Masturbation Monday - more magic less labeling

Written by: Tamar Simone Weir

<3 masturbation interviews - people with different bodies. <3

Some of my own first experiences with masturbation came from a general curiosity of my body and accidentally feeling things that felt physically good. I remember this was the age of YouTube, where nothing was really filtered and contained everything and anything you’d want to see. On the big desktop computer I would search kissing videos before I even knew what porn and erotic content was, but of course I knew what kissing was, as I had seen it around me and in movies constantly. I remember coming across a video of Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried kissing. It was the scene in Jennifer's body that many people know... At the time I hadn’t seen the movie because I was still quite young, but in my later years, I did end up watching the full movie and remembered when I would go back to those kissing scenes and it still turned me on. Something about Megan Fox, wanting to kill all the men while kissing this more innocent Amanda character really ignited the fire within me!!!

THE scene... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1MdKI8kiXU&ab_channel=Movieclips

Whether it’s fantasies or our own imagination or some help from visual/erotic content, many youth begin exploring, whether or not somebody has actively shared self pleasure tips or began the conversations about their body with them. It is natural to want to explore your body before you even know fully what there is to explore and all that there is to unpack. And it is natural to also not want to explore your body if you are not ready and that natural curiosity doesn't come to you as a desire. When people think of the idea of sex education, there is still SUCH a lack of awareness of the ways in which this education goes beyond actually having sex with other people and goes deeper into what our own body needs, wants, and is capable of. A lot of sex education for youth and teens, revolves around creating environments and safety in our bodies and building the confidence within our own bodies to understand what we feel. Learning anatomy and learning about how our bodies change over time and the fluidity of our bodies creates pathways for more adaptability and boundary setting when the time does arise for sexual contact with other people. A lot of sex education goes into the depth of our identities that we carry with us every day, because as we begin to look at our bodies, masturbation, and sex with other people in general, ideas about our sexuality arise. We cannot separate those from the societies and communities in which we grew up in, in which we have internalized the stories and messaging from others. Most people get internalized with the story that masturbation is bad, even if that sentence was never declared or spoken, not speaking something into existence is also speaking something into existence......

Illustrated by: Roza Nozari

Many writers talk about how silence is actually an action, and when we remain silent that creates and perpetuates violent messages. I think the same can be true within our interpersonal relationships and about masturbation The silence and heavy taboo around self pleasure, positions this exploration and curiosity as another thing to push down. This also creates many people in this world who have not had access to this laboratory of tools within their own bodies. We go to work. We function in society, the way that it wants us to, but how is it that SO many people in this world are not aware and have not been given the tools to touch their own bodies?

How is it that many people rely on sexual satisfaction and pleasure from other bodies and have no idea how to receive it within their own body?

Deep rooted history and socialization have planted seeds of hatred of our bodies, and have condemned actions that allow us to know our bodies pleasure. In his Medicinal Dictionary (1743), the physician Robert James, wrote of masturbation that, ‘There is perhaps no sin productive of so many hideous consequences.’ In the Metaphysics of Morals (1797), the philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that ‘a man gives up his personality ... when he uses himself merely as a means for the gratification of an animal drive.’ In both of these examples, masturbation is seen as bad, as seen as something to avoid, and has negative moral connotations attached to it. In many religions, diverse sexuality as a whole is regarded as one of the worst sins you can do, and masturbation falls within that as something horrible to do. So many people had SOOO many negative opinions on masturbation that they shifted the narrative of self pleasure into something dirty and connected to disorders. Livia Gershon discusses in their article how many doctors blamed masturbation for several nervous diseases and conditions and because of that prescribed severe punishments to these patients/people. The combination of religion and medicine created a widespread shift in the narrative of masturbation and the conversations around this practice. Widespread fear, and messaging about its dangers spread. Masturbation was recognized in MANY countries as a cause of insanity’—and it was not until 1968, only a few years ahead of homosexuality, that masturbation finally fell out of the American classification of mental disorders......

Although there is more openness in society now, and masturbation is more widely accepted... many researchers have explored this topic as it pertains to peoples feelings about masturbation. A study conducted in Australia by Anne-Francis Watson investigated the role that media has in informing young people about masturbation. Some interesting results were found through their analysis. The most notable being that, most young people recieved very minimal information abot amsturbation from their parents or in svhool. Another key finding was that everyone was more comfortable talking about sexual acts that involved other partners rather than their solo and self pleasure practices. This is due to the societal stigma and remaining discomfort regarding this social/sexual taboo.

