avoid.)

It’s difficult to see how the use of erotic materials can be considered abnormal or sick. It’s apparent that most males use them at some times in their lives. How many boys and men can honestly say they’ve never looked at
Playboy
or
Penthouse
, never read an erotic book or viewed an erotic movie? And millions of women regularly read romance novels that often are hard to differentiate from hard-core sex books. Erotica is not without risk. It can cause the development of unrealistic expectations about ourselves,
our partners, and sex itself. But if you remind yourself not to confuse fantasy, which is what erotica is, with reality, I think its use is mainly beneficial. Erotic materials usually turn people on, and often these aroused people want sex with themselves or their partners. How is that bad?

The use of erotic materials is similar in many ways to the use of sexual fantasies. In the case of fantasies, the representation of sexual events is internal; with erotica, it’s external—you’re reading, hearing, or watching someone else’s fantasy, which, of course, may not only turn you on but also start your own fantasies going.

WHAT ABOUT FANTASIES?

Many questions about sexual normalcy have to do with fantasies. A sexual fantasy is
any
mental representation of
any kind
of sexual activity. Many fantasies tell a story and move from beginning to middle to end. An example would be imagining meeting a woman at a conference, taking her to your room, kissing, fondling, and engaging in oral sex, followed by intercourse. But fantasies need not be so full-blown or elaborate. You may, for instance, just imagine one act—a kiss, oral sex, or intercourse—or one feeling, such as orgasm.