National Masturbation Month Revisited

How far have we really come in terms of masturbation acceptance?

National Masturbation Month launched in May 1995, after San Francisco-based sex toy company Good Vibrations created this celebration of self-service in response to the firing of Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who made public comments about masturbation possibly being taught in sexual education classes. The month was designed to challenge stigmas about masturbation and make people more accepting of this natural sexual practice.

But how far have we really come in the years since National Masturbation Month was founded? I had another conversation with the resident sexologist at Good Vibrations, Dr. Carol Queen, to find out where she thinks we stand.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how do you feel our views on masturbation have improved since you started National Masturbation Month in 1995?

I think we’re at about 6 or 7, if the only thing I’m doing is looking at the scale about discussion and the profile of masturbation changing. But what I really feel is that we are sort of on a two-branched path simultaneously, and one of those paths really has seen a lot of positive change. I’m especially thinking of all the articles I see in the hip, young women’s websites and things like that, and the sort of mainstream Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Bustle, all of those folks. Some days it feels like our work here is done. They’re very knowledgeable, they’re very sex positive, they don’t always seem to know the whole history of feminist sex, but they’re awesome.

Then there’s an underlying part of this world that has remained so conservative around sexuality and so reactive and anti-masturbation, anti- LGBTQ, and super triggered about gender role issues. That wouldn’t be a 6 or 7; that would be a 1. I can see both of these trends certainly, and I don’t have any real way of fully understanding whether one of them is far more entrenched and numerous in terms of the population than the other one.

“Masturbation, I think, has taken on a whole new level of importance.”

I also continue to hear people saying things that tell me that for younger people, sex education is still terrible, and brings sort of bad or incorrect assumptions along with it for far too many people. Even if the general tenor seems so much more sex positive, there’s still a lot of people in the world that are on a learning curve and an informational journey, so I do not think our work is finished.

I spoke to a sex therapist who believes that since many young people are getting their sex education from porn nowadays, it’s becoming a problem. Do you think that’s part of the issue?

I do in a way. I’m actually reading a book called Want Me* by Tracy Clark-Flory and a lot of this book is actually about that very thing — that in watching porn, you think you’re watching sex as it’s had as opposed to sex as it’s arranged to be had for cinematic purposes with a script. The young person, and many older people too, don’t have enough media literacy to understand that’s what they’re actually looking at in those situations.

So I have a sense that is an issue for many people, and how it relates to their masturbation is that it helps power their masturbation and sort of takes them to that world instead of the partner sex world. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; plenty of people masturbate instead of having sex with other people for periods of time in their life, and for some people, it’s just their choice. You can find sex therapists and others who think that’s fine, and that porn as a way to power masturbation is fine. But the idea that you’re watching porn and not at all critically looking at what you’re seeing and then comparing your experience, or comparing the chances you get when you get to have sex with other people, with what you’re seeing in porn, I don’t think most of the people who make porn want that to be the fundamental way that people consume porn. It’s not meant to be educational except when it is, and that’s usually pretty clearly labeled.

The thing is, somebody who is just bopping around on the Internet, clicking on porn links isn’t necessarily seeking that kind of information; they’re not necessarily being very cautious about what they consume or thinking about the kind of topics a sex therapist or sex educator would want them to think of. What they’re doing is watching sexy stuff, finding an excitement response to it, and basically taking it all in. So I don’t have anything against porn in general. There are certain porns that if I could do a critique on and have them remake the movie, I would, but that’s for rom-coms too.

“I always say any job where you get to masturbate on the clock is a good job.”

But the idea that for some reason this is a different kind of media and you don’t have to think critically at all about it, I would just really encourage people to think about what they’re consuming and ask themselves whether or not it’s helping to fuel expectations that aren’t realistic ones for them. If they’re watching it as erotic entertainment, then good, that’s fun, and it can be an enriching part of somebody’s life.

Sex toy companies have told me that since the COVID-19 pandemic began, more and more people that hadn’t thought about using sex toys before are exploring with them. Do you feel like COVID has contributed to people looking more seriously at their masturbation?

I think the answer is yes. I think that there were some couples getting into exploring toys too just because of the pressure of quarantine and staying home most of the time. And even if you got to go out to work, you were still supposed to come home right afterwards. There’s not a social world that looks the same as it did before COVID. It may well return, it may be different, but we know that there were plenty of people either alone in their place, or with their boo, and they got bored around June and decided they wanted to explore some new tricks.

Masturbation, I think, has taken on a whole new level of importance. People are trying it who didn’t masturbate before, or didn’t masturbate much. People are getting into it who didn’t think it was an important part of their sex life before necessarily, and the people who were already into masturbation have probably decided that they want to try it in new, different ways, and picked up some new toys to match that desire. Everybody I hear from is saying that the toy world is doing decently well in the context of COVID.