I remember once I began engaging in more sexual acts with other bodies I would be ashamed to bring up masturbation habits, and or curiosities with my own body as if now that I had entered the world of sexual actions with others, my own sexual experience with myself had to be put to rest. This phenomenon of not "needing" to masturbate or connect with one's own body because now we are in a relationship or now we are dating is such a fallacy and further ingrains a stereotypical view/ normalizes that we shouldn’t have a connection to our body and that other people should be the ones giving us pleasure. This connects with the patriarchy which constantly tells us that we are not enough and that we need others to tell us what to do. We need to push away our own desires or curiosities. Many people in relationships that I have spoken to see their partners masturbation as wrong or even if they have come to the agreement that it is okay within the relationship, there’s still heavy emotions there of feeling like their partner shouldn’t "have to" masturbate or shouldn’t want to engage in their own moment by themselves without their partner or partners. Instead of viewing masturbation as another tool, another way to take care of ourselves, we as a society collectively throw away this impactful practice for our wellness. I know many people have great intentions, and while that is the case for lots of people in relationships, the consequence of thinking this way results in more body shaming, and more people who are afraid to open up vulnerabilities of the way that they like to receive pleasure.

How is it that so many people are lying about their masturbation habits, their techniques and their emotions about their bodies? Well, this is the byproduct of a society that doesn’t include masturbation in the conversation, and when it does it's further damaging than nurturing.

Below I will include the beautiful responses of people who trusted me in asking them these questions.

1. When did you masturbate for the first time consciously?

   Answers:

   
   

• "I think 11, right around when I got my first period, but I have a memory of rubbing on pillows in a hotel just not sure exactly what age"

• "I had finished university and was living at my parents house. I was in my hometown, a place where I was not particularly interested in sexual partners (male) and also not having the same freedom and privacy - as I was cohabitating with my parents. there was a sex positive influencer I followed on Twitter, who shared about Bellesa pleasure products. I was intrigued and figured I could give it a shot as I had never masturbated before and using my hands intimidated me. I got a pretty basic vibrator that is very phallic in design. I used it for the first time the night I received it in the mail and orgasmed in a way that had not quite experienced before…"

• "To be honest I can’t remember exactly when the first time was consciously whoops."

• "I think 11, right around when I got my first period, but I have a memory of rubbing on pillows in a hotel just not sure exactly what age"

• "In high school after my then boyfriend encouraged me to. I had no idea what an orgasm was."

• "Honestly I don’t remember, maybe I repressed it. I do

remember feeling pretty shameful about masturbation in high school, even when my friends mom gifted me a vibrator, I threw it away. There was something there for sure. I feel like the first time I masturbated consciously I might’ve been 17, maybe even after I had sex for the first time. I think I used fingers."

• "I masturbated consciously for the first time at age 13 or 14."

• "Middle school "

• "I’m a person with a vulva, and masturbating has been with me almost my entire life. I was younger than I can remember when I first started masturbating, except my awareness of my actions only went as far as knowing I was doing something that felt good, not that I was doing something with a lot of cultural charge to it. Although I was masturbating as a really young child, it probably wasn’t until I was 10 when I learned what masturbation was, and then 13 when I learned that masturbation wasn’t only something that cis-men did. This time also marked when I realized the pleasureful and relaxing thing I’d been doing with my body since childhood wasn’t something I was alone in, but was very much something many people with vulvas do and are taught to be ashamed of. I was 20 when I began to experiment with touching myself in new ways when masturbating to feel different types of pleasure. I was 23/24 when i started using masturbation as a tool to heal while processing sexual trauma."

  
  

• "late middle school"

  
  

• "Somewhere between 8-9 elementary school"

  
  

• "I can’t remember the age I started, I think middle school"

2. How old were you? Answers:

   • "22, 

   • first orgasm was 8th grade summer, so 13 /14

   • 16

   • 17

   • 11/12

   • age 10

   • 11/12

   • 8/9

   • middle school age"

   • "13"

   
   

3. When was your first orgasm, if you've had one? Answers:

   
   

   • "I’m not quite sure I’ve reached the level that I believe is possible and seek to attain. I remember the very first time someone ever went down on me. It was so intense and flooded my body with foreign feelings which were almost overwhelming, that I had them stop. i’ve sensed reached levels of bliss during sexual encounters, but I ultimately do not feel satisfied by what’s been done."

   • 16

   • 13

   • 17

   • My first orgasm was definitely my sophomore year of college

   • "My first orgasm was when I was 13 years old."

   • 11/12

   • I’m not certain - maybe 4 years old?

   • I believe it was at 15 during masturbation

   • Middle school 7/8th grade, what motivated that was being on top of someone and liking the friction

   • my first orgasm was having sex in high school with my first boyfriend, potentially through fingering"

4. How old are you now? Answers:

   Age range : 25-36

   
   

5. What method did you use for masturbation? Answers:

   
   

   • "vibrator, very few occasions my hands/fingers"

   • "I would use my fingers however i recently upgraded to a dildo/vibrator but I still mainly use my own hands"

   • "first method was just rubbing on pillows or stuffed animals in the first few years, then just my hands"

   • " Fingers & Lube - clitoral stimulation "

   • "Fingers"

   • " The method I used was a paper towel roll with baby oil gel. - Reasoning was because we made fun of people who "jacked off" and the toilet paper roll was my logic for being able to say I didn't masturbate. There's a story there. "

   • "manual"

   • "I would lay on my stomach and grind my hips into the side of my hand"

   • "Vibrator"

   • “Using my fingers on top, clitoral stimulation”

   • "I used to use just rubbing on things and then I started using a vibrator when I was 17 or 18, which was the first time I orgasmed masturbating"

   
   
   
   

6. What is one method or advice you wish you knew then, that you know now? Answers:

   
   

   • "to lean into the senses. I think the overwhelmed of sense input was hard to navigate without having felt into the senses buildup. I now am taking a much slower and intentional approach and particularly pay attention to my senses, and acknowledging all of them as I move through sexual/sensual experiences. I think a lot of it comes down to comfort."

   • 
     

   • "Advice I would give myself back then is to explore my body more myself before giving my body to men/women who weren’t worthy."

   
   

• " I wish I had known that using vibration or high stimulant tools would really impact my ability to have an orgasm with a parter I am strictly hands or dildos now, absolutely no vibration. Also using a vibrator really affected my mental health because I assumed that I could orgasm after 5 seconds with a tool, so when that didn’t happen I was so stressed"

• "I wish I had known about vibrators at the time. Would have been less work lol."

• "Advice I wish I knew then was to be more connected and embodied with myself before having sex with others. I think I was afraid of my own pleasure. But I do remember the first time I successfully orgasmed from masturbating was in the shower and that really helped because I was less tense in the body. I also wish I hadn’t thrown that vibrator away and felt safe enough to explore more. I think I wasn’t ready then and that was okay. I wish I didn’t rush it and have sex for the first time just to do it / get it over with / tell people I did. I wish I could tell my 16 year old self: slow down. Tune into the body. There is time. Oh and also protect the temple. Never let a man pressure you into not using a condom. That is not consent. Fuck that. That’s what I tell my baby cousins. I hope people know that they can hold themselves close. That societal pressure isn’t all there is."

• "The advice I wish I had was just that masturbation was normalized so I didn't base my identity around acquiring sex. That ain't what it's about. Masturbation and sexuality were made to be for other people and that led to my masturbation experiences being hidden which of course translates into sex. I know now that masturbation is for me."

• "I wish I knew that it wasn’t shameful or bad. I was so ashamed and embarrassed for years about it. No one I knew talked about it masturbation until college, so until then I thought I was a freak. No one in my family talked about it either."

• " I wish, as I became more conscious of the shame we are fed to feel about masturbation, that I had some source of encouragement, empathy and support telling me “I’m so happy you’ve found a way to soothe and relax yourself and to feel good that is accessible to you.”

  
  

• "There’s nothing wrong this and I shouldn’t feel shame"

  
  

• “At the time it was a really thrilling and beautiful thing and as time goes on, it will become more thrilling and less thriving at times but it will never be as novel as it is right now so just soak it up."

  
  

• "I wish I knew about having patience lol to figure out what feels good"

Benefits and Joys of Masturbation (from my own experience)

-can foster greater connection to your body

-can help you sleep

-can reduce period cramps

-can distract you from something painful/negative

-can give you pleasure in your body

-can sustain your need for sexual desire/gratification

-can give your brain endorphins

-can allow for deeper connection with your sexual partners

-can be a way to practice safer sex

-can start the process of repairing feeling genital dysmorphia

-can help heal your relationship to trauma in your body/sexual trauma specifically

-can be a preventative way of having casual and undesired sex by satiating your own needs first

-can help you get to know what you like

-can help you get to know what you don't like

-can be a stress relief activity

-can lead to orgasms..

BY NO MEANS IS THIS LIST THE ONLY LIST..... THERE ARE SO MANY JOYS/ BENEFITS

If I could spread one key message after writing this and sharing this information, I would echo what many other people shared and expressed in the interviews I held....

1. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS NORMAL. WHEN WE LIBERATE OURSELVES FROM THE SHAME THAT KEEPS US STUCK AND HATING OURSELVES WE OPEN UP WAYS TO BEGIN AGAIN. MASTURBATE IT'S GOOD FOR YOU. OR DON'T MASTURBATE IT'S ALSO GOOD FOR YOU TO DO WHAT YOUR BODY WANTS.

   
   

   let's begin again. XOXO.