“In watching porn, you think you’re watching sex as it’s had as opposed to sex as it’s arranged to be had for cinematic purposes with a script.”

What impact do you think things like access to cam girls have had on people and their masturbation?

Well, I think it has been much more common for people to have exploration where there’s another person watching and possibly engaging with them. In the late eighties and early nineties, I got a job at a peep show, the late, lamented Lusty Lady in San Francisco, where we would watch each other through a glass window and it was pre-Internet camming essentially, where you put on a show, or they put on a show for you, and you both masturbated together and talked while you did it or whatever it was people wanted to explore. I always say any job where you get to masturbate on the clock is a good job; I found it a very interesting and engaging thing to do and so I really understand. I’ve never got into the cam zone, but I know a few people who have cammed and I read the articles that pop up about it and I know what’s engaging about it.

One of the things that some people find that they don’t like about masturbation is it makes them feel lonely. You’ve probably heard people say, “I really want a person in my life and masturbation just reminds me that I don’t have a person in my life.” To them I want to say, you still have the opportunity to feel sexual pleasure and sexual feelings, fantasize about this and that, practice mindfulness, and move your brain away from those sad thoughts of feeling lonely on to something else. But I do understand that people feel that way and camming is at least part of the way to a more social sex life that’s still masturbation based because of both distance and the technological mediation.

Do you think the old-time myths about masturbation — like hairy palms and going blind — are still prevalent today, or have the myths changed over time?

I don’t think that I’ve heard anyone reference one of those old-school myths like they seriously believed it. What I hear is really more a level of concern about, “I’m afraid I’m ruining myself for sex with a partner” — I think that’s the thing I hear more people saying and believing that really is a myth. I mean the grain of truth in this belief is that if you only focus on arousal and orgasm seeking in one way, then any alteration to your pattern that you have developed, and really cemented into your sexuality, will be difficult or different compared to the thing you practiced so well that you got perfect at it. You need to be open to learning what it’s like to have your own pathways stimulated in a different way.

This is also true if you change hands masturbating. It’s not just “I am ruining myself for partner sex”, you could just as easily say “I’m ruining myself for my other hand” or “I got a new sex toy, but it doesn’t feel exactly like the old sex toy, so I guess I’m ruined for this new sex toy.” So it is a myth that you’re going to ruin yourself, but it isn’t a myth that if you don’t try to be open to the differences in partner sex that you won’t as easily be able to compare the two and have a good time, at least orgasmically, during partner sex.

“You need to be open to learning what it’s like to have your own pathways stimulated in a different way.”

The other thing I think is really linked up to this particular myth is that so many women who have intercourse-based sex regularly do not orgasm during intercourse because they’re not getting enough clitoral stimulation. Sex therapists have been buying beach houses on this information for decades, it’s not new, but it’s not part of what you learn in sex education. So then if you can orgasm pretty easily with a vibrator, and you can’t during partner sex, you’re all “Oh, it’s broken for partner sex” and then I ask the question, “Were you regularly orgasming with partner sex before you got your vibrator?” The answer is, honestly, almost always “no”, so the idea that the toy caused the problem is pure projection and anxiety. The toy didn’t cause any problem at all, the toy helped and now your body knows that orgasm is possible and that is a plus.

What would you like to see happen as far as how we view masturbation as a society?

I would like people, first of all, to understand that masturbation is such a natural phenomenon and for most people, a very positive one that brings a lot to them. It brings relaxation and pain relief and keeps their genitals rolling along, and whether or not they’ve got a partner, it helps them understand what their own arousal is like. There’s just so many good things to say about masturbation and I would like this umbrella of anxiety and fear that there’s something wrong with doing it to lift for people because those clouds affect their well-being.

I want everybody to stop saying ridiculous wrong nonsense about masturbation and if there is an issue with masturbation that somebody is doing it compulsively — someone is doing it so they can’t get to work on time and lose their job — or they’re doing it in a dangerous fashion, like trying to stick their penis into the wall socket, I would just like more light to shine on that conversation so people know what safety versus danger looks like. If people know that if their life is being impacted badly by masturbation or playing too much Internet solitaire or buying too many things on Amazon that they can’t pay for, whatever it might be, I want them to know there are ways to get help.

I want people to understand that masturbation can be part of a healthy, happy life. It doesn’t have to be anxiety provoking and if it is, there are ways to address it so that anxiety can be lifted, alleviated, and you can get back to whatever your healthy, happy life looks like. I want people to lighten up about it.

